Well Neil, come on over to Grand Rapids, MI USA and I will gladly show you WX8GRR that is easily workable on an HT at 40 miles out. Mobile coverage is well beyond that at any time of day or night, and it's an Icom box. It was a different approach for us to buy something like that as our group here has always been the homebrew types and have had new things running in this area way before other groups. It may not be homebrew but it sure is pretty..... Oh, and it works well. I think that those who can build homebrew might very well like doing that, and honestly my next DStar repeater probably will be homebrew, but I have been on and using DStar for a few years now, and the homebrew items are just coming out.... and guess what they are modeled after, you got it, the shiny Icom equipment that I have been using for several years already. Please don't knock it just because you have a preference, we all have preferences and at times we all do things differently. To start now I might very well indeed go homebrew but I wouldn't trade off the things I have learned and done in the last few years since I we were able to purchase equipment.
Dan Thompson [email protected] Hmmmm... If Icom themselves aren't interested in showing off their kit, then open source/homebrew it must be. Would't it be good if there was an Icom stand next to a homebrew D-Star repeater group, one side costs thousands, the other, less than $100. I think the message is clear, I know what I'd rather have, a sub $100 box that out performs well an expensive piece of junk that doesn't work 1/2 as well. I talk from experiance too, if I could actually say there was an Icom VHF box over here that works as well as any of the homebrew ones over here, then I would not have to make this statement. GB3WE is proof of this, just worked it today almost 100 miles away, show me an Icom box that will do the same... I must admit, I am curious to the new DVAP, after all, a Lot have D-Star radios and no access, this will be a good seller.... 73 de Neil G7EBY. ----- Original Message ----- From: Nate Duehr To: [email protected] Cc: Woodrick, Ed Sent: Tuesday, January 19, 2010 7:10 PM Subject: Re: [DSTAR_DIGITAL] Re: New guy all 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
