I think that your question is too vague and that you are asking a question that isn't hard to answer, but isn't asked the right way.

If you are asking - what good is digital, in my opinion the reason for digital is only because public service went digital and the only reason why public service radio is going digital is because they ran out of bandwidth and they would like to simulcast voice and internet - 2 times the amount of bandwidth or more into the same allotted space as their analog allotments.

Why would ham radio want to go digital when we have all kinds of bandwidth that no one uses? I think a lot of it has to do with technology so advanced that it sells more - new radios. There is such a small percentage of people buying actual ham radios today that the manufacturers needs gimmicks to keep the flow of radios and technology going.

On the UHF / VHF side of things, the capture ratio is much better for digital vs analog, but analog has the ability to communicate in places where digital will not penetrate. In public service radio, when the ability to talk further is produced, the first thing they do is turn down the transmit power.

Anyone that has worked Part 90 radio will tell you that when the transmitters were tube, even if the load was not a true 50 ohm load, even if the antenna fell down, the tube equipment would either keep going or it would blow the tube and it wasn't hard to fix. With solid state, when something happens, the equipment fails and it is very costly to repair or replace.

On the amateur radio side of things, the people licensed today as amateurs are stupid compared to those licensed 50 years ago when an applicant had to draw circuits and had to know the difference between different types of tubes and had to have an electrical background just to pass the test.

Today, you get 10 points just for spelling your name right on the application.
We give amateur radio licenses to 5 year old kids with no knowledge of electricity.

If we deploy stupid amateurs that can't do anything - once their smart phones quits working, we have to supply them with radios that can do simple tasks such as giving GPS coordinates and sending simple text messages.
This is basically what the Yaesu System Fusion equipment does and D-Star - which is practically worthless, allows the users to link up digital repeaters - VOIP. Which doesn't really teach the users anything about real ham radio.
Unless it is my antenna talking to your antenna, you might as well use Skype or a telephone...

On the HF side of things, the only benefits I can see to using digital modes is that it allows you to send blocks of text and it allows you to work weak signals - below the signal noise floor that we can perceive.
It is great for working moon bounce and other things like that..

That is another thing that degraded amateur radio, because you don't need to know CW to operate digital modes. What happens when the computer fails or there is a problem with the program? The people trying to use the digital modes cannot communicate with each other. While CW might be antiquated, it works! Or problem is the CB'rs that we now license to occupy our bands so we don't loose our bandwidth doesn't know how to operate CW and doesn't want to learn and is too stupid to learn it on their own.

So the only alternative is to give them something that they can use that they don't have to learn how to do anything other then press some keys on a computer keyboard.

So in my opinion, the architect of this program was very ingenious to come up with modes to allow people to communicate with each other digitally that prolongs our hobby at least for a little while. It doesn't make the people smarter, but it does reduce the idle chatter and the lack of identification that I have observed on the phone bands elsewhere.

You don't normally see rag chewing on the digital portion of the bands.

"gareth" wrote in message
...
What is the point of digital voice when there are already AM, SSB
and FM for those who want to appear indistinguishable from CBers?

Perhaps it is cynicism from the manufacturers who introduce such things
as they see their traditional highly-priced corner of the market
being wiped away by SDR technologies?

A very well informed and authoratative response to this has been made
by "Channel Jumper" over in rec.radio.amateur.equipment, although
he did not elect to post it here as well.
..

On Tue, 24 Feb 2015, gareth wrote:

What is the point of digital voice when there are already AM, SSB
and FM for those who want to appear indistinguishable from CBers?

Perhaps it is cynicism from the manufacturers who introduce such things
as they see their traditional highly-priced corner of the market
being wiped away by SDR technologies?

Because it's something new, at least to amateur radio.

The phasing method of sideband was common in the early days of amateur
SSB (I recall reading the first rigs were filter type, but with really low
IFs, then phasing, then crystal and mechanical filters took over from
phasing). It offered up a lot on transmit and receive, though not
perfection.

But now phasing is used a lot, because digital circuitry has made it
viable. I remember seeing some of the potential when phasing was still
analog, but I also remember reading articles where it was clear others
didn't see the potential. Sometimes ideas become lost when something
becomes commonplace.

Who knows what would come from digital voice. But I remember 30 years ago
one local ham being interested in it, not to the extent of putting
something on the air, but as information from the computer world started
flowing in, the potential started being there. YOu can't resist new
things and say "they have no use", you have to embrace the new and see
what can be done with it. Maybe not as initially seen, but maybe it fits
in somewhere else.

Amateur radio has never done much with envelope elimination and
restoration (was that what it was called? I now forget). It's in one of
the sideband books, and Karl Meinzer of AMSAT fame wrote about it in QST
about 1970. Break the SSB signal into two components, so you can multiply
it up to a higher frequency, then modulate the output stage. If you have
an efficient modulator, you can do away with linear amplifiers (which is
why it was in that SSB book). I gather he used the scheme in at least one
of the amateur satellites after Oscar 6.

But what happens in the digital age? Can you generate the two streems, in
essence but not so simple an FM component and an AM component, without
needing to generate SSB and then extract the two streams? I don't know,
but so much digital processing is being done now, it may be something to
look into. With solid state devices and class D amplifiers, modulating
high level class C amplifiers can't be as much trouble as in the old days.
Maybe it amounts to nothing, but maybe it overall becomes more efficient,
if it can be done.

Maybe there's no value to digital voice, except that in the process of
learnign about it, and implementing it, one can learn something. Maybe
something merely new to the person learning, but maybe something
completely new. No advances are made without learning, the learning
triggers new advances.

Michael

Michael Black wrote:
On Tue, 24 Feb 2015, gareth wrote:

What is the point of digital voice when there are already AM, SSB
and FM for those who want to appear indistinguishable from CBers?

Perhaps it is cynicism from the manufacturers who introduce such things
as they see their traditional highly-priced corner of the market
being wiped away by SDR technologies?

Because it's something new, at least to amateur radio.

The phasing method of sideband was common in the early days of amateur
SSB (I recall reading the first rigs were filter type, but with really
low IFs, then phasing, then crystal and mechanical filters took over from
phasing). It offered up a lot on transmit and receive, though not perfection.

But now phasing is used a lot, because digital circuitry has made it
viable. I remember seeing some of the potential when phasing was still
analog, but I also remember reading articles where it was clear others
didn't see the potential. Sometimes ideas become lost when something becomes commonplace.

Who knows what would come from digital voice. But I remember 30 years
ago one local ham being interested in it, not to the extent of putting
something on the air, but as information from the computer world started
flowing in, the potential started being there. YOu can't resist new
things and say "they have no use", you have to embrace the new and see
what can be done with it. Maybe not as initially seen, but maybe it fits
in somewhere else.

Amateur radio has never done much with envelope elimination and
restoration (was that what it was called? I now forget). It's in one of
the sideband books, and Karl Meinzer of AMSAT fame wrote about it in QST
about 1970. Break the SSB signal into two components, so you can
multiply it up to a higher frequency, then modulate the output stage. If
you have an efficient modulator, you can do away with linear amplifiers
(which is why it was in that SSB book). I gather he used the scheme in
at least one of the amateur satellites after Oscar 6.

But what happens in the digital age? Can you generate the two streems,
in essence but not so simple an FM component and an AM component, without
needing to generate SSB and then extract the two streams? I don't know,
but so much digital processing is being done now, it may be something to
look into. With solid state devices and class D amplifiers, modulating
high level class C amplifiers can't be as much trouble as in the old
days. Maybe it amounts to nothing, but maybe it overall becomes more
efficient, if it can be done.

Maybe there's no value to digital voice, except that in the process of
learnign about it, and implementing it, one can learn something. Maybe
something merely new to the person learning, but maybe something
completely new. No advances are made without learning, the learning triggers new advances.

Michael

You do realise that you're responding to a troll post, right?

--
STC // M0TEY // twitter.com/ukradioamateur

"Stephen Thomas Cole" wrote in message
...

You do realise that you're responding to a troll post, right?

There speaks the voice of someone who took 18 years from
first studying for the radio amateur's exam to just getting the
licence targetted at-the-5-year-old.

Is it any wonder that he regards anything that he does not
grasp (ie, anything technical at all) as a troll?

On Wed, 25 Feb 2015, Stephen Thomas Cole wrote:

Michael Black wrote:
On Tue, 24 Feb 2015, gareth wrote:

What is the point of digital voice when there are already AM, SSB
and FM for those who want to appear indistinguishable from CBers?

Perhaps it is cynicism from the manufacturers who introduce such things
as they see their traditional highly-priced corner of the market
being wiped away by SDR technologies?

Because it's something new, at least to amateur radio.

The phasing method of sideband was common in the early days of amateur
SSB (I recall reading the first rigs were filter type, but with really
low IFs, then phasing, then crystal and mechanical filters took over from
phasing). It offered up a lot on transmit and receive, though not perfection.

But now phasing is used a lot, because digital circuitry has made it
viable. I remember seeing some of the potential when phasing was still
analog, but I also remember reading articles where it was clear others
didn't see the potential. Sometimes ideas become lost when something becomes commonplace.

Who knows what would come from digital voice. But I remember 30 years
ago one local ham being interested in it, not to the extent of putting
something on the air, but as information from the computer world started
flowing in, the potential started being there. YOu can't resist new
things and say "they have no use", you have to embrace the new and see
what can be done with it. Maybe not as initially seen, but maybe it fits
in somewhere else.

Amateur radio has never done much with envelope elimination and
restoration (was that what it was called? I now forget). It's in one of
the sideband books, and Karl Meinzer of AMSAT fame wrote about it in QST
about 1970. Break the SSB signal into two components, so you can
multiply it up to a higher frequency, then modulate the output stage. If
you have an efficient modulator, you can do away with linear amplifiers
(which is why it was in that SSB book). I gather he used the scheme in
at least one of the amateur satellites after Oscar 6.

But what happens in the digital age? Can you generate the two streems,
in essence but not so simple an FM component and an AM component, without
needing to generate SSB and then extract the two streams? I don't know,
but so much digital processing is being done now, it may be something to
look into. With solid state devices and class D amplifiers, modulating
high level class C amplifiers can't be as much trouble as in the old
days. Maybe it amounts to nothing, but maybe it overall becomes more
efficient, if it can be done.

Maybe there's no value to digital voice, except that in the process of
learnign about it, and implementing it, one can learn something. Maybe
something merely new to the person learning, but maybe something
completely new. No advances are made without learning, the learning triggers new advances.

Michael

You do realise that you're responding to a troll post, right?

Only because you continue to keep that war going even as it spills out of
the UK newsgroup.

I didnt' "feed the troll", you do that all the time by keeping up the
vendetta. I chose to say something about the topic, certainly about how
ideas advance, and it exists whether or not he is a troll.

Michael

"Michael Black" wrote in message
news:alpine.LNX.2.02.1502251356170.14915@darkstar. example.org...
Only because you continue to keep that war going even as it spills out of
the UK newsgroup.

I didnt' "feed the troll", you do that all the time by keeping up the
vendetta. I chose to say something about the topic, certainly about how
ideas advance, and it exists whether or not he is a troll.

I am no troll, but a spokesman for the technical and gentlemanly
traditions of amateur radio, but Cole, having no experience of either,
resorts to childish tirades of abuse in a vain attempt to
mask his appalling ignorance.

It has been very ntoiceable today that Cole's posts have all
been vehicles for gratuitous abuse.

I think that the problem here is that a good question was asked and it has been turned into a ****ing match.

Its not about who is smarter then who, but answering the question in a fashionable manner.

Here is an observation that I am going to make and maybe some forum members can comment in a positive manner.

For the first 70 years of radio, it has been the amateurs that has come up with the new technology. This technology was then transferred to the commercial side of radio.

Even the slow scan television that was used by NASA when they landed on the moon.

Today the technology is developed for public service radio and then it is converted to be used by amateur radio - after it is perfected by field testing it on the amateur radio frequencies..

You see - the problem is that there isn't any bandwidth left on the public service frequencies and so anything that they implement has to work before they deploy it.

It has nothing to do with using the frequencies that we have been given - more efficiently. Heck we have whole segments of bandwidth that isn't even used in most area's of the country.

Our biggest problem is that we use these frequencies for free, while other entities such as cellular telephone is willing to pay for that bandwidth.
Eventually what is going to happen is that it is going to be taken away from the amateurs, which is the reason why we left the barn door open and left the morons into amateur radio so we could swell our ranks so we could justify keeping the bandwidth given to us.

Talk around the FCC is that the FCC has received proposals to revoke privileges on the HF bands to operate AM Phone.
Most of the amateurs that uses digital is screaming for a larger portion of the spectrum to be set aside for digital only and to keep CW and phone away from their frequencies. As the rule is now written, you can operate CW anywhere on most any HF band.

The only way to give the digital people the bandwidth that they require is to take bandwidth away from others such as phone operators.
The only place they can take it from would be the amateur extra portion of the bands.

There has also been petitions filed to allow amateurs with just a technician class license to operate digital modes on more bands then just 10 meters and up. The FCC's response has been if they want to work digital that they need to upgrade their license. This is how the incentive license program works. Our problem is that the people that are lowly technicians are just technicians because they are either too stupid to pass another 35 question test or they are too lazy to take the test to get a General Class License...

Michael Black wrote:
On Wed, 25 Feb 2015, Stephen Thomas Cole wrote:

Michael Black wrote:
On Tue, 24 Feb 2015, gareth wrote:

What is the point of digital voice when there are already AM, SSB
and FM for those who want to appear indistinguishable from CBers?

Perhaps it is cynicism from the manufacturers who introduce such things
as they see their traditional highly-priced corner of the market
being wiped away by SDR technologies?

Because it's something new, at least to amateur radio.

The phasing method of sideband was common in the early days of amateur
SSB (I recall reading the first rigs were filter type, but with really
low IFs, then phasing, then crystal and mechanical filters took over from
phasing). It offered up a lot on transmit and receive, though not perfection.

But now phasing is used a lot, because digital circuitry has made it
viable. I remember seeing some of the potential when phasing was still
analog, but I also remember reading articles where it was clear others
didn't see the potential. Sometimes ideas become lost when something
becomes commonplace.

Who knows what would come from digital voice. But I remember 30 years
ago one local ham being interested in it, not to the extent of putting
something on the air, but as information from the computer world started
flowing in, the potential started being there. YOu can't resist new
things and say "they have no use", you have to embrace the new and see
what can be done with it. Maybe not as initially seen, but maybe it fits
in somewhere else.

Amateur radio has never done much with envelope elimination and
restoration (was that what it was called? I now forget). It's in one of
the sideband books, and Karl Meinzer of AMSAT fame wrote about it in QST
about 1970. Break the SSB signal into two components, so you can
multiply it up to a higher frequency, then modulate the output stage. If
you have an efficient modulator, you can do away with linear amplifiers
(which is why it was in that SSB book). I gather he used the scheme in
at least one of the amateur satellites after Oscar 6.

But what happens in the digital age? Can you generate the two streems,
in essence but not so simple an FM component and an AM component, without
needing to generate SSB and then extract the two streams? I don't know,
but so much digital processing is being done now, it may be something to
look into. With solid state devices and class D amplifiers, modulating
high level class C amplifiers can't be as much trouble as in the old
days. Maybe it amounts to nothing, but maybe it overall becomes more
efficient, if it can be done.

Maybe there's no value to digital voice, except that in the process of
learnign about it, and implementing it, one can learn something. Maybe
something merely new to the person learning, but maybe something
completely new. No advances are made without learning, the learning
triggers new advances.

Michael

You do realise that you're responding to a troll post, right?

Only because you continue to keep that war going even as it spills out of the UK newsgroup.

I didnt' "feed the troll", you do that all the time by keeping up the
vendetta. I chose to say something about the topic, certainly about how
ideas advance, and it exists whether or not he is a troll.

Michael

Sadly, Michael, your efforts were wasted on Gareth. He wouldn't have
understood a single word you said.

--
STC // M0TEY // twitter.com/ukradioamateur

"Stephen Thomas Cole" wrote in message
...

Sadly, Michael, your efforts were wasted on Gareth. He wouldn't have
understood a single word you said.

You continue to post messages which are nothing but abuse.