D Star emulation. (Astar)

[Bob Bruninga]

The real boon to D-star will be the first person to take one of the D-star
CODEC dongles, and write some analog gateway software and connect it to an
Analog APRS repeater.  This would be called an "A-STAR" repeater.

All of the callsign handshaking on the ANALOG side is done by APRS radios
which can include their callsign in every transmission (PTT mode), including
the callsign of who they want to talk to.  On the receive side of the analog
side, the APRS display on the front panel of the radio displays the
callsigns of who is connected (and where!).

So APRS (built into now 8 different models of radio) does all the signaling,
callsign handling, and ID, and the GATEWAY then passes this over to the
"D-STAR" network and to everyone on D-STAR it looks like a D-STAR call.

Surely someone can write this simple A-STAR gateway code.  And then the
other 98% of ham radio operators (that do not have D-star) can participate
in UNIVERSAL-BY-CALLSIGN voice contact.

Please see:   http://aprs.org/avrs.html

Such a software writer would be considered a hero by 98% of ham radio
operators and a traitor by the 2%.

Bob, WB4APR