E1505: Do We REALLY Have Too Many Digital Modes?

Today's video is sponsored by him Radio Prep save a twenty percent discount off of all of their packages and courses with the coupon code of Jason twenty. So this is the video that I recorded in I posted this in December of twenty twenty four, and you can see this right here, and I've at the time of this recording, I've got about eighty nine hundred views on this video

with over three hundred comments. I went back and looked at one of my previous videos just to kind of compare it, and the next highest view video that was newest in the lineup had about nine thousand views with two hundred comments. So, in other words, this video has gotten a lot of comments as compared to the number of views on it. It's been some very good discussion on this video and on this subject, so I wanted

to address some of these here. You guys can go see this right here, and yes, I will be addressing this. I'll ask people, don't use DMR correctly. We want to know more about that. What do you mean by that? A lot of people commented on that, so I'm making another video about that. That is not the video you're watching today. I wanted to start this video you're watching today with the simple underlying theme that I don't think

we have too many digital voice modes. I think HAM radio is about innovation and we should be allowed to create more modes if we want to. That's basically the theme of the last video. And some people disagree with that, and some people agreed with that, and it's okay, it's okay. I think the discussion of this is more important than the topic itself, quite frankly, and this video you're watching right now is about the comments discussion on that last video.

So let's switch over here. I'm gonna show you guys a couple of really good comments that I found on that video, and debt a screenshot of this one's from Tony Urusso, yes, we absolutely need a standard. You are ignoring some fundamental differences between digital voice on VHF UHF and our various digital modes on HF, because in that video I had compared the I had mentioned the fact that we don't have just one digital keyboard to keyboard

mode on HF. We have PSK threety one and Riddy FT eight, FT four, JS call, and a bunch of different ones. So I had compared digital voice modes like DMR, d Star and Fusion to digital HF modes. First is that there's a difference in between digital modes and different radios. I can use the same radio for CW, Riddy FT eight, Olivia, and all sorts of other stuff. I don't have to buy a CW radio, a Ritty radio, or an FT

eight radio. There isn't a single radio on the market that supports DSTARYSF, DMR, and M seventeen in the same device. If there were, that would certainly change some things, but it doesn't exist. And then he goes into the set major point. So here's the problem with that type of thinking. Okay, that is not the fault of the mode. That is not the fault of the mode. First of all, you don't have an FT eight radio. No radios do FT

eight natively. Radios have built in sound. Some radios will do ritty natively to have a RTTY radio teletype mode built in to the radio. Most of them have just what's called a data mode, like a seventy three hundred and FTDX ten. You put it in data upper sideban or data you sometimes, and that's what you use with the built in sound card in the radio to connect to a computer. And then your computer program is what does the mode on HF FT eight, FT four, PSK

thirty one JSA call whatever. So your digital modes aren't really built in to the radio at all. Okay, it's built into a computer program that you're running externally. Except for Riddy, not really a valid comparison there at number two. That's not the fault of the mode. Someone could build a radio that does DMR system fusion and P twenty five and d star and everything else. Someone could do that. Guess what, the hotspot guys already took care of that

for you. Pistar, WPSD and open spot already do that. Why don't the radio manufacturers do it well because everyone wants you to buy their radio. So this is where we get into a little bit more of commercialization of amateur radio as compared to innovation of amateur radio. The rest of these comments I'm gonna show you is people arguing, people arguing with me because I argued with these I've got this guy and one other comment or that I'm going to talk about today, and I'm arguing with them. Now,

let me say this. I welcome your arguments. I don't think you guys should shut up and go away. That's what I'm saying. Okay, I welcome your arguments. I thank you for your insight. You have given me more things to think about and more, quite frankly, more topics to make videos about. So I thank each and every one of you. I don't mean to discourage or disparage anyone in this video, Okay, that's not the purpose of this video. I'm not calling anyone out as saying no, you're wrong

and you're an idiot. I'm not saying that. I'm saying I may not agree with you and you don't agree with me, and that's okay. This is a discussion we're doing here. So his first part in that is it's not valid because it's not the mode's fault. It's not dmr D star fusion's fault, that no one makes a radio. That's the manufacturer's fault. Okay, and it's not really valid to compare it to a computer program running on a computer.

The second he goes on to say, the second major problem is because we're talking about VHFUHF and because of the laws of physics, that means we're heavily dependent on repeaters. I wouldn't say heavily dependent is an accurate description. There's a lot of simplex activity that happens that maybe doesn't happen near you, but it does happen throughout the country, which are extremely financially expensive, time consuming, and real estate

constrained physical built in infrastructure. I have a problem with that. Ham radio operators and been putting up repeaters in various locations since the sixties. Okay, for the last sixty freaking years, we've been putting repeaters up in various locations. Yeah it can be expensive, Yeah, it can be costly. Sure, Yeah, but hey man, so is everything else. If you don't want to put up a repeater then don't put one up. If you want to get together with a group of

friends or a club, put up a repeater. You don't have to bear all the expense yourself. I see what he's saying here, but I'm not sure that's a valid argument as to the point. Today, having to secure sites for a purchase, build and maintain four times as many repeaters is not feasible for the amateur radio community. So instead of getting a fragmented jumble of repeaters where you can only use a fraction of them, so the overall

system sucks. There used to be a network of analog link repeater systems on nine ninety four in Wisconsin I could talk on while driving throughout the state. There's still analog repink analog link repeter systems in many states, including Texas. They recently decided to convert all of them to d Star, and since radio on the car doesn't support d Star, they're all completely useless hunks up scrap metal to me, Okay, well, that's again. Anybody can buy a d Star radio and

you don't want to join in and on that. That's okay, But perhaps the reason they converted them from analog to d Stars because nobody was using them. I don't know. I don't know. I'm not familiar with this system. I don't know anything about it. Someone who knows about the system can comment below. So he goes on to talk about a few other things in that aspect, and he's got some good points, But the first point was the main one I wanted to talk about, because he was like, well,

you can't buy a radio that does all the modes. No, you can't. That's true, but that's not the mode's fault. That's not because the modes are incompatible. That's because the manufacturers have decided not to build such a thing. So moving on to the next one. Now, these next few are from the same person, and he and I kind of go back and forth on a few things here.

But if this is again good discussion, imagine a world where you could buy a single digital cable radio and then anywhere you go you can use that radio on any digital cable repeaters you run into. Imagine not getting somewhere and finding out that neither of the two digital modes you purchased access to in the form of multiple radios that you may not even like for anything other than digital mode, you need Okay, you need to buy

a different radio. In other words, you travel somewhere you have a digital mode, but all the repeaters in that area are a different digital mode. You need to buy a different radio you may not even like, just to use digital mode. That is a new community built around. Now. Explain to me again, how do you prefer the second scenario, please, or explain to me how two different digital modes big and bring enough to the table to make the second

scenario worth it. Okay, so my response to him, which I'm going i'll read to you right here, is easy. Your analogy is flawed for one simple reason. Most people who use digital modes don't travel to other areas and use repeaters in that area. They use hotspots, which they take with them and can use anywhere on the Internet with the connection. Did you actually hear my thoughts on

how people use DRMR incorrectly? That's one small example. If folks actually used repeaters when they travel, then your argument would be totally valid. And that's one of my things about the DMR networks is that they're based too much on hotspots. Again, I'm gonna make a second video about or third video or another video or continuation video, whatever you want to call it about how I think people use DMR incorrectly because a lot of you commented on that.

But people don't travel to another state or another area in their state and think, oh, I'm going to use the d Star or DMR repeaters when I get down here. They use the hot spot that's in their vehicle. Now, should they be using the repeaters, Yes, that would be excellent if that actually happened, but I think that most of the time that doesn't happen. You've got a d Star radio in your truck, you're using a hot spot. When you're on a road trip. When you're traveling to

another area, you're using a hot spot. That's what I do. I use DMR repeaters in other areas. I've got Fusion and I've got d Star in my truck, but I don't have many repeaters for other areas programmed into them. So it great if people actually use it that way, but I don't think anyone does. Now. If you want to learn how to use all of these modes, including analog, I highly recommend Ham Radio Prep. Ham Radio Prep is

the sponsor of today's video. You can save a twenty percent discount on all of their courses Technician General and Extra, their MCom one O one course, their HF Basics Course, and their Balfing Basics Course save a twenty percent discount on the courses individually or as a package deal with the coupon code of Jason twenty check the link in the description below, and thank you Ham Radio Prep for

sponsoring this channel. He goes on to say, I will absolutely can see that you have more experience than me with and thus more knowledge of people who use digital. But I say it's strictly a positive if I could use any digital repeaters I bump into with a digital cable radio. And I'm still yet to hear a positive, a positive argument for having so many options other than it's better to have more options statement which I feel like holds up only if the options are different enough

to be truly more options than not limitations. Okay, I see what you're saying. I think most of us would agree. Now. He it goes on to say, in several of these comments, most people would agree with me. Actually, if you read the comments on this video, about half or more of the people agree with what I said, and about half don't.

So I don't think there's a most in any scenario here. Okay, A lot of the comments were agreeing with my point of view on that video, and a lot of comments were agreeing with this point of view on the video. But I'm not gonna say it's most one way or the other because I didn't go count him, so I don't know. But he insists that most people agree with him. I think he's wrong, but okay, let's move on. They

don't give most of us more options. Instead, they give us less options in a given area of the planet. I don't know of anyone who has ever said I'd like to use dmrty ragchew with my buddy in XYZ, but Fusion is my choice for making contacts or anything like that. I do know people who say I wish I could use my DMR radio over XYZ, but there are but they're using ABC modes over there. I don't

like these radios. Okay, those hotspots are nice when you have them at home or if you have a Myfi or something like that, but they are a tool for some use cases, not a solution for what we believe to be a problem. So you have explained that we are wrong. I didn't say you're wrong, I said, I disagreed with you, but you have not explained why we

are wrong at all. Just more options isn't enough. Give us what is valuable about the options that makes it worth having so many radios that you can't talk to many other modes directly on digital. So those hotspots, he says, those hotspots are nice at home or if you have a Myfi or something, but they are a tool for some use cases, not a solution for what we believe to be a problem. Okay, two things on that number One,

He's right, hotspots should not be a solution. The repeater network is a better network than a hotspot network anyway, so people should be using the repeater network for whatever mode they're using, including analog. The problem with that is that they don't. No one uses that. People carry hotspots with them everywhere. I do it. I do. I carry hotspot with I have an open spot with me when I'm on road trips in the truck, I have a hotspot with me all the time. I've got multiple hot spots.

Most people who have a hotspot have more than one. Like cheetos, you can only eat one. Right. His point is would be a lot more valid if it was if it was actually true, and his point is not true. So that's it because people do use hotspots that way, and that's just the way it is, so let's move on. Then he goes on to talk about Josh's recently released video called the Real Reasons Repeaters Are Dead, which I had actually listened to and watched prior to this comment

coming across my channel. So I will link to that video from somewhere in here. You guys, go watch that if you haven't seen it yet. Josh interviews George from pac Tenna, George from hem Ray to a workbench and his assessment in a nutshell, He's got some really good points you guys should go listen to. But in a nutshell, he says that the repeaters are not dead. All of the people who used to use repeaters still use repeaters.

They're just scattered between analog, D Star, DMR fusion, maybe some PEA twenty five, maybe some other modes, maybe some stuff n XDN. And you know what I say to that, I say good, because we've been hearing for years how dead the repeaters are, and if George is right, then the repeaters aren't dead at all. We've been hearing for years how AHEM radio is dying. Well, the number of people licensed getting licensed every year since two thousand and

six proves that ham radio is not dying. There's more people licensed today than there ever has been in the history of the hobby, and the numbers continue to go up each week. We did have a shot in the arm in twenty twenty when a lot of people were stuck at home, a lot of more people got licensed overall, so the numbers dip back down in twenty twenty one, but then they started going back up again. So, yeah,

we had the whole lockdown twenty twenty thing because of COVID. Sure, but it still doesn't change the fact that they're more licensed operators than there ever have been. And I've said that on numerous videos and people are like, well, yeah, but nobody is active. Well, if what George is saying, everybody is active, everybody's just spread out in different places so you don't notice it, to which I say, great, that means people are active. That means there is activity.

That means there are people talking on different digital modes throughout the Internet, throughout the country, throughout different radio modes, and different locations including analog. Great. I think that's great. Okay, should we standardize everything just to get everyone back on the same frequency or same mode? Again, that's not something I would vote for. So you guys can go watch that video and check that out if you want to.

I'm gonna read the first paragraph of this statement and then I'm going to close it out with my final reply to this and see what you guys think. I think you just hit on what we are saying. Now, think about this. Do you think that Google would allow Spotify and Android devices if they believe users would still buy them if they were locked to YouTube music? Okay? First of all, Google doesn't own Android. I know there's a lot of contention around that, but we are working

on degoogling some Android phones. Okay, so Google doesn't own Android, and you can totally get an Android operating system to load Spotify. You can root it if nothing else and load what you want to. But I see what he's saying here. Okay, I see what he's saying here. Do you think Apple would not allow YouTube music app if the iPhone were just like Okay, I'll have an iPhone,

but I also get my music from iTunes. Nope. I think history shows it's clearly that both Apple and Google love to do the vendor look in wherever they can and get by with and the only thing that keeps them from innovating in ways that benefit the users people voting in there is voting with their wallet. In other words, they're worried about making money and selling their own apps

and products more than they are about innovating. That is true, and then he goes on to saying that is what we should be doing, that is what we need to be doing. No, we do not believe that Yazu is going to decide standardized DMR because they've carved out a little piece of the market for themselves that they believe incorrectly. In my opinion, he and I agree on this, that they will make more money like that, we need to force people to become standardized. We need to do what

Google and Apple are doing by forcing people to become standardized. Really, that's very anti that goes completely against the spirit of amateur radio and radio experimentation, completely against it. In fact, that's what my rebuttal to him. The last comment that I did, I says, who is we? I'm not with everyone since many of the comments on this video agreed with my viewpoints. He's getting a little bit he was. I don't know. Maybe I was getting a little bit heated,

and I read his comments like he was too. I don't know. Again, I thank this person for commenting on the video. You gave me some food for thought, and this is good discussion. So amateur radio doesn't need to be locked to any manufacturer, which is basically how it is already. We are not locked to Yazu, Icom or Kinwood. We are locked to d DVSI for the AMBI Code Act, everything except M seventeen. That is so, without the ability to innovate and create new modes on our own, M

seventeen would not exist. M seventeen uses a codec called CODEC two, which is open source. Everything else uses a DVSI codec, whether it's IMBE or AMBE, some form of AMBE, it's a codec designed by DVSI, commercial commercial company, DVSI for commercial standards. Even d Star, even Fusion are all dependent on the dvs sidchip and it's not going to be completely open source because of that. M seventeen is

the first thing that is actually completely open source. My next paragraph here says, Now, you might not agree with that viewpoint, but I've already explained it very clearly several times. Having a digital mode soup as you call it, is only possible if we have the ability to innovate and come up with new modes that are actually not locked

to any manufacturers, such as M seventeen, which uses CODEC two. So, following through with your observation and opinion, if one manufacturer chose to lock everything down or the FCC did, open source projects like M seventeen would never exist. And in another part of the comment, I had asked him who gets to decide the standard? Who gets to decide the standard? Yazu, because they would choose fusion, we get rid of everything

else icon they probably choose d Star. Kimwood might get on board with that, but although Kinwood makes d mar rados for their commercial customers, who gets to decide the FCC. The last thing we want is the FCC giving us more rules. Okay, we want the FCC to basically go away for the most part. Ham radio operators, like I've said in other videos, that have been self policing in the past, and to a certain degree that's a good thing, okay, and having the FCC do certain things is also a

good thing. Having the A double ORL involved is a good thing. Which mode would you think they would choose? You want to give the A DOBLEL permission to choose us a mode, choose a mode for us, whatever it is, and that's what we're all gonna do. You're gonna force manufacturers to make a mode, or most likely the manufacturers just say, oh, I'm not gonna make that mode, so we're just gonna stop making digital radios and then you don't have anything. So who gets to decide what the

standard mode is? I asked that question several times in that comment. I've asked that question to several other commenters on that video. Nobody's been able to answer me yet, not with an answer that makes any sense. Who gets to decide if we decided to get a standard mode? Who gets to decide what the standard mode is? The community? That's another one. That's a good one. I love that one. The community. There's an old joke that says, if you have three Hams living in a city, you're gonna have

two Ham radio clubs in that same city. You can't agree on anything. The back and forth comments on this one video on this one YouTube channel about this one subject prove that we can't agree on anything. So no, the community's not gonna decide. Okay, you're gonna get a very split opinion from the community. A lot of guys are DMR. Look at the comments on that video. A lot of guys say DMR only. A lot of guys say I only use d Star. A lot of guys say Fusion is my choice. Other guys say I'm seventeen

because it's truly open source, which it is. I don't want to decide. I do not want to. If you say, well, Jason, why don't you know, no, I decide that you should be able to do what you want to do, which is create another digital mode if you want to. I don't want to decide. I don't think you should decide. I don't want to give the power to the FCC, or to Yezu or Able orl. I don't want to give power to anybody to decide to limit what we can do in ham radio. I don't want to do that, Okay.

I think it's innovation and if it's a good technology then people will use it, and if it's not then people won't use it. And I think that I think this is a good thing. I think discussions like this are a good thing. I know some of you are not going to agree with me. That's okay, it's all right, it's okay if you disagree with me. I have zero

problems if you disagree with me. But if you do disagree, and you think we should have one digital mode digital voice mode standard DV mode digital voice again, we're talking about digital voice modes over VHFUHF and a lot of people came along and said, well, yeah, you can use fusion on HF two. Yeah you can't. It's still a digital voice mode. Though it's not FT eight, it's not keyboard to keyboard, it is a digital voice mode DMR

D Star Fusion P twenty five nxdn M seventeen. If you think we should have one standard, tell me in the comments blow who should set that standard? Who gets to be in charge of what standard we use? Who gets to pick and tell everyone else they can't use what they want to seventy three