W4FJ – D Star Gateway Information

The W4FJ repeaters operate on

147.255 (+600 Khz) — 443.7125 (+5 Mhz) — 1284.0000 (-20 Mhz)

The repeaters have a 50 megabit internet connection to the D Star gateway.

Any user who is registered on a D Star gateway is welcome to use to the repeaters and to establish links. DV Dongle and DVAP users are welcome to connect to and link the repeaters.

It is perfectly acceptable to key your mic without saying anything as your callsign is being transmitted when you key up, and this will provide some information regarding repeater status that will be displayed on your radio.

Weekdays from 7:00 am to 7:00 pm the VHF module is connected to Reflector 062C, but users are welcome to unlink from Reflector 062C and establish another link. The D Star repeaters in Northern Virginia, Hampton and Maryland typically stay connected to this reflector creating a wide area repeater that covers much of Virginia and the DC area.

We request that you return the link status of the repeaters to the way you found them when you have finished using the repeaters.

If your radio is GPS enabled, please turn off the GPS beacon feature and set the radio only to transmit GPS when you manually key the radio. Otherwise, your callsign will be transmitted at the selected intervals (as short as every five minutes) over every repeater which is connected to the same reflector as our repeaters are connected to.

You can check the link status by transmitting the “I” command for status information. You will hear a voice response of “Link connected” and see the name of the reflector or the callsign of the linked repeater if there is one. Or you may hear, “Link not established.” To check the link status of the VHF module you would set your frequency to 147.255 (+600). In the UR field set W4FJ***I. In the RPT1 field set W4FJ***C. In the RPT2 field set W4FJ***G. In this example, the * represents a space.

Learn how to use the “Unlink” command and consider programming that into a memory channel for the VHF and UHF modules if you will be establishing links. The “U” unlink command works just like the “I” command for status information in the above example.

If you have computer or smartphone access to the internet, you can see the current link status of the repeaters by viewing the D Plus Dashboard at http://w4fj.dstargateway.org/. This site will also show the callsigns of the “last heard” stations. If a callsign displays in orange, you can click on the callsign to see the location from which the station last transmitted.

Registration on any gateway gives you access to the full D Star system. Consistent with other D Star repeaters, we ask that you register on the closest gateway enabled D Star repeater to your home QTH. If we are your closest D Star repeater, you may request registration with us. If you have not registered on any D Star gateway, you can go to https://w4fj.dstargateway.org/Dstar.do to register. It may take a day for your registration to become effective.