DStarQuery User's Guide

1.1b03
DStarQuery is Copyright (c) 2008 - Pete Loveall AE5PL [email protected]

Use of the software is acceptance of the agreement to not hold the author or anyone associated with the software liable
for any damages that might occur from its use.

APRS is a trademark of Bob Bruninga

Other trademarks included in the following text are recognized as belonging to the respective trademark holders.

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 Table of Contents
Section 1 - Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 3
Section 2 - Program Requirements and Description ............................................................................. 4
Section 3 - Configuration Parameters ................................................................................................... 5
General Parameters .......................................................................................................................... 5
stderr= ........................................................................................................................................... 5
DStarRadioPort=............................................................................................................................ 5
replyUnknown=true ........................................................................................................................ 5
Application Parameters ..................................................................................................................... 5
appname=app_command_line....................................................................................................... 5
Section 4 - Recommended Configurations ........................................................................................... 6
Section 5 - Installation Instructions ....................................................................................................... 7

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Section 1 - Introduction
DStarQuery was written to provide a universal query mechanism for Icom D-STAR enabled radios with a low speed port.

3 Wire
RS232

DStar Radio

APRS/Serial
Client

APRS Client
TCP/IP

javAPRSSrvr or To/From
D-PRS Interface Serial Port

DStarQuery
TCP/IP

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Section 2 - Program Requirements and Description
DStarQuery is designed to run on any OS with any recent Java Virtual Machine (1.1 or higher). The interface requires the
operating system and JVM to open the serial port in full duplex mode.

DStarQuery is comprised of a number of classes which Java looks at as objects. The main class is DStarQuery. This
class is called at startup, sets parameters, and begins execution of the different support threads.

DStarQuery works in conjunction with a Serial-to-TCP adapter such as is provided with javAPRSSrvr or D-PRS Interface.

DStarQuery monitors the serial data stream on the D-Star radio looking for a line starting with “?D*” and ending with “?”. If
such a line is seen, it then looks for the keyword in dstarquery.properties and runs the corresponding program returning
the program’s output to the radio for transmission. For instance, if “rptrs=cat repeaters.txt” is in dstarquery.properties and
a remote station sends “?D*rptrs?”, DStarQuery will respond with the contents of repeaters.txt (assuming you are running
on a Linux system). The quotes are for clarity here; they are not sent over the air.

You can also include command arguments. For instance, if “find=dstarfind.pl” and the remote station sends “?D*find
AE5PL?”, dstarfind.pl will be run with a parameter of AE5PL. This is a very flexible kiosk application.

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Section 3 - Configuration Parameters
The configuration parameters reside in a configuration file which, by default, is called dstarquery.properties. You can use
any text file if you pass the name into DStarQuery as a command line parameter.

The parameters are CASE SENSITIVE. Defaults are shown.

NOTE: UNLESS YOU REQUIRE A SETTING OTHER THAN THE DEFAULT, DO NOT INCLUDE ANY PARAMETERS
WITH DEFAULT SETTINGS.

General Parameters
stderr=
This can be used to send error messages to a file instead of to the console.

DStarRadioPort=
This is the IP address and port of the TCP port which talks directly to the serial port. The format is IPaddr:port

replyUnknown=true
If true, DStarQuery will respond with a “not found” message to unknown appnames.
Set to false if there are multiple DStarQuery servers on the frequency.

Application Parameters
appname=app_command_line
There is an entry for every “application” you wish to support. Appname is the name used by the remote station to ask for
the application to run. Appname must be in all lower case letters (numbers are ok too). The command line is exactly as
the application would be run on a command line. Arguments passed to DStarQuery from the remote station will be
appended to the command line in the dstarquery.properties file.

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Section 4 - Recommended Configurations
dstarquery.properties:

DStarRadioPort=127.0.0.1:24580
rptrs=cat repeaters.txt
find=dstarfind.pl
lclheard=dstarfind.pl locallast K5TIT

dstarfind.pl would be a perl script which goes out and looks at dstarusers.org for its information.

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Section 5 - Installation Instructions
Place the DStarQuery.jar file and the dstarquery.properties file in their own directory. Install either the latest Sun JDK or
JRE as directed by Sun (http://java.sun.com). Configure dstarquery.properties to match your installation. Start
DStarQuery by entering the following from the command prompt in the directory where you put the DStarQuery files:
java –cp DStarQuery.jar DStarQuery