Tuesday, March 12, 2013

What no D-Star blogs?

What you haven’t seen me blog about in a while is D-Star.

I have kind of lost interest.

What got me interested in D-Star was the opens source software projects and node adapters, allowing you to roll your own.

I had always hoped there would be a SIP translation that would take off.  Allowing D-Star to inter-operate with ordinary VOIP.  A powerful idea for Emergency Communications.

One key component to this would be AMBE transcoding at the repeater using a DV dongle or some sort of public AMBE proxy.  This would also allow people to try D-Star using just a computer and microphone or smart phone.

This never really happened.  The Trust Server guys kinda put the kibash on that.

I had hope that with IRCDDB that the trust server concept would go away (fully) and the network would become more decentralized from a select few controlling the whole parade.

So I paid attention to Codec2.  It was being designed as a drop in replacement for AMBE.  (The existing repeater hardware would be able to pass it.)

What I envision(ed) is plugging a  micro computer like the Raspberry Pi into the back of  the Yeasu in your car.  A separate speaker mic hooked to the Pi, which encodes  your voice to Codec2, and wraps that in the sound card created GMSK stream that drives the packet/discriminator connection of  your existing mobile:

Kristoff ON1ARF, demos the concept:



However at this point, the Codec2 part still isn’t quite a drop in replacement from my understanding.  So it’s incompatible with existing repeater infrastructure.

So combine that with the Trust Server regime, and crap repeater hardware, 1980’s retarded data throughput, and D-Star toys attitude by other controlling interests, and I have hit the end of the road with it.

However it has been interesting to learn about and monkey with.

Friday, March 8, 2013

Consider a donation

Ham radio is made up by a large number of groups.  Here are a select few that I have personally made monitary donations to.  I encourage you and your local club to consider the contributions these and other groups are making to the hobby, and please consider supporting them.


http://www.tapr.org

All the digital conference proceedings papers and their Packet Status Register newsletter are available on their website.  The DCC is an international forum for radio amateurs to meet, publish their work, and present new ideas and techniques. Presenters and attendees will have the opportunity to exchange ideas and learn about recent hardware and software advances, theories, experimental results, and practical applications.


http://www.arvideonews.com/
 
ARVN - Amateur Radio Video News by Gary, KN4AQ - Documentary and Seminar videos, for and about Amateur Radio (Ham Radio),
on DVD, and now on the web.



http://www.qsl.net
http://mailman.qth.net
http://swap.qth.com

Scott, KA9FOX provides web space and services dedicated to the sole purpose of furthering the abilities and interest of the Amateur Radio Community.

http://archive.org/
Not so-much ham focused, but is a non-profit digital library founded by Brewster Kahle in 1996 that contains a wealth of information available at no cost.


http://www.ampr.org/

Amateur Radio Digital Communications has been around for a long time, providing DNS, 44 net address space, and tunnel IP connections for interconnecting disjoint wireless networks.



These are just some of of the fine people/organizations providing some really great services and information to the hobby at no charge.  Consider taking a moment at your next local club meeting to make a motion to send a donation (big or small) to help support these people who support our hobby.

If you know of other similar organizations, please spread the word.