Another "arms race"?

[KE6WNH]

Yesterday, my longtime friend Ed Lemus, KE6VRK, dropped by my house and told me Alinco is coming out with an off-the-shelf 900 Mhz radio. Ed has pulled my leg plenty of times in the past, and I thought he was at it again until he had me sit down and run a search on it.

Looks like he meant business this time. The DJ-G29T hasn't yet been approved by the FCC as of this writing; but if it does get approval and sells well---which is probable, given that off-the-shelf 33cm radios for ham use are practically unknown---I can see a classic arms race type situation developing. ICOM will come out with a 900, then Yaesu, then Kenwood, then will come the mobiles, culminating in a 6-band beauty with everything from 6m to 1.2 Ghz... these radios will be loaded with features which will give us our complete horoscopes but will probably not make anyone a better ham. 

As for me, I'll just sit back and enjoy the ride...

[K1CJS]

Good thought.  Sit back and enjoy while these radios are put to the test by others and the prices come down.  By then, it'll be known which rig is going to do what it says it will.

[K3WEC]

I don't know much about 33cm, except reading a few articles.  What are its unique attributes vs 70cm?  Is it just more band space that is causing the excitement of the new Alinco?

[K1CJS]

It's more of an experimenters band than anything else.  Equipment is still scarce, being mostly recycled commercial radios, and although not expensive, can still run a pretty penny for the radio, programming cables and the software needed to actually do the programming.  Either that or its pay a fee--or even if you know someone who will reprogram for free, the simple headache of taking the radio out of service/out of the mount it's in--to reprogram it every time you want to add or change a frequency/repeater channel.

To a few, there is also the usual childish claim that 'I've got something that not too many others have' or 'I have a new toy to play with.'

Maybe it's just me, but I rather enjoy something that I don't have to jump through hoops to use.  In my area, with the elimination of 70 cm as a viable communication vehicle due to the Cape Cod Pave Paws installation, I've taken to see what use can be had from the 220 mhz band.  Although radios are few and manufacturers that make them fewer, at least once you have the radio, you can reprogram its memory and change frequencies easily instead of going through the trouble of using computers and hard reprogramming every time you want to add a frequency to a rig. 

[N0YXB]

This sounds like a good thing to me.  As for a radio making one a "better ham", huh?