[aprssig] APRS and dstar

[Gregg Wonderly]

On May 30, 2012, at 4:40 AM, Dave B wrote:

> On 28 May 2012 at 11:00, Stephen H. Smith wrote:
> 
>> On 5/28/2012 10:10 AM, Perry Chamberlain wrote:
>>> Then mention of steep prices, is one of the past. Go to Dutchstar
>>> website and look at the line of non icom dstar radio kits and dstar
>>> hot spots. You can put together a personal dstar repeater for
>>> $120.00 bucks. The Dutch star boards link an analog radio to the
>>> dstar board, and you have a functioning personal dstar repeater. He
>>> also sells small form pcs to be servers for $200.00.
>> 
>> How about actually citing the URL to this site.......
>> 
>>> The DVAP, and the DV DONGLE, are both less then two hundred and
>>> change. So no longer are the radios being too expensive, an issue.
>>> He has a new non icom, combined server/ dstar radio kit in beta
>>> right now. The modules will be 2m, 440, and 1.2 The concerns about
>>> cost are a thing of the past. The new icom Id-31a, is les then most
>>> mobiles and $200.00 less then the  the Vx-8dr. The time to combine
>>> these two modes, is already being done. The icom ID- 31a is only
>>> $369.00, and it ports it's Dprs gps location to the APRS findu
>>> IS.visit the DUTCHSTAR site for info on their new generation of
>>> radios, dv boards, hot spots and repeaters. This thread is getting
>>> fun.
> 
> Don't forget, you've still got to pay for him to ship the stuff from the 
> EU to the US, and that is not cheap to do these days, what with all the 
> security paranoia...  Especially, if the goods did not "originate" from 
> the US in the first place.
> 
> It's many times more expensive to ship *INTO* the US, than for you to 
> ship stuff out of your county.   FYI.
> 
> In any case, I still don't consider those costs shown above, as "low 
> cost".   Plus, it's (yet) another layer of complexity, therefore another 
> posible source of possible errors, ready to take down what you want back 
> into the noise.
> 
> Whatever happened to the KISS principle?

Practically, we don't have enough allocated bandwidth, based on FCC channel size restrictions in the US, to provide high speed data, without using technology.  The days of AM are gone, the days of FM voice are numbered.  The days of digital data paths are here and now.  Like it or not, soon, codecs and the like will be the "capacitors" of this century.  Learning how to read specs, provide power, route signals and build equipment is still needed in Amateur radio.  The components are changing…

Gregg Wonderly
W5GGW