SOFA_KING
Member
Mike, thanks for shedding some light on what transpired behind the scenes. I was busy on a local area project and had to do work in the Carribian all last week, so I apologize for the delay in commenting.
I'm just an end user with a background in two-way radio who has a vision of what I like to call "effective communication". I look at all the capability of the equipment design and think about how it can be used to contact someone I would like to talk to. At times it may be a group, and at other times it may be an individual. The old Nextel network was brilliant at doing both, but perhaps on a smaller scale when it came to groups. As we all know, that was a commercial network, and not amateur radio, which is what we are all about here. But if the DMR network design becomes nothing more than a linking protocol to give local repeaters someone to talk to (do to local inactivity), and just a means to make some noise 24x7 without regard to routing to specific stations or defined groups, then you have lost that function of reaching out to specific stations. That is what D-STAR started out as, and actually achieved, but got jammed up with worldwide "I just want to talk to whoever" 24x7 noise when DPlus came in and totally disregard the original Icom design. Call sign routing became unusable. Part of that problem was the poor implementation of the standard by only being able to "call in the blind". You didn't know if the other end was busy or if you actually got through. Even worse was the "repeater forwarding" in-the-blind design, but DPlus didn't solve any of that. And so many amateurs never really could grasp the convoluted way to make any of these functions work. I still hear the struggle people go through to do a simple task of linking up two repeaters. Perhaps programming FOUR callsign fields and doing UR keyups to do functions, then returning to a general CQCQ channel was too much work, overcomplicated and a bad idea. Now anyone hardly knows what Callsign Routing even is, much less how to do it...if it would even work with all that reflector noise going 24x7. To add to the confusion, Icom radio design keeps changing generation after generation. No standards in design or user interface. What a mess! Many gave up and came over to DMR.
DMR was easier to operate once the initial programming was done. Two communication paths for the price of one added real value. Channels programmed with talkgroups select the destination area or group, although that came with the high price tag of tying up a whole timeslot on many repeaters. Perhaps that was a problem that should have been seen from the beginning. I mean, how long would this have been manageable with rapid growth? I saw that as an immediate problem. And what about contacting individuals? Another opportunity lost? You are not allowed to Private Call, and even Text Messaging is not working (was it ever? I thought it was at one time) over the bridges. So what we are ending up with is just another mishmash of wherever free-for-all QSO operation instead of "effective communication". The opportunity for contacting "targeted individuals or groups" may have been lost.
What a shame. The equipment had all the potential to accomplish that, but the vision of network design missed that completely. Was peer to peer ever considered? Was it always this idea of keying up every repeater in large geographical areas? How could anyone think that was efficient or would be effective? Perhaps the second timeslot was supposed to save the day, but we now see that it is also subject to being tied up. Plus we now have too many cooks who want to do their own recipe of DMR implementation.
Is it too late? I think not. I think MARC could take back control and get it right IF they opted to. Clean form and function are just sitting there waiting to be utilized, as it's already in the DMR standard radio design just waiting to be used. That is a major advantage over Icom's poor user interface concept with D-STAR. All that needs to be revamped is the network structure. Sure, some groups will do what they will, but if MARC (or whoever took the initiative) would provide clearly defined and efficient ways to reach specific groups or individuals, I think that would be more attractive to many amateurs over the 24x7 free-for-all QSO party. Once people started using an efficient network, reaching people they were looking to reach when they wanted or needed to, that would be the "golden standard" and the more attractive option.
Phil
I'm just an end user with a background in two-way radio who has a vision of what I like to call "effective communication". I look at all the capability of the equipment design and think about how it can be used to contact someone I would like to talk to. At times it may be a group, and at other times it may be an individual. The old Nextel network was brilliant at doing both, but perhaps on a smaller scale when it came to groups. As we all know, that was a commercial network, and not amateur radio, which is what we are all about here. But if the DMR network design becomes nothing more than a linking protocol to give local repeaters someone to talk to (do to local inactivity), and just a means to make some noise 24x7 without regard to routing to specific stations or defined groups, then you have lost that function of reaching out to specific stations. That is what D-STAR started out as, and actually achieved, but got jammed up with worldwide "I just want to talk to whoever" 24x7 noise when DPlus came in and totally disregard the original Icom design. Call sign routing became unusable. Part of that problem was the poor implementation of the standard by only being able to "call in the blind". You didn't know if the other end was busy or if you actually got through. Even worse was the "repeater forwarding" in-the-blind design, but DPlus didn't solve any of that. And so many amateurs never really could grasp the convoluted way to make any of these functions work. I still hear the struggle people go through to do a simple task of linking up two repeaters. Perhaps programming FOUR callsign fields and doing UR keyups to do functions, then returning to a general CQCQ channel was too much work, overcomplicated and a bad idea. Now anyone hardly knows what Callsign Routing even is, much less how to do it...if it would even work with all that reflector noise going 24x7. To add to the confusion, Icom radio design keeps changing generation after generation. No standards in design or user interface. What a mess! Many gave up and came over to DMR.
DMR was easier to operate once the initial programming was done. Two communication paths for the price of one added real value. Channels programmed with talkgroups select the destination area or group, although that came with the high price tag of tying up a whole timeslot on many repeaters. Perhaps that was a problem that should have been seen from the beginning. I mean, how long would this have been manageable with rapid growth? I saw that as an immediate problem. And what about contacting individuals? Another opportunity lost? You are not allowed to Private Call, and even Text Messaging is not working (was it ever? I thought it was at one time) over the bridges. So what we are ending up with is just another mishmash of wherever free-for-all QSO operation instead of "effective communication". The opportunity for contacting "targeted individuals or groups" may have been lost.
What a shame. The equipment had all the potential to accomplish that, but the vision of network design missed that completely. Was peer to peer ever considered? Was it always this idea of keying up every repeater in large geographical areas? How could anyone think that was efficient or would be effective? Perhaps the second timeslot was supposed to save the day, but we now see that it is also subject to being tied up. Plus we now have too many cooks who want to do their own recipe of DMR implementation.
Is it too late? I think not. I think MARC could take back control and get it right IF they opted to. Clean form and function are just sitting there waiting to be utilized, as it's already in the DMR standard radio design just waiting to be used. That is a major advantage over Icom's poor user interface concept with D-STAR. All that needs to be revamped is the network structure. Sure, some groups will do what they will, but if MARC (or whoever took the initiative) would provide clearly defined and efficient ways to reach specific groups or individuals, I think that would be more attractive to many amateurs over the 24x7 free-for-all QSO party. Once people started using an efficient network, reaching people they were looking to reach when they wanted or needed to, that would be the "golden standard" and the more attractive option.
Phil
. Anyway, was just thinking about the feuture of DMR, and where it may be headed, got to this thought. DMR`s feuture might actually be dictated in the end more by how it ends up being used, what do i mean? Right now we have a nice mix of users on DMR, we got our ragchewers, we got folks that like to do emergency comms, and we got net types that like to listen/check into nets, all of which are peachy as far as i`m concerned. However, what i see now is kinda like a train at a switch, there`s two tracks we can take here, one leads to a feuture pretty much like what we have on other modes like DSTAR, P25, and System Fusion (ragchews and folks making short and long QSO`s along with the "emcomm" users and the once in a while net), the other one leads to something that IMHO makes me wince, a feuture dominated by private, pay-for-play systems/networks and ARES/RACES nets, along with Skywarn, on this track the ragchew & chat folks more-or-less go away, leaving a DMR world populated by a mix of generally ARES/RACES/Skywarn and public service nets (think bike races, balloon events, the odd parade once in a while too) that are run on closed private pay-to-play networks/repeaters. So i ask, which feuture do we want? I know from the really cool time i had with it last year at Dayton i`d want a feuture that`s more inclusive of all users, not just the ones that are into RACES/ARES and Skywarn. If this does happen you`ll know it, as a LOT of radios (used ones) will start appearing on Ebay as well as the swap nets, and activity will drop as the "regular" users drift away to DSTAR, P25, and Fusion. This is not a feuture i personally wanna see, but from the vibe i get after some of the stuff i`ve heard & read on other forums i gotta wonder. Just my 2 cents 
