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Speakers are linear; how do they demodulate RF energy so it can be heard? Assuming the signal is being imposed on the speaker leads, the demodulation occurs via the output driver transistors - they're either acting as diodes for the RF signal or the final amp's negative feedback circuit is amplifying it.

Amateur radio operators are keenly aware of RFI issues.

When I was younger I lived in the country on a fairly large lot. I was always fascinated with power poles and distribution, so my father helped me put in 10-foot posts throughout the yard. I put insulators on them and strung wire between, forming an electrical distribution system. I think I even put a few kilovolts on it with a neon transformer I had at the time. I still keep a full-sized bell insulator around.

It's a power-level issue. The FCC allows unlicensed transmitters under Part 15; the maximum allowed varies with frequency. You can see the limits on this page. For example, above 960 MHz, unlicensed devices can transmit a field strength of up to 500 microvolts/meter, measured at three meters from the radiating device. (Those units seem a little odd to me, but that's what the table lists.)

A device intended for wireless networking isn't likely to be of much use in transmitting an NTSC (or PAL, etc.) video signal. There are a number of channels available for use within amateur radio for television transmission. All you need is a technician license. The exam is not difficult and the days of having to learn Morse Code (for the Technician license) are long gone. The ARRL has info on how to find a club/testing in your area.

-Jeff

CB at 27MHZ with AM modulation?

Wrong frequency and wrong modulation method.

You want something that will surive multpath reflections without a lot of degeneration - that says over 100-200 MHz.

You want somthing that can sort out the signal and work with it after it has reflected off of a bunch of things and is getting received. If it is voice alone, then something like FM would work.

But then I just described a lot of the police radios already out there.

If you want it to be digital, then you need a multipath resilent modulation scheme. OFDM is where you go to do that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COFDM

Above is a good overview.

Ideally, you want the capability for group communication, selective communication, and knowing the location of all the radio units at the control base station.

In a perfect world - Let's add the capability for everyone to communicate with the base station getting wiped out and no transponder/repeater dependency in a pinch. Barring those, lots of redundancy in the system, so if one gets wiped out, then another can take over.

If you are not aware of it, that has been around for for disaster communication for quite a while:

http://www.arrl.org/pio/emergen1.html

The distributed nature of the above, and all the redundancy of the multiple sources make it work, albeit not perfectly. Hm.... sounds like a terrorist network doesn't it?

Yah, I submitted it twice before that too, with this link and later this link. I guess I'm just too nerdy for slashdot.

Yah, I submitted it twice before that too, with this link and later this link. I guess I'm just too nerdy for slashdot.

They've tried it, but the frequencies they were going to use brought protests from HAM and CB radio operators.

http://www.arrl.org/news/bandthreat/

I see two very serious potential problems with an overabundance of RF-based wireless peripherals, problems which I believe will insure that wired ones will be with us for some time to come.

First and foremost: Security, and I'll start with wireless keyboards as a great example. There have been lots of articles about keystroke-logging malware, but there seem to have been precious few warning about the fact that wireless keyboards cheerfully broadcast every keystroke whoever uses one types, free for anyone with the right knowledge and hardware to just pluck off the air.

Second issue: Mutual interference. I read just recently (don't recall where) that someone brought home a nice wireless access point for their home network, and they were having a heck of a time getting it to work consistently.

As it turns out, the WAP had been set up right next to the microwave oven in the kitchen. Every time someone started heating up their frozen burrito or whatever, ZAP! The wireless part of their network went down, hard. Yes, microwave ovens and 802.11b/g networks operate right around the same part of the RF spectrum (2.4GHz).

Third point: Hamateur radio folks, commercial radio stations, and (especially!) labs where RF experimentation and development takes place, all need to be extremely leery about wireless peripherals because of the interference the things can cause to non-computer devices. Heck, I've got enough problems trying to filter Ethernet leakage out of my own station without worrying about wireless widgets on my computers adding to the problem!

This doesn't even touch on the possibility of licensed RF devices (such as portable 2-way VHF or UHF radios, or high-power commercial or amateur stations) causing interference to wireless peripherals. Being that such peripherals have to, by law, comply with FCC Part 15 regs, and "accept any interference received, including that which may cause undesired operation," the owners of such devices have four choices in such a case: Work with the licensed radio user, to try and resolve the issue, or try and resolve it themselves; Grin and bear it; Switch to infrared-based wireless devices; Or go back to wired devices.

Do wireless peripherals have their place? Of course they do. However, users of such would do well to remember that the RF spectrum is a very crowded place, and simply getting wireless for the sake of having wireless may not always yield the results that they expect.

Keep the peace(es).

Unfortunately, it's just a "How to _use an antenna_" article.

Yeah, pretty much.

I don't want to be too hard on the guy, because it sounds like this was his first antenna project, but the whole article just makes me a little sad. What he did isn't even all that hard, and if he had done a little more searching around he would have found literally thousands of pages and hundreds of articles, complete with formulae and schematics, on how to build antennas of this type.

There's an amateur radio band located just above (and IIRC overlapping slightly with) the 2.4GHz ISM band. There's tons of antenna construction resources; the American Radio Relay League has two volumes written about the topic. (Although it covers a lot more than just antennas, admittedly.) Although I don't own the book, I'd bet that most of those articles probably have equations for scaling the dimensions to particular frequencies, so it would be trivial to do what he was attempting. (And a quite likely a violation of FCC rules, but that's another story.)

On a more general note, it's a little sad to see how little of a connection there is between the radio "hacking" community and the computer one. Perhaps it's due to there being a generational gap in there, but I've never met two groups of people that have as much in common, philosophically, as computer hackers and ham radio tinkerers. When I read articles like TFA, where the author says "To my knowledge no-one has built a homebrew biquad UMTS antenna before..." it just really underscores how poor a job the amateur radio community has done in connecting with computer geeks. The topic at hand here isn't something breathless and new, it's well-understood to the point of probably being boring. But because of the lack of connection between the two interest groups (even though, as in this case, they have a lot of common interests even if they don't realize it), we have computer geeks painfully reinventing the basics of antenna design, and we have ham radio operators who haven't in some cases even figured the Web out completely, much less how to use it to collaborate.

That's not to say that there aren't computer geeks who are into ham radio and vice versa -- the number of radio-related software projects is testament to that (as am I, and others here on /.), but it's a lot less than you would think given how much each group could stand to gain and benefit and learn from the other. There's some stuff being done that honestly is breathless and new, on the cutting edge of both radio communications technology and information/computer technology, but there's a shortage of people with the combined background to contribute. How much further along would we be, if both groups were't wasting so much time reinventing each others' wheels?

Yes, ham radio exists and has lots of new high-tech directions. Unfortunately, for the /. crowd (and even more for the general Internet community), there are limitations to what you (we) can do in ham radio compared with the Internet.

Amateur radio is a licensed service, meaning that a non-trivial (though pretty easy for /.-ers?) exam is required. This will always keep out the general public -- either a good or bad thing depending on point of view. Some folks would like to see licensing diluted to the level of Citizens Band or GMRS, i.e., widely ignored and no technical content anyway, but most hams want to keep up a reasonable entry barrier to ensure some level of motivation and technical and operational competence.

The other point is that the amateur radio service is by law non-commercial, meaning that no one can be paid for providing communications services. There is some debate whether you as an individual ham are allowed to "order pizza" (or use Amazon.com?) using your own radio. Certainly, no business could use the amateur bands. That rules out a very big chunk of Internet traffic.

A lot of computer experimenter work uses WiFi technology - which is an unlicensed mode without the ham radio restrictions. (WiFi frequencies overlap a ham allocation, so you can use WiFi gear as part of a ham licensed network if you want.) There is some neat extreme ham-like WiFi.

With my ham station, I can routinely communicate digitally around the world at 31 bps (keyboard to keyboard)and 50 watts of power, even at sunspot minimum. No ISP, no infrastructure dependencies! It's a gas.

Further reading at www.arrl.org and Wikipedia.

-Martin, AA6E

I think that many computer applications, and to some extent certain kind of programming, are a little too much like watching TV, and harm your brain rather than enhancing it. Of what's going on today, I think the Make-magazine stuff is probably the most exciting and most likely to provoke actual thought... Kids doing robotics is pretty close to what kids doing ham radio was when I was young. Below is a meandering story of how I got from a 5 year old ham to today, back into ham radio, and reading Slashdot too.

In kindergarten, I remember bringing electrician's hot-side testing screwdrivers to show-and-tell ("Now you just stick this screwdriver into the electric socket and the neon bulb will light if it's the hot side"), and rigging up telephone networks with old handsets and batteries. After having learned morse code at age 5 and gotten on the air under my father's call (he got his license in response to my interest), I finally learned enough to read the whole test and got my license at age 7. Now my kids are about the same age, and found learning morse code to be fun; they talk to each other, and recently had a poster accepted at a peer-reviewed conference, comparing speed and errors in Morse code and typing! (Ok, it was the 2nd grade science fair.)

Soon I got interested in computers, but there weren't any actual ones to distract me; well, there was one in town, and it used punched cards. It was a Honeywell Special 200, the first IBM Clone, though it was a clone of an IBM 1401... Then there were the PDP-8's that were connected to Stanford via phone line for one of the first "computer-aided instruction" projects. I met the guys who maintained the Model 28 teletypes for them and they got their ham licenses after my father and I got ours...

When two-meter FM became popular, I helped establish the first local repeater, probably the only one within 100 miles. We had to do HAAT testing and I learned about altimeters, topographic maps, and government forms... By the time I graduated from high school and went to MIT, I found other pursuits -- PDP-10's, Lisp, classes... I pretty much got off the air. But ham radio gave me an entre into an entire world that wasn't available when I was growing up.

After a few years spent exploring 4x5" photography, I started doing some wireless mobile device work, and poor signal strength led me to get up on the roof and install a 1.9Ghz repeater. I felt a strange familiar feeling, and when my wife said, "I don't care how many antennas you put on the roof," I filed the fact away. When a co-worker shows up with a Yaesu VX-2 two-meter and 70cm handitalki that receives DC-to-daylight and said it was $120, I went ahead and bought it. I'd kept my ham license renewed, and used it once or twice in the intervening 20 years, but I had to re-learn lots of stuff. I wore the HT on my belt (along with two calculators and a slide rule, a hiptop, and a blinking LED pen) for the Halloween party at PARC and won what can best be described as the five-sigma prize...

A bit of web surfing led me to QRZ.com, EHam.net, and of course ARRL, and I found out about a local club meeting taking place that night. So I went with the co-worker, and found a bunch of pleasant nerds, schoolteachers and librarians, firefighters, electronics designers, computer scientists, and other random people.

At the club meeting, a satellite communications engineer told me about recent developments in DSP-based communications that used a PC sound card to modulate and demodulate; my extensive 20-year stint in programming made me think this might be interesting, so I bought a

Do not take a short view on things. Download the form and renew your license. It will only take a moment.

You spent the effort to take the tests and get the license. You should respect the work you did in the past. While you may have found that your interest in ham radio has waned, there is no telling what the future may bring where it might be useful or interesting to you again.

I have been a ham for 25 years. The technical knowledge I have gleaned has stayed with me and opened a few unexpected doors for me. I too lost interest (and don't have a working station) esp. with the internet, but I recently wanted to remote control a distant observatory I want to build and even though there is wireless internet, ham radio still gives me better flexibility/performance/cost options to implement a solution.

So renew, you'll be glad that you did in the future.

It's nice to see a refreshing perspective about this. After reading several Slashdot articles on the subject I was under the impression that BPL was an impossible undertaking. Lately in my neighborhood in Cincinnati, I've seen several marketing promotions about Current Technologies BPL service, and after doing a little checking at ARRL, I was suprised to see that in fact they were decently positive about the service.

http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2005/10/18/101/

FTFA: For several weeks, ARRL and Motorola have cooperated in a BPL test stand at W1AW that has operated successfully without significant interference to Amateur Radio. The League also cited BPL systems by Current Technologies, IBEC and Corridor Systems as being among those that meet the additional requirements it's proposing. Current Technologies' BPL deployment in the Cincinnati, Ohio, area, for example, does not make use of medium-voltage lines for transmission of HF signals and utilizes the HomePlug notching protocol. Limited testing, the ARRL said, indicates that, as a result, the interference potential "is minimal relative to Amateur Radio facilities."

I'm glad that there is some critical discussion about the topic, but it's too bad that there seems to be no follow up about the positive sides of the issue.

http://www.arrl.org/tis/info/HTML/plc/

This is a link from within the one above which goes into more detail of BPL specifically.

http://glasnost.itcarlow.ie/~net4/kirwans/bband.ht ml

My question has always been why don't they use the actual AC current that is being transmitted at 60htz INSIDE the wire instead of over the magnetic fields around the wires?

In other words, JUST like the Cable Companies do??

I guess there is a simple reason for this, but from reading these articles, that as usual, this (BPL implementation) is being done ram-rod style by the powers-that-be, with little to no concern about what we think.

The term: 'over the lines', is usually meant, that the data, or power, is actually being carried IN the wire, not OVER, as in the magnetic field.

And yet this term has somehow been convoluted into meaning something different, at least in this extensive subject on BPL.

Why?

I am sure there are other 'better' ways to accomplish this idea.

Their (Powers-that-be) whole 'talk' on this is that we need them to build a whole new infrastructure to become a backbone (carrier) of the InterNet, in order to have BPL fullscale.

My first thought was, well why can't we have individuals have the 'routers' etc. necessary to pull this off in our neighborhoods?

Many have posted here in this thread, mentioning how the power lines act as an antenna...well, why isn't the idea of using this antenna, for what it is, being discussed?

For example, as someone joking mentioned here earlier about a ham operator firing up his transmitter, and it made a modem recycle in a coffee shop that was hooked up to bpl!! lol.

Sooo what about us 'directly' accessing this great-antenna-the-sky?

These ideas are not even brought up, let alone considered as a theory in ANYTHING I have read about this for the last several years-- when it first arose as a controversial issue.

It seems an aweful lot of 'data' can be sent down those thick wires hanging over our heads.

The bandwidth may not be what they are saying is going to be availible using 3mhz - 60mhz, but it seems that it would be at least be as much as what the cable cos are doing with their little coax!! (again, I'm asumming this is being done NON-INTRUSIVLY, as the Cable companies do, by using the actually AC current in the wire, instead of on the 'magnetic' fields outside of the wires.)

Cable companies send our tv, InterNet, and now fon service, over that little wire.

It is 'stepped up' and 'stepped down', several times during its journey..so there is no reason that the power companies cannot do this also.

Unless of course they just want to do this the cheapest and crapiest way possible, so it can be a falliure, other than the billions racked in by the Ceos and their buds.

Some of those high-tension Power wires are at least several notches thicker, and therefore can and do carrry a LOT more amps, than coax cables.

These specfic issue are either not mentioned, or glanced over at every opportunity.

I have a sneaky feeling, that something on the magnitude of p2p or free as in air, is looming on the horizon for us, concerning InterNet service, and the Ceo's are frantic to let us believe other wise.

-- My favorite thing about OSS-- IS its Militancy!!

Why would anyone settle for this kind of service while the rest of the world gets 100Mbps ethernet to their premise or even better fiber at gigabit/sec rates?

BPL puts a whopping huge RADIO SIGNAL on to the power line which then requires a modem at the customer end to pull it back off. This radio signal radiates from the power line on most HF and low VHF frequencies causing severe and harmful interference to other radio services.

Amateur radio communications on these frequencies will be almost entirely precluded. Remember that during hurricane Katrina and most other natural disasters around this country and the world, amateur radio is usually the only means of communication after the commercial services are destroyed. If BPL is operating outside of the affected area, then the people trying to communicate with the affected area will be so interfered with by the BPL that they will be unable to communicate with the people in need.

BPL will have such poor and unpredictable line characteristics to operate into that the best performance expected is at or below ISDN rates of 128Kbps. Do you really want to oblivionate the volunteer, completely independant and non-commercial amateur emergency service for 128Kbps? Do you really think that in the end it will be commercially viable?

Please contact your elected representatives and ask them to support the ARRL's position against this ill and misguided attempt to fool the people into something that is not what it appears to be. Tell them you'd really rather have true broadband over fixed wireless, fiber or other infrastructure like the rest of the modern world has.

http://www.arrl.org/tis/info/HTML/plc/

in the latest QST http://www.arrl.org/qst/ about the FCC ignoring amateur radio ongoing complaints about BPL system interference.
new BPL complaint here: http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2006/05/05/100/
system operator response here:
http://www.arrl.org/tis/info/HTML/plc/files/COMTek .pdf

in the latest QST http://www.arrl.org/qst/ about the FCC ignoring amateur radio ongoing complaints about BPL system interference.
new BPL complaint here: http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2006/05/05/100/
system operator response here:
http://www.arrl.org/tis/info/HTML/plc/files/COMTek .pdf

in the latest QST http://www.arrl.org/qst/ about the FCC ignoring amateur radio ongoing complaints about BPL system interference.
new BPL complaint here: http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2006/05/05/100/
system operator response here:
http://www.arrl.org/tis/info/HTML/plc/files/COMTek .pdf

The power line wasn't a giant freaking unshielded antenna! This tehcnology has been effecting communications gear all over the place. Its a very very bad idea in its current form.

http://www.arrl.org/tis/info/HTML/plc/

On a closer to home note, our company found out the hard way relying on cell phones doesn't work during an earthquake. All cellular channels were immediately switched to route emergency traffic (police, fire, etc.), our staff emergency personnel were completely cut off (NexTel radios and Verizon cells at the time).

It's never been easier to get a HAM radio license either. The technician license requires an easy 35 question test (no morse requirement). You can get a good 2m radio for about the same price as many of the newer cell phones.

I wonder why you feel the need to single out DLink as lousy. Sure, some of their stuff is, but so is the stuff any company puts out at the low end. I happen to be running a fairly long range wireless bridge between a couple of buildings, and it's been just fine.

For example, check out this outdoor AP. Combined with this antenna, I've been getting nearly full 54Mb @ 1km for the last 6 months. That includes surviving last hurricane season - during which we lost about an acre of roof. I'd have to say these little AP's don't suck too bad.

Yes, there was some interference issues before those directional antenna were installed. But really, what do you expect on open frequencies? If all you tried to use was the standard rubber ducky antenna, are you really surprised that it sucked? You may not need something that drops down to a 15 degree RF cone, but it sure helps deafen some of the surrounding noise. There are a wide variety of antenna designs available. Remember when you first heard about those Pringles cans? I'll bet the guy that came up with it has read a book like this.

Seriously, I'm no fan of DLink, but I don't think these large-scale operations have the same problems individuals do. The difference is that professionals don't blame the equipment - they find the real problem and fix it. Casual users bitch and moan, (then usually give up), because they don't understand how RF works.

Uh, 1500kW is max power output for general and advanced classes ref. There is no 2kW 10m HAM transmitter. And I really doubt truckers have 1kW amps in their trucks. 100w, maybe. 1kW amps are the size of a mini fridge and run hot.

Pirates on the other hand are another matter but they are stationary and easy to track (directional antenna, even a pringle can antenna on a $30 handheld cb radio).

You know that's illegal right? Encryption is not to be used on ham radio.

If you're a ham, FYI, Part 15 and part 97 rules are in flux, there is a proposed notice of rulemaking.

  In a tiny box of electronics, with removable front panel for the dash
  (eg, ICOM IC-706 Mk.IIG, Kenwood TS-2000 or Yaesu FT-897D or similar) is: ...for the unlicenced:

  - monitor various VHF/UHF stations (emerg. services, etc.)

  - Shortwave receiver

  - AM [ & FM ] broadcast receiver ...if you become a licensed Amateur (a.k.a. Ham) Radio operator:

  - VHF/UHF comms with repeaters all over the country/world - US, Canada & beyond
      (each provides a way to meet-the-Locals, as you pass through / by each place)

  - Internet-link repeaters (if you'r within range of one, you can "dial-up" others
      - eg, in places you're headed for (even in different states & countries -or-
      maintain comms with folks back home, ie, if they have licenses & gear that can
      access a nearby IRLP-repeater)

  - "hunt" for satellites passing overhead (cf HeavensAbove.com's Amateur satellite
      page for times & freq's to watch, no matter where you are) - a great time[sink
      for the kids ;-)

      If you find one, use it as a repeater (for voice) or digipeater (for eMail)

  - with the right antenna & tuner, "hunt" on HF for other Hams around the world
      (like an open-ended Skype search, & chat in voice-mode)

  - even if you can't always talk with all the stations you'll hear, enjoy listening!
      (eg, new/unfamiliar accents, languages, local ideas, "on-air" tips for radio &
      lots of other issues)

  - [Kenwood TS-2000 only] connect a notebook (or smaller) computer to use Packet-
      Radio & possibly APRS (to get weathe or to locate other nearby stations - both
      home or mobile); contact satellites passing overhead or use them to store-and-
      forward your eMail, when there's no Internet cafe nearby

  - lots more... too many to list... Google is your friend here. ;-)

  Oh, it's gotten VERY EASY to get a first (Foundation Class) Amateur/Ham License

  In USA: http://arrl.org/

  In SE: http://www.ssa.se/

  In AU: http://www.wia.org.au/

  Enjoy the warmth of friendly, local voices... ready to offer travel tips...
  generally without wanting to fleece you as you pass through their town/city

The first thing to realise there are plenty of technology related hobbyists around the world, although most are not high profile and some may be different very different demographics than yourself.

Some (hobby) groups to consider looking towards for ideas and help include: woodworkers, metalworkers (hobbyists using micromills and mini-lathes from TaigTools and Sherline, etc.), model railroads, model aircrafts (static and RC), robotics, amateur radio (ham), 2600, LUGs, and Artist Run Centres/Communities

Random list of some I use or know of:
  Make magazine http://www.makezine.com/
  Instructables http://www.instructables.com/
  ARRL http://www.arrl.org/
  http://www.sparkfun.com/ (check out their tutorials)
  http://www.fpga4fun.com/ / http://www.knjn.com/
  QRP-L http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/qrp-l/>
  GQRP http://www.gqrp.com/
  http://www.pololu.com/ (cheap stencils laser cut, e.g. 3x4 for $32)
  http://www.diyaudio.com/
  http://www.digikey.com/ (if you're still buying electronics from Radio Shack, get these 3 catalogs now!)
  http://www.mouser.com/
  http://www.jameco.com/
  the ton of various surplus/NOS dealers online
  http://www.frontpanelexpress.com/
  http://www.seattlerobotics.org/
  http://www.chibots.org/index.php
  DorkBot
  http://eyebeam.org/production/production.php?page= tools
  MIT CBA FAB http://fab.cba.mit.edu/
  http://www.leevalley.com/
  http://www.smallparts.com/
  http://www.danssmallpartsandkits.net/
  http://www.wmberg.com/
  http://www.acklandsgrainger.com/
  http://www.grainger.com/
  http://www.onlinemetals.com/
  http://www.amqrp.com/
  http://www.princessauto.com/
  http://www.sherline.com/
  http://www.taigtools.com/

I believe the FCC is one of the most unconstitutional departments in the Federal government and completely destroys the reason why it was set up in the first place. If the airwaves are public property, why are they regulated to the point that no one but the elite can access them?

ARRL would beg to differ. Private individuals can do all sorts of stuff on the public airwaves for next to nothing. Private individuals even have satellites in LEO.

Take a look sometime at the amateur radio allocations and the power allocations - amateurs can use up to 1,000MW on many bands (and you can communicate to ISS and satellites on as little as 0.5W if you are good) - there is room for everyone as it stands right now.

It is time for a second Internet to come into action -- one that is voluntarily connected, one that is run over cabling (or satellite) connections that are not subsidized by any government regime.

Amateur radio kinda has that ... RTTY. Its not the flashy internet we have here but its data transfer over the airwaves.

If you would have read the damn article - yes it was confusingly worded, read the links, and the summary is wrong - you would have realised the rep. from did **not** say that it was OK for AT&T to "extort" companies like Google, but rather he said it was OK for them to offered tiered internet **access** at different price points. I quote:

"Any provider who blocks access to the Internet is inviting customers to find another provider," Whitacre said in his keynote speech. "It's bad business." He then emphatically stated that AT&T would not block independent services, "nor will we degrade [Internet access]. Period, end of story." (Whittacre, AT&T)

However, Martin also added that he supports network operators' desires to offer different levels of broadband service at different speeds, and at different pricing -- a so-called "tiered" Internet service structure that opponents say could give a market advantage to deep-pocket companies who can afford to pay service providers for preferential treatment. (Martin, FCC)

I believe the FCC is one of the most unconstitutional departments in the Federal government and completely destroys the reason why it was set up in the first place. If the airwaves are public property, why are they regulated to the point that no one but the elite can access them?

ARRL would beg to differ. Private individuals can do all sorts of stuff on the public airwaves for next to nothing. Private individuals even have satellites in LEO.

Take a look sometime at the amateur radio allocations and the power allocations - amateurs can use up to 1,000MW on many bands (and you can communicate to ISS and satellites on as little as 0.5W if you are good) - there is room for everyone as it stands right now.

It is time for a second Internet to come into action -- one that is voluntarily connected, one that is run over cabling (or satellite) connections that are not subsidized by any government regime.

Amateur radio kinda has that ... RTTY. Its not the flashy internet we have here but its data transfer over the airwaves.

If you would have read the damn article - yes it was confusingly worded, read the links, and the summary is wrong - you would have realised the rep. from did **not** say that it was OK for AT&T to "extort" companies like Google, but rather he said it was OK for them to offered tiered internet **access** at different price points. I quote:

"Any provider who blocks access to the Internet is inviting customers to find another provider," Whitacre said in his keynote speech. "It's bad business." He then emphatically stated that AT&T would not block independent services, "nor will we degrade [Internet access]. Period, end of story." (Whittacre, AT&T)

However, Martin also added that he supports network operators' desires to offer different levels of broadband service at different speeds, and at different pricing -- a so-called "tiered" Internet service structure that opponents say could give a market advantage to deep-pocket companies who can afford to pay service providers for preferential treatment. (Martin, FCC)

Geeks are more hams every day with their antenna farms.

Try reading about tower review, or join in on Tower Talk.

Better yet, get a ham license. The technician test isn't even that hard.

I believe its called amateur radio!

(frequencies)
http://www.arrl.org/FandES/field/regulations/alloc ate.html
(general)
http://www.arrl.org/hamradio.html

I believe its called amateur radio!

(frequencies)
http://www.arrl.org/FandES/field/regulations/alloc ate.html
(general)
http://www.arrl.org/hamradio.html

Imagine being a paying supporter of an RF spectrum noise generator wiping out shortwave radio. Imagine having people in cars with a HAM radio running legal power drive by and disconnect your internet. Imagine wondering why your garage door opener no longer works after the powerco install BOP on your street. Imagine your fancy clock that syncs to WWV not being able to receive syncs. Imagine you weather radio you use to get official reports full digital hash static..

Imagine the FCC not giving a flying fuck about bandwidth protection. I don't have to.. it is here today. Death to BPL!

FYI, BPL is transmitted on unsheilded conductors and acts as essentially an antenna. Not only does it radiate broad spectrum interference, but is succeptable to interference from normal and legal radio transmissions as well.

Wake up all you idiots!

Forget BPL. It sucks in too many ways and interferes with licensed services.

Universal DSL, fiber, ethernet, or [your favorite physical layer here] would go a long way to avoiding this nonsense. All required services can be run over a data link, but I don't see the carriers supplying this, except for Verizon FIOS.

A more accurate list of Teslas accomplishments.

There are designs for limited space and portable antennas in the ARRL antenna book. http://www.arrl.org/catalog/?category=Antennas%2C+ Transmission+Lines+%26+Propagation&words= Portable antennas are used often in field day events. I wouldn't rule out enjoying amatuer radio due to your living situation. Just need some imagination in making and mounting antennas.

Evidently most of the people who've replied on here don't have a clue about amateur radio either. A big part of amateur radio is experimentation and if it doesn't work, you figure out why and do it again. Hopefully with your adjustments, corrections and redesigns your experiment will become a working item. After all, how do you think all the neat modes in amateur radio were developed? Trial and error.

Most /.ers have no clue about working QRP (low power radio)-I mean, the thing is miles above earth transmitting on 500mW of power. Some personal stereos put out more power than that.

But, if anyone checks, there's another unused spacesuit and more equipment on the ISS. Oh, by the way, it's ARISS (Amateur Radio on the International Space Station) http://www.rac.ca/ariss that did this, not NASA.

If people RTFA and do a little more reading about the news stories http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2006/02/03/103/, they just might notice little things.

It's amazing how stupid most of these people on /. are about anything that doesn't have to do with Linux or MP3s.

Western union may have ended thier telegram service, but radio telegrams are still alive and well. Amateur radio service still uses RTs in emergency communications. The art of "traffic handling" as it's called is still encouraged by the ARRL. Here's a document that explains proper formatting of a radio telgram.

I can't recall the exact figures, but from memory, if it's over 200W transmitter power, then you need special permission.

It would be nice if you bothered to read Part 97 of the FCC Rules and Regulations (47 CFR 97) before you start speculating on something you obviously know too little about.

WiFi users are not required to be licensed

The first author didn't state or imply that they did. He's licensed, and so am I (and have been for 35+ years), and we know that WiFi users don't need to be.

the equipment is as mentioned earlier

Yes, BUT the user is REQUIRED to alleviate any interference to LICENSED services, which in this case is the Amateur Radio Service. And, incidentally, the Amateur Radio operates in that band as a secondary user, and must defer to the Government Radiolocation Service. So, Wi-Fi can't interfere with hams or government radars or, for that matter, anyone else.

Don't make it sound like you're doing people a favour here

The favour that we hams are doing for the general population is tolerating a large amount of injected noise in a part of the spectrum that could be used for long-haul links (using wide-band FSK, PSK or other modulation techniques not involving spread-spectrum), ATV (Amateur Television) which has been proven to be of great value to various emergency services (e.g. fire, police, search and rescue, etc.), links between voice repeaters. We even use part of the band for satellite downlinks; fortunately that small segment is not available to WiFi, but desensitization from nearby WiFi installations that exceed the allowed ERP on adjacent frequencies cause problems to the amateur community. On top of that, I'm sure that a lot of the engineers who designed Wi-Fi are licensed amateurs and are very well aware of the situation.

Oh, and BTW, we're limited to 100W when using spread spectrum, AND when we use spread spectrum, we're limited to only a few spreading sequences and they are different from Part 15 equipment. So, the onus is on us to somehow concoct our own equipment ("home-brew") since we can't just take a Part 15 SS transmitter and throw an amp on it. However, for other emissions, neither he nor I have to "request to run this kind of power (1500W) in that area" - we're allowed to already under Part 97 (subject to the general overall requirement of using only enough power needed to facilitate communications).

So, take a gander at http://www.arrl.org/FandES/field/regulations/rules -regs.html, compare Parts 15 and 97, and perhaps then you'll understand the discussion.

Yes, it goes, as I understand it, far enough above 30 MHz to interfere with public service bands. I've been a ham since 1958 and can well appreciate how, in the HF spectrum, a little bit of RF can, at times, cover huge distances. I've talked to Japan and Australia with 4 watts and a 4 foot loaded antenna on the trunk of my car at 14 MHz. If BPL ever (shudder) gets widespread, it's going to screw up a lot of the spectrum far beyond the near-field distances.

Telephones and the Internet are great, but depend on a lot of infrastructure that is very vulnerable to natural or man made disasters. Radio is still the only way to communicate over significant distances with relatively simple, self-contained, battery powered equipment. Visit the ARRL site for more information Visit the ARRL site for more information .

BPL is bad for HAM. Shame on Texas!

(Tons of reference Links)
http://www.w4ovh.net/bplinfo.htm

(Other Links)
http://www.arrl.org/tis/info/HTML/plc/

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BPLandHamRadio/

The back issues for QST were (and I think are still available) sold by the ARRL as sets on CD-Rom as PDF files, going all the way back to the 1915. I've heard that the quality varies somewhat between the different collections, in some cases the scans aren't too great and the small print (contest results especially) can be hard to read.

There are some product reviews dating into the 1980s available to ARRL members online through their web site, but not feature articles I don't think.

Back issues on CD-Rom:
http://www.arrl.org/catalog/?item=QSTV#QSTV

Some research:

• FAQ
• ARRL explanation
• Previous discussion on /.
• Blog commentary
• EHam "Call to Action"

There are other issues, but that one is by far the most contentious as shortwave communications would be disrupted - and that's bad.

Twit Romney hates ham radio.

>For example, if I can only get 50% of the way to the Shannon limit using hardware in a real-world environment, could I boost that number by ignoring symbols that are indistinguishable and just let error correction (like reed-solomon) take care of the missing parts?

Yes, it's called "coding gain" and it can be measured in dB. If you want to get the results you would have had with twice as much signal to noise ratio, you need 10*log(2)=3dB coding gain. Unfortunately, putting in forward error correction reduces the data rate or increases the bandwidth, so you need to make sure you're coming out ahead.

If you're interested in experimenting with these topics, try reading about ham radio digital modes for HF (3-30Mhz). The cost of entry is low, and with open source software such as gMFSK it's possible to do your own experimentation. You might start with this historic article that started a new set of experimentation on a phase-shift keying modulation scheme called PSK31, which packs all the power into a tiny 31Hz wide bandwidth. You can read a less technical description, or read about other modulation techniques using multiple carriers (MFSK, Olivia, which uses Walsh functions for FEC and can be copyable with low power in noisy conditions).

For a long overview of HF digital mode performance in practical circumstances, see this paper from the Radio Society of Great Britain.

There's also plenty going on in UHF as this 900 Mhz work is doing, but it's a little harder to experiment there, but if you are already comfortable building 802.11 equipment and have the skills necessary there, there's plenty to do. Some hams recently conducted Earth-Moon-Earth bounce communcations using 47GHz (which I heard one of the 24GHz pioneers say would never happen!).

And at the other end of the spectrum, US, Australian, and European hams are experimenting with LF in the 137KHz region (under special license in the US) and have made super-slow communications across the oceans. There are challenges here as well, and the data rates are extremely low, not unlike the 76KHz signal that we used to send to our nuclear submarines underwater, which I think is roughly one bit (a repeated "don't-blow-it-up don't-blow-it-up don't-blow-it-up...).

>For example, if I can only get 50% of the way to the Shannon limit using hardware in a real-world environment, could I boost that number by ignoring symbols that are indistinguishable and just let error correction (like reed-solomon) take care of the missing parts?

Yes, it's called "coding gain" and it can be measured in dB. If you want to get the results you would have had with twice as much signal to noise ratio, you need 10*log(2)=3dB coding gain. Unfortunately, putting in forward error correction reduces the data rate or increases the bandwidth, so you need to make sure you're coming out ahead.

If you're interested in experimenting with these topics, try reading about ham radio digital modes for HF (3-30Mhz). The cost of entry is low, and with open source software such as gMFSK it's possible to do your own experimentation. You might start with this historic article that started a new set of experimentation on a phase-shift keying modulation scheme called PSK31, which packs all the power into a tiny 31Hz wide bandwidth. You can read a less technical description, or read about other modulation techniques using multiple carriers (MFSK, Olivia, which uses Walsh functions for FEC and can be copyable with low power in noisy conditions).

For a long overview of HF digital mode performance in practical circumstances, see this paper from the Radio Society of Great Britain.

There's also plenty going on in UHF as this 900 Mhz work is doing, but it's a little harder to experiment there, but if you are already comfortable building 802.11 equipment and have the skills necessary there, there's plenty to do. Some hams recently conducted Earth-Moon-Earth bounce communcations using 47GHz (which I heard one of the 24GHz pioneers say would never happen!).

And at the other end of the spectrum, US, Australian, and European hams are experimenting with LF in the 137KHz region (under special license in the US) and have made super-slow communications across the oceans. There are challenges here as well, and the data rates are extremely low, not unlike the 76KHz signal that we used to send to our nuclear submarines underwater, which I think is roughly one bit (a repeated "don't-blow-it-up don't-blow-it-up don't-blow-it-up...).

>For example, if I can only get 50% of the way to the Shannon limit using hardware in a real-world environment, could I boost that number by ignoring symbols that are indistinguishable and just let error correction (like reed-solomon) take care of the missing parts?

Yes, it's called "coding gain" and it can be measured in dB. If you want to get the results you would have had with twice as much signal to noise ratio, you need 10*log(2)=3dB coding gain. Unfortunately, putting in forward error correction reduces the data rate or increases the bandwidth, so you need to make sure you're coming out ahead.

If you're interested in experimenting with these topics, try reading about ham radio digital modes for HF (3-30Mhz). The cost of entry is low, and with open source software such as gMFSK it's possible to do your own experimentation. You might start with this historic article that started a new set of experimentation on a phase-shift keying modulation scheme called PSK31, which packs all the power into a tiny 31Hz wide bandwidth. You can read a less technical description, or read about other modulation techniques using multiple carriers (MFSK, Olivia, which uses Walsh functions for FEC and can be copyable with low power in noisy conditions).

For a long overview of HF digital mode performance in practical circumstances, see this paper from the Radio Society of Great Britain.

There's also plenty going on in UHF as this 900 Mhz work is doing, but it's a little harder to experiment there, but if you are already comfortable building 802.11 equipment and have the skills necessary there, there's plenty to do. Some hams recently conducted Earth-Moon-Earth bounce communcations using 47GHz (which I heard one of the 24GHz pioneers say would never happen!).

And at the other end of the spectrum, US, Australian, and European hams are experimenting with LF in the 137KHz region (under special license in the US) and have made super-slow communications across the oceans. There are challenges here as well, and the data rates are extremely low, not unlike the 76KHz signal that we used to send to our nuclear submarines underwater, which I think is roughly one bit (a repeated "don't-blow-it-up don't-blow-it-up don't-blow-it-up...).

...Five years ago this week, the International Space Station Expedition 1 crew of US astronaut and Expedition 1 Commander William ''Shep'' Shepherd, KD5GSL, and Russian cosmonauts Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev, U5MIR, became the first humans to live aboard the ISS.

The initial Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) station gear was already aboard the space station by the time the first crew launched. Later in the month, the Expedition 1 team installed and activated the VHF gear on FM voice and packet under the US call sign NA1SS and the Russian call sign RS0ISS.

Each of the 12 crews that have lived on the ISS to conduct assembly and research activities has included at least one US radio amateur. The Expedition 12 crew Commander Bill McArthur, KC5ACR, and Russian cosmonaut Valery Tokarev will remain on the ISS until next April. Over the years, crew members have conducted nearly 200 ARISS school group contacts and numerous casual QSOs.

The satellite may well be in the Pacific Ocean. The ARRL is reporting the satellite went silent.

The Student Space Exploration and Technology Initiative (SSETI) Express satellite, sent into orbit from Russia October 27, has gone silent. "We have not heard anything from Express on UHF since last night when the telemetry seemed to indicate a very negative power budget," Graham Shirville, G3VZV, said on the AMSAT BB as he was departing Russia following the launch. "If it does not recover then it will be a sad end to a wonderful mission." Shirville said ground controllers were going to attempt a blind command of the satellite this weekend in an effort to revive the satellite, which carries an Amateur Radio package and three CubeSat picosatellites. The spacecraft had been transmitting AX.25 telemetry at 9k6 bps on 437.250 MHz. Shortly after this week's launch, Shirville had reported the satellite was in nominal mode, producing 9k6 data bursts every 18 seconds. Plans call for the satellite will be turned into a single-channel amateur FM voice Mode U/S transponder after the transmitter serves initial telemetry duty.

The article implies that if everyone has a radio that can broadcast on any frequency (via the magic of OSS), then it can't be regulated. And they can't stop anyone from having the radio, because the software will be GPLd.

Sorry, kids, but we're talking about a finite resource here. Frequencies aren't virtual, there is no magic multiplexer that will let everyone share the same bandwidth. Just imagine if someone wrote an Ethernet card driver that didn't respect the Ethernet protocol: that one card would monopolize the whole network. Hell, the FCC is already prosecuting people who don't respect the current band allocations, see here. Some people think that because they have a ham license and a 1000W amp they can broadcast whatever and whenever they want. Imagine what the situation will be like when anybody can get a radio and a 1000W (or more) amp. What's to stop people from having several radios and broadcasting on several frequencies at once? Or to stop some script kiddie from writing a simple loop to broadcast "I 4M 31337!!!1!!" starting at 50MHz and moving up 1MHz a step?

I'm with the economists one this one -- everyone is bad until proven otherwise.