Router Port Forwarding for D-Star

If you want others to be able to link inbound to your Hotspot, you will need to configure your router to "port forward" certain ports to the PC that is running the Hotspot application.  While  routers use different terminology and configuration procedures, the concept is similar for all of them.  You will need to dig out your router logon information and (re)learn how to log on to it.  You may not have done this since you first set up your home network.  Check out www.portforward.com for info on how to set up portforwarding on your particular router.

When your program connects out to a server on the internet using a special port, your router will remember which PC in the home network used that port, and when an response comes back to that port, your router will send it to that PC.

But when a server attempts to connect into your system using a special port, your router won't know which device in your network should handle the message.  That's where port forwarding comes in.  Let's say your router's internal IP address is 192.168.0.1 and the PC running your Hotspot program (DVAR, WinDV, G4KLX etc.) is 192.168.0.17. You know that DPlus linking uses port 20001 via the UPD protocol. You can update your router's port forwarding table to route UDP incoming on port 20001 to address 192.168.0.17.

If you like to link into XRF reflectors, you may find linking out to them won't work if you haven't done port forwarding for UDP 30001.

Most people will only need to port forward a small subset, typically:

The following table has been copied from the G4KLX Gateway manual.  It shows the maximum port forwarding when using all options. 

D-Star® is a registered trademark used for communication equipment (repeaters and transceivers) for amateur radio communications, and owned by Icom Incorporated.