145.110 MHz, -600KHz Offset, 100Hz Tone
443.500 MHz, +5MHz Offset, 100Hz Tone
The VE6IDK repeater is located near the Grain Elevator Museum landmark in Spruce Grove, AB
Grid DO33bm
Lat 53.539758, Lon -113.903365.
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The primary use of the repeater is for the AllStarLink network.
Prioritizing communication etiquette, the AllStarLink repeater mandates a "listen before transmit" approach. This ensures no possible connected network will be interrupted.
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Indeed, the repeater is versatile, thus supporting analog mode by itself.
The VE6IDK AllStarLink Repeater remains usually disconnect from any nodes. Nodes can be connect at any time of your preference.
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Most importantly: Transmit. Warm up the airwaves. Let other hams know you are there. Start a QSO. Make new friends. NEVER WORRY THAT YOU ARE “TYING UP THE SYSTEM” – IT’S THERE TO BE USED.
First Rule of AllStar:
If you don’t want to interact with AllStar, then don’t. The repeater will work just fine without doing a thing.
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Second Rule of Allstar:
Your normal FM radio works with AllStar – no special equipment needed. If you can talk on the repeater, you can use AllStar.
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Basic Allstar Commands
AllStar adds and removes links based on DTMF commands starting with a * (star)
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ALWAYS announce your DTMF dialing intentions with VOICE before performing the touch tones. “This is (my call sign) dialing node (x)” Commands are not propagated to other nodes unless specifically required (usually not).
*3(NODE) Connect a node
*1(NODE) Disconnect a node
*70 Announce all connected nodes. Voice announcement "node 600130 repeat only" means nothing connected
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What’s a Node?
• It’s just a number, like a short telephone number
• It is NOT a DMR ID
• Most nodes are a five-digit number
• Newer AllStarLink numbering is an “extension” to your existing node rather than assigning new numbers
• 60013, 600130, 600131, etc…
• Look up nodes by call sign, location, etc. at https://www.allstarlink.org/nodelist
• See what is linked at http://stats.allstarlink.org
• Find nodes by location on the map at https://stats.allstarlink.org/maps/allstarUSAMap.html
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Basic Operational Courtesy
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• Avoid quick-keying. This is ALWAYS a good practice, but it’s much more important with network-connected nodes. When it is your turn to speak press your PTT, then take a deep breath and wait before speaking.
• Leave at least a second after you hear the telemetry tone of the last transmission before you key up.
• Repeaters will have different courtesy tone lengths and hang times.
• Listen before you transmit after linking – be courteous about interrupting an in-progress QSO on a remote system.
• Be smart about linking up a big AllStar network mesh or a busy net
• Always unlink when you’re done, and don’t link many big networks together through our repeaters.
These are the ground rules:
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Every command must begin with a "Star" character ( * ).
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If a * is issued as part of a command string, it causes a reset of the decoder and the decode begins from the last entered * character. This is useful if you make a mistake; you just start again.
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Decoding is abandoned if the gap between digits is too long.
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Available Functions
*1 nnnn Disconnect specified link
*3 nnnn Connect to specified node in transceive mode
*33 nnnn Connect to Echolink node
*10 Disconnect last connected node,
*70 Announce all connected nodes
*77 Reconnect previously disconnected links
*69 Audio Playback - see note below
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Audio Playback (*69) works as follows. Push PTT hold, announce your callsign, Dial *69, wait approx 1 second and then speak again, release PTT and wait for the audio to come back.
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In the above list, nnnn represents the AllStar Link node number to connect to / disconnect from.
A list of active AllStar nodes can be found at this location.
AllStar connections only require the use of the *3 and *1 commands above.
Rules for invoking EchoLink connections.
Allstar treats ALL EchoLink node numbers as 6-digits long. Nodes with shorter numbers need to have leading zeroes added.
e.g. EchoLink node 1234 = AllStar Node 001234
Also, in order to distinguish EchoLink node numbers from AllStar numbers, the 6-digit number has to he prepended with a "3". So the example above becomes *33001234; a total of 7 digits.