AmateurRadio.com

One of the things at the back of my mind when I was writing that the magic of ham radio wasn’t in high technology was the feeling that anyone who got into the hobby out of a mania for high-tech toys was soon likely to be disappointed. I’ve seen it happen when people who are new to the hobby and don’t yet know much about it get an enthusiasm for APRS or Echolink. They get disappointed that the network coverage is patchy or nonexistent compared to cellphone coverage because they don’t realize that it depends on hams to provide the infrastructure and where there are few hams – or none interested in these particular aspects of the hobby – there are no repeaters and no gateways.

I’ve seen the same people criticize the latest VX-8, TH-D72 and Icom D-Star radios as being overpriced and unimpressive. They don’t like the geeky “walkie talkie” look or the plain 1990s LCD display. They can’t believe that APRS radios don’t support predictive text entry like the cheapest mobile has for more than a decade. And why can’t they have a colour screen and a scrolling map display?

It’s easy to dismiss these criticisms as coming from people who don’t understand that ham radio is a specialized niche market and that amateur HTs don’t benefit from the economies of scale which allow vastly more R&D to be spent on a smartphone costing a similar amount of money. But then I realized that perhaps the critics had a valid case. Manufacturers of smartphones don’t completely reinvent the wheel whenever they release a new model. They just design the hardware. But the hardware is a platform. On it runs a standard OS and various apps, a few of which may be customized to the manufacturer or phone but most of which are generic. Given that software development is one of the most time consuming and expensive parts of any new technology product development, wouldn’t that be a huge saving?

Why can’t top of the range hand-held radios use a similar hardware architecture to cellphones? Instead of a custom design the radio would be a computer running embedded Linux. The RF side could be SDR or it could use conventional technology – it wouldn’t matter, that would simply depend on what is most cost effective and delivers the best battery endurance. But all the control functions, together with transmit and receive audio, would be accessible through an API to software. The user interface would be an app.

Since the radio is a computer the interface would be endlessly customizable and all kinds of things not possible with existing radios could be feasible. Instead of entering local repeater frequencies into memories you could install an app that gets your position from the built-in GPS and shows you the nearest repeaters. One click and you’re listening on it.

Instead of a plain LCD display showing distance and bearing your APRS capable radio could show a full map display just like APRSISCE currently provides on Windows smartphones. You wouldn’t need packet modem hardware in the radio because packet generation and decoding could be done in software. In fact there would be no such thing as an APRS capable radio. The platform would be the same – if you wanted APRS you would just install the APRS application. If you wanted Echolink you could add the Echolink application. If you wanted D-Star you could buy the D-Star app from Icom. If you wanted to work satellites then I’m sure someone would write an app that would keep track of where the satellites are and even control the radio frequencies taking account of doppler.

You could power this hypothetical next generation radio using cellphone battery packs, which are a lot cheaper than the custom battery packs for traditional ham radios. You could even use standard cellphone accessories.

So why won’t this happen? I guess the reason for that is that Yaesu, Icom, Kenwood and the rest don’t make cellphones. Their business is making radios that are intended to be as dumb as most of their users. Ham radio is just an offshoot. The market just isn’t big enough to justify developing what for them would be a completely different and unique hardware platform. So I guess for the foreseeable future we’ll be stuck with our geeky walkie talkies and the cool stuff will all be on cellphones.

Getting a radio to communicate reliably with a computer proves to be a difficult task for some people. The trouble seems to be caused by USB to serial adapters that corrupt the data when used with certain software or at certain speeds. Whenever these problems are discussed in amateur forums inevitably the question of why radio manufacturers don’t build USB interfaces into their radios (as Icom and Kenwood have started to do) is raised. I think this is a very short sighted view that really does nothing to solve the problem.

To begin, let’s deal with the argument that goes “why force users to buy a serial to USB adapter when serial ports have been obsolete for years.” Users have to use something to connect the radio to the computer and the only physical difference between a serial to USB adapter and a serial cable is that one end of the former is a bit fatter to accommodate the USB electronics. There is little difference in cost between the two cables. Furthermore, just because PCs don’t come with serial ports doesn’t mean that they are obsolete. My shack PC has four – soon hopefully to be increased to six if I can get it to accept the two port board I removed when I upgraded to four as an addition – and installing them is easily within the capabilities of any radio amateur. If you use a laptop you don’t have that choice, true enough, but why force a change on everybody because some people choose shack PCs that have limited expandability?

But the main reason why I think building USB into the radio isn’t the solution is that it doesn’t address the problem. It’s USB – either the hardware or its drivers – that is causing the connectivity problems in the first place. If an external adapter cable is used, users can try a different type if the one they have is not working correctly. If the USB hardware is built into the radio then they are stuck with it and reliant on finding a software solution. That might be a matter of getting the manufacturer to fix its drivers, which is not so easy.

Another reason why building USB into the radio is a bad idea is that it limits choices for users. If you want to connect your radio anything other than a PC, something like a MicroHam controller or a remote control over internet device for example, then you’re stuffed if you’ve got a USB port. Some owners of Kenwood’s new TH-D72 APRS handheld have already found that Kenwood’s decision to provide a USB rather than a serial interface to the radio’s internal TNC means they can’t use Bluetooth to link it to APRS software on another mobile device.

Whenever I argue that switching to USB is a bad thing someone always counters the argument by saying USB can provide a wide bandwidth connection that can handle other things such as audio. As somebody who has sometimes had three USB sound devices attached to my PC I can certainly see how a one cable interface between rig and computer might seem attractive, especially to those who believe that sound card modes need something like a RigBlaster. And I would agree that a fast interface would be a nice thing to have if it was one that was a true universal standard like, say, Ethernet.

But if we are talking about USB, most of my arguments still apply. Built-in USB limits choices. An analogue audio input and output lets you interface audio with other things such as digital voice recorders, TNCs and VOIP devices for remote control over the internet. We’re hams, we’re supposed to be able to handle technical stuff, do we really need plug and play interfaces for our radios?

USB is a technology du jour. It keeps changing, whereas RS-232 and analogue audio are permanent standards. USB 1.0 devices seem still to work with USB 2.0 but now USB 3.0 is starting to appear and it remains to be seen how backwards compatible that will be with older USB devices. Who knows what the computers of 10 or 15 years time will be equipped with? It may not be USB anything but something completely different.

Finally there is the fact that USB depends on software to work: drivers that are operating system dependent. Most serial to USB hardware is at least supported by operating systems other than Windows “out of the box.” I don’t have the experience to know whether that is true for USB interfaces that carry audio or other information. Is anyone using their IC-7600 or TS-590 under Mac OS or Linux?

Even if the manufacturer-supplied drivers work for Windows today, will they work on the latest version of Windows in 10 or 15 years time? If not, will the manufacturer of the radio provide new drivers once the radio is an obsolete model? I’ll bet a perfect but unusable as no longer supported scanner that they won’t. I’m equally sure that I’ll still be able to interface my K3’s RS-232 serial port and analogue line input/output to whatever computing hardware and operating system I’m using then.