Pasternak's claim of ham radio capabilities in only 20 to 25 years seems to be based on fantasy. There are physical limitations to power levels and antenna size that would make a wrist audio/video communications device impossible for long range use such as we do with amateur radio.
What likely will happen is that commercial systems will have audio/video with broadband but will operate for very short distances via RF and then mostly operate through the internet. The parallel here is that once this is available, hams are not going to try and duplicate such a system, just like what happened with packet radio once the internet e-mail system proved to be so superior. Even with the potential for emergency use, the packet systems are mostly shut down with very little interest except for a few who do APRS. Reinhart's claim that the soundcard voice is not equal to vocoder chip quality seems not that true from what I have heard. I have heard canned tests of AOR and have heard actual on the air use of DV with WinDRM and it seemed about the same. Some claim slightly better performance with WinDRM over AOR in terms of the critical S/N issue. Where he is on target is the need to develop standards. If each digital protocol can not communicate with other similar digital modes, then it will be hard not to have separate islands of activity. I appreciated his comment that during emergencies, simple works best. He did admit that DV is not a weak signal mode and need lots of signal to work. He claimed an S5 signal might be needed but that can be very misleading on a noisy band and what you really need is a good S/N ratio. He did take the position that there would be a very slow transition to digital and that we needed more sunpots for better propagation. Ideally, new technology should work better than existing technology for it to replace the old and what better time than when you have the most difficult propagation? My take is that unless there are breakthroughs in physics, digital voice will not become popular on HF since the analog technology works so much better for weak signal. And most of what we do on HF tends to be weak signal. It is possible that the legacy mode on HF voice in 25 years, could be DV, not unlike what happened with ACSSB in the past on VHF voice. Just because something is new does not necessarily make it competitive with existing modes. I would have preferred that the presenters give a fair assessment of where we are now and what was feasible with what we know now, rather than the pie in the sky approach that they chose to use. Especially since they were targeting new hams who may now be expected to have very high, but likely very unrealistic, expectations. 73, Rick, KV9U Mark Thompson wrote: > A Beginner's Look at Ham Radio's Digital Future with Jeff Reinhart, AA6JR > > http://www.therainreport.com/rainreport_archive/rainreport-8-30-2007.mp3 >
