Yaesu's "overlooked" Dayton introduction - the FT-1D

I think one thing that most seem to overlook is that we already have an open, amateur-developed manufacturer-agnostic digital platform. D-Star was not created (nor is it owned) by Icom. It was developed by the JARL and is a standard that is available to anyone who wants to build radios for it. Icom was simply the first manufacturer to build equipment for D-Star. Home-brew repeaters can be built using readily-available 9600 bps-capable radios and some additional hardware (such as that from http://www.dutch-star.eu). The cost of building these repeaters and hot spots is very minimal as compared to buying commercial digital equipment. It is even possible to add some D-Star functionality to some existing analog radios using outboard hardware. Further, a company displayed an open-source D-Star/packet 25 watt UHF node at Dayton (http://nwdigitalradio.com/) so there is yet another player in the D-Star realm.

I will be the first to admit that I don't know much about D-Star (or P25 or Mototrbo, for that matter). I can't say that it is a good or bad digital standard. However, if there are issues with D-Star then perhaps the JARL or other group could make improvements (D-Star 2.0 as someone else called it) while making it backward compatible with the current standard.

My point in all of the above is simply this - we already have a standard. If it isn't right then let's improve upon it. The manufacturers should then follow that standard and offer interoperable equipment. There's just no reason to reinvent the wheel.

 

I can't find pricing on dutch-star.eu. Maybe its my browser (latest safari) but the website is pretty butchered so I just might not be able to see it. But it looks like it requires a radio and maybe a computer too. Thats a lateral step at best, but still feels like a step backward overall if it requires a computer and radio. Integration is where it is at these days (and in the future).

nwdigitalradio.com stuff isn't available till fall and I'm not quite sure what it actually is... Is it a repeater, or just a simplex device and you need 2 + for a repeater? its not that bad of a price for it either way. Its a step in the right direction though if it is what I think it is. I might just get one.

I guess I'm hoping for something more like the FLEX SDR radios, except that it can do everything including D-Star... not just a D-Star radio and I need to have another radio for analog outside 70CM and another for APRS and another for..... I could live with one radio, one computer, and maybe another magic box if it could do everything, but anything more than that and its starts to get pretty useless for portability and emergency use.

 

Digital Voice coverage has proven to exceed analog FM in our case. We replaced a dying analog FM repeater with a D-STAR repeater, same antenna system and duplexer the D-STAR has noticeably better range, in the range of 10 to 20% better coverage. Using FM for weak signal is pretty futile, if you want to work weak signals you need to use something other than 5 KHz deviation FM.
As for those that think Digital Voice is a fad, you may take note of those that said SSB would never replace AM on HF and same about FM replacing AM on 2 meters. It will take a while, but some form of digital voice will be where most voice activity will be in the future. Yaesu has their work cut out for them if they really think they can compete with D-STAR's large head start.
With the push to go narrowband, I find it hard to believe Yaesu is introducing a modulation scheme that still occupies the same bandwidth as conventional analog FM. Yes, they can do higher data, but with repeater frequencies being in very short supply in many states, I have to believe a narrower bandwidth modulation scheme would be the way to go in the future.

 

10-20% isn't much for the price. Who knows, maybe the dying FM repeater being replaced straight up could have got you 20-30%? The comparison can't be drawn in your example as-is. I love the demonstrations of the voice signal being clear all the way out till it just drops, I could definitely enjoy a more static free commute while listening to the radio.

So does everyone in your area who used the dying FM repeater now have digital rigs? or did the majority just shift to another FM repeater or go FM simplex? I'm asking in all seriousness here. I'd like to figure out which side is the tipping point, the chicken or the egg.

 

You probably ought to qualify the statement I put in italics.

It has not replaced AM on HF. It has supplemented it, and a majority of "phone" operators use it. To check the history of how that transition took place, you would see a prolonged struggle for acceptance of SSB because of its shortcomings that have included bad intelligibility, increased vulnerability to interference at comparable power levels, and a degradation of how hardy the equipment needs to be to produce it.

Add to that list the incompatibility of SSB with other modes and activities --and it brings us to today, because that's the same linchpin confronting "digital" communications wherever they emerge among bands that are shared among a wide range of users.

 

First of all, a "fad" suggests something that was real popular for a short amount of time. It may never get there.

Also, you probably ought to qualify the statement I put in italics.

SSB has not replaced AM on HF. It has supplemented it, and a majority of "phone" operators use it. To check the history of how that transition took place, you would see a prolonged struggle for acceptance of SSB because of its shortcomings that have included bad intelligibility, increased vulnerability to interference at comparable power levels, and a degradation of how hardy the equipment needs to be to produce it.

Add to that list the incompatibility of SSB with other modes and activities --and it brings us to today, because that's the same linchpin confronting "digital" communications wherever they emerge among bands that are shared among a wide range of users.

As for the ARRL’s influence at promoting “digital,” as a category or by endorsing a standard protocol, don’t count on much. The club in Newington was spanked very hard in front of the FCC a few years ago when a former staffer came up with a segregation by bandwidth scheme that could have opened the HF bands to enormous mode conflict.

Their proposal would have used the regulatory structure to pressure acceptance of nascent digital modes.

Active, concerned licensees sent the scheme down in flames and it was withdrawn before the FCC acted on it.

 

10 to 20 percent -- even 2 percent is a lot of money for "Joe Ham" during a deepening recession. Sure there are some mega-millionaire hams that can afford to buy anything that comes along, but changing out an analog FM repeater for a digital one -- just in the hope of gaining additional users is not reality.

A more important point: If repeater use is on the decline but the sale of HF transceivers and upgrade licensing is not keeping pace with the decline on VHF and UHF FM operators using the VHF/UHF bands -- where are all of these people going? As a writer about the FM mode for almost a half century, I have a pretty good line to sources on whats happening and all admit that the decline on VHF/UHF FM is impossible to explain. And at the same time, repeater coordinators are saying that they have long lines of hams wanting repeater pairs for new systems.

Also, with under $50 dual-band HT's coming in by the boat-load from China and selling like proverbial hotcakes, where are all those who are buying them -- using them? One does not purchase a radio and just sit it on a shelf to look at!

This whole thing is really a dicotome that I suspect has a lot to do with the declining world economy thats taking a toll on every leisure past time. Then again, I am not an economist and I don't play one on a TV show either. Maybe, just maybe, the real answer to all of this is the old proverb -- "we will have tro wait and see."

 

As if to emphasize what Paul is alluding to, early this morning there was a 6 meter short-skip opening into Arizona from the Los Angeles area. The real action was on 50.125 SSB, but turning on my ancient but venerable Clegg 99er 6 meter AM transceiver (circa 1961) I found two AM QSO's going on. Both barely above the noise (the Clegg is on an attic dipole) -- one on 50.4 and another on 50.55 or there abouts but audible enough to make out both were in Arizona and local to one another. Also, totally oblivious that there was a band opening taking place. This is nothing new as earlier this cycle (or maybe late last cycle) I sat listening to a pair of W4's in Clearwater Florida talking about restoring a Polycom 6 one had bought cheap at a flea market -- and not accepting breakers on SSB trying for a contact. Somewhere I have the audio file of that one. (For those not aware, most 1950's through 1970's era 6 meter AM transceivers were AM only had had no BFO to copy SSB or CW.) -- de WA6ITF

 

By asking about the usage question to NG9R I was only thinking of adding a digital repeater to the local group and what the effects would be.. Would anyone buy the equipment to use it or would it sit quiet?

If its just a small group of them using it with no interest in the wider world, I'd rather put my money behind a 6M or 220 repeater idea that has come up. Not that it would probably be used any more often, it would be more fun to me to have a 6M repeater around.


I can only offer stories of bad long-time operators chasing off thin-skinned new hams to explain people getting a Tech license and not using it much (or upgrading). You are really limited in how far you can talk with a Tech license so if you don't get in good with the locals, you might not feel welcome in the hobby at all (and thus not upgrade). Hams are a ridiculously territorial bunch. You run afoul the lines and quite literally, everyone has your number. Out of the 30 odd new licenses I've heard granted in my local group in the last 7-9 months, I only hear 4 on the air regular.

I'd love to see more privileges on HF for the Tech license, but I'm probably in the .0001% that want that. They should at least get more than CW capability for long range work in the HF band, sans incredible 6 and 10 meter openings that happen rarely, in this world of voice. I have not been any more impressed with the Old Guys I listen to on HF, but at least the option to break out of the local group might get more new hams to stay. And no, they do not feel like spending a few thousand dollars on weak signal V/UHF gear to ~maybe~ hear someone new.

And old timers that are against internet linking of repeaters (and hams directly) are wondering why its popular?


The only explanations for repeater coordinators handling long lines for a commodity like repeater pairs with fewer hams to use the new pairs are: 1. The system is broken somehow, 2. There are people applying for pairs for some reason other than to put up a repeater (much like a club gobbling up 1x2's or 2x1's), or 3. Hams got pushed out of the current repeaters or don't feel welcome and figured they set their own up.

 

You've twice put your finger on it.

Strong territorial "turf defenders," and a reaction from newcomers to just set up shop elsewhere.

The test is whether the new pairs get used. I'm concerned that the newly licensed folks won't stick around if they don't feel brought into the hobby by the others.

It's not limited to Technician Class licensees. On HF, Generals/Extras of recent vintage.

I have lost track of how many times I've encountered someone who heard our signals on AM, switched their mode button or menu over, and joined us on the mode as a "new" thing. I get a kick out of it, but it also has included comments that they were dialing around because there was no one to talk with.

Between the lines, that suggests the existing QSOs on the more pedestrian modes were of some clique or other, and didn't really have out the welcome mat.

We do.

 

I forgot this one


I see TONS of pictures of shacks with old radios just sitting on the shelf. Personally, no matter how many times I read the caption/caveat "they are all used, they don't just sit there", I can't help but notice in the picture the only radio that is turned on is the one with the big flashy LCD screen. (sometimes the old-iron amp that is hooked up to the new radio is on as well.)

Hams collect gear, even if they don't use it. It is what keeps the used market prices up too high to have a real "entry level" into HF for fresh hams. I mean there are people selling 2 or 3 generation old radios (equipment-wise) for as much, if not more than some of the better lastest generation radios. This is the only realm in wireless and electronics that values the past more than the current or future, which is kind of sad.

 

I'll keep an ear out. I tend to just work contests, special event stations, and attempt to work DX on HF since I have yet to find a table that has an open seat, so to speak.

 

Please do, you've got perfect calls for AM -- W3 Real Carrier Station

Mod-u-Later

http://amfone.net