"gwatts" wrote in message
...
If operating under amateur regulations you must identify by CW, phone, RTTY
or TV image every 10 minutes or less (see 47CFR97.119)

Most amateurs set the SSID of the access point to their call sign, since this
is beaconed numerous times per minute. Apparently that's close enough to RTTY
to keep most people happy.

your transmissions must be intended for reception by another licensed
amateur station or station authorized to communicate with amateur stations
(see 47CFR97.111)

Sure.

that has to be the only reasonable way to effectively communicate, no other
radio service available that accomplishes the same communications (see
47CFR97.113)

This particular regulation creates plenty of argument, since realistically the
vast majority of activity on amateur radio frequencies these days could be
just as readily accomodated by either cell phones or the Internet; I doubt the
FCC has cited anyone for violating this rule for decades now.

and you have to use the lowest power level capable of accomplishing the
communications (see 47CFR97.313).

Indeed, although this too is subject to debate because people will argue that
while, e.g., 1W will get them a bit error rate of 10%, they "need" a near-zero
bit errorr rate and therefore transmit at 100W.

You point about not being able to use HTTPS or other encrypted protocols is
probably the most significant change in moving from using WiFi in an
unlicensed mode to using it under the amateur radio service's rules. However,
note that it is perfectly OK to obfuscate *authentication* data such as
passwords -- packet BBSes have done this for decades.

---Joel