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PA2AGA > HDDIG 19.09.99 15:37l 145 Lines 7759 Bytes #-9774 (0) @ EU
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Subj: HamDigitalDigest 99/234D
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Date: Sun, 19 Sep 99 08:17:05 MET
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From: pa2aga
To: hd_broadcast@pa2aga
Subject: HamDigitalDigest 99/234D
X-BBS-Msg-Type: B
> to develop a network? None. The majority of Hams are Hams because
> they think of the hobby as a voice mode. It's the rare Ham that goes
> out of his way to get more than one tower going. Most often, there
> is no support money-wise. This is for two reasons: 1) why have a
> group getting in your way, and 2) accepting donations of money or
> equipment gives people a vote. Most Hams like to do thir thing, and
> you use what they provide.
High-speed RF has to get cheap and easy enough for individual hams to
use, and for clubs to justify the cost of getting one. To set up a
nationwide network there needs to be more than just a few interested
folks. The setup for such a network has to be such that any large clubs
(or one on the forefront of stuff) won't consider having the right stuff
no more trouble than a repeater.
> Packet radio in the U.S. will never be referred to as a "network."
>
> They might exchange BBS messages, or mail, but anything else on a
> pure radio basis, will never have an end-to-end capability, or reliable
> enough infrastructure. The ARRL is just now moving off the center of
> the population bell-curve of Morse Code over everything, to the new
> population of Hams (born well after the Choo-Choo) who never cared
> about Morse code, nor ever will. The new license proposal they have
> adopted, moves Morse code to the fringe. The digital part of the hobby
> still has not gone anywhere since no-code was created (forced on the
> ARRL by the FCC) because most no-code Hams have stuck to voice.
Unfortunately, yes. This, unfortunately, is one reason why young people
(like me) aren't interested in ham radio. Voice is passé, and while SSTV
was interesting at one time, the Internet provides more, faster and
cheaper. Even the smart kids who are interested in 'cool' technology
don't find amateur radio as interesting as things like fibre optics,
xDSL, and developing tele/data-com technologies. If they do get into
wireless, its wireless LANs (11 Mbps), microwave, or some form of
cellular (GSM, PCS, CDMA).
> It's the 13 year olds we want to attract. Boys and Girls, and not
> just retired white men. These kids are, at that age, what we used to
> call computer scientists 20 years ago. How many of you have seen the
> TV show on PBS called "Wishbone?" It's the black boy who's the nerd,
> and the white kids are all into basketball. While overplayed, the boy
> is an example of that age group, given enough money by their parents.
These kids also go on to college and make money after that. They are
using digital PCS phones, CDMA (over DSSS) cellular phones, will be
learning about (and using) wireless LAN technologies, inter-device
communications like Bluetooth, and more. If they get interested in
_using_ tech now, they will learn about later on.
> When I show packet radio to a youngster, they laugh. They roll over
> and kick their feet as if they were in an epileptic fit, roaring with
> laughter. After they recover from the initial shock, they then look
> at the problem realistically. Bandwidth costs money, and retired
> white men don't have it. Retired white men only know about wide-band
> FM, or FSK. They can't comprehend Spread Spectrum, and any organization
> that favors it is somehow a communist anti-morse code heathen.
Exactly. Face it, listening to debates of 1k2 duplex vs 9k6 simplex is
depressing for me. On the net, I talk about 10 Mbps duplex for my local
connection, 155 Mbps to the Internet2. I've done some research on
wireless technologies for telecom deployment in rural/underdeveloped
ares. The minimum I look at for fixed personal communications is 64 kbps
duplex (point to multipoint). For high bandwidth, 10 Mbps (asynch,
1.5Mbps upstream - point to multipoint). For backbones, 45 Mbps
point-to-point. These are assuming the same advantages. Cellular
architecture means that max range only has to be 20-30 miles. Complete
control of the spectrum. Money for centralized towers.
The trick is to get a simple, cheap (hundreds of dollars) device that
allows mutipoint-to-multipoint communications, hands routing, and more.
It needs to be fairly simple to assemble by one's self (for
do-it-yourselfers). As the network expands, applications will be
designed for it.
> The future of "packet radio" is wireless networking. The radio engineer
> who can design a 10 watt 2.4 GHz box that sits between our wireless
> ethernet cards and antenna, would be the infrastructure King or Queen.
> Packet radio would then be TCP/IP by defacto. You can't do that with
> Part 15 rules. 10 watts is only a dream. Ham radio with SS cards
> and amps would be a revolution in wireless networking. It would
> overnight change the way packets move across the state. Wide-band
> 1 MHz bandwidth (fog horn) technology is shit. Will always be shit.
> Even the power companies don't use microwave anymore, they string
> fiber with the electric power between high-tension towers.
>
> When you get off your FSK and wide-band FM high horse, then and only
> then will you be ready for the next packet radio. 10 watts at 300
> feet running 1.6 Mbps will negate anything you could dream about your
> TAPR TNC-2 clones funtionality. With whatever software you want to
> connect serially to it.
A 384 kbps duplex connection to a distributed international wireless
network is interesting, even for me. Give the ability to connect from
anywhere (with the right equipment) in the world, and it gets even more
interested. With the ability to get involved at a relatively low entry
cost, you get a lot of more interested folks. If it uses technology that
has market, more people will get involved, not just for a hobby's sake,
but to increase their own skills for the market.
Digital amateur radio could have the advantage of transferring skills to
lucrative careers, if only because an understanding of CDMA, spread
spectrum, antenna design, radio location, interference, echoing, etc.
are easily transferred to skills that are valuable in the cellular
industry, organizations setting up wireless links, wireless Internet,
etc. The world is going digital, and that is what the new generation is
used to, and learning.
I got my technical license a couple of years ago, and did some stuff on
voice. When I started school, my interest dropped off with a high-speed
Internet connection, no free time, and the need to pump resources into
my computer. I have remained interested in digital wireless (it is the
future), but on the ham front (in America, anyways) the whole scene
appears to be 10 years behind everyone else. TAPR has some really
interesting spread spectrum equipment, and there have been some
interesting regional experiments, that is about it. I would love to get
involved in the digital world again, but I don't have the time, skills,
or resources needed to really get involved (on the high-end). These are
the costs of being on the bleeding edge :) but the ability get equipment
for high speed digital packet would be nice. Better for someone to get a
384 kbps connection now, and then tweak it to 1.6 Mbps later when they
feel confident with fooling around with equipment. But nothing is
available (that I know of), and critical mass is nowhere near being
attained.
There is nothing that compares to the thrill of talking to someone from
To be continued in digest: hd_99_234E
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