D-STAR illegal in France

Simplistic approach, isn't it?

you can't have 1khz channels when bandwidth of the mode is 3 khz wide!!

But of course they are, when it comes to text communications. Wouldn't it be amazing to have similar range in *voice* communications? Or is it that all commercial systems go digital for no reason? Spectrum is a finite resource of which our obligation is to make the best use of.

Well, this was an example, OM. There could be millions of relevant examples to prove the importance of agility when it comes to better range with less power.

Nobody here provokes old modes in favor of the new, be it SSB, be it PSK, be it whatever it could be. Hams around still use AM and enjoy every part of it. We just have to look forward because we *can*. We do have to stand on good grounds before making the step forward anyway, don't we? Some people even cry over withdrawal of CW requirement for licensing, yet CW is alive and well. Same arguing 40 years ago for the battle of AM vs. SSB - still AM on our bands. As long as two hams make contact using the old modes, old modes ARE being used.

Can be done, given enough research. If hams understand the need for it, can help pusing it forward.

I couldn't agree more!
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D-star tecnology could be amazing, but it isn't ham radio, because you cannot OPT to eiter buy or build, you just have to buy.

There are zillions of different modes and parameters in digital - PSK, RTTY, CW, SSTV, Olivia, the ill-fated ROS, and the list could go on and on. Problem is that no mode but few represent an actual innovation it terms of communication technology. Those that do, suffer from the same curse that d-star does - proprietary code. this is what stops them from achieving criticality. Next logical step is evolving or adopting open source equivalents.

If open source is adopted, upgrade is just a matter of 5 minutes and a ΜΑΧ232. If we stick on current ICOM modelling, upgrade is a matter of $$$.

Well, I wouldn't bet on THAT horse. Making money out of hams involves an enormous amount of risk. iCOM took the risk and noone can say they succeed. When you make estimations on how your product will sell you make guesses - I could not possibly believe anyone that would tell me that iCOM considers d-star deployment and penetration statistics "as expected", ten years after its deployment.

Number of d-star users only grow because ham population grows because world population grows and because people from all around are getting into technology more and more every day. Absolute percentage of d-star users over world's ham population grows far less than expected by iCOM when making the investment on d-star R&D. Ten years after it's introduction, the system is already obsolete, and backwards compatibility requirement stops it from evolving. Sorry, too little mass to achieve criticality. no matter how hard iCOM tries. And they do try hard - they just included D-star in a basically HF radio (ic9100)....

One final thingy - you don't render SSB boatanchors obsolete (as in i80286 running windows 7 obsolete) when talking about digital voice in COFDM modulation via a sound card or a FPGA. Here, we are talking about modes that could be rig-independent. If I opt to decode a 3KHz digital signal as provided by FDMDV, would there be anything to stop me receiving it in my FT480r or transmitting back with it?

One single requirement - to be able to do SSB. If it can do SSB it can do DV.

 

OK so this isn't DStar but KE7HQY Star! I think a module at the microphone input that digitizes voice and combines voice and data onto FM carrier and then the repeater has module and if it recognizes this digital signature it converts the digital voice to analog to send back out and the digital voice and data over internet via ethernet packets. This system could be up and running quickly. I think the module for the repeater would be inexpensive. The module for the analog microphone input would also be not that expensive.

I've read the AMBE license is only $20-25 per copy?

 

The $25 tag does not refer to license. Refers to the price of the actual preprogrammed w. software FPGA, where you get just input, output, mode selection procedures and power supply information.

A license (as in NDA's, signed contract, and actual knowledge of the code itself) has a price tag correctly stated at $100,000 ...

also, throwing data into an FM carrier is from a technical standpoint of view (let that hams are actually doing it for data, not voice due to bandwidth requirement reasons):

>a waste of bandwidth as you could easily surpass 20khz trying to modulate all those carriers onto one.

>a waste of energy as you gain nothing in range using the technique

>creates far more problem that it solves, as BER would climb high as signal drop would introduce limiter noise

no, riding digital on FM carrier does nothing new. you could modulate some info (callsign for example) using subtones but nothing more than that.

Packet has maximum speed of 1200bps for using narrow modulation and limits range due to used techniques way more than a new technology could offer.

 

Nope, not my original idea. More like K6BP Star!

 

OK, but it seems as if you are talking about a different kind of thing to what D-Star was intended to achieve. Digital voice over SSB has been around long before D-Star. I think it was AOR who offered boxes you could plug into your SSB transceiver. But take-up has been even less than that of D-Star.

I think the development of digital voice able to achieve DX contacts using less power than SSB, and development of digital voice to allow high quality local chat contacts as currently take place using analog FM, are probably two different projects.

Also D-Star tries to integrate repeater linking via the internet and APRS messaging over the same channels. I don't have a problem with that, I think it is a good idea - I use APRS and it would be a godsend if we could use existing repeaters for position reporting and messaging instead of relying on a gateway at someone's house with a limited range that may not even be on when you want it. My problems with D-Star are ownership of the technology, control of the network and a monopoly on the supply of equipment.

 

As a matter of interest, has anyone donated to David Rowe?

I made a donation last week and was very surprised to receive a reply from him thanking me for being the very first person to donate. Clearly he's in need of quite a bit more funding ;-)

 

Actually, I am talking about all the wonderful things we could do by having an open source vocoder. It could fit in modems like AOR's (you are right, AOR modems did it first using...you guessed it ...AMBE!), it could fit in 2m digital as in D-STAR by following the protocol and just adopting AMBE's mode selection bit patterns for compatibility with existing software and hardware for digital, (not voice compatibility but data and gateways who manage raw data packets), maybe inventing another standard, better suited for our codec. Possibilities are endless once you are free.

If codec is robust enough to do SSB it could do high quality local chats as well. Because they are actually the same mode of operation - both suffer from QSB when in multipath conditions,

both require to forget conventional modulation schemes to new, multicarrier approaches,

employing heavy forward error correction and single bit error management,

avoiding everything relates to limiting for maximizing SNR in AF stages (call me limiter before discriminator) when it has no use for our new mode whatsoever (instead of what packet radio users used to follow, hence the robustness vs. existing digital data approaches in VHF and pointing out again what is the advantage of d* vs. FM and other modes)

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So well defined, that leaves me having almost nothing to say.

It is easy to use a FPGA or a "dual core" managing all voice calculations, while all existing dstar repeaters see your data as data and your voice as data as well, repeating everything for their targets to receive them. D-star is doomed to death if it remains bound to AMBE, a future easily averted if we start following the different path of quitting AMBE and just starting enjoy the purely digital portion of the mode, in PC software of FPGA software.
Add some free vocoder to it, and everyone will follow, as we did with PSK, SSTV, packet. If software can do it and software is free, and you can read this message, then doing it is actually free!

 

I am trying to get married and I am having some financial shorts, buying furniture, home appliances, decorations and stuff. Should this be a different phase of my life, I would have absolutely no problem donating. But the paintjob overshooted a little original quoting, VAT took a sudden rise here in GR from 21% to 23%, and somehow we lost our line...

 

Great background.

 

WA4OTD on the genius of Albert Einstein

'Imagination is more important than knowledge.For knowledge is limited to all we know and understand,while imagination embraces the entire world,and all there ever will be to know and understand'.
Albert Einstein 1879-1955,German-born American Physicist
Great quote WA4OTD!!!
My compliments!!!
EI4GMB

 

[x] done

I was the second one

 

thanks, Einstein was a very fascinating man! i only wish we had him here for help with DSTAR!

 

Bravo!

 

The rationale behind the French decision is sound. Our own FCC fails to respond where it should with respect to such non-public, esoteric modes.

France, though, is inconsistent in application of its policy. Why? Well, for one, Pactor III is not an open protocol. One can receive and transmit P3 only via purchase of a modem from SCS, gmbh.

So, is it that SCS pays off the French telecomm authorities or that Icom didn't pay enough?

In any case, to allow Pactor3 and not allow DStar is totally inconsistent.

 

Maybe, someday, imaginative and equitable solutions can be found to all our problems.
EI4GMB