Steve wrote: > I agree it's one of the more innovative things to come to ham radio in > a while. But really overall I am disappointed because there really > isn't much to it beyond pressing the PTT to enable hams to further the > innovation. It's a digital appliance.
The innovation is in software, just as it is in most "RF engineering" these days. See D-RATS, D*Comms, D-Chat, etc. > There are however some rather clever hams doing interesting things > with the DV dongle development. And with the DV low-speed data environment. (D-RATS and Dan's commitment to new features is just blowing me away.) > I don't understand why the D-star radios don't have some sort of > digital interface port/jack. I'd love it if I could buy a D-Star > radio, that has an digital interface of sorts. Something along the > lines of D-Star Inter RF Subsystem Interface (ISSI). An interface > that perhaps transcodes to a more open standard codec like G711 using > SIP and RTP protocols (standardized protocols) so one can connect the > radios together into wide area networks. The choice of proprietary (but available) CODEC's for ALL 2-way applications right now is a sign of the state of manufacturing -- no manufacturer wants to a) offer open CODEC replacement support in rigs, too risky to their commercial offerings -- and b) put themselves at risk with an untested CODEC. They buy "Commercial-off-the-shelf" CODEC chips and use those for the "safety" of not having to design and test their own. DVSI has the goods the manufacturers want, right now. > If I can connect the D-star radio in my shack into my asterisk > network, then we have something. Why? Asterisk is analog. Who cares about linking analog to digital? That's useful TODAY in the mixed environment and in emergencies only. Look down the road about 30 years. If you think linking from digital (where you have full routing information, callsigns, and a whole bunch of information on every transmission) over to a mode that can't carry all of that data is "progress", in my opinion, you're looking the wrong direction down the timeline. What does linking D-STAR to Asterisk buy anyone? I'd truly be interested in what you think it might accomplish? I can think of two: - Autopatch? Yawn. - Linking to analog radios? Yawn. Asterisk as it's being used today, is just a fancy analog repeater controller with VoIP linking features. Nice, and quite a good tool for analog repeaters, but analog -- in the long-term, is dead. Hams are the ultimate in "RF protocol historians" and we keep protocols alive, literally forever. Analog is not going anywhere for a while, and will never go away 100%. But it's on the downhill side of the technology interest curve, for those looking to do new/different things, for sure. Again, respectfully -- in my opinion, analog to digital linking is "supporting the past". It's only useful right now -- in an environment where most hams are running analog gear during the "transition years", maybe. But, "Innovation"? Not really. It's just boring interim interoperability work. The real innovation is in software right now... why build a rig when you have a working one that can transmit whatever data you want from point-to-point, or even via the Net? Anyone with the appropriate software skill can build things like D-RATS, D-Chat, D*Comms, etc... to work "on top of" the already working network? That's where a lot of people are "innovating". They're going forward on the timeline, not backward to support analog radio links. Nate
