[Asterisk-Users] dingotel - connect Asterisk to 2-way radio?

[Shawn Rutledge]

So has anybody got one of these?  

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0007LQQUK/qid%3D1106972010/sr%3D11-1/ref%3Dsr%5F11%5F1/102-1529886-6420131

I'm thinking that it should be possible to connect it directly to an
Asterisk box and not use their software, as long as there was Linux
support for the USB dongle.  Maybe it just looks like a standard USB
audio device?  But there has to be an extra ring on the connector to
"key up" the radio so maybe to support that, the usual USB audio
driver would need some customization.  Just wondering if anybody has
tried it in Linux.

If you could do that, then Asterisk could listen for DTMF tones right?
 So you could use it from any 2-way radio which has a keypad, such as
a ham 2-meter rig.  (Or hack a keypad into your FRS or CB radio.)  Or,
Asterisk could be tied to a speech recognition system (like their
software has) but that is more complex.

Another aspect is the logic that is required to decide when to
transmit and when to listen.  You'd need to recognize the presence or
absence of human voice from both the VOIP end and the radio end, and
try to balance the two people's rights to monopolize the conversation.
 The limitation is that the radio is not full-duplex, like a repeater,
so when the person on the voip end is talking, and the radio whcih is
attached to the dingotel is transmitting that signal, it is not
listening, and nothing that the person on the remote radio end says is
going to get through.  It could be improved by actually using a
full-duplex radio though.