Why I am not going DSTAR

[N8OHU]

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.

Open Codec or Closed, it doesn't matter, since you can purchase the AMBE Codec chips to make "subscriber" radios, and Analog to Digital Bridges.

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.

1: D-Star actually has a section of the protocol specification that details how to link a pure analog repeater into the digital side of things

2: Just because Icom chose not to build their D-Star repeater so that both modes could use it doesn't mean that it's not possible to do; there are numerous (no, I don't have an exact count to give you) homebrewed D-Star repeaters that are configured as dual-mode repeaters.

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.

As I said above, this is possible if the builder of a homebrew D-Star repeater chooses to do so; not all do, for various reasons.

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.

If you could get past your apparent anti-Icom bias, you would see that D-Star has already done quite well over the almost 10 years it's been around with at least as many homebrew systems on the air as there are Icom systems.

 

[N4DES]

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.

iCOM applied for a patent on the D* repeater system design in 2010. I haven't found a reference as to whether it was granted, but it was applied for.

Patent US20100054174 - DATA COMMUNICATION CONTROL APPARATUS, DATA COMMUNICATION SYSTEM, DATA ... - Google Patents

 

[N8OHU]

iCOM applied for a patent on the D* repeater system design in 2010. I haven't found a reference as to whether it was granted, but it was applied for.

Patent US20100054174 - DATA COMMUNICATION CONTROL APPARATUS, DATA COMMUNICATION SYSTEM, DATA ... - Google Patents

That was probably done to protect their hardware design from direct copies being made. I suspect that is also something you will find for any commercial digital voice product, including their IDAS repeaters, which they likely applied for a patent for at the same time.

 

[JRayfield]

Patent # 8,385,251, issued on Feb. 26, 2013.

John Rayfield, Jr. CETma
W0PM

iCOM applied for a patent on the D* repeater system design in 2010. I haven't found a reference as to whether it was granted, but it was applied for.

Patent US20100054174 - DATA COMMUNICATION CONTROL APPARATUS, DATA COMMUNICATION SYSTEM, DATA ... - Google Patents

 

[N7QOR]

More than anything I am trying to figure out why it should be any "problem" AT ALL that D-Star - or any other carrier / mode - occupies only 6.25 KHz bandwidth.

The business of being "more difficult to coordinate" is not valid at all, since in a worse-case scenario, a region's coordinating body could choose to coordinate and place all repeaters on only 12.5KHz channel centers, or even 25KHz channel centers for that matter. Yes, using D-Star in that environment would sure "seem wasteful", but the worst outcome is there would be a bit more adjacent channel separation when using 6.25 modes - "oh darn".

Many regions' coordinating bodies are developing strategies to address the "narrow" and "extreme narrow" modes and provide space for them.

The biggest problem that ANY coordinators face is just a lack of available spectrum overall, and in those cases the extreme narrow is a better tool than any narrow mode out there for addressing these problems, if it's decided to accomodate and take advantage of these extreme narrow modes. But NOTHING says that they MUST be placed on 6.25 KHz channel centers.

Anyone who has taken the time to learn a bit about D-Star should recognize that the developers of this mode managed to stuff quite a bit of HAM-specific functionality into that 6.25 KHz carrier. For example, this is the ONLY widely available digital mode that is currently in use which offers an embedded call sign-specific functionality in the mode. Any other digital mode in Amateur use relies "alias lists" based on arbitrarily assigned numeric "ID Numbers", if attempting to provide HAM Callsign specific functionality. What a mess for anything other than small personal groups.

As has been repeated here many times now, ALL commercially available digital modes use "proprietary" codecs. It was mentioned above that DVSI makes D-Star programmed codecs available to developers and experimenters, opening the doors for folks other than the "big three" or even "second tier" manufacturers to use.

One good example of the benefits in using the DVSI codec is the DV Dongle. Where would the makers of "DV Dongle" or the other currently available, similar products, get codecs for buiding these kinds of devices to work in P25 or these other modes that are talked about? The claims that this codec and protocol is somehow "limited access" or "proprietary" are old and outdated.

The bottom line is, if you don't like it, don't use it.

To me, one of the greatest aspects of this hobby is the fact that it is so broad and diverse that there are modes, emmission methods, and products for darn near ANYTHING wireless. Whats good for some may not be for others. D-Star has been EXTREMELY successful in it's time on market, particularly when one considers how broad, diverse, and capable the protocol is, coupled with the fact that it was all newly developed when it first hit the street.


I will say this, when I see this continued effort to be negative or somehow bash on or draw away from this (or any other) particular technology, I usually smell something nasty. Maybe we should all go back and look at the OP's posting history and decide for ourselves...

73

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?

 

[profiledescent]

iCOM applied for a patent on the D* repeater system design in 2010. I haven't found a reference as to whether it was granted, but it was applied for.

Patent US20100054174 - DATA COMMUNICATION CONTROL APPARATUS, DATA COMMUNICATION SYSTEM, DATA ... - Google Patents

It was not. D-STAR was developed by the Japan Amateur Radio League, and specified by them as open to all. Anyone who claims D-STAR is proprietary to Icom, or any other entitiy, has not done their due diligence, or has an agenda driven position. The former king of repeaters in my county used to spread this mis-information, and claimed the system would go nowhere. After some folks built a 5 repeater system in Northeast Florida, and about 100 users later (3 years ago), he now has 2 D-STAR systems listed on various repeater guides, and owns not a single piece of equipment. Yeah, that agenda thing. Last I counted, there were 45 D-STAR sytems in Florida, some of them full stacks.

Yaseu's new thing, DMR, P25, D-STAR,...whatever. Digital is here to stay. More of us need to spend more time tinkering with the stuff, or our preferred modes, and less time spreading FUD, misinformation, and ignorange. (Not saying you are/did) This is supposed to be a fun hobby, with us developing new technologies, doing some public service, and having more fun as the end products. I said fun twice.

 

[MTS2000des]

Anyone who has taken the time to learn a bit about D-Star should recognize that the developers of this mode managed to stuff quite a bit of HAM-specific functionality into that 6.25 KHz carrier. For example, this is the ONLY widely available digital mode that is currently in use which offers an embedded call sign-specific functionality in the mode. Any other digital mode in Amateur use relies "alias lists" based on arbitrarily assigned numeric "ID Numbers", if attempting to provide HAM Callsign specific functionality. What a mess for anything other than small personal groups.



73

Not true. NXDN subscriber radios send an alphanumeric identifier string as ANI every time the radio is keyed or sends a data transmission, short messages, etc. This can be set to display your call sign and name, and meets Part 97 requirements regarding id'ing in the mode of transmission. NXDN can operate on both 12.5 or 6.25KHz and supports mixed mode (analog a s digital) repeater operation, though network connectivity is only available in the digital domain.

 

[N4DES]

Patent # 8,385,251, issued on Feb. 26, 2013.

John Rayfield, Jr. CETma
W0PM

Very good info...thanks!

Here it is for those who don't want to search:

United States Patent: 8385251

These objects and other objects and advantages of the present invention will become more apparent upon reading of the following detailed description and the accompanying drawings in which:

FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating the configuration of the D-STAR system;

FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating the D-STAR (Digital Smart Technologies for Amateur Radio) system, to which the data communication control apparatus according to the embodiment of the present invention is applied (D-STAR is a registered trademark of the Japan Amateur Radio League, Inc. in Japan).

 

[N4DES]

It was not. D-STAR was developed by the Japan Amateur Radio League, and specified by them as open to all. Anyone who claims D-STAR is proprietary to Icom, or any other entitiy, has not done their due diligence, or has an agenda driven position.

The patent info that JRayfield provided looks to be very clear. I would now believe that iCOM has the ability to force the other manufacturers to pay a royalty on the backbone repeater design if they want to build and sell repeaters and controllers.

I don't know if they would make the business decision to do this, but the ability seems to be there.

Personally, I don't care one way or the other. I perfectly happy with my P25 and DMR equipment that I have in the field.

 

[AK9R]

More than anything I am trying to figure out why it should be any "problem" AT ALL that D-Star - or any other carrier / mode - occupies only 6.25 KHz bandwidth.

I don't have a problem with it. My question was directed at someone who referred to a "goal" to make D-STAR operate with 6.25 kHz bandwidth. I wanted to know where that goal came from.

D-Star has been EXTREMELY successful in it's time on market...

However, the amateur radio market is limited.

I will say this, when I see this continued effort to be negative or somehow bash on or draw away from this (or any other) particular technology, I usually smell something nasty.

Everyone is free to express an opinion in this forum as long if they follow the forum posting rules. As long as people attack the ideas, this discussion will be allowed to continue. On the other hand, attacking individuals will not be permitted.

 

[Hamradiostuffing]

More than anything I am trying to figure out why it should be any "problem" AT ALL that D-Star - or any other carrier / mode - occupies only 6.25 KHz bandwidth.

The business of being "more difficult to coordinate" is not valid at all, since in a worse-case scenario, a region's coordinating body could choose to coordinate and place all repeaters on only 12.5KHz channel centers, or even 25KHz channel centers for that matter. Yes, using D-Star in that environment would sure "seem wasteful", but the worst outcome is there would be a bit more adjacent channel separation when using 6.25 modes - "oh darn".

Many regions' coordinating bodies are developing strategies to address the "narrow" and "extreme narrow" modes and provide space for them.



I will say this, when I see this continued effort to be negative or somehow bash on or draw away from this (or any other) particular technology, I usually smell something nasty. Maybe we should all go back and look at the OP's posting history and decide for ourselves...

73

There are some coordinating agencies that have nothing but problems with some digital formats inferring with adjacent analog frequencies. What good are more frequency pairs if the pairs are not used because they will probably remain silent because the equipment is more expensive than everyone else’s.

I am amused when talking about pro’s and cons of a digital format is labeled as bashing. It just sounds like that the discussion is being taken personally rather than objectively.

 

[Hamradiostuffing]

If you could get past your apparent anti-Icom bias, you would see that D-Star has already done quite well over the almost 10 years it's been around with at least as many homebrew systems on the air as there are Icom systems.

That is you opinion about ICOM'S' sucess but all the DSTAR repeaters in my area quite most of the time. I do not think that it is fair that DSTAR leaves the anolog user out in the cold. I think the comment stems from being a DSTAR user who wants to protect your personal interest. As matter of record everyone is biased to on degree or another and will tend to protect thier posistion as well. Thank you for your opinion your have the right to it.

 

[N8OHU]

That is you opinion about ICOM'S' sucess but all the DSTAR repeaters in my area quite most of the time. I do not think that it is fair that DSTAR leaves the anolog user out in the cold. I think the comment stems from being a DSTAR user who wants to protect your personal interest. As matter of record everyone is biased to on degree or another and will tend to protect thier posistion as well. Thank you for your opinion your have the right to it.

Actually, my being a D-Star user has very little to do with it; I happen to know from participation in the mailing lists of other digital modes like DMR/MotoTRBO that a repeater having Digital Mixed Mode capabilities doesn't guarantee that analog users will be able to use it. I would venture a guess that less than 20% of any of the digital modes other than APCO P25 are actually deployed in a such a configuration, so D-Star not being able to do it at all isn't as big a problem as you're trying make it seem. Besides, I actually own more non-Icom D-Star equipment than I do Icom made stuff, and I run a main node in a experimental analog to digital mixed mode communication system called the Experiementer's Corner where I have the chance to talk to people on digital and analog at the same time.

 

[N8OHU]

There are some coordinating agencies that have nothing but problems with some digital formats inferring with adjacent analog frequencies. What good are more frequency pairs if the pairs are not used because they will probably remain silent because the equipment is more expensive than everyone else’s.

It depends a lot on how close the two repeater frequency pairs are; if someone thought it would be possible to put a digital repeater (narrow band or ultra narrow) in the next frequency pair, I'm quite sure there will be issues like this.

I am amused when talking about pro’s and cons of a digital format is labeled as bashing. It just sounds like that the discussion is being taken personally rather than objectively.

Well, I haven't read a single positive thing that you've posted about D-Star, since you're very obviously ignoring the posts I've made pointing out the non-Icom options, including interfaces that can be used with any brand of radio to enable them to be used on D-Star and compatible repeaters.

 

[Hamradiostuffing]

It depends a lot on how close the two repeater frequency pairs are; if someone thought it would be possible to put a digital repeater (narrow band or ultra narrow) in the next frequency pair, I'm quite sure there will be issues like this.



Well, I haven't read a single positive thing that you've posted about D-Star, since you're very obviously ignoring the posts I've made pointing out the non-Icom options, including interfaces that can be used with any brand of radio to enable them to be used on D-Star and compatible repeaters.

Actially I have mentioned that DSTAR has networking capabilties. I guess that does not count,.Being a DSTAR user has every do with it because a person in that posistion will want to protect thier turf and decision that they bought it in the first place.

 

[N8OHU]

Actially I have mentioned that DSTAR has networking capabilties. I guess that does not count,.Being a DSTAR user has every do with it because a person in that posistion will want to protect thier turf and decision that they bought it in the first place.

How is it positive if by allowing network connections to the digital side of a Digital Mixed Mode repeater, you're effectively leaving out Analog users? The only fair way is to have two separate repeaters and link them with a digital to analog bridge; I'm sorry you can't see how absurd it seems to those of that actually work with linked digital repeaters systems that you complain about the lack of a feature that would effectively turn the expensive hardware into nothing more than a digital version of what we already have with analog systems. And given that I know how to build a D-Star compatible repeater and make it work with both modes, I know how much systems like that cost compared to the Icom repeaters; they are generally a lot cheaper in cost.

 

[Hamradiostuffing]

How is it positive if by allowing network connections to the digital side of a Digital Mixed Mode repeater, you're effectively leaving out Analog users? The only fair way is to have two separate repeaters and link them with a digital to analog bridge; I'm sorry you can't see how absurd it seems to those of that actually work with linked digital repeaters systems that you complain about the lack of a feature that would effectively turn the expensive hardware into nothing more than a digital version of what we already have with analog systems. And given that I know how to build a D-Star compatible repeater and make it work with both modes, I know how much systems like that cost compared to the Icom repeaters; they are generally a lot cheaper in cost.

Apparently DSTAR repeaters sold by ICOM will not support any Analog transmissions. So if a specific pair goes DSTAR will require that all the users use DSTAR radios. Linking an anolog repeater to a DSTAR repeater is not the same having a P25 that can operate Anolog and Digital on the SAME pair. The ICOM repeaters in my area that operate DSTAR will only do digital..I do not think that the repeaters ICOM sells will do both analog and Digital if I read their website correctly. Having to link a Anolog to Digital DSTAR repeater only validates my observation.

 

[N8OHU]

Apparently DSTAR repeaters sold by ICOM will not support any Analog transmissions. So if a specific pair goes DSTAR will require that all the users use DSTAR radios.

It's no different than what happens with most DMR or NXDN repeaters that get set up; those are capable of supporting both modes on the same pair, but it's quite rare to see that happen.

Linking an anolog repeater to a DSTAR repeater is not the same having a P25 that can operate Anolog and Digital on the SAME pair.

I never said it was the same thing; what I said is that it's the only way to be fair to both groups of users and allow them to interact, which is why most digital repeater systems are configured to do linking rather than be stand alone machines.

The ICOM repeaters in my area that operate DSTAR will only do digital..I do not think that the repeaters ICOM sells will do both analog and Digital if I read their website correctly. Having link a Anolog to Digital DSTAR repeater only validates my observation.

I'm having trouble understanding how Icom selling a dual-mode repeater would change things when I've done enough reading in various digital radio groups to know that such repeaters being run in digital mixed mode are extremely rare as long as the technology supports linking the digital side of things. Do you really think that any digital repeater would sell if there wasn't a significant advantage over analog to make it worth the investment?

 

[kayn1n32008]

Apparently DSTAR repeaters sold by ICOM will not support any Analog transmissions. So if a specific pair goes DSTAR will require that all the users use DSTAR radios. Linking an anolog repeater to a DSTAR repeater is not the same having a P25 that can operate Anolog and Digital on the SAME pair. The ICOM repeaters in my area that operate DSTAR will only do digital..I do not think that the repeaters ICOM sells will do both analog and Digital if I read their website correctly. Having to link a Anolog to Digital DSTAR repeater only validates my observation.

Really??? Life is big boy rules, if you do not like that a repeater will not support mixed mode, guess what? Too bad. Get over it and find an analog and/or a mixed mode repeater to play on. Repeater owners are not required to cater to your wishes. Now that I have a DStar radio, I am enjoying DStar, and I was very against using this mode before I got my IC-92ad, and I could really care less that my clubs U/VHF DStar repeaters are not able to do mixed mode, mostly because our UHF DStar repeater uses the same antenna as the two analog UHF repeaters at the same site.




Sent from an unknown place...

 

[kayn1n32008]

...Being a DSTAR user has every do with it because a person in that posistion will want to protect thier turf and decision that they bought it in the first place.

Oh my god, that is the most asinine statement ever. I mean really 'protect their turf' what is this grade school out on the playground???

I bought my DStar radio to partake in the mode, and could care less if the repeater was dual mode or not. In reality I use my radio in analog mode, listening to our main analog repeater or air ambulance dispatch, more than on our DStar repeater. You are really making a big deal out of nothing.


Sent from an unknown place...