Today 20 March 2008

The latest W7MOT D-Star Updates by AA7OO

The MARCA Repeater Sites information is current, including D-Star frequencies and offsets.

The DStar repeater stack has been moved from the LAB and installed at it's new home on White Tanks. All repeater in the stack are operational. The stack is operational in standalone configuration meaning it does not have a gateway service running with connectivity to the internet.

The Band, Repeater Call, Frequency, and offset is listed below for each D-Star repeater:

A    "W7MOT  A"    <data>       1283.90       -DUP

A    "W7MOT  A"     <voice>    1299.50       Simplex

B    "W7MOT  B"                       440.8125    +DUP 

C    "W7MOT  C"                       145.135      -DUP 

All functions of the DStar stack are operational and cross band operations from A to B, B to A, A to C, and C to A is currently working.

The UHF and VHF repeaters are running at high power which is about 30 watts into a Dual Band Diamond DX-300 antenna. 

The 1.2G voice and the 1.2G data repeaters are running in high power mode of about 30 watts.

Your coverage area experienced will be dependent on the radio, antenna, and transmit power.

In the East Mesa Area, using a IC-91AD the coverage to the east valley is marginal. This is a 4-5 watt radio at best. Having the repeater hear this signal is marginal, but the repeater transmit does not seems to be a problem. So this is a gray coverage area.

The east Scottsdale area faired a little better.

The N. Phoenix area reports are good.

A test from Pinal Peak was excellent.

Please email me with your experiences using the repeater by providing your call, Band, your location, date & time, radio type, power, antenna, and your use experience (clear, digitized voice, dropouts, no contact, repeater id, text, etc.).

The Gateway installation is becoming complicated. The gateway developed in the lab is a G1. ICOM has released the G2 upgrade software. I have begun the upgrade process. So which gateway to install on WT this next month may be G2. Also the internet link system is planned  to be done in the next 2 weeks.

Work parties are being defined on the above two major objectives. If you are interested, please contact Paul Bennett, KD7KDO. 

I can be reached at email address: This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it

Norm Johnson, AA7OO