Let's talk apples to apples here. EVERY D-STAR radio will do APRS, just like EVERY FM radio will do APRS. All you need to do is to hook a TNC or Tracker up to it.
What becomes the details is that some FM radios are setup to automatically switch frequencies when they get a transmission request from a connected TNC. I don't believe that any D-STAR radio (except maybe the IC-2820) will do this. And if you want to dedicate a D-STAR radio to doing just APRS, that works quite well, although there are definitely cheaper ways to do it. Again, ALL D-STAR radios will do APRS. And you are indeed somewhat correct that D-STAR doesn't do APRS like APRS does. With D-STAR DPRS, we don't have to dedicated repeaters or radios to provide position reports. We can do that on our normal repeaters. And when we're talking about beaconing, I believe that most people would agree with me in that beaconing at an interval of less than an hour can be irritating (if there's 6 people beaconing every hour, that's 1 beacon every 5 minutes). But beaconing once every 12 hours probably isn't a real irritation to most repeater users. So DPRS isn't that great for watching every mile that a vehicle travels, but when the family wants to know what part of the country you are in, it does do a respectable job. Ed WA4YIH From: dstar_digital@yahoogroups.com [mailto:dstar_digi...@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of n1...@snet.net Sent: Saturday, February 20, 2010 1:38 PM To: dstar_digital@yahoogroups.com Subject: [DSTAR_DIGITAL] Re: Position Reports First, thank you Mr. King for your service. I disagree that the D-Star radio can replace the radios they have just because it does FM. It seems to me that they are using APRS extensively to allow loved ones to track them as they travel around. While the D-Star radio will provide location while working a D-Star repeater, it won't when not on a D-Star repeater. Further, there will only be locations recorded when they key the radio. This would require "kerchunking" if they wished to have a continuous stream of tracking data. Bad form, and it requires continuous D-Star coverage. While D-Star has it's qualities, vehicle tracking is not one of it's strong suits. Now, if there was a radio that did D-Star AND APRS, that would be nice, but it seems that ICOM may be concentrating on D-Star and getting away from APRS. I would love to be wrong about that though. --- In dstar_digital@yahoogroups.com<mailto:dstar_digital%40yahoogroups.com>, Jack <jack.mrfixit...@...<mailto:jack.mrfixit...@...>> wrote: > > Rex and Vickie, Please remember that the Dstar radios also do FM as well as > Dstar so if you were to purchase them they can replace the radios you have. > Also know that the programming of them does intimidate some people but do not > let that stop you as there are lots of people on here that can and will help > you to get them set up they can also be programmed from a computer this makes > it very easy and convent(plug in a cable and upload the file to the radio and > it is programmed) I use the software and cable from > www.rtsystemsinc.com<http://www.rtsystemsinc.com> and they work very well I > have the software that allows me to program all of the different radios I > have and use ONE file so all the radios can have the same info in the same > channel slots. > > N6UYB/4 > Jack E. Foster >
