On Jan 30, 2009, at 8:00 PM, genedathe wrote: > How many of you repeater owners have an active 1.2 DV repeater on the > air? Do you see any actual use? >
Light use on W0CDS-A, but a few users. The economic down-turn has certainly curtailed my interest in buying an ID-1 for the moment, for example... and I'm one of the techs on the system. > I'm curious about this because, IMHO, 1.2 DV has very little to offer. > 1.2 is strictly line of sight, and one really needs a high gain > antenna and expensive feedline for reliable work. Why operate on a > band where losses are so high, when 2M will triple the range with a > far less expensive radio? > I think you're generally right for LOW altitude sites. Our site here in Colorado is blessed with roughly 5000' HAAT, and with 3/4" hardline feeding a directional panel antenna (we combined the DV and DD systems using TX-RX products) pointed at the "center" of Denver, mobile users are finding the 1.2 works fine. DD is also very interesting. Mobile, it gets too much multi-path and pings fail while in motion, but they resume at every stop light and fixed locations work fine. > Please note, 1.2 DD is a different animal. In Minneapolis/St Paul, > you can set up your ID-1 anywhere around the metro and repeat that > 128kbps data stream all over--They got the WOW factor going on with > that network! > Most of us in data networking see a 128Kb/s half-duplex network as quite a long ways from "wow" these days. Tethering to my cell phone is faster on both CDMA and GSM networks now, and my house has a burst speed of 16Mb/s down, and 2Mb/s up... so, 128 Kb/s is ultra-limited in my thinking. But as a ham interested in having "alternative networks", it's cool. $2000 a pop for the modules is a bit much, at first glance, but amortized over a ten year lifespan, it's only $200 a year to have some fun, though... so not really that bad. Hams are spoiled with using cast-off commercial gear for our repeaters, and think D-STAR is "expensive" when it adds a LOT of functionality for very little additional cost on VHF/UHF. 1.2 GHz definitely has a higher financial barrier to entry for the average ham, though. Expecting D-STAR to be the "hot" thing beyond ten years, probably isn't wise though -- hopefully there are other digital voice and data alternatives by then. Nate WY0X
