Travis has started to hack a Kenwood DStar radio

[VK3KYY]

Slightly off topic, but of general interest.

Travis Goodspeed, who originally developed the MD-380 tools has started to hack a Kenwood DStar radio

https://kk4vcz.com/posts/th-d74-firmware/
And got a feature on Hackaday
https://hackaday.com/2020/07/14/high-en ... e-secrets/

I'm not entirely sure what the attraction is to this radio. It is 3 band, so for American operators the 220Mhz band is a bonus, and it has a nice display.

But nothing else seems that interesting.

I can't find a definite price for these radios, Amazon.com dont have any for sale, and the only site I can find a price, listed the full price as $574 USD !!!

[m1dyp]

wow, its not cheap, here in the uk.

https://www.hamradio.co.uk/amateur-radi ... d-7010.php

think I will stick to my gd77

[VK3KYY]

wow, its not cheap, here in the uk.

https://www.hamradio.co.uk/amateur-radi ... d-7010.php

think I will stick to my gd77

Yep.

My thoughts exactly.

The RF hardware on the GD-77 is actually quite good, so it definitely wins on value for money.

[kt4lh]

DStar is semi common in some places, but much less so than DStar or Fusion. I wonder if he's going to make it work with DMR?

[VK3KYY]

DStar is semi common in some places, but much less so than DStar or Fusion. I wonder if he's going to make it work with DMR?

I think the chip only handles the previous version of AMBE, so it would not be capable of DMR unless he writes a software encoder, which would be problematic from a legal standpoint.

We use the AMBE encoder binary section that came with the radio, in an unmodified for, we literally have to wrap the rest of the code around the codec, because we can't move where its located in ROM or change what RAM it uses.