So what is the new digital mode M17? It sounds like a gun at first, however I am sure you if you google M17 Ham Project you will not be a red flag to the police.
At the time of writing this, M17 is said to be a new digital radio protocol which is still in development, however currently available. It was first started in 2019. The M17 Working Group is a team of several people from around the world, but headed up by Wojciech (SP5WWP) in Poland.
As per their website, they have said that teh desire of the M17 project is to provide:
- an Open-Source community
- freely available and modifiable digital radio protocol
- open hardware designs
M17 uses Frequency Division Multiple Access (FDMA) instead of Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA). FDMA in our case, allows for two 6.25kHz simultaneous links to be established on one 12.5kHz channel. It supports APRS however is not compatible with DMR. DMR is built for profesional use, and can be used for Ham operators, but can be clunky especially when it comes to writing code plugs.
There is more information available at this M17 website.
A lot of people have been talking about this project and you can see the current reflector list on this site. Maybe it is something you should try?
More information will be available as this project continues. I would value your comments on this project, does this sort of thing excite you or raise more questions than answers?
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