Hi
I am not familiar with D-STAR. I haven't been keeping up on the latest in
ham modes. Can someone send a brief description of what it is and why it is
exciting?
God bless,
Mark
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-----Original Message-----
From: Buddy Brannan
Sent: Wednesday, March 12, 2014 6:43 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: D-STAR On the Cheap?
Hi Matt,
I agree completely.
This is why I don=92t have any D-STAR gear.
On Mar 12, 2014, at 7:38 PM, Matt Arthur <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Hi Buddy and all,
> That's great you have done this.
> I for one will not do D star unless i can do it independetly
> I refews to have stuff that i can not operate
> thanks 73 Matt ka0pqw
> ----- Original Message -----=20
> From: "Buddy Brannan" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Wednesday, March 12, 2014 5:05 PM
> Subject: D-STAR On the Cheap?
>=20
>=20
>> Hi y'all,
>>=20
>> I didn't want to post about this until I had something perhaps more
>> concrete, but I changed my mind.
>>=20
>> Yesterday, I came across the following post:
>> =
http://hamgear.wordpress.com/2014/03/10/sub-200-d-star-radio-in-the-making=
/
>>=20
>> Which is pretty exciting. A commercial radio manufacturer, interested =
in
>> breaking the Icom D-STAR monopoly stranglehold for portable radios? =
While=20
>> I
>> have philosophical issues with proprietary black box codecs in use =
for
>> Amateur service things that promote experimentation and would prefer
>> something free and open, OK, I'm a minority. I get that. My biggest =
beef
>> with D-STAR is that it's tied to one radio manufacturer, and it looks =
like
>> that might actually change.
>>=20
>> Well, I wrote to the President of Connect as directed, and it looks =
like I
>> have his ear. At any rate, he's willing to explore the issues around
>> building in some accessibility to his design. Of course, it would =
perhaps
>> not be full text to speech, so we likely wouldn't get the full on SMS
>> messaging and what not, but it sounds like h's amenable to having=20
>> callsigns,
>> frequencies, menus, etc. available nonvisually. Just to give an idea, =
he
>> said that in order to get the voice samples for all the letters and=20=
>> numbers
>> would require an upgrade of the ROM in use by his current models from =
a=20
>> 1MB
>> to an 8MB size, which would cost about $1.00 extra per unit. Y'all =
know=20
>> what
>> this often means for us: it's an extra cost, and I won't be bothered. =
So I
>> wrote back and asked him if, indeed, this was a show stopper. I =
pointed=20
>> out
>> that for letters and numbers, we were looking at, at most, about 56 =
voice
>> clips, very small ones, and if you didn't mind concatonating some =
files,=20
>> you
>> could get away with far fewer than that. He wrote back and said, =
"Look, if=20
>> I
>> was worried about a $1 part, I'd just add it into the price of the =
unit",
>> followed by, "With 8MB of ROM, I could potentially get thus and such =
many
>> voice samples without compression, even more with compression, and =
this
>> isn't a big deal". Well, more or less that's what he said, at any =
rate.
>>=20
>> I've sent him my eyes-free guides for Wouxun and Puxing to give an =
idea
>> of how we work with even "accidental" accessibility, also suggesting =
that
>> strategically placed tones, different pitched or length tones, etc. =
would=20
>> be
>> helpful. So I really hope that as he works on this the he will find =
me a
>> useful enough resource to consult with so that we will actually have =
a
>> D-STAR radio we can use independently.
>>=20
>> --Buddy, KB5ELV=20
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