[Linux-ham] Fwd: [KD4RAA-K4JDR Rptrs] RARS Testing UHF D-STAR Repeater

[Rob Rousseau]

There was an article about D-Star by Gary Pearce in the Sept. 2007 QST.
In the Nov. 2007 QST in the Correspondence section, there was a letter 
written by John Romesburg, WB3EKB:
"The article in QST entitled "Operating D-STAR" was, to me, a free 
mult-page commercial for ICOM and their proprietary system.  While I 
applaud Gary Pearce, KN4AQ, for his explanation of the system and how it 
works, the fact still remains that this whole system is proprietary in 
both software and hardware.  In this age of open software and hardware 
design and implementation, one must wonder why ICOM would even try to 
market a system like this.  The lessons taught proprietary personal 
computer hardware and software design in years past should be enough 
thwart any idea of a system like this.  Good job Gary, bad idea ICOM."
Then there is an editor's note by Gary:
"I appreciate the compliment!  There has been a furious debate on  
Internet message boards about whether or not D-STAR is proprietary.  It 
isn't.  The AMBE vocoder, licensed by Digital Voice Systems, is the only 
proprietary component, and anybody can buy one.  I wrote the article to 
give the average ham an idea of what was coming down the road, and so 
far, only ICOM has taken the gamble on VHF/UHF digital technology with a 
full system that makes the radios more than a novelty.  If it find a 
market, others will follow.  Right now some hams are building their own 
D-STAR radios and repeaters with non-ICOM components."

-Rob
KI4BKE

Tanner Lovelace wrote:
> Anyone here know more about D-STAR?  Basically all I know
> about it is that it's digital and fairly expensive in that you need
> to get all new equipment to use it (and tied to Icom hardware,
> so how's that for a conspiracy theory. :-).
>
> Cheers,
> Tanner
>