In article ,
Michael Coslo wrote:
As long as I built them according to my own methods, and did not
infringe on the methods used by a manufacturer, not one patent, nor
intellectual property would be violated.

Yes, by definition, if you don't infringe, you haven't infringed. You can
build just about anything for personal use and not infringe.

D-Star uses this Codec, and it is proprietary.

The digital voice part of D-Star uses a codec. The rest does not. The
protocol is open and published. Certain parts used to implement the
protocol are patented and sold only by a single source. When 741s were
new, they were expensive and sole-sourced.

If you do not use the Codec, you will not be able to use the D-Star
repeater.

I'm not sure you are correct about that.

This differs in many important ways from normal repeaters, and normal
Codecs in use by Amateurs.

If you don't have an FM radio, you cannot use an FM repeater.

Just as you can build your own copies of patented things for personal
use, as you mentioned earlier, you can build your own copy of an AMBE
codec for personal use. TI won't tell me how to build a 741 IC; AMBE is
under no compulsion to tell you how to build their codec. If you buy one
and reverse engineer it, that's fine -- for personal use.

Amateur Radio has traditionally used open source whenever possible,

Airmail and Winlink 2000 are two very large obvious counterexamples. The
firmware in a KPC3+ another. The firmware in the repeater controller
I had to reverse engineer to make usable, ditto. It is common for ham
applications to run only on Windows -- the epitome of closed source. The
control and programming software from Kenwood for the D700 is -- closed
source windows only. Look around at all the Motorola gear in use in ham
radio. I've yet to see an open-source version of ANY of the programs
required to program a Motorola.

Yes, there is open source for many things. No, it's not always used. The
"tradition" is limited.

Now let us turn to our D-Star equipped repeater.

What will communicate with it:

Icom D-Star Equipment
Kenwood ( a rebranded Icom, sold only in Japan
Moetronix Can hear and talk D-Star on the internet.

That is a pretty short list.

A very incomplete list, I believe. And, at an early stage of development,
not unexpected.

One for all practical purposes You buy the equipment and you use it.

For all practical purposes, 2m and 440 are "you buy the equipment and
you use it". I don't know many people building their own HTs, and even
those that did used the Heathkits. For most commodity ham uses, homebrew
is rare.

Do you know what the price for the AMBE Chip is in quantities of one?

About $200.

It
may not even be realistic for an amateur to attempt to build one of
their own.

The ID-1, last I looked, is $1000. About. The IC-V92AD is about $600.
An SDR is on the order of $1000 and up. A lot of bleeding edge components
are a bit spendy. Ham radio experimentation is a spendy hobby.