Skip, You may be missing my point, not sure. Let me try again. I will try, English is not my strongest subject.
Let me say one thing before I get into it. I really appreciate and enjoy your posts and you seem to have a even temperament which is getting more rare these days on reflectors. You also seem to have a lot of expertise in RF, which always makes me think and I am sure I will learn from you. Thank you for all your work and posts on this reflector. Writing code is a different process than creating the specs. There many software developers who can create beautiful code who did not create the specs or come up with the idea on what to create. Just like there are people who want something built and have a great idea but have not the talent to do it. Many times it takes many people involved with different skills to create a product. I too have a few patents and did not have enough electronics background to accomplish my project, but sought the advice and help of others to get the job done. After many years of teaching myself electronics from the basic to the advanced I finally succeeded in building the project I wanted and got the investors to help and factory to build it. The problem is these days as far as a product as concerned to make money, you have to build a product people are willing to pay for that is more than it cost to make it. Not easy! A lot of research goes in to it. Starting with a needs analysis, that is you have to give them what they want, not what YOU want, and what they are willing to pay for. There are many talents involved in creating a good product that will sell. Even in software, that is software you sell for a profit and is competitive. Often the idea man, the software developer, and the person who can market the product are all different people. In very large software projects there may be hundreds of people all writing different parts of the code who are very specialized in different areas. Software development is becoming very specialized. These days I am writing software on ATMEL chips, among some others and am becoming specialized mainly on this chip manufacture. This is very different from what I used to do, write software for oil and gas and tele-comms. I majored in Math and computer science in the late 60's and am still learning every day. " "This will never work" is just part of the discussion and brainstorming process, and not necessarily a negative statement. ". I truly understand what you are saying, believe me I do! When I was working as manager of software developers I found it helpful to brain storm when we were involved in an impossible job and let the ideas flow freely. When harsh criticism came from people from my team as soon as an idea came out, people shut up and not another idea ever came from these people. Good ideas are often over looked because of it. Some of the best ideas our company had came from these silly ideas the critics hated and would never work. I had a business partner that was always telling me that we should try this and that and I would tell him that would never work, only days after I thought about it and did find a way to do it his way, though it was not easy. He was not a software guy and he had no idea what could be done and not done. I did the same to him, he was a great electronics engineer and I was always pushing him harder and harder to go into areas he was not familiar with. We complimented each other's talents and some how always solved the problem. I am now involved with RACES in Garland, Texas. There are many people with a lot of talents I tap into in areas I do not have the expertise in. I am not experienced in building antennas, so I ask for help. A great guy who helped me build a Super J-Pole and he did a wonderful job. I demoed his handy work and showed that his antenna did what the ARRL claimed. There was a jerk who said, he did not believe it would do any better job than a simple dipole, even though the antenna has proven itself many many times by many people and was written up years ago in the ARRL antenna book. There is always one in the crowd. In my experience, criticism that is harsh, not constructive is NOT warranted, EVER. Criticism like this is never helpful and only hurts, and is what the critic mostly wants, to make himself look good at the your expense. I have learned the hard way that constructive criticism needs to wait until all the brainstorming is over, otherwise good ideas are passed over. I am interested in seeing ham radio advance, and we have a lot of talent in this country, as shown on this reflector. Anyway I have said enough, and will not have any more to say on the subject. 73, Warren - K5WGM --- On Mon, 3/8/10, KH6TY <kh...@comcast.net> wrote: From: KH6TY <kh...@comcast.net> Subject: Re: [digitalradio] 1976 FCC - Delete all Emission Types from Part 97 To: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com Date: Monday, March 8, 2010, 2:52 PM Warren, I have several electronics patents and am often asked by laymen how one invents something, and what to do if they invent something. I advise them that very few inventors come up with something new and just make money off the patent royalties or sale itself. Instead, document and witness the idea, keep it a trade secret, and manufacture the item yourself. I had to do that when I created the first consumer VHF FM weather-alert radio in 1974 and, believe me, it was a difficult struggle, because so many thought the idea was worthless and would not back it. Nevertheless, I went ahead anyway, designed the radios, and built a factory to make them. Today, 27 years later, that concept has blossomed into an entire industry. With your extensive background in software, maybe people are looking to YOU to research and provide a workable solution. "This will never work" is just part of the discussion and brainstorming process, and not necessarily a negative statement. The idea is to keep throwing out ideas for criticism and discussion, even if at first glance the idea may appear to be unworkable to many. Yes, suggesting a successful solution often takes lots of thought, and sometimes hard work, if it is to be a reasonably good solution. Saying something "will not work" often spurs others to want to prove that it might. So, don't write those comments off as being completely negative - they just might well become the catalyst of an idea that will work. I had to go to the extreme step of teaching myself to program in Delphi just in order to write DigiTalk for the blind ham. Not being very smart, nor much of a programmer, it took me many months, but in the end, the program that speaks the PSK31 text as it comes in is in use by the blind ham community (Courage Hams) and I am almost ready to release an updated version for XP, VISTA, and W7 that works with Fldigi and Multipsk. So, solutions often only come about from long periods of struggle. Fldigi is open source, so anyone who wants to modify the source to add a solution and test it is welcome to do so. Maybe YOU can do it, since you already have a head start with your software experience. It is a good idea - now show us the solution! ;-) 73 - Skip KH6TY Warren Moxley wrote: I have used this Video ID myself after I have seen others do it. Some are using it to show the mode you are in, your Call sign, CQ CQ and just 73's. It is pretty effective. I have started using both RSID TX and Video ID. I have seen many that will use video ID but do not use or refuse to use RSID. The issue I see on many post is negative. "That will never work because..." I guess negative posts are easier than suggesting a possible solution. Maybe guys are not suggesting solutions because they think someone will shoot it down anyway so why try? It is better to try and fail than not try at all. I had a boss one time a long time ago tell me that it is easy to tell when a man is not working, he never makes any mistakes. --- On Mon, 3/8/10, KH6TY <kh...@comcast. net> wrote: From: KH6TY <kh...@comcast. net> Subject: Re: [digitalradio] 1976 FCC - Delete all Emission Types from Part 97 To: digitalradio@ yahoogroups. com Date: Monday, March 8, 2010, 1:40 PM Trouble is, many digital ops may not listen to the band, and CW is not easily read visually on a waterfall, except at very slow speeds. FWIW - some food for thought - I spotted an old friend, PJ2MI, using MFSK16 on 17M a couple of days ago, only because he was sending a CQ using video ID with both his call and mode. I would probably not known he was there if the had not sent the video ID, as I was in Olivia at the time. I had not worked 17m before and was looking for Olivia stations, not MFSK16. Of course the MFSK16 footprint is recognizable, but not who it is. 73 - Skip KH6TY Warren Moxley wrote: "something simple like “QRL” in CW, or 3-seconds of carrier at ~1 khz.)" At least this is an idea. Let's here more brain storming, even ones that sound silly at first might or can be modified to a solution or cause someone else to think in an entirely new way. --- On Mon, 3/8/10, Dave AA6YQ <aa...@ambersoft. com> wrote: From: Dave AA6YQ <aa...@ambersoft. com> Subject: RE: [digitalradio] 1976 FCC - Delete all Emission Types from Part 97 To: digitalradio@ yahoogroups. com Date: Monday, March 8, 2010, 9:58 AM (unless the “Universal QRL signal” is something simple like “QRL” in CW, or 3-seconds of carrier at ~1 khz.) 73, Dave, 8P9RY From: digitalradio@ yahoogroups. com [mailto:digitalradi o...@yahoogroups. com] On Behalf Of Dave AA6YQ Sent: Monday, March 08, 2010 11:55 AM To: digitalradio@ yahoogroups. com Subject: RE: [digitalradio] 1976 FCC - Delete all Emission Types from Part 97 Unless you can convince the transceiver manufacturers to include the capability in each unit, someone operating without a computer connected to his transceiver – e.g. a phone operator -- will be unable to generate the “universal QRL” signal. 73, Dave, 8P9RY From: digitalradio@ yahoogroups. com [mailto:digitalradi o...@yahoogroups. com] On Behalf Of Warren Moxley Sent: Monday, March 08, 2010 11:36 AM To: digitalradio@ yahoogroups. com Subject: Re: [digitalradio] 1976 FCC - Delete all Emission Types from Part 97 Skip, "since there is no way to cross-communicate to resolve mutual interference. " This is a very interesting topic. I have been a software engineer for over 35 years and have heard there is "no way" a lot of times only to come up with a solution a few days later either by myself or others on my team. It seems to me that the problem of cross-communication can be solved by using an already used technique via RSID. RSID is fast becoming a defacto standard. Maybe we can solve this by modifying the RSID protocol. Currently we are using it to just let others know what mode we are in. Maybe more information can be put in the the RSID packet, for example, Call sign and some reserved bits for the purpose of QSY. Like codes that mean, please QSY, this frequency is already in use and many other codes that can be expanded for this use. Hey guys, come on, there are a lot of smart people and great problem solvers on this reflector who can expand this protocol or come up with a solution. Let's use our brains and solve this problem for the good of the hobby. I am ONLY making and example for the purpose of brain storming. RSID expansion may or may not be a good idea. Do not take my RSID packet expansion as what we should do but as a point of discussion on how to solve a problem. That's the real point here. Let's take my simplistic example as start and let's go from here. Let's not get bogged down on who is right and who is wrong, who has the better mode and it is just too hard of a problem to solve. Warren - K5WGM --- On Mon, 3/8/10, KH6TY <kh...@comcast. net> wrote: From: KH6TY <kh...@comcast. net> Subject: Re: [digitalradio] 1976 FCC - Delete all Emission Types from Part 97 To: digitalradio@ yahoogroups. com Date: Monday, March 8, 2010, 8:14 AM Trevor, The problem with such a regulation is that, unless CW is required as a common mode, there is no way for a phone QSO, being able to request an interfering digital signal to QSY. Our frequencies are shared, and accidental transmission on existing QSO's in unavoidable, but the mitigation is the ability for the user of one mode to be able to communicate with the user of another mode. The problem already exists between digital operators, but the regulations were written long ago when essentially there was only phone and CW and everyone was required to know CW. I don't know what the solution to the current problem is, but the problem with solely "regulation by bandwidth" is NOT a solution, especially between phone and digital, since there is no way to cross-communicate to resolve mutual interference. This is why the ARRL "regulation by bandwidth" petition to the FCC was withdrawn after already once being denied by the FCC. There have been arguments that bandwidth-only regulation works in other countries (perhaps with less ham population density), but it definitely will not work here. That is why legal separation between data and phone has been maintained at all costs, and data kept separate from phone. CW usage may be declining, and therefore using less space, leaving more for digital modes to use, but use of digital modes is still very small compared to CW and phone. Since it is possible to create a digital mode that is very spectrum inefficient for the benefit it brings, there will probably have to be a future restriction of digital mode bandwidths in proportion to the need and benefits of the mode. Digital modes will probably have to restricted by bandwidth in the future, but there still needs to be a "common language" for frequency use mitigation. 73 - Skip KH6TY Trevor . wrote: Following the recent discussions about the US license restrictions I was looking through the archive of QST mags at www.arrl.org On April 22, 1976 the FCC introduced Docket 20777, the QST report (page June 1976) says "Rather than further complicate the present rules," the Commission said, "with additional provisions to accomodate the petitioners' requests, we are herein proposing to delete all references to specific emission types in Part 97 of the Rules. "We propose, instead," the Commission continued, "to replace the present provisions with limitations on the permissible bandwidth which an amateur signal may occupy in the various amateur frequency bands. Within the authorised limitations any emission would be permitted." It would seem that deletion of emission types from Part 97 is exactly what is needed now to permit experimentation. Perhaps the FCC should be asked to re-introduce Docket 20777 Trevor