The Tower Disaster.He wasdup for 30 min,so nice.Then the accident, Truck driver cached the GARD WIRE on the way out. BUUUUUM
Here when we started nice prehpared
Up to here,Peter ( AI4UE ) was very happy. Then I lost my loved one,the tower,killed by the Truck in a split of a second
K4EG Alamance County Hamradio Club
Burlington, NC USA
Field Day 2009
Just in time for field day, all is back online and works great , here the first pictures from Field Day Yesterday 6/27/09 Recorded Livestream,s here: K4EG live on Field Day Perfect in CW and getting point´s for K4EG Randy K4QQJ
Dstar System at Field Day for K4EG
SSB Station K4EG our Club in Burlington at Field Day in Action
All systems are back up and running.. !
Echolink is working great in range. Node 5516 on simplex 145.590 Mhz
Hubble story from the deep space,click here:
Here you see how your RF skip! nice picture
The SSB Antenna for K4EG Field Day
The Williams Brothers gave us the Bucket Truck,to get the hight on the VHF UHF Band.The Antenne came up the 100 Feet
If you need help around your House or Industrie Plant, Call: 336 421 5176 and the Phone # below ! They very nice guy's and helpfull.Even to repair your Antenna or to put one up.This truck reach your Destination.
Under Pictures Link you will find the repair of my IC-91AD. . To see all go to : To the pictures
Our Livestream from AK4EG is coming from the Icom D800 in my Ham shack in Burlington, NC. It can be used to test your Audio and incoming signal.
Hams with no D*Star gear can hear the Net on Sunday nights @ 9pm.
The Central NC D*star Net on KB4HG in Durham on Thursdays @ 8.30pm 442.5375 mhz +5
The KB4HG repeater is working well in Burlington.
You may have to use your base antenna in some Areas in Burlington.
I'd like to hear all Dstar users from this Area on their Net.
Try to go in the KB4HG Repeater,if you make it in, the repeater will give its Callsign. Stay tuned for schedule updates.
Review of the Past :
It started in Oct. 2007. A German Ham Group from DOK F10 Werra Meissner ,taught me about Dstar.
They just had some Dstar Radios at this time. I bought my first D800, and traveled to Germany to find out more.
After I came back, I got the VHF Dstar repeater and Controller,and Burlington Dstar was on the air with my call sign AI4UE.
KB4HG was already working at that time.
I tried to learn fast, all I can get about Dstar. In Jan. 2008 till March the Repeater was without Duplexer on the City Garage K4EG... then back to the house, Duplexer Testing. Adding UHF also and more.
Then it moved to the final position at the Fire Tower Rd. Snow Camp in Aug. 2008
Under the eyes of Don Miller WD4CWE, HF,VHF and Antenna Specialist all around and the repeater systems now AK4EG, is getting better and better.
We have spend a lot of time and Money already on it, where it is now !!
And we still are not finished!
Also thanks to Cameron KJ4BEE, Lee K4LAL and the Software Master Ken KC4YOZ and Torsten DG1HT and Markus DH2YBE from Hamburg,
Without these Ham's in Amateur Radio in the Bood, it would not be like it is now, in Burlington,NC
Big thank you, to you all !
AI4UE Repeater Admin. of AK4EG
Repeater installed and on G2 Gateway, first time in April 2008
Today June 5,2009 We updated the dstar repeater to a new larger cabinet .Photos here and at the pictures link
Don WD4CWE and Peter AI4UE worked the whole day on the change out
This is after finishing today 6/5/09
Our UHF D-star repeater is in good condition. VHF is working perfect, thanks Don,(WD4CWE).
UHF and VHF works from the tower's top antenna, a Dual-Band Decibel Products Antenna. (Ever seen one of these?) 16 bays on UHF, 8 Bays on VHF. Outstanding ! The original DB-420 16 bay has been dedicated to the FM repeater on 443.025 and works great. The new DB-224E is being used on our Echolink. (145.590 MHZ, 100 hz tone) Here are some pictures:
The UHF in position, now comes new VHF on the tower.
more Dstar live cams:
Out of Germany
The new Echo-link Radio from Motorola at the site,145.590,100.0 hz Node :5516
AI4UE-L on the desktop PC,with ULLI Board Interface
Be a Amateur Radio operator, get your FCC callsign
From the QRZ.com : the hamradio test, to get a license is so easy now!
News on the APRS page. If you point your curser on the car or call sign, it shows what Repeater it is working with.
Dstar is growing up ,we add the next Repeater 23 cm
Many new things on Dstar - stay informed on the 23 cm Project.
The 23cm transmits with good range (30 -60 miles),but can only receive within a 25 miles range. No preamp. But it works from Mebane to Gibsonville real good. We adjusted the settings in the software.
It made it a lot better.
Today increased the power on my ID1 in the car from 10 to 20 Watt . Easy mod!
On the Repeater side I do the same. 20 watt is for voice Ok on 1.2 Ghz.
Some words by other hams in USA
Caity
K7VO
There are technical challenges to putting up a repeater on 23cm that do not exist on 70cm and below. Trust me, I learned most of these the hard way. For example, most hams have basic test equipment for 70cm and below. How many have a wattmeter that is accurate at 23cm? You can get away with a short run of 9913 or LMR400 on 70cm. You can't on 23cm. To get a decent signal to/from the antenna you need hardline, the bigger the better.
Let's say you have the repeater, antenna, hardline, and test equipment. You have a nice, high site, say 450' up. You put the repeater on the air and your friend 20 miles away gets in beautifully. You, at 1/4 mile from the repeater, can't get in to save your life. At 23cm you have to compensate for serious umbrella effect. Welcome to the world of microwaves! (A secondary antenna can fix this.)
AI4UE
I fixed the umbrella effect, small down tilt and are1100 feet high.
WB2WIK wrote at eham:
My 10W module in the FT-736R is sufficient to raise many repeaters, using just a simple 5 x 5/8-WL stacked colinear that costs almost nothing and weighs maybe 3 lbs. One of those systems is about 90 miles away, which is also pretty much my normal working range on two meter FM; so, I agree with Caity, the 23 cm band propagation isn't much different from the typical VHF bands. The limitation is that most hams don't have any equipment for 23 cm.
WB2WIK/6
For the DD Project:
The 90 Watt amp on 1299 MHZ will be for the 4. Data Network Repeater. I must find a very fast switching Diode to put in.The repeater is Half Duplex!If it don,t work ,we go with 20 Watt and better Antennas on the mobil side.Parabol antenna goes easy to 24 db gain
We deal with 130 khz band wide for 128 kbps Digital Data
The 23cm voice Repeater is installed and on air. It covers Burlington and GREENSBORO, Durham. Today added new transmit antenna,duplexer is out now. 1/23/09 2. round
This is the 23 cm 14.9db Comet high gain antenna on top.
Good work,almost done, took 2 hours. Old beam down,new GP21 up.
Preparing the antenna on the ground
WD4CWE on the top of the tower 1/9/09
Job is done
after SWR Test ,reflection near 0
But we need to take the Icom jumper cables out, they bring only trouble.
and after the mod,with filter on receive side
Burlington has now 3 D*star repeaters on the air with gateway, DD system is coming soon, then we will have a full stack.
New pictures of the progress at AI4UE Party and
multi Station Hamradio room pictures under Site map
And why Peter is not on the Air so much! working in the back jard.
New: can you receive 1.2 Ghz from AK4EG
I try some places from Greensboro ,Gibsonville,to Mebane.
It looks we will have a good coverage over Alamance County.
And this is judged on the floor height at the tower. The 1200Mhz Antenna is 120 feet higher. So,play around a little with the tool. It is also good for UHF or VHF Bands to see what is in the way to your destination.
Video and audio from AK4EG,live
New: I had to register a new one in our Area.
I was never on the new style registration page before I signed in a long time ago, but I found this one to be most helpful.
Important is the space in the Initial section!!!
and here you go to
Data and message:
Here is the Link to the D-Rats webpage, here you download the tool for Text communication over Dstar D-rats Download
There is also the text tool :D-term and D-chat out for download.In USA most is D-Rats in use.Germany uses D-Term. D-Term download link,german
It looks like KI4LKF has a software finished to go to Dstar with software only,here the Yahoo group,to join and learn about,and get the software for free.This Repeater is open for Experimentel.
I found a good page to explain a little the Linking types, AK4EG is open for Operator linking
23cm voice Repeater is on air now. 1/9/09 1284.4000 MHZ -20MHZ
There will be 1 more Repeater and 1299.4000MHZ added.The high speed Data.
1200MHz Digital Transceiver
features
Rear View
HERE you can see who's Repeater is on the Reflector's.
But there are more REF,s out From 1 to 17
AK4EG is now 1275 msl.
A Home made GPS Box for IC 91AD next 2 pictures
GPS Mouse for IC 91AD
Here are the repeater Frequencies: VHF 145.320 MHZ -600 , UHF 444.8875 MHZ +5 MHZ ,SUHF: 1284.4000 MHZ DV - 11MHZ ,soon: DATA 1299.4000 DD SUHF
New pictures from the Duplexer adjustment day,see under D-star News
D-STAR Frequency ProgrammingHave you had problems when trying to figure what you should program into your radio when talking D-STAR ?
.
Meet the D-STAR Calculator Dstar Calculater
all conference users,must put the same room name in up to 100 people
is good for a D*Star net,talk on D*Star ,see on the mebeam page,show new,or used things,to the other,or for sale
We use´´ Dstar´´ or ´´Europa ´´ as Room name,most time,but you can do your own conference with your people,with your own name
Live:ham radio,Frankfurt Germany
TRG HamRadio Live Audio Stream)click on link
German realtime FM Relais at Frankfurt Area-have amateur radio fun
Test your Internet IP
all D-Star Programs
Dell PowerEdge 750 ICOM Ready DSTAR Gateway V2 Server
Loaded with Centos 5.1 and DSTAR Utilities
This Is the Burlington NC Dstar Server
ID-RP 2C Controller
Repeater Controller
Handles up to four RF modules
ID-RP2000V and the Repeater
2 Meter Voice Module
This is the Bulington Allemance County Dstar Repeater System
VHF/ UHF and 23 cm Voice since Jan 2009
What is D-STAR? Here is a very good Webpage from KN4AQ to explain:
D-STAR is a new Amateur radio system which offers digital voice and data communication. It connects repeater sites over microwave links and the Internet and forms a wide area ham radio network. The D-STAR system provides a new capability and functionality to the ham radio world and increases the efficiency of emergency communications.
What can the D-STAR system do?
128kbps Digital Data And 4.8kbps Digital Voice Communication
The D-STAR system provides not only digital voice (DV mode) communication but also digital data transmission (DD mode). It can exchange various data files such as graphics, images, etc, at 128kbps.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Your Voice And Data Can Reach Farther Than Ever Before
Multiple repeater links by radio and the Internet provide long distance communication to virtually anywhere.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Internet Applications Available
The D-STAR system uses the TCP/IP protocol, so when connected with a PC, web, e-mail and other Internet applications are available.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wireless Internet Access
No matter where you travel within the D-STAR network, you can access the web, e-mail, text messages and multimedia messages.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Independent Network
In DD mode, the ID-1 can transfer data directly with another ID-1 without the use of a repeater. This is useful for establishing a simple network where a D-STAR repeater does not exist or D-STAR services are not required.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Increase Efficiency of Emergency Communications
Out in the field, fast emergency information is the key. Send pictures and weather charts to or from a remote location with the ID-1. “A picture is worth a thousand words”, and efficient send/receive opens up your repeater for other emergency communications.
D-STAR Repeater System
The D-STAR repeater system is composed of a repeater controller, 1.2GHz digital data repeater, 1.2GHz digital voice repeater, 70cm digital voice repeater, 2 meter digital voice repeater, 10GHz microwave relay and the Internet gateway PC. Since the signal is digital, no information is lost due to conversion and multiple repeater relays are possible in this system. The D-STAR system repeater can perform 3 relay functions as shown in the following figures.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Single Repeater
The D-STAR repeater operates similar to an analog repeater. D-STAR repeaters can be set up as "stand-alone" or linked to relay communication in 1.2GHz, 70cm and 2 meter bands.
Home page introduces your business and your Web site.
Write a summary, including a brief description of your products or services and your value and commitment to customers. This page sets the tone for your site and tells people what they can expect to find on other pages. Give the basics here and provide greater detail on other pages.
The D-STAR repeater operates similar to an analog repeater. D-STAR repeaters can be set up as "stand-alone" or linked to relay communication in 1.2GHz, 70cm and 2 meter bands.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Microwave Link
When D-STAR repeaters are connected via 10GHz microwave, the D-STAR system transfers received data to another repeater site. You can also make a CQ call to a specified repeater area.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Internet Gateway Relay
When D-STAR repeaters are connected with the Internet gateway, the D-STAR system relays the received data over the Internet. Microwave links and Internet gateways can be combined even during one contact. Your message will get through to anywhere in the D-STAR system.
Manuals And Brochures...Here are links to PDF versions of the manuals for the various ICOM D-STAR radios.
Product Documentation
Download instruction manuals, brochures and product documentation from our Download Database.
Download Database
http://www.icomamerica.com/en/downloads/Default.aspx
copy the link in your Internet Explorer,if it not work!
If you would like to donate or join the group and make D-star faster grown and faster completed, everyone is welcome to donate.
It will be posted here how we use it.
It is only to maintain the Dstar program and keep it going. Also to loan out D-star Radios to Hams, to check it out,at no cost.
Thanks,
AI4UE / DJ6ZR
Peter Scherp
To Paypal:
Check your Internet Speed
Free speedtest for your internet