D-STAR (Digital Smart Technology for Amateur Radio) is an open standard developed by the Japanese Amateur Radio League (JARL) over three years and published in 2001 that incorporates the use of digital technology in the transmission of signals between radios or repeaters. 

Glenn Edmondson(N3EH) has purchased, programmed and installing a digital voice Icom D-STAR repeater.

This repeater is located at 1150 W. King Street, (HWY 520), Cocoa, Florida.  The repeater frequency is presently set at 146.74 with a negative offset.  This has been coordinated with the Florida Repeater Council.

This repeater can only accessed with a D-STAR digital radio. Analog FM radios without D-STAR capability will not work.

To understand and appreciate the reason I am building a new all digital repeater system, we suggest surfing the Icom website www.icomamerica.com/amateur/dstar. This website has an overview of D-STAR. It also provides information about its features and provides a list of D-STAR products.

I have elected to begin with a VHF repeater, call sign KJ4OXT.  I have installed a new Icom IC-IDRP2C D-STAR repeater controller and the Icom IC-IDRP2000V D-STAR 2 Meter repeater.

I have installed a LINUX base gateway that is connected via fiber to the Brighthouse Network backbone.

The Internet Gateway:

The Internet Gateway is a Linux system, running version 2 of the Icom D-STAR Gateway software. This gateway allows the repeater to communicate with other D-STAR repeaters around the world via the Internet. While the repeater is open for everyone to use for a local QSO, your call must be added to the access list to use the gateway. To register with the gateway, connect to the registration page (https://174.46.115.198/Dstar.do)  and register as a new user. Once your registration is approved, you will receive instructions for creating a terminal identifier.

The Internet gateway provides another service. You may view a list of the last heard users at: https://174.46.115.198/status.html. To view the list of all D-STAR users go to http://www.dstarusers.org/. This site is very busy at times and may not respond quickly.

I would like to thank Ray Kassis, N4LEM for the tower space and the space to house this equipment at a central location in Brevard County.