FreeSTAR is a multi-mode amateur radio network with a promise built into its name: Freedom to Connect. Whatever mode you already own — a DMR handheld, a D-STAR hotspot, a Fusion repeater, an EchoLink app, even a telephone — FreeSTAR aims to drop you into the same conversation as everyone else. Underneath that friendly idea sits something worth studying: one of the most aggressively bridged networks in the hobby, chaining more than a dozen digital bridges through a single pipe into AllStar. This is a plain-language explanation of what FreeSTAR is and how it holds all those modes together.
FreeSTAR (at freestar.network) is a UK-based multi-mode network that hosts and manages a whole franchise of services under one umbrella. It grew out of the GB0NYE Multi-Mode Net on New Year’s Eve 2020, when founders Shane Daley (M0VUB) and Oscar Wood (2E1HWE) set out to see how many normally-incompatible modes they could chain together for a single net — and reportedly linked over 100 consecutive connections worldwide. The experiment stuck and became a permanent network. Today it spans repeaters, gateways, personal nodes, and single users across six countries, and describes itself as one of the largest multi-mode franchises in the world.
Not to be confused with
There was an earlier, unrelated project called FREE STAR* (with an asterisk) around 2009–2011 — a D-STAR trust-server effort tied to the ircDDB network, using dextra_srv and dplus, retired when the old NATRUST / Multi-Trust servers were decommissioned in 2011. The modern FreeSTAR Network shares nothing with it but a name. When you read “FreeSTAR” today, it’s the AllStar-based network described here.
Everything in FreeSTAR hangs off AllStar. The heart of the network is an AllStarLink hub — the same app_rpt and Asterisk technology, built on the work of Jim Dixon (WB6NIL, SK), that ties together analog repeaters, gateways, and RF nodes. The main FreeSTAR UK hubs are AllStar nodes 2196 and 2167, with 63061 (Herts), 40063 (a low-bandwidth hub), and 2166 for North America and Canada. The core runs in enterprise data centers in two major UK cities for low latency, and the project is gradually migrating to the newer ASL3 software, with lead developer Rob Vella working alongside the AllStarLink team.
This is FreeSTAR’s signature. Rather than lash modes together with a pile of separate, independent bridges, FreeSTAR funnels its digital traffic through dedicated RYSEN XPeer bridge servers — running their own SystemX software — hosted on enterprise VMs in the UK and Germany. A single full-duplex feed is piped into the XPeer server, which then fans out to a whole chain of digital bridges and cross-links. FreeSTAR claims one of the most extensive bridging arrangements anywhere: fifteen-plus consecutive digital bridges riding one direct pipe into AllStar. Whether you find that elegant or precarious, it is the mechanism that makes “connect with any mode” actually work.
Every mode funnels through one RYSEN XPeer bridge into the AllStar core — so a DMR user and a D-STAR user share the same room.
FreeSTAR runs not one DMR network but two. IPSC2-FreeSTAR is a DMR+ master server hosted in London, connected into the global bMaster+ / IPSC2 fabric and onward to DMR-MARC — the route for conventional DMR+ connections. Alongside it, FreeSTAR operates System X, its own open-source global DMR network powered by RYSEN Master+ software. The main talkgroup for the FreeSTAR UK multi-mode network is TG 23426. D-STAR, YSF, and Peanut users, meanwhile, are served through Module X — an XLXD reflector (XLX248, Module X) wired into the same bridged core.
The newest limb is FreeSTAR Everywhere, a VoIP service built on an Asterisk PBX. It offers a SIP Portal (intercom-style connections between licensed operators), a Phone Portal that bridges the PSTN and cellular networks into the system, and a DMR Portal into System X. Notably, it is designed to interoperate with other amateur VoIP networks such as Hams Over IP and AmateurWire — extending FreeSTAR’s reach to operators with limited RF or antenna options. Most core services are free to licensed hams; a few FreeSTAR Everywhere features may carry a subscription, and the network runs an annual donation drive each November/December to keep the lights on.
The easiest doors in are AllStar and EchoLink, but FreeSTAR is reachable from nearly any mode: DMR (TG 23426), D-STAR, Fusion / Wires-X, NXDN, P25, M17, Zello (through a custom bridge written by Matt Melling, G4IYT), and the FreeSTAR Everywhere VoIP portals. Check whether your local repeater already carries a compatible mode, or point a hotspot at the relevant server. Once you are in, the network hosts regular nets — TopTalk, TechTalk, and the Trans-Canada Net among them — plus GOTA (Gateways On The Air) activity events.
The one-sentence version
FreeSTAR is a UK-based, AllStar-centric multi-mode network that lets operators join from almost any mode — DMR, D-STAR, Fusion, EchoLink, VoIP and more — by funneling everything through its own RYSEN / System X bridging layer, all under the motto “Freedom to Connect.”
For the AllStar and EchoLink foundations this network is built on, see AllStarLink, EchoLink, and SVXLink Explained; for the DMR network landscape, How a DMR Network Works; and for two more community networks with personalities of their own, see AMCOMM Network and Quadnet.
A noncommercial hobby reference compiled by N6JET, gathered from public sources and shared freely for anyone interested in amateur digital voice.