ARLA/CLUSTER: 1.2 GHz high-speed D-STAR for emergency communications in Minnesota

[João Gonçalves Costa]

Radio Amateurs in Minnesota have been using high speed D-STAR link on 1.2 GHz as part of the Amateur Radio Disaster Data Network.

Just after 9/11/01, some of the 11,000 licensed volunteer Amateur Radio operators in Minnesota decided they could build a radio based data network covering the region.

This network would provide a reliable "last ditch" email and data capability in the event of an emergency that disabled or overloaded normal communications channels. The first phase of the network was built using AX.25 packet radio technology, which has been running to commercial reliability
standards since 2002.

In order to meet the needs of the served agencies for modern, easy to use web interface backup volunteer emergency communications, the volunteers have now deployed a new D-STAR 100 kilobit data network.
This technology moves Amateur Radio back to where we belong - advancing the state of the radio art.

The ICOM D-STAR 1.2 GHz Data Repeaters are in secure locations. They support User-to-User connections at 90 kbps and the group use Linux back-end sytems with Citadel mail and conferencing applications and allow multiple served
agency data uplinks for application access including the Internet.

Full details at
http://www.14567.org/

D-STAR Digital Yahoo Group
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/dstar_digital/
To join email: dstar_digital-subscribe  yahoogroups.com

Digital Ham Radio Yahoo Group
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/illinoisdigitalham/
To join email: illinoisdigitalham-subscribe  yahoogroups.com