Batboard

It's all over on Radio Reference and it ain't good news.

Yep I have heard the same thing. Word on the street is that it is another proprietary mode, but the question is how open will Yaesu make it if so.

The D-Star format was nice, but the radios Icom produced then and before, were pure garbage. IMD issues and selectivity in the toilet.
years ago I bought an Icom highband mobile from HRO in Phx, took a drive to the top of South Mountain, and returned the radio to HRO...Just absolute horribke IMD and NO selectivity, the radio did nothing but squealed and screeched, even strong on-channel signals were unintelligible.
I then bought a yaesu 2500 highband mobile and ran the same test...NOTHING, just a single squawk when I scanned a 10 channel bank. I heard the Sacaton peak machine clearly, just slight desense.
I stopped considering Icom for anything after that.
I wish the vocoder issues wasn't. Too bad it;s a thorn in developer's sides, but the coding is prorietary, but could easily be cross-licensed for use by other maufacturers with a smaller royalty payment, or possibly a one-time payment. Greed drives the Apco/P-25 market, and it will affect every market that wishes to implement any P-25 variant, as I fear they wil try to look for even the smallest infraction and file sut after suit for even a minor problem, like a tiny string of code that 'appears' to be a patent infraction, but will call i a direct violation and file suits over it.
Big boys want to maintain a tight grip on something that can benefit more than a tiny group of people.

I wish all radio people could simply program a micro-SD card, pop it in their radio, and be configured for P-25, Phase 1 or II, Analog, and yes, even the almost outdated D-star.
Market drives industry, solet's start driving the industry, it's the only way toget some folks off their collective butts.
DO something, do something GOOD, make it available to ANYBODY that wishes to implement it, and make MORE money, stop closing it off like Microsoft, OPEN it like Linux!

AL7OC wrote:What's the scoop from Dayton on the Yaesu digital voice release for AR?

It talks to nothing but itself. This discussion will quickly get out of hand if the other forums are an example.

Ya know, in the end, if you want a quality radio, that means buying something that is commercial grade, not amateur grade. If Yaesu had put out a P25 ham radio, it would probably have the same problems with selectivity and IMD that you have with the D-STAR stuff. Hams want DC-Light coverage, all mode, etc... Unless you are paying well into the 5 figure range, you aren't going to get something like that, that actually works well. You want a quality radio that also does P25 - Motorola, EFJ, BK, Harris, etc.

Skype Limited have their SILK codec available under a royalty free license to third-party software and hardware developers see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SILK

and

http://developer.skype.com/silk

It operates at 6 kbps minimum but the audio is supurb judging from the downloadable samples.

I realize this is an old post, but was all this what became "Fusion"? GARY

I think the ship has sailed and it's now all DMR with some legacy P25 and D-STAR in there. I see people converting the Fusion stuff to DMR using the mmdvm project.

The Fusion handhelds are kicking around... FT1XD isn't bad. I've played with mine on C4FM but mostly I end up running it analog (it has a very nice FM tuner, per Yaesu) because the infrastructure isn't there. You're right about DMR pretty much taking over, at least in the UK/EU.

Low cost DMR radios are probably going to make DMR the dominant mode over time. A little over $100 is all that you need for a basic radio that works. The imports may not be as " ham-sexy" as a high tier Motorola, but they are ideal for experimenting and getting your feet wet in a newer, non-proprietary mode. Add the low cost of hotspots for areas not served by DMR repeater infrastructure yet, and you know why DMR has taken off. Been messing around with D-STAR and P-25 since 2004 - nice technology, but very expensive and little infrastructure.