Here in Australia, there are a number of people interested in doing some mountaintopping on D-STAR. There's also a CB group that have been doing long distance (without the aid of skywave) message relaying between mountain tops on the HF and UHF CB bands. Distances achieved from end to end are in the order of 1000km. I, myself, have been at the extreme end of that network, accepting the incoming message 450km from Melbourne and 800km from it's origin in Tasmania, then initiating the reply chain.
Your proposal sounds like a marriage between the above and D-STAR. I might float the idea here as well, and see what sort of coverage can be achieved with a chain of relay stations on simplex. Sent from my iPhone On 01/07/2010, at 10:12 PM, "htwrobel" <[email protected]> wrote: > > > DStar is a really terrific new technology for the ham community. The > innovative use of gateways and reflectors has made possible an easy, > convenient wide area network where hams from around the country (and the > world) can talk. I love the mode, but I have been wondering why the simplex > side has been largely ignored. > > > Given the high audio quality and somewhat improved range over traditional FM > in the VFH / UHF bands I wonder what might be accomplished in a purely > simplex manner. Given the recent awareness of the possibility of cyber > attacks on the internet, or the possibility of solar events damaging the > network infrastructure I wondered what DStar might offer as a partial > solution. > > > > As test of the capabilities of DStar I have wondered if it would be possible > to pass a message from corner-to-corner across the country, say from Boston > to San Deigo. Some folks say it can't be done, some think it might work. I > would like to try. > > > > I envision something like the 'wave' at a stadium. (remember the RADIO RELAY > part of ARRL?) Everyone gets a chance to play. > > > > Here is the outline of the proposed experiment. > > > > On a selected date, with lots of advance notice, a message will be sent from > a Boston station operating on the local simplex frequency. That message would > then be passed to as many other stations as possible. > > > > The rules are really pretty simple – pass the message via simplex to any > station south and/or west of your own position. Basically we need to contact > stations with a grid square lower than our own, or a local station in the > same grid that is south and west. > > > > I propose that the experiment be conducted on some convenient day – like > Sunday morning, with a two to three hour window in the local time zone. > > > > The message exchange will simple be the (short) message, callsign, and > gridsquare. The submitted QSl data should include the time and frequency as > well. > > > > If we can collect all the QSL info from each operator we could look for all > sorts of interesting data like longest single hop, most messages sent, most > messages received, highest miles-per-hour, fewest hops per mile, activity by > state and probably a bunch more. I would love to crunch the data and make it > available to the Dstar community. > > > > I have a lot of questions so I'm looking for any suggestions or help the > group can provide. Some questions are: > > > > 1. When is the best time to try such an experiment? > > 2. Would it make sense to try it more than once, maybe every two months, > maybe alternating direction? > > 3. What to do when the chain is broken? This is a big one since it wouldn't > be much fun the have half the country waiting for a new station to fill in a > blank space. I'm really stumped by this one. Is there some sensible way to > start a new message on the far side of a broken chain? I suspect someone in > our group has the answer. > > 4. How to report contacts to some central site. I'm sure the contest folks > know exactly how to do this, but I really don't know the mechanics of > collecting QSL data. > > > > Anyway, I hope this might start some discussion that can get the experiment > launched. > > > > Thanks & 73 > > > > Ted W1GRI > > > > > > > > > >
