HR2.0 - M17 Project - New Ham Radio Digital Mode

How to screw up hamradio? M17 is the answer. When something like this is implemented for example into the Pi-Star project, its over. Then everybody, if licensed or not, is able to get on the bands. And when the bridges of the Pi-Star to the protected networks and systems of DMR, D-Star and Fusion are on, there is no need for to make a ham exam. And these band pirates will not be found, when doing M17. Just use a computer and get in. M17 should stay experimental like a modern Echolink in a seperate Network, far away from the others.

 

Why do we need a new digital mode? What does M17 offer that is not already available in extant digital modes?

 

To get one amateur mode instead of many incompatible conditionally amateur modes.

Total opensourceness.

This in not only matter of money. One could donate to opensource developers much more than average proprietary part costs. This is ideological question. Proprietary parts harm the spirit of amateur radio.

 

You have just insulted someone who very much does proprietary work 'in the spirit of ham radio'. We have a century plus history of development of proprietary work within the amateur radio service. Proprietary does not mean 'exclusionary'. It means control and incentive for improvement. The control is NECESSARY so that inferior derivatives do not run amock. Why would anyone want to exclude the user base for which the new technologies are designed-- you WANT folks to use it, you are not shutting then out.

That didn't answer my question. Again: "What does M17 offer that is not already available in extant digital modes?"

Why should anyone care about developing a new mode in order to 'stick it to the man'--as they say...

The assertion that there would be 'one compatible' mode is bogus. If I am a user of Dstar or DMR, I am already using DSTAR and DMR--so why should I waste time on yet another new mode? How is it a 'one compatible' mode if it is constantly changing by the hand of thousands of people puttering around with it? Who controls it? Its not 'open' if its 'controlled'

And why should I--or anyone-- CARE if its 'open source' or not? That is a political issue which is a contrived motivation for keeping capitalistic based incentive out of the picture, not a technology-benefit one. Read the Zed rules on politics.

Just come up with a superior digital voice mode and give it away. Control the releases. Don't inveigh a political reason why I or anyone else should use it by incorrectly calling it 'open source'.

Thanks.

73
Chip W1YW

 

it is just another flavor of the month........like we need another digital mode. what will it do for ham radio that the others can do.

it is just another way for people to think what they are using is better than sliced bread

 

Yey, colored nonsense. Having no Dislike button, may I express my disgust on this lack of knowledge by this line?

It would be very long and tiresome to make a lot of hams (not even ordinary people) understand what is the ham radio about at all especially when things come to the digital modes, since an even smaller group of ham folks try to self-educate themselves in the area of programming and DSP than actually build and have built analog wireless circuits, radios and parts. First off, even the exact idea and consequencies of something being "open source" and not "proprietary" is incomprehensible to the others, and what could we loose if that very valuable minority this hobby had and have been producing during a century or more just died out and never reproduced.

For example, if that praised "capitalistic approach" were applicated in its full glamor to the analog radios in the (ham) radio history, today we would have concrete filled bricks and proprietary CAT protocols, etc., and you could not connect to your radio a single home made s@#t at all... A real ham by the tradition is NOT only A USER. We can be, but then it is a different hobby.

So M17 is probably a very respectable work, and that is the minimum to pull for them against the rather questionable penetration of digital wireless business like DMR and so. As a matter of fact, there were reasons earlier to employ those frequently condemned AMBE chips, but that's a different story.

 

An "entirely open source" development sees no proprietary control of the product. It has no set of standards that must be upheld , and motivations for upgraded releases. It's the wild west.

An "entirely open source" development has no HEGEMONIC control. Individuals , thousands in fact, take on that 'responsibility', and in doing so, are empowered to produce countless variants that themselves become incompatible with the original release. We, the people, enable the 'mode'.

H-E-G-E-M-O-N-Y means a small number of elitist developers that tell you and me--the people-- what is acceptable. If you have hegemony then it is not "entirely open source".

Let's keep hegemony off the Zed vis a vis the rules on politics.

Go ahead and make M17 a brilliant, free mode. But don't force politics on it.

73
Chip W1YW

 

I stand by my expert knowledge on innovation and technology. Please be specific on what constitutes my "lack of knowledge".

I have no doubt that a superior digital mode is just fine. Just do it. Don't motivate the end users with some nebulous ambiguous use of the term "open source". Its a widget. Make it a better widget that gets used by all. And CAN be used by all. And that's all.

Why is that "colored nonsense"? I have no idea what that means.

When I asked for the aspects of that superiority I got answers that invoke the delights of "open source"--not technology improvement. Here is that question again, which you apparently so dislike: "What does M17 offer that is not already available in extant digital modes?" That is a resonable and fair question, guided by curiosity.

There should be no political motivation to enable M17. That is the point. What is proposed here is an hegenomony posing as pen source"

I am sorry you dislike me. Sorry. I am quite comfortable with my own skin.

Have a great day.

73
Chip W1YW

 

Well here is what it looks like to me: I am waiting to pull the trigger on digital voice because I don't want a Betamax VCR that no one makes tapes for and now there is yet another entry into the format war. Instead of waiting to see which one of the current 3 wins out, now I need to wait on the outcome of a 4-way war

 

Exactly. We shouldn't be privy to the politics of how the 4th option gets motivated, only which one, we users, decide on.

Ultimately its up to us.

 

I'm sorry, too, also I couldn't edit out my later additions yet, but what I don't understand is the hegemony thing.

Is it a hegemony what ham basics says that bands are not for broadcasting, forwarding third-party messages, etc., or just a well thought out rule to build something different and valuable? That the time proven, by the way. I know our history, in the first decades it was different, but that's really another story, too...

People don't understand the whole picture, we need not only a new mode (that can occassionally be controversial being a fourth, or fifth, or so), we need a system that we can grow step by step in a hope that some day it becomes strong enough to compete with, and possibly win over proprietary modes pressed upon the ham radios by the ham manufacturers. They aren't the best and most advanced as it always happened in the history to the ham equipments, receiver parameters, etc. until there were no real competitors, so there is nothing to be defended against the deadly forces of "open source elitists"...

We could not even let any undocumented or irreproducible hardware or software units or equipments to be used on the ham bands for a good reason, the ham radio fundamentals, far from any political arguments. As it turned out and the history shows, it does not prevent a manufacturer to be successful. Unfortunatelly, nobody else but hams need the ready-made equipments the most to keep this group enough large to be alive, and it is even a better reason than the previous...

Since there is not a large enough crowd of hams actually developing DSP, digital modes, and something-beyond-the-FM networks, the whole discussion is fuelless and futile, but it is hardly bearable to read what are usually commented under such posts or videos.

 

Again, you asserted a 'dislike' and my 'lack of knowledge'.

Asserted but not shown.

No one cares about how M17 is produced. Just do it. We will use it. We don't give a damn about the politics when we flick the 'mode' switch. It's not the reason we would want to use it.

 

You did not react on my main points therefore we can't argue. It might apply to my words, though. But let's save each other's time... I hope, later there will be something on this we can talk about of.

 

Nothing against M17. In fact, I am in complete support of it; but...

D-Star is not proprietary. The protocol has never been proprietary, and the AMBE codec which it uses is now out of patent. It is now no more or less open than M17.

 

I don't react to anything.

I just have no interest in getting muddled in your digression.

Have a great day.