As a backup to some local DSTAR machines that require a bit more than a HT on low power with a rubber duck antenna to access, I thought it would be nice to install a DV Hotspot in my house. The traditional approach of using a DVAP hooked up to a PC sounded klunky and power hungry. Some folks were making devices like that using a RPi.
DVmega came out with their dual band board designed to plug into a RPi, and that seemed ideal. I discovered that Gigaparts was offering a DVMega Pi3 2M/70cm Kit that seemed ideal. Most appealing was that the OS was already loaded along with the repeater and ircDDB Gateway software. Sounded pretty turnkey.
The case, shown above, went together nicely. Note the DVmega dual band board is not installed so that the special mounting frame is visible in the top.
Sure enough the RPi3 booted, and the GUI came up with a ircDDB Gateway and Repeater screen, plus the “readme” instruction file. The later was VERY simple, suggesting that your callsign be plugged into a few places, the proper RF module selected, followed by a reboot, and life would be wonderful.
Life was only partially wonderful…
The RF side seemed to work well. It heard my HT (configured to talk to the hotspot WB4SON C and WB4SON G in RPT1/RPT2). The hotspot send my repeater information over the air.
However, nothing I could do would get the gateway functions to work. The gateway status screen always showed it as disconnected.
I’ve been working that problem for about 10 hours so far today. I’m still not sure if it is a DPLUS registration issue (needing a WB4SON C “terminal ID” to be registered with the US Trust) or if it is a port forwarding issue.
Details will follow as I make progress.
