--- In [email protected], "john_ke5c" <k...@...> wrote:
> Callsign routing to a long haul truck driver who is in range of a DStar > repeater say 5% of the time, and whose whereabouts even then would be known > only if he remembered to key up? Well, that is like making the argument that there shouldn't be defibrillators on airplanes because they only are useful 0.00001% of the time when a passenger has a heart attack. I used to be a "road warrior" and on any given day may have been in one or more different major cities. My travels took me to 5 continents and many of the US States and Canadian provinces. Had D-STAR been available then, the first thing I would have done after leaving an airport terminal is to key-up on a D-STAR repeater -- then my friends and more importantly my family (my wife, all 4 sons, and my daughter-in-law are all licensed) could call me without knowing where I was, what repeater I was on, what frequency, etc. For family members that don't regularly operate, just having the radio preprogrammed would make it almost like an intercom, PTT to "Dad" anywhere he might be... As D-STAR grows beyond a handful of repeaters in any given area, there certainly will be repeaters that are quite, where callsign routing to the individual station makes a perfect use case. In fact, I think most of the linking right now is more of a function of insufficient local traffic and trustees wanting to hear something coming out of that expensive repeater they put up. Also, applications like D-PRS, Digital Data (if done right), and D-RATS do make use of callsign routing. DPLUS is not the solution to these. In many ways, DPLUS is just IRLP/Echolink for Digital Voice. (No slant on its utility, but it is not the final definition of D-STAR communications - it is an application that uses defined D-STAR.) >Without dplus and reflectors, DStar would be on its way to join HF digital. > HF Digital is alive and well (from CW, to packet, to PSKxx, to Pactor, ...). If you are referring to digital voice on HF, a big factor there was that the "good" implementation was plagued by ignoring intellectual property rights and using a vocoder without the owner's permission. When a good, legal and/or licensed vocoder for HF is implemented, I think you will see a rise in HF Digital Voice. Shoot, with a good modulation scheme, D-STAR might even find a home on HF if we can move to bandwidth defined modulation authorization instead of discrete designators. > 73 -- John > Not every QSO is a random fishing expedition, sometimes you want to speak to a specific station, regardless of its location and frequency. See: http://k7ve.org/site/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=26&Itemid=26 John - K7VE
