> The innovation is in software, just as it is in most "RF engineering"
Precisely why D-Star bugs me. The firmware isn't even flash updateable. The d-star radio you buy might be capable of more, as one can imagine, but without some way to make it do more than what it's capable of out of the box, that kills the possible innovation. Upgradable firmware is very least they could have done. I'd really love to see a D-star radio with a firmware software development kit. > Why? Asterisk is analog. Who cares about linking analog to digital? > > That's useful TODAY in the mixed environment and in emergencies only. > Asterisk is digital. It typically has analog endpoints called speakers and microphones, weather they are on telephones or radios. You right the analog to digital linking isn't totally where it's at. Although it is useful for emergencies and interoperability. > > 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. > I could interface the D-star radio in my shack into my asterisk system. When someone on the radio makes a private call to my callsign, those callsigns would be the same as a DID or caller ID fields. I could then set those to route to a voicemail box or a ring group of phones upstairs in the event I wasn't at the radio. Or have that radio call route out another trunk, which could be another radio, ATA, etc. I could do something besides press the PTT, because I could interface my radio to Asterisk which is an open platform that I can script and customize to my liking. > 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. I do agree with this too... but I do feel that's a long ways off.
