Hey, folks:
I think a lot of people are underestimating what Yaesu has done with its new
digital mode. Yes, it’s annoying that we have a full-blown standards war going
on in ham radio right now, but Yaesu is avoiding a lot of the mistakes Icom
made with D-Star, and bypassing the severe limitations of DMR. For one thing,
System Fusion radios all include APRS and GPS. That was a huge omission from
the Icom products. The installed base for APRS is immense. What that means in
practical terms is that if you buy one of the System Fusion radios and the new
mode flops completely, you’ll still be left with a high-end VHF/UHF rig that
can do APRS, at a price competitive with the Kenwood APRS radios. You’re
getting the System Fusion mode for free. If D-Star doesn’t become the standard,
you’ll be stuck with a ridiculously overpriced rig that’s totally incompatible
with APRS and every other digital mode. DMR will never have APRS, and the
hardware is outright antagonistic to the kind of modifications that would be
required to support it.
The second good move Yaesu has made is to design the repeaters to be analog FM
compatible *by default*. Yes, I know D-Star fans like to claim that their
repeaters can be set up for backward compatibility, but in practice they never
are. DMR repeaters are even less compatible. With the DR-1X, a repeater group
can buy the machine and install it, and even if the whole System Fusion mode
flops, they’re still left with a very nice, modern analog FM repeater. It’s
designed to be a plug-and-play replacement for the gemish of aging commercial
gear most repeater groups have had to hack together, at a price - even before
this huge discount - that almost makes it crazy not to get one.
The final piece is that Yaesu appears to be sticking System Fusion into its
newer radios by default. They just released the DC-to-daylight replacement for
the FT-857, and besides all of the goodies of its predecessor, it includes
System Fusion, all at a price that’s competitive with similar HF rigs on the
market. A whole lot of hams will end up buying that radio as an all-in-one
base, even if they have no interest in the new digital mode. The result will be
an ever-expanding installed base for the mode.
Yaesu has really bent over backward to reduce the risk of buying these new
radios to zero.
—Alan (N3IMU)
--
Alan Dove, Ph.D.
Web: turbidplaque.com
Phone: 917.273.0544
Skype: alandove
Twitter: @alandove
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