At 11:34 PM 6/8/2010, you wrote:

>So my question is, how long has the G3RUH modem and other CODECs 
>been around that could make a VHF/UHF communications system like 
>D-STAR. From my knowledge, the solution has been available for 
>probably 5+, if not 10+ years. But yet the glorious "Amateur Radio 
>Experimentation" hasn't come up with a solution that used it.

I'd say 10+ years.  The reason I say this is:

1.  The G3RUH modem was around over 20 years ago, though it was 
harder getting one on the air than it is now (more radios with 
suitable interfaces brought out to a connector nowadays).

2.  Speak Freely (which IRLP is heavily based on, and Echolink is a 
more distant cousin of) has had open source implementations of LPC, 
LPC-10 and CELP (4800 bps), all of which could easily be carried over 
9600bps.  I was running Speak Freely in 1995 over 14.4k dialup.

>What we need is something like the ability to place hot spots all 
>over the place and the hot spots interoperate and are connected to 
>the Internet (as well as other possibilities) and are smart enough 
>to handle handoffs from other hotspots as you move around. And then 
>the radios are probably similar to today's D-STAR radios, but able 
>to handle the handoffs and can provide 4.8, even 9.6 bps error 
>protected data transfer.

Hmm, a low speed voice data network, meshed by a mixture of Internet 
based and RF based high speed backhaul links?  That could be interesting.

>
>Forget about duplexers and use 440 in and 1.2GHz out.

That would simplify the engineering considerably!  All we need is 
cost effective 1.2 GHz radio hardware (440 will be a piece of 
cake).  10m/6m 4800bps nodes would be interesting to play with as well.

73 de VK3JED / VK3IRL
http://vkradio.com

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