2 ENJOYING APRS (by BOB BRUNINGA, WB4APR)
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2.13 Voice over Internet Protocol (Vo-IP) and D-STAR
Recognizing the huge potential for linking local ham radio over Internet, an added goal of
APRS since 2001 has been to facilitate the integration of Digital Voice Systems and allowing
end-to-end voice contact while using APRS global messaging capability to help set up the
calls. Initially, this was via the use of IRLP, EchoLink, and other VoIP systems.
Now with the TH-D74A/E, this can include D-STAR.
Just like the Frequency Objects, all ham radio VoIP systems are encouraged to announce
their presence on APRS. Within 10 minutes the node number, frequency, tone and other info
are available to all APRS operators on their radios as shown above. Again, a simple press of
the “Tune” function will QSY the radio for instant operation.
The long-term goal of this VoIP and Frequency capability has been to enable APRS to be
used for setting up end-to-end global contacts using only a known callsign. The idea was
to simply enter a callsign in a contact-request message will cause the APRS Internet system
to handshake with the VoIP systems to set up the call and send the necessary QSY
messages and frequency information for the radio to instantly tune and complete the call.
Think of it as a cellular system for ham radio where you dial by callsign instead of phone
number. Both TM-D710GA/E and TH-D74A/E were designed to be evolved with this
capability.
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