HRN 381: Digital Voice 2008

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From the archives of Amateur Radio//Video News...

Digital Voice for Amateur Radio was the most complex of the three documentaries that HamRadioNow's Gary Pearce KN4AQ produced for DVD, before starting the online show. In 2007, Gary traveled to Alabama and Dallas in one trip, Chicago and St. Louis in another, and Washington DC in a third to gather interviews and footage of what was then just emerging as Digital Voice systems for Amateur Radio. The program was edited and released on DVD in 2008.

The DV modes for HF included a hardware modem from AOR and a software/sound card system called WinDRM (which evolved to today's FreeDV). The VHF/UHF modes in use then were D-STAR and P-25. 

Of course, these modes have evolved since this program was produced, and newer modes like DMR, Yaesu System Fusion, and NXDN have been developed. Consider this program a snapshot in the early history of Amateur Radio Digital Voice. It's certainly not a current tutorial on operating those modes today.

Here are our two other ARVN documentaries:

And some more D-STAR history:

Radio Rating: C- at best. This was a video documentary, and while there is a lot of talking, most of the pictures you're missing are equipment in operation, locations, and a few graphics. You'll miss a lot, but since there's so much information, you'll learn a lot, too. [The Radio Rating is our estimate of how much you'll get from the program audio without the video. It's not a rating of the overall program. Those are always A+]

Here's a related QLOG entry...

HRN 380: Bored of Directors

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David and Gary catch up on the final details of all the proposals and revisions that are going into the ARRL Board of Directors meeting this weekend.

Radio Rating: A

Links:

HRN 379: One League Under the Siege*

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In this episode we review what's been going on with the ARRL, from the Code of Conduct to the proposed revisions to the Bylaws and Articles of Association. We look at a new group that's formed to protest some of the ARRL Board's actions. And mostly we read some detailed responses to inquiries that Gary and others sent to some of the Directors. They're not coming on the shows yet, but they are being more responsive than we saw initially (though, as Roanoke Division Director Dr. Jim Boehner N2ZZ noted, those responses won't satisfy many critics). 

That new group is called myARRLvoice. Some members of the 'steering committee' for the group are former Board members who could not speak in opposition to League policies until their terms expired on January 1. Now they can. Their web site will have links to the documents we reference in the show.

At the end of the show, you'll see a note about what we've been calling The Best Part of the Show™. That's the banter that comes after we 'formally' close the show (and say Over and Out), that may or may not be related to the main topics of the show. We're not fooling our guests into thinking they're having a private conversation. Facebook LIVE is still running, as is the recording hard drive. But it still gets a little looser than our usual taut, tightly formatted interview segment. And if you're not asking "What show is he talking about?" at this point, you haven't been paying much attention. But it really does get looser.

Anyway, we cut that off the YouTube version of the show this time. OK, it's still a 90 minute show. We're still not fooling anybody. But maybe it'll scare a few less people away.

The full show is in the audio version, and on the Facebook LIVE recording session, if you want it.

Radio Rating: A+. As usual, a few web sites, but we don't even put the text we're reading on the screen (Gary didn't have time to format it). [The 'Radio Rating' does not measure the quality of the program content. It's our guess as to good a radio show it is, without video].

* The show title is a somewhat awkward takeoff on Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, which caused me to wonder 'how deep that is?' Wikipedia to the rescue: The title refers to the distance traveled while under the sea and not to a depth, as 20,000 leagues is over six times the diameter, and nearly twice the circumference of the Earth. The greatest depth mentioned in the book is four leagues. The book uses metric leagues, which are four kilometres each. - Gary KN4AQ