This is somewhat, Off Topic but it is an important issue in a country that used to have respect for the Bill of Rights, but sadly they are being chipped away. The Bill of Rights were intended as limitation on government, i.e., what government could NOT do to citizens. Now one has to be very careful what you say and who you say it to as telecommunications, probably including this one, are being monitored for potential content, keywords, etc.
Amateur radio is a great resource for emergency communications but I don't see the HF digital part of it all that valuable except in very rare situations. And it is difficult to allocate resources and exercise it frequently for something that will probably never happen. Having a mostly HF digital store and forward system was once a reality with the Aplink and later the Winlink and Netlink systems, but they were disbanded and there has been very little interest in reestablishing such as system. Emergencies normally require rapid tactical communication for a short time until other resources are brought in by public and private agencies and companies. The one exception might be extreme widespread situations such as hurricanes or if you lost complete telecommunications between a local EOC and state EOC, but this means no landlines, no internet fiber, no satellites, and that is not very likely to happen except in a near doomsday situation and most of us would be scrambling for our own survival. Maybe something like the current "Jericho" series on U.S. TV that apparently portrays some kind of nuclear attack and destruction of most of the U.S. I will also ask the question again: If we had the ability to send high speed digital data on HF, what would we be sending to each other that we don't do now? 73, Rick, KV9U w6ids wrote: >Well, you're right IMHO, however, there's something more. Generally, in >this >country we've sacrificed personal freedoms by virtue of the DHS and the >Patriot Act, yet no one has complained yet. > >Any interest by EMCOMM folks or anyone else who would entertain the >notion of giving away something else to the DHS for any reason such as >you addressed worries me greatly. We're not a commercial service nor >should we even try to act like one. > >Digital Radio and all other forms of technology we help develop should >remain within the real scope of this HOBBY. If we help EMCOMM in >some fashion, super. If volunteering our services to the extent we have >available, kudos to us. But leave it at that and don't sacrifice anything >more of our valuable resources. We're already out of sync with the >rest of the world, again IMHO for whatever that's worth. > >Howard W6IDS >Richmond, IN > >----- Original Message ----- >From: jgorman01 >To: [email protected] >Sent: Friday, December 01, 2006 10:35 PM >Subject: [digitalradio] Re: USA: No Advanced Digital HF Data Comms > >Your argument isn't logical. > >If the NGO's don't have the resources to use the frequencies they >currently have assigned, where would the resources come from to allow >them to use amateur service frequencies reassigned to the land >fixed/mobile service? > > > > >
