FreeDV

My friend, Tom, WB8COX, emailed me today, commenting on my post about Dayton. He wrote:

I always find it interesting what some people focus on at Dayton or similar events compared to my observations.

I agree that the K3S, an upgrade to the Elecraft K3, and the Maestro, a PC-based front-end for the FlexRadio software-defined radios, shown below, were probably the high points. It’s sad that an upgrade and a radio front panel were significant.

I was disappointed in Yaesu and their Fusion system. I asked them about linking repeaters and they sent me over to one of the DStar support booths.

One item, which was previously announced is that Kenwood is going to offer DStar sometime probably next year. While many dismiss DStar, it has slowly gained traction, especially in the south. What is really helping is the ability to set up linked repeaters, much like the one using analog in Michigan, essentially at the push of few buttons.

The big issue for many is the cost of equipment. Traditional analog radios, now made in vast quantities in China are very inexpensive. Any radio that has current IP (i.e patented) technologies is 2 to 10 times more expensive.

Those are my thoughts. I had more fun at FDIM than wandering around the hamfest.

I hadn’t thought about it before, but it does seem a little sad that the big product announcements were a couple of upgrades. Maybe this is just a slow year, though, and next year we’ll see a flood of new product announcements. One of the thoughts that I had is that it would be nice to see digital voice, a la FreeDV as a standard feature on HF transceivers. I’d like to see a really open-source type transceiver, too.

What kind of new products or new product features would you like to see? It doesn’t have to be radios. It could be accessories and other gadgets, too.