On 12-11-13 19:38, John Becker wrote:
On 11/12/2013 8:16 AM, aflowers@frontiernet.net wrote:
I think that was Rob's point. There is no opportunity to learn from it let alone improve upon it because the protocol is at the very least a guarded trade secret if not patented
YES IT IS. And for good reason. Just as well as Motorola Kenwood and Yaesu has done the same. It's time to get over it.
And GENERAL MOTORS did what with their ON STAR system? Copyright and patents. How dare them do that.
John, W0JAB
I'm not a fan of D STAR but the protocol is very much open and Hams are building their own systems, just have a look at things like Dutch STAR.
Yes the codec is close licenced but everyone can buy the IC to decode and encode it for reasonable prices (between $20 and $30 depending on source).
There even people developing complete addons to do D STAR without a PC, just the addon and a 9K6 capable fm transiever.
73 de Andre PE1RDW