How would you like a handheld device with a 7″ touchscreen that can get you on the D-STAR network for under  $200?  KG7NKG alerted us that he successfully used a Winbook TW 700 tablet with the ThumbDV™ and we just had to give it a go.

We purchased the Winbook TW 700 tablet for $59.99 (plus shipping) from Micro Center.  Also available at Amazon.

Upon receiving the box today, and going through the basic configuration of the pre-installed MicroSoft Windows 8.1 on the device, a ThumbDV™ was plugged into the standard USB port on the tablet.  After allowing for the automatic installation of the FTDI driver, it was time to give this package a try.  KG7NKG used  G4KLX’s DummyRepeater + ircDDBGateway so we installed DUTCH*Star’s beta Node DV (WinDV) which supports the ThumbDV™.  (Both packages work.)

Once the Node DV software was installed, which took less than 5 minutes, it was configured and a connection was made to REF001C using the built-in microphone and speakers.  QSOs were a success!!!

Cost of project (sans taxes and shipping):

Windows Tablet  $59.99
ThumbDV        $119.95
Node DV   (Please Donate)
Total          $179.94

That is the lowest cost of entry into D-STAR, using new equipment, this author has seen.  Just the right gift for your Amateur Radio Valentine.

Windows 8 tablet with ThumbDV Installed

This unit operates on the 13cm band (WiFi).

HP makes a similar 8″ tablet with WiFi plus 4G cellular networking for life on the T-Mobile network (see site for details). The Stream 8 from HP does not have a full sized USB, you will need an adapter to micro-USB/OTG.

Come by our booth at Hamcation® in Orlando and you can purchase a ThumbDV™ (or DV3000 for the Raspberry Pi/Odroid C1) on-site.

We have received a few inquiries about the functional difference between the DV3000 and ThumbDV™.

The ThumbDV™ is a thumb or dongle type DV (digital voice) device for connection to a computer (PC, Laptop, Tablet, Raspberry Pi, Odroid, etc.) to provide access to AMBE encoding and decoding.  It is the more portable of the two devices in that you can plug it into any USB (2.0 or greater) port on a computer and access it as a serial port via appropriate software to get into the D-STAR system.

ThumbDV™ – DV3000U

The DV3000 is designed to use the GPIO UART pins on a Raspberry Pi (including Raspberry Pi 2 and compatible devices such as the Odroid C1)  to provide access to AMBE encoding and decoding.  It can be adapted to other similar devices using jumper wires to connect the UART, but only maps to Raspberry Pi GPIO pins.

DV3000 – GPIO Attached

From a software point of view they are equivalent and are accessed as serial ports (COMx under Windows,  tty? under Linux/Mac OS X, UDRx) at 230.4 kbps.  Software for using these devices includes G4KLX’s DummyRepeater,  DUTCH*Star’s Node DV (WinDV), and modified versions of DSD (developers have modified for use with the ThumbDV™/DV3000 for monitoring DMR, Fusion, P25 Phase 2, etc. — contact the developers for more information).

Visit the resource page for additional information.

Budd updates us on his experience setting up the ThumbDV™ under Windows using Node DV (WinDV) from DUTCH*Star (at the current time, you need to request the beta version that supports the ThumbDV™ from DUTCH*Star via email).

Also, there is an updated setup guide from the folks at AmateurLogic.tv

™

A number of customers have reported anecdotally that the ThumbDV™ and DV3000 have good audio, but is that just perception or is there some truth to it? I spoke with Rich Kovars, Applications Engineer at DVSI, who talked about the ThumbDV™/DV3000 3000 chip vs the Dongle’s¹ 2020.

From the DVSI Website:

“DVSI’s AMBE-2020™ and AMBE-3000™ Vocoder chips, are both DSTAR compatible. iCOM originally introduced the DSTAR system based on the AMBE-2020™ Vocoder chip that utilizes DVSI’s AMBE+ technology. Since that time, DVSI has developed and produced the AMBE-3000™ Vocoder chip that implements DVSI’s latest generation AMBE+2 technology and is fully interoperable with the the AMBE-2020™ vocoder chip used for DSTAR. The enhancements of AMBE+2™ technology in the AMBE-3000™ vocoder chip can provide superior voice quality in some circumstances. The highest level of voice quality can be achieved when the AMBE-3000™ Vocoder chip (or equivalent software²) is incorporated into the equipment used on both ends of the radio link.”

So the answer is a definite maybe.

1 The DV Dongle is manufactured by Internet Labs.
2 Current ICOM D-STAR products use a software vocoder that incorporates the 3000 advancements.

Because the ThumbDV™ attaches to a computer using USB, it is clearly a “Computer Peripheral” as defined by the FCC and is required to meet the Part 15 Subpart B standard for conducted and radiated emissions.

We sent a sample unit to Nemko-CCL, an accredited test lab in Utah, and they performed testing to the following standards:

• EU: EN5022:2010
• USA: FCC Part 15, Subpart B
• CAN: ICES-003, Issue 5
• AUS/NZL: CISPR 22:2009

After passing all tests, a Declaration of Conformity was issued by Nemko-CCL and as of today all units are shipped with a sticker on the back.

We have now shipped over 300 DV3000s, and the ThumbDV™ will soon pass it for units delivered. There are currently 200 more units in process.

Out of the Box MFG, our local assembly house in Renton WA, does a great job on their SMT line which includes automated optical inspection or AOI. We physically tested all of the first 100 units and found 1 failure, which was attributed to a bad AMBE3000 IC, probably due to hot plugging the board during test.

At this point we stopped functional testing and now rely on AOI to flag any assembly issues for operator inspection or remedy. We have had one working unit returned as suspect but it turned out to be a failed R-Pi and the DV3000 was returned to service with no charge to the customer.

I want to thank Chad, Paul, Brian and all of the people at Out of the Box for their hi-quality and reasonable cost assembly services.

Bryan – K7UDR

Statement of Origin:

The DV3000 and ThumbDV™ are assembled in the USA by Out of the Box from globally manufactured components obtained thru Dig-Key and Mouser. The PCB Fabs are made in China.

Tommy Martin, N5ZNO, shares his experience with the ThumbDV™ on Episode 77

The Germans have done it again!

From the folks that brought us the ircDDB network, we hear from Hans-Jürgen Barthen, DL5DI, that there is now a gateway between D-STAR (DCS Gateways) and Hytera DMR Repeaters using the AMBEServer with either the DV3000 or ThumbDV™.  This gateway is in use at a handful of DMR repeaters in Germany and Austria with systems soon to be implemented in Sweden and Switzerland.

You can download executables for the gateway and combine with the AMBEServer to create your own gateway. The software does D-STAR callsign to DMR radio ID mapping and transports audio between networks using the Hytera API.

Another step toward Universal Digital Radio from the community of amateur radio developers using products from NW Digital Radio.

When you run WinDV (DV Node for Windows), for the first time you need to configure it for the ThumbDV.

Select Tools-Options

• Select ThumbDV as your “RF Device”
• Select the COM Port that the ThumbDV is connected to
  • Check Device Manager for “USB Serial Port”
• Baud Rate must be 230400
• Enter your Callsign
  • Callsign is used for connection to gateways. An A,B, or C is required to connect to DExtra  Reflectors (XRFxxx)
  • Auth Call is used with US Trust Registration to connect to DPLUS Reflectors (REFxxx)
  • Callsign / is used for ID
• Configure the Sound Card to use your desired input and output
• Select a Callsign Server.  DUTCH*Star and Free*Star provide additional reflectors.  If the server is down select another.

The default Tools-Settings will provide basic operation and don’t require any changes.

Close then restart WinDV

The ThumbDV Status should be RUNNING and the Version is read from the AMBE3000 chip on the ThumbDV. If both of these are correct your ThumbDV is working properly.

Press XMIT, even if you are not connected to a Gateway, and the RED/GREEN LEDs on the ThumbDV will flash.

The ThumbDV is not connected to your network or sound system. If you are having difficulties with either of them, you need to trouble-shoot those as Windows System issues.

If you like WinDV make sure to donate to Fred!

Beginning with orders placed after July 9th, 2015 a new revision of the ThumbDV™ will be shipped.

The only difference between the original ThumbDV™ and the new model ‘A’ is that the USB serial port will now operate at 460800 baud instead of 230400 baud.  Programs like WinDV, DummyRepeater, and AMBEserver have been updated  to support both baud rates.  It may take a few days for DummyRepeater to be pushed out with the change.

There is no change for D-STAR applications except selecting the faster baud rate.

Note: At this time we recommend using DummyRepeater with ‘AMBEserver -n’ (-n is for new baud rate) for best performance with model ‘A’.

The latest source for AMBEserver can be found at GitHub.

Why are we changing the baud rate?

NW Digital Radio has been working with some OEM customers who will be integrating the ThumbDV™ into their products, including DMR based systems, and their existing programs use the higher baud rate to communicate with the AMBE3000 chip.  Moving to the higher rate allows these customers to more quickly integrate these systems.

Will older ThumbDV™ devices continue to be supported and sold?

NW Digital Radio will support ThumbDV™ both original and ‘A’ models.

Our inventory of original ThumbDV™ dongles sold out on the same day that the new model ‘A’ was delivered from the Washington State assembly house.  We do not plan to manufacture any additional 230400 baud ‘original’ ThumbDV™ dongles.

All new orders will receive the ThumbDV™ model ‘A’

What about the DV3000?

There are no plans to move the DV3000 (GPIO) to a different baud rate.  However, it is relatively easy for the user to modify the boards to support additional baud rates through trace cutting and jumpers.

There has been some confusion, hopefully the following will help clear it up.

The ability to do vocoding for DMR, D-STAR, Fusion, P25 Phase 2, etc. is built into the AMBE 3000 chip.  The new Model ‘A’ only changes the baud rate that the serial port passes packets to and from the chip.  It does not change any other capability between the original and Model ‘A’.

The 230400 baud rate is sufficient for all of these protocols.  The OEM(s) we are working with are swapping out another USB AMBE-3000 device with the ThumbDV. That other device was strapped at 460800 and they just want to swap it out.

It doesn’t make sense for us to make 2 models, one strapped at 230400 and one strapped at 460800 so we are now making all units strapped at the higher baud rate.

There is no secret, hidden, message here.  It’s a simple baud rate change that we wanted customers to be aware of, nothing more.

Here is the math:

There is literally nothing different than the selected baud rate, implemented in an update printed circuit board that changes what lines are strapped down.

The AMBE 3000 chip provides the vocoding, and only the vocoding.  The various protocols embed the vocoding in their respective data streams.  The ‘devices’ (e.g. AMBE 3000 boards, dongles, etc.) are not involved in the actual protocols, only in turning voice into AMBE and AMBE into voice.

Please view John Speaks on DV Modes at MicroHams to see how digital voice systems are built up.

FlexRadio Systems®, the premier manufacturer of amateur radio SDR transceivers, will soon release an update to their SmartSDR™ software in support of the JARL’s D-STAR standard through installing the ThumbDV™ Waveform Module into SmartSDR™.

Owners of FLEX-6000™ Signature Series transceivers may add AMBE encoding/decoding to their radios by inserting the ThumbDV™ into one of the available USB ports.  Use of D-STAR digital voice mode will then be enabled through SmartSDR™ software.

​“The partnership of NW Digital Radio and FlexRadio Systems forged at DCC last year has yielded a unique opportunity for FlexRadio owners to add the D-STAR mode to their FLEX-6000, as a component of our growing digital voice offerings.” said Steve Hicks, N5AC, VP Engineering for FlexRadio Systems®.

“It’s been great working with Flex to add D-STAR to their world class SDR and are excited about being a part of their ongoing development of digital voice modes.” said Bryan Hoyer, K7UDR, CEO of NW Digital Radio.

HF D-STAR is a growing mode with daily nets on all bands from 80-6 meters, as well as local VHF/UHF simplex and repeater networks.  For more information about HF D-STAR net operations please visit D-STAR HF Net

A real-time HF QSO finder can be found at HF D-STAR QSO Finder

The NW Digital Radio ThumbDV™ digital voice dongle will be available directly from FlexRadio Systems®, as well as from NW Digital Radio.

John Hays (K7VE) from NW Digital Radio and Steve Hicks (N5AC) from FlexRadio, will be available for questions, at the Huntsville Hamfest.

Press Contacts:
John Hays, Director, NW Digital Radio, k7ve@nwdigitalradio.com
Lori Hicks, Director Marketing Communications, FlexRadio Systems®, lori@flexradio.com

D-STAR is an open standard developed by the Japanese Amateur Radio League (JARL) under a grant from the Japanese Government
D-STAR is a wordmark of Icom Inc., in the United States and certain other countries.
AMBE-3000™ technology is developed and licensed by Digital Voice Systems Incorporated.
All other trademarks are registered to their respective owners.

Jeremy McDermond, NH6Z, undertook writing a native application for Mac OS® and it is now available on the  Mac App Store.

Buster is not a product of NW Digital Radio and support requests should go directly to Jeremy.

Jeremy has stated that the source code will be made publicly available via GitHub and he is open to collaboration for future versions.

It works with a ThumbDV™ on a Mac OS® USB port and with AMBEserver™, locally or over a network.  AMBEserver can support either the ThumbDV™ or PiDV™.

This application has been in beta for several months and is both stable and feature rich.  It takes advantage of several Mac OS® specific services.  For example, it will use Apple Core Location service to determine your current location and reports it via D-STAR.  It also provides mapping of remote stations who are reporting position.

There is one known issue:  The way that Mac OS® powers USB ports during its sleep state may cause communication issues with the the ThumbDV™ upon wake up.  Most casual users will not experience this condition. The condition is resolved by removing and re-inserting the ThumbDV™ into the USB port.  Linux and Microsoft Windows sleep state does not exhibit this condition.  Since FTDI USB drivers are not written by NW Digital Radio, buyers of the ThumbDV™ should consider this when making a purchase decision.

If you have a low latency and responsive Internet connection, you can place an AMBEserver directly on the Internet and access it remotely through Buster, DummyRepeater, or any other program that provides AMBEserver connectivity.

Raspberry Pi with PiDV and ThumbDV

The first step is to connect a PiDV™ to the GPIO of a Raspberry Pi or a ThumbDV™ to the USB port of a computer which will run the AMBEserver.  A Raspberry Pi is more than sufficient for this task and provides an economical platform for AMBEserver, however, the choice of computer is up to you.  Follow the directions on this page for a Raspberry Pi build and configuration.

Once you have built your AMBEserver, verify that it is working with the included Python scripts, ‘ambesocktest.py’ will test the UDP socket, it returns the AMBE-3000 model number repetitively until killed (with control-C) if the daemon is functioning properly on port 2460.

On your local network, configure Buster or DummyRepeater to access the AMBEserver on the LAN IP address of your AMBEserver. When you have a working AMBEserver, then it is time to make it available outside your LAN.

Buster Preferences for AMBEserver

DummyRepeater Preferences for AMBEserver

Since there are a variety of routers/firewalls/modems that connect you to your ISP it is beyond the scope of this article to provide specific instructions, but all that is required is to forward an external port (default 2460) on your public IP to the LAN IP address of your AMBEserver (e.g. 192.168.0.5) at the designated port (default 2460).  You may want to choose a different UDP port in your AMBEserver and for your public facing IP address.  If you use the same port for both, then you most likely can configure Buster or DummyRepeater once for use at home and away by using your public IP address (replace the LAN IP address or Localhost IP Address).

Now take your Buster or DummyRepeater system to a remote location and test accessing AMBEserver over the Internet using your public IP address.

The UDRC-II has generated renewed interest in Digital Radio. We were recently approached by a local club that wanted to make a group buy, so we’ve put together a quantity discount program.

Buy 5 of any of our products (they don’t have to be all the same) and receive a 5% discount. Use coupon:

club5

Or receive 10% off on 10 or more. Use coupon:

club10

You must place a single order to one shipping address to qualify.

Check out the Wiki pages for the newest documentation.

AMBE Wiki for information on the ThumbDV™, PiDV™, and AMBEserver

UDRC Wiki for information on using the UDRC™ for applications such as APRS™, dstarrepeater, direwolf, fldigi, and Xastir.

We have more information coming for application users, developers, and experimenters.

The ThumbDV™ is on sale through December 25th for $99.95, that’s a savings of $20 over list price.

ThumbDV™ – See the Resource Page for SW

NW Digital Radio team members will be presenting at The Northwest APRS Summer Gathering in North Bend (WA) on September 9th.

Topics to be presented will include:

• UDRX™ Status Update
• A Raspberry Pi Based ~1W Transceiver mentioned at the Dayton Hamvention® (Xenia)
• NetTNC an EMCOMM Appliance
• UDR-Tracker an APRS® Mobile Appliance
• ThumbDV™ New SW and Applications

To learn more about the APRS® event, subscribe  to the newsletter.

Presentations will be posted on the web after the gathering.

Note: NW Digital Radio team members will not be presenting at TAPR DCC in St. Louis this year.

ThumbDV™ – DV3000U

ThumbDV™ – DV3000U

There are some projects that are using multiple ThumbDV™ to handle transcoding digital voice data from one protocol to another.

In support of these projects NW Digital Radio is offering a 5% discount on the purchase of 2 or more ThumbDV™ on the same order, to the same address, through the end of 2017.

To receive this discount, simply order 2 or more ThumbDV™ and in the shipping cart input the coupon code transcode and the discount will be applied to your order.

If purchasing more than 10 items (ThumbDV™ or UDRC) on the same order, contact sales@nwdigitalradio.com to inquire about quantity discounts.

NW Digital Radio has been evolving over the last few years.  Our initial focus was to develop a 70cm radio focused specifically at higher speed digital communications for the amateur radio market.  This is still a goal, however, due to a series of conditions we cannot predict when this will happen.

While working on the various aspects of the radio we have been able to produce a series of products that have sustained the ongoing efforts of the company.

We have learned a lot in the process and will be taking that knowledge into new products going forward.

We at NW Digital Radio are problem solvers, and like the process of assembling a project from components, both hardware and software, and have delivered products based on that model.

For some products this model works very well, like our ThumbDV, which has been very successful when used with software like BlueDV, WinDV, AMBEserver, DummyRepeater, XLX/ambed, and more.  Thousands are finding that the ThumbDV is just the right product at the right price point and are successfully using it to communicate from computer, over the network, to Digital Voice protocols such as D-STAR, DMR, and more.

Other products, such as the UDRC and UDRC II, have allowed the creation of digital communications systems whether D-STAR repeaters,  fldigi workstations, Direwolf sound modem TNCs, or other soundcard DSP based systems.  Many of these projects have come about by experimentation and integration by individual amateurs working with open source software and our boards.

However, as we talk with customers and potential customers, we find that many are more interested in solutions that are prepackaged with hardware, software, and a case.  Basically, they want a “plug and play” solution that requires little to no integration beyond basic cabling to radios and some minor, guided, configuration.

In 2018, you will see NW Digital Radio evolving from a component provider to a solution provider.  We continue to be dedicated to products that leverage open source software and standard platforms, but will be focusing on delivering solutions that are pre-integrated with hardware, software, and packaging.

We will also continue to provide the experimenter and developer a platform that they can access and build upon.

Furthermore, we intend to use the kick starter model on some products where there appears to be an interest in the community, but where we need to know the level of that interest before proceeding with full inclusion of an idea into our product line.  If you find a product on our kick starter list, please support it, the risk to you is minimal, while helping us bring out innovative solutions.

Some of the projects we have under design at the current time include:

• A networked, multi-speed, TNC for packet radio
• An Emcomm workstation
• A device for combining multiple SDR-RTL dongles into a single platform
• An integrated low power radio/TNC

and more.

Look for these projects to roll out over the next few months.  We think 2018 is going to be a great year to continue to put “The Amateur back in Amateur Radio” —

Your NW Digital Radio team.