FWARC DStar Operation and Conduct

• Traffic Priority
  1. Highest: Actual emergency communication. Immediately yield the system to any station declaring an emergency. Offer to help any station declaring an emergency. If you are not actively helping with the emergency, do not transmit.
  2. Emergency communication nets, drills and practice. Emergency communications personel conducting official business will always have high priority.
  3. Regularly scheduled nets. Either of local origin, or nets originating from elsewhere on the interconnected network of repeaters.
  4. Scheduled or unscheduled repeater maintenance and testing.
  5. Lowest: Routine traffic between licensed amateurs.


• Common Courtesy (The Amateur's Code: Paul Segal W9EEA, 1929)
  1. A Radio Amateur is Considerate…never knowingly operating in such a way as to lessen the pleasure of others.
  2. A Radio Amateur is Loyal…offering loyalty, encouragement and support to other amateurs, local clubs and the American Radio Relay League, through which Amateur Radio in the United States is represented nationally and internationally.
  3. A Radio Amateur is Progressive…with knowledge abreast of science, a well built and efficient station, and operation beyond reproach.
  4. A Radio Amateur is Friendly…with slow and patient operation when requested, friendly advice and counsel to the beginner, kindly assistance, co-operation and consideration for the interests of others. These are the hallmarks of the amateur spirit.
  5. A Radio Amateur is Balanced…Radio is an avocation, never interfering with duties owed to family, job, school or community.
  6. A Radio Amateur is Patriotic…with station and skill always ready for service to country and community.


• Common Sense
  1. If you are unsure how to operate the repeater's features, please don't perform experiments. Ask for help over the air.
  2. While your callsign is digitally encoded along with your digital audio transmissions, you are encouraged to say your callsign verbally occasionally as well. Some people are driving or cannot look at their transceiver screen to see who is transmitting.
  3. Do not acknowledge transmissions from unlicensed stations. Do not discuss unlicensed transmissions or interference with others over the air. Persons deliberately causing interference will stop sooner if there is no noticeable effect caused by their interference.
  4. The Control operator is Perry Angiono - WB7NIL (wb7nil@fwarc.org). Contact dstar@fwarc.org if you have concerns about what is currently going on with the repeater.


• Use of the WA7DRE Affiliated Repeaters
  1. Leave plenty of time between key-ups...don't quick-key. This is especially important on D-STAR. Others cannot send link or unlink commands while you are talking. A 3 second pause between transmissions is recommended.
  2. Kerchunking is OK on D-STAR. Your callsign will be announced over all of the connected links. This is similar to just saying your callsign over the air on an analog repeater system.
  3. Please be knowledgable about when when nets will occur. Before unlinking the repeater, ask over the air if anyone would mind if you link it to another repeater or reflector.
  4. Please avoid lengthy conversations or rag-chews on the WA7FW and WA7DR repeaters/gateways system while it is connected to a reflector, as it usually is. To avoid all D-STAR operators in Washington from having to listen to your long conversations, connect to an unused channel on a reflector. Or connect the repeater directly to the repeater that your friend is using. Also consider buying or making a local hotspot for your home or neighborhood so you don't have to use excessive time on the repeaters.
  5. Soap boxing, which goes hand-in-hand with overly long conversations, is when people carry on a conversation on the repeater that is a thinly disguised broadcast. The subject is generally to "put down" an institution, group, or an individual for as wide as possible an audience. This is very objectionable to other repeater users and listeners. Using the club’s repeaters as a platform for soap boxing is unacceptable. Conversations on the repeaters should be friendly ones. Do not make them negative commentaries on institutions, groups, or people. Avoid discussions on inappropriate subjects including politics, sex and religion! Don’t use the repeaters to "put people down." Amateur Radio is not a broadcast medium – 97.113(5)(b).
     
     Are we talking about censorship? No, far from it. A person may have the right to stand on the street and say bad things about someone. They don’t have the same right when they are a guest in that person’s house. When using either the WA7FW or WA7DR repeater, you are a guest operator of our stations. No one has any right to use the club affiliated repeaters in ways that the club leadership feel are objectionable as described herein.
  6. Permission to use any FWARC affiliated repeater is at the discretion of the leadership at the Federal Way Amateur Radio Club. Abuse of the repeater system is grounds for your usage privileges to be revoked.


• D-STAR Callsign Registration on the WA7FW and WA7DR gateway
  1. If your callsign is registered on the either gateway, be sure to keep your email address current. If your email address is out of date and email messages we send to you bounce back, your registration will be immediately deleted and you will no longer be able to use D-STAR. Similarly, if you ignore messages from us, or do not reply to our messages, your registration may also be deleted. This will happen even if your government issued amateur radio license is current and valid. We cannot authorize you to use the global D-STAR network unless we can contact you.
  2. If your callsign is registered on the either gateway, and you allow your government issued amateur radio license to expire, your registration will be immediately deleted and you will no longer be able to use D-STAR.
  3. We cannot register your callsign on our gateway unless you are licensed in the United States. We don't know the rules for amateur radio operators in your country, so we cannot authorize your use of D-STAR. Please seek to become registered at a D-STAR gateway in your country.