Hacking Away at D-STAR Hardware

We’ve been looking at optimizing the performance of the D-STAR repeater here in Monument (W0TLM, 446.8875 MHz), so I’ve been searching the web for information on what other groups have uncovered. Not surprisingly, there has been some creative reverse-engineering and re-engineering of the ICOM D-STAR repeaters.

Here’s a summary of some Good Stuff that I found:

1. NU5D paper on DSTAR Repeater Modifications & Interference Testing

2. A good overview of the ICOM D-STAR repeater block diagram and a few modifications to the ICOM repeaters on the dstar.ca web site

3. The N5EBW LED Board – a drop in board to add transmit/receive LEDs to the ICOM D-STAR repeaters

4. The Utah VHF Society D-STAR page — some of the best technical information and practical evaluation of D-STAR technology

5. A Look Inside D-STAR Modulation – an article I wrote for CQ VHF magazine that explains the vocoder and modulation scheme in D-STAR.

If you come across other D-STAR resources, please let me know.

73, Bob K0NR