On Fri, Jul 28, 2023 at 05:46 PM, Stephen W9SK wrote:
I don't think Steve was suggesting compatibility with VARA. Just an alternative functional equivalent with certain suggested advantages.
Stephen;
You're right! ?I was responding to Steve in the context of Tadd KA2DEW's post (#6278), where he said "
I¡¯m partial to the Raspberry PI as a computing platform, but we¡¯ll see how the market for VARA FM compatible embedded solutions develops.".?
Regarding a standalone "software-defined (radio) modem" that isn't "VARA compatible", however... with the success of VARA HF and VARA FM in the Winlink "radio email" community, and the growing "radio chat" community, I simply don't see a compelling case for adopting a competing-technology standalone "software-defined (radio) modem" over the well-entrenched PC-software + USB sound-card solution offered by VARA HF and VARA FM.
If the new "software-defined (radio) modem" could accommodate some effective mesh networking functionaliy, that's another significant use-case, as Tadd KA2DEW suggests. I don't see a way to accomplish that, though, given the audio-bandwidth limitations (7 KHZ maximum) of FM transceivers configured in "9600bps data" mode. Another constraint is that the full-throughput 22Kbps data rate of (licensed) VARA FM WIDE is dependent on the channel being almost 100% utilized between only two stations.
Mark - AD7EF
Mark Davis