PARA members Paul W3PRL and John N3SPW recently purchased D-STAR capable amateur radios and have started experimenting with the digital voice operating mode. The radios are Icom ID-880H dual band rigs which are capable of standard analog FM operation, as well as narrow-band FM and GMSK (which is the operating mode D-STAR uses). For the record, Paul W3PRL was the first to receive his rig and therefore, to the best of our knowledge, holds the title of being the first Clearfield County amateur radio operator to own a D-STAR radio.
For more information on D-STAR please visit the PARA D-STAR page.
On the evening of March 2nd simplex digital voice experiments were conducted. This resulted in a successful QSO between amateur station W3PRL in Grampian, Clearfield County, and amateur station N3SPW in Kylertown, Clearfield County. This is thought to be the fist D-STAR conversation between Clearfield County amateurs. An audio recording (in mp3 format) of this historic event is available here.
Very shortly experiments with the low-speed digital data mode will be conducted. One application of the low-speed data is keyboard to keyboard chat applications. This will likely be one of the first applications to be experimented with.
