Jerry has some good points and questions. The ICOM ad has to be the
worst ad I have ever seen in an amateur radio magazine. What were they
thinking? They need to produce a quality ad that draws people in rather
than push them away. They need to explain why their stuff is the stuff
to get. They did not do that.
Thus far ICOM has been the only company promoting the D-Star open
standard that was developed in Japan. You need competition to insure
that this equipment is going to be available for the long term and get
the prices down to amateur pricing. But in order to have anyone buy such
products, they need to be able to do something that can not be done now,
and for the most part, must be able to at least meet current technology
with all other attributes of the product with existing products. I am
not sure that D-Star can do this. The speed is not very fast compared
to WiFi and with WiMax type equipment available, I wonder if its time
has already come and gone due to the rapid advance of technology?
The 2 meter and 440 D-Star equipment has very slow digital capability so
it does not seem to be able to improve what we already have. The 1.2 gig
equipment can not compete against 2 meter and 440 equipment for range
based upon published tests. Also, I understand that the audio quality is
digital sounding and not quite as good as conventional analog. The
repeaters and controller equipment are out of sight for cost and don't
really do a lot more than we can already do with IRLP and Echolink using
conventional equipment for nearly no cost at all.
One of the methods that I use to roughly gauge the popularity of various
modes/equipment is to observe the number of reviews on eham. The
WIRES-II system appears moribund since it tries to do something already
done with existing systems.
D-Star has all 5 ratings but only three reviews and the last review was
1 and 1/2 YEARS ago! That pretty much tells you how popular this system
... isn't.
For new technologies to succeed in the market place, they have to have
clear advantages over existing systems with no down sides. As an
example, when packet radio came along, it was so much better than VHF
RTTY running through a regenerative repeater that it was adopted
quickly. Not to mention it was very low cost too. It had so many
advantages, such as digipeating, mailboxes, etc.
What are the advantages of D-Star? For those of us who like to be just
back of the knee of the curve of the bleeding edge it does not seem to
offer many benefits that we don't already have and it has some inferior
characteristics compared to existing technologies. I can not imagine
ever using it in our area for mobile voice since it would not work
anywhere near as well as what we have now.
By the way, considering all the new technician class hams, why is there
such a minimal use of repeaters? Clearly, the new entrants can not be
using their license and this greatly concerns me. Also, considering the
huge numbers of VHF only hams, and the proliferation of rigs with
multimode/VHF/UHF capabilities, how can it be that there is almost no
activities on these frequencies?
73,
Rick, KV9U
Jerry W wrote:
In QST March 2006, pages 129 to 136 Icom is promoting their new
radios. The ad starts on page 129 with a Vulture sitting on a
tombstone (R.I.P.) and titled Some say this is the future of amateur
radio. (Scare tactics?)
The Icom IC-7000 looks like a remake of the IC-706 series, it might sell?
The PRC1500 receiver looks interesting with either remote head or PC
interface.
The D-STAR series, 1.2 GHz voice repeater, 1.2 GHz data repeater, 2
meter digital voice repeater, 70 cm digital voice repeater. Of course
one would also need new mobile transcievers to work with D-STAR
repeaters. That could be quite an expensive undertaking. I wonder how
many clubs and individuals will be considering converting over to
D-STAR? Soon or will it take some years to fully implement or will
this die due to cost of purchasing new repeaters and radios?
Have heard of one local club considering D-STAR but they would also
like to keep the current two meter and 70 cm FM repeaters going for
some years which are in need of replacement. A large amount of funds
would be needed to implement both. There are 32 two meter repeaters
listed for the twin city Minnesota area. Not very many are actively
used. Some repeater clubs also have 70 cm repeaters, very rare that
any one of those are used. Think the 3M club has a 1.2 GHz repeater,
but do not know of very many users. There are about four 220 repeaters
that I hear. I have called and called on them, I can kerchunk them
but no one comes back to me, never hear anything other than the CW ID
on them, why are they there?
Then localy Radio City, Inc. has WIRES-II with a Yaesu radio set up
going in the store. So that would mean one would need another new
radio besides D-STAR. Is the WIRES-II new mode going to be a success?
