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If one wants to setup an FM transmitter for non-commercial use as part of a hobby. There is always the amateur radio license:
https://www.eham.net/newham/wh...

Which allows for even higher power than the LPFM licenses which would probably be more fitting for use here.

There are also FRS and GMRS licenses that allow FM operation.

Only LPFM allows overlapping with the commercial FM spectrum though. So it would probably be good if the FCC opened another filing window, as it has been 5 years:
https://www.fcc.gov/media/radi...

If you get nostalgic for the good old days, get your ham radio license. You'll be transported back to the past by trying to interface your fancy new $kilobuck radio with a modern PC, use software that can't address virtual com ports (meaning you'll have to hope your USB converter can fake being COM 1-4), actually attempt to communicate using only 45, 300, 1200 (but never 9600) baud, and deal with other users who won't let go of 20 year old computers running Windows XP because they're still pissed off they had to learn a new UI after that whole Windows 3.1 to 95 debacle.

Oh and when someone proposes actually doing something that might modernize the hobby, they get shot down in flames.

People into ham radio are very good in posting useless and/or nasty comments in forum discussions (examples ? Just look here to begin), so they will keep aggressive users busy with endless talks, leaving other people free to discuss what really matters.

IRLP

i was wrong -- ham radios can intercept drone frequencies. http://www.eham.net/ehamforum/smf/index.php?topic=89008.0 equipping cell towers with ham receivers is easy enough in theory though.

There are better ways than censorship. Bomb detecting equipment. I always thought smoke detectors are the answer to someone yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theater. Check the sensors instead of immediately panicking?

Technology doesn't cure everything.

And in many cases, what people here claim is censorship is merely an application of common sense and manners.

I don't see an ugly woman or man and feel compelled to rush up to them and tell them they are ugly.

You just cannot go to extremes in defense of free speech. It's like any other pure ideology, because you end up at a point where you expect your right to free speech trumps someone else's right to free speech.

Note: there was an exact case of this. An amateur radio operator some years ago was broadcasting opinions and other stuff on Amateur radio frequencies. He would intentionally interfere with others on what he considered "his" frequency. If you were near "his" frequency when he exercised his freedom of speech, He'd interrupt your communications and tell you to move. If you didn't, you'd be jammed.

http://www.fcc.gov/document/us...

http://ve7kfm.com/k1man.html

http://www.eham.net/articles/9...

http://forums.qrz.com/showthre...

So for as hypothetical as that whole pile of stupidity sounds, where your freedom trumps everyone else's freedom, it has happened.

The tl;dr summary is that This guy insisted upon his freedom to do several illegal things, at the same time purposely denying others their own right to do perfectly legal things.

It's the end game, where the only person allowed to speak is the biggest, loudest asshole in the room who then won't allow you to speak.

All you young whippersnappers with your model-M keyboards (of which I happen to sport some as well) can bow to the supreme longevity of the Racal RA-17L here on the farm which still hums/hisses/squeaks/whines/bleeps/blurps happily along after 60 years. Still using the original valves (that is tubes for you 'merricuns) as well. Valves? Yes, valves. Next to the cockroaches and model-M keyboards these boat anchors will rule the earth after the apocalypse. Not that there'll be much to listen to by then, maybe a pulsar clicking somewhere or a funny noise made by a solar flare?

I have two SDR receivers myself and using them actively. The problem is not in the volume of data but having a set of data with a lot of variability to find out limits where the decoder stops working correctly. I integrated the decoder to FLDIGI with the hope that I get other hams to try this out and report back when they observe conditions where decoder stops working.

I have also created many synthetic Morse files with different speed and Signal-to-noise ratio in order to plot the performance of the decoder under controlled conditions. Testing all variations manually is pretty labor intensive work even though I have written some automated scripts to run these test sequences and plot the results.

Slightly related, here are a few threads about radio-based baby monitors causing trouble in the ham bands:

http://www.eham.net/ehamforum/smf/index.php?topic=76680.0
http://forums.qrz.com/showthread.php?310670-Bad-Baby-Monitors-on-50-125-FM
http://www.techzonez.com/forums/showthread.php/23722-HAM-Radio-and-Eavesdropping!!!!-LONG-ONE!

The first and second one are about hams tracking down the problems. The second goes into great detail on how the user of the monitor was busted by the FCC. The third is from a user of a baby monitor going full-retard.

PS - Thanks to the hard work done by the ARRL and others, amateur radio operators worldwide* will be getting a new MF band at 630m or 472-479 kHz (just below Broadcast AM radio). It's only 7 kHz wide (enough for 2-3 simultaneous SSB voice conversations). Lots of experimentation potential - now we'll see how Joe Taylor's excellent digital modes handle the unique propagation issues in that band.

*for most values of worldwide

you can already order a huge number of expensive things custom 3d printed in a vast array of metals and have them mailed to your door. I personally have purchased a set of gaming dice 3d printed from stainless steel. The same company will print in various plastics, silver, gold, or even glass and ceramic. Anything you design that will fit the dimensions their hardware can print, you can order. (they may have a ban on sexually explicit items and weapons, i've never checked). Based on that, I think the idea of printing a working circuit board is more like 5-7 years out, on an experimental scale, and 10-15 on a 'I designed this board, and they printed and mailed it to me' scale.

It would probably be trivial to etch a board with a subtractive laser device like most maker shops have. It would be easier, of course, to go to radio shack and get a DIY circuit board kit with pretty much consists of a fully copper clad board, a bottle of etchant solution, and a magic marker. I think I bought my first one about 15 years ago - they were probably around long before that.
If you require precision, you can print iron-on patters rather than hand drawing with a marker.
My point is that there are already solutions out there for this problem that are easier than 3d printing copper or some other material for circuits. Until we are able to 3d print carbon nanotubes, that is.

More info: http://www.eham.net/articles/20120

Enter Internet Radio Linking Project.
It has 1570 active nodes.

No, seriously, you can do it at home--get a ham radio license and start doing some experiments aimed at better understanding the behavior of the ionosphere (which is a plasma) and it's effects on radio wave propagation. No only could you make a significant contribution to science, you could have some fun in the process.

Here's the first in a series of articles on the topic. You might find it interesting.

visit http://www.arrl.org/, they have some introductory books available there.

even better do a search on "Clubs" and find one or more close to you and
attend some meetings. hams are always happy to recruit new people into the hobby.

if you want to dig deeper check out: http://www.eham.net/ and http://www.qrz.com/ - visit the forums on both sites for all kinds of info.

I agree -- it's not practical. Just look around: there's no other products that manage to shrink an antenna down in size, and still operate at 2.4GHz, are there?

Given the severe lack of anyone doing stuff like this, it must be impossible to use an antenna shorter than a quarter-wavelength for anything, ever. I mean, it's obvious, isn't it?

http://www.eham.net/forums/EmergencyCommunications/5917

When I first read about it, I heard one death in the convoy, but followup reporting does show the dead guy was not a ham so all the ham sites rather cavalierly report "no big deal" since the victim wasn't a ham.

"Within a few hours though, reports via the RCD Facebook page confirmed by a long telephone conversation between Hugo Ramón HI8VRS and Ramon Sanyoyo V, XE1KK reported that the HI8RCD team of eight amateurs, were back in the border town of Jimani (Dominican Republic). Their convoy, which included other non related Dominicans, was assaulted and one person reported dead."

There are still ham radio guys pounding out Morse code on CW shortwave. ( http://www.eham.net/articles/20840 ) I wouldn't bet that all old forms of communication will die out completely.'

thx om en 73 de w7com k

You can find ways to encode most anything over text only "no attachments" email.
Even if you're using a central terminal to send from, you might be able to plug in a USB
stick flash drive or something to be able to copy/paste the message contents from/to.
In that case you could just prepare pre-encoded (e.g. UUENCODEd RAR archives) messages
which are split into sub 1MB size encoded pieces on a convenient PDA/netbook/laptop/server and then copy the ASCII text of the messages as the "body" text of your email.
There are email proxied methods to do things like post to blogs (as others have mentioned), and even email mode access to FTP files and such (though you might need to modify the setup a bit to get them to send the files as non-attachments).

Finding a good deal on cellular data e.g. the blackberry / t-mobile / international roaming options mentioned above is a good idea. Maybe some places offer prepaid calling cards that can also be used to get a good deal on the data charges. Check on howardforums.com forums I'd imagine that people there would know of about every possible deal that would be applicable to your locales. I have heard of the t-mobile international roaming option mentioned above, though, previously from that site, so it probably isn't a bad option. I'm a bit surprised it's listed in conjunction with blackberries, though. maybe it is a BB specific plan, I forget. The point is, though, that you'd probably find more flexibility of programs and I/O options on an Android phone these days than many blackberries, assuming attractive rate plans are offered equally for both.

Anyway the option that I can add that I haven't seen mentioned is using radio modems with the amateur radio service. Depending on your location and equipment / usage choices you could transmit data over short distances (dozens of miles) over VHF/UHF directly to local (coastal?) repeater stations which may exist in range when you're close to land. With the appropriate antenna and gear you could use free satellites for packet mode radio connections over UHF/VHF or HF which would work almost anywhere at sea of course. You could also with the appropriate choice of gear / frequencies use HF to directly communicate over hundreds or thousands of miles and use digital packet transmissions and/or voice. You'd need an amateur radio license from your country of citizenship, which generally are trivially easy to get. For the USA it's just a multiple choice question test with a few dozen questions and the question pools (questions AND correct answers) being public information you can study in advance of taking the test.
You'd also have to do it in a way that is permitted by the ship's captain, but that's just as true as any other activity you might undertake aboard ship -- don't get in the way / be a nuisance and I'm sure it'd be fine. You'd have to constrain yourself to sending information that isn't indecent/obscene (no porn surfing) and not conduct business over it (don't be running ebay auctions), and realize that the contents of your messages might be heard/seen by others (probably not much worse privacy than using a cell phone or university email these days).
In the USA a 'Technician' license will get you any UHF/VHF privileges, useful for point to point transmissions to a repeater within dozens of miles, or useful for satellite access in some cases.
If you get a 'General' license (just a dozen or so slightly more complex test questions than for the Technician one) you can use most HF frequencies as well to allow you more world-wide direct communications.
http://www.arrl.org/arrlvec/pools.html
http://www.eham.net/exams/
http://www.arrl.org/arrlvec/license-requirements.html
http://www.arrl.org/arrlvec/examsearch.phtml

For $14 (IIRC the current test fee) and about 3 hou

I wonder if the location of the "data centers" in rural areas and near power plants actually has to do with Google's investment in BPL (broadband over power lines) technology. Perhaps Google will roll this out in a big way soon? The FCC seems to be one of the biggest cheerleaders for the technology. http://www.eham.net/articles/11388

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

Erecting towers isn't all that hard, hell I've put up 40 foot towers by myself. and I've put up 100 foot towers with 12 element,40 foot boom antennas attached to them with less than 5 people. We never had any cranes or 14 thousand pounds of concrete either. A couple pizzas is all we wanted. I even painted the very same 100 foot tower 10 years later with nothing more than a tower belt and a two by four to slide in between the rungs to hold the paint can.

But I will admit, you do need a quality tower if you are going over 100 feet. a wide base is very important. Alot of the older commercial towers were the same size from top to bottom, especially the ones over 500 feet tall. and they relied on guy wires for most of their support. Imagine climbing up a 500 foot tower? I don't think I would want to go that high, 100 foot is scary enough.

Anyone remember this story about one of the tallest structures in the united states falling down and killing two? http://www.eham.net/articles/4033

Of course, it was a 1,965 Foot Tower in Nebraska.

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.

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.

I took my exam on 10 September, and was in the FCC database by 12 September. The ARRL welcome package showed up about a week later, then another week and my official paper package from the FCC arrived. The entire process was painless. And yes, the recent disaster scenarios played into motivating me to actually go take the test.

I'm licensed Technician, but I passed all the written exams up through Amateur Extra. I studied pretty hard for the Technician exam, and I must admit that the practice exams over at eHam.net were a great help. I went to the exam session intending only to take the Technican test. I got 100% on the test, so the VEs (Volunteer Examiners) convinced me to take the General test. There's no cost, and they said "it's more of the same kind of question. You'll need to guess a bit on certain ones, but given your score on the Technician exam, you'll probably pass." So what do I have to lose? I took the test, and missed three questions. Repeat the same scenario for the Amateur Extra test. On that, I missed 13 questions, which is barely passing. But in the spirit of pass/fail college couses, D-minus is passing, so I'll take it. (Incidentally, taking the Amateur Extra exam motivated me to go back and review the question pool to see what questions I answered incorrectly and why, so it actually got me to go study some more after the fact.) My credit for the written exams lasts for 365 days, so somewhere in that period I need to learn Morse to get upgraded to full privileges.

So I agree with the Parent's statement that you should go out and get your Technician license. It's not complicated, and you should draw confidence from the fact that your survival skills are enhanced a bit. No matter how badly the power or telepone infrastructure is damaged, radio propagation still works.

The ham operators were told to wait http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2005/09/01/1/?nc= 1 >unless they were totally self suffcient. They sign up to be deployed later http://www.eham.net/articles/11874

The W1AW ham station at ARRL headquarters is testing new BPL equpiment that offers practically no inteference on ham HF bands. See how great things can work when groups learn to work together instead of just pointing their fingers at each other and yelling?

As a HAM with nothing but dialup access easily available, this is greatly encouraging. I just hope that the hams in the gulf states can mobilize quickly to start emergency communications. Fast internet connectivity dosen't seem very important when many people cannot find clean water, food or even dry land.

http://www.eham.net/articles/8929

Apparently, the FCC is adopting an arbitrary signal level standard for interfering BPL signals, rather than the clear, objective standard of "no harmful interference". If the BPL signal can be shown to be below the published Part 15 guidelines, it is deemed acceptable, EVEN IF IT COMPLETELY WIPES OUT RECEPTION on the affected ham bands. This is a MAJOR, if unofficial, policy shift AWAY from the traditional protection of licensed services from unlicensed Part 15 devices.

With the continuing death throes of ham radio, who exactly are you going to communicate with other than other hams on a pre-determined schedule (yes, I RTFA, and this is exactly what was done)? Who will be listening when an emergency comes around? In case one hasn't noticed, there is really nothing going on new and innovative in digital modes these days. And if you do find the occasional renegade website that talks about high-speed digital communications on the ham bands, good luck in actually finding another ham locally who is interested.

Where were the ham radio operators during the London blasts, when the telephone/cell networks were reportedly overloaded and in some cases unusable? In fact, when was the last time ham radio was used in an emergency situation because other modes of communications were down? (If you doubt the death of ham radio, you might want to peruse this.)

These are just some observations from a long-time ham...one of the reasons I became inactive was because I could not find other hams interested in pushing the digital envelope. That was 10 years ago...and now, I'm afraid it's too late to catch up.

This article was a good read from a nostalgic standpoint, but I don't see anything very innovative, at least innovative enough to spark my interests (again).

"Your made a statement, but not a point. Did the Federal Government depend upon your HAM radio to get the word out about 9/11?"

Actually the answer is yes, HAM radio volunteers where one of the main line of communications after 9/11. They provided nearly 100% of the comunications for the Red Cross as well as a large chunk of traffic for the government.

Here is an article about what they did: http://www.arrl.org/FandES/field/WTC.pdf

Here is an article in which the state of New Jersey Thanks them: http://www.eham.net/articles/4572

There are many more articles like this out there.

-KI4HLW

I couldn't help but notice that this is a cut & paste from WA7VTD's comment on eham.net, where a bunch of operators originally discussed this event. It's good information, but give credit where credit is due.

Spooky. That's exactly what one of the Morse code guys said about 80% of the way down this page. You must know as much about Morse as him!

(of course, if you actually are WA7VTD, please ignore my sarcasm...

I have a GlowBug 40 (new) and an HW-16 (old). Both are fun. Vacuum tubes are still quite important for high power applications.

Well, you could use a 50 watt transmitter with a VFO, and tune around until your considerable carrier blocks "his" received station. According to the FCC, that is not legal, however. If you had an "odd" antenna on your vehicle, you would be immediately suspect. You would have to use a coil to load your transmitters output to the car antenna, or just have a hidden dipole underneath your car, properly insulated, of course. The rest would be up to you, to keep a straight face, and pretend you didn't do anything. 100 watts would be better still, and would probably reach out and block that frequency, and some harmonics up and down the band, for a few hundred feet, at least. The harmonics would at short range do the job, but when you tune your VFO around looking for the main frequency, then you'll move off the signal to block while doing that.

1. BPL will eventually be regulated out of existence in the USA (by the FCC) and in Canada (by Industry Canada) due to the provable interference with the HF bands. This will not be just due to interference with ham operators - militaries still use the HF band.
2. Manufacturers of BPL equipment, and the companies that developed the technologies therein, will be desperate to recoup costs. They won't want to see zero return on investment, or get stuck with an inventory that now is only suitable to be landfilled. They will turn an eye to selling in foreign markets, focussing on countries with less laws and regulation regarding spectrum management.
3. A power utility company in one of these countries will bite, purchase, and roll out BPL.
4. The ensuing interference will affect the HF band world-wide.
5. There will be much bitter complaining from those suffering the HF interference, but in the end, they will either find a way around it, or they will effectively lose the use of the band.
6. Assuming the HF band becomes unusable world-wide due to foreign run BPL installations, there will be great pressure on the FCC to drop any domestic prohibition on the technology, and allow full roll-out here.

This satellite is barely past middle age. A quick google search finds that AO-7 is the oldest working satellite and it will turn 30 this year. Mark your calendars boys and girls. November 15 is the day when the _real_ excitement starts. I'm starting an iCal shared calendar right now so I don't forget it!

And don't let the test scare you off. Any self respecting geek ought to be able to learn the test material in a couple afternoons.

Basically, when I decided to upgrade from Advanced to Extra, I found about four different sites that supplied online practice tests. Here's one of them; here's another; and here's a third. Basically, about three times a day I took a practice test and made notes on the stuff I missed. Then, I went back and studied up on those topics. Did I memorize the answers? Well, yeah . . . but I also decided that, after thirty years as a ham, it might be a good idea if I actually figured out what a time constant was useful for, or how to read a Smith chart, or how to figure complex impedance. So, I did.

After about three weeks I was scoring 100% constantly, and aced the in-person test.

The technician test should be a complete snap. You just need to know as much about the FCC rules related to ham radio as you need to know about state motor vehicle laws in order to pass your written driver's test.

Hams are the most argumentative people on the face of the earth.

Three questions for all you hams:

- Why was morse code originally required for amatuer radio operators?

- How often is morse code used today?

- What advantages does morse code have, vs other forms of radio communication?

Most of the early gear was built by operators. There was no commercially avaible gear. You built everything by scratch, and the first radios were CW, then voice.

Despite what most non hams would love to tell you, CW is widley used on the HF bands. Why?
It is a highly efficient way of operating.

When band conditions are not optimal for voice or othe rmodes, CW usually gets through, and usually with less power. Morse is universal, so talking to that Japanese will not be a problem. When I first became licensed as a No Code Novice (teenager at the time) I too thought CW was moronic and for old times, and thought I would never use it. Then I started to read more about things like QRP (5 watts or less) and home brew gear and my interest in CW grew.

Go visit sites like Small Wonder Labs or Nor Cal QRP kits and take a look at some of these high quality CW battery operated kits. Were talking a handfull of parts, battery operated, less than a couple of watts and you could literally work the world all within a few Khz of band space. Some of these kit's are availble for under 40 bucks, and can be built in one night with some hand tools and a low wattage soldering iron. Now go read the reviews of some of these "kits" compared to high priced, bells and whistles laden, rush to market, poor quality control, consumer rigs.

Some of the younger people (ages 9-18) trying to get into the hobby today just don't have thousands to spend on a new all-in-one 100 watt radio. Some of these people are also turned off to the fact that they'll become appliance operators. They could just surf the net at 1Mb instead.

So in respects to CW, some folks don't look at the BIG picture when it come to this antiquated mode.

Some of our worst nightmares came true on Sept. 11, and it was a disaster on a grand scale. But what if there was a disaster on a national or even planetary scale? Isn't bulletproof, battery operated worldwide communications with a simple wire antenna sound like a great idea?

I don't have any objections to having CW dropped as a requirment, but I do think that if it does happen, people will eventually want the CW portions of the HF band turned over to other modes, which I object to.

Three questions for all you hams:

- Why was morse code originally required for amatuer radio operators?

- How often is morse code used today?

- What advantages does morse code have, vs other forms of radio communication?

Most of the early gear was built by operators. There was no commercially avaible gear. You built everything by scratch, and the first radios were CW, then voice.

Despite what most non hams would love to tell you, CW is widley used on the HF bands. Why?
It is a highly efficient way of operating.

When band conditions are not optimal for voice or othe rmodes, CW usually gets through, and usually with less power. Morse is universal, so talking to that Japanese will not be a problem. When I first became licensed as a No Code Novice (teenager at the time) I too thought CW was moronic and for old times, and thought I would never use it. Then I started to read more about things like QRP (5 watts or less) and home brew gear and my interest in CW grew.

Go visit sites like Small Wonder Labs or Nor Cal QRP kits and take a look at some of these high quality CW battery operated kits. Were talking a handfull of parts, battery operated, less than a couple of watts and you could literally work the world all within a few Khz of band space. Some of these kit's are availble for under 40 bucks, and can be built in one night with some hand tools and a low wattage soldering iron. Now go read the reviews of some of these "kits" compared to high priced, bells and whistles laden, rush to market, poor quality control, consumer rigs.

Some of the younger people (ages 9-18) trying to get into the hobby today just don't have thousands to spend on a new all-in-one 100 watt radio. Some of these people are also turned off to the fact that they'll become appliance operators. They could just surf the net at 1Mb instead.

So in respects to CW, some folks don't look at the BIG picture when it come to this antiquated mode.

Some of our worst nightmares came true on Sept. 11, and it was a disaster on a grand scale. But what if there was a disaster on a national or even planetary scale? Isn't bulletproof, battery operated worldwide communications with a simple wire antenna sound like a great idea?

I don't have any objections to having CW dropped as a requirment, but I do think that if it does happen, people will eventually want the CW portions of the HF band turned over to other modes, which I object to.

Here is an article at eham.net with one hams viewpoint and lots of comments. his bottom line - don't sweat the dropping of code requirement.

K9JRW

I don't want to sound troll. But this thing (ethernet over power lines) has been freaking out ham radio operators all over the world for quite some time. Look for example here [eham.net]. And based on the law "if the shit can happen it certainly will" this will bring EMI problems to all equipment that is connected to or in the vicinty of the jack in the wall. Your TVs your stereos your computers etc.

Besides have anybody of had to deal with power companies? Do you really want THEM to provide your internet connection? Or even being involved in providing one.

Time and time again it returns (and will keep returning) to the simple truth. You need an adequate infrastructure to provide high speed Internet.

In the beginning of DSL I kept hearing a lot of strange things going against physics. Such as UTP (unshielded twisted pair) is better than coaxial cable etc. Well guess what, being entirely untrue this is not the end of the story. The pair that runs the phone line in your home/appartment is not even twisted, its flat (and it's CAT 3 most of the time to the central office).

It took huge amount of money to put power lines, phone lines and CATV into every home. And the companies that were doing that were cutting costs like crazy. Which means that nobody ever thought that someday it will be used for something else besides its initial purpose. And again based on the law I mentioned in the beginning it will be probably the worst case scenario for anytiing else. In case of DSLs that certainly is crosstalk and EMI and also distance. For example in my case no DSL provider does even want to install it for me citing that I am too far from central office.

Personally I think the interrim winners of all this will be the cable companies. Just because the people who decided to get broadband internet access usually go all the way once they've set to have it. Most people I know who started with DSL eventually just switch to cable modems. But eventually every body will lose because again CATV was not intended for anything else. (Just an example untill recently CATV equipment manufacturers were refusing to use multilayered PCBs because it was "too expensive"). So this is it. People just keep their heads in the body cavities of their choice and keep selling each other a snake oil.

On the other hand. It would be actually nice (especially with current situation in tech sector of economy) if we'd start laying fiber to the home and/or build sane infrastructure for wireless access.

Just my $0.02

I don't want to sound troll. But this thing (ethernet over power lines) is freaking out ham radio operators all over the world. Look for example here. And based on the law "if the shit can happen it certainly will" this will bring EMI problems to all equipment that is connected to or in the vicinty of the jack in the wall. Your TVs your stereos your computers etc.

Besides have anybody of had to deal with power companies? Do you really want THEM to provide your internet connection? Or even being involved in providing one.

Time and time again it returns (and will keep returning) to the simple truth. You need an adequate infrastructure to provide high speed Internet.

In the beginning of DSL I kept hearing a lot of strange things going against physics. Such as UTP (unshielded twisted pair) is better than coaxial cable etc. Well guess what, being entirely untrue this is not the end of the story. The pair that runs the phone line in your home/appartment is not even twisted, its flat (and it's CAT 3 most of the time to the central office).

It took huge amount of money to put power lines, phone lines and CATV into every home. And the companies that were doing that were cutting costs like crazy. Which means that nobody ever thought that someday it will be used for something else besides its initial purpose. And again based on the law I mentioned in the beginning it will be probably the worst case scenario for anytiing else. In case of DSLs that certainly is crosstalk and EMI and also distance. For example in my case no DSL provider does even want to install it for me citing that I am too far from central office.

Personally I think the interrim winners of all this will be the cable companies. Just because the people who decided to get broadband internet access usually go all the way once they've set to have it. Most people I know who started with DSL eventually just switch to cable modems. But eventually every body will lose because again CATV was not intended for anything else. (Just an example untill recently CATV equipment manufacturers were refusing to use multilayered PCBs because it was "too expensive"). So this is it. People just keep their heads in the body cavities of their choice and keep selling each other a snake oil.

On the other hand. It would be actually nice (especially with current situation in tech sector of economy) if we'd start laying fiber to the home and/or build sane infrastructure for wireless access.

Just my $0.02

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this is KF8QE

First off you must be ham radio operator. Since these all operate above 50Mhz, this means you can get by with a Tech license which is no code, just study and pass the written test. Sites to check for ham radio licensing info include E-Ham and the ARRL.

Second, any system with more that 1 watt output must be under automatic control so that only enough power as required to compleate the communication is used. You just can't pump out 100 watts to go next door. Not that 100 watts at 2.4Ghz is easy to come by...

The nice thing is that is looks like you don't even have to touch some of the boards to do this. Talk to the manufacture, show them your license and they'll set you up with boards in the ham bands right off the bat! Nice!

BWP

If you are going to be a proud Linux ham at least recommend a site that runs Linux. Eham.net Qrz.com uses Sun systems and while they now use slashcode they have removed such nice features as anonymous posting.

This site has great links to solar information. The solar flux for the past 24 hours has been up to 232, about the highest I've seen for this cycle.