M17 is the new kid on the VHF/UHF Digital Voice block. You’re not going to be picking up a new M17 radio at HRO anytime soon – it’s decidedly experimental at this point. But it’s not vaporware, either. In this episode, HRN host Gary K4AAQ talks… at length… with Ed Wilson N2XDD and Steve Miller KC1AWV about what M17 is, how you can get into it, and what the future might be.

At length? Well, that was a challenge. Ed mentioned that the longest show they did – and they’ve done almost all the other shows – was three hours (turns out the YouTube length for that show was only 2:46). So we had to beat it, and we did.

This was an off-schedule Friday night show for us. David W0DHG was on his way to his stage in the Baker to Vegas run, and Jim NO1PC had family-time. We will be back together soon (but not too soon - Gary has a ski trip next week).

Down below you’ll see links to Michelle Thompson’s Blog about M17 and ARDC. Toward the end of the show (which turns out to be long before the end of the show), Gary brings up a controversy that Michelle told him about, concerning funding for M17, her Open Research Institute, and ARDC. Read the blog post, and watch the show at that point for the details. We’ll cover other points of view about that in future shows.

LINKS:

M17 Project web site

Michelle Thompson’s Blog about M17 funding and ARDC

Michelle at 2016 TAPR DCC