Just so it is absolutely clear: the way you tell if something is or isn’t amateur radio is by looking at the primary communication path, not the specific hardware.
Morse code internet echolink ham radio software#
Take away the radio, and all that digital modes software becomes useless. Take away the internet, and people’s digital modes software still works and they can still communicate by radio. PSK, RTTY and other digital modes are just modern versions of that. Machines have been communicating by radio for more than half a century. but it is a strawman that is incorrect at the most basic level. That is a canard oft trotted out in defence of the “amateur radio” status of Echolink et al. So after all that, when this topic is discussed, someone always says this: PSK and other digital modes use a computer too. Thus, I have to afford that mode special dispensation: At the core, D-Star is amateur radio, but a lot of how it is used is not. In fact, they’re no different than Skype or Logitech’s video program, or MSN Messenger beyond having less features than those commercial VoIP programs.ĭ-Star is a special case because it can be used for direct, radio-to-radio communication. They absolutely cannot function without the internet, and it is because of this that I say that this makes it clear that such modes are not amateur radio. If you take the internet away, Echolink, IRLP, CQ100, and most of D-Star die immediately. If the guy down the street downloads Echolink or CQ100 and somehow manages to get an authorized registration, all the hooting and hollering in the world will not get your national communications regulator to come down on the guy as long as (in the case of Echolink) he never causes a signal to come out on an amateur radio frequency. Legally speaking, no person needs an amateur radio licence to use these applications for computer to computer communications, despite the best efforts of software authors to keep access restricted to the amateur radio community. In the case of CQ100, it’s primary purpose is to be used computer to computer. When used in this manner they are absolutely not amateur radio. Echolink, all the DX part of D-Star, and CQ100 work over the internet, computer to computer. If you took the radio away, all those modes still work. That’s where people get confused… “It uses a radio, therefore it is amateur radio” and that’s absolutely wrong.
Certainly with IRLP, Echolink and “DX” uses of D-Star, radio can be involved. Using that defninition, it is a simple matter to determine what is and isn’t radio. The key is in the communications medium itself. An even better line might be that it’s not amateur radio if an amateur radio transceiver isn’t required. It’s trivial to explain which is which: It’s not amateur radio if an amateur radio transceiver isn’t involved. To me, it is obvious that some of them are certainly not amateur radio, and others are really just radio-based by convenience depending on how they are used. This topic comes up from time to time, and I’ve never seen anyone give a definitive argument as to why VoIP modes like Echolink, IRLP, some uses of D-Star (dongles and “dx”), CQ100 and so forth are absolutely not amateur radio. Much of this post comes from something I wrote years ago that sank with the old blog, but since the question has come up again, I thought it was time to revisit the old post (yay ) and bring things up to date. Digital Modes, Equipment, General, Operating, Technology, Voice Modes
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