I'm a member of the Lucas County ARES (Amateur Radio Emergency Service). As part of a grant a few years ago, we perform quarterly testing of D-Star Radio Equipment at more than a dozen Hospitals in Northwest Ohio (Toledo area).
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| My station setup at St. Vincent Hospital in Toledo, Ohio |
Hams have a motto..."when all else fails....there's ham radio" - and that's what ARES is for. We can and desire to communicate even when other means are impossible (Internet outages, phone systems outages, cell tower outages, etc, etc, etc). ARES strives to fill that void with data, voice, and video communication capabilities.
Anyway, I've been so busy, that unfortunately, ham radio has taken a back seat - as do most hobbies when things get out of control with daily life. But this last Hospital Radio Drill - re-energized my D-Star thrill.
As a result of the drill, I re-fired up my D-Plus and D-Extra DVAP dongle and fore the life of me couldn't figure out why it would connect to a reflector or repeater, but I would hear no audio or replies from an CQ's.....
| My Raspberry Pi and DVAP with the ID-51 |
Well, it turned out my router at the house was missing some port forwarding rules. The D-Plus network requires port 30001 and the D-Extra (X-Reflectors) requires port 20001 to be forwarded the the computer or device (Raspberry Pi in my case) that's connecting the DVAP to the network.
Depending on the software you're using you may have to open up more ports - you can always open up a chunk of ports (20000-50000) or do a DMZ entry for your router, but just know that's opening you up to potential security risks if you have processes that answer on those ports other than UDP D-Star traffic. I always recommend a commercial Firewall now-a-days for anybody connected to the Internet.
With days like this you're not going anywhere....
| Mermill Road in Wood County, Ohio - January 2013 |
so jump on the air and give a CQ - you'll get a response in no-time!
Zack - N8ZAK
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