Remember, "no other manufacturer" is incorrect. Inet Labs has become a big player.
Icom doesn't really have an icy grip on D-STAR, it's the other manufacturers that are too stupid to adopt it. As to dependency on the DVDongle, it should be treated as just another tool in the tool belt. There are some places where it is much more optimal for communications to use a DVDongle. We would be paying ourselves and our customers (during emergency communications) a disservice if we only used one thing when other solutions are available. p.s. "we should not become dependent on it" was the exact same phrase that the AMers and SSBers used when talking about FM repeaters. After all, you can't trust a FM repeater to always be there. It can lose power, it can be blown away, it can be..... But I think that most people would now agree that repeaters are a key part of our emergency response arsenal. As to setting up the network to support RF only connections, well shortly put, it ain't going to happen. The infrastructure required to hook up all of the repeaters in a single major city would be prohibitively expensive. (as is evidenced in the cost of cellular networks). Let alone the ability to connect overseas. Ed WA4YIH From: dstar_digital@yahoogroups.com [mailto:dstar_digi...@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of David Holman Sent: Tuesday, January 19, 2010 3:17 PM To: dstar_digital@yahoogroups.com Subject: Re: [DSTAR_DIGITAL] Re: New guy I play with DStar and have played with it in a number of environments. I think that DStar is awesome, but we (the hams) really need to pry ICOM's icy grip off of it. The system is awesome, but the fact that no other manufacturers will play in this game is bad. I am not much of a dongle supporter because we are "radio" amateurs, not "internet" amateurs. The internet is a great thing, but we should not become dependent on it, and that is what the dongle does. We need to figure out how to set up an RF network that will support routing of the DStar transmissions and move away from the internet. Again, that would require us to pry ICOM's icy grip off DStar. I am not sure how to do that. I will leave that up to people much smarter than me. 73 David, AC7DS
