D-STAR

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D-STAR stands for Digital Smart Technology for Amateur Radio. The purpose of D-STAR is to allow HAM Radio operators to speak further and clearer using digital voice while sending data from 1200 BPS on up at the same time. The D-STAR system covers communications on HF, VHF, and UHF radio bands while defining interfaces for both radios, repeaters, Internet interconnections, and PC interfaces.

1 Technical details
2 Equipment
3 External links
4 See also
5 References

[edit] Technical details

D-STAR transfers both voice and data via digital encoding over the 2 m (VHF), 70 cm (UHF), and 23 cm (1.2 GHz) amateur radio bands. Voice is encoded as a 2400 bps data stream using AMBE encoding, 1200 bps FEC. Data streams are sent at 4800 bit/s over the 2 m and 70 cm bands and at 128k bps over the 23 cm band. Radios providng data service use a RS-232 or USB connection for low speed data (960 bps) and Ethernet for high speed connections to allow easy interfacing with computer equipment.^[1]

[edit] Equipment

Although Icom is the first to support D-STAR, any company can produce equipment to support this protocol. The equipment known to interoperate with D-STAR systems includes:

Radios^[2]
- ICOM ID-1 - 1200 MHz (23 cm) Digital Transceiver
- ICOM ID-800H - VHF (2 m) & UHF (70 cm) Digital Transceiver
- ICOM IC-91AD - VHF & UHF Dual-Band Handheld Transceiver
- ICOM IC-V82 - VHF Handheld Transceiver
- ICOM IC-U82 - UHF Handheld Transceiver
- ICOM IC-2200H - VHF Mobile Transceiver

Repeaters
- ICOM ID-RP2C - Controller
- ICOM ID-RP2V - 1.2 GHz (23 cm) Voice Repeater
- ICOM ID-RP2D - 1.2 GHz (23 cm) Data Repeater
- ICOM ID-RP2000V - UHF (70 cm) Voice Repeater
- ICOM ID-RP4000V - VHF (2 m) Voice Repeater