In the movie “Field of Dreams” Shoeless Joe Jackson lurked just beyond the edge of the cornfield ringing Kevin Costner’s fictional Iowa home.  Until the diamond was complete, the field perfectly striped, manicured, and groomed, Shoeless Joe and his 1919 Black Sox exiles remained out of sight, out of mind.

Such is the state of D-Star implementation in the Ham Radio community.  Commercial-grade equipment from Icom sits on store shelves gathering dust while radios purchased by early-adopters churn their way through eBay, eHam.net, Craig’s list, and a host of other online swap meets.  The hype machine from Icom kicked into high gear with the release of the first commercially available digitally-equipped Ham radios.  Early adopters who had long sought a digital alternative to analog bandwidth-hogging technology jumped on the crazy train.  The rest of the legacy-bound Ham community let go with a collective "yawn!"