W7MOT DStar Gateway Status 4 February 2010

W7MOT Gateway is Down

The W7MOT Gateway server is currently OFF as of approximately 8:00 am Wednesday 20 January 2010.

I apologize for this late announcement but I was out of town at the time of this failure. The nature of the failure must have caused an immediate (verses a smooth controlled) shutdown of the server. Linux servers do not like power removed unexpectedly.

It a new year, 2010. So what happened to W7MOT DStar ?

Sometimes it seems we are so busy and into our hobby that it's difficult to appreciate what has been accomplished. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew there was more to DStar than just some new fad with some difficult to understand features. The system sounded complex. The features a bit mistifying, and how to run one of these systems haunted me, because I know that complex things just have more to pay attention to and more opportunity for something to go amiss. I figured this project would be a club project demanding more membership involvement than just a plain Jane analog FM digi repeater with a few mountain top links. For those not into DStar, you're missing something special and different. For those into DStar one needs to stop and comprehend what massive amounts of technology application when into making the system work. Is it successful? Many think the jury is still out. Many think it is all designed wrong with badly applied standards and mis-understood common technology (mostly the Not Invented Here crowd). My experience with DStar seems to support the idea it is expanding. As Amateur Radio hobbiest, this is a jump, making the old concept of repeaters much more trivial in the overall picture. You gotta be a good repeater person just to get the right to talk about DStar. One measure of success is how much is it catching on. I've got a few numbers to share about growth at just W7MOT.