QuadNet is a volunteer-run, donation-funded network with a single big idea: tear down the walls between the digital voice modes. On most networks a D-STAR user talks to D-STAR users and a DMR user talks to DMR users. QuadNet’s flagship — the QuadNet Array — puts D-STAR, DMR, Yaesu Fusion, and M17 operators in the same conversation at the same time. This is a plain-language explanation of what QuadNet is, where it came from, and how it stitches the modes together.
QuadNet (found at openquad.net) calls itself a multi-mode digital amateur radio network dedicated to interoperability — connecting as many digital voice systems as it can and keeping them talking to one another. It is open to every licensed ham, and it takes an unusually welcoming stance on access: no registration is required. QuadNet’s position is that a valid amateur license is enough, and it supports dongles, hotspots, and repeaters — homebrew or commercial — without demanding a special club or repeater callsign.
QuadNet didn’t start out multi-mode. It began as an open ircDDB routing network for D-STAR — an alternative to the official registration system — built to support callsign routing. Routing lets you reach another D-STAR user without your gateway needing to know any reflector or repeater IP addresses: you put a special routing callsign in your radio’s URCALL field, key up, and the network figures out how to deliver your signal. That ircDDB heritage is still the backbone of QuadNet today, and the multi-mode features grew on top of it.
The QuadNet Array is the network’s centerpiece: a single meeting place reachable from many modes at once. When someone says “I’ll meet you on the Array,” they mean a channel that is bridged and transcoded across D-STAR, DMR, Fusion, and M17 access points that all lead to the same room. Key up on any of them and everyone on the Array hears you, whatever they’re running.
The technical anchors are two interconnected, transcoding URF reflectors — URF307 (Wyoming) and URF587 (Alabama). Because they’re interlinked, you can reach the same conversation through either one.
The modes converge on QuadNet’s URF reflectors, which transcode them into one shared Array.
The two channels
QuadNet runs two main transcoded channels on those reflectors. The QuadNet Array is Channel A — the busy, sociable channel where the daily nets happen and most people hang out. The Tech Channel is Channel C — a quieter place for longer technical rag-chews. Both channels live on both reflectors (and on the XRF757 reflector), so no matter which anchor you connect through, you land in the same rooms.
The whole point is that your mode doesn’t matter — here are the doors in. (These are living details on a volunteer network; treat the numbers as current-as-of-writing and check openquad.net for the latest.)
Beyond simple linking, QuadNet keeps its routing roots alive with two styles:
The mobile-routing fix
Classic D-STAR routing needs UDP port 40000 open, which historically made it impossible from a mobile or cellular-connected hotspot. QuadNet solved this for Group Routing: you can join a Smart Group from home or from a mobile rig without that port forwarded — a genuinely useful trick for anyone running a hotspot on a phone hotspot or an RV.
QuadNet’s Array rides on the URF reflector software — the “universal” reflector that is a superset of XLX and natively accepts D-STAR, DMR, Fusion, and M17 clients, transcoding between their different codecs. That’s exactly why the Array can be genuinely multi-mode: the URF reflectors do the heavy lifting of translating one mode’s audio into another’s. If your gear can reach an XLX reflector, it can reach QuadNet’s URF anchors.
QuadNet isn’t just plumbing — it’s a community. The Array hosts a full weekly calendar of nets on all kinds of themes, from general rag-chews to special-interest gatherings, and because it’s mode-agnostic you can check in with whatever radio you own. The whole thing runs on volunteer labor and user donations covering server costs and upkeep.
The one-sentence version
QuadNet is an open, no-registration network that grew from a D-STAR routing system into a multi-mode meeting place — the QuadNet Array — where D-STAR, DMR, Fusion, and M17 operators share one transcoded conversation anchored on a pair of URF reflectors.
For the reflector technology underneath it, see Understanding URF Reflectors; for the routing idea it was born from, How D-STAR Works; and for the wider DMR network landscape it bridges into, How a DMR Network Works.
A noncommercial hobby reference compiled by N6JET, gathered from public sources and shared freely for anyone interested in amateur digital voice.