Introduction

D-STAR is different to FM in that you need to first set up your radio with callsigns for yourself, other stations and repeaters. Once set up with your call and the repeater call, you can use the autowrite call facility in your radio to automatically insert the callsign of any station you contact.
If you are setting up your D-STAR radio for the first time then make sure you use your manual together with these notes. These notes are intended to be generic so there may be variations between radios.

Set MY CALLSIGN

This really needs to be set once. If you use more than one call (perhaps a club callsign) you can add multiple callsigns. The maximum number of MY callsign memories, or channels, may vary between transceivers, for example with the IC-2200H (with the D-STAR board) it is six.

Here are the steps

  1. Enter the digital set-up mode.
  2. Scroll through the modes to select the callsign select mode.
  3. Find the MY mode setting, which may be designated MYC.
  4. Follow the procedure in your manual and enter your callsign.
  5. It makes sense to put this in the first MY channel.
  6. If you have another callsign then add that in another channel.

Having done this you can select the appropriate callsign channel before transmitting, so that when you transmit other stations will see your callsign.

Set YOUR CALLSIGN

This is the callsign of the station you are communicating with. Like MY CALLSIGN there will be a number of different memories or channels, which can vary between transceivers. There is also a special callsign that you use here which is "CQCQCQ". This is for use when you want to call any station that is listening for a contact.

The setup steps are like setting MY CALLSIGN.

  1. Enter the digital set-up mode.
  2. Scroll through the modes to select the callsign select mode.
  3. Find the UR mode setting, which may be designated YUC.
  4. Follow the procedure in your manual and enter the callsign of the station you wish to contact.
  5. Repeat this for other stations, placing each in a different channel.
  6. Add in one channel "CQCQCQ", it makes sense for this to be the first or the last channel or memory.

Set RPT CALLSIGN

In the same way as you can direct a transmission to a specific station by YOUR CALLSIGN, to access a repeater you need to enter the repeater's callsign in RPT CALLSIGN. Note that you will add an extra character after the end of the repeater callsign to designate which repeater port (which serves a designated band) your transmission will be repeated from. You can also disgnate that the transmission be routed onto the D-STAR gateway. It should be also noted that there are two repeater mode settings RPT1 and RPT2. The first can be used to direct a signal to a local repeater and the other can be another repeater on the D-STAR gateway network.

The setup steps are like setting YOUR CALLSIGN

  1. Enter the digital set-up mode.
  2. Scroll through the modes to select the callsign select mode.
  3. Find the RPT1 mode setting, which may be designated R1C or R1.
  4. Follow the procedure in your manual and enter the callsign of the repeater you wish to use.
  5. After the repeater callsign designate which port you want your transmission to be repeated from. You must place a space after your callsign before entering the port letter, A, B or C. If you want the gateway add G.
  6. Repeat 5 for other repeaters or the same repeater and a different port, placing each in a different channel.

Example: if you want to direct your output to the 70cm Module (UHF) of the repeater K8DXA then you would enter

K8DXA B


 

Example: if you want to direct your output to the 2m Module (VHF) of the repeater K8DXA then you would enter

K8DXA C

 

Now, you can see that you can route your transmission out through a port that uses a frequency you cannot receive, for example using an D-STAR IC-2200H (which is 2 m only) you can send a transmission out on the 70 cm side. If a replying station uses that port to reply you will not hear the reply. Therefore, it is worth stating which port you are listening to in you transmission, so a reply station can direct their transmission accordingly.

It is possible you route out of all the ports by not using the port designation letter, but instead preceeding the repeater callsign directly with "/". For example,

 

/K8DXA

 

Care should be exercised with the above option, as it is suspected for K8DXA this may be causing intermodulation and possible desensing. Additional filtering is being added

RPT2 CALLSIGN can be set in a similar way. This may be a repeater on the D-STAR network, which is being accessed by the local repeater gateway.
Note: on the IC-2200H R2C automatically is a copy of R1C and vice-versa as the memories are shared.

 

Amateur Radio Video News (ARVN) has produced two "YouTube" videos showing you how to manually program a variety of D-Star radios, and demonstrations of D-Star in action - See D-STAR Programming Part 1 and D-STAR Programming Part 2.