Setting Up Your Radio for D-Star Voice Usage

Local repeater or simplex usage

If you have just purchased that brand new D-Star radio, and have read the manual on how to configure the radio for Digital Voice (DV) usage you are probably confused on how to really use the 'MyCALL', 'UrCALL' 'RPT1' and 'RPT2' parameters, and don't think you will ever figure it out.  It really isn't as complicated as the manuals seem to indicate, and we will try to explain the usage of these four parameters here.

First of all, your local D-Star repeater behaves just as you would expect any other local  regular open VHF/UHF FM repeater to operate. Everything you say can be heard by everyone else listening to that repeater.  

The only parameter you need to program for local repeater (or simplex) usage is  'MyCALL', and you will only need to set this up once.  So, go into your setup menus and program your FCC licensed call sign into this field, and you should never have to change this again. 

If you have a fiend you want to chat with, and you are both on the same local repeater (that is, you are both on the 2 meter or both on the 70cm repeater),, you don't need to enter anything other then 'MyCALL', and this is only usually entered once when you first setup the radio.

So, go ahead and make a call on the local D-Star repeater (make sure your 'mode' is set to 'DV') -- that is all that you need to do for local ragchew or roundtable communications.

Call Sign Squelch

However, if you want to chat with a friend and you both want to hear only each others audio, you can both setup Call Sign Squelch (CSS) (or Digital Tone encoding) and all other stations audio will be muted on your receiver.

If you use the radio this way, then you will now have to enter the other stations callsign into the 'UrCALL' parameter (You friend would likewise have to enter your call sign into their 'UrCALL parameter), and you would both go into your menus and enable 'CSS'.

By the way -- Using Call Sign Squelch doesn't mean you have a private channel that noone else can hear.  When you use CSS or Digital Tone all it does is mute the audio on your receiver unless it recognizes the CSS or digital squelch from someone else's signal  --it doesn't mute or in any way encrypt your transmitted signal so -- Everyone else can hear both of you -- It is not a private line...It is the same as if both of you had enabled a pl tone on simplex receive on a normal FM repeater

NOTE: Always replace the "WB3W" call sign in the MyCALL field examples above with your own station call sign

Copyright 2008 - ExecuTech Systems - All Rights Reserved