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PA2AGA > HDDIG 26.09.00 23:39l 155 Lines 6430 Bytes #999 (0) @ EU
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Sent: 000926/2015Z @:PI8HGL.#ZH1.NLD.EU #:18366 [Den Haag] FBB $:HD_2000_262B
From: PA2AGA@PI8HGL.#ZH1.NLD.EU
To : HDDIG@EU
Date: Tue, 26 Sep 00 19:50:47 MET
Message-Id: <hd_2000_262B>
From: pa2aga@pe1mvx.ampr.org
To: hd_broadcast@pa2aga.ampr.org
X-BBS-Msg-Type: B
> different from CBers.
I take offense to this. Just because you are bored and no one is joining
your club, is no indication that other Amateurs are not having fun.
I see excellent projects out there, and if you don't then I can only
suggest that you have the wrong friends, or club.
I think this is an exciting time in Ham radio, and that everything we've
(not me, the hobby) done in the past, will be valuable to the next
popular mode.
Steve/k5okc
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 24 Sep 2000 17:51:12 GMT
From: "Hank Oredson" <horedson@att.net>
Subject: Compression et all
Darn it Steve, will you please *stop* this!
I agree with everything you said.
In particular, it is also my opinion that the biggest failure has been
the failure to market the more interesting products well, and the
failure to adapt them to what the "mass market" wants.
See some comments below.
Maybe someone from PACCOM is listening.
--
... Hank
http://horedson.home.att.net
"Steve Sampson (K5OKC)" <ssampson@nospam.radio-link.net> wrote in message
news:ssscngbm2urgd4@corp.supernews.com...
> "Gary Coffman" wrote
<deletia>
> > It has as little chance as the widespread adoption of the 56 kb MSK
> > RF modem we've had available since 1989. Most amateurs won't buy
> > it if it doesn't come from Japan ready to plug and play (and the plugs
> > better be prewired, see Rigblaster).
Total nonesense. Nobody cares whether it comes from Japan, or
Burundi, or Florida! It *does* need to be available in some "plug
it into things, it works" form though. Hams need to be made aware
of the product, and made aware of the reasons they might want it.
i.e. full page color ads in the major ham magazines, articles written
to build the hype, etc. etc. This is the *only* way to drive down
the cost.
> Everything gets down to personalities. If the 56 k modem was any
> good, then it would have been marketed. Failure in marketing kills
> more businesses than financial mismanagement. You can fix the
> later, but once you miss your target on the first, you are ready to
> stick a fork in it (dead meat). If you could have got a real distributor
> to put it out, instead of a mom and pop operation, then the modem
> might have made some real money. Wide band modems is not where
> terrestrial communications are headed. The P3 satellite might
> support that waste of bandwidth, but it has a time domain as well
> (called an orbit).
>
> > Now there are some real benefits to digitized voice. We can route it,
> > for example, over a digital network to give us linked systems such as
> > we never dreamed were possible a few years ago. We can use FEC
> > to push it through noisy links. Etc. But the chance that it will conserve
> > occupied bandwidth is practically nil.
>
> I disagree for the reasons I gave above.
>
> > Amateurs will still be using voice grade FM radios to carry the
> > digital audio signals.
>
> However, it is multiplexed with other digital signals (callsign, smart
> squelch, etc).
>
> > Having observed amateurs for 35 years, I think not. If it can't be added
> > as a simple accessory to their analog radios, they aren't going to do it.
>
> The issue isn't if three people do it, it is if two people will. That's how
> any new mode gets started. If it is fun, then two will increase at an
> exponential rate, and then at some future date, as people get bored,
> a linear brick wall type of free-fall occurs as everyone sells thier junk
> at a swap meet in Dayton...
That's what happened with 1200 baud / 300 baud packet. It was new.
It was hot. Everyone wanted to play. There was a type of application
new to ham radio (yes, I know about RTTY mail drops).
> > I'm sorry to be so down here, but this is the reality we've been facing
> > in digital amateur radio. Enough people won't get off the dime to let
> > anything better than what we've been doing for the last 20 years achieve
> > a critical mass unless it is a pure plug and play that they can use with
> > their existing Japanese analog radios.
>
> You keep blaming the Japanese, but I haven't seen any 4 color ad's out
> of PacComm, so I don't expect wideband modems to begin selling like
> hot-cakes, especially since they don't have little buttons that go beep,
> or video displays that have your callsign in them...
>
> Marketing...
Which can drive interest and acceptance, which can then drive the
cost reduction required. Remember that the TNC1 cost $350 ...
and it was a kit. TNCs are no longer percieved as "neat new hot
stuff", but simply as "another possibly useful station accesory".
How to make it "neat new hot stuff"? Probably tcp/ip potential, but
that too must be marketed.
> > We aren't radio amateurs anymore, we're just radio users, not much
> > different from CBers.
>
> I take offense to this. Just because you are bored and no one is joining
> your club, is no indication that other Amateurs are not having fun.
> I see excellent projects out there, and if you don't then I can only
> suggest that you have the wrong friends, or club.
>
> I think this is an exciting time in Ham radio, and that everything we've
> (not me, the hobby) done in the past, will be valuable to the next
> popular mode.
An interesting point that is not often discussed: what was the actual
technical innovation of packet radio? It wasn't the modem, there were
plenty of 1200 baud (and much faster) modem technology at the time.
It wasn't the ability to send text over ham radio; RTTY had been around
for a long time. It wasn't the ability to send programs over ham radio,
that had been done for years, using RTTY (e.g. WB6UUT). The only
thing new and different was the ability to network computers together.
The innovation was the actual building of those networks. At first simple
store and forward and trivial gateway capability. Later the potential
to use internet protocols. It was all about cooperation in a large scale
project involving thousands of hams. Once that project was complete,
many hams moved on to other facits of the hobby. None of this was
any big surprise to those of us who kicked it all off. It's how fads usually
work: a few start them off, a lot of people pick them up, and then
To be continued in digest: hd_2000_262C
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