Steve Bosshard wrote: > It is sad that complexity excludes many would be users.
Especially since it's not that complex. I don't know if this says something about hams or just the population in general. :-) Jeff, KE9V had a nice podcast he'd done called "If we don't understand it, we can just ignore it" that seemed to cover the reasons why the general public has lost interest in anything technological that requires more than two seconds of actual thought... But it was an older podcast that isn't posted on his website at ke9v.net anymore. (At least that I can see.) I have a copy of it *somewhere* around here... (A co-worker has this bumper-sticker: "I haven't lost my mind, it's backed up on a flash drive somewhere.") While I think we should always strive to help anyone understand anything they're confused about (as good Elmers), trying to "dumb down" D-STAR is like trying to dumb down a phone call. Neither one is all the difficult, once you understand the underlying CONCEPTS. From a training perspective, the problem is this: Many people are task-oriented and because of that learning style, they want to know: "What buttons do I push to talk to Australia?" Instead the question should be: "How does this system work so I can figure out what buttons to press for myself." Task-oriented learning styles are fine, but any flight instructor or instructor of other complex things will tell you it takes LONGER to teach a student who learns that way... because you have to repetitively do the task over and over again, while continuously reinforcing the "Why" question of why you're having them do that same task. You do this until they switch to asking "Why" themselves and reaching for the theory and concepts underlying the task. It takes a lot of time, and most of us Elmers are time-strapped, since this is a hobby. So I see it regularly... someone who would probably *enjoy* D-STAR quite a bit if someone could get them "over the hump" in their learning curve where they're stuck at "just show me how to work this radio"... that personality type often drops out of any ham radio activity that requires more than pressing the mash-to-mumble button. It's not a sign that they're "dumb" or "stupid", it's a sign that they learn differently. A very large percentage of the population learns this way, so it's not a negative observation against the person, it's just normal. Nate WY0X
