[RTTY] ARRL attack on current RTTY users

[COURYHOUSE at aol.com]

who owns the  rights  to PACTOR?
 
Ed# 
 
 
In a message dated 11/29/2013 12:43:41 P.M. US Mountain Standard Tim,  
plaws at plaws.net writes:

On Sat,  Nov 23, 2013 at 2:00 PM, Don Hill AA5AU <aa5au at bellsouth.net>  
wrote:
> I guess you could spend over $2000 and buy one of these STS  modems off 
eBay in order to monitor Pactor 4 traffic (oh, I see a
>  stripped down model for only %1500 also on eBay). But who would do that? 
Not  sure if you have to buy a license to operate Pactor 4
> or  not.
>
> So I guess it's not encrypted if you are willing to spend  the money.

Call it "de facto encrypted".

In the world above 50  MHz, there are similar issues.  The D-STAR
*protocol* is open but the  voice is encoded and decoded by a
proprietary algorithm in a DVSI  chip.  The same is nearly true (down
to the chip in question) for  APCO's Project 25 spec and Motorola's
version of the DMR spec, MotoTRBO  (That DVSI is willing to provide
D-STAR chips to hams at a reduced price  isn't relevant - you are still
licensing a proprietary technology).  I  don't think that's in the
spirit of amateur radio.  You should be able  to build your own
equipment, from parts more discrete than the chip level,  to be able to
receive or transmit anything on the amateur band.  That  you or I may
not have the technical knowledge or skills to actually do that  isn't
relevant.

You pay no one for the right to build transmitters  or receivers for
CW, any kind of analog 'phone, RTTY or any data mode ...  except
PacTOR.  And that to me is wrong.

At the very least, the  owner of the PacTOR protocols should be made to
offer free software to  decode their otherwise proprietary protocols so
that we can police  ourselves as we have done traditionally.


-- 
Peter Laws | N5UWY  | plaws plaws net | Travel by  Train!
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