[aprssig] OT: Yaesu to release digital amateur radio gear

[Derek Love]

Don't forget dPMR from ETSI as well!

- it is an open standard available from the ETSI web site (look for TS 102
490), it is a relatively simple job to convert standard 12.5kHz FM (UHF or
VHF) kit to 6.25kHz operation (as long as the PLL has the required
resolution) and the protocol is relatively simple for your average
micro-controller to implement. The 4FSK modem is available from CML in
several forms (or you can make your own, of course), as is the RALCWI
vocoder (at a third of the DVSI price for AMBE-3000!), which makes it a
relatively simple job for an amateur to build his/her own radio.

It's suitability for APRS is the same as all the other standards - it offers
status msg, text msg, as well as the usual data formats. All it needs is
someone to write the interface..... 


Derek, G7ORK (and member of the dPMR MoU - so possibly a tad biased, I grant
you that....)


-----Original Message-----
From: Stephen H. Smith [mailto:wa8lmf2 at aol.com] 
Sent: 29 December 2011 19:05
To: TAPR APRS Mailing List
Subject: Re: [aprssig] OT: Yaesu to release digital amateur radio gear

On 12/29/2011 1:44 PM, Eric Hansen wrote:
> Well the data it transmits over the air has to be an open, 
> unencrypted, stream. Otherwise it would run afoul of a basic tenet of 
> Amateur Radio. I don't think you could be prosecuted for building a 
> device or writing software that decodes data sent out OTA. But, IANAL.
> --
> Eric Hansen
> KC8IUR
>
>

It's not encrypted, but data can be in a vendor-specific proprietary format
that the originator can demand licensing fees to decode (or refuse to
license at all) .

Consider the case of PACTOR.   It's a well-known documented format for data 
comms on HF, but the only legal way you can use it is to buy a SCS Pactor
TNC
-- SCS refuses to license the Pactor II and III protocols to anyone else,
although the original PACTOR I does appear in KAMs, PK-232s and other data
controllers..

Another case is "G-TOR" that is only available in Kantronics "KAM" all-mode 
data controllers.   It's legal on the air, but only Kantronics has it, and
as 
far as I know, they have never licensed it to anyone else to implement
either 
in hardware or as a sound card app.   Disclaimer:  There IS a G-TOR plugin
of 
unknown provenance for the MixW multimode soundcard app but it's legality is
ambiguous.

Or DRM (no that DRM -- copy protection on digital media; i.e. Digital Rights
Management).  I'm referring to Digital Radio Mondiale <http://www.drm.org> 
the evolving standard for digital audio broadcasting on shortwave.    It's a

defined and documented standard, but you have to pay a royalty fee to use
their codec in each radio manufactured. Even if you homebrew a DRM decoder
to attach to an HF receiver (and many hams and SWLs have), you are liable
for the license fee on the codec software you must run on your soundcard.


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