Brian Morrison wrote:
On Fri, 24 Sep 2010 17:22:03 +0100
"Brian Reay" wrote:

Oh dear Rob, you must be new here! While what you say is, of course,
correct it isn't accepted by bigots.

I think you'll find that the only bigots involved here are the sort
that believe that amateur radio should encourage the use of closed
technology.

I think we should not encourage the use of closed technology, and I
think many agree with that.

But I also think we should not discourage developments (in the case of
D-STAR the development of a digital radio system) because in critical
places in the system open technology does not exist, and development
of such open technology is impractical.

In such cases we should allow, not encourage, the use of closed
technology.

I see the chip with the AMBE codec as a component. A component for
which we don't fully understand how it works, but we know how to
use it as part of a design.

Many amateurs have built electronics devices using components they
did not fully understand how they were designed. Or did not care.
It is possible to build an amateur radio transceiver using application
notes for integrated circuits and other devices without really knowing
what is inside the integrated circuits.

The AMBE codec is just such a circuit, just like an IF amp/demodulator
that you put in your receiver design by just copying the application note's
circuit.