At 09:35 AM 2/28/2007, Trevor wrote:
Existing guidelines would appear to rule out the use of linear satellites for D-Star due to bandwidth and duty cycle considerations. So it appears the mode can't be used on any existing satellites.
Guidelines are just that... guidelines. That said, it's certainly best to avoid such high duty cycle modes on the linear birds.
This goes back to the concern I was expressing in my original email. New Amateur Digital Voice modes are being developed without any apparent input from the satellite community. A decade from now we could see Amateurs swapping over completely to Digital Voice certainly on VHF/UHF and very possibly also on HF. If Amateurs cannot use their commercial Digital Voice radios on the satellites we could have a major problem in recruiting new satellite operators.
Well, maybe the satellite community needs to look at what sort of mode would suit it (likely something different to terrestrial comms). The plethora of new modes is another argument for putting more effort into SDR technology. Good to see TAPR working towards that end (unfortunately, their timing is really bad for me and I doubt I'll be able to order the boards while they're available :( ).
73 de VK3JED http://vkradio.com