Rick, What do you consider that has changed that will cause ICOM to "corner the market" on D-Star? They have spent rather large amounts of money developing and then promoting this approach to digital for many years now. Maybe even more than any other company selling into the amateur radio market with amateur only products. This is not new technology having been begun by JARL with some kind of arrangement with the Japanese government in the late 1990's.Even after all these years, the adoption rate seems modest, but it is growing in some areas, but no other manufacturer is competing in the DStar market, which should tell you something. One claim was that Kenwood had shown and was going to sell a Kenwood labelled ICOM D-Star unit, but I am not sure if this is going to happen.
Meanwhile, with minimal (no?) advertising the amateur publications, some radio amateurs are moving toward P-25 and now MOTOTRBO. One of the problems with digital radio is that they are not able to interoperate with each other and therefore form separate islands of compatibility. This is not as much a problem when a local unit of government moves in this direction since they are more self contained (however, outside help is a problem with communication resources). But amateur radio crosses political boundaries so it is a different kind of communications "service," where interoperability is much more important. Imagine if there were different brands or systems of FM or SSB equipment sold on the amateur market that did not work with one another. The article in QST was very well balanced and it did point out some of the pitfalls as well as the advantages. What concerns me the most about the digital interest from radio amateurs in VHF and higher frequencies is that it is mostly being done because it is *digital,* and not so much because of the advantages over existing modes. You can see this with the comments some have made about "legacy" modes. For any new mode to succeed, it must offer benefits above what you now have in order for it to have wide adoption. Ironically, one of the D-Star benefits is the non radio part whereby you can connect systems together via the internet. Although I admit that some of this is done now with IRLP and Echolink at very low cost, D-Star has more connection technology that might be useful for traveling hams who want to connect back to their home area or hams from their home area being able to find the travelling ham, assuming that you have D-Star systems ubiquitously located at some time in the future. It seems to me that D-Star's strongest point's are that it: - has a spectrum conserving narrow bandwidth of 6.25 kHz. This is an advantage over other digital systems, and certainly over FM (but not SSB which is much narrower). At this time, amateur radio is not under much pressure to go to narrower modes. In fact, it is the recipient of older FM systems that became available from government sources that were forced by the FCC to move toward narrower modes. - is more open (although apparently not quite as open as we first had thought), than the commercial systems which are likely totally proprietary. The opendstar.org group may eventually give us a better understanding of how it works. One other group tried, but failed to make an open hardware solution. - will be lower cost than commercial systems since it does not require the higher standards of commercial equipment design mandates. The downsides are not insignificant though: - very poor quality audio compared to FM unless you are in a fringe area. This is something that would have to drastically improve for me to have any interest in the mode at this time. - the cost is higher, especially for HT's where the price is essentially double, or even more than double the cost of an FM HT. - the data throughput is unacceptable for a new technology and is about as slow or even slower than the very oldest 1200 baud packet on the data side. It may be possible to eventually come up with an improved D-Star that would use the entire bandwidth of the 2 meter/440 designs for voice, when you operated voice, and data, when you operated data. It seems to me that this would help to address some of the design shortcomings. 73, Rick, KV9U r_lwesterfield wrote: > > There is a very good article about D-star in the September QST. And > from the looks of it, Icom is poised to corner this market in fairly > short order. It is selling HT’s, mobile rigs and repeater equipment > where no other manufacturer has stepped up to the plate yet. The > article in QST is fair and balanced and does mention P-25 (the > competing protocol standard) but nobody is selling amateur equipment > that supports it. You have to convert commercial gear if you want to > play with P-25. > > So look up the article when it becomes available on the ARRL web site. > I know that I learned a lot and now wish I had the cash to put up a > D-star repeater on 70 cm or higher here in NW Louisiana. > > Rick – KH2DF > Announce your digital presence via our Interactive Sked Page at http://www.obriensweb.com/drsked/drsked.php Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/digitalradio/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/digitalradio/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
