On Dec 16, 2008, at 3:53 PM, Jacob Suter wrote: > I personally don't see much future in amateur radio in its current > path. I > personally don't think d-star is going to magically adjust the > path. What > we need is something that's socially acceptable in 2008. Squawkbox > HTs > don't cut it. You need trunking, smart roaming, full duplex with echo > canceling, and a proper control system that includes not having to > verbally > repeat your callsign like a kid with Tourettes syndrome.
That's called a cell phone. :-) As far as repeating your callsign, when the other guy asks, ask him if he's going to send a QSL card? If not, only you need to know it... get on with the conversation. Stop ID'ing at the end of every over, and have fun. LOL! All of the things you're wanting are possible, but at GREAT expense. How much are you willing to put into your local club? Hell any technical problem is "fixable" with enough money. The Fed even got the stock market to make another dead-cat bounce today by dropping interest rates so low you can't see them anymore with a microscope. (GRIN) (The cell phone companies get something like $20/month to numbers well over $120/month out of you to provide all that infrastructure. Some large linking systems get $10/month out of all members... that's probably the highest I've heard of. My little club asks for $25/year, and we're $5 higher than the "competition" in this area.) As far as the D-STAR thing goes, have you tried it? It's pretty damn cool... once you've figured out how to operate. There isn't a single other digital 2-way radio system in the world with as much reach Internationally. Analog... yeah more repeaters capable of being linked, but less control on the quality of the link and as you say -- who wants to do old analog stuff anyway? :-) We have to maintain the infrastructure for a while, but if hams want to move forward, we have to start acting like it by buying new gear... if D-STAR's what it is today, so be it. Maybe some folks will figure out Amateur P25 linking tomorrow. Maybe something new will come along after that. But if we show no appetite for anything but $150 cheap VHF HT's -- that's what we'll get. (And are getting.) -- Nate Duehr, WY0X [email protected]
