Practical experience of D-STAR high-speed 1.2 GHz 128 Kb IP data

Tom N4ZPT of the IllinoisDigitalHam Yahoo group has posted this information detailing his experiences with 128 kbps 1.2 GHz ICOM D-STAR operation during a recent marathon.

Last year a group of us purchased about 9 ID-1s in Northern
Virginia/Washington DC metro area getting one of the free access points along the way.

We used the Access Point and the ID-1s in a demo at half
of the Aid Stations in the marathon in the DD mode to provide 10-20 times the bandwidth and capability than in the past.

We used 1200 and 9600 bps packet in the past.
We had ID-1s at the other half of the AID Stations but had a combination of path problems, laptop configuration problems and radio setup problems, but getting half working was considered a good first step and the medics were happy as we were using 9600 bps packet as primary using TM-D700As at the AID Stations and an IC-208H/KPC- 9612+ at the common hub.

You should find the ID-1 and DD mode very useful. We did learn that we had to be careful with how our laptops were set up, that we had to do quality training of the radio hams at the aid stations, and that 23cm propagation was not as bad as we had feared but could present problems.
We did not use the DV mode in the marathon thought we did conduct some simplex DV testing around the course.

We also had considerable help from Icom America (loaner radios) and the Texas Interconnect Team (23cm Yagi antennas) in getting it all working. We are very appreciative of that help.

We will start this year with the ID-1s in DD mode as primary and 9600 bps packet as a back up.

73, Tom n4zpt
Packet Coordinator
(2006 Marine Corps Marathon Ham Radio Team)

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