[Alexandria Radio Club Reflector] DSTAR on the Kenwood TH-D74A

[Rick Bunn]

Great to hear,  I could not get into the Bridgecom repeater, but my guess is
that my set up was not correct.  The RT systems software give us a way to
access the various reflectors as if they were DMR talk groups.   

The local ARES community is starting to see the need to coordinate again.
We hope to restart the NCAC net on Sunday evenings at 9PM.  If I can I will
try to focus some part of that net to new technology as well as coordination
and planning.  D-Star,  Establish a default REFLECTOR for our area for ARES
/ Public Service use and a talk group for NCAC on the DMR network.
Infrastructure for AREDN etc.

Thanks Ian,
	73 Rick
	N4ASX

-----Original Message-----
From: alexandriaradioclub-bounces at mailman.qth.net
<alexandriaradioclub-bounces at mailman.qth.net> On Behalf Of Ian
Sent: Monday, May 21, 2018 12:40 PM
To: W4HFH <alexandriaradioclub at mailman.qth.net>
Subject: [Alexandria Radio Club Reflector] DSTAR on the Kenwood TH-D74A

A growing number of us have the recently introduced Kenwood TH-D74A
handheld.  2m, 70cm, and 1.25m on FM and DSTAR.  5W on all bands!  And
Batteries America, maybe others, now have a 2000mAh aftermarket battery for
around $50.  The radio worked great at Hamvention this year AFTER we
discovered a few tricks.

Unlike Icom's implementation of DSTAR, Kenwood makes a distinction in the
operating mode.  If you're going through a repeater the mode is DR, for
simplex it's DV.  If you are using Kenwood's or RTSystems' software to
program your radio watch for this in the 'mode' drop-down list. You may have
to scroll down to get to 'DV' for simplex channels.  The other difference is
with digital coded squelch.  This is used like a tone on FM.
On the Kenwood you'll usually want 'DCS', not 'CCS'.  The RTSystems software
appears to default to 'CCS', or callsign coded squelch, and wouldn't be too
useful on a frequency used by more than two hams.

Also, I was able to route back to W4HFH_B through BridgeCom's 1.25m dual
mode repeater.  Pretty cool.

73, Ian N8IK
______________________________________________________________
AlexandriaRadioClub mailing list
Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/alexandriaradioclub
Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
Post: mailto:AlexandriaRadioClub at mailman.qth.net

This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net
Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html