Hi Bill, Do you have some thoughts on how an amateur mesh network would be better than non-ham? Maybe less congestion? But in some areas, no one near enough to connect to?
Over the years, I have had one of my students who took one of my ham classes and expressed an interest in some kind of community network. He lives on a farm like I do, so we are not that close to other hams (5 - 10 miles is about the closest), assuming that the nearest hams would even consider mesh networking. I am skeptical that enough hams would have this interest though I probably would try it if we could get some interest. Is there any readily available software at this time? SDR is growing well and it seems to primarily be oriented toward HF rigs at this point (Flex Radio and other architectures of competing products). I don't see any possible interest in higher speed links from the hams I have spoken with, but maybe your area has enough for a "critical mass" of interest? With internet access (wired or wireless) of 1 Mbps, some more and some less, it would be impossible to compete with that anymore with anything we could possibly set up on the ham bands. As I mentioned earlier, there has to be a reason for adopting new technology. While you may have the bleeding edge folks doing it ... just to do it ... that won't provide enough for that critical mass. I base this on over 40 years since I first started hamming and SWLing, experimenting, etc. We have had an amazing number of changes, but I have found exceedingly few hams like myself. In fact, a peer of mine and I were just discussing this in the last few days. The new hams are not necessarily technologically oriented. They just want something that is primarily plug and play and just works. In most cases that means a 2 meter FM rig. Ultrawide modes would be anything that exceeds current rules or takes up a large percentage of a band. Normally, the widest modes tend to be a communications quality phone bandwidth. Some modes can exceed that with higher speed, such as 9k6 or faster packet. Whether the rules are antiquated or not, that is what we must follow unless some one petitions for change or as I mentioned, gets an STA from the FCC if you live in the U.S. Few hams would ever support wider modes on 2 meters and below than we already have. The rules seem about right as they are in terms of bandwidth. My big beef is that we are limited on the type of data we can transmit, depending upon the part of the band we are operating. That is simply nuts now that we can transmit phone and image digitally and yet can not transmit data/RTTY but I am in the extreme minority on that one it seems:( The widest modes have been FSTV, but few hams do that so it is tolerable to allow multi MHz bandwidths for a local frequency. I have not seen any ham modes much wider than that. And you can not use such modes below the 440 band. Going to higher bands is possible, but as you note, the propagation distance becomes a major impediment. As we all know, who have used WiFi and WiMax systems over multi-mile distances, everything has to be mostly line of sight. Bottom line question is what is really practical and adds to our capabilities that will be used? Nothing wrong with idealism, but practical matters often trump everything else. What will I be able to do with a high speed network that I can not do now? And why will this appeal to other hams? It seems to me that what we really need are not wide modes, but adaptable modes that change automatically for the constantly changing conditions on HF. VHF and up could run faster modes all the time since the propagation is more stable. You mention QAM 64. Surely you are aware that this has been available as a sound card mode for several years with a relatively easy to use program that handles QAM 4, QAM 16, and QAM 64 and can send and receive error free files from one to many and has after the fact ARQ? 73, Rick, KV9U Bill V WA7NWP wrote: >> What do you think such a mode would be used for, Bill? >> > > The latest brainstorming is a community mesh network. Put a little > box in the attic with Ethernet on one side and an antenna on the > other. Build a whole VPN with video, vip, whatever.. Given the > bits the options are endless. If the price is reasonable many hams > in any neighborhood would participate. > > >> I have increasing doubts about what hams really want with new modes or >> capabilities. It does not seem to be improved speeds or accuracy based >> on what they actually use, compared to what is actually available right now. >> > > There's some impressive activity on the SDR front. Given more RF bits > we'd see a lot of the old guard come back to play.. The current > 1200/9600/56000 was getting long in the tooth in the mid 90's. It's > time to breakloose > > > >> There has to be some purpose for having a higher speeds. Also, there >> seems to be no exceptions where a higher speed leads to greatly improved >> robustness. Even the fastest modes that can adjust for conditions, >> generally revert to a minimal number of tones, with a good example >> being Pactor 3. >> >> How far can you expect an ultra wide bandwidth mode to propagate? >> > > Ultrawide ? Ultra wide is megahertz... 100's of kilohertz is > barely getting beyond 90's.. In the real world anyway. > > We > >> already have relatively high speed modes that don't even require a ham >> license. >> > > Yup and getting better by the week.. > > >> You are not going to be able to run 192 kHz modes on 2 meters >> and lower without some kind of STA here in the U.S. >> > > Or permanent change to the archaic rules we operate under now. Given > the readily available technology - the changes will happen. > > The only interest > >> might be FSTV. >> > > Or lets throw some QAM256 on it and do real video... I turned on my > Comcast digital cable yesterday and the change is way impressive. > > I have done some experimenting on 2.4 GHz with WiFi type > >> image transmissions from a portable set up to a laptop computer, but it >> is not very compelling. >> > > Range is way too short unless heroic measures are taken.. > > > > This is, believe it or not, the best time for ham radio. Technologies > and the hardware to use it have never been better. > > >> Rick, KV9U >> > >
