Exactly! Well put. It's becoming a "too many cooks in the kitchen" to do "whatever chaotic cluster **** thing they can conjure up" type thing anymore. No standards. And Gary, I understand your position, as well. Those systems work very well for this area. But how am I supposed to reach you when you go up to Canada?
I know there are differing points of view on "ham radio" today. Maybe I see communicating as more than just a quick contact or big worldwide party line type of thing. I'm trying to find something that works...other then a commercial cellphone. Some way in amateur radio to reach specific stations from, and to, anywhere without listening to noise all day (and night). Something universal. D-STAR used to work great for this with CALLSIGN ROUTING before all these repeaters got tied up with these noisy reflectors. You could even silance your radio with the callsign squelch function when you wante
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Phil
Phil, your DMR comments are spot on as I sarcastically snicker a "I told you so" more than 3 years ago. I was one of the key admins on DMR-MARC and was vilified for pointing this out. You point about a lack of standard is well taken and I, my North American, my European, and my Aussie/NZ counterparts tried for years to work with many groups to develop a standard for talkgroups and routing. It was accepted by many but a smaller group didn't appreciate the need for interoperability across all bridges. That smaller group of people invented their own routing schemes and talkgroups with no regard to the larger standard. Then they started linking bridges with their own ad hoc talkgroups and when you do that, the problem is more difficult to isolate. These adhoc talkgroups often contradict the standard and when you have multiple "standards" and no one to be the referee on what is the standard, complications occur. Nasty ones, both technically difficult that require multiple hours to solve and personal ones. Those of us who have or still use D-Star also recognize that some widely used reflectors have no resemblance of the name of the reflector, rather they are a worldwide ragchew from all over. Not to say the ragchew is bad, just call the talkgroup MEGA 2, MEGA 3, etc not Illinois or Southeast. Then we get to the point of simplicity. The most common beef I heard about D-Star was it was too hard to figure out who was on what talkgroup. So, we simplified that on DMR-MARC with 6 or so of the most used talkgroups with specific routing, but then some others wanted 30 routed everywhere even if they only used 6 to specific locations. What I learned from this is let people make their own mistakes, just like teenagers. You cannot explain it to them if they don't want to hear it.
I also sent an email to Rayfield who is selling the bridges to point out what I felt was an impending collapse of the existing architecture if D-star/Echolink/IRLP like connections were not implemented. The bridges actually require PTT activation on both ends of the QSO to connect if the talkgroup is not connected 24/7. This is completely unorthodox to how we have all come to use ham radio linking. I mentioned the D-Star/Echolink/IRLP uses one PTT connection to establish the link. Furthermore, I suggested the bridges emulate the T, I, E, U from D-Star with several reflectors/talkgroups. To date the c-bridge has not acted on that 3 year old suggestion. John's a nice guy, he's probably been swamped with his business. Ironically, the linux based DMRPlus solution from Europe has. DMRPlus has their own mess with dongles (idiots not setting audio levels correctly) right now and the reliability of the HYT repeaters and linking, but they have the ultimate architecture solution that C-bridge should try and emulate.
Phil, I respectfully disagree to an extent with your D-Star comment of linking reflectors being bad. Here in the Chicago area the D-Star repeaters were quite dead before we started linking 10 or so of them. I think normal statewide or region-wide linking is the right thing to do. Now, if you are referring to leaving them on 30C, 1B, or 1C I agree, that is kind of too hectic to be useful.
So, DMR has potential to surpass D-Star but only if they get the architecture right. Icom, to it's credit, has a an architectural hierarchy, a take it or leave it architecture controlled by some key stakeholders. DMR C-bridge has what I would call a linear and same level hierarchy where anyone in the chain can do whatever he/she wants and his or her decisions can have unintended (or carefree) consequences. The way to fix that is to have a central server or small team be the referee on how the bridges connect and what the standard is. No more ad hoc lawlessness. No more inventing talkgroups (numbers and routing QTHs) that contradict that standard.
The last point is the number of manufacturers. There are more than a dozen with DMR. Grant it, some of the cheap Chinese radios like CS and TYT have their technical shortcomings but guys are getting into DMR for less than $200 now.
Where is the future heading? Ask the linking mechanism software writers. (DMRPlus, C-bridge, SmartPTT, DMRlink)
Mike, AA9VI
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