Steve wrote: > > The innovation is in software, just as it is in most "RF engineering" > > Precisely why D-Star bugs me. The firmware isn't even flash > updateable. The d-star radio you buy might be capable of more, as one > can imagine, but without some way to make it do more than what it's > capable of out of the box, that kills the possible innovation. > Upgradable firmware is very least they could have done. I'd really > love to see a D-star radio with a firmware software development kit.
How much would you be willing to pay for it? Tell Icom. It's not going to be as cheap as a "consumer" type of rig that is a closed system they can test and verify is working before shipping. :-) Personally, I don't have the time to spend on hacking the rig's firmware. Lots of consumer devices DO have the ability to update their code in the field, via flash technology -- etc. Those devices are hacked on by people with LOTS of spare time, and everyone benefits, but the manufacturers also tell you that if you do it... your warranty is null and void. An example of where this is "good" might be the venerable Linksys WRT-54GS style routers. Things like DD-WRT work great on them, but if you screw up and "brick" your router (program it wrong, and can't recover), you're on your own. I don't think too many people have the money to do this with their rigs. Pre-built, working, tested rigs... aren't "evil" in any way. And if someone wants to build their own D-STAR rig, at least two hams have proven it's already possible. (So I'm not sure what's stopping you from hacking on a D-STAR rig, if that's what you really want to do. At least two of your peers are already DOING it.) > > Why? Asterisk is analog. Who cares about linking analog to digital? > > > > > That's useful TODAY in the mixed environment and in emergencies only. > > > > Asterisk is digital. It typically has analog endpoints called > speakers and microphones, weather they are on telephones or radios. I haven't seen ANY digital end-points on Asterisk, and since a digital end-point needs to participate at a low protocol level with the network it's talking to, any attempts to hack D-STAR *properly* into Asterisk, ends up looking just like an Icom Gateway with Asterisk loaded... when that's already possible today. Of course, then you need some way to pull the audio out of the D-STAR stream, un-VOCODE it and re-VOCODE it into whatever other VoIP technology you like... and then send it on to... Analog end-points. Backward step in tech. Doesn't work for me. If someone REALLY wants to help D-STAR have a fully-digital/hackable, back-end infrastructure, their time would be better spent volunteering for Robin's OpenGateway project. Not trying to hack D-STAR into Asterisk. Asterisk is built for analog end-points, no matter how you slice it. Any strap-on functionality for D-STAR will only act as a bridge between analog radios and digital ones, and not a very good one at that. A truly open Gateway leads forward. Asterisk leads backward. > You right the analog to digital linking isn't totally where it's at. > Although it is useful for emergencies and interoperability. I don't disagree here. I just figure the D-STAR rigs do analog just fine in an emergency... I can just switch memory channels for "interoperability" without relying on a hack in the middle to link the dissimilar technologies. > > What does linking D-STAR to Asterisk buy anyone? I'd truly be > > interested in what you think it might accomplish? > > > > I can think of two: > > - Autopatch? Yawn. > > - Linking to analog radios? Yawn. > > > > I could interface the D-star radio in my shack into my asterisk > system. When someone on the radio makes a private call to my > callsign, those callsigns would be the same as a DID or caller ID > fields. I could then set those to route to a voicemail box or a ring > group of phones upstairs in the event I wasn't at the radio. Voicemail could be added to a truly open Gateway. The rest (routing by callsign) is a feature of D-STAR that is not exposed outside the rig to external software. (Plug a D-STAR rig into an Asterisk box, there's no way to tell the Asterisk box what the rig is receiving for callsign routing information, currently. The protocol to "monitor the rig status live" in the later rigs like the IC-92AD and IC-2820H is not public. It's baked into the RT Systems programming software though, so someone could reverse-engineer it. Until that part is done and someone can pass the serial data from the rig to Asterisk, the whole idea is on its ear. If you're REALLY interested in innovation, that'd be a good project to start with -- documenting how to see the information the rig is receiving in the routing header, via the serial port in real-time.) Ringing phones is just an autopatch, and covered in my original comment above... at least for me that's a YAWN. If I want a radio call, I'll have my radio ON. If not, I have no need to have people calling from the radio to the PSTN (public switched telephone network). Linking a callsign route from a D-STAR rig to my cell phone, isn't something I have ANY desire to do. Perhaps you do. Definitely not here, though. > Or have that radio call route out another trunk, which could be > another radio, ATA, etc. Again, digital to analog is backwards. And how does the person calling you on D-STAR choose where this traffic out the analog side goes? It's a source-routed system. You'd be effectively "routing" them to things they may not have wanted to call you on. I still see little use for this other than for an individual. (Tell me why a club president would want to "buy" this technology for members... perhaps that's a better way to ask it, that's more positive than me just saying, "not interested". Give me your elevator pitch, that includes how much the project will cost, and what my members "get" for their time and effort and money... just like a business proposal in an elevator.) > I could do something besides press the PTT, because I could interface > my radio to Asterisk which is an open platform that I can script and > customize to my liking. Again: Open Gateway. > > Asterisk as it's being used today, is just a fancy analog repeater > > controller with VoIP linking features. Nice, and quite a good tool for > > analog repeaters, but analog -- in the long-term, is dead. > > I do agree with this too... but I do feel that's a long ways off. It's further off the more we cater to digital to analog links. Make those links, no one buys and operates the native digital protocol network (D-STAR in this particular case, but the same could be said for any digital system that's trying to get going). The users on the analog side also never see what D-STAR can really do. Basically I see it as a challenge... build the digital side, or build bridges. Resources taken from the former to feed the latter, slow down the progress of the all-digital systems. Let folks have their analog repeaters as long as they want. That's fine. But if they want to play on a real, multi-national digital system... they'll go buy an Icom rig (even if they have to hold their nose and they'd prefer Yaesu or Icom) and get involved. I think we're only a TINY way into what few folks who have time will build overall for D-STAR, as far as add-on software, etc. I don't see it as very effective to stop, turn around, and build bridges back to analog -- why bother? We've now got a multi-national, working, linked system that's all digital. Let's focus on what we can do with it, versus linking it to 1970's technology. (Or in the case of the telephone, 1800's technology.) Nate WY0X
