A Ham Radio Software Company Has Been Blacklisting Users For Leaving Negative Reviews (theregister.co.uk)

Gandalf_the_Beardy quotes a report from The Register: The Register reports on the story of Jim Giercyk, an amateur radio enthusiast who had his copy of the popular Ham Radio Deluxe (HRD) software revoked after posting a negative review. Other radio hams have followed up with us regarding claims that this was not an isolated incident and others may have had their license keys blacklisted for being publicly critical of the company. And just to be clear: by blackballing keys, installed copies of the software stop working. Giercyk, a professional musician in South Carolina, U.S., says that after his dealings with HRD Software (which has since reinstated his software key) and the statement made by the developer's co-owner Dr Michael Carper, he takes issue with claims made by the company. Giercyk, aka N2SUB, told us on Tuesday: "The issue is not the refusal of service, the issue is that HRD disabled my software, and then offered to enable it in exchange for the removal of an online review of their product. It's extortion, not refusal of service." Giercyk also said that since he went public about his blacklisting last week, he has received messages from other users who have stories of their software keys being revoked by HRD without their knowledge for speaking up about having a bad support experience. A number of other readers pointed out a collection of bad reviews posted on hobbyist site eHam by customers who had their license keys blacklisted. HRD told us some of those users could have written their assessments after requesting a refund and deactivating their software, thus their licenses will appear revoked. Meanwhile, Reddit threads and follow-up discussions to Giercyk's catalyst forum post reveal similar stories of keys being revoked after critical comments about Ham Radio Deluxe have appeared online. Other sources allege some amateur radio forums have in the past deleted posts critical of HRD.

Comments

Ham Radio?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's still a thing?

Re:Ham Radio?

[Phil Karn]

Yes, ham radio is still very much a "thing". But to me, the one "thing" it never has been is the purchasing of closed, proprietary software that can be turned off at whim by the developer. To me, ham radio has always been a unique hands-on opportunity to learn what's "behind the knobs" of a piece of communications hardware (or now, software). Even if you don't build (or write) your own stuff, even if you're primarily interested in using it to talk to others, it still gives you (or should give you) the opportunity to learn how it all works, to make technology just a little less mysterious and intimidating. Ham radio still provides a creative outlet for hundreds of thousands of people. It helps STEM students learn about electronics, math, physics, or just about any other field of science and engineering even remotely associated with radio communications, such as computers and networking, satellites and remote sensing. When I got into it in high school nearly 50 years ago, it confirmed for me that I wanted to become an electrical engineer, a decision I have never regretted. Even many who decide that a STEM career isn't for them are hams simply because it's an enjoyable hobby.

Re:Ham Radio?

[chex]

I second this so strongly that most probably won't understand how visceral this is.

Phil wrote some software used to enable UUCP over packet, way way back when. My roommate and I cobbled together a UUCP feed for a couple of BBSes in rural Idaho. While we were still figuring out the mysteries of Minix and this newfangled Linux thing, we had email before it was cool. It was made possible by software with that callsign in his email address emblazoned on the banners and docs.

I didn't understand what amateur radio was, but I'd run across the hacker/tinkerer culture in radio that eventually (only a few years ago!) brought me into the hobby. Thanks for the early introduction, Phil!

Fast forward to today and I'm packing radio gear for six weeks on a remote South Pacific island, because it's a desirable place to talk to (E51AMF, for the curious). I've met countless incredible people all over the world. Many on the radio and many of them in person. I've made lifelong friends because of a shared interest in "seeing what's possible." My only regret is that I saw it was a weird quirky hobby that "probably isn't still a thing."

Yes, it's still a thing. If you haven't explored the hobby at all, you really should, especially now. So much interesting stuff to explore and try and so many people who want to push the boundaries.

73, K7ADD

Re:Ham Radio?

[willoughby]

Okay, I'll say it so your neighbor won't have to...

"You go all that way just to talk on the radio? Why don't you get a radio that will work in your house?"

Re:Ham Radio?

[Snotnose]

I used to have a HAM license when I was a kid, late 60's/early 70's. I quickly learned I enjoyed building the electronics, but talking to random joes did nothing for me. Got a couple QSL cards, sent a few out, but I did it for maybe 3 months tops.

Got a job later on as an electronics tech, then turned into an embedded software engineer. Getting the HAM license was a good thing for me to do, even though it turned out I hated being a HAM.

I had more fun listening to radio stations in the midwest, or in Europe, far more interesting than talking to some random dude (I was in San Diego).

Re:Ham Radio?

[jiriw]

If I had modpoints today....

HAM radio is one of only a hand full of (organized, if you want to) hobbies that encourage you to explore almost all facets of the modern technological equipment we nowadays surround ourselves with. Analog and digital electronics (radios, computer interfaces, micro-controllers and programmable logic, power supply and storage), software (embedded, drivers, applications, communications protocols), metal working (antennas and masts, wave pipes, but also building your own cases)...
And then of course all the science and mathematics behind it. Electrostatics and electrodynamics, meteorology (propagation), some thermodynamics (noise), some solid-state physics (semiconductors)...

Also it can be a very social hobby, because if you want to, you can interact with people in any country in the world with a few hundred dollars worth (either store-bought or paid for in time to build from parts) of equipment. Although, I do confess, chances to interact with a North Korean are very slim indeed.
If you choose to become a member of a HAM radio group, there are also local gatherings of HAMs you can visit, ask for advice and maybe learn a thing or two from. I'm myself a member of VERON (Association of experimental radio research, Netherlands), a Dutch radio amateur club. In the U.S. you have the ARRL.
If you're interested in volunteering during emergencies, HAM can be a good way in or addition to other 'hobbies' in that direction. In the Netherlands there is DARES (Dutch Amateur Radio Emergency Service). The U.S. equivalent is simply called ARES.

Don't be discouraged about the science and math. You don't need degrees in them. You can choose to calculate and design of course, but also to 'just' experiment, and see where it goes. As long as you use your common sense and observe a hand full of regulations that keep you from some major stupid actions (like ruining cell tower coverage in your block, hampering other commercial and emergency radio services or do bodily harm due to bundled/high power radiation).
Without a license you're limited to listening and a few 'free' bands for low power equipment but getting your license isn't that hard. A novice license exam should be doable for anyone willing to spend a few hours every week, for a year in learning the basic science behind the hobby and for reviewing the proper regulations. But your high-school physics and math probably covers most of it, if you paid attention in class. If you want to pass the exam for a full license, you need to dig a little deeper. Most people with college degrees including physics and math find it easy enough and anyone with or close to a bachelor in any remotely related field (in my case: CS - half way at the time, and a precursor hobby experience of (non-radio) electronics and computer hardware) may not even need to study, maybe only 'leaf through' the exam material to pass for the technical exam. Don't forget to review the regulations 'though. I forgot, and still passed by answering that part of the exam on common sense, but you save yourself a lot of stress not following my example ;) .

73, PG8W.

Re:Ham Radio?

[FudRucker]

yup, thats what i do, i enjoy listening, and i am not much of a talker, but i do love the technology and have a couple of HF rigs and an SDR for listening purposes, i could talk if i wanted to but i dont, it is just knowing i can in case of emergency is good enough for me,

Re:Ham Radio?

[Anonymous Coward]

...But to me, the one "thing" it never has been is the purchasing of closed, proprietary software that can be turned off at whim by the developer.

Please allow me to introduce you to the Samsung Galaxy Note 7, but you better hurry because it may not last...

Re: Ham Radio?

[Anonymous Coward]

Any suggestions for how to get into it? Build a radio, etc? I've been thinking about it a lot lately.

Re: Ham Radio?

[Anonymous Coward]

Find a local ham radio club and go to a meeting. Folks there will help you get your license and figure what the best equipment for you is. If you're in the US, arrl.org will give you a list of nearby clubs.

Re:Ham Radio?

[BenFranske]

Note that if you want to legally build RF electronics for experimentation that's a very good reason to have a ham license even if talking to people isn't your thing. For example if you want to experiment with 2.4GHz WiFi at power levels much higher than what's allowed for general public use...

Re:Ham Radio?

[stealth_finger]

So much interesting stuff to explore and try and so many people who want to push the boundaries.

With all due respect, boundaries of what? Talking on the radio?

Re:Ham Radio?

[chex]

Yep, some "talking on the radio." Lots of examples of that:

- Maximum average number of contacts per minute for an hour (this is a "contesting" rate)
- Number of countries you can reach with a given setup (this is usually referred to as a DXCC)
      - I'm working on a variant of this where I intend to continue confirming contacts with 100 unique countries or territories every year. (3 years, so far)
- Distance per Watt (SSB to Hawaii on 10mW in my case)
- How many contacts you can make with a setup you carry to the top of a mountain, yourself (look up "SOTA" or Summits on the Air)
- How fast can you decode Morse code, by ear?

It's also some of the stuff that KA9Q (Phil) was talking about. RF is incredibly fascinating and amateur radio is a great way to have an output for what you learn, in practice.

- Most effective antenna you can design and construct, with some constraints (or not!)
- Maximum possible gain at a given frequency (look up the OH8X 160m beam or ES5TV's 15m stack)
- How far _below_ the noise floor a given modulation scheme can be decoded (-32dB in my case, usually a combination of hacking on software and searching for the right solar conditions)
- How good an inexpensive homebrew rig can be (look up Ashar Farhan VU2ICQ)
- How good can a computer get at decoding Morse code (CW)? (Look up AG1LE and a few others who are using Machine Learning and other techniques for this)

And yes, it can also be a social hobby. Some people like meeting others from around the world and just talking.

Yes, some of ham radio is old guys talking for hours on end about their prostate problems or the most amazing grilled cheese sandwich for hours on end. But it's also amazing people doing amazing things. Listen to 144MHz (2m) locals or even the typical 3.8MHz (75m) conversation and you'll instantly get turned off. Dig a little deeper and there's some really cool stuff happening.

- K7ADD

Re:Ham Radio?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's like saying you're "pushing the boundaries" by seeing how many q-tips you can fit in your ear. Sure, it's probably technically accurate. But you have to admit that it's "pushing the boundaries" of being bullshit.

Re: Ham Radio?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just like nearly all other forms of "pushing boundaries", for instance the leaderboard on that game you like. Or high karma score on Slashdot, or bringing you car to the car wash twice a week. Or getting laid every weekend, etc. etc.

Re: Ham Radio?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you are into extreme hardware immersion, look into QRP. That's a variant of ham radio where you attempt to communicate to extreme distances with minimal power, mostly with homebrew equipment. The challenge is to communicate around the world with less than 5 watts power.

Re:Ham Radio?

[stealth_finger]

Fair enough.

Re: Ham Radio?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, I agree. All examples of setting the bar incredibly low. Thought that was made pretty clear by a couple other people above, but apparently not. Just let me know if it needs to be spelled out a little clearer. Not sure it can be done, but we'll give it the old college try.

Re: Ham Radio?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, you just hop to it, then, and cure cancer this weekend. Anything less than that, and you're just a midget dung beetle rolling round your little ball of dung.

Or, you're just a troll belittling others on an open blog forum.

Re: Ham Radio?

[chex]

I was referring to the boundaries of the hobby, not the boundaries of human existence. But I appreciate the big thinking.

Re:Ham Radio?

[JonWan]

Because it's a spout on the planet that has very few or no Ham radio operators. It's called a DXpedition.

Re: Ham Radio?

[MerlTurkin]

ARRL.org

Re:Ham Radio?

[Temkin]

I'm in the process of packing up my house, preparing to move, and I found a 5-1/4" disk in a box. The label says it's Phil Karn's KA9Q TCP/IP stack, copyright 1987. A friend of mine and I used it to learn TCP/IP networking by squirting modem tones thru radios back in 1988. It was kind of a weird time in my life. I wasn't really college ready, so I had a bunch of work to do in a junior college just to get in to a University. I could have very easily given up and wandered away and become an electrician. Ham radio kept my attention. I graduated with a STEM degree, perhaps the wrong STEM degree, but that hardly mattered. Just as I graduated Mosaic appeared, I could code C on SunOS & Linux, I knew TCP/IP networking and the core Internet protocols, and how to troubleshoot all the way down to the physical layer. My career took off like I'd been shot out of a cannon. My friend retired from Apple at age 35.

Tinkering teaches. Ham radio is very much still a thing.

And let me just take a moment to say thank you to Phil!

Re:Ham Radio?

[Larry_Dillon]

I've always been interested in electronics but never learned much beyond simple DC circuits until I studied for the General exam. If you're interested in electronics or how WiFi works, ham radio is a goo d way to get started.

Re:Ham Radio?

[Anonymous Coward]

Me too.

Most dxers say they listen ten times as much as they transmit. For me it's probably 100 to 1 or greater.

I concentrate in two areas. Scratch built home brewed 1AD BCB radios. And various digital modes. It is the chase that is exciting.

If I do xmit it is usually less than 10 watts to a custom made dipole. Which means I built it out of wire and put it up myself. (With help from which ever child has the misfortune to be visiting at the time. Grand kids love to supervise telling Dad, Mom or Grandpa what they're doing wrong :-} )

Never used HRD as it doesn't address any of my needs. I certainly won't even be trying it now.

Re:Ham Radio?

[Anonymous Coward]

An excellent summary of why Ham Radio appeals to such a broad spectrum (Ouch!) of people.

Re:Ham Radio?

[Phil Karn]

Thanks. It was actually TCP/IP (the Internet protocols) over packet radio.

Re: Ham Radio?

[Phil Karn]

Well, not to toot my own horn too loudly, but in the mid 1980s I wrote a TCP/IP implementation. I intended it for ham radio use on low end PCs, as the only existing general purpose implementations were on commercial minicomputers far beyond a ham budget. (I actually began it on a dare by Terry Fox, WB4JFI, who insisted it was too complex to implement on anything a ham could afford.)

Before I knew it, my software was being widely used outside ham radio for dialup access to the Internet. Universities and companies set up banks of modems and PCs to give their students and employees access to their existing connections. Pretty soon commercial companies sprang up to do the same for the public, again using my software; I think we now call them "Internet Service Providers".

Meanwhile, the OSI world was continuing to produce large piles of paper, but no inexpensive (or free), usable software.

In the early 1990s, I went to Qualcomm where I ported my code onto their phones so it could be used to provide wireless Internet services.

Sure, my software is long obsolete now. When people still ask about it, I tell them to go look at Linux. But it once played a role that went well beyond ham radio, even though that's all I had originally meant it for. Perhaps this was an example of a butterfly flapping its wings; I don't know.

Re:Ham Radio?

[chex]

Yeah, after a little more sleep, I recalled how this was cobbled together. It was Waffle BBS for DOS that did the UUCP bits. Thanks again!

Re:Ham Radio?

[NoSalt]

What beginning equipment would you recommend for a person who would like test this hobby? Nothing expensive.

Re:Ham Radio?

[NoSalt]

What beginning equipment would you recommend for a person who would like test this hobby? No expensive equipment.

Re: Ham Radio?

[Phil Karn]

Probably the ultimate in QRP right now is WSPR (Weak Signal Propagation Reporter). This is a specially-designed very low speed (~1 bps) digital modulation and coding format designed for use as a propagation beacon, especially on the HF ("shortwave") bands. But it has recently been adapted for tracking ultra light weight (12.5 gram!) high altitude balloon payloads. One such payload, WB8ELK-2, has completed three complete trips around the world in the past month and is now on its fourth:

https://tracker.habhub.org/#!m...

The tracker payload is powered directly by a pair of small thin-film solar panels. The weight budget is so extremely tight that there is no battery, so it transmits only during the day.

Re:Ham Radio?

[Phil Karn]

You're welcome!

Hey, if you can read that disk, could you put it on the net somewhere? I didn't keep copies of all the earlier versions of my software. It'd be neat to see which one you got.

Re:Ham Radio?

[Shirley Marquez]

It's hard to make a single recommendation, because different people are called by different parts of the hobby.

Does working DX (making contacts with distant stations) call to you? Any number of commercial HF transceivers will fill the bill. Buying one brand new starts at $600 or so and goes up (WAY up) from there. But used radios can be good values, and you can get back most of what you spend by reselling the radio if you decide it's not for you. Get advice from an active ham about what to buy and what to avoid.

Want to participate in public service events (helping out at road races, charity walks, and the like)? A handheld VHF and UHF transceiver is usually what you need. (Some events call for higher power radios that are used in cars.) You can go really cheap and buy a Baofeng for under $50, or spend a bit more on a radio from one of the big ham radio companies to get something that is easier to use. The up and coming thing are digital handhelds, but those mostly aren't yet being used for public service events.

Itching to get out the soldering iron and build your own radio? Plenty of choices there too, from very minimal designs to ones that match the capabilities of the commercial rigs.

Are neighborhood data networks your thing? Most of that work is done with repurposed WiFi gear. Suitable used routers can be very inexpensive, and people often build their own directional antennas. One popular design uses a Pringles can.

I have only scratched the surface. There are many other possibilities.

Re:Ham Radio?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but the sad truth of OSS: 99% of users are free-riders and don't contribute jack. Admittedly most don't because they don't have the skills. And that's part of the problem as well: odds of finding a closed-source app that does what you want is about 100x more likely than finding an OSS app that even barely substitutes.

Re:Ham Radio?

[Anonymous Coward]

Get a General Class license. Then start reading up on simple antennas. Most libraries have ARRL books. Figure out what you can do in the space you have available. With cheap remote tuners, you can have fun with 60 feet of wire and a counterpoise/radials. I have a pole in the air 30 ft with 84' of wire. Worked over 200 countries with just 100 watts. Without a decent antenna, the rig is of little consequence with the propagation we have now.
For the radio? If you are not sure about the hobby, you can get a used Icom of Yaesu rig. Careful with eBay, lots of damaged junk. QRZ.com has a trading forum. If you have a bit of money, go for the Icom 7300. A bit more, consider an Elecraft product.
Used Elecraft K2 is a good option, as is Icom 718, 746. Maybe Yaesu 450D or 950. Should be able to get something for $400-700.
I would recommend talking to local hams before diving into an expense, but be warned that most hams I met really are not objective about equipment. They want to be convinced they made the right choice themselves.
The advantage of a used rig is that the depreciation has kicked in, and you will lose little if you upgrade when you have more money and experience.
As with anything else, Google it. Lots of good stuff on the web.

Re:Ham Radio?

[NoSalt]

Thanks for the input!

Re:Ham Radio?

[Temkin]

Hey, if you can read that disk, could you put it on the net somewhere?

I'm afraid I'd be hard pressed to come up with even a 3-1/2 inch floppy drive at this point, even if I wasn't packing up my house. I'm not sure it will be readable. It was stored in a 5-land garage for 10+ years, and an inland 6-land garage for the 10 years prior to that. If I can't find a way to read it, I'll toss it in the mail to your station address.

Re:Ham Radio?

[Anonymous Coward]

Send them to Jason Scott at the Internet Archive. 73 de KE4AHR

Good reason to avoid proprietary ham software

[Phil Karn]

I had not heard this story, but that might be because I don't personally use Ham Radio Deluxe or any other proprietary ham software, certainly nothing that can be controlled in this way. Other hams are free to use whatever they want, but I personally consider proprietary software to be fundamentally incompatible with the nature and purpose of ham radio.

Re: Good reason to avoid proprietary ham software

[Anonymous Coward]

It's just like this vna software I tried. I mean it's free for amateurs but you're still at their mercy because you have to ask for an activation code. Then when something changes on your computer and you reinstall it, you have to ask for a code again. No thanks.

Re:Good reason to avoid proprietary ham software

[Anonymous Coward]

So you Build all You own Radios too?

Re:Good reason to avoid proprietary ham software

[FudRucker]

yeah, i like spinning that BIG knob too

Re:Good reason to avoid proprietary ham software

[Anonymous Coward]

Couldn't agree more. Proprietary software is contrary to the purpose of what amateur radio is all about. For them to blacklist an individual, that is reprehensible. There is open source software available. Predict and Xastir are ones that I use myself in the Slackware Linux operating system for example.
73's

Robert Patton
KD7YDL

Re:Good reason to avoid proprietary ham software

[Dutch Gun]

Actually, isn't this now illegal with recent legislation? Or am I misunderstanding that new law?

Re:Good reason to avoid proprietary ham software

[Larry_Dillon]

Actually, he's working on the next generation of SDR (software defined radio) and is a digital radio pioneer. He's building YOUR next radio.

Re:Good reason to avoid proprietary ham software

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, isn't this now illegal with recent legislation? Or am I misunderstanding that new law?

Extortion is already illegal!

Re: Good reason to avoid proprietary ham software

[Anonymous Coward]

Being capable of building your own gear gives you a degree of self reliance. It isn't necessary to do so at every level. It's more about attaining the capability than excercizing it 100% of the time.

Nobody builds their own EPROMs from scratch, but many people would be capable of soldering together a bootstrap diode matrix if their life depended on it.

Re:Good reason to avoid proprietary ham software

[Phil Karn]

I was just trying to say exactly that, but Slashdot lost my edited comment when I changed an option. Argh.

I never said all hams should build their own radios. But all hams should be able to learn how their radios work, if they are so inclined, and to modify and experiment with them. That's what the hobby is supposed to be about. It's exactly the same philosophy behind the open source software movement, only we hams had it first.

Most ham manufacturers still make hardware schematics available for their equipment, but microcontroller firmware has always been a sore point, especially with more and more functionality moving into DSP (as it should).

Yes, I am working on open source DSP software for the Raspberry Pi (or any other Linux platform) and inexpensive software-defined radio (SDR) front ends like the Funcube Dongle and the SDRPlay. (All three products come from the UK. Not sure what that means, but I'm glad they're making them.)

But my biggest beef is with ham digital voice. There are not one, not two but THREE mutually incompatible digital voice "standards" in common use on the VHF/UHF bands here in soCal: Fusion (Yaesu), D-Star (Icom) and DMR (Motorola). All three modulation and coding designs are dated and inefficient, with disappointing performance. Worse, they all use the same proprietary digital voice codec (AMBE) that's patented out the wazoo. It must be purchased on a custom DSP when it could easily be implemented in software on the same DSPs that do everything else in the radio. This is despite the ready availability of a superior, un-encumbered ham-developed algorithm called CODEC2 (by Dave Rowe, VK5DGR). The manufacturers simply ignore it, and few of us hams are in the position to mass-market small hand-held radios.

Re:Good reason to avoid proprietary ham software

[stoatwblr]

It's not illegal until someone takes it to court and gets a ruling.

The factor that people are stepping forward with similar stories shows the lie of HRD's "It was an accident" statement and makes the possibility of such an event appear less distant.

But as we've seen - it's perfectly possible to lie through your teeth, get caught doing it, continue doing so and STILL get away with it.

The single biggest problem with this kind of legislation is that the less ethical companies will simply take any fixed fines imposed as a cost of doing business. This is why a bunch of laws in the EU are moving to fining companies 10-15% of annual TURNOVER. That kind of penalty induces removal of C-level staff who authorised the activity.

Re:Good reason to avoid proprietary ham software

[Larry_Dillon]

I got into ham radio mostly because I like playing with and modifying hardware and it's nearly impossible to do anything useful to computer hardware because it's too advanced. It's still possible to build a useful radio or build one from a kit.

Raspberry PI's and Arduinos are really helpful to those of us that aren't EE's.

Totally agree about the (incompatible) state of digital voice modes.

I am a bit perplexed as to why Open Source software isn't bigger in ham radio, though it does have a presence. I like the ARRL but I think they have too cozy a relationship with the Big Three radio manufactures. The ARRL should be lobbying the manufactures for compatible digital voice modes and promoting Open Source more. I dislike the "Maker" name but think it will bring more software people into ham radio.

Thanks for taking the time to post on /.

73's K7LMD

Re:Good reason to avoid proprietary ham software

[Anonymous Coward]

With so much FREE Ham radio software available , whether using Linux ,M$ Windows , or Mac, there really is no reason at all to buy commercial communications software .
Also with free software, feedback to the makers advances personal knowledge .

73 GM0CSZ / KN6WH

And we thought Stallman was crazy

[Anonymous Coward]

The concept of ownership continues to slip through our fingers. And this isn't cheap software! We always say "if you can't open it you don't own it." Perhaps it's time for "if you can't compile it, it's not really installed."

Re:And we thought Stallman was crazy

[K. S. Kyosuke]

I've always found it hilariously ironic that hams, of all people, would be willing to buy niche proprietary software, often from small shops where nothing filters people's whimsical behavior with respect to users.

Re:And we thought Stallman was crazy

[Gravis Zero]

And we thought Stallman was crazy

Being correct and being crazy are not mutually exclusive! He could make his points in a ways consistent with social norms or he can stand outside and yell at people while wearing a sign like a crazy person.

I think his concerns are valid and he's correct on many things but I also think he could use some psychiatric help.

Re:And we thought Stallman was crazy

[Narcocide]

What makes you think psychological turmoil isn't a natural side-effect of everyone around you being so fucking wrong all the time?

Re:And we thought Stallman was crazy

[Anonymous Coward]

This^ x10e6

Re:And we thought Stallman was crazy

[Gravis Zero]

What makes you think psychological turmoil isn't a natural side-effect of ...

I don't think he has psychological issues, I think he has psychiatric issues.

Re:And we thought Stallman was crazy

[Anonymous Coward]

Then you're wrong too x10e6!

Re:And we thought Stallman was crazy

[Anonymous Coward]

Stallman isn't crazy. His SOLUTIONS though, are. In many instances he advocates going without rather than compromising, and if you're trying to sway your fellow man by telling them to give up their cell phone because it's a "tracking device" they you're gonna lose. Now in the case of ham radio I assume there are decent FOSS alternatives to the proprietary applications, but even then, in my experience most proprietary software developers/publishers are nowhere near as fucked in the head as this group is.

Re:And we thought Stallman was crazy

[Anonymous Coward]

I find it scary that this comment got "Score: 3, Interesting."

The smartest people I've known are the ones that are the most frequently willing to admit that they don't know something, then go proceed to learn as much about it as they can.

Conversely, some of the stupidest people I know are the ones that think they are smart enough to think everyone else is wrong all of the time and that they know everything. A sizable number of Ph.D's I've met are like this - extremely smart in their niche and arrogant (and stupid) enough to think that their niche is the universe of knowledge.

Re: And we thought Stallman was crazy

[Anonymous Coward]

Hrd is pretty powerful and full featured. There is nothing open source that compares. Hrd used to be free, but the original authors were bought out by the new company who took it commercial. I still love se the last free version. It is hard to write good ham radio software due to the huge number of radios it needs to interface with with varying feature sets.

Re:And we thought Stallman was crazy

[nnull]

Just look at Flight Simulator X and the amount of idiots that buy from PMDG, who require your real name, register you publicly on their website, and if you want to post on their forum, even to report a bug, you're required to provide your real name and credentials (Take about a complete farce to security and open den for identity thieves and the amount of idiots that defend their practice). If you post something bad about their product, you get banned forever.

HAM guys are no different, most of the stores are full of complete incompetent assholes, even HAM guys themselves know it. Letting them know they're incompetent assholes forces their hand to publicly denounce you, some will even refuse service to sell you anything afterwards.

I'm just glad China is killing all of their businesses and it's the one thing I'm grateful of China for doing, as much as they cry about it, their little cartel community is breaking apart when I can now freely buy radio equipment from Amazon and not from "Special" stores that want to run my life and determine what I'm allowed to have not allowed to have.

Re:And we thought Stallman was crazy

[Anonymous Coward]

There are decent alternatives in Opensource, but it depends what hardware you buy and if it works with such hardware. Actually, the real alternative is to buy Chinese, which a lot of HAM operators are doing because of companies like HRD and their tentacles in some of the "popular?" devices. Sure, the Chinese software kind of sucks, but when you get it working and doing what you want, it works good enough. The great thing about the Chinese radios? The open source community is supporting them more than all the ICOM's and whatever is out there. Some of the cheap Chinese radios ended up being more powerful than some of the radios you can buy for over 2-5k because of some Opensource software. Chirp being one of my favorites for handheld devices, because I'm not going to spend another $500 to get a programming device (Which is just a prolific RS232 that I can make myself a connector to my radio) and whatever stupid software they want to include.

Re:And we thought Stallman was crazy

[johannesg]

The difference between being an idiot, and being a visionary, is mostly a matter of being right at the end of the day. Turns out Stallman is proven more correct with every passing year, as more boxes get closed, more systems get locked down, and more control gets exerted over every aspect of our lives.

His vision led him to create gcc. Without gcc, do you think we would have had clang or free copies of Visual Studio? Without free compilers, do you think any of the open source world would have existed? And without the open source world, how do you suppose the software landscape would have looked by now?

It's not scary that post gets +3, interesting. It's only scary that you don't know your history, yet feel qualified to comment on it.

Re:And we thought Stallman was crazy

[istartedi]

Stallman appears vindicated at this time because he's not in power. I'm glad the movement exists, but I'm also glad it's not in power. Why? Because a world without the competitive dynamic between closed and open is, IMHO, not as good.

A world without proprietary software is probably a world without today's relatively user-friendly Linux based desktops.

The two camps don't have to be enemies--they can, and do inspire each other. That's my real problem with RMS.

Warning...

[__aaclcg7560]

This is what the Trump economy will look like as thin-skinned corporate masters rule the Washington swamp with small hands. Dissent will not be tolerated, as corporations are people with very sensitive feelings. Obey or else.

Re:Warning...

[Anonymous Coward]

This is what the Trump economy will look like as thin-skinned corporate masters rule the Washington swamp with small hands. Dissent will not be tolerated, as corporations are people with very sensitive feelings. Obey or else.

We shall see. From what I see though, the short fingered vulgarian (TM Graydon Carter) is for BIG business. These peasants would be off of his radar. And as far as the small fingered vulgarian is concerned, HAM radio is when you broadcast out of your ass; you know,, AM Talk Radio - Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and all those liars that have audiences of very stupid people.

Re: Warning...

[Anonymous Coward]

ham radio explicitly forbids broadcasting...

Re: Warning...

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that its not a beam, so its technically a broadcast emanating from an antenna.

Re: Warning...

[Anonymous Coward]

HAM radio forbids transmitting to a broad audience of receivers who have no means of communicating back to you.

New law...

[Anonymous Coward]

I think this guy may be in for a world of hurt.

https://www.congress.gov/bill/...

Re:New law...

[Anonymous Coward]

HAM radio operates in their own little legal universe where they'll ostracize you in the community. Yes, someone needs to put a dent in it once and for all because it's getting to the point of absurdity when it used to be a lot of FUN. Now we have to hope and rely on China to make it FUN again and watch all the little stores cry how they're going out of business.

Probably in the fine print.

[Virtucon]

Some weasel clause in there license probably has

We reserve the right to modify this agreement at any time, including revoking your right to use the software.

That fine print will get you every time.

Re:Probably in the fine print.

[Anonymous Coward]

https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/5111

Re:Probably in the fine print.

[Purity Of Essence]

The print isn't even that fine. From the license agreement:

8. We reserve the right to refuse service and disable a customer’s key at any time for any reason

PDF of the support ticket emails (including license agreement) to and from grasping little HRD shitweasel:

https://forums.qrz.com/index.p...

Re:Probably in the fine print.

[DRJlaw]

The print isn't even that fine. From the license agreement:

8. We reserve the right to refuse service and disable a customerâ(TM)s key at any time for any reason

"Again refer to section 8 of the TOS, which was written by our Attorney. " Not by any attorney remotely competent to practice copyright and licensing law. Instant loser in court.

Also this gem:

11. WHOLE AGREEMENT. This Agreement is the complete and exclusive statement of the Agreement between us; and supersedes any proposed or prior agreement, oral or written, and any other communications between us relating to this specific granted license and the related obligations; and may be modified or supplemented only by a document signed by both parties to this Agreement.
NOTICE: HRD Software LLC reserves the right to change or amend this policy at any time without prior notice.

Completely contradictory language crammed right together. No attorney read this. Not even an incompetent passed-the-bar-the-3rd-time dabbler.

Re:Probably in the fine print.

[Anonymous Coward]

What? That's not at all contradictory.

It says the agreement can be modified by a document signed by both parties, but the agreement also says they refuse the right to refuse service. There's no need for them to modify it. It's already there. It already says they can do that.

Re:Probably in the fine print.

[Anonymous Coward]

1. This thing can happen.
2. If you want to change (1) then both parties must agree.

OMG unenforceable! What kind of lawyer wrote this! Fool.

Re:Probably in the fine print.

[DRJlaw]

It says the agreement can only be modified by a document signed by both parties. Then the NOTICE section says that they can unilaterally change it without notice at any time.

"Also this gem" is a topic transition...

Re:Probably in the fine print.

[DRJlaw]

1. This thing can happen.
2. If you want to change (1) then both parties must agree.

"Also this gem" is a topic transition.

And you might want to contrast (2) with the "NOTICE" sentence.

Re:Probably in the fine print.

[stoatwblr]

That clause isn't legal under consumer protection laws in most countries and would get slapped down by most judges along with a good legal kicking for whoever attempted to insert it.

UK example: The unfair terms in contracts act.

Amateur Radio

[Anonymous Coward]

HRD is widely used among Hams. One of its claims to fame is integration with amateur transceivers and other equipment; it can control and monitor a wide variety of complex modern rigs, amps, tuners, etc. through serial ports, USB, Ethernet, etc.

Honestly I'm disappointed with amateur radio in this regard; reliance on proprietary IP for too many things; proprietary stuff like HRD (there are open logging alternatives, but HRD dominates), closed source firmware from all the major manufacturers, IP protected digital audio protocols... seems like not enough hams value open platforms; they pay through the nose for proprietary stuff without a second thought.

There are brilliant exceptions, but they aren't getting the attention they deserve. You'd think there would be a dozen kickstarter projects for open HT/mobile/base hardware with firmware published on GitHub, displacing the traditional proprietary manufacturers.... the hardware engineering is trivial given the levels of expertise found among these people.

Re: Amateur Radio

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll never spend money on a radio that needs a computer to work.

Re:Amateur Radio

[Anonymous Coward]

Only useful for RX but... I use GQRX (free) on Linux (free) with a longwire antenna (free) connected to an Airspy/Spyverter ($200), but the cheap $20 USB dongles work fairly well also.

Re:Amateur Radio

[bromoseltzer]

HRD is widely used among Hams. One of its claims to fame is integration with amateur transceivers and other equipment; it can control and monitor a wide variety of complex modern rigs, amps, tuners, etc. through serial ports, USB, Ethernet, etc.

Yes, HRD is sort of the systemd of ham radio. You get the same kind of comments.

Use Hamlib and HDSDR

[FudRucker]

There are alternatives to HamRadioDeluxe, free and Open Source solutions too, Skywave Linux seems to be fairly good built on Ubuntu with all the Ham Radio Software already included, it is a live CD or you can run it from a USB memory stick (thumbdrive) or you can install it on a PC, http://skywavelinux.com/

also most other major distros will include most of this software in their repositories so installing them in a new linux install is as simple as launching synaptic or using apt-get from the commandline if you already know the names of the app you want, synaptic has a good search feature by keywords so it makes looking for apps easier

Re: Use Hamlib and HDSDR

[Anonymous Coward]

Or get a real radio that doesn't need software.

Re: Use Hamlib and HDSDR

[Anonymous Coward]

Without a PC to decode some signals you'll be missing out on a lot. You can get a $20 USB dongle and plug it into any Mac/Win/Linux PC with free software and listen to almost the entire radio spectrum, and decode images with the software. Try finding a radio that does that, you won't find one under $1k.

Re: Use Hamlib and HDSDR

[Anonymous Coward]

O RLY?

Re:Use Hamlib and HDSDR

[computererds]

Thank you. I'd never heard of Skywave.

Re: Use Hamlib and HDSDR

[chihowa]

That needs a PC to decode the signals. How is that "a real radio that doesn't need software"?

I'm glad I never bought HRD

[Anonymous Coward]

I've looked at it but I'm not into any digital modes that HamRadioDeluxe would benefit. I have a Kenwood TS-2000 and the Kenwood software does everything I need.

Re:I'm glad I never bought HRD

[gyrogeerloose]

Without getting into the behavior of the people who sell HRD, which is reprehensible, the software does a whole lot more than digital modes. You can use it control most radios built in the 21st century, track satellites, operate an antenna rotator and a shit-ton of other stuff. It doesn't always work without some coaxing on the part of the user, but it's there. I used the free version (pre-6.x) of HRD for years until the crappy Windows XP box I cobbled together specifically to run it died and I switched my shack computer to a Linux box.

Re: I'm glad I never bought HRD

[Anonymous Coward]

Psk31?

Re: I'm glad I never bought HRD

[Anonymous Coward]

Psk31?

Gesundheit!!!!

HRD is crapware

[rfengr]

There; now they will never let me buy it. Why use crapware such as HRD when you can use FLDigi? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik...

Re:HRD is crapware

[fnj]

These putzes deserve to be run out of business.

Reviews vs Trolls

[Anonymous Coward]

if a product working as advertised, get 1 out of 5 star review because the user is to lazy to do a few steps to install it.. its called free speech.
but if a company denies service to someone who trolls their product its extortion?

disclaimer: I have newer use this or any other ham radio product.

Re: Reviews vs Trolls

[Anonymous Coward]

One is a troll the other is a company. Nobody should buy from something you can't tell which it is.
Also revoking a licence is not just revoking (future, not yet paid for) service.
Also threatening (financial) harm to get something you are not entitled to is at least very close to blackmail.

Re: Reviews vs Trolls

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly this.

If you're leaving a one-star review, you had better be uninstalling and not caring about the license.

If you are still using the software, then it doesn't deserve that review, and you are a fucking shitbag.

Re: Reviews vs Trolls

[raynet]

Only if you get a refund from that 1 star review. I've had to use software that really deserved a 1 star review, but there was no other options in my price range.

I'm a Jew.

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you realize we control the financial world? Do you want us to drain your bank account? No? Then shut up, and be a cog in the machine.

Re:I'm a Jew.

[spiritplumber]

I'll feed the troll for this once... I'm in my mid 30s and have been debt-free for 3 years. No mortgage, no student loans, no car payments, nada. This took some hard work, a lot of luck, and a willingness to live below my means for a long time. It means that NOBODY CONTROLS ME. Fun, no?

Re: I'm a Jew.

[Zero__Kelvin]

That just shows that you don't understand personal finances as well as you should. You should maintain an active line of debt upon which to build credit.

Re: I'm a Jew.

[Anonymous Coward]

That just shows that you don't understand personal finances as well as you should. You should maintain an active line of debt upon which to build credit.

He could just maintain his credit cards and pay them off every months. Also, if he has ability to pay off mortgage at mid 30, he won't really need to build credit for anything.

Re: I'm a Jew.

[spiritplumber]

Never had a credit card in my life and am fairly proud of that fact. I bank with a credit union and am occasionally active in the shareholder meetings. If more people did this, banks would have no political power. Be the change you want to see in the world. (It does mean that I only have owned a bed since about 2 months ago, slept on an air mattress until I had saved enough that buying a bed and frame wasn't a big deal, but like I said, live below your means and none will own you).

Sadly...

[kugeln]

A bunch of the software in the world of ham radio is pretty bad--for whatever reason it seems like everybody is stuck on developing software for Windows 95/98 with Visual Basic or FoxPro, and they typically shoot for "it gets the job done" and not much else. There is some great (and free) software out there, but HRD isn't one of them. The real advances in amateur radio software are coming from the devs and hams who embrace open source, or at least believe in sharing the knowledge.

Re:Sadly...

[BlakJak-ZL1VMF]

A big chunk of Ham Radio really is, 'getting the job done'. These are people who do it for a hobby. Only a proportion of those people have the skills required to produce 'professional' code. Others improvise.

I agree that Open Source tends to be much more compatible with the concept of Amateur Radio but if someone's put a bunch of work into some software and wants to cover his expenses (and time is an expense) then that's their call. If others see value in it, they'll pay what they think is fair.

But going right back to OP's core point - no way should a license be reneged on due to a personal opinion being expressed in a legal manner. This is the best way to kill your market.

Re:Sadly...

[johannesg]

A bunch of the software in the world of ham radio is pretty bad--for whatever reason it seems like everybody is stuck on developing software for Windows 95/98 with Visual Basic or FoxPro, and they typically shoot for "it gets the job done" and not much else.

That's because electrical engineers are typically shit at writing code. I've been looking at code written by EE's for a long time, and it is almost always bad - full of software delay loops (because there is only one speed of CPU out there), structured like a landfill, breaking every form of good practice known to mankind, etc.

You also shouldn't let software engineers get close to a soldering iron, but that's ok - the two groups can work together to get great things done...

Re: Sadly...

[Anonymous Coward]

Not sure I'll get a reply as AC, but I can code and am thinking of hobbying up in sdr/ham. What's a decentish $100 hw option and gpl project to chip in on?

Re: Sadly...

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want to transmit you're not going to find much (if any) for $100. If you're just interested in listening then there's $20 USB dongles that cover about 30mhz and up, or with a software hack the entire spectrum. For around $200 you can get an Airspy/Spyverter that is a lot better, and there's free software available for Windows/Mac/Linux.

Re:Sadly...

[stoatwblr]

99% of software is developed to the point of "it gets the job done" and that's all.

Quite simply because getting the job done is the most important part of the job's function.

If only the writer or a small number of people are ever going to use it, then there is no need to develop it further and change for change's sake is a waste of time.

Re:Sadly...

[johannesg]

I disagree. Change that does not change functionality, but improves user friendliness, performance, resource usage, or just sheer elegance and awesomeness, is still a welcome improvement.

Also, I find the efficiency argument boring. In the end we all die. Life is not about being 'most efficient' before that moment comes.

Good To Know

[kbsoftware]

I was looking into HRD but now that I know this is how they operate as a business I'll take a look at other options.

hey HRD! Need a character witness?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've worked with him in the last decade. He's an unreliable weirdo with questionable technical (and emotional) skills.

Computer Not Required

[fyngyrz]

Icom's IC-7300 brings you a lot of actual SDR goodness, without the umbilical cord to the computer. I own this radio; it's pretty nice, though certainly not flawless.

Looks like they're going to release a higher-end radio next.

Analog radios... no more for me. They just can't reach the levels of performance an SDR can.

Re:Computer Not Required

[Anonymous Coward]

IC-7300; an "sdr" transciever with no I/Q data output..... what the actual fuck.

Please stop buying shit like that. Manufacturers will continue to think all of their customers are drooling idiots.

Re:Computer Not Required

[Anonymous Coward]

But they still will. The idiots continue to buy them and think it's the greatest fucking thing ever. I started buying Chinese products which offer way more shit than Icom ever could for far cheaper, even with their shitty Chinese software, it still works better.

Re:Computer Not Required

[Anonymous Coward]

I/Q is very vulnerable to ground loops, amplitude & phase errors and you already have audio and panadapter available via the USB port. A virtual I/Q output would be more realistic, but it would require massive internal redesign of the IC-7300 if you want more than a few kHz of bandwidth.

The IC-7300 managed to bring relatively modern technology to mainstream amateur radio. Compromises had to be made to get such a package at such a price, and I/Q output was probably one of the least important things on the list and it had to be left out. The type of people who really have an use for I/Q would probably be more happy with a FLEX / ANAN / SunSDR etc.

Razvan M0HZH / YO9IRF

Re:Computer Not Required

[Phil Karn]

I/Q interfaces are vulnerable to ground loops only if the I/Q interface is analog. Why should it be, when we have excellent digital interfaces designed specifically for stereo digital audio? There are now several inexpensive SDRs (price range $100-$200) with USB interfaces, e.g., the Funcube Dongle Pro+ and the SDRPlay (there's now a second version). There's also the ultra-cheap RTL-SDR, but its narrow 8-bit A/D limits its use to VHF or UHF signals without strong adjacent channel interference. It's ideal for ADS-B (with a filter!) but I wouldn't recommend it for HF.

I've done most of my work so far with the Funcube dongle, which samples at 192 kHz and 16 bits/channel, feeding a USB interface. It looks just like a standard audio A/D to the OS, because that's what it is. The I&Q signals are produced at baseband so yes there are DC offsets and small gain and phase errors, but I found them easy to remove in software. Some phase noise is sometimes audible within a few hundred hertz of DC, but is easily swamped by typical input noise and gain settings.

Overall, this thing makes an excellent but inexpensive general coverage receiver. I sure wish I had something like this when I was a young ham without much money.

Re:Computer Not Required

[Owza]

I had the FCD+ a nice bit of kit. You should take a look at the SDRPlay 2, similar performance with >5MHz bandwidth :)

Re:Computer Not Required

[Phil Karn]

Yes, I just picked up a SDRPlay 2 last weekend.

The main differences between it and the Funcube dongle are the same: the SDRPlay can sample at much higher rates, but only at 12 bits/sample, while the Funcube dongle samples at 192 kHz with 16 bits. The Funcube dongle therefore appears better suited to narrower modes, especially on HF and VHF where there may be strong interferers on nearby frequencies. The SDRPlay can do broadband modes too wide for the Funcube, such as HD Radio, ADS-B and digital TV, though many of those can also be done even more cheaply with 8-bit RTL-SDR dongles. The SDRPlay can also produce wideband waterfall displays.

HRD was once free

[melting_clock]

Ham Radio Deluxe is proprietary software but was originally free to use. That changed after a change of ownership. The free versions had no restrictions and worked exceptionally well with my radio gear. I have not used the new paid version of HRD because I don't like how this played out or the tactics of the new owner. I got my ham license 25 years ago and still have radios that require a license, although I don't really use them very much. Ham radio is not dead but there are many convenient methods of communication today that it is just one option of many.

Since Linux is my main OS now, I've use a some Linux based software with my radios but nothing as user friendly as the original HRD. That does not mean that there isn't good ham radio software available for Linux, just that it can take a bit more effort to get working and to use. One day I'll get my radio gear out again and take the time to get Linux setup with some of the good software available.

Re: 3rd party reviews are extortion

[Type44Q]

if Cops stated their needs in a bike to Harley-Davidson then a bike would be made to order for a price

If cops wanted fucking puddles of oil under their bikes, I'm sure they would have mentioned it.

FLDigi & Log4om

[ka6wke]

I've used HRD for about a year and won't be renewing my license for it. I'm looking at FLDigi & Log4om to replace it. I mostly contest and use N1MM+

Re:FLDigi & Log4om

[Anonymous Coward]

I've used HRD for about a year and won't be renewing my license for it. I'm looking at FLDigi & Log4om to replace it. I mostly contest and use N1MM+

Those are my go-to HAM applications as well. Log4om is fantastic!

Happens in opensource too

[Anonymous Coward]

http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=1310

Re:Happens in opensource too

[raynet]

It is somewhat more difficult to blacklist users of opensource programs.

Re: 3rd party reviews are extortion

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like a broken seal. Youve seen Cops accelerate their craft in violation of more regulations just to bill you for one that doesnt meet corpus delecti and hjr192 requirements. Yet they never requested rev governors now did they? Another case of wanting flexibility that breaks down? Every kid wants a 24-gear mountain bike just so he can feel like a trucker, but not a single gearbox in sight for automatic gear switching and protections against losing fingers durring maintenance. Everything has a price if enough people ask for it, but most just go with the flow on features.

I dont see any 80yr-old Hondas on the road.

Spyware?

[Anonymous Coward]

Controls your radios and the frequencies they xmit on while the authors have remote access. Nice.

Here is the support ticket

[Ecuador]

Here is the entire support ticket the guy opened: http://forums.qrz.com/index.php?attachments/hrd-software-inc-pdf.336462/.
It seems that they have in their TOS a line that says:

8. We reserve the right to refuse service and disable a customer’s key at any time for any reason

Also, they are lying in that it was just one employee that did this. From the ticket you can see an employee was answering the ticket at first, but then "Rick" took over, who appears to be "Rick Ruhl", a co-owner of HRD software, and throws gems like this to the stunned customer:

You are not buying software, you are buying your callsign's access to the software. ...
Again refer to section 8 of the TOS, which was written by our Attorney. ...
See you in court.

Unbelievable!

Re:Here is the support ticket

[nnull]

It's not unbelievable, this is the attitude with a lot of proprietary HAM software and HAM stores selling devices. They're just straight up assholes.

Re:Here is the support ticket

[Anonymous Coward]

What a cunch of bunts.

Re:Here is the support ticket

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess that the owner of HRD has never heard of the 'Striesand Effect'.
I think he'd better get prepared for a huge downtick in business. Perhaps even Chapter 11 is on the cards.
As a former Ham from the UK (G4***) I think he's a big dickhead. Go on blacklist me. I don't care.

Re: Here is the support ticket

[Anonymous Coward]

What's unbelievable is that you think you are entitled to whatever you want.

If the terms of the service or software are not acceptable, but you accept them anyway, that is on you. It's your problem, and it's your fault. You don't get to rewrite the contract later on a fucking whim.

Re: Here is the support ticket

[famebait]

Extortion is still extortion.
Even if the thing you are threatening to do is perfectly legal sans the threat.

Also:

Being an asshole is still being an asshole.
Even all was legally sound and the other guy could/should have seen your capability to screw him in the terms, securing and exercising that capability is a choice, and that choice can make you an asshole. It is perfectly legal to choose to be an asshole, but don't come whining to me or anyone else when you get called out. Those are the stakes.

If you actively piss off your customers or prospective customers enough to hurt your reputation, that is on you. It's your problem, and it's your fault.

Re:Here is the support ticket

[Solandri]

Unless they're selling it as a subscription service, I really doubt that line in the TOS would hold up in court. For a contract to be legally valid, there has to be an exchange of consideration - you have to get something for the money you paid. Putting a line in the contract which allows them to unilaterally revoke everything you paid for nullifies that consideration, essentially invalidating the contract. They'd have to give you your money back to enforce that clause.

Re: Here is the support ticket

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, no, it does not work like that actually. TOS that do not make sense do not stand up in court. I mean, sure, they can deny you service all they want, but they certainly can't keep your money...

Re: Here is the support ticket

[Anonymous Coward]

This whole story is a good example of the Streisand effect, they tried to bury bad reviews and ended up letting everybody know what an awful company they are.

Re:Here is the support ticket

[vvaduva]

Why is this unbelievable? Many ham radio people I know are outright assholes. This is just the natural outcome of the attitude in the industry...arrogance towards newbies with questions, act superior because you know more about ham radios than the guy asking questions, etc. What is amazing is that people are actually surprised at this.

Re:Here is the support ticket

[Anonymous Coward]

And we, as customers, reserve the right to go to the nearest torrent tracker and use your stuff for free, and advise our friends to do the same. Who wins?

Re:Here is the support ticket

[Anonymous Coward]

Call his bluff, apparently he likes to throw the whole court thing around. Have him prove it. Start a GoFundMe for your own attorneys fee. I will donate and probably a lot of others that have been put off by their behaviour. HRD Software, LLC has fostered a negative attitude towards the user and now it is has been revealed in writing, not from some contract support staff but by the owners themselves.

I remember back when they bought HRD from Simon Brown you got a sense they could care less about how people "felt" about their company. They bashed people that questioned the price and software in general and made excuses from the very beginning. Then they get upset that they get negatives. You can't have it both ways pal! Grow thicker skin if you want to be in the game.

I know a company is in it to make money, but to alienate the somewhat small user base is unacceptable and unprofitable. To throw court action around in a support ticket is UNETHICAL! This is a case file on how NOT to do business. No wonder in their official statement the owners complain that they are the last to get paid and oftentimes is zero! Duh! I wonder why that is exactly.

Re:Here is the support ticket

[stoatwblr]

That gem should be archived and pointed out to "journalists" covering the story, because it shows the clear lie of their official statements.

Re: Here is the support ticket

[stoatwblr]

The kind of extortion HRD are undertaking would get them in the dock facing 5 years jail in a german court.

Yes. it really is that serious.

("Accident" isn't an excuse, The penaltes are for the _attempt_)

Re:Here is the support ticket

[Anonymous Coward]

And once you've been Rick Ruhl'd, they're Always Gonna Give You Up.

Re: 3rd party reviews are extortion

[Anonymous Coward]

If a Harley isn't leaking, then it's lying in pieces at a garage (why yes I do know a few Harley owners).

This is not a surprise

[ctrl-alt-canc]

Unfortunately this aggressive behaviour is typical among companies selling ham-radio related hardware or software. I got into ham radio in 1980, and after a few years the so called "ham-spirit" evaporated and was replaced by money greedines. I am no more into this, and I do not regret the decision I took. Communities that grew around projects like Arduino or Raspberry PI are more open and technologically-challenging than ham radio today. I wonder why a young student should take his ham radio ticket, and get involved with this stuff, when there are so much interesting things in the SBC wolrd, that furthermore require no license at all!

Re:This is not a surprise

[Rufty]

There's some of the ham spirit left in the fringier bits of ham radio. Have a look at microwave construction, ham tv, qrp, and general sdr+gnuradio.

Re:This is not a surprise

[LordHighExecutioner]

> and general sdr+gnuradio.

If you want to experience the highest level of greediness in ham-radio, sdr is the way to go. Plenty of very nasty people there, equally distributed between developers and users, with many unexperienced and confused people in between.

Re:This is not a surprise

[Phil Karn]

Many hams today ARE using the Raspberry Pi and Arduino for their projects. Such as the local high school kids I help mentor. They build high altitude balloon payloads and fly them, and they all carried either an Arduino, a Pi, or both.

Piracy is the only logical answer

[Anonymous Coward]

"by blackballing keys, installed copies of the software stop working."

Simple solution to the problem, don't pay them to begin with then you can give a review and delete it. Most of the time when I test software, if it fails my "useability" test, it is off my system long before the review is completed. I have too many things to do than to deal with useless software that doesn't meet my needs.

Re:3rd party reviews are extortion

[Maritz]

What a pile of gibberish. Can't even work out whose fucking side you're on. Well done mate.

Re:Silly goy

[Maritz]

You're the same guy who posted above about the Harley Davidson bikes aren't you. Your world salad is semi-distinctive, if completely unintelligible.

Re: 3rd party reviews are extortion

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you really see a lot of seventy year old Harleys on the road? What percentage of the total mass of the bike is actually that old? 5 percent?

Retaliation for Bad Reviews is now Illegal

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/12/15/obama_signs_bill_to_protect_bad_reviews/

It is now Illegal in the US to punish customers for posting bad web reviews.

This the actual whatever

[fyngyrz]

There's always someone in the crowd who thinks their use case, should be everyone' s use case. The first fact on the table is that the IC-7300 has been a huge success. So all those people, according to you, are "drooling idiots." That's absurd.

You seem to think that "SDR" means "external computer required." It doesn't. It means software defines the radio's characteristics. Which is exactly what the IC-7300 does. The entire point of the 7300 is you get the razor-edged demodulators, the (first) decent spectrum and waterfall in a transceiver from "the big three", in a high-performance radio at a price that puts most of the higher-end analog transceivers to shame, without requiring a computer.

If you want a radio with an IQ output, there are available choices; for transceivers there are several, and for receivers, there are many. I write SDR software myself, and enjoy some of the more rarified aspects of SDR a great deal. I know SDR inside and out, and am personally pretty content to have a computer nearby. But there's no question that there is a perfectly reasonable market for a stand-alone radio that isn't just another old-tech analog rework. As a 12vdc radio, it's also extremely well designed for field and other power-sipping ops.

There are a lot of people who just want to turn the radio on and take off running. Not everyone wants to use a computer when they want to use a radio. The IC-7300 was aimed squarely at that demographic -- which is not a synonym for "drooling idiots."

Despite any impression you may have gotten to the contrary, you are not the arbiter of all that is good for everyone else. It's perfectly reasonable to say "I want a radio with an IQ output." It's the exact opposite of reasonable to say "everyone who doesn't want a radio with an IQ output is a drooling idiot."

Jina, eh?

[fyngyrz]

Yeah, you get back to us when measured performance of those products is even close. Don't hold your breath; you wouldn't look good colored like a smurf.

didnt' a law just get passed regarding this

[Anonymous Coward]

or is it that a company can't sue you anymore, but they can still mess up your stuff and give no refund?

mandatory reference

[Anonymous Coward]

no soup for you!

Re:SJW angle?

[Maritz]

Ethics. Gaming journalism.

Re: 3rd party reviews are extortion

[Anonymous Coward]

Cops blackballed Harleys because they are unreliable overpriced pieces of sh!t.

Alternatives?

[MooseMiester]

FINALLY a topic on Slashdot that's not political, and actually interesting to me. HRD was the only program I could find that: Made it easy to use LOTW Tracked awards in a simple, easy way Imported all my old logs from different programs Controlled my aging FT-990 via CAT That being said I find the interface a bit clunky and dated, especially the window management which is basically non existent. What else out there does these things?

QRZ caught deleting posts

[Khyber]

Looks like someone set up a nice little trap and caught them deleting posts mentioning this.

Re:QRZ caught deleting posts

[Anonymous Coward]

HRD is an advertiser on qrz.com, so it kind of figures.
If you like pain, and lots of pain, visit qrz.com without an ad blocker some time.

GPL violation by HRD?

[stoatwblr]

Posted (by an anonymous coward) somewhere else:

Interesting.....

I downloaded the latest version of Ham Radio Deluxe just now and installed it.

There is a "Source" folder contained in the subdirectory of HAM RADIO DELUXE, 6.3.0.613 that contains a file DM780SourceCode.zip

The date on this file is as follows: 25/09/11 09:49

Inside this zip file is a readme file that says:

QUOTE
HRDMultiMode001
---------------
The main encoder / decoder DLL is HRDMultiMode001, compiled with Visual Studio 6.0 C++.
HRDOlivia001
------------
The Olivia encoder / decoder DLL HRDOlivia001 is compiled with Visual Studio 2008 beta C++,
this code cannot be compiled with Visual Studio 6.0 C++.
HRDInterface001
---------------
The interface to HRD is HRDInterface001, compiled with Visual Studio 6.0 C++.
HRDLog001
---------
The interface to HRD's logbook is HRDLog001, compiled with Visual Studio 6.0 C++.
HRDID001
--------
The VideoID code taken from fldigi, compiled with Visual Studio 6.0 C++.
Copyright
---------
The encoder / decoder source is taken from fldigi written by Dave, W1HKJ. It is not
copyright HB9DRV. The interface code is copyright HB9DRV.
[This is a work in progress]
Any questions - simon@hb9drv.ch
END QUOTE

Now surely if the date and readme are to be believed, that would be an unattributed use of GNU Licenced software from the FLDIGI codebase, and it may explain why adding new encoders/decoders seems to be such an issue.

Interestingly, on the old licence agreement (Simon's) when you install it says:

"Other Programs (PSK31 Deluxe, Digital Master 780, Mapper) - You may use this Program at no cost without restriction."

On the latest HAM RADIO DELUXE, 6.3.0.613 it says:

"Other Programs (PSK31 Deluxe, Digital Master 780, Mapper)"

So what's the story?

Re:GPL violation by HRD?

[Anonymous Coward]

excellent! great find!! score one for GPL. meanwhile, I am back to FLDigi.

The companies official response

[Dino]

https://regmedia.co.uk/2016/12...

Publicize this behaviour...

[GaryHayman]

Maybe we need GNU option.

lol

[Anonymous Coward]

Negative Review: "And I will never use this software ever again I promise!"