Good morning Jim,
Just want to say that I appreciate all your replies, all a good short read! What reflector / gateway would I find you on? Donald James ~ N2VU -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of J. Moen Sent: Friday, July 23, 2010 10:43 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [DSTAR_DIGITAL] Re: Are you exprerencing anti d-star in your area? I guess I'm an older ham, in that I think of the old term DX as applying to RF only communications. But I don't think hamming is about DX, it's about communicating. And from the earliest days of amateur radio, it's been about experimenting and using new technology to communicate with people. Echolink & IRLP are valid ways to talk. So is D-Star using RF to repeaters which are interconnected by the network. It's a nice side benefit when you discover the early adopters of D-Star are often more interesting to talk to than the average ham.... Regarding "some of the older Hams don't understand it" -- I guess that's true, though I have a friend in his early 80s who got me interested in D-Star. He's running a D-Star Hotspot from his home to give him mobile access to the D-Star network, since there are no D-Star repeaters yet where he lives. Maybe the ones who don't understand the new technology just don't want to change and try something new. Regarding the fact that only ICOM currently makes D-Star radios -- I have heard what I consider to be a reliable "rumor" that another company is planning to enter the market at some point. That would be good for them, and I think it would be good for ICOM in the long run. In addition to the rather expensive Funkamateur DV Adapter that uses an ICOM D-Star card to convert any radio to D-Star, there are virtually free PC/soundcard solutions being developed right now -- they aren't perfect yet but it seems like they are gettting pretty close. There are various other hardware/software solutions under development that will give hams relatively inexpensive options for getting on D-Star. This is just the beginning for D-Star. A lot more growth and development are just around the bend. Jim - K6JM ----- Original Message ----- From: Tom J <mailto:[email protected]> To: dstar_digital@ <mailto:[email protected]> yahoogroups.com Sent: Friday, July 23, 2010 6:37 PM Subject: [DSTAR_DIGITAL] Re: Are you exprerencing anti d-star in your area? I'll tell you what i don't understand. iCOM has the corner on the market as far as radios with out of the box DSTAR. Why they don't encourage and/or provide repeater equipment at low cost to sell more radios is beyond me. There are companies that make sister boards for non-iCOM transceivers - or instructions for making them yourself. So existing radios could be made to work with DSTAR as well. In my area, we have one DSTAR repeater. There are a couple clubs looking to try to get DSTAR on their repeaters with one actually having a plan and possibly test equipment in place. DSTAR is a relatively new mode. But with the possibility of crystal clear comms and the ability for people to find you in a similar manner as cell phones, it's pretty nice to have. I wish we had more of it readily available in my area. From what I've heard, some of the older HAMS don't understand it well enough, or consider it "cheating" for DX.
