Speaker 1: M seventeen has been dropped from MMDVM support. It's no
Speaker 1: longer included in WPSD, and there's been some turmoil about it.
Speaker 1: Check this out. I actually got this in email, and
Speaker 1: then about the same day, this was maybe three days
Speaker 1: ago at the time of this recording, about the same day,
Speaker 1: I start getting emails from a bunch of you guys
Speaker 1: sending me information about what they were doing. One guy
Speaker 1: sent me an article that Jerry from Connect Systems had
Speaker 1: written about them trying to convince Jonathan Naylor, the main
Speaker 1: guy in charge of MMDVM, that he's the one who
Speaker 1: wants to drop it. And WPSD is what Bridgecom puts
Speaker 1: on their hotspots, and that's no longer including MMDVM. But
Speaker 1: that's outside of Bridgecomm's control. That's up to the WPSD developers.
Speaker 1: And if it wasn't some kind of turmoil, then it
Speaker 1: wouldn't be ham radio. So here's an article. This came
Speaker 1: across my news story feed right about the time that
Speaker 1: everyone started sending me emails about it. MMDVM, a popular
Speaker 1: software and hardware project that powers many amateur rated hotspots,
Speaker 1: has announced the intention to drop M seventeen Digital Voice
Speaker 1: and Data Protocol as a supported mode. M seventeen is
Speaker 1: the newest mode. I've had the M seventeen guys on
Speaker 1: this channel a couple of times, interview them at a
Speaker 1: couple of hamfests. It's a open source digital voice mode
Speaker 1: built on CODEC two, which is an open source codec.
Speaker 1: I'm going to talk about open source here in a
Speaker 1: little bit. I think open source is both good and bad.
Speaker 1: What do I mean by that? Stay tuned. Most of
Speaker 1: your other digital voice protocols, d STAR, DMR, System Fusion
Speaker 1: P twenty five and DS rely on a protocol called
Speaker 1: either amb AMBE or some of the older ones that
Speaker 1: are IMBE. Both of these protocols are owned by a
Speaker 1: company called DVSI, and they make a chip that they
Speaker 1: will license to anyone. You just have to buy it
Speaker 1: from DVSI. That's why there's so many Chinese manufacturers making
Speaker 1: DMR radios, because you just purchase a license from DVSI,
Speaker 1: put the chip in your radio, and you're good. M
Speaker 1: seventeen and CODEC too. There's a lot more to it
Speaker 1: than that. I'm giving a very high level overview here.
Speaker 1: M seventeen was the first one to not use a
Speaker 1: DVS SID chip, not use an AMB chip, They're using
Speaker 1: their own CODEC two, which is an open source digital
Speaker 1: voice codec. And it's been an open source project up
Speaker 1: until now. Let's keep reading. Inclusion of M seventeen among
Speaker 1: the supported modes of MMDVN project has been a major
Speaker 1: benefit to the current rate of adoption of M seventeen.
Speaker 1: The first commercial radio supporting M seventeen shipped on the
Speaker 1: second half of twenty twenty four, that is the CS
Speaker 1: seven thy M seventeen, which I did a live stream
Speaker 1: about the CS seven M seventeen, which is actually sitting
Speaker 1: right here, So that was the first commercial radio being
Speaker 1: sold with M seventeen adopted. The M seventeen project is
Speaker 1: an open source digital voice protocol that is positioned as
Speaker 1: an alternative digital modes that require the use of proprietary
Speaker 1: encoders such as the dvsside chip and be an imbe
Speaker 1: Codex is also an open source project that enables amateur
Speaker 1: radio hotspots to support multiple digital voice protoclous incouding, d STAR,
Speaker 1: DMRYSUP twenty five, NXDN and pok sag Okay, So if
Speaker 1: we click on this announced link right here, it brings
Speaker 1: us to a groups dot io list, and this is
Speaker 1: a public message. I don't know if I'm even a
Speaker 1: member of this list, but it is in the open
Speaker 1: DV list. And this is Jonathan Naylor. I met Jonathan
Speaker 1: at the I think hamvention two or three years ago.
Speaker 1: It might have been ham kashon one of them. I
Speaker 1: met him for the first time at ham Kash and
Speaker 1: then later that year, maybe the next year, at hamvention,
Speaker 1: did an interview with him. Nice guy, very very knowledgeable
Speaker 1: in the world of MMDVM, since it is kind of
Speaker 1: his project. So this is what he has to say.
Speaker 1: This is an open forum, This is not a private
Speaker 1: letter or anything like that, and so I'm reading public
Speaker 1: information here. It is with great regret and a certain
Speaker 1: amount of relief that I have removed M seventeen from MMDVM.
Speaker 1: I have two sets of issues with M seventeen, administrative
Speaker 1: and technical. Firstly, the administrative side of M seventeen is
Speaker 1: very worrying, and even more so in recent months. A
Speaker 1: couple of years ago, M seventeen received four hundred and
Speaker 1: seventy eight thoy nine hundred dollars in grants from ARDC. Yes,
Speaker 1: I had Steven and ed who are Americans? Because a
Speaker 1: lot of the M seventeen stuff is being done out
Speaker 1: of Sweden. I had steven Ed, who were their American counterparts,
Speaker 1: on the live stream, two or three times to talk
Speaker 1: about M seventeen, and I'm I don't believe steven Ed
Speaker 1: or with that project anymore. Don't know why, not going
Speaker 1: to speculate, Not sure what happened there. But during that
Speaker 1: time was when ARDC had given them grant money to
Speaker 1: fund this nonprofit open source project. Received four hundred and
Speaker 1: seventy eight thousand, ne hundred dollars in grants from IRDC
Speaker 1: developing seventeen. I feel very much that ARDC should take
Speaker 1: a closer look at how the money was spent. Okay,
Speaker 1: these are his words, not mine. The new M seventeen
Speaker 1: Foundation isn't much better. A number of the M seventeen
Speaker 1: star warts were excluded from it when it was formed.
Speaker 1: I don't know what he's talking about here, I'm just
Speaker 1: reading this text rather more sadly. The M seventeen Foundation
Speaker 1: make no mention of a number of people organizations that
Speaker 1: it helped them to get to where they were now.
Speaker 1: Sounds like he wasn't acknowledged it and he's upset about it.
Speaker 1: But I don't know. I don't know the backstory. Okay.
Speaker 1: This is particularly troubling as it is rewriting of history
Speaker 1: and not appointing praise where it is due. A lot
Speaker 1: of people put a lot of time and effort in
Speaker 1: M seventeen and to not get their due is dishonest
Speaker 1: of the M seventeen teen. Okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna
Speaker 1: take Jonathan as word here and say that this is
Speaker 1: all correct, and I agree with him if it is. Again,
Speaker 1: I don't have any inside knowledge here, I'm just reading
Speaker 1: it open for him. An example of this is the
Speaker 1: fact that only one commercial entity has put their money
Speaker 1: where their mouth is, and that is Jerry of Connect Systems. Okay,
Speaker 1: we talked about him a minute ago. However, his contribution
Speaker 1: to the project has been belittled online by the M
Speaker 1: seventeen As his mind, despite it being the only way
Speaker 1: to get a commercial M seventeen radio, he should be praise,
Speaker 1: not dismissed out of hand. Okay, I don't know what
Speaker 1: he's talking about there either. If somebody has a link
Speaker 1: to these forums and articles that he's talking about where
Speaker 1: this has happened, please send it to me. I don't
Speaker 1: I haven't seen that myself. I don't browse forums much
Speaker 1: these days, except for if it's on Reddit looking for
Speaker 1: stuff to talk about new videos. But here we go.
Speaker 1: I've heard rumors at M seventeen foundations looking at charging
Speaker 1: commercial entities a royalty to include M seventeen in their
Speaker 1: equipment and to use their logo. This is not in
Speaker 1: the spirit of open source and has not been the
Speaker 1: route followed by MMDBM. Now. I heard that rumor about
Speaker 1: two months ago, maybe three months ago, something like that.
Speaker 1: I heard that rumor, and I'm like, Okay, you hear
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff. I mean, I get emails from
Speaker 1: people about all kinds of stuff. People are excited about
Speaker 1: new stuff, people are pissed off about something that happened,
Speaker 1: or people are dismayed or frustrated or whatever. I get
Speaker 1: all kinds of emails about all kinds of things. Generally speaking,
Speaker 1: most of it is noise. Some of it is very
Speaker 1: good information, and you'll usually end up seeing me make
Speaker 1: videos on that. So I actually heard this rumor a
Speaker 1: few months ago. I didn't really put much thought into it,
Speaker 1: or much effort into I didn't put much faith in
Speaker 1: it because I'm like, well, okay, if they are charging.
Speaker 1: My understanding is ARDC only gives money to nonprofits, which
Speaker 1: M seventeen was. M seventeen Foundation was a nonprofit as
Speaker 1: far as I know, they still are. Maybe that's change.
Speaker 1: I don't know, But if you are a for profit business,
Speaker 1: ARDC will not grant you money. I know this firsthand
Speaker 1: because I asked them for a grant because I do
Speaker 1: a lot of teaching on my channel and they're like, well,
Speaker 1: you make a profit, so we can't grant you money.
Speaker 1: I'm like, okay, that's fair. I didn't hold any begrudges
Speaker 1: against them because of that. Okay, this is their business model,
Speaker 1: this is how they do things. They were actually quite
Speaker 1: polite to me, and they said, hey, we really like
Speaker 1: what you're doing, but we can't give you any money
Speaker 1: because you're a for profit business. I'm like, yes, I am, yes,
Speaker 1: that's true. I'm not a nonprofit. I never claim to
Speaker 1: be a nonprofit, so I get it. So in that regard,
Speaker 1: if M seventeen is going to start charging for their
Speaker 1: low to feature their logo almost like a brand ad,
Speaker 1: almost like a royalty, to put their open source codec
Speaker 1: on commercial radio and sell it, that's not nonprofit anymore.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna link this article below and I'm gonna read
Speaker 1: more of it to you. But the first thing I'll say,
Speaker 1: if you want to get involved in this hap hap
Speaker 1: happy realm of amateur radio, or you want to get
Speaker 1: an upgraded license, check out Ham Radio Prep. You can
Speaker 1: save a twenty percent discount. Here's an example of me
Speaker 1: being a for profit business. You can save a twenty
Speaker 1: percent discount off of all of Ham Radio Preps courses
Speaker 1: with the coupon code of Jason twenty. Ham Radio Prep
Speaker 1: has helped get hundreds, tens of thousands really people with
Speaker 1: their new Ham Radio license or a Ham Radio License
Speaker 1: upgrade over the last several years. They are a valuable
Speaker 1: source in the community. But they are for profit business also,
Speaker 1: so they're not going to get an ARDC grant. And
Speaker 1: that's okay, that's okay. That's why you buy their product
Speaker 1: and learn your stuff and get your upgrade and go
Speaker 1: on save a discount at Ham Radio Prep with the
Speaker 1: coupon code of Jason Twins. This goes on to say
Speaker 1: he said he had two points. So the first one
Speaker 1: was that the second one second secondly technical, when when
Speaker 1: started in seventeen was proudly created by people who said
Speaker 1: that they brought fresh thinking to digital voice. I would
Speaker 1: say that it characterized more by a combination of arrogance
Speaker 1: and stupidity. Again, not my words. I'm reading Jonathan's words here,
Speaker 1: and this is on an open form, not to a
Speaker 1: private letter he sent to me, because I know I'm
Speaker 1: gonna get comments saying dude, you read that out loud. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: he wrote it out loud, and I'm just rereading it. Okay,
Speaker 1: here we go. Maybe all contact him and say, do
Speaker 1: you want to do an interview about this? The fact
Speaker 1: that none of them have ever operated digital voice radio,
Speaker 1: let alone study the DV mode was seen as positive. Really,
Speaker 1: I didn't know that none of them ever operated a
Speaker 1: digital voice radio. Come on. One of the key members
Speaker 1: designed it like a packet radio system, where each block
Speaker 1: or packet of information needed to be received perfectly, so
Speaker 1: no forward error correction? Is that what that means? This
Speaker 1: is not a useful attribute to have. I would agree.
Speaker 1: As originally designed, the synchronization patterns were literally one bit
Speaker 1: different from one another, which is useless in an environment
Speaker 1: where signals are routinely corrupted to a greater or lesser extent.
Speaker 1: Over the first six months of my involvement, I managed
Speaker 1: to get them to change the synchronization vectors to something
Speaker 1: more reasonable, and got them to add a can a
Speaker 1: channel access number to allow for some sort of channel
Speaker 1: sharing between the M seventeen systems. I also added things
Speaker 1: we take for granted another DV modes, like embedded GPS
Speaker 1: datas short text messages. These both run in parallel to
Speaker 1: the audio, like DSTAR or other DV modes. There were
Speaker 1: still five big issues. A networking protocol designed before the
Speaker 1: RF protocol is established included ideas that didn't make sense
Speaker 1: in later development, very weekend of a message indicator, inclusion
Speaker 1: of optional strong encryption. This is against regulations in most countries.
Speaker 1: Shouldn't even be thought about. That's true if you're going
Speaker 1: to design a digital voice mode for amateur radio like
Speaker 1: system Fusion and d STAR war, DMR was not. That's
Speaker 1: why DMR includes encryption, because DMR and P twenty five
Speaker 1: both are commercial protocols that we adopted as amateur radio operators. Now,
Speaker 1: sometimes I'll get people, well, since it wasn't made, since
Speaker 1: it wasn't made for amateur radio, I'm not going to
Speaker 1: use DMR well. Guess what. I don't know if you've
Speaker 1: ever heard of a little mode called continuous waves CW
Speaker 1: or a protocol called Morse code. But let me let
Speaker 1: you in on a little secret. None of that was
Speaker 1: made for amateur radio. AM and FM voice transmissions were
Speaker 1: not made for amateur radio. RIDDY was not originally made
Speaker 1: for amateur radio. FT eight was. So if you want
Speaker 1: to drop DMR and non and commercial modes that were
Speaker 1: adopted by amateur radio simply because they weren't made for
Speaker 1: amateur radio, I hope that you only operate PSK thirty one,
Speaker 1: JT sixty five, FT eight and these times of protocols
Speaker 1: on HF because everything else that's on there pretty much
Speaker 1: was not made for amateur radio. That's a stupid argument.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry if I offended someone by saying that. I apologize.
Speaker 1: It's a stupid argument to say that DMR and P
Speaker 1: twenty five or shouldn't be an amateur radio because they
Speaker 1: weren't made for amateur radio. Okay, But leaving that I
Speaker 1: got it, that's a bit of a tangent. I got
Speaker 1: on a bit of a tangent there, Okay. But Jonathan
Speaker 1: is correct. He says that inclusion of optional strong encryption.
Speaker 1: This is against regulations in most countries, shouldn't even be
Speaker 1: thought about. Oddly enough, encryptid M seventeen wouldn't pass through
Speaker 1: an MMDVM based repeater. So the reason that DMR and
Speaker 1: P twenty five including encryption because they're commercial, but we're
Speaker 1: not really supposed to be using them in amateur radio
Speaker 1: on amateur radio frequencies. Now, I know some people aren't
Speaker 1: going to I suspect some people are coming along in
Speaker 1: the come as well' we use encryption all the time.
Speaker 1: Nobody ever shows anything. Well, good for you, good for you,
Speaker 1: congratulations on not being able to read your license protocols,
Speaker 1: but good for you. Okay. Nevertheless, encryption at this point
Speaker 1: in time is not really supposed to be used by
Speaker 1: amateur radio operators on amateur radio frequencies. You want to
Speaker 1: use encryption, get a commercial radio, get a commercial frequency,
Speaker 1: you can use that on. So he's correct inclusion of
Speaker 1: optional strong encryption. Why would you even put that in
Speaker 1: M seventeen if you're actually making it for amateur radio
Speaker 1: users and the amateur radio community as a whole. The
Speaker 1: wrong type of FCC applied badly. That FEC FOURD error
Speaker 1: correction is what that is? So few other things in
Speaker 1: here in this article, and he says he signs off
Speaker 1: with does anyone want to buy a CS seven seventeen.
Speaker 1: I've got one. That one is sitting right here. I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna. I don't want to. It's behind a bunch
Speaker 1: of radios. I'm gonna knock everything off my desk if
Speaker 1: I try to pull it out. But hey, what do
Speaker 1: you guys think about this? Are you disappointed? I am disappointed.
Speaker 1: Let's take the article, this article at face value. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's assume for the moment, for the sake of this statement,
Speaker 1: I'm about to make that everything said in this article
Speaker 1: is true. It's disappointing that a group who started out
Speaker 1: as open source and supportive of mateur radio and using
Speaker 1: a codec like CODEC two, which is open source and
Speaker 1: got an ARDC grant as an open source nonprofit entity,
Speaker 1: is now shifting gears and trying to charge you for
Speaker 1: and do encryption with this protocol, this M seventeen protocol.
Speaker 1: If there's much I'm sure there's more to the story.
Speaker 1: I have no doubt there's more to the story. Okay,
Speaker 1: but if this is true, again, let's just take this
Speaker 1: phase value for the sake of this argument, then yeah,
Speaker 1: this is disappointing and I'm probably not going to be
Speaker 1: interested in using M seventeen anymore myself, not that I
Speaker 1: use it a lot anyway. I was looking forward to it.
Speaker 1: I was looking forward to getting it in more commercial
Speaker 1: radios and using it that way. I was happy about
Speaker 1: the fact that WPSD, which is upgraded version of pie Star,
Speaker 1: included it. You get a new hotspot from Bridgecom, or
Speaker 1: you get a new hotspot any hotspot that runs WPSD
Speaker 1: M seventeen is now, or it was included voice protocol,
Speaker 1: so it was easy to talk on M seventeen and
Speaker 1: get into the get into the system if you had
Speaker 1: a radio for it. I'm, you know, hats off to
Speaker 1: Jerriett Connect Systems for actually creating a commercial radio. And
Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't know where that's going to go.
Speaker 1: So we'll see. What do you guys think about this?
Speaker 1: Whose side are you on? Do you think you're you
Speaker 1: agree with them seventeen or do you agree with with Jonathan?
Speaker 1: Because I know a couple of people are saying that
Speaker 1: this is this is immature of Jonathan to act this way,
Speaker 1: This is childish. We need to put this back in.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, well, maybe maybe you're right, Maybe you're right,
Speaker 1: maybe right, but here's something I'm want to close with this,
Speaker 1: and no one is going to like what I well,
Speaker 1: a lot of people, a lot of people are not
Speaker 1: going to like what I have to say. This is
Speaker 1: what you get with an open source project. Now that
Speaker 1: obvious that MMDVM is an open source project, and it's
Speaker 1: still going very strong, so obviously open source projects can work.
Speaker 1: But I have seen many times many project fall flat
Speaker 1: on their face two or three or five or six
Speaker 1: years into the project. Open source, it's all open source,
Speaker 1: it's all open So it's open source, great, wonderful, right
Speaker 1: up until the point where the developers and the supporters
Speaker 1: and the guys in charge of it get kind of
Speaker 1: sick and tired of everyone complaining about it and just
Speaker 1: basically drop the project and say, Nope, we're not going
Speaker 1: to do this anymore. We're tired of working on it
Speaker 1: twenty to twenty five hours a week and not being
Speaker 1: paid for it. I got other things to do with
Speaker 1: my time, like spend time with family or do my
Speaker 1: real job, which actually puts food on the table for
Speaker 1: my family, so and who can blame them? I don't
Speaker 1: blame them at all. I like the idea of open source,
Speaker 1: but I think the developers and the administrators and the
Speaker 1: project leaders and the the beta testers and these people
Speaker 1: who put all of this time into it, I don't
Speaker 1: think they get proper recognition. I don't think they get
Speaker 1: proper recognition. And a lot of times, and I've seen
Speaker 1: it before. I could. I could name three open sources
Speaker 1: projects right now that I've seen fall flat on their
Speaker 1: face in the last ten years. I'm not gonna do
Speaker 1: that because I'm not trying to I'm not trying to
Speaker 1: throw anyone under the bus. I'm not trying to talk
Speaker 1: about that. But maybe I'll just maybe I can make
Speaker 1: a different video. Maybe I can make a new video
Speaker 1: and say, hey, up, here's what I think you should
Speaker 1: do with open source. Let's discuss it. I don't know
Speaker 1: they're wanting to charge for this protocol now why it's
Speaker 1: based on an open source codec digital Voice codec. They're
Speaker 1: not implementing it correctly according to Jonathan anyway, So I
Speaker 1: don't know. So it's is it gonna be? Is it
Speaker 1: now gonna be a for profit project that they charge
Speaker 1: for and try to build their own radios for, and
Speaker 1: they're gonna become another another Yazoo or another Kinwood, which
Speaker 1: is okay. That's okay. You want to build a radio
Speaker 1: and charge for it, there's nothing wrong with that, But
Speaker 1: don't claim you're gonna be open source if you're gonna
Speaker 1: do that. Also, that's my opinion. A lot more to
Speaker 1: it than that. I could talk for a little bit longer,
Speaker 1: but there's a there's a mud Dauber in my hamshack.
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna sign off. Guys seventy three, i'd really
Speaker 1: want to know what your comments are. Put a comment
Speaker 1: in the VID your blow. Catch you next time.