Setting Up Your Radio for D-Star Voice Usage

Local repeater Crossband

One of the features of the D-Star controller at the local repeater site, is that it allows linking multiple repeaters co-located together at that same site.  But unlike the typical FM links you may be used to that have full time links, you can initiate this local link yourself, when you want, and this is when you might start to use the 'RPT1' and 'RPT2' parameters.

The 'RPT1 parameter is where you enter the repeater callsign for the repeater that YOU are using, and then in RPT2 you enter the repeater callsign you want to crossband into.

In order to understand this, you need to recognize that each separate port on a local repeater is assigned an alphanumeric suffix as part of the callsign, which is used as a 'switch' and is placed in the rightmost (or eighth position), and the normal D-Star convention for assigning these is:

And so their usage here on the W3OI is as follows.

Note, that the  '_' indicates a blank space, with the 'Switch' or 'Port" designation in the eighth position

So if you are on the W3OI 2 meter side, and want to talk to anyone the 70 cm port, you would setup your parameters as:

However, if you want to talk to a specific station (lets assume their call sign is 'W3ZZZ') that you know is on the 70 cm repeater port while you are on 2 meters, then you will need to enter their call sign into the 'UrCALL'  (It probably should have been named 'TheirCall')

If you want to call out to BOTH the 1.2 GHz and 70cm ports on the local repeater, and you are on the 2meter port, then use a forward slash key ('/') in front of the repeater callsign like this:

Remember -- eight characters total in the repeater RPT1 and RPT2 fields, and the 'port switch' must be in the eighth position!)

NOTE: Always replace the "WB3W" call sign in the MyCALL field examples above with your own station call sign

D-Star Gateway Linking is similar to making a telephone call or telephone conference call. You just need to dial in the callsign you want and set RPT2 to the local Gateway module (e.g. -- W3OI _ _ _G)

But, remember, just as with any telephone call you Must hang up after the call. To hang up your D-Star call when you have finished talking you must change YourCall to CQCQCQ and remove the RPT2 entry...

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