Amature radio digital switch?

Question

i know it is just for tv now but do you think the fcc will but in to all radio stations, amateur radio station well i hope not but it dose seem they want to convert every thing to digital so i don't know

Answer 1

Everything is moving to digital because it's more efficient. the Ham radio community hasn't embraced it yet as the normal cost of a HT being $500 for one that will do digital is way out there for some people.

I've been keeping up with it and one of the biggest fights is a digital agreement on what standard to use. Some want APCO 25 in the US on VHF, Some want the Japanese standard d-Star.

D-Star is winning by the number of buyers as it's marketing is more heavily favored than APCO 25.... However only time will tell.

Answer 2

It is something to wonder about isn't it

Examining clues behind the motives behind the change of TV to digital may give an idea of what they will do with other communications services.

The fact is , governments around the world that have moved their TV modes to digital are now able to sell off the freed up portion of the spectrum to others.

This is HUGE money because the spectrum area was useful and large.

As far as radio stations are concerned , eg on the FM band , the part of the spectrum is good sized, but not terribly useful for anything else than what it already does.

Hard lessons learnt from the attempts to make hi-fi FM and stereo AM are not going to be encouraging for radio station owners to make any switch to a digital mode.

So as far as these things are concerned , I think AM and FM will stay just the way they are.

For ham radio , well , the band space they use is  EXTREMELY small and of no interest to the government.

While you may see a movement to more digi-mode communications in the ham bands , it will only because some hams like to stay on the cutting edge of communication technology . ..however , it likely will never become a forced issue.