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Radio
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Written by Dan
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Monday, 15 June 2009 14:28 |
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The "Nifty! Ham Accessories" company publishes a large number of quick reference guides and manuals for a variety of ham hardware and software. I think the most popular items are the nifty guides which are pocket-sized cheat sheets for today's complex radios. Recently, the "Nifty E-Z Guide to D-STAR operation" was released as a small paperback book. It covers a wide range of D-STAR topics such as programming the radios, using repeaters and gateways, as well as operation of the DV dongle. I was happy to hear that D-RATS was mentioned in Chapter 8, titled "DV Mode Slow-speed Data". 
The author covers the basic steps to get a D-RATS station configured and on the air, as well as the highlights of various bits of functionality, including beacons, file transfers, and networked operation. If you're a hard-core D-RATS user and are plugged into the new 0.3 beta versions then the screenshots will look a little dated since the book (obviously) covers the currently-released version. However, if you're an average user looking for a good reference guide to keep by your rig, this will cover all the basics and could prove quite valuable as a last-minute D-STAR/D-RATS refresher. Check it out!
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