[d-star] Twin Cities D-Star Network Update

[Erik Westgard]

We will have a D-Star Users's Group meeting/talk at Radio City on the 12th
(Sat) @10.

The www.14567.org group has purchased one more Icom controller that is
designated for a new South Metro site, TBD.  For the moment it will be
paired with a spare 1.2 DV module and put up on USROOT, but it is expected a
440 voice module will be available Feb/Mar.  

We are working on a SW Metro new site for the current 442.9 system.  More on
that move.  The intent is the new systems will all be on the USRoot trust
server. 

Reflector 53 is moving to a hosting facility in the next few weeks.  It
cannot run on normal residential DSL/Cable as it requires a static address
and  the possibility of lots of uplink bandwidth, in the 10mb range. 

Little Falls has purchased a 2M band module for increased range.   

One open topic is fund raising - as we expand we may need some Internet cost
fund raising.  If we have to pay to host the reflector that could cost
$50/month. Each repeater that needs new Internet is $30/month.  The idea
would be a "club" that collects donations for that, and bits of money for
new repeaters and band modules.