Inline comments and questions for you Ed.
On 1/19/2010 11:37 AM, Woodrick, Ed wrote:
We tried to have the stack in Icom's cabinet up and working (what
sells radios better than hams with their own radios showing off the
technology?!) for the ARRL Rocky Mtn Region Convention the last time
it was in Colorado. I tried REALLY hard to get Icom Sales interested
in properly setting up their "road-show" booth with a WORKING D-STAR
stack, and ran into numerous "willpower" issues. They're not interested.
That’s why there is a growing number of portable repeaters to provide
that function. We haven’t had a hamfest around here in the last few
years without a gateway connected stack. And for the last year, a
number of the hamfests have had two different stacks deployed.
I guess you have people with more money doing D-STAR around there, than
around here. Who's paid for entire stacks to take to local events?
They work with some people to get it running at Dayton I think, but
offers of setting up mobile broadband routers, something that would
use hotel WiFi and establish a VPN to get a static public IP, etc...
were all rebuffed prior to the event. I gave up, as we all had better
things to spend our time on than arguing with Icom. They also stated
they could NOT (policy?) load D-Plus or any non-Icom software on the
GW machine serving their official demo rack.
The “demo” box that Icom has for hamfests is commonly called the
icebox. (It looks like a refrigerator when closing) This isn’t the
system (AFAIK) that has been used at Dayton. The Dayton system has
been one that the Texas Team brings to the event. I also had mine up
there last year.
Ahh, didn't know that. Even more silly. Icom's relying on other folks
to demo their products.
I’m with them, I wouldn’t want anyone playing with my computers
either. The icebox is used weekend after weekend and there is no time
or personnel available to fix it. But again, I believe that it
actually was the Texas stack that you are referring to.
In the U.S., the organization they chose to run the network (the Texas
group) requires D-PLUS. If Icom won't put it on their own U.S. demo
stack... that's stupid.
Why am I even pointing this out? We're back into "brain damage" mode.
There's nothing technically difficult about setting up a mobile stack,
your comments that you take yours everywhere proves that. What point
are you trying to make about theirs?
All I'm reading into your message is that you (a volunteer with no
monetary interest) is doing a better job at having mobile gear up and
working at local events than the folks who have funding and are selling
the product??? Was that the point you were trying to make?
So yeah, put up a "hotspot" at a hamfest, and sell more Icom repeaters
and radios, because they're not interested in showing off their own
technology... Sure, why not? ;-)
Like I said, we’ve been doing it for years. Of course, to make best
use of it, you should also schedule one or more forums to talk about
D-STAR.
So I'm confused. Are you taking a hot-spot of some sort (Satoshi board)
or a complete stack of official Icom repeaters? Just curious... goes
back to the "who the heck paid for that?" question at the top.
Forums are definitely required. I did two of them at the Colorado event
and had lots of questions from folks later on, but all I could do was
simplex demos. Back when I did talks on IRLP, I brought a Node and had
it working via DIAL-UP IP in the hotel room on the GSM CODEC. I
couldn't afford to bring a D-STAR Stack.
We'll see how the pricing is on the hotspot. Maybe I will get one of
those for such things. There's only about five events I'd want to take
D-STAR to each year around here, really, and only two that have enough
interested tech folks who'd want to hear about D-STAR...
Nate WY0X
