Why I am not going DSTAR

[kayn1n32008]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (BlackBerry; U; BlackBerry 9900; en-US) AppleWebKit/534.11+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/7.1.0.746 Mobile Safari/534.11+)

Out of curiosity, why would a digital mode that not everyone has access to be used during a disaster? Were there also analog FM nets that were active during the same disaster?

Oddly enough DStar was the only reliable mode coming out of Canmore. And although there was HF and analogue FM nets, DStar was a better quality link to Medicine Hat.


Sent from an unknown place...

Let me expand. We had disasters happen in multiple places, at the same time. There were minimum 5 nets running at the same time on analogue FM, in at least 3 cities/towns. This also includes a tactical net on the SARA System, between Edmonton and High River with net control in Redeer.

In Canmore the only reliable comms we had between an operator that lives in Canmore and the POC was DStar. He used a repeater in Banff, that was uneffected by the Comms issues that effected Canmore. In Medicine Hat, DStar gave us excellent voice quality, when the temporary V/Uhf link was of very poor quality, signal strength was fine, but the network is daisy chain style, not hub and spoke resulting in severe audio degragation. The Medicine Hat DStar link was, at first, using city infrastructure, that failed due to water ingress into the city server room, then a DVAP was used via 3/4G cell phone, and eventually a local DStar repeater was used. While using Inet to provide linking is not ideal, in these situations it proved to be very useful. I am looking forward to getting DMR in Edmonton, and am exploring the possibility of an amatuer micowave IP network between Edmonton and Calgary, that will allow use to have multiple redundant Inet connections and allow use to do digital linking with out the need for Inet connections. Fun times here in VE6 Land, thankfully we have some talented folks here.

 

[VE7WV]

DMR in Edmonton? Cool. Any time table? What about Calgary?

 

[kayn1n32008]

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No time table yet, unknown about Calgary.

 

[W5KVV]

I cant say too much bad about it. It's neat & all, but I simply don't need D-STAR to enjoy this hobby. My biggest complaint would have to be it's expensive & the sound quality sounds like a cell phone with the speaker phone turned on.

Minor complaints really, nothing in this hobby is cheap & I guess I could get use to the audio, but like I said I simply don't need it to enjoy the hobby. Props to the folks that do use it. It's a very interesting deal.

 

[VE7WV]

I'm not anti-D-STAR but am pro-digital voice. All the digital voice systems being used in amateur radio have some common benefits as well as pluses and minuses. If we did not have some DMR infrastructure already in place here and/or I could not convince the exec of my club and the City to invest in DMR, then I probably would seriously consider picking up a couple D-STAR HT's for personal use... maybe.

10, 15 years from now it won't surprise me if we regard analogue VHF/UHF FM as quaint, rather like HF AM is regarded now with far more widespread adoption of digital voice tech in amateur communications.

 

[WB4CS]

10, 15 years from now it won't surprise me if we regard analogue VHF/UHF FM as quaint, rather like HF AM is regarded now with far more widespread adoption of digital voice tech in amateur communications.

I would be perfectly okay with that if we adopt standard, open source, protocols. Having a digital system like D-Star with is proprietary and right now only available from one manufacturer is not, in my opinion, in the spirit of the hobby. I hope we don't one day get to a point to where Icom users can only talk to other Icom radios, and Yaesu can only talk to other Yaesu radios, etc.

 

[VE7WV]

Ultimately I'm sure an open standard is where amateur digital voice will head, but sadly in the short term we already have and will continue to have different silos however bridgeable they might be.

 

[fasteddy64]

I have no opinion of, nor interest in DSTAR, just as I have no real interest in amateur radio repeater or FM operation. I am however a fan of digital voice communications. My department uses an EDACS Pro-Voice trunked system and it works flawlessly. It is such an improvement over the old VHF repeater we used to use, night and day difference.
That's the beauty of ham radio, lots of things to do for lots of different interests.

 

[kayn1n32008]

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I would be perfectly okay with that if we adopt standard, open source, protocols. Having a digital system like D-Star with is proprietary and right now only available from one manufacturer is not, in my opinion, in the spirit of the hobby. I hope we don't one day get to a point to where Icom users can only talk to other Icom radios, and Yaesu can only talk to other Yaesu radios, etc.

*sigh* DStar IS A PUBLISHED pronly the CODEC is proprietary. Just like P25, DMR and NXDN... Icom is the only company that has CHOOSEN to make a DStar compatible radio.

Yaesu has choosen not to publicize their digital format and until they do any thing about it is pure speculation

 

[VE7WV]

Sure, D-STAR is an open standard, just like Digital Mobile Radio is a publicly accessible standard published by ETSI, the European Telecommunications Standards Institute.

Commercial DMR Tier II (the ones we care about) products to my knowledge all utilize DVSI vocoder technology, so in that regard DMR is no less and no more open than D-STAR.

Requiring that home brew or third party technology use a proprietary codec doesn't necessarily mean product system can't be successful or perceived as being quite open. There are all sorts of third party products for DMR, D-STAR, P25 and so on.

Closed technologies can still become defacto standards and go on to support hugely successful user communities around them. In the audio codec world there are all sorts of competing closed and open technologies. I've got a lot of Ogg Vorbis encoded music that won't play on some devices but MP3 works on all.

For whatever reason DVSI seems to own this space. Will that always be the case? Probably not.

 

[Bill1957]

Not going to D-Star

Too bad you feel that way. It's a lot of fun and great people out there on D-Star. Kind of like ham radio was
30 years ago when I was first licensed. No repeater jammers, no cursing-just real nice hams---The way it used to be!
Bill

 

[VE7WV]

The same is also true of the various DMR networks; it's a great world wide group of people - helpful, cheerful, keen.

Maybe the accountability inherent in digital keeps the ne'er-do-wells away?

 

[profiledescent]

I would be perfectly okay with that if we adopt standard, open source, protocols. Having a digital system like D-Star with is proprietary....

D-STAR is NOT proprietary. Icom does NOT own patents, copyrights, or hold any othe legal proprietary instrument.

This mis-information just refuses to go away for some reason or another.

 

[Hamradiostuffing]

DSTAR protocol

The Standard maybe open but the CODEC is what the real issue is. The other problem is that the DSTAR carrier band width is 6.25 khz. Also the DSTAR repeater is not backward compatible and will not work with any anolog radio.. P25 and the new Yeasu Fusion repeaters will sense the carrier and will do both Anolog and Digital modes. This is my mind is better than DSTAR in my opinion.

 

[N7QOR]

Well Steve, this makes no sense.

How can the fact that D-Star meets the "extreme narrow" goal of 6.25KHz occupied bandwidth be a "problem"?

Furthermore, this logic implies that one has to "win" over another.

And finally, the fact is, ALL CODECS that are currently in use in commercially manufactured digital products are proprietary.

So none of these arguements hold water.


And when one reviews the posting history of the OP (which any member can, and all SHOULD with respect to this post), it is OBVIOUS that ICOM is the least favorite brand. So how can any of this be objective at all?

The Standard maybe open but the CODEC is what the real issue is. The other problem is that the DSTAR carrier band width is 6.25 khz. Also the DSTAR repeater is not backward compatible and will not work with any anolog radio.. P25 and the new Yeasu Fusion repeaters will sense the carrier and will do both Anolog and Digital modes. This is my mind is better than DSTAR in my opinion.

 

[AK9R]

How can the fact that D-Star meets the "extreme narrow" goal of 6.25KHz occupied bandwidth be a "problem"?

While that may be the FCC's goal for the land mobile service, where has it been stated that this is a goal for the amateur radio service?

 

[N8OHU]

While that may be the FCC's goal for the land mobile service, where has it been stated that this is a goal for the amateur radio service?

In this case, 6.25 kHz bandwidth is actually the target bandwidth stated in the D-Star specification itself; no need to invoke the narrowband FCC mandate for land mobile radio here.

 

[N8OHU]

The Standard maybe open but the CODEC is what the real issue is. The other problem is that the DSTAR carrier band width is 6.25 khz. Also the DSTAR repeater is not backward compatible and will not work with any anolog radio.. P25 and the new Yeasu Fusion repeaters will sense the carrier and will do both Anolog and Digital modes. This is my mind is better than DSTAR in my opinion.

Icom made a choice not to implement dual-mode on the D-Star repeater hardware, nothing more,; hams have successfully implemented this themselves using open source software controllers And ALL current digital voice radio systems use proprietary codecs, including the new Yaesu system.

 

[N4KVE]

The same is also true of the various DMR networks; it's a great world wide group of people - helpful, cheerful, keen.

Maybe the accountability inherent in digital keeps the ne'er-do-wells away?

I think this has to do with the price of the radios. D-Star, & DMR radios are still pretty expensive, while anybody with $35 can buy a new Chinese radio, & have a ball sitting under a repeater.

 

[Hamradiostuffing]

Well Steve, this makes no sense.

How can the fact that D-Star meets the "extreme narrow" goal of 6.25KHz occupied bandwidth be a "problem"?

Furthermore, this logic implies that one has to "win" over another.

And finally, the fact is, ALL CODECS that are currently in use in commercially manufactured digital products are proprietary.

So none of these arguements hold water.


And when one reviews the posting history of the OP (which any member can, and all SHOULD with respect to this post), it is OBVIOUS that ICOM is the least favorite brand. So how can any of this be objective at all?

Since first genration P25 and standard narrow band FM are 12.5 KHZ. what do you do for the conflicting channel spacing? The codec has been a topic of several ham groups. If the codec where open as well then maybe folks could build there own circuit or chip or develope thier own codec. Secondly having a repeater that is backward compatible does not leave the anolog user out in the cold who may not have to money to upgrade to a new digital radio. DSTAR repeaters do not give an anolog user that option. With that being said I think that it does make one digital format more flexible than others. I like the project 25 repeaters personally I currently use because I can operate with a Anolog or P25 Radio on the same repeater. The P25 repeater (Motorola Quantar) can sense what type of signal it is recieving and change modes automatically. I believe the new Yaesu Fusion repeaters that use their new format have the same backward compatiblity abilty.

I am aware that DSTAR machines along with the New Yaesu Fusions can be networked. If I understand correctly the orginal P25 repeaters do not have linking capabilty by design. I did hear there is a group in Hawaii that have devloped a way of connecting P25 repeaters with VOIP. It will be interesting to see how the Ham Radio community drives the implementation of digital.