[d-star] d-star repeater system ordered :)

[Erik Jacobson]

>    want to hear from a user as to distance and speed and cost .  the 
> complete system cost and how far the 5ghz part goes.  the vhf and uhf out 

I wasn't sure if you were talking about the repeater pieces or the
mobile radio pieces.

For the repeater pieces...
You need one controller module to do anything.  It can drive up to 4
RF modules.  They sell modules for 2-meters and 440 for digital voice.
They sell two 1.2ghz modules - for for digital voice, and one for high
speed data.

The digital voice modules support low speed data at about 1kbs.  This is
good for things like short messages, aprs, and other packet-like applications.

The bandwidth for digital voice + low speed data is < 6.25khz according
to the specs.

I have no experience in 1.2ghz (yet :) and only know what others have
said about how it gets out.

Some people like to say that digital voice will give you about 15% more
range than standard fm.  I believe this is due mostly to the fact
that digital voice uses less bandwidth than fm.  I don't have personal
experience with these things yet, I'm mostly going on specs here and
board postings.

For pricing on the repeater pieces, you could take a look at the
D-Star tab on Radio City's catalog.
http://www.radioinc.com/oscmax/catalog/

They also show other d-star capable radios there.

The promotion I'm using is titled:
"D-Star promo: Buy 2 bands get 1 band Free"
(And that free band is 1.2ghz and includes both 1.2ghz modules).

As for the high speed data, it runs at 128kbps and is 300khz wide.

If you're just looking for radios, the IC-91AD is around $450. That's a 
conventional dual-band hand held with the d-star module installed.  I want
one of those.  This is a true dual-band in that it lets you monitor both
bands at once.

For the car, they have the ID-800H dual-band mobile.  This is what I put
in my Prius.  It's around $630.  It has wide receive and does 2m and 440.
One thing I don't like about it is it doesn't let you monitor both bands at 
the same time.  What I'd really like is a mobile version of 91AD but there is 
no such thing yet.

There is also a 2-meter only IC-2200H at $159.95.  I think this requires
a module to do the d-star digital voice stuff though.  If I read things
right, that's an extra $180.

The have the ID-1 radio that does digital voice and high speed data for
1.2 GHz.  It has, for example, an ethernet jack on the back.  It's pricey 
though. I'll need one of those to play with 1.2ghz but I'm waiting a while
before I buy it I think.

As far as I know, nothing in d-star talks at 5GHz.  There are microwave
link modules that do 10Mbit at 10GHz.  Too pricey for me though :)

One thing that annoys me is Icom does a bad job of selling these radios
on their web site.  It's hard to find the information.  I can give you
some links to PDFs with specs if you're interested. 

Sorry if this got too wordy.

Erik / N0SVX