[chirp_users] chirp_users Digest, Vol 111, Issue 15

Fri Mar 23 14:24:30 PDT 2018

Do not all radio manufacturers, or their dealers, have programming cables for sale?

Or is it just that most amateurs are too tight to buy the cable that goes with the radio and want everything on the cheap?

I would suggest that the driver issue is one for your operating system supplier, Linux seems to support them all "out of the box".

> On 23 March 2018 at 16:59 Brandon Clark <kl7bsc at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>     Not to interrupt this fascinating discussion on who owns csv files, but to get back to the point . . .
>     As one respondent correctly pointed out, ham radio is supposed to require some technical attitude. I think that's true, and that it is a good thing for the hobby. However, my opinion is that the difficulty of interfacing with and programming radios exists because the process is fundamentally overcomplicated and cumbersome, not because it requires more skill than some hams have. It's just a bad model for how to accomplish the process, and we all know it hurts the hobby by discouraging new hams.
>     By comparison, I could buy a $50 burner phone and a $5 USB cord and interface that phone with any modern computer system to transfer data. Plug and play. Middle school kids build $30 raspberry pi systems that log weather, track motion, and do all kinds of cool things. But to program a $1,000 radio I have to search eBay for a cable, locate drivers somewhere in the bowels of the internet, and then download an image from the device. Honestly ask yourself this, if you had to do all these steps in order to get music downloaded on your phone how many people would just say, "heck no, it isn't worth it!" Probably a lot. 
>     Ham radio is all about finding challenges; that's true. But if the hobby is going to survive long term there has to be accessible avenues to at least get started in the hobby. HT and mobile rigs can't be using 80's tech forever, or it will make us look like dinosaurs, and keep new hams away. Let them build radios from kits, terminate cables, and make homebrew vacuum tubes from bubble gum and shot glasses when they get more advanced. 
>     Brandon
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>     This message was sent to Nigel Gunn, W8IFF at nigel at ngunn.net
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> 

Nigel A. Gunn, 1865 El Camino Drive, Xenia, OH 45385-1115, USA. tel +1 937 825 5032
Amateur Radio G8IFF W8IFF (was KC8NHF 9H3GN), e-mail nigel at ngunn.net www http://www.ngunn.net
Member of ARRL, QRPARCI #11644, SOC #548, Flying Pigs QRP Club International #385,
Dayton ARA #2128, AMSAT-NA LM-1691, GCARES, EAA382.
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