|
We¡¯re drifting a bit from M17, but hey, we¡¯re all learning a lot, especially me! So carry on - I just don¡¯t want this to turn entirely into ¡°re-engineering D-Star¡±. That said, here¡¯s my contribution to topic drift.? My biggest gripe about D-Star (as implemented by Icom) is that while it did have an integral data stream (900 bps), the mixture of digitized voice (2400 bps), and DV Forward Error Correction (1200 bps) and the data were hard coded. Even if I wanted to do only data, there was no way to tell the radio to use the voice 3600 bps for data. Until there was about 5 years ago. Icom very quietly introduced DV Fast Data mode in a new portable product. Turn on DVFD mode and a newer D-Star radio can do ~4500 bps data. The new radios transmit a protocol bit for DVFD so the older radios don¡¯t get confused.? It¡¯s my guess that Icom designed that in from the beginning, but Icom¡¯s shortsightedness wanted to promote voice usage, not data. All D-star repeaters will pass DVFD, including the original ones. If DVFD had been a feature from day 1, D-Star would have been wildly popular and probably wouldn¡¯t have ¡°left enough daylight¡± for DMR to take over (or even for Yaesu to try System Fusion). D-Star repeaters would have been busy with voice during the day, and data (bulletins, BBS forwarding, file transfers) by night. DVFD was a hack - still no protocol, just raw streaming. Protocol, FEC all had to be handled outside the radio¡ but it was usable. I like the way M17 does data much better. I am going to get ON IT and experiment with the data features! Steve Stroh N8GNJ (he / him / his) Editor Zero Retries Newsletter - Radios are Computers - With Antennas! On Fri, Jun 28, 2024 at 14:02 Peter Laws via <plaws0=[email protected]> wrote: On Fri, Jun 28, 2024 at 4:55?PM Tony Langdon via |
