I had the opportunity to do some more research on this subject and found some interesting videos on You Tube.
One fellow located in South Carolina produced a video of how to use Digital voice on HF and I found it interesting. He had an Icom 7100 and gave a demo of using the 17 meter band on 18.148 khz. This apparently is the simplex Digital voice frequency so this what he showed in the video.
One, turn on Radio.
Two, select band.
Three, Select Frequency.
Four, Select Mode.
Five, Push PTT.
Six, start talking.
What I found out about Digital audio and I must admit this was a short demo of a contact. I suspect nothing more was used to record the audio from the 7100 then a mic placed next to the speaker.
The demo contact was nothing more then call letters, signal report and location. Based on that short exchange I can state that the audio quality was not bad. I listened later on 18.148 and did not hear anything on that frequency, but did copy a large amount of stations from Europe on 18.147.5 I could not distinguish if it were digital I was hearing, or analog.
Based on this it does have possible uses, however I just do not have any interest in a Dstar repeater and based in this area if we have no more activity then we have on the present analog machines, then what is the point?
What I did not hear on the demo contact were the R2D2 effect, or that someone inhaled Helium and I did not hear any digital noise. One mention about the 7100 was the ticking noise that is present on the speaker output and I have the same thing on my FT 5k. It is on the speaker out put and not heard on the headphone out put, I operate 99 and 9/10 of time with head phones, so this is no problem.
BTW I just heard 9A2AM this audio was a little distorted but passable, not sure if it were digital, or analog, so we will continue to listen.
This application interests me more then a D star repeater with all the set up procedures only to find a few locals, or wandering mobiles, I suppose it depends on the area where you reside. As for the tri-state area most repeaters are pretty dead and are begging for users. This may peak your interest, but for now I am still taking the wait and see posture.
