Awesome June VHF Contest!

It didn’t start out all that great. First, my boss decides that I need to be in Scotland the week before the contest weekend. I have nothing against Scotland, I just preferred to not be there right before the biggest VHF contest of the year (ARRL June VHF QSO Party). I needed to be home … Read more

My First D-STAR Contact

At Dayton, I picked up an ICOM IC-91AD handheld radio, with D-STAR capability. The thing is, there are no D-STAR repeaters within range of my house. Fortunately, Elliott KB0RFC also picked up a D-STAR handheld and we arranged a sked on 2M simplex. The de facto calling frequency for D-STAR is shaping up to be … Read more

FCC Says No to Digital Repeater Subband

As reported on the ARRL web site, the FCC rejected the proposal from Ken Chafin, W6CPA, and Leon Brown, KC6JAR to create a 2M subband for digital voice repeaters. This proposal was apparently a good-intentioned approach to opening up new spectrum for digital machines (D-STAR, P25, etc.). Chafin and Brown jointly filed a PRM in … Read more