Last month, I discovered a new ham radio RoIP app known as The Peanut, written by Dutch ham and software guy PA7LIM. It offers a Windows-based virtual transceiver with a large display window, a VU/S meter & a drop-down box offering several dozen talk channels. Some of the channels are strictly talk rooms with no RF connection, while others link directly to active DMR and D-Star servers and repeaters, much like EchoLink does. Peanut also scans any six channels of your choice. The entire setup is free, and users must submit an image of their ham license to be allowed in.
So everything was great until yesterday, when I received an e-mail from the Connecticut D-Star management council, asking me to stop using reflector D69C, which is the main Connecticut D-Star server, because I'm not a registered DStar user and I'm causing confusion on the system. I have now applied to become a D-Star user - but I believe I SHOULDN'T HAVE TO. I'm legally using the app and D69c is offered as an option to every operator on the system. Somebody didn't get the memo. I was never big on D-Star to begin with: 1. I 'm not a fan of ICOM and; 2. DMR is a better, more flexible and cheaper choice.
So everything was great until yesterday, when I received an e-mail from the Connecticut D-Star management council, asking me to stop using reflector D69C, which is the main Connecticut D-Star server, because I'm not a registered DStar user and I'm causing confusion on the system. I have now applied to become a D-Star user - but I believe I SHOULDN'T HAVE TO. I'm legally using the app and D69c is offered as an option to every operator on the system. Somebody didn't get the memo. I was never big on D-Star to begin with: 1. I 'm not a fan of ICOM and; 2. DMR is a better, more flexible and cheaper choice.