I suspect nearly all commercially manufactured equipment for the ham radio market has some patents associated with the design and technology.
Bob Nobis - N7RJN [email protected] > On Sep 18, 2015, at 09:29, Greg Troxel <[email protected]> wrote: > > (trying to be brief and return to being on-topic :-) > > Robert Nobis <[email protected]> writes: > >> To a certain extent, I agree with you. I also do not like proprietary >> technologies. However, if you look at the history of ham radio, many >> of the products and technologies we use today started out as >> “proprietary” technologies. Also, much of the history of ham radio is >> based on experimenting and trying new technologies and techniques. > > There's a big difference between an implementation that has a patent and > a protocol that has an essential patent such that you may not legally > implement the protocol without a patent license. The problem with all > digital voice modes except FreeDV is the patented and undocumented AMBE > codec. > >> At least one of these digital technologies, DMR, is no longer really >> proprietary. There are at least 20 manufacturers of DMR radios, >> worldwide. True, DMR was not originally developed for use by hams, >> but it clearly is a product technology that many hams are now using on >> the VHF and UHF bands, even though I doubt we will ever see DMR on the >> HF bands. > > DMR uses AMBE, so it's proprietary, because you (apparently; law is > hard) can't build and sell a DMR radio without a patent license. An > individual ham may not legally homebrew and use a DMR radio without a > patent license. One can't distribute Free Software that implements DMR > on software radio. There are many vendors, and they seem to mostly > interoperate. DMR is much like D-STAR, in that the container protocol > is open or mostly open, but the codec is not. This leads to big > manufacturers paying patent licenses and individuals buying > pre-programmed DSP chips to run the secret code that could have been run > in their regular computer, if not for the patent (e.g., the "DV > Dongle"). > > If Elecraft wanted to put D-STAR or DMR into the K3/KX3, besides the > work, they would have to get a patent license for the codec. That seems > unlikely - and it would make me unhappy to be indirectly paying for > something that I think doesn't belong in ham radio (well said, Don) and > should not be permitted by the rules. > > On the other hand, I suspect that implementing D-STAR with codec2 (VHF), > or FreeDV, would just be implementation work, with no licenses and no > extra hardware. It doesn't seem like there's critical mass yet for that > to make sense, though. > > 73 de n1dam > ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:[email protected] This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html Message delivered to [email protected]
