There are two ways to talk to another repeater, the first, the one supported by the Icom software allows you to program a repeater or user into the UR field and your packets get routed to the distant repeater. If anyone wants to respond to you, they have to program their radios to talk back to you. You can't listen to the distant repeater and there is no such thing as linking and unlinking. If someone is talking on the distant repeater, you interfere with them.
The method that is becoming more common is to link the repeaters. This is done with the DPLUS software which most every repeater that is connected with gateways are running (except Japan). With link, you program your radio to link the repeaters, key down and then switch back to the normal programming. At this point the two repeaters are linked together, If someone keys down on one, it is heard on the other. No special programming is required for users. Matter of fact it is often hard to tell that you might be talking to someone across the world (except for their accent). When you are finished talking, you then unlink the repeaters. This is very analogous to repeater linking in the FM world, or IRLP. To help with determining how to program your radio for the specific function that you want to do, head to the D-STAR Calculator at http://www.dstarinfo.com/Calculator/ and just select where you are and where you want to talk to, it hopefully dramatically simplifies the entire process. There are also a number of reflectors that allow many repeaters to be linked together, the REF001C is a very popular reflector with a number of systems always linked to it. You link to a reflector just as you would another repeater, just use the calculator to give you the programming. To see a list of the reflectors, check out http://www.dstarinfo.com/reflectors/reflectors.htm. By selecting the reflector's name, you will be sent to the dashboard for the repeater where you can see the repeaters that are currently linked to it. As others have indicated, the placement of all of the characters in the callsign fields have to be exact, there's little margin for error, but just go to the calculator and let it tell you what to put in the field. Once you've chosen a number of permutations in the calculator, programming becomes a little easier to determine on your own. Ed WA4YIH From: dstar_digital@yahoogroups.com [mailto:dstar_digi...@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of ipscone Sent: Friday, March 06, 2009 1:35 AM To: dstar_digital@yahoogroups.com Subject: [DSTAR_DIGITAL] D-Star to "listen" to reflectors or distant repeaters Ok, I think I have routing down. Something like: UR: SomeCallSign R1: SomeRepeaterCallSign B (or A or C) R1: SomeGateway G My: MyCallsign And if I want to make a CQ call to a distant repeater it's something like: UR: /SomeRepeaterCallSign R1: SomeRepeaterCallSign B (or A or C) R1: SomeGateway G My: MyCallsign But how does one just "listen" to a distant repeater, or reflector. I have heard this done. Not sure of the process. Can someone explain how one goes about "listening" to a reflector, without actually making a connection with the intention of "speaking". What would be the disconnect? I also think DPlus might be involved. But this makes this 2 questions. Can it be done with D-Star alone? Or only with DPlus. Is DPlus require? Do all repeaters who have D-Star, have DPlus? Also, I have read some tuturials and they say to put the port (like "B" or "C") in the 8th position. Is that 8th position a requirement. That is, if it's in the 7th position on a short callsign does it then NOT work? Thanks, [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
