There are no inherent services such as email in a D-STAR system but it uses normal TCP/IP connectivity to allow for email, FTP, HTTP, chat and the like. In this case, the D-star system radio itself has an IP Address. This IP Address can be routed to the Internet via the Gateway (G Module) as long as that has been configured and an internet connection exists.
As an example, the ICOM ID-1 (
http://www.icomamerica.com/en/products/amateur/dstar/id1/default.aspx) actually has an RJ-45 ethernet jack on it that you can connect to a computer to the radio and get the full 128Kbps connection from the radio to the A module repeater. This can either be repeated to another D-STAR local user on the A module (e.g. FTP from their computer to yours) or out the gateway to the internet for email, web browsing, etc.
From a data perspective, this is very similar to connecting your cell phone to your laptop; the radio is simply the connection mechanism between the two data end-points. D-STAR is really sweet in that it uses TCP/IP so lots of ‘interesting’ data routing can take place but also the mechanism is as comfortable as what you are used to via your internet connection at home.
http://ladstar.org/ has some great tutorials. The way that I’ve come to know the system is by trying to keep the data portion of the system separate from the voice portion so that I can process them separately in my mind and then grow to understand that it’s really one “system” made up of only a few components.
HTH,
/Jeff
