D-Star

Well, it was bound to happen. Eventually I was going to get sucked into this thing called D-Star. The full indoctrination happened over the last week. Started at the Stone Mountain Hamfest and was guaranteed when I sold my Kenwood TM-V71A and and bought an ID-880.

At Dayton 2009 I did purchase a 91AD. It is a good rig and I still have it but I was not very active on D-Star. I still did 99.9999% analog FM. Even on FM I was not very active. Living in Buford means I'm too far from W4DOC to use it, W4GR seems quiet to me most of the time, and there is not much traffic on 146.520. Since I work from home my drive time is short. Maybe 20 minutes at the most. I take the youngest daughter to school which is 5 miles down the street, pick up a soda at the store and then I'm back home for a day filled with work activites. Not much time to operate but I have snuck a few CW contacts on 40m in the morning before work and in the afternoon when the band seems to be active.

I think now that I have an ID-880H I'll be using D-Star more often. Most C ports around Atlanta are connected to reflector #2 so it does not mater which repeater I connect to I'll still be able to converse with firends. That is a deal closer on this technolgy right there.



Here are my thougths on the 880 after having it for two days. I'm not too crazy about it.... I love the technology but the radio seems feature lacking to me.




1. Dual VFO

I really do enjoy a dual vfo setup. On the Kenwood I would typically be configured for a V/V setup unless I was using 70cm on W4DOC. Having dual V/V I have been able to monitor multiple repeaters in memory channels and store temp ones in the VFO settings for each side. I have a 146.520 sticker on my car so I am actively looking for folks to talk to on 520. On the 880 I can not monitor 520 unless I do a "priorty watch". This was such a pain on the FT-2800M and was annoying as it would go back and forth betweent he priorty channel and the current selected channel. I think the solution is to monitor 520 when I travel outside of the ATL area. I can switch to D-Star as needed there. Haveing the D-Star network available all throughout the metro area makes D-Star more valuable than 520 in this area for me.

2. Configuration

What can I say here. Everyone knows how much of a pain it is to program the repeaters in this radio. I had a problem with the 880 I bought on Friday (now replaced a day later) and Icom reccommended that I restore to factory then program by hand on the front panel. Who are they kidding? Were they joking. Software is a requirement!!!!

3. Ease of use

Learning a new radio is difficult. I had a TM-V7A so programming the V71A was almost the same. Dual-band repeat, etc were all great features.

I had almost decided on a 2820 instead but many places on the net said the 880 was better. Maybe better D-Star technology and it has more memories but I gues those folk don't love the dual VFO.

In conclusion I suspect that if I do miss the Keenwood that I'll be a dork and buy another one and have dual VHF/UHF antennas on the "mobile command center (mcc)".

KJ4IXI and I have been conversing with him in Tampa and I in Buford and he has started to sell me on that DV Dongle. I know a few folks that have bought them but not used them so maybe I can borrow one for a few weeks and test it out. I would be nice to have this technolgy on my computer so my 880H can stay in my car.

73,
k3dc