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David Rowe, VK5DGR, is working on Codec2, an open source low rate speech codec that is intended to replace the proprietary AMBE vocoder in D-STAR.  Bruce Perens, K6BP, discusses the Codec2 project here, and further information from VK5DGR is here.

If you missed it, I discussed the issues with proprietary technology and D-STAR here, here, and here.

If you believe open source technologies are crucial to amateur radio, please donate to the Codec 2 project.  Paypal donations are accepted.

If you read this blog and you haven’t seen it yet, you don’t have a pulse or you’ve been busier than Lindsay Lohan’s legal team this week and haven’t read any email, blogs, tweets, or forums.  This video of a tower climber ascending a 1700 foot tower has been making its way on the Intertubes:

http://www.youtube.com/v/uhtgsAXmz7U?fs=1&hl=en_US

The narrator is friendly enough and sounds more refined than many of the roughneck tower guys I’ve met and worked with, but I have to question the brains-to-balls ratio of the climber.  While it may not be required to be clipped in at all times, it’s a very good idea, especially at the transitions.  I can’t fathom why a climber wouldn’t clip a lanyard to the tower when pulling themselves on to the very top.  He even putzes around untethered when standing next to the beacon light, digging out a carabiner.  The other climber comes up next to him and clips in before he does.  It would take only one gust of wind or an unexpected move or slip up by the other climber to kill the camera equipped climber.

You can climb untethered and gain some time, but what use is an extra 10 or 15 minutes one day for losing perhaps 40 or 50 years of your life?

This month WorldRadio Online features an article in the CW FISTS Club column entitled CW Naysayers: Would You Like Hollandaise Sauce With That Hat?  The article by KC0CCR outlines, correctly, the growth of amateur radio and CW usage since the demise of the code test.  KC0CCR quips: “Will those who predicted that ending Morse Code [...]

Warning: Heavy Depressing Stuff Ahead Saturday morning I learned of my father’s passing on Facebook.  Yea, Facebook.  I wasn’t expecting to read something like that on a social networking site, let alone expecting his death.  We hadn’t talked for many years and had a relationship that could be best characterized as intermittent and strained.  He [...]

One of the neighboring amateur radio clubs has for years provided communications for an annual athletic event.  This year was different.  The organizers decided they no longer needed or wanted communications from the radio amateurs, opting to use the fire police.  For those who aren’t familiar with the term, the fire police here are the guys [...]

Is it just me or have the ‘zed and eHam had significantly less article comments over the past six months or so?  One reason could be the bands, though I think there would be more people surfing the Internet and sharing their radio artisan enthusiasm online if that was the cause.  Perhaps Facebook and Twitter [...]

Last evening while driving from nightly target practice to a freedom rally and Constitution seminar, I listened to Glen Beck on AM radio. Much to my surprise he spent several minutes talking about amateur radio. There were some good quotes, all of which I’m taking from memory and some I may paraphrase. Beck mentioned he [...]