Jerry has some good points and questions. The ICOM ad has to be the worst ad I have ever seen in an amateur radio magazine. What were they thinking? They need to produce a quality ad that draws people in rather than push them away. They need to explain why their stuff is the stuff to get. They did not do that.
Thus far ICOM has been the only company promoting the D-Star open standard that was developed in Japan. You need competition to insure that this equipment is going to be available for the long term and get the prices down to amateur pricing. But in order to have anyone buy such products, they need to be able to do something that can not be done now, and for the most part, must be able to at least meet current technology with all other attributes of the product with existing products. I am not sure that D-Star can do this. The speed is not very fast compared to WiFi and with WiMax type equipment available, I wonder if its time has already come and gone due to the rapid advance of technology? The 2 meter and 440 D-Star equipment has very slow digital capability so it does not seem to be able to improve what we already have. The 1.2 gig equipment can not compete against 2 meter and 440 equipment for range based upon published tests. Also, I understand that the audio quality is "digital" sounding and not quite as good as conventional analog. The repeaters and controller equipment are out of sight for cost and don't really do a lot more than we can already do with IRLP and Echolink using conventional equipment for nearly no cost at all. One of the methods that I use to roughly gauge the popularity of various modes/equipment is to observe the number of reviews on eham. The WIRES-II system appears moribund since it tries to do something already done with existing systems. D-Star has all 5 ratings but only three reviews and the last review was 1 and 1/2 YEARS ago! That pretty much tells you how popular this system ... isn't. For new technologies to succeed in the market place, they have to have clear advantages over existing systems with no down sides. As an example, when packet radio came along, it was so much better than VHF RTTY running through a regenerative repeater that it was adopted quickly. Not to mention it was very low cost too. It had so many advantages, such as digipeating, mailboxes, etc. What are the advantages of D-Star? For those of us who like to be just back of the knee of the curve of the "bleeding edge" it does not seem to offer many benefits that we don't already have and it has some inferior characteristics compared to existing technologies. I can not imagine ever using it in our area for mobile voice since it would not work anywhere near as well as what we have now. By the way, considering all the new technician class hams, why is there such a minimal use of repeaters? Clearly, the new entrants can not be using their license and this greatly concerns me. Also, considering the huge numbers of VHF only hams, and the proliferation of rigs with multimode/VHF/UHF capabilities, how can it be that there is almost no activities on these frequencies? 73, Rick, KV9U Jerry W wrote: > In QST March 2006, pages 129 to 136 Icom is promoting their new > radios. The ad starts on page 129 with a Vulture sitting on a > tombstone (R.I.P.) and titled "Some say this is the future of amateur > radio." (Scare tactics?) > > The Icom IC-7000 looks like a remake of the IC-706 series, it might sell? > > The PRC1500 receiver looks interesting with either remote head or PC > interface. > > The D-STAR series, 1.2 GHz voice repeater, 1.2 GHz data repeater, 2 > meter digital voice repeater, 70 cm digital voice repeater. Of course > one would also need new mobile transcievers to work with D-STAR > repeaters. That could be quite an expensive undertaking. I wonder how > many clubs and individuals will be considering converting over to > D-STAR? Soon or will it take some years to fully implement or will > this die due to cost of purchasing new repeaters and radios? > > Have heard of one local club considering D-STAR but they would also > like to keep the current two meter and 70 cm FM repeaters going for > some years which are in need of replacement. A large amount of funds > would be needed to implement both. There are 32 two meter repeaters > listed for the twin city Minnesota area. Not very many are actively > used. Some repeater clubs also have 70 cm repeaters, very rare that > any one of those are used. Think the 3M club has a 1.2 GHz repeater, > but do not know of very many users. There are about four 220 repeaters > that I hear. I have called and called on them, I can "kerchunk" them > but no one comes back to me, never hear anything other than the CW ID > on them, why are they there? > > Then localy Radio City, Inc. has WIRES-II with a Yaesu radio set up > going in the store. So that would mean one would need another new > radio besides D-STAR. Is the WIRES-II new mode going to be a success? > Or will it die due to cost of purchasing new radios? > > Two meter, 70 cm and 220 FM mobile has died due to cell phone use and > more concentration needed in driving on today's busy roads for the > most part IMHO. Very few hams fire up the two meter rig at home, > except maybe for emergency use on Skywarn or to check into a weekly > club net. Are these new radios going to sell? > > Jerry - K0HZI > > > Need a Digital mode QSO? Connect to Telnet://cluster.dynalias.org Other areas of interest: The MixW Reflector : http://groups.yahoo.com/group/themixwgroup/ DigiPol: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Digipol (band plan policy discussion) Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/digitalradio/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
