D-STAR illegal in France

If you love digital voice over Internet, go ahead the extra inch and use Skype on your cellphone or your laptop. Good quality, video, conference, you name it - and it's free !
Please don't insult radio-amateurs with that "D* is the future of ham radio" bul***it. D-star is just another mobile telephone net, that's all. It should not have any space on ham bands. Nor any system using Internet.
Let Internet be Internet and radio be radio, if you like Voip use Skype for God's sake! A good smartphone costs less money and gives you a lot more than a D* portable.....

 

I have no idea whether that is true or not but if it is then it is disgraceful. User demand not policy dictated by some unelected representatives should decide what is permitted and what is not, and I don't think there has been much demand for D-Star except from the boys with deep pockets who must always have the latest toys. As someone said, D-Star is just a glorified Echolink. I think Echolink is a good idea (when used to link radios, not just computers) but it is still used by a pretty small proportion of amateurs which doesn't suggest that there is any real need for a digital version of it. As someone else said, voice is voice, does it matter whether it is transmitted digitally or not.

D-Star is nothing but a clever marketing exercise by Icom to try to corner the market in ham radio equipment. They have employed all kinds of leverage to get the ball rolling, for example offering groups cut price repeaters if they can raise a minimum number of orders for transceivers. No doubt they have called in favours such as their support for the RSGB's IOTA scheme in order to influence frequency allocation policy. In the USA they have persuaded emcomms groups to install D-Star networks.

They claim it is open, but they have trademarked the name D-Star (do a search on "D-Star trademark" if you don't believe me) so if any other manufacturer were to make compatible radios they would have to carry the name of their competitor which I'm sure would stick in the throats of Yaesu and Kenwood.

We are absolutely right to resist it, but the French government's stance has little to do with any of the above, and more to do with the dead hand of an overblown bureaucracy that finds it easier to say "no" to change. As a French ham commented on my blog post about this, the illegality of D-Star there is just one of many ways in which French amateurs are more restricted than those in the rest of Europe.

 

dstar?

G3UEQ - you may have hit the nail on the head -

otherwise, this thread sure beats the code/nocode flameout -

 

'[F]lying car' gets go-ahead from US air authorities

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/news/7860966/Terrafugia-Transition-flying-car-gets-go-ahead-from-US-air-authorities.html

 

I vaguely recall similar prognostications about 8-track players and Betamax...

Send the ultimate message.
Vote with your pocketbooks.
Don't $upport anything in the digital realm which is not Open-Source!

 

I will never buy a D'Star Radio. At some point it's either Ham Radio or just use a cell phone! All these inbetween technologies like Echolink and Dstar just take away from the main purpose, which is worldwide independant communication system.

BTW just to take a comment below further, I think Icom should buy their own Bandwidth for D'Star, the ARRL should be filing suit to prevent them from using D'Star on Amateur bands, after all in reality Icom is using our bands to create a monopoly on a technology that if successful means that one day in the future Icom will hold the keys to make ham radio work.

 

I don't think hams have "Embraced" D-Star at all. Yeah you have your loose groups and experimenters, but D-Star is still and will always be an experimental and little used mode. Packet II

K2WH

 

What is the price of a fully featured DStar dual band radio and a fully featured dual band radio considering all suppliers?

 

like many other so-called digital modes, the moment one connects his rig to an external computer or allows an external computer to control his rig, the rig/ham/signal is at the mercy of the computer.

"When all Else Fails, Ham Radio Gets Through" is quickly coming to mean nothing when the ARRL and many other groups and individuals continue to connect to the internet as a first, last or in between mile for communications then we become hypocrites.

Isn't the internet the one medium we say can and will fail during a disaster? Then why are we feverishly connecting to that very medium that is supposed to fail? Think about it for a moment.

I can say with certainty, if a disaster ever strikes this area where I live, I can still operate. The computer is not NOT connected to nor does this computer control any of my rigs.

K2WH

 

I was thinking the same thing. What gets through when all else fails is our radios through the airwaves. What fails is cell phones, internet, etc.

 

It is extremely unlikely the internet will fail. It might fail in certain areas, but it is guaranteed to be up somewhere. If it isn't, ham radio wont be there either And, most likely us either.

 

Echolink in Europe.

I remember a few years ago where Echolink and other internet interfaces were VERBOTEN in DL - land. I was living there and had DA2KW as my callsign, then when they allowed Echolink, it exploded with stations over night practically!!!
I remember looking at the Echolink DL station list one day, with about 20 stations listed, then a week later with about 50, then a week later with 200, and so on.
They just recently allowed 6 meters for all licensed DL Hams to use, years after they switched to digital terrestrial T.V.
In Europe. "They" are slow with certain things over there and I am sure eventually it will all work out, and remember, France has territories all over the world that the law may apply also !!!
73s. Ken, N2VHZ

 

Ham radio is a "diamond"......

It has many facets. Now, I love CW, I love AM, SSB, and FM. I'd like to at least TRY D-Star communications. No, I wouldn't spend a $1,000.oo on a 2m/70cm mobile rig, but there's nothing said about a dual band, D-Star capable HT. We have a very fine D-star system in Shreveport, LA. I've seen and heard it demonstrated. I like what I heard. Now, I'm NOT about to give up operating AM or FM on 10 meters just because of D-Star. "Experimentation" is what got me started in 'electronics' back in the late 1950's. Nothing like an old, boat anchor with tubes glowing on a cold, Winter night working 40 cw, LOL!

For those who wish to operate D-Star, I say go ahead, if AM or ssb, PSK-63 is your "bag", more power to you. I don't favor one mode over another nor do I say that contesting, disaster nets, round tables, county-hunting or anything else is wrong, other than deliberate interference or cursing on the air.

I'm half Cajun French and the guys in Paris always have to be "different". I could care less, LOL! Let them eat cake!

Respectfully submitted,
73,

Don/KA5LQJ

 

Ah, but you're sadly mistaken. The internet failed miserably during Katrina, and amateur radio quickly took it's rightful place as a replacement for emergency communications until companies could get technicians on the ground to build back the lost infrastructure. Amateur radio ops were there when they were needed most.

-WY3X

 

Wait, one city or one region gets hit with a hurricane of once-a-century proportions and suffers some internet outage and you call that a miserable failure?

What about the REST of the internet that carried on just fine, thanks? (That sort of resiliency being the point of the internet, you know).

For that matter, I disagree with your statement that the internet was that bad off due to Katrina. There were plenty of stories at the time (and still available online via archives) about the heroic efforts taken by the staff at DirectNic in New Orleans to keep their company online despite the terrific damage, and those stories were posted during Katrina from Katrina and afterward over the very net you called a failure. So, it still worked. Ham radio had little or nothing to do what what that particular company managed to do. As it shouldn't: that was a business doing what it needed to do unfettered by rules about commercial traffic and the like.

Anyhow, it's amusing anyone cares one wit about what France is doing when they were the inspiration for the whole "freedom fries" thing. It's their airwaves in their country. They can do what they want. It's France. They'd outlaw radio if they felt like it.