[nos-bbs] JNOS needs D-STAR abilities

[Bob Donnell]

The most unfortunate part of the D-Star DV radios is that there was no 
provision made to use the 4800 bps air interface at a lower level than the 
DV/Data interface, or to provide a full-4800bps-data mode.  I've not tried 
to track down whether this is part of the open specification, or part of 
the way Icom implemented it.  At this point it's academic.  

On the other hand, researching the interface for the add-in DV circuit 
boards might allow using an Icom radio that's designed to allow the DV 
upgrade to be modified to use an external modem - one that's known to work 
and have a low bit-error rate - at least at 4800 bps.  At the price of the 
radios, it's not something I'm ready to throw money at to test.

73, Bob, KD7NM




On Sunday 31 August 2008 19:11:38 Mark Phillips wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I've been playing with D-RATS all day and have decided that whilst it is
> a very good application it still doesn't address the needs of the
> average data user.
>
> As you may know, D-STAR has a "low speed" data ability on its radio's of
> roughly 4800bd. Why can't we tap into this?
>
> The problem with the current crop of D-STAR data packages is that they
> are all point-to-point apps. Except that is for text messaging which
> appears to be a sort of multicast or at least broadcast.
>
> With the modem already embedded into the D-STAR appliance all we need to
> to is attach the radio to the serial port as though it was a TNC. I'm
> guessing that JNOS would need a driver for D-STAR to accomplish this.
>
> The problem arises (I think) at the user end. They either have to run
> JNOS as a client or have some sort of "shim" app that captures their IP
> traffic and pushes it through the radio. This sort of already exists
> with D-RATS.
>
> It occurs to me that as the data mode can use the repeaters as well as
> the voice mode this could be quite a useful tool.
>
> Am I barking mad here or do I have an idea?
>
> Mark