On Wed, 15 Dec 2004 03:45:08 +0000, Charles Brabham wrote:

What we've been doing wrong with digital ham radio - and how to get back on
track.

http://www.uspacket.org/plan_a.htm

Charles, N5PVL

Very interesting. I read the thread over on eHam and some of the comments
raised some important points. If those folks are correct, then that will
be discovered as the software is developed and the system debugged.

Personally, I would like to be able to assemble a medium speed LAN
capable of 128k to 384k speeds running in the 900 MHz band. I was piqued
by the ZigBee announcement yesterday on Slashdot where it was mentioned
that one of the bands to be used is 902 to 928 MHz @ 250 kbps. Adapting
such a technology to ham radio would be cool. Out here in the sticks we
would gladly trade down the bandwidth for the extra range we could achieve
on 900 MHz over 2.4 GHz.

I agree that too many hams have bought into the notion that an amateur
radio digital network must necessarily be a replacement for the Internet.
If that were so then HF phone would have died long ago since it wasn't a
replacement for AT&T. I say use the Internet but develop fun stuff on ham
radio. After all, part of our charter is experimentation even if it
results in some re-invented wheels.

73, de Nate

--

"The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds,
the pessimist fears this is true."