KIX-OnlineLinks to amateur (ham) radio goodies on the web

The only DSTAR radios I’ve used are radios that belong to friends.  I like the technology (just can’t afford it at the moment!).

I do chat with a bunch of friends that have DSTAR radios and such and I always here “they’re so dang hard to program!”.  The manual takes a little bit of getting used to and such, but I did find a few neat things to get you going.

The first two videos are from Amateur Radio Video News.

Here’s one they did on “deconstructing DSTAR”

While we’re at it, how about a DSTAR promotional video.  Lot’s of info on DSTAR here.  This went over well at a club meeting.

Back on the programming path, how about some new software to program DSTAR radios regardless of computer platform.

The CHIRP project describe Chirp as:

CHIRP is a cross-platform, cross-radio programming tool. It works on Windows and Linux (and soon, MacOSX). It can program all of the ICOM D-STAR (or D-STAR-capable) radios and exchange data between them. As from version 0.1.9 CHIRP also supports limited operation with the Icom ID-RP* D-STAR DV and DD repeaters.

They also have a Wiki (how to/beginners guide) at:

http://chirp.danplanet.com/wiki/BeginnersGuide

The software is available at:

http://chirp.danplanet.com/wiki/

I’m going to add a DSTAR category to make finding DSTAR posts easier.  I’ll probably get a DSTAR rig eventually, then I’ll probably post tons of links.