WA Radio Scanner Users' Group

I tried D-Star simplex tonight having just got hold of a shiny new ID-800.
I spoke to a station in Inglewood from my temp QTH in Joondalup. He had no signal strength on d-star but was very readable with a few little digi break ups.
On FM he just broke the mute and wasn't readable.

That frequency has been "buzzing" (hashing to me!) all night... Even 145.1375MHz had some action on it too!

There must be lots of users getting on-board now!

Cheers, CC

I had a QSO with VK6XCJ when I was mobile with my IC91AD yesterday afternoon as well. I was heading eastwards down Guildford Road in Maylands at the time.

However the further east I went, the more "R2D2" I got, to the point where I gave up somewhere around the Tonkin Hwy overpass.

A bit later on as I was around Kalamunda Road / Gt Eastern Hwy Bypass, I just made out someone else - possibly yourself ZMS.

Still lots more learning to go before I completely come to grips with DSTAR

XCJ has been talking about DSTAR a lot over the last two days He says that pager towers are giving him some hassle but I wonder if that's just poor signal. Some digital audio tends to sound rather odd when the signal is weak. Sort of like the audio equivalent of pixelation. I was looking at some rigs that offer optional DSTAR... the upgrade modules cost more than the rig.

Yeah - I went with the option of a handheld radio that was already DSTAR capable as my other radios are both Yaseu (who don't offer DSTAR boards yet as far as I know...)

Having a 2m/70cm handheld will be a bonus for when I go to Adelaide next month - handy to cart around with me...

Well, VK6RWN C was active tonight and a good half-dozen or so people managed to have a conversation through the repeater while it was manned.

Still having trouble with "R2D2'ing", especially those of us on handhelds, but then I suppose that's to be expected.

As there's some more tuning and tweaking of the various bits and pieces, I reckon it'll only get better.

Nice to see DSTAR "here" now in force

Hi Doug
Your signal was very good into the repeater, even more so that you were on a hand held. You only had one or two R2D2 effects.
Cheers

Yeah it wasn't too bad from what I could tell - although I was standing outside in the back yard. On the handheld indoors, R2D2 made frequent appearances, even just receiving.

Next project is to attach the radio to the dual band antenna on the roof of the house, which terminates on an N-type socket on the wall of the shack. This'll be done by means of a short run of RG-58 from an N-type plug to a BNC plug, as I've ordered an SMA-BNC adapter from eBay.

If this works successfully, then I'll be able to use the handheld indoors, connected to a "real" antenna

I heard on the grapevine VK6RWN is now official and they can 'turn it on' any time they want.

Correct!

Licence Number 1904731
Client Wireless Institute of Australia
Status Issued
Licence Type Amateur
Licence Category Amateur Repeater
Callsign VK6RWN
Date of Effect 16-SEP-08
Date of Expiry 06-AUG-10

So ... who's going up to the DSTAR launch tomorrow?

I'm planning on getting there unless something gets in the way between now and then.

Any idea how long it's likely to go on? If it wasn't for too long, I'd go just to meet hams.

Unfortunately I can't make it - sounds like it'll be fun, wish I could get along!

robbage wrote:Any idea how long it's likely to go on? If it wasn't for too long, I'd go just to meet hams.

I think it should go for a few hours, I'll be there from about 11ish.

http://wia.org.au/newsevents/news/2008/ ... /index.php

Interesting D-STAR article on WIA - Home brew repeater