As the saying goes, there are decades where nothing happens, and there are weeks when decades happen. The slow, steady scattering of ham radio’s digital world may have just had its big bang moment with news that VARA, perhaps the most popular tool used for data communication, is going to break with itself in the coming New Year. This, because an open source alternative is thought to challenge that hegemony. VARA has been widely adopted even though full performance and features require a paid license key. It’s also NOT open source and it only runs on Windows.

This has launched various open source development projects aimed at knocking VARA off its pedestal by removing the cost and widening the path to other operating systems and platforms like Linux and Raspberry Pi.

The problem seems to be that any new protocol needs to be compatible with VARA, since everyone already uses it. One of those alternatives, xara, apparently got a little too close, so the VARA developer seems to have decided to break what’s already in the wind, including backward compatibility with its own earlier versions. The break is triggered by the computer’s clock on January 1, 2027, and the developer didn’t announce it. It was only noted in the HF changelog, which users see after installing. VARA customers can upgrade to the new version, and as far as I can tell this isn’t a grab for more money, but it means upgrade to the latest or die on the vine. That, and perhaps a legal threat (unknown), may have led the xara developer to close that project. Not that it matters much: the source had already been downloaded and forked, and ports to Windows, Mac, Android and iPhone/iPad are out there.

Feel free to fact check me as digital isn’t a native or even second language for me. Whatever I know about these details came from reading the ZeroRetries 269 newsletter and this situation is so convoluted to me, I could have distilled it incorrectly.

I’m only posting about it to be able to point out that no such controversy exists in the world of CW. :-)

Here’s the thing, though: this might seem like a really big deal for digital enthusiasts, it’s not. This is normal. When ICOM came out with D-STAR, Yaesu answered with Fusion. DMR moved in from the commercial world, and now there’s M17 and FreeDV’s RADE. And that’s before you count the internet linking systems: EchoLink, IRLP, AllStar. When it comes to keyboard comms there are even more options. In this facet of ham radio, diversity in protocols is seen as a good thing as it presents a healthy, progressive approach to moving forward.

Of course, radio communication is dependent on groups of people who congregate around common frequencies using common modes. Having hundreds of disparate modes would mean everyone has their own private “channel” and no two-way contacts would be possible. It’s the Tower of Babel all over again: everyone speaking a different language, and no one building anything together. The system only works if there are precious few winners and a whole lot of losers in the development of modes and protocols.

Digital enthusiasts must accept turbulence as their normal environment and must also assume they will move through dozens and dozens of different modes and protocols over the course of their ham radio half-life. It’s no place to rest on your laurels. You keep up, or the train leaves without you.