Ready - I'm in agreement that RFinder "radios" are a poor kluge - not impressed.
The closest I'm aware of for a "SDR HT" is M17's OpenHT - https://m17project.org/news/openht-proof-of-concept-populated-pcb. If M17 is able to make this much progress, it's certainly NOT insurmountable tech for I, K, and Y. But thinking about it a bit deeper than "they just want lock-in on their proprietary technology", I think that it may be the case that they're genuinely scared of real Software Defined Radio capabilities. Look at what the hacking on various Chinese portable radios is doing to change the original function. I, K, and Y all make their real profit from commercial customers and they may not want their brand names "tainted" by "hackers" making an I, K, or Y software defined radio do things that take it into "unintended" areas of spectrum like public safety. The Chinese just don't care about such things - they'll just slap a new brand name on it and continue on another few years until that brand gets "slapped" and then lather, rinse, repeat.
Not to mention that they're simply not equipped to do traditional customer service for such units. Thus it's going to fall to brave, small companies like Connect Systems with the CS7000 M17 PLUS (https://www.connectsystems.com/products/top/radios/CS7000_M17_PLUS.htm) or groups like M17 to get a portable software defined transceiver into the hands of interested Amateur Radio Operators.
All good points. But digital voice modes remind me of electric cars. The genesis of DV was that the part 90 spectrum was saturated and so the FCC and their counterparts in the ITU decided the solution was narrowbanding. To get decent audio out of a 6.25 KHz channel (within the allotted timeframe) they had to do some aggressive processing which led to the AMBE chip. Hams had no such mandate so we got a lot of bargain repeaters and kept our 12.5 KHz FM channels.
EVs are much the same. A mandate from the top to come up with a solution to CO2 emissions. I'm not going to get into the debate over anthropogenic global warming, but EVs are trying to recreate what gasoline engine vehicles have been optimized to do for 100 years, and they're failing for many of the same reasons for digital voice.
Neither of them are playing to their strengths. In the case of EVs, the convenience of a short hop commuter vehicle that is largely maintenance free and can be charged overnight. In the case of DV systems, the fact that there's a lot of potential in the DIGITAL aspect of the modes, but their "voice first" setup is disappointing. Now we have massive interstate data networks that are being used for the same thing our interstate FM networks were used for, and from what I've seen, repeater operators have no interest in opening up those networks to other users.
But there's hope on the horizon. The proposals in front of the FCC for eliminating the symbol rate rules are promising. I know there are lots of us looking for better ways of doing things. And with tools like Chat GPT the software is catching up to the hardware in ease of use and development. This thread has inspired me to dust off my Lime SDR and struggle up the learning curve again. Maybe this time something will stick!
Ready - I'll pass on the EV discussion as out of scope for ZR, but agreed that we Amateur Radio Operators using VHF / UHF spectrum have lots of latitude compared to our commercial counterparts in using VHF / UHF spectrum. I think one thing that argues for a paradigm shift in using VHF / UHF is that repeaters (the primary use of Amateur Radio VHF / UHF have largely fallen silent except for scheduled activities and natural moments such as morning and afternoon commutes. I discussed using a particular repeater for data activities (without "secondary" status such as having to schedule activities, announce on voice, yieled to voice activities, etc.) and that repeater owner said "OK with me - I just want the thing to get USED to justify keeping it on the air".
Ready - I'm in agreement that RFinder "radios" are a poor kluge - not impressed.
The closest I'm aware of for a "SDR HT" is M17's OpenHT - https://m17project.org/news/openht-proof-of-concept-populated-pcb. If M17 is able to make this much progress, it's certainly NOT insurmountable tech for I, K, and Y. But thinking about it a bit deeper than "they just want lock-in on their proprietary technology", I think that it may be the case that they're genuinely scared of real Software Defined Radio capabilities. Look at what the hacking on various Chinese portable radios is doing to change the original function. I, K, and Y all make their real profit from commercial customers and they may not want their brand names "tainted" by "hackers" making an I, K, or Y software defined radio do things that take it into "unintended" areas of spectrum like public safety. The Chinese just don't care about such things - they'll just slap a new brand name on it and continue on another few years until that brand gets "slapped" and then lather, rinse, repeat.
Not to mention that they're simply not equipped to do traditional customer service for such units. Thus it's going to fall to brave, small companies like Connect Systems with the CS7000 M17 PLUS (https://www.connectsystems.com/products/top/radios/CS7000_M17_PLUS.htm) or groups like M17 to get a portable software defined transceiver into the hands of interested Amateur Radio Operators.
All good points. But digital voice modes remind me of electric cars. The genesis of DV was that the part 90 spectrum was saturated and so the FCC and their counterparts in the ITU decided the solution was narrowbanding. To get decent audio out of a 6.25 KHz channel (within the allotted timeframe) they had to do some aggressive processing which led to the AMBE chip. Hams had no such mandate so we got a lot of bargain repeaters and kept our 12.5 KHz FM channels.
EVs are much the same. A mandate from the top to come up with a solution to CO2 emissions. I'm not going to get into the debate over anthropogenic global warming, but EVs are trying to recreate what gasoline engine vehicles have been optimized to do for 100 years, and they're failing for many of the same reasons for digital voice.
Neither of them are playing to their strengths. In the case of EVs, the convenience of a short hop commuter vehicle that is largely maintenance free and can be charged overnight. In the case of DV systems, the fact that there's a lot of potential in the DIGITAL aspect of the modes, but their "voice first" setup is disappointing. Now we have massive interstate data networks that are being used for the same thing our interstate FM networks were used for, and from what I've seen, repeater operators have no interest in opening up those networks to other users.
But there's hope on the horizon. The proposals in front of the FCC for eliminating the symbol rate rules are promising. I know there are lots of us looking for better ways of doing things. And with tools like Chat GPT the software is catching up to the hardware in ease of use and development. This thread has inspired me to dust off my Lime SDR and struggle up the learning curve again. Maybe this time something will stick!
Ready - I'll pass on the EV discussion as out of scope for ZR, but agreed that we Amateur Radio Operators using VHF / UHF spectrum have lots of latitude compared to our commercial counterparts in using VHF / UHF spectrum. I think one thing that argues for a paradigm shift in using VHF / UHF is that repeaters (the primary use of Amateur Radio VHF / UHF have largely fallen silent except for scheduled activities and natural moments such as morning and afternoon commutes. I discussed using a particular repeater for data activities (without "secondary" status such as having to schedule activities, announce on voice, yieled to voice activities, etc.) and that repeater owner said "OK with me - I just want the thing to get USED to justify keeping it on the air".