[amsat-bb] Re: Icom D-Star

[Tony Langdon]

At 11:33 AM 4/28/2011, you wrote:

>I'd like to point out that it's difficult, at best, to participate when
>you can't "roll your own".  There are many codecs available out there
>today that don't require purchasing a license to use.  The biggest
>problem right now is that D-Star isn't backward compatible or you could
>implement one of those freely-licensed codecs now and let people design
>their own implementation.

Tell that to the likes of G4KLX, KI4LKF, the ircDDB team, PA4YBR, the 
designers and builders of various GMSK modems, and even AA4RC and 
Moe, who designed the DV Dongle hardware (not to mention those who 
are building their own Dongles).  Sure, the codec is proprietary, but 
there are implementations available, from a bare chip (at around $20) 
to the DV Dongle for people to play with.  And there's a LOT of 
tinkering to be done without even decoding the audio, as many of the 
above people can attest to first hand.  As far as I'm concerned, this 
argument is a furphy.  There are open source implementations for just 
about everything else - gateways, repeaters, GMSK modem (using a 
soundcard), routing advertisements (ircDDB), everything except DPlus 
(though there is an open source functional equivalent - DExtra).

73 de VK3JED / VK3IRL
http://vkradio.com