EI4GCG Galway Allstar Gateway

Galway 4 Metre Allstar Gateway Parameters

Frequency .................................... 70.425 MHz        

CTCSS Encode and Decode ....... 77Hz 

Power Output .............................. 20 Watts  

Antenna ...................................... 1/2 wave vertical

AllstarLink is a worldwide network of Repeaters, Remote Gateways and Personal Hotspots linked together via the internet and/or private IP networks. AllstarLink can run on a dedicated Linux computer or Raspberry Pi hosted at home or a remote site. Allstar is open source GPL software free for anyone to use.

Allstar Link has become popular on a worldwide basis and yet only one station existed in the Republic of Ireland with a further four located in Northern Ireland. The UK is well populated with Allstar Nodes and many are connected to the Supernode, UK HUBNET, which, in turn, connects many Repeaters and Gateways throughout the UK.

The quality of audio from the Allstar system is excellent and it is a user friendly system without too many commands.

Worldwide Distribution of Allstar nodes

There is a good distribution of Allstar Nodes around the world so a contact is always possible

There is a wide distribution of Allstar Nodes in the UK, however, very little in Ireland. The Galway Node only recently went on the air.

One excellent feature is the Bubble Connection map showing the node with all of its connections.

As illustrated there is a huge number of connections to the UK HUBNET node which is shown by the blue shaded bubble in the centre of the diagram. No excuses for no QSO after a call into this system.
 

The Galway 4 metre Allstar Gateway 

The Galway 4 Metre Allstar Node was easy to build using a M0AQC modified CM108 fob fitted into a plastic case. This connects, via a USB lead to the Raspberry Pi. A second lead connects to the radio bringing audio levels to and from the radio plus the PTT line and Carrier sense.

The TX Audio, RX Audio, COS, and PTT lines are brough out to a 15 pin accessory plug for connection into a Tait radio.

 

A Low Band Tait TM8110 was programmed for use on the Gateway. The radio was easy enough to program for one channel only with CTCSS Decode and Encode tones, power level of 20 watts and the various outputs and inputs from the accessory pins.

It is important to organise a cooling fan for the radio. The heatsink does get quite warm with a heavy duty cycle. Unfortunately radio amateurs do waffle on a bit!

The Asterisk Program, the controlling software, can be downloaded from the Ham VIOP Webpage where all the instructions for setting it up are included. 

Setting it up was not easy but if one follows the instructions from Ben Topham, G5REV, it is a good starting point. In this YouTube Video one will be 99% of the way to completion. Allstar Set Up The only other stumbling block is the set up of the Internet Router.

This is the completed set up which needs to be in a small rack with a coooling fan to force air across the heatsink. 

Prior to building the 4 Metre Allstar Node, a 70 Cm Personal Node was acquired from M0AQC, mainly to find out what activity can be found on  Allstar.

The only difference between the Allstar 4 metre Gateway was that a 70cm Baofeng 888S was modified to output a few milliwatts from the Driver Stage with the PA stage removed. This will give a good range around the home QTH. The Raspberry Pi was configured almost exactly the same way as for the Gateway. I used DCS Squelch on this systems as I was getting spurious transmission using CTCSS. This was courting some snotty remarks from the users of HUBNET and quite rightly so.

Ben Topham, 2E0BMT/G5REV, produces a complete kit of parts to build a 70cm Allstar personal Node. He also produced a 6 part YouTube video series showing a step by step build.

A picture of the completed G5REV kit

In this kit, one has to modify the CM108 fob and bring out leads for the Audio in and Audio out, PTT, and Carrier sense (COS). The Baofeng CM 888-S is stripped down and modified for low power use. Subsequent videos in the video series will cover the software set up and parameters to be set up in the Router.

Allstar Commands

 Mandatory Commands

*1 Disconnet from Link

*2 Connect to Node in RX Mode only

*3 Connect To Node in Transceiver mode

*4 Command Mode of Controlling node

 Optional Command codes

*80 Forces system ID

*81 Say System Time

*980 Say app_rpt Software version

*75 Link connect (Local Monitor only)

*72 Last Active node (System-wide)

* 71 Disconnect All links (Macro)

*74 Reconnect all links (Macro)

Note to connect to a node Always - *3##### where ##### is the node number to connect to

To Disconnect from a node Always - *1##### where ##### is the node number to disconnect from

Once one has successfully set up the parameters and software there is very little to operating Allstar. The audio quality is excellent although some operators do tend to over or under drive their audio levels. Make sure you have yours set right! This system is more active than EchoLink. It is possible to add Echolink to the software but it would be a retrograde step