D-STAR Demonstartion

For the January meeting at the Taplin Centre we had an excellent presentation by Declan, M0TMX, on the D-STAR repeater, GB7DX, he's installed at his QTH in Ashford, a full report on which appears elsewhere in this issue. I think a big stumbling block to many people will be that, at the moment, only the IC-E91, 92D, E2820 or 2200H have D-STAR facilities, although we were told Kenwood are about to produce a DV rig which will break the Icom monopoly. I suspect that not many of us want to splash out on expensive new kit anyway, just to try it out. So I had a quick look on the internet to see if the digital gurus had come up with any mods or add-ons but found nothing, which surprised me. I'd thought that someone would have come up with an interface to utilise the various CAT/data lines now standard in“modern” rigs, even as old as my IC706. However, I've just come across this DIY digital tcvr (http://www.moetronix.com/files/vhfdvxpaper.pdf) which uses an Analogue Devices tcvr chip controlled by an Atmel PIC with the obligatory AMBE2020 D-STAR Vocoder. What if I substituted the CAT input to my rig for the ADF7021 C'mon you digital experts, there's a challenge!

D Star Hotspot

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