Ron Wright wrote: > Nate, > > I should have said a repeater radio cost over $1000, but then again I > thought the discussion was about repeaters on D-Star.
Yeah, I knew you were probably talking about the repeaters, especially here, but folks do "lurk" and could have gotten the incorrect impression that the only option for users was a $1000 rig. > I paid $400 for the IC91AD. This is about the cheapest one can do > unless they get used like on e-bay. An equivlant analog is $180...dual > band 2m/440 HT. Yep, analog cell phones are real cheap now too. (GRIN -- Since there is no workable AMPS network anymore.) The "cheapest" way into D-STAR, but not highly recommended by anyone doing it, are the single-band V82 and U82 HTs with the add on D-STAR board, at roughly $300. But it's not the way I would go. (Just to show it can be done on the "cheap" for a brand-new radio. > Decoding the D-Star data from the controller, not D-Star from radio, can > be done without much effort. Ths is garage tech. The first thing is to > determine the start characters. I did EDACS over 10 years ago and once > you get the data it is often easy to decipher. Does take time, hardware > and software, and a PC won't do it...at least running Windows, etc. One > can buy the chips, just need a controller to assemble/disassemble the data. Yup. If it's sending the D-STAR protocol itself over the wire (likely) you can even hunt for things in the published protocol spec. Supposedly it wasn't too difficult for the group in California to find out what "transmit with no voice/data" packets looked like and they are sending some of those and buffering what comes down from the controller and then spitting the controller's data off of a circular buffer (after it fills) to key the PA longer prior to header transmission. Don't really know, just heard about this from a friend when we were talking about adding PAs to the systems and how to handle it if the PA was too slow, so the header wouldn't get missed. They also implemented "COS" and "PTT" indications by watching the serial traffic going back and forth. Kinda nice to have, I guess, since the repeater (annoyingly) doesn't even have a TX LED. > ICOM made the system pretty much closed...have to use their equipment > for most. Few Hams have the knowledge to do any differently. From the > front end to the back end ICOM pretty much locked up their system. As > time goes on some will be 3rd party, but for the past 4-5 years since > D-Star little has been done. I think ICOM purposely formated it for > this. I would probably have done the same thing. They want to make > money, no problem with that, but Hams want the world for free. Life > don't work that way, hi. Not really. There's already working prototypes of using an FT-817 as a D-STAR rig. Nothing locked about that at all. The protocol's open for anyone to copy and build. One ham from Japan, Satoshi Yasuda (7M3TJZ/AD6GZ) has done it, twice. Two different designs to use non-Icom rigs on D-STAR, both worked. His code is out on the web along with schematics for all to see/use. "Real ham radio", there... so they say... He built a board that has an LCD and human interface to enter callsigns, etc... got a vocoder working (the only closed part... he was originally using the Icom D-STAR board itself out of convenience, but a number of folks are looking at using the raw AMBE Vocoder chip from DVSI in their designs), and set up all of it to be driven by a single microcontroller from assembly language that he's posted on his website. Plug his board into discriminator audio from the rig, and unfiltered mic audio to the rig... and it works. He will be visiting Dayton this year, or so I hear. Would have liked to seen his work and met him, but I can't make it this year. Nate WY0X
