D-STAR may not be adopted by the majority of VHF/UHF users until the end-user gear prices drop significantly. I think there will be too few users to justify the efforts of a trustee or club to migrate to D-STAR/digital. One D-STAR follower noted 12,000 units sold globally. That number of unit sales over a period of five years or more is a product line waiting to be dropped. D-STAR is no IPOD ;-)
What is holding D-STAR adoption back is pretty obvious; no competition from Kenwood or Yasue that might help drive the prices down as has been the case with all previous technology evolutions. Kenwood actually offers D-STAR re-selling ICOM's units with a stick-on Kenwood label.doesn't look like Kenwood is going to adopt this technology as a viable alternative to analog systems. Without competition there is a dead-end coming around the bend for D-STAR travelers, IMHO. The digital repeaters are also very expensive. The new hardware/software workarounds for the repeater side make migrating to the digital mode less expensive for the trustees and clubs that are interested in the mode but users make a repeater system and without the users why bother. This isn't one of those build-it-and-they-will-come scenarios. Perhaps an analogy might be why tone a repeater in a vacation spot when most of the users are from out of town and won't know the tone. Sure you can tone but you'll reduce the number of users, at least that was the case before receivers were smart and could detect the tone for us. But you get idea. So, I suspect those considering digital are thinking about adding a new repeater rather than converting an existing system. That approach is also going to lead to that dead-end for ICOM D-STAR. I think it is great that repeaters can now be enhanced with bolt-on applications running on PCs but I can't imagine hand-held owners enjoying the few if any tangible benefits of D-STAR if they have to lug a lap-top around with them so their existing mobile or hand-held can operate the mode... Linking analog repeaters via the Internet may be a better approach then trying to force or wait for 99% of the user community to migrate to the new mode. I give ICOM D- for implementation. They totally misread the marketplace IMHO. Please flame direct ;-) Best, Dave WA3GIN/W4AVA/W4KGC _____ From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Doug Bade Sent: Friday, April 02, 2010 9:50 AM To: [email protected] Subject: RE: [Repeater-Builder] D-Star Was: Molotora Gontor I would be glad to elaborate about D-Star Repeater conversions as there are multiple ways to do it now and Any EDACS capable or Smartnet Capable repeater would do D-Star as both fundamentally have the parts to transmit and receive GMSK type waveforms There are several Yahoogroups that are focused on alternate D-Star hardware and software devices. Doug KD8B From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Scott Zimmerman Sent: Friday, April 02, 2010 8:54 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [Repeater-Builder] D-Star Was: Molotora Gontor My biggest problem with the D-Star repeaters is that they didn't make them analog compatible. Knowing as little as I do about the D-star hardware, it would seem easy enough for Icom to have done so. All they would have needed to do would have been to look at the incoming signal, see if it was analog or digital, and process it correctly. While you'll pry my analog repeater pairs from my cold dead hands; if D-Star machines were analog capable, I'd swap every pair I have to that format tomorrow. As RB (the company) I have been asked about D-star more times than I can count. I tell people it's nice to play with, but what happens in an emergency? If Icom would have made the D-star machines analog capable, those that wanted to (and had D-star radios) could play with it all they wanted to. When an emergency arose and you had 10x as many people out there with analog rigs, the machine would *still* be useful. As it is at present, if an emergency arises, only those with D-star rigs can use a D-star machine. That concept is fine, as long as ALL of your volunteers have D-Star radios! (How many places is this the case?) Around here (Western PA) the governments bought Icom D-Star radios for RACES. I had no objection to that since those radios can be used in analog modes with analog repeaters. Now they are wanting to get D-Star repeaters for RACES and emergency use. I *strongly* object to that since they CANNOT be used in analog modes for emergencies. In my view, you'd be alienating much of your volunteer base that doesn't have the correct equipment right at the point where you need all the help you can get! Of course with the government in the mentality that they have been in the past few years, maybe that's their way of "thinning the heard." I *think* I remember someone saying that some other company had made an analog capable D-Star controller? Do any of you list members know anything about that? Scott Scott Zimmerman Amateur Radio Call N3XCC 474 Barnett Road Boswell, PA 15531 Nate Duehr wrote: > On 4/1/2010 9:57 PM, George Henry wrote: >> I suppose I should clarify: I don't do D-STAR, either. Moral objection to >> their use of a proprietary codec. > > You're going to be a while on that soap box. CODECs are almost > literally the only way to make any money in the audio streaming, video > streaming, and related technology worlds these days... mixed with > Patents, you won't see any high-quality free CODECs that can properly > encode voice at 4800 bps any time soon. > > DVSI has ALL of that market locked up until someone hires a pile of > PhD's in math and goes after them. And even then, they'd have to make a > significant impact on bandwidth utilized or voice quality over either > AMBE/AMBE2, or IMBE... to have a chance of dislodging the first player > to market... the only player to be written into multiple standards (P25, > D-STAR, even the TDMA-based things from Kenwood/Icom... all using DVSI > chipsets.) > > Brilliant of them really... heavily patent-encumbered CODEC, super-high > price on using the CODEC in software, sell a $20 (in low-quantity, > slightly cheaper in high-quanity) chipset, in a market as small as 2-way > radio... they're making a bloody killing. I'd love to know what the > development costs of the CODECs were... to see just how lucrative their > lock on the market(s) is. > > But anyway... good luck finding a commercial product that doesn't use > their chipset anytime soon. The next CODEC chipset maker is going to be > an "also-ran" forever, unless their mathematicians and algorithms are > uber-brilliant. > > Nate WY0X > > > ------------------------------------ > > > > Yahoo! Groups Links > > > >
