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This is the way to go. In the beginning was the bit and it was good. Start with looking at CW (Morse code) on a waterfall display, then other modes, these relatively simple modes are the building blocks of almost all after them. Here are some tools to help:

http://www.websdr.org/ - MANY web enabled SDR rigs with a java app that includes a waterfall.

http://software.muzychenko.net/eng/vac.htm - Virtual Audio Cable software to make audio from previous app available to a lot more apps.

http://hfradio.org.uk/html/digital_modes.html
http://wb8nut.com/digital/
http://members.storm.ca/~ve3iay/digital.html - Some examples and basic info.

This will get the ball rolling in increasingly complex modes of transmission...then you begin to throw in real complexity by going over how some of this good old tech was made into the modern internet. Remember this is where the TCP in TCP/IP came from. If your area has an active VHF packet network that will keep her busy for a few years at least. There is a BBS on the space station she can use too (callsign RS0ISS-11, AR1SS, RS0ISS-3).

Have fun.

Do some research..

Does this look like a canadian wireless network thats not Bell/Rogers/Telus ?

http://www.storm.ca/map_wireless.html

Yup yup AHUUUUUh

Check out the pictures. Great car in great shape. Currently in winter storage.

http://www.storm.ca/~cfielding/rx7/

My parents bought a Storm line-of-site system up in the Ottawa Valley area and it's been nothing but trouble. They were having sporadic access with their dish and the help-desk personnel told them to turn off their 802.11b router because the dish was randomly selecting the same channel ID as their router and it was 'confusing' their dish.

My advice to you: get in touch with the Storm.ca people. Find out what they use. And avoid it. IRC

Living in the sticks doesn't necessarily mean you can't get DSL. Check out Storm's coverage for Eastern Ontario.

Any number of bits is enough to go from inaudible to the pain threshold, but the more bits, the less quantization error.

This is not so, if you wish to maintain acuracy of faint high piched sounds on top of loud low pitch sounds. You need linear (not companded) representation to do this. Another way to look at this is to say that if you set the energy level of the LSB to be the lowest audible sound, then every additional bit will allow a doubling of amplitude. If you know what amplitude you want to go to, you can calculate exactly how many bits you will need.

In fact, going from a quiet room (40db) to the uncomfortably loud sound and possibly harmful level of operating a vacuum cleaner (70db) is arguably enough. Since sound energy doubles every 3 db, one bit is needed to represent each additional 3db. So a 30 db range needs 2^10 or 10 bits, and covers most of the useful range, if your data is properly scaled.

I know some people like to listen to music at louder than 70db, rock music is often up to 100db at a concert. That would need 70db of range, or 23 bits, but only if the noise floor were as quiet as your livingroom. More likely, the noise floor at a concert is 50db or higher. 16 bit (or 48 db) above that is 98 db.

I'm not saying more bits aren't better for reproduction in theory, I'm just saying that once the information is reproduced better than the speakers can do, or the people can hear, then you can stop. I would welcome a reference to any double-blind studies you know of that show 24 bit can be distinguished from 16 bit.

You might want to look at Storm Internet, they're providing wireless service outside of Ottawa, and they're still expanding.

Storm does it... the setup price last I checked was about $450 ($3.00 USD) but it seemed to be very good service and speed. (comparable to @Home)

I just never checked it out, but it seems that here in Canada, Ottawa is 'wire-less' too.

Finally, an Internet connection for my car!

Okay the satellite dish on the vehicle is a little much, anyway to use this connection will being able to pretty much hide the electronics? Actually I will answer my own question, it might be possible to hide this away.

Finally, an Internet connection for my car!

Okay the satellite dish on the vehicle is a little much, anyway to use this connection will being able to pretty much hide the electronics? Actually I will answer my own question, it might be possible to hide this away.

Disclaimer: I do own shares in Storm Internet's parent company.

There are some people in Ottawa, Canada, doing just that with the schools in the region with varying degrees of success. The project is organized by Milan Budimirovic at milan.budimirovic@sympatico.ca or Dave Neil cricket@storm.ca

More info can be obtained from OCLUG: Ottawa Carleton Linux Users Group

cheers,
El Malo