Part of our Getting On The Air: Modes, Operations, and Making Contacts guide.
D-STAR predates both DMR and System Fusion as a widely adopted amateur digital voice standard, developed originally through a collaboration involving the Japan Amateur Radio League and commercialized primarily through Icom. Its networking model, built around reflectors and gateways rather than talkgroups, works a little differently than the other digital modes covered on this blog, and understanding that difference is most of what you need to get on the air.
Callsign routing: D-STAR’s signature feature
D-STAR’s most distinctive capability is direct callsign routing, letting you route a call specifically to another operator’s callsign rather than just broadcasting to a general talkgroup, and the network will find that station wherever their radio currently happens to be logged in, anywhere in the world. This is a genuinely different way of thinking about digital voice compared to DMR’s talkgroup model, closer to placing a call to a specific person than joining a general chat room.
Reflectors: D-STAR’s version of talkgroups
For group conversations, D-STAR uses reflectors, internet-connected servers that link multiple repeaters and hotspots together into one shared conversation, functionally similar in purpose to a DMR talkgroup or a Fusion Wires-X room, just implemented through D-STAR’s own specific network architecture. Reflectors are identified by a naming convention like REF, XRF, or DCS followed by a number and a module letter, and connecting your local repeater or hotspot to a specific reflector links you into whatever conversation is active there.
What you need to get started
- A D-STAR capable radio, most commonly Icom, though Kenwood’s TH-D74 and TH-D75 handhelds also speak D-STAR, and a few other manufacturers have released compatible models as well.
- Your callsign set correctly in the radio, and, depending on the network, a registration. Callsign routing on some gateway-connected repeaters has historically required registering your callsign with that gateway system, while reflector use through most modern repeaters and personal hotspots only needs your callsign entered properly. Ask your local repeater owner what their system expects.
- Access to a local D-STAR repeater, or a personal hotspot running D-STAR-compatible hotspot software, giving you network access without needing a repeater nearby at all.
Programming your radio for D-STAR
D-STAR channels require entering not just frequency and offset but also your own callsign, the repeater’s callsign, and the specific destination, whether that is a reflector, a specific individual callsign, or a general CQ call. This four-field structure, UR, RPT1, RPT2, and MY, feels unfamiliar at first coming from analog FM, but it maps directly to the callsign-routing concept that makes D-STAR distinctive once you have set it up once or twice. The good news is that most current Icom D-STAR radios, along with Kenwood’s TH-D74 and TH-D75, have a DR mode with a built-in repeater list, often sortable by GPS distance, so you pick a nearby repeater and a destination from menus and the radio fills in RPT1, RPT2, and UR for you. Linking a repeater or hotspot to a reflector is typically done by putting a link command in the UR field, such as the reflector name and module, and an unlink command when you are done, following whatever conventions the repeater owner publishes.
D-STAR’s community today
D-STAR’s user base and repeater coverage vary significantly by region, generally strongest in areas with an established Icom dealer presence and long-running local D-STAR repeater infrastructure. Checking what reflectors and repeaters are actually active in your area before investing heavily in D-STAR-specific gear is worth doing, exactly as it is with any of the digital voice modes, since a technically excellent network with little local activity will feel a lot quieter than one with a smaller feature set but an active regional community behind it.
See how D-STAR compares to the alternatives in our DMR vs. D-STAR vs. YSF rundown, or check out Getting Started with DMR and Getting Started with Yaesu System Fusion.