Rick - I've seen you mention these negatives about D-STAR several times on various lists so I've felt compelled to respond.
I grew up in a rural area of Wisconsin similar to where you live. In a low density area of population is difficult to support many things out of the mainstream initially, including new technology. I currently live in the city of Chicago where a large population base makes many things possible that are not possible in a rural area. For example, I can literally walk down the street and go to a foreign film theatre, Argentinian restaurant, several Irish pubs, Thai restaurant, authentic Austrian coffee house, Wrigley field for baseball, Italian restaurant, Peruvian restaurant, Mexican restaurant, Cuban restaurant, Turkish restaurant, Guatamalan restaurnat, Persian restaurant, live theatres, etc. A short cab ride or drive and the list grows almost exponentially. Nearly none of these things are available in my hometown of 12,000 people in a county of 50,000. Since I don't believe you have actually used D-STAR yet and I have I will respond to your concerns about D-STAR: 1) I find the audio quality of D-STAR not only acceptable, but in many cases preferable to FM since it does not have the static & pass noise that accompanies FM as the signal dimishes in strength. 2) One could have a philosophical argument about whether a digital voice radio should be able to switch to becoming a dedicated data radio at a higher data rate than D-STAR's low-speed data (950 bps). However the low-speed data built into EVERY D-STAR digital voice radio eliminates the need for a separate TNC or modem that you would need with an FM radio. Low-speed data that is concurrent with digital voice has been found to be very useful for sending GPS coordinates, text messages & keyboard-to-keyboard exchanges. These are very useful in public service & emergency activities. 3) Digital voice systems have been found to have a 15% greater effective range that FM at equivalent power levels due to the lack of path noise on digital voice. When digital voice becames garbled due to weak signal the FM signal would already be unusable due to path noise. 4) D-STAR radios cost about the same as FM VHF/UHF radio did 15 years ago when adjusted for inflation, but D-STAR radios do a lot more. We tend to forget or not realize that ham radio equipment has gotten very cheap over the last 10 years and has tracked the same reduction in consumer electronics prices, such as VCRs. 5) 35 years ago at the dawn of FM repeaters you could have made the same argument that no one owns an FM radio and you should stay on 2m, 6m or 10m AM simplex which were popular at the time & very cost effective. But hams did spend more money on new crystal controlled FM radios once the repeaters went up & saw the obivious benefits of repeaters. As D-STAR repeaters are going on the air the same thing is happening. 6) You could have used the same argument in the 1950s that SSB would make it so that most SWLs couldn't hear amateur SSB on their inexpensive AM receivers. There are a large number of existing analog FM repeaters that will be around for a very long time for scanner listeners to hear so there should be no concern about D-STAR displacing exisiting FM. In fact, all D-STAR radios also can do FM and most D-STAR repeaters implemented by groups do not displace existing FM repeaters. 7) Many clubs or groups who already operate analog FM repeaters are adding D-STAR repeaters & are not replacing the existing FM repeaters. They have found it is important that the D-STAR repeaters be implemented to provide coverage as good if not better than the existing FM repeaters. I live 1 1/2 miles from a 57-story condo building that has 70cm & 23 cm D-STAR digital voice repeaters and a 70cm D-STAR digital data repeater. The building also has a 440 FM repeater. I am also within HT coverage of several FM repeaters on 2m, 440 AND 1.2 GHz. That is the benefit of living in an urban area for me as a ham. The rural town I grew up in, Baraboo, WI, had one of the first wide-area 2m FM repeaters in Wisconsin at 1,200 feet above average terrain in the early 1970s. Within the next year that same site will have 2m, 70 cm & 23cm D-STAR Digital Voice repeaters & 23cm Digital Data repeaters that will cover a large rural area of south central Wisconsin in addition to an urban area like the state capitol of Madison, WI. The existing 2m & 440 FM repeaters at this site which have excellent coverage will be retained. The reality is that most of American citizens live in urban areas. I don't believe we should let the constraints of a rural environment confine us to the least common denominator of technology. We need to continue to innovate & use new technology as it becomes available & feasible. Over time hams will adopt new technology as they understand its benefits and the new technology will be deployed in areas that have sufficient population density to support & use it. 73, Mark, WB9QZB Chicago, IL http://groups.yahoo.com/group/illinoisdigitalham/ ----- Original Message ---- 2.8. Re: D-Star use in UK? Posted by: "Rick" [EMAIL PROTECTED] kv9u Date: Mon Oct 15, 2007 1:40 pm ((PDT)) The negatives of D-Star seem to me: 1) It has lower audio quality than FM voice, especially for average to strong signals. This is very disappointing to me. 2) The design to cripple the text data portion on the 2 meter/440 bands is most unfortunate. They would have been much better off to design a system using the full bandwidth for voice and allow you to switch over to data if you needed to do this. Or at least have the option of shrinking the voice bandwidth only when you needed to send data and I suspect that won't be very often with most users. 3) It does not work much farther, if any further, than existing systems. This is a huge concern where I live as we have some directions where even a very high repeater, with excellent antenna and power, can work out less than 15 miles due to shading problems. 4) Cost is a factor, but not the over riding factor, if there were compelling reasons to move toward new technology. I was an early adopter of VHF text digital messaging (packet radio) but that eventually died out in our area. But at the time I was willing to spend money to get some compelling benefits over VHF digital RTTY using a Model 15 Teletype machine. 5) If we tried to use it during an emergency, few hams would be able to participate, therefore you would have to switch back to analog or lose many participants. 6) Analog FM has been helpful in attracting some new hams who listen to the repeater. (It is simply amazing how many people listen and figure out who you are when you live in a rural area like I do). 7) Adding a digital repeater to our relatively new analog system that is located on one of the highest points in the county and has emergency power is very unlikely to ever happen in my lifetime. It would have to be a lesser system with much shorter range and would only attract a niche interest. I don't do digital ham radio because it is digital, I do it when it has compelling reasons, which it does for text digital on HF. 73, Rick, KV9U ____________________________________________________________________________________ Need a vacation? Get great deals to amazing places on Yahoo! Travel. http://travel.yahoo.com/
