Fifth pillar
KØHB
.. On Saturday, May 17 at the Dayton Hamvention, ARRL President
.. Joel Harrison, W5NZ, plans to announce that the League will expand
.. its identity program to include greater emphasis on technology.
.. Harrison explained that "Ham radio operators, and particularly
.. ARRL members, closely identify with current and emerging radio
.. technology. Today, we are naming 'technology' as ARRL's new
.. fifth pillar."
If ARRL will put enough weight into this idea that it can gain traction, I feel
this may be the key to a renewed health for our hobby.
What can we do to help?
--
73, de Hans, K0HB
--
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Michael Coslo
> Quoting from an ARRL news release
>
> .. On Saturday, May 17 at the Dayton Hamvention, ARRL President
> .. Joel Harrison, W5NZ, plans to announce that the League will expand
> .. its identity program to include greater emphasis on technology.
> .. Harrison explained that "Ham radio operators, and particularly
> .. ARRL members, closely identify with current and emerging radio
> .. technology. Today, we are naming 'technology' as ARRL's new
> .. fifth pillar."
>
> If ARRL will put enough weight into this idea that it can gain traction, I feel
> this may be the key to a renewed health for our hobby.
I think this is a good idea. I'm not so sure that Amateur Radio is
unhealthy though.
> What can we do to help?
I'm all about technology. I do want it to be relevant, not just
technology for it's own sake.
Good technology:
Getting more people on narrow digital modes.
I still want a PSK31 HT. Young people like to text. Having an HT that
can display text that costs nothing beyond the initial cost of the HT,
and the cost of charging batteries.
Oh yeah, while we're at it, I don't know if that HT with the camera is
still being produced
As much as I prefer regular transceivers, SDR radio would be a pretty
interesting way to go. Big hint to the mfgr's: Sell something usable
that isn't a kilobuck+. I saw the ones out at Dayton, and a better price
point is advised.
Keep on moving with the computer enhanced stuff.
Technology that is so-so.
I've seen a lot about the new Digital voice and data modes such as
D-Star. Lots of investment needed there, and although the transmission
of data is kinda cool, I have concerns about multipath. Isn't as much of
a problem for old school FM. Also while I like the idea of sending data,
I think that digital voice is kind of underwhelming, unless we
subscribe to the view that "it's digital - It's better".
D-Star might need a big kick start, such as emergency groups purchasing
repeaters, and maybe some initial users getting some help. Otherwise
people who want to put up a digital repeater (note, not a digipeater)
might be going to a lot of expense to talk to one or two friends.
- 73 de Mike N3LI -
an old friend
> KØHB wrote:
> > Quoting from an ARRL news release
snip.
>
> I still want a PSK31 HT. Young people like to text. Having an HT that
> can display text that costs nothing beyond the initial cost of the HT,
> and the cost of charging batteries.
id love one too
>
> Oh yeah, while we're at it, I don't know if that HT with the camera is
> still being produced
>
if you mean the kenwood vc-h1 it was more of a speaker mike but no it
is not in in production
if you mean another unti i don't know
KØHB
>
> I'm all about technology. I do want it to be relevant, not just
> technology for it's own sake.
>
"Relevant" is a moving target, Mike. I think we >>should<< encourage technology
"just for it's own sake".
Some percentage (invariably a LARGE percentage) mosly likely will end up no more
than a technical curiousity (for the moment, anyhow). But if ARRL can light a
technological campfire for us to gather round, even small percentages of PBI's
maturing will justify the effort.
> Good technology:
>
> Getting more people on narrow digital modes.
>
> I still want a PSK31 HT. Young people like to text. Having an HT that
> can display text that costs nothing beyond the initial cost of the HT,
> and the cost of charging batteries.
>
> Oh yeah, while we're at it, I don't know if that HT with the camera is
> still being produced
>
None of that is new technology, Mike, just "more of the same old stuff in a
different sack". "Texting" and "cameras in an HT" are mass marketed by the
millions and already owned by every bubble-gummer in the country who has access
to a cheap cell phone!
> As much as I prefer regular transceivers, SDR radio would be a pretty
> interesting way to go. Big hint to the mfgr's: Sell something usable
> that isn't a kilobuck+. I saw the ones out at Dayton, and a better price
> point is advised.
Hopefully this new "pillar" isn't about hints to >>manufacturers<< defining
their product offerings, but about fostering an amateur radio environment which
breeds a spirit of experimentation and tinkering among >>amateur licensees<<.
I want to see more pages of ham-authored articles in QEX, not more commercial
advertising in QST.
Hopefully this new "pillar" is about petitions to FCC to loosen up our spectrum
to new modes and techniques. Back when ARRL/FCC were haggling about how to
refarm the so-called "Novice bands", I suggested that they be set up as
experimental reservations where forward looking amateurs would be encouraged to
try new or unconventional technologies. Instead, FCC copped out and just
shuffled some mode-boundaries around.
What an opportunity lost!
Perhaps it's time to send a new copy of my remarks to FCC. See below.
73, de Hans, K0HB
Grand Exhalted Liberator of the Fumes of Solder
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Before the
Federal Communications Commission
Washington, DC 20554
In the Matter of )
)
Amendment of Part 97 of the Commission's ) RM-10413
Amateur Service Rules Governing )
Operating Privileges )
)
PERSONAL COMMENTS OF HANS BRAKOB, K0HB
OVERVIEW
These comments are in response to the ARRL proposal for "refarming"
the existing HF "Novice sub-bands".
I. Discussion:
The ARRL petition does not address the implementation of
new technologies as repeatedly requested by the Commission in
WT Docket 98-143. It simply proposes to eliminate the Novice
segments and reshuffle that spectrum among existing legacy
modes. Rather than gain consensus, the ARRL polling method
produced a popularity poll among several non-responsive (to
98-143) choices.
Rather than just "more of the same old stuff", I propose
that the Commission take this opportunity to provide the
Amateur Radio service with a new incentive to concentrate
on paragraph 97.1(b) of the Commission's Rules.
97.1(b) Continuation and extension of the amateur's proven
ability to contribute to the advancement of the
radio art.
While I agree that the declining Novice license population
no longer justifies several significant chunks of spectrum
as a "reservation" for improving their Morse skills, and that
these "reservations" have outlived their regulatory purpose,
I propose that we retain these 50-year old "reservations" and
convert them to a new purpose which will ensure the future
Amateur Radio service continues our "proven ability to
contribute to the advancement".
II Proposal:
A. To "de-populate" the current Novice segments, I propose
that all Novice (and Technician with code credit) licensees
be authorized to use Morse code in the same band segments
now authorized for General class licensees.
B. I propose that the current Novice sub-bands be set aside
as a new "Experimental Reservation" for non-traditional
and experimental modes such as digitized voice, digitized
image, and other "forward looking" communications methods.
C. I propose that the current power output level of 200W
be retained for those segments, and additionally propose
that transmitters in those segments must be equipped with
auto-adaptive circuitry to reduce output to the lowest
level consistent with reliable communications.
D. I recommend that the Commission grant broad discretion
to amateurs operating in this "experimental reservation"
as to innovative modulation schemes and non-traditional
technologies.
Respectfully,
H. Hans Brakob, K0HB
Michael Coslo
> On May 19, 7:13 pm, Michael Coslo <m...@psu.edu> wrote:
>
>> I'm all about technology. I do want it to be relevant, not just
>> technology for it's own sake.
>>
>
> "Relevant" is a moving target, Mike. I think we >>should<< encourage technology
> "just for it's own sake".
Keeping in mind that some technology is a dead end.
> Some percentage (invariably a LARGE percentage) mosly likely will end up no more
> than a technical curiousity (for the moment, anyhow). But if ARRL can light a
> technological campfire for us to gather round, even small percentages of PBI's
> maturing will justify the effort.
>
>> Good technology:
>>
>> Getting more people on narrow digital modes.
>>
>> I still want a PSK31 HT. Young people like to text. Having an HT that
>> can display text that costs nothing beyond the initial cost of the HT,
>> and the cost of charging batteries.
>>
>> Oh yeah, while we're at it, I don't know if that HT with the camera is
>> still being produced
>>
>
> None of that is new technology, Mike, just "more of the same old stuff in a
> different sack". "Texting" and "cameras in an HT" are mass marketed by the
> millions and already owned by every bubble-gummer in the country who has access
> to a cheap cell phone!
So much of what we use is not terribly new. Certainly SSB was around a
long time before Amateurs adopted it in large numbers. Technology is not
just about what is cutting edge, but is often about can be done
efficiently and at a good cost. While PSK has been around for a while,
availability of computers/soundcards/software to allow Hams to
experiment with it was critical to having many adopt it.
>
>> As much as I prefer regular transceivers, SDR radio would be a pretty
>> interesting way to go. Big hint to the mfgr's: Sell something usable
>> that isn't a kilobuck+. I saw the ones out at Dayton, and a better price
>> point is advised.
>
> Hopefully this new "pillar" isn't about hints to >>manufacturers<< defining
> their product offerings, but about fostering an amateur radio environment which
> breeds a spirit of experimentation and tinkering among >>amateur licensees<<.
>
> I want to see more pages of ham-authored articles in QEX, not more commercial
> advertising in QST.
The RF world is fairly mature at this point. (please no comparisons to
that physicist who said "everything is known") The earth shaking
developments tend to come a little further apart these days. I would
guess that most new innovations will be incremental, though it would be
cool to be proven incorrect on that.
I just don't know how many fundamental breakthroughs will be made by
some Ham working in his or her garage.
More to the point in my mature technology outlook is that when something
gets to that point, much of the research and innovation needs a fair
amount of money put into it to get very far.
> Hopefully this new "pillar" is about petitions to FCC to loosen up our spectrum
> to new modes and techniques. Back when ARRL/FCC were haggling about how to
> refarm the so-called "Novice bands", I suggested that they be set up as
> experimental reservations where forward looking amateurs would be encouraged to
> try new or unconventional technologies. Instead, FCC copped out and just
> shuffled some mode-boundaries around.
I wouldn't argue about your idea. I think it is pretty sensible. There
would probably be a lot of hand wringing about it by some folk, I suspect.
Mark Kramer
My God, why? APRS has a texting mode. The technology is in place and
well-defined. A two-second burst of 1200 baud packet, even assuming a 500 ms
TXDELAY, has more text than a standard SMS. That's more than 50 seconds at
PSK31. Who's going to install the PSK31 digipeaters? Who is going to develop
the technology to determine that a PSK31 signal that is 100Hz off the correct
frequency should be digipeated while one that is 50Hz off should not? (1kHz
error in an FM HT is common. 1kHz error in PSK31 is a completely different
QSO.)
>Oh yeah, while we're at it, I don't know if that HT with the camera is
>still being produced
Ever try sending an image at 1200 baud?
>As much as I prefer regular transceivers, SDR radio would be a pretty
>interesting way to go. Big hint to the mfgr's: Sell something usable
>that isn't a kilobuck+. I saw the ones out at Dayton, and a better price
>point is advised.
Volume means low price. High price means no volume. Yeah, a $100 SDR HT
would be great. It also has more than $100 of parts in it. That $0.10 diode
detector is replaced by a $30 DSP chip.
>I've seen a lot about the new Digital voice and data modes such as
>D-Star. Lots of investment needed there, and although the transmission
>of data is kinda cool, I have concerns about multipath.
But you're the guy who wants texting via PSK31? D-STAR texting, bad. PSK31
texting, good?
>D-Star might need a big kick start, such as emergency groups purchasing
>repeaters,
Sorry, but at $10,000 starting, our emergency group isn't going to be
buying one. The fact we have no open repeater space, and the cost of a
D-STAR radio, makes it certain that D-STAR is a non-starter here.
>people who want to put up a digital repeater (note, not a digipeater)
>might be going to a lot of expense to talk to one or two friends.
I thought I'd like to buy an ID-1 when it came out. At $3000 (one for me,
one for someone to talk to) I said "no thanks".
Phil Kane
>D-Star might need a big kick start, such as emergency groups purchasing
>repeaters, and maybe some initial users getting some help. Otherwise
>people who want to put up a digital repeater (note, not a digipeater)
>might be going to a lot of expense to talk to one or two friends.
The State of Oregon is putting out six figures to provide for a D-Star
EMCOMM network and a Pactor network. It's being pushed by several
folks who got either ICOM or the State or both to subsidize their
personal D-Star radios and/or are "blessed with resources" to get one
on their own. Not counting my HF rig, I have five radios for voice
comms: a VHF and a UHF in the home comm room, my mobile, my HT, and my
"grab-and-go". Who is going to subsidize that? I surely can't.
Pactor is fine - my setup works at minimal cost- as long as it's
Pactor I. The cost of the proprietary modem for Pactor II and III is
in the high three figures if not four by now with the falling dollar.
My perennial "what hath technology wrought" rant....
--
73 de K2ASP - Phil Kane
>From a Clearing in the Silicon Forest
Beaverton (Washington County) Oregon
e-mail: k2asp [at] arrl [dot] net
Steve Bonine
> . . . Not counting my HF rig, I have five radios for voice
> comms: a VHF and a UHF in the home comm room, my mobile, my HT, and my
> "grab-and-go". Who is going to subsidize that? I surely can't.
>
> Pactor is fine - my setup works at minimal cost- as long as it's
> Pactor I. The cost of the proprietary modem for Pactor II and III is
> in the high three figures if not four by now with the falling dollar.
>
> My perennial "what hath technology wrought" rant....
My misgivings in this area are related more to the complexity of the
technology, although the cost is certainly a consideration.
My experience in real disaster situations suggests that simple is better
and that much of the reason to have amateur radio participation is tied
to the simplicity of the gear that we use. The reason we're there in
the first place is that the commercial infrastructure isn't functioning.
Tying our operations to high-tech equipment puts us in the same realm
as what we're there to replace.
My experience also suggests that it's more the human factor than the
equipment factor that makes us valuable in a disaster operation. The
training and experience that the human has is much more important than
what kind of equipment is in use.
I suppose that the response to this is that the best of all worlds is a
trained cadre of operators using the best state-of-the-art equipment
available. In theory this is correct, but in the real world of an
actual disaster operation things might be a lot different.
73, Steve KB9X
Michael Coslo
> In article <g0sia7$138k$1...@f04n12.cac.psu.edu>,
> Michael Coslo <mj...@psu.edu> wrote:
>> I still want a PSK31 HT.
>
> My God, why? APRS has a texting mode. The technology is in place and
> well-defined.
APRS texting isn't terribly convenient, and you have to put up with the
rest of the squacking to get it.
A two-second burst of 1200 baud packet, even assuming a 500 ms
> TXDELAY, has more text than a standard SMS. That's more than 50 seconds at
> PSK31.
I'm not talking about sending data, or long messages, just ones similar
to what is sent in cell phone text messages.
This is about getting people interested and using Ham radio. It isn't
necessarily about getting something that you or even I would buy.
Younger folks, high school kids, would likely buy into something like that.
>Who's going to install the PSK31 digipeaters?
What I envision would be likely simplex. Although a repeater could come
into the picture somewhere, it wouldn't need to be a digipeater.
> Who is going to develop
> the technology to determine that a PSK31 signal that is 100Hz off the correct
> frequency should be digipeated while one that is 50Hz off should not? (1kHz
> error in an FM HT is common. 1kHz error in PSK31 is a completely different
> QSO.)
These are all pretty minor technical problems. I imagine that a person
might be able to differentiate between signals in an old school manner,
by tuning them in.
>> Oh yeah, while we're at it, I don't know if that HT with the camera is
>> still being produced
>
> Ever try sending an image at 1200 baud?
I've sent SSTV images in a fairly short time. They aren't large images,
but along with the texting I speak of, make a fun little gadget for
people to play with. Might even be of some emergency use.
I have to say that I probably would never buy such a device. That
doesn't make it a dumb idea though. If there was one thing I would like
to counsel Hams on , it is the idea that whatever you or I are into at
the moment is not what everyone is into, and it shouldn't be either.
Some modes such as IRLP or Echolink, I don't even consider "radio", but
hey, a lot of people like them a lot, so I won't argue.
>> As much as I prefer regular transceivers, SDR radio would be a pretty
>> interesting way to go. Big hint to the mfgr's: Sell something usable
>> that isn't a kilobuck+. I saw the ones out at Dayton, and a better price
>> point is advised.
>
> Volume means low price. High price means no volume. Yeah, a $100 SDR HT
> would be great. It also has more than $100 of parts in it. That $0.10 diode
> detector is replaced by a $30 DSP chip.
>
>> I've seen a lot about the new Digital voice and data modes such as
>> D-Star. Lots of investment needed there, and although the transmission
>> of data is kinda cool, I have concerns about multipath.
>
> But you're the guy who wants texting via PSK31? D-STAR texting, bad. PSK31
> texting, good?
I don't declare D-Star Texting "bad", but I do declare the PSK31
texting pretty darn good. PSK31 has a huge advantage in that it is
pretty cheap, and not proprietary. D-Star is decidedly not cheap, and is
quite proprietary. Wanna use D-Star? Get out the plastic and go
without something else for a couple years.
>> D-Star might need a big kick start, such as emergency groups purchasing
>> repeaters,
>
> Sorry, but at $10,000 starting, our emergency group isn't going to be
> buying one. The fact we have no open repeater space, and the cost of a
> D-STAR radio, makes it certain that D-STAR is a non-starter here.
I think that what would be needed is for local governments to do the
actual purchasing, then hand it over to the Hams. The Hams are going to
have to have regular access to the D-Star repeater, or else they won't
buy-in.
My honest opinion however is that this is one of those technology
solutions that just add too much technology to the mix. One of the big
complaints from emergency responders is that they can't talk to each
other. This is due to the introduction of too much structure upon the
system. With D Star, we do the same thing with Hams.
>> people who want to put up a digital repeater (note, not a digipeater)
>> might be going to a lot of expense to talk to one or two friends.
>
> I thought I'd like to buy an ID-1 when it came out. At $3000 (one for me,
> one for someone to talk to) I said "no thanks".
Yup. And the big problem as far as Amateurs go is that they can't get
into the system. Whereas you or I can build a CW, SSB, FM, or PSK31
radio for most any application we'd like, we can't do that with D-Star.
So unless those prices come waaaay down, D-Star is going to be a very
low volume mode, probably used only by emergency groups. Of course if
that is the case, they shouldn't be operating it on the Amateur bands,
because they can get more use out of it on their own frequencies, which
won't have Amateur reestrictions.
Buck
>My experience also suggests that it's more the human factor than the
>equipment factor that makes us valuable in a disaster operation. The
>training and experience that the human has is much more important than
>what kind of equipment is in use.
>
>I suppose that the response to this is that the best of all worlds is a
>trained cadre of operators using the best state-of-the-art equipment
>available. In theory this is correct, but in the real world of an
>actual disaster operation things might be a lot different.
>
>73, Steve KB9X
I know of a number of members of ARES and clubs wanting to be setup
with all kinds of high-tech communications in case of emergency. I
have also noticed that in most cases, while they receive lots of
verbal support and volunteers, they end up in the exercises with a
severe shortage of operators.
I volunteered in the aftermath of Hurricanes Hugo and Frances and many
very localized disasters. Locals aren't available in the aftermath of
area-wide disasters and in local emergencies, often comm needs require
multiple repeaters or very many HT communications.
In the early days of Amateur Radio, "High Tech" meant communicating
without wires and homing pigeons. The important thing is timely and
accurate communications. today's "High-tech" can help, but the
important thing is " any means necessary".
Buck
N4PGW
Michael Coslo
> The State of Oregon is putting out six figures to provide for a D-Star
> EMCOMM network and a Pactor network. It's being pushed by several
> folks who got either ICOM or the State or both to subsidize their
> personal D-Star radios and/or are "blessed with resources" to get one
> on their own. Not counting my HF rig, I have five radios for voice
> comms: a VHF and a UHF in the home comm room, my mobile, my HT, and my
> "grab-and-go". Who is going to subsidize that? I surely can't.
> My perennial "what hath technology wrought" rant....
Unfortunately, it's how they think. One of my old chestnuts is that the
reason that Ham radio is often the only thing working when the wheels
fall off is that:
1.Our organization is ad-hoc. Lots of people who know how to
communicate, but are not within some strict hierarchy.
2.We have equipment that will talk to our equipment. Now sometimes that
means that we're using old school SSB or FM or CW. That's bad? No that's
good! The idea is to pass the message, not to sit in the seat and feel
really great about the whiz-bang technology we're using.
3.We know how to get the messages across. There is something to be said
about understanding propagation. Going to send a message on 20 meters to
someone 100 miles away? 40 meters at night? How about 50 miles away on
440 simplex? A little bit of knowledge is pretty handy.
Now what I see is the folk who would have us help when disaster strikes
have noted that we seem to pull rabbits out of our hat, and they like
what they see. But as people who impress a hierarchy, organization, and
levels of technology on everything they touch, now want to do the same
to us. After Katrina, I was kind of shocked by all the "This is what you
Amateurs Have To Do" articles and speeches. And each article had a
common thread - we amateurs had to become more like the people who
experienced failure. Just didn't make sense.
And yet they can't seem to figure out why their systems fail when it
all falls apart. My guess is that we will be looking at more technology
impressed on the system. And it will probably fail too.
Mark Kramer
Phil Kane <Phil...@nov.shmovz.ka.pop> wrote:
>The State of Oregon is putting out six figures to provide for a D-Star
>EMCOMM network and a Pactor network.
No, they are not. The ICOM radios can have the D-Star option added at
local expense. Neither the 2820 nor the 2200 have D-Star built in. There
certainly is no D-Star repeater support.
>Pactor is fine - my setup works at minimal cost- as long as it's
>Pactor I. The cost of the proprietary modem for Pactor II and III is
>in the high three figures if not four by now with the falling dollar.
The pactor is intended primarilly for county to state communication, not
user to user.
Mark Kramer
Michael Coslo <mj...@psu.edu> wrote:
>Mark Kramer wrote:
>> In article <g0sia7$138k$1...@f04n12.cac.psu.edu>,
>> Michael Coslo <mj...@psu.edu> wrote:
>>> I still want a PSK31 HT.
>>
>> My God, why? APRS has a texting mode. The technology is in place and
>> well-defined.
>
>APRS texting isn't terribly convenient,
That's a user-interface issue, not a technology issue. I could write software
tomorrow that hooks my D700 up and sends APRS text as easily as email, if
someone hasn't already. I've seen aftermarket keyboards for the D700 to do
this.
>and you have to put up with the rest of the squacking to get it.
I have no idea what you mean by this. You aren't going to listen to
the PSK31 audio any more than you have to listen to the APRS audio when
using it.
>> A two-second burst of 1200 baud packet, even assuming a 500 ms
>> TXDELAY, has more text than a standard SMS. That's more than 50 seconds at
>> PSK31.
>
>I'm not talking about sending data, or long messages, just ones similar
>to what is sent in cell phone text messages.
"Cell phone text messages" are "data". Two seconds of 1200 baud packet can
send more "cell phone text" than more than 50 seconds of PSK31. If people had
to wait a minute for their SMS text messages to be sent instead of the few
seconds it does, they'd be less likely to use it.
>This is about getting people interested and using Ham radio.
We HAVE the technology in place that is better than that proposed as the
salvation of amateur radio. No, a PSK31 HT isn't going to do anything
to support the hobby or bring new people in that APRS HTs haven't
already done. A PSK31 HT is an interesting concept; difficult product.
>It isn't
>necessarily about getting something that you or even I would buy.
If nobody buys it, then it won't ever be cheap. If WE, the existing
amateur base doesn't support it, it ain't gonna happen. Voice HTs work
because there is an existing repeater infrastructure. APRS HTs work only
because there is an existing APRS network infrastructure. If there is no
VHF PSK31 infrastructure, it isn't going to be used.
>Younger folks, high school kids, would likely buy into something like that.
No "younger folks" are going to buy a new technology where there is no
infrastructure to support them.
>>Who's going to install the PSK31 digipeaters?
>
>What I envision would be likely simplex.
The range of a PSK31 HT would be very short. FRS distances, at best. It
would be extremely sensitive to antenna orientation. You couldn't load
a message and then put the HT back on your belt while it takes a minute
to send. Who is going to pay several hundred dollars for an HT that can
only communicate three blocks in a city?
>Although a repeater could come
>into the picture somewhere, it wouldn't need to be a digipeater.
PSK31 is a DIGITAL mode. Repeaters for digital data are ofen called
digipeaters. WHO is going to install these repeaters? You can't use
the existing ones -- PSK31 is narrowband FSK, existing repeaters are
relatively wideband FM. If you are going to use an entire FM voice channel
bandwidth, you might as well use standard 1200 baud packet and APRS.
Existing technology. Where are all the youngsters using APRS messaging?
Why do you believe they would flock to a slower, shorter range system?
> These are all pretty minor technical problems. I imagine that a person
>might be able to differentiate between signals in an old school manner,
>by tuning them in.
A PERSON might be able to, but a DIGIPEATER is not a person. And these
YOUNG PEOPLE you want to lure into the hobby with a PSK31 HT aren't going
to want to have to tune around hoping to be on the right frequency when
their friends send them messages. It's got to be channelized to make
it simple. An HT that's off channel by as little as 100Hz for PSK31 is
a different channel. That's REALLY tight technical standards for amateur
gear.
>> Ever try sending an image at 1200 baud?
>
>I've sent SSTV images in a fairly short time. They aren't large images,
They are also not PSK31 data. Entirely different mode.
>I have to say that I probably would never buy such a device. That
>doesn't make it a dumb idea though.
No, the technical issues do, and expecting it to bring lots of new people
into the hobby as something similar to SMS text messaging is silly. We have
better technology already in our hands; where are the people?
>> But you're the guy who wants texting via PSK31? D-STAR texting, bad. PSK31
>> texting, good?
>
> I don't declare D-Star Texting "bad", but I do declare the PSK31
>texting pretty darn good.
In it's place, perhaps. Sitting in a radio shack with a $1000 HF radio
and a computer to decode it, yes. In an HT, no.
>PSK31 has a huge advantage in that it is
>pretty cheap, and not proprietary. D-Star is decidedly not cheap, and is
> quite proprietary.
No, D-Star is not proprietary. It is an open standard.
>Wanna use D-Star? Get out the plastic and go
>without something else for a couple years.
Yes. Want a usable PSK31 HT? Go without something else for many years.
>I think that what would be needed is for local governments to do the
>actual purchasing, then hand it over to the Hams.
Wow.
>The Hams are going to
>have to have regular access to the D-Star repeater, or else they won't
>buy-in.
The hams are going to have to have a lot of MONEY to have regular access
to any D-Star repeater.
>My honest opinion however is that this is one of those technology
>solutions that just add too much technology to the mix. One of the big
>complaints from emergency responders is that they can't talk to each
>other. This is due to the introduction of too much structure upon the
>system.
This is due to licensing limitations that prevent LMR radios from being
fully and easily programmable in the field.
>With D Star, we do the same thing with Hams.
I know of no D-Star radio which is not fully field programmable.
>> I thought I'd like to buy an ID-1 when it came out. At $3000 (one for me,
>> one for someone to talk to) I said "no thanks".
>
>Yup. And the big problem as far as Amateurs go is that they can't get
>into the system.
I have no idea what you mean by this. What "system" can they not get into?
>Whereas you or I can build a CW, SSB, FM, or PSK31
>radio for most any application we'd like, we can't do that with D-Star.
So what? Most people cannot build even a CW transmitter, much less
a PSK31 system. Have YOU built your own PC to run the PSK31 software
yet? I doubt it.
>So unless those prices come waaaay down, D-Star is going to be a very
>low volume mode, probably used only by emergency groups. Of course if
>that is the case, they shouldn't be operating it on the Amateur bands,
>because they can get more use out of it on their own frequencies,
I'm sorry. Exactly what frequencies do ARES groups have that aren't part
of the Amateur Radio Service? How do I legally put an amateur certificated
repeater on to a public-service frequency?
>which won't have Amateur reestrictions.
Amateur restrictions are trivial compared to LMR. Nobody is demanding that
we all cut our bandwidth and channel spacings in half by 2013, e.g.. Our
licenses don't come with a list of specific frequencies we can use.
Michael Coslo
> Michael Coslo <mj...@psu.edu> wrote:
>> PSK31 has a huge advantage in that it is
>> pretty cheap, and not proprietary. D-Star is decidedly not cheap, and is
>> quite proprietary.
>
> No, D-Star is not proprietary. It is an open standard.
I respectfully disagree:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-STAR
to quote the relevant part:
"D-STAR has been criticized for its use of a patented, closed-source
proprietary voice codec (AMBE). [4] Hams do not have access to the
detailed specification of this codec or the rights to implement it on
their own without buying a licensed product. Hams have a long tradition
of building, improving upon and experimenting with their own radio
designs. The modern digital age equivalent of this would be designing
and/or implementing codecs in software. Critics say the proprietary
nature of AMBE and its availability only in hardware form (as ICs)
discourages innovation."
end quote
> Wow.
Understood. I'll skip most of the post because I'm not looking for a
sentence by sentence rebuke here. Let's just take it that you don't like
my ideas, and we'll move on.
My thoughts are that having some sort of device that young people can
use to communicate with each other, in a manner such are they are used
to, such as texting, might just be a good thing. Add a couple more
friends, and you have a VHF chat room. No need for repeaters, no need to
intrude on other people's BW. The idea isn't to forge some new
technology. Too many people get caught up in that. It is an application
of available technology in a way that some folk might not see as useful,
but others might.
N2...@aol.com
> My thoughts are that having some sort of device that young people can
> use to communicate with each other, in a manner such are they are used
> to, such as texting, might just be a good thing.
The operative word there, IMHO, is "might".
> Add a couple more
> friends, and you have a VHF chat room. No need for repeaters, no need to
> intrude on other people's BW. The idea isn't to forge some new
> technology. Too many people get caught up in that. It is an application
> of available technology in a way that some folk might not see as useful,
> but others might.
The Big Problem I see is that ham radio will never be competitive in
areas where there is a similar mainstream/commercial alternative. IOW,
why would any non-ham with a cell phone that can text want a ham-radio
text-message device?
Where ham radio has always been a success is in offering things that
are *not* available anywhere else. For example, in the days before
cell phones, repeaters and autopatch were a big deal because they
offered communications that the average person could not get any other
way.
This doesn't mean I'm against anyone building whatever kind of ham rig
strikes their fancy, as long as it meets Part 97 rules. All I'm saying
is "do what interests you, don't expect it to attract a certain
demographic".
73 de Jim, N2EY
Phil Kane
> For example, in the days before
>cell phones, repeaters and autopatch were a big deal because they
>offered communications that the average person could not get any other
>way.
Oh? Before ham autopatches were popular on repeaters, the telcos -
both wireline and non-wireline - offered Mobile Telephone Service
(MTS) using mobile operators and Improved Mobile Telephone Service
(IMTS) permitting subscriber dial. Expensive - you bet - but they
were available to the average person. Some of those transceivers
found their way into the ham market after the telcos upgraded to newer
stuff.
N2...@aol.com
>�Before ham autopatches were popular on repeaters, the telcos -
> both wireline and non-wireline - offered Mobile Telephone Service
> (MTS) �using mobile operators and Improved Mobile Telephone
> Service
> (IMTS) permitting subscriber dial. �Expensive - you bet - but they
> were available to the average person.
Right you are, Phil! I should have noted that while such services
existed, their cost was such that most "average people" could not
afford them.
73 de Jim, N2EY
KØHB
"Michael Coslo" <mj...@psu.edu> wrote in message
news:g16p8d$oqq$1...@f04n12.cac.psu.edu...
> The idea isn't to forge some new technology. Too
> many people get caught up in that.
One of the bedrock notions of Amateur Radio is for licensees to "get caught up
in" the advancement of the radio art.
In my opinion, too >FEW< are "caught up in that".
Chat rooms for teenie-boppers isn't mentioned in "Basis and purpose"
Klystron
> Oh? Before ham autopatches were popular on repeaters, the telcos -
> both wireline and non-wireline - offered Mobile Telephone Service
> (MTS) using mobile operators and Improved Mobile Telephone Service
> (IMTS) permitting subscriber dial. Expensive - you bet - but they
> were available to the average person. Some of those transceivers
> found their way into the ham market after the telcos upgraded to newer
> stuff.
Actually, the "supply" of (pre-cellular) mobile phone service was
grossly inadequate to meet the demand for it. That is what drove the
development of cellular phones. Even the owners of the limos in which it
was installed often complained of having to wait 15 minutes or more to
get a dial tone. (You will recall that that service used the 150 MHz
band and there was no law against monitoring it. This was pre-Electronic
Communications Privacy Act.)
--
Klystron
Phil Kane
wrote:
>Chat rooms for teenie-boppers isn't mentioned in "Basis and purpose"
Neither is contesting or DXpeditions but we do that and look forward
to more of the same as part of the "real" ham radio experience.
Steve Bonine
> "Michael Coslo" <mj...@psu.edu> wrote in message
> news:g16p8d$oqq$1...@f04n12.cac.psu.edu...
>
>> The idea isn't to forge some new technology. Too
>> many people get caught up in that.
>
> One of the bedrock notions of Amateur Radio is for licensees to "get ca
ught up
> in" the advancement of the radio art.
>
> In my opinion, too >FEW< are "caught up in that".
>
> Chat rooms for teenie-boppers isn't mentioned in "Basis and purpose"
Spread-spectrum, digital modes, moonbounce . . . none of these are
mentioned in "Basis and purpose".
I don't see any conflict between "chat rooms for teenie-boppers" and
"forge new technology". In fact, I see a lot of similarity between
"chat rooms for teenie-boppers" and the groups that have been squatting
on the same frequency on 75 meters for 40 years and complain of
interference, even though there's lots of unused newly-allocated space.
Some of those younger hams contribute a lot to our hobby, and I wish we
could figure out ways to attract more of them. Maybe a good start would
be to recognize their potential and quit using derogatory terms to
describe them.
73, Steve KB9X
Mike Coslo
news:WcydnXiZuvZVl6XV...@deskmedia.com:
Hear Hear, Steve!
I would respectfully suggest that we as hams give a little thought as to
whether or not we actually want young folk in the hobby.
This is beyond the simple statements such as "we need more young people
in the hobby".
Probelem as I see it is that while we might sayt that, alll too many of
us have an implied addidition to that of "As long as they are exactly as
we are.
And the problem is, "we" is an interesting one word.
I know many hams who are surrounded with like minded people, other Hams
who share similar interests. They have an outlook in which they think
everyone is like them, or at least everyone should be. Those who do not
share their outlook are inferior, or at best misinformed.
Strangely enough, many of these hams were licensed at a very young age.
What happened? I don't really know, but I suspect that there were some
old timers who just couldn't stand those young hams of yesteryear, too.
I'll bet they had names to call them.
related story
When I was a wee lad, after a lot of bugging, My parents bought me a CB
Walkie-talkie one Christmas. The other one of a set was bought by my
cousin's parents. About 0600 Christmas morning, I went outside and
called "anybody listening?". Bam, my cousin called back from a couple
miles away. I was hooked.
Fast forward to about 6 months later. A friend and I tried to join a CB
club. Wow, what a mistake! After a little talk among the members, we
were told we couldn't join, and they would appreciate it if we left
immediately. That left an impression. To this day, I have a problem with
superior people. But I bet they were pretty happy they got rid of us.
Fast forward to today.
Kids are a little different, but are still kids. They do some different
things than we do. One of those things is they way they interact with
each other.
If we declare them jerks, then we've lost them. If we even don't say it,
yet have that attitude, they'll sense it and find something else to do.
Then we've lost them.
I've been kind of surprised by the negative reaction to my texting HT.
This device is not aimed at "us", it is aimed at a new generation for
whom texting is as natural as talking to another.
Maybe today's hams don't want young people to get licenses. That's okay,
that is a valid opinion.
But I would respectfully suggest that getting the young folk involved
will take a different tactic than the way many of us became inolved. I
think we should give that some consideration.
I'm bowing out of this thread now.
Buck
wrote:
>>PSK31 has a huge advantage in that it is
>>pretty cheap, and not proprietary. D-Star is decidedly not cheap, and is
>> quite proprietary.
>
>No, D-Star is not proprietary. It is an open standard.
Not proprietary? How can I get my Yaesu to work with it?
N2...@aol.com
> Steve Bonine <s...@pobox.com> wrote innews:WcydnXiZuvZVl6XVnZ2dnUVZ_ofinZ2
d...@deskmedia.com:
> > K�HB wrote:
> >> "Michael Coslo" <m...@psu.edu> wrote in message
> >>news:g16p8d$oqq$1...@f04n12.cac.psu.edu...
> > Some of those younger hams contribute a lot to our hobby, and > > I wish
we could figure out ways to attract more of
> > them. �Maybe a good start
> > would be to recognize their potential and quit using
> > derogatory terms to describe them.
> Hear Hear, Steve!
I second that!
I know a few "young people", and IMHO "teenie-bopper" is a derogatory
term for them.
> I would respectfully suggest that we as hams give
> a little thought as to
> whether or not we actually want young folk in the hobby.
> This is beyond the simple statements such as "we need
> more young people in the hobby".
Agreed. And we should be honest in recognizing that there is a small
but vocal minority who do *not* want young people to be
hams. Some years back, I saw a proposal to FCC to create a minimum-age
requirement of 14 years for any class of US amateur radio license.
> Probelem as I see it is that while we might sayt that,
> alll too many of
> us have an implied addidition to that of "As long as
> they are exactly as we are.
>
> And the problem is, "we" is an interesting one word.
> I know many hams who are surrounded with like minded
> people, other Hams
> who share similar interests. They have an outlook in
> which they think
> everyone is like them, or at least everyone should be.
> Those who do not
> share their outlook are inferior, or at best misinformed.
Of course. That's one facet of human nature.
OTOH, Amateur Radio does have standards, traditions,
rules, etc. I don't think it's a good thing to simply accept/promote
any and all "new" things, regardless of what effects they have, simply
because they're new, and to reject the "old" simply because it's old.
That said, we have so much latitude in Part 97 that I think there's
lots of room for 99% of what folks want to do.
> Strangely enough, many of these hams were licensed at a very
> young age.
> What happened? I don't really know, but I suspect that there
> were some
> old timers who just couldn't stand those young hams of
> yesteryear, too.
> I'll bet they had names to call them.
That's nothing new. "No kids, no lids, no space cadets" dates back at
least a half-century.
> Kids are a little different, but are still kids. They do some different
> things than we do. One of those things is they way they interact
> with each other.
> If we declare them jerks, then we've lost them. If we even don't
> say it,
> yet have that attitude, they'll sense it and find something else to do.
> Then we've lost them.
I became a ham at age 13, mostly through what I learned from ARRL
books. The big attraction was that Radio in general and Amateur Radio
in particular looked like a lot of fun to me. And for more than 40
years, it has been.
I think there is a sense that, back in the Old Days, there were young
hams (high school and younger) all over the place. In my experience as
a young ham (1960s-70s), however, that was not the case at all. Ham
radio was a niche thing back then, same as now, even without
computers, cell phones, etc.
There were a few curmudgeons back then who had no time for young hams.
But they were only a few. And a considerable number of young hams
dropped out because equipment was expensive, antennas were huge
compared to their houses, and/or they got interested in other things.
One big "hook", for me was that except for those few curmudgeons I was
not treated as an inferior - particularly on the air. A big part of
this was due to the mode I used - Morse Code. With Morse Code (and
text modes), no one knows your age or gender unless you tell them.
Operating skill, QSO content and signal quality established one's on-
air reputation, not how deep or gravelly your voice was.
To speculate wildly, it might be that one cause for curmudgeon-ness is
the fear of what advancements/accomplishments the young folks might
actually make.
> I've been kind of surprised by the negative reaction to
> my texting HT.
> This device is not aimed at "us", it is aimed at a new
> generation for
> whom texting is as natural as talking to another.
I think you may have missed the point, Mike.
I don't think the way to attract young people is to come up with some
new gadget in an effort to attract them. Particularly if it does
something that's already available, such as texting by cellphone.
That said, I think a texting HT is a great idea. But for its own sake;
not as a way to "sell" ham radio to young people.
The core value of Amateur Radio is "radio for its own sake". Some
folks get that, most do not. The task is to spread that word to all,
publicize the wide variety of things hams do, welcome those who are
interested, and help them with what *they* find interesting.
Oddly enough, a lot of the young hams I have met are fascinated by
Morse Code, simply because it is unique and outside their experience.
That doesn't mean it's the only thing to show them, or that all new
hams must start out one and only one way. But it does mean we cannot
assume young hams are only interested in "new" things.
> Maybe today's hams don't want young people to get
> licenses. That's okay, that is a valid opinion.
I'd say that in a few cases there is no "maybe" about it. But only a
few.
I say that such an opinion runs counter to everything Amateur Radio
stands for.
> But I would respectfully suggest that getting the young folk involved
> will take a different tactic than the way many of us became
> inolved.
Some ideas:
1) Presentations at the middle-school and even elementary-school level
- including the parents.
2) Identify local hams who are available to be Elmers. (I suspect that
some of the curmudgeon-ness is due to the fear of being expected to be
an Elmer).
3) Subtle helps to prospective young hams, such as a ride to a club
meeting, Field Day or hamfest, the loan of a rig, the gift of a box of
"old wire" that happens to contain all the parts needed to build an
antenna, etc.
4) Inclusion and acceptance. This means being considered an equal, or
at least a potential equal. For example, put new hams or prospective
hams to work with FD setup, logging, etc. (That means knowing how to
do things the right way, though!)
73 de Jim, N2EY
Güd Håm
"Mike Coslo" <mco...@youknow.comcast.net> wrote in message
news:Xns9AA8E3496986...@216.196.97.136...
>
> I would respectfully suggest that we as hams give a little thought as to
> whether or not we actually want young folk in the hobby.
>
Here's my reaction to that.
I want more >new< people in the Amateur Radio service with >new< ideas.
Their >birthdate< is of no particular interest to me.
73, de Hans, K0HB
Steve Bonine
> I became a ham at age 13, mostly through what I learned from ARRL
> books. The big attraction was that Radio in general and Amateur Radio
> in particular looked like a lot of fun to me. And for more than 40
> years, it has been.
Me too. But I do think that we have increased competition these days
from other outlets for prospective hams, and other things that "look
like a lot of fun". Computers and such gadgets are a part of daily life
for young folks these days; it's only natural that they gravitate in
that direction. I suspect that the vast majority of them have not been
exposed to ham radio at all.
I had a good buddy when I was that age who was interested in radio and
electronics, and peer pressure being what it is, I followed his lead.
Those people are fewer these days.
> I think there is a sense that, back in the Old Days, there were young
> hams (high school and younger) all over the place. In my experience as
> a young ham (1960s-70s), however, that was not the case at all. Ham
> radio was a niche thing back then, same as now, even without
> computers, cell phones, etc.
Yes, I agree. I do remember more young hams back then, though. It was
mostly a hobby for older people, but I do think there were more young
hams then.
> There were a few curmudgeons back then who had no time for young hams.
> But they were only a few. And a considerable number of young hams
> dropped out because equipment was expensive, antennas were huge
> compared to their houses, and/or they got interested in other things.
A considerable number of old hams dropped out for similar reasons,
sometimes providing a source of equipment for the new folks.
> One big "hook", for me was that except for those few curmudgeons I was
> not treated as an inferior - particularly on the air. A big part of
> this was due to the mode I used - Morse Code. With Morse Code (and
> text modes), no one knows your age or gender unless you tell them.
> Operating skill, QSO content and signal quality established one's on-
> air reputation, not how deep or gravelly your voice was.
This was a very important consideration for me, too. Even for the
operation that I did on phone, by and large people treated me as an
equal, and if I demonstrated skill they recognized that skill without
regard to my age. Even in traditional in-person interactions like club
meetings and Field Day operations, I was treated as an equal if I could
demonstrate that I deserved to be treated that way. Generally speaking
the local ham community was eager to reach out and teach me if it was
obvious that I needed teaching.
I can't think of another hobby where I could have gained access to such
a community of people who were often peers of my parents.
> To speculate wildly, it might be that one cause for curmudgeon-ness is
> the fear of what advancements/accomplishments the young folks might
> actually make.
I think you give this segment of our hobby too much credit <grin>.
There are always going to be folks who simply have no social skills or
prefer not to deal with "kids". There will be people who enjoy building
or experimenting, but they have no desire to interact with other humans.
That's their prerogative.
It's a shame when they make newcomers feel unwelcome, but it's going to
happen in any group. Other members in the group must compensate.
> The core value of Amateur Radio is "radio for its own sake". Some
> folks get that, most do not. The task is to spread that word to all,
> publicize the wide variety of things hams do, welcome those who are
> interested, and help them with what *they* find interesting.
Spreading the word is more important these days than ever before. We
can't expect people to become interested in something that they don't
know exists.
> Oddly enough, a lot of the young hams I have met are fascinated by
> Morse Code, simply because it is unique and outside their experience.
> That doesn't mean it's the only thing to show them, or that all new
> hams must start out one and only one way. But it does mean we cannot
> assume young hams are only interested in "new" things.
But CW is new to them. It's different. Unique.
Ham radio is never going to appeal to everyone. Never has; never will.
The majority of people, young and old, tend to go with what has the
interest of the mainstream. Hams have always been somewhat "different",
and the hobby has always appealed to a segment of the population that
wasn't interested in doing whatever the fashionable thing might be at
the moment.
> Some ideas:
>
> 1) Presentations at the middle-school and even elementary-school level
> - including the parents.
Getting the teachers involved would be ideal. Teachers are an
incredibly important influence on their students.
> 2) Identify local hams who are available to be Elmers. (I suspect that
> some of the curmudgeon-ness is due to the fear of being expected to be
> an Elmer).
This is indeed key. It's what made the hobby so important for me as a
younger ham.
> 3) Subtle helps to prospective young hams, such as a ride to a club
> meeting, Field Day or hamfest, the loan of a rig, the gift of a box of
> "old wire" that happens to contain all the parts needed to build an
> antenna, etc.
And the help to actually put it together.
> 4) Inclusion and acceptance. This means being considered an equal, or
> at least a potential equal. For example, put new hams or prospective
> hams to work with FD setup, logging, etc. (That means knowing how to
> do things the right way, though!)
I do think this is the most important aspect. I'm not suggesting that
we coddle people simply because they are young, or fawn over them. But
we should give them the opportunity to contribute as equals, with
appropriate encouragement and assistance. Breaking into the "old boys'
network" can be impossible if the old boys don't make an effort to be
inclusive.
73, Steve KB9X
KØHB
"Steve Bonine" <s...@pobox.com> wrote in message
news:WcydnXiZuvZVl6XV...@deskmedia.com...
> Spread-spectrum, digital modes, moonbounce . . . none
> of these are mentioned in "Basis and purpose".
Of course they are, Steve, in §97.1(b).
> In fact, I see a lot of similarity between "chat rooms for teenie-boppers"
> and the groups that have been squatting on the same frequency on 75 meters
> for 40 years and complain of interference....
I agree, Steve, they sound very similar to me also.
73, de Hans, K0HB
Proud Sponsor of the Amateur Blue Electric Smoke
KØHB
news:Xns9AA8E3496986...@216.196.97.136...
>
> who share similar interests. They have an outlook in which they think
> everyone is like them, or at least everyone should be. Those who do not
> share their outlook are inferior, or at best misinformed.
>
What's interesting to me, is the "vintage" of those "elitists". With a few
exceptions they are usually not "old timers" or "newbies" but rather those
licensed in the 70's through about 1988 or so. These are the ones who posture
about "purity of the ham race" and look down their nose at any ham who "isn't
like them". They are, by and large, products of the incentive licensing system
with it's fragmentation of the hobby into exclusive ghettos, reeking of "status"
and "rank" and "I can beep faster than you can beep".
When I got into this hobby, you got no special call sign, no special status, no
special band segments, the callbook didn't show your class, and nobody could
poke around the QRZ.COM website to check your "status". All of us, >ALL OF
US<, exuberantly played in the ether as equals, and nobody gave a rip if you
were a Conditional, General, Advanced, or Extra. You were a ham - PERIOD! I
think that's what makes us old-timers more accepting of those who "don't act
just like us".
73, de Hans, K0HB
Phil Kane
wrote:
>>No, D-Star is not proprietary. It is an open standard.
>Not proprietary? How can I get my Yaesu to work with it?
Can your Yaesu do single sideband on 440 MHz? Same issue.
Convince Motorola - who now owns Yaesu - to make an adapter. Up to
now, no one has made and sold such things except Icom. It's not like
Pactor III which is in fact proprietary and no one can make adapters
except SGS, the patent-holder.
Dave Heil
> N2...@aol.com wrote:
>
>> I became a ham at age 13, mostly through what I learned from ARRL
>> books. The big attraction was that Radio in general and Amateur Radio
>> in particular looked like a lot of fun to me. And for more than 40
>> years, it has been.
>
> Me too. But I do think that we have increased competition these days
> from other outlets for prospective hams, and other things that "look
> like a lot of fun". Computers and such gadgets are a part of daily life
> for young folks these days; it's only natural that they gravitate in
> that direction. I suspect that the vast majority of them have not been
> exposed to ham radio at all.
You have to admit that there were always things which looked like a lot
of fun. In our day it was guitars, skateboards, stereo equipment,
photography, sports and GIRLS. Not many of us were exposed to amateur
radio in terms of percentages of young people.
> I had a good buddy when I was that age who was interested in radio and
> electronics, and peer pressure being what it is, I followed his lead.
> Those people are fewer these days.
I had an old Zenith tabletop radio with shortwave which covered 5.5 to
18 MHz. I used it initially to listen to broadcast radio. Then I
discovered the shortwave broadcasters and finally the 40 and 20m hams
using AM. Luckily for me, I heard a ham who was in our town and he lit
the fire for me.
>> I think there is a sense that, back in the Old Days, there were young
>> hams (high school and younger) all over the place. In my experience as
>> a young ham (1960s-70s), however, that was not the case at all. Ham
>> radio was a niche thing back then, same as now, even without
>> computers, cell phones, etc.
>
> Yes, I agree. I do remember more young hams back then, though. It was
> mostly a hobby for older people, but I do think there were more young
> hams then.
There were lots of young hams and young SWLs who were interested in
becoming hams. They read Pop'tronics and EI. Most of the Novices I
worked were in my age group. K8CFT administered Novice exams to a
number of junior high and high school aged boys. At one time, the
little town of Oak Hill, West Virginia (population 7,000) boasted seven
young Novices along with six or seven higher class radio amateurs. Of
those seven hams, five are still licensed and active. One dropped out
of amateur radio and one (who was active) died last year. The key was
that *we were interested*. No one can make someone spend his leisure
hours doing something in which he has no interest.
>> There were a few curmudgeons back then who had no time for young hams.
>> But they were only a few. And a considerable number of young hams
>> dropped out because equipment was expensive, antennas were huge
>> compared to their houses, and/or they got interested in other things.
>
> A considerable number of old hams dropped out for similar reasons,
> sometimes providing a source of equipment for the new folks.
Quite a number of those who were teenage hams dropped out because of
their interest in girls or cars or because they went off to college and
had no room for antennas and rigs or no time due to studying. Many of
them returned to amateur radio. Many got married and started families
and returned to ham radio. Most never left amateur radio but their
activity varied.
>> One big "hook", for me was that except for those few curmudgeons I was
>> not treated as an inferior - particularly on the air. A big part of
>> this was due to the mode I used - Morse Code. With Morse Code (and
>> text modes), no one knows your age or gender unless you tell them.
>> Operating skill, QSO content and signal quality established one's on-
>> air reputation, not how deep or gravelly your voice was.
>
> This was a very important consideration for me, too. Even for the
> operation that I did on phone, by and large people treated me as an
> equal, and if I demonstrated skill they recognized that skill without
> regard to my age. Even in traditional in-person interactions like club
> meetings and Field Day operations, I was treated as an equal if I could
> demonstrate that I deserved to be treated that way. Generally speaking
> the local ham community was eager to reach out and teach me if it was
> obvious that I needed teaching.
In my first few years there was no real ham community in my area. I
depended upon the support and largess of a number of individuals. A
move to Miami in 1966 exposed me to amateur radio clubs--some of them
quite large. I can't think of many areas where a young person can be
treated as an equal by a banker, an attorney, a doctor, the fellow who
runs the local water company or the man who operates his own gas station.
> I can't think of another hobby where I could have gained access to such
> a community of people who were often peers of my parents.
Exactly.
>> To speculate wildly, it might be that one cause for curmudgeon-ness is
>> the fear of what advancements/accomplishments the young folks might
>> actually make.
>
> I think you give this segment of our hobby too much credit <grin>.
You never know when you might have a young Bill Gates visiting your
amateur radio club.
> There are always going to be folks who simply have no social skills or
> prefer not to deal with "kids". There will be people who enjoy building
> or experimenting, but they have no desire to interact with other humans.
> That's their prerogative.
Thankfully, most of them aren't hams. Ham radio is all about
interaction with other humans. I've met a few reclusive or squirrelly
or curmudgeonly radio amateurs over the years, but their number is small.
> It's a shame when they make newcomers feel unwelcome, but it's going to
> happen in any group. Other members in the group must compensate.
I think that in a club situation the other members see it happening and
do step in to balance things.
>> The core value of Amateur Radio is "radio for its own sake". Some
>> folks get that, most do not. The task is to spread that word to all,
>> publicize the wide variety of things hams do, welcome those who are
>> interested, and help them with what *they* find interesting.
>
> Spreading the word is more important these days than ever before. We
> can't expect people to become interested in something that they don't
> know exists.
That's what I liked about the Jay Leno texting versus Morse piece of a
couple of years back. It gave exposure to amateur radio in a fun way.
>> Oddly enough, a lot of the young hams I have met are fascinated by
>> Morse Code, simply because it is unique and outside their experience.
>> That doesn't mean it's the only thing to show them, or that all new
>> hams must start out one and only one way. But it does mean we cannot
>> assume young hams are only interested in "new" things.
>
> But CW is new to them. It's different. Unique.
You've got a point.
> Ham radio is never going to appeal to everyone. Never has; never will.
> The majority of people, young and old, tend to go with what has the
> interest of the mainstream. Hams have always been somewhat "different",
> and the hobby has always appealed to a segment of the population that
> wasn't interested in doing whatever the fashionable thing might be at
> the moment.
When I was licensed, I was living in a remote West Virginia mountain
town. Long distance telephone calls were expensive. We received three
TV stations only via cable. Listening to Bruce Bradley on WABC or Dick
Biondi on WLS meant contact with the rest of the world. Books brought
the world to my door and amateur radio meant that I could use a rather
primitive radio station in my bedroom to contact another fellow
operating from his basement in France, an outbuilding in Russia or a
from a stucco house in Chile.
>> Some ideas:
>>
>> 1) Presentations at the middle-school and even elementary-school level
>> - including the parents.
>
> Getting the teachers involved would be ideal. Teachers are an
> incredibly important influence on their students.
Think back: Some kids do everything the teacher tells them. Some kids
do everything except what the teacher tells them. I've had very good
teachers and I've had dreadful teachers.
>> 2) Identify local hams who are available to be Elmers. (I suspect that
>> some of the curmudgeon-ness is due to the fear of being expected to be
>> an Elmer).
>
> This is indeed key. It's what made the hobby so important for me as a
> younger ham.
I'll assist any young person who wants to become a ham--as long as they
don't call me an "Elmer".
>> 3) Subtle helps to prospective young hams, such as a ride to a club
>> meeting, Field Day or hamfest, the loan of a rig, the gift of a box of
>> "old wire" that happens to contain all the parts needed to build an
>> antenna, etc.
>
> And the help to actually put it together.
...and the patience to demonstrate proper operation.
>> 4) Inclusion and acceptance. This means being considered an equal, or
>> at least a potential equal. For example, put new hams or prospective
>> hams to work with FD setup, logging, etc. (That means knowing how to
>> do things the right way, though!)
>
> I do think this is the most important aspect. I'm not suggesting that
> we coddle people simply because they are young, or fawn over them. But
> we should give them the opportunity to contribute as equals, with
> appropriate encouragement and assistance. Breaking into the "old boys'
> network" can be impossible if the old boys don't make an effort to be
> inclusive.
I think that most do make an effort to be inclusive and to show a
newcomer the ropes. Some of it has to do with the old boys. Much has
to do with the attitude of the newcomer.
Dave K8MN
Derry Hamilton
> On Sun, 25 May 2008 07:56:17 EDT, Buck <usen...@lumpuckeroo.com>
> wrote:
>
>>>No, D-Star is not proprietary. It is an open standard.
>
>>Not proprietary? How can I get my Yaesu to work with it?
>
> Can your Yaesu do single sideband on 440 MHz? Same issue.
Yes, just fine thanks.
> Convince Motorola - who now owns Yaesu - to make an adapter. Up to
> now, no one has made and sold such things except Icom. It's not like
> Pactor III which is in fact proprietary and no one can make adapters
> except SGS, the patent-holder.
I'd prefer to make one myself, except I'd have to buy an AMBE chip from
DVSI. DVSI, being the patent holders, are the only ones who can make
them (without paying 6-7 figures for the license, and even then only in
hardware). And that seems to me to make it just as proprietary as
Pactor III.
73 de GM4FH
Alexander Hamilton
Buck
<Phil...@nov.shmovz.ka.pop> wrote:
>On Sun, 25 May 2008 07:56:17 EDT, Buck <usen...@lumpuckeroo.com>
>wrote:
>
>>>No, D-Star is not proprietary. It is an open standard.
>
>>Not proprietary? How can I get my Yaesu to work with it?
>
>Can your Yaesu do single sideband on 440 MHz? Same issue.
>
It can do all modes!
Steve Bonine
> Steve Bonine wrote:
>> N2...@aol.com wrote:
>>
>>> I became a ham at age 13, mostly through what I learned from ARRL
>>> books. The big attraction was that Radio in general and Amateur Radio
>>> in particular looked like a lot of fun to me. And for more than 40
>>> years, it has been.
>>
>> Me too. But I do think that we have increased competition these days
>> from other outlets for prospective hams, and other things that "look
>> like a lot of fun". Computers and such gadgets are a part of daily
>> life for young folks these days; it's only natural that they gravitate
>> in that direction. I suspect that the vast majority of them have not
>> been exposed to ham radio at all.
>
> You have to admit that there were always things which looked like a lot
> of fun. In our day it was guitars, skateboards, stereo equipment,
> photography, sports and GIRLS. Not many of us were exposed to amateur
> radio in terms of percentages of young people.
The difference is the level of exposure as a user. Today, every young
person is exposed to personal computers as a user, in the same way that
they are exposed to cars as a user. Most of them won't go past the
level of a user, but a few will turn into gearheads or into computer geeks.
> I had an old Zenith tabletop radio with shortwave which covered 5.5 to
> 18 MHz. I used it initially to listen to broadcast radio. Then I
> discovered the shortwave broadcasters and finally the 40 and 20m hams
> using AM. Luckily for me, I heard a ham who was in our town and he lit
> the fire for me.
That's my point. I, too, had access to a shortwave receiver and
followed much the same path that you did. That's much less likely to
happen today. Back then, people were exposed to radio as users. Today,
they're exposed to it via cell phones but they don't perceive it as
radio. Entering ham radio via the SWL route is very rare these days.
> There were lots of young hams and young SWLs who were interested in
> becoming hams. They read Pop'tronics and EI. Most of the Novices I
> worked were in my age group.
Now that you mention it, I do remember working a lot of novices who were
in my age group. There weren't that many local hams who were as young
as me, but there were a lot on the air.
> K8CFT administered Novice exams to a
> number of junior high and high school aged boys. At one time, the
> little town of Oak Hill, West Virginia (population 7,000) boasted seven
> young Novices along with six or seven higher class radio amateurs. Of
> those seven hams, five are still licensed and active. One dropped out
> of amateur radio and one (who was active) died last year. The key was
> that *we were interested*. No one can make someone spend his leisure
> hours doing something in which he has no interest.
Yes, but you can only be interested in something if you know it exists.
If the option of finding out about ham radio via the SWL route has
disappeared, how do young people find out that they have the option of
spending leisure hours in ham radio?
I think that the best option to attract young folks into the hobby is to
expose them at school. Doing that requires teachers who are at least
amenable to the idea. I suppose that getting publicity into the
channels that they use could work, but I'm not sure how to do that. I'm
not even sure what channels to shoot for.
Another option is to attract older recruits. This has its own set of
issues since someone who is busy raising a family and building a career
may not have vast amounts of spare time to spend in a hobby.
But for me the bottom line is that it's important to attract people into
the hobby to replace the folks who are leaving. As the ham population
ages and declines, it becomes more and more difficult to find a critical
mass of local hams to support things like the local club, FD operations,
Skywarn, and anything that's not done on the air. This problem is
especially evident in rural areas that don't have a large population to
draw from.
73, Steve KB9X
N2...@aol.com
> N...@aol.com wrote:
> > I became a ham at age 13, mostly through what I learned from ARRL
> > books. The big attraction was that Radio in general and Amateur Radio
> > in particular looked like a lot of fun to me. And for more than 40
> > years, it has been.
>
> from other outlets for prospective hams, and other things that "look
> like a lot of fun". �Computers and such gadgets are a part of
> daily life
> for young folks these days; it's only natural that they gravitate in
> that direction.
Those things are part of daily life for almost everyone (in developed
countries) today.
But amateur radio has had that sort of competition for many decades -
it's nothing new.
>�I suspect that the vast majority of them have not been
> exposed to ham radio at all.
IMHO, *that* is the Big Problem.
> > I think there is a sense that, back in the Old Days,
> > there were young
> > hams (high school and younger) all over the place.
> > In my experience as
> > a young ham (1960s-70s), however, that was
> > not the case at all. Ham
> > radio was a niche thing back then, same as now, even without
> > computers, cell phones, etc.
>
> Yes, I agree. �I do remember more young hams back then,
> though. �It was
> mostly a hobby for older people, but I do think there were more
> young hams then.
Here's one data point for you:
I graduated from high school in 1972. Middle class suburb of
Philadelphia, emphasis was on math and science. Out of about 5000
students (boys and girls in two side-by-side schools), there were
never more than a handful of hams. Less than a dozen in the four years
I was there (which covers 7 graduating classes. At any one time there
were no more than six hams in both schools.
> > Operating skill, QSO content and signal quality
> > established one's on-
> > air reputation, not how deep or gravelly your voice was.
>
> This was a very important consideration for me, too. �Even for the
> operation that I did on phone, by and large people treated me as > an
> equal, and if I demonstrated skill they recognized that skill without
> regard to my age. �Even in traditional in-person interactions like
> club
> meetings and Field Day operations, I was treated as an equal if I > could
> demonstrate that I deserved to be treated that way. �Generally
> speaking
> the local ham community was eager to reach out and teach me if > it was ob
vious that I needed teaching.
Yep. But at the same time, there had to be a willingness to learn.
> I can't think of another hobby where I could have gained
> access to such
> a community of people who were often peers of my parents.
And on a first-name basis, too. A bank president was "Joe", a
respected MD was "Bill", a highly skilled professional radio operator
was "Lou".
> > To speculate wildly, it might be that one
> > cause for curmudgeon-ness is
> > the fear of what advancements/accomplishments
> > the young folks might
> > actually make.
>
> I think you give this segment of our hobby too much credit <grin>.
>
> There are always going to be folks who simply have no social
> skills or prefer not to deal with "kids".
That's true, but it's not what I was getting at.
What I have seen happen more than a few times is the case of a young
amateur rising through the ranks very quickly, passing older and more-
experienced amateurs on the way. Not just in license class (although
the "incentive licensing" changes helped that) but in things like DXCC
countries, code speed, contest scores, operating skills, new
technology in use, etc.
While most hams are glad to see such things, I suspect that there were
at least a few who did not like being bested at *anything* by
young(er) folks. Particularly when it's in the area of skills.
> > The core value of Amateur Radio is "radio for its
> > own sake". Some
> > folks get that, most do not. The task is to spread that word to all,
> > publicize the wide variety of things hams do, welcome
> > those who are
> > interested, and help them with what *they* find interesting.
>
> Spreading the word is more important these days than ever
> before. �We
> can't expect people to become interested in something that they
> don't know exists.
Again, that's the Big Problem.
> > Oddly enough, a lot of the young hams
> > I have met are fascinated by
> > Morse Code, simply because it is unique and
> > outside their experience.
> > That doesn't mean it's the only thing to show them, or that all new
> > hams must start out one and only one way. But it does
> > mean we cannot
> > assume young hams are only interested in "new" things.
> But CW is new to them. �It's different. �Unique.
Yes. it's new to them. But they rapidly recognize that it's not a new
technology at all. Doesn't matter; it's the uniqueness that makes it
interesting.
Uniqueness is a big deal to the young people I know. I clearly recall
seeing the first Harry Potter book appear - and seeing it being read,
in hardcover, by local kids as young as 2nd and 3rd grade.
"Conventional wisdom" says that "kids today" would not read books, let
alone buy them (or pester their parents to buy them), yet here they
were doing just that. Because the stories are unique.
> Ham radio is never going to appeal to everyone. �
> Never has; never will.
Of course.
> The majority of people, young and old, tend to go with
> what has the interest of the mainstream. �Hams have
> always been somewhat "different",
> and the hobby has always appealed to a segment
> of the population that
> wasn't interested in doing whatever the fashionable
> thing might be at the moment.
I think it's much simpler than that. Some people like the idea of
"radio for its own sake", others can't see the point.
That applies to almost any voluntary activity. For example, most
golfers will never play at anything like a professional level. The
game takes a considerable amount of time and expense, is dependent on
season and weather, and even when you play really well only a few will
ever know.
Yet lots of folks play, because it's not only fun but a challenge.
Same for sport fishing, target shooting, running marathons, and a
variety of arts and crafts done for pleasure. In all cases the journey
is as important (if not more important) than the destination.
> > 1) Presentations at the middle-school and even elementary-
> > school level - including the parents.
>
> Getting the teachers involved would be ideal. �Teachers are an
> incredibly important influence on their students.
Agreed! But that requires a teacher who is a ham.
Scouting is perhaps the #1 source of new young hams
today, btw. Particularly boys. Scouting groups are
always looking for responsible adult leaders.
> > 2) Identify local hams who are available to be Elmers. (I
> > suspect that
> > some of the curmudgeon-ness is due to the fear of being
> > expected to be an Elmer).
>
> This is indeed key. �It's what made the hobby so important for me
> as a younger ham.
>
> > 3) Subtle helps to prospective young hams, such as a ride to a > > club
> > meeting, Field Day or hamfest, the loan of a rig, the gift of a
> > box of
> > "old wire" that happens to contain all the parts needed to build
> > an antenna, etc.
>
> And the help to actually put it together.
Sort of. A key factor is knowing just how little help to give.
> > 4) Inclusion and acceptance. This means being
> > considered an equal, or
> > at least a potential equal. For example, put new hams
> > or prospective
> > hams to work with FD setup, logging, etc. (That means
> > knowing how to
> > do things the right way, though!)
>
> I do think this is the most important aspect. �I'm not suggesting
that
> we coddle people simply because they are young, or fawn over
> them. �But
> we should give them the opportunity to contribute as equals, with
> appropriate encouragement and assistance. �Breaking into
> the "old boys'
> network" can be impossible if the old boys don't make an effort to > be in
clusive.
Agreed - and that includes being willing to delegate authority.
I will never forget being allowed to run the 40 meter CW setup
overnight on Field Day back in 1970. I was 16, a ham for three years,
and there I was with a Drake 4-line and good antenna on a hot contest
band. You can bet I learned a lot that night!
73 de Jim, N2EY
Steve Bonine
>>> 1) Presentations at the middle-school and even elementary-
>>> school level - including the parents.
>> Getting the teachers involved would be ideal. Teachers are an
>> incredibly important influence on their students.
>
> Agreed! But that requires a teacher who is a ham.
No, it doesn't. It only requires a teacher who is open to allowing
someone to help him/her, and a person willing to help.
73, Steve KB9X
Mark Kramer
Derry Hamilton <gm...@rasilon.net> wrote:
>I'd prefer to make one myself, except I'd have to buy an AMBE chip from
>DVSI.
I'd like to make a lot of things for myself but I have to buy patented
chips from the license holders. AM radio isn't a proprietary protocol,
but a lot of the parts used to make an AM radio are patented. You buy
them only from people the licensee has approved.
Michael Coslo
Hi Mark,
Could you elaborate on the relationship of electronic parts to
proprietary codecs for radios?
I think there is a little confusion here regarding proprietary aspects
of electronics and radio concepts.
Any patents held on electronic components are patents to safeguard the
makers methods of making them - not the concept of the parts. The
resistors, diodes and other parts are basic electronic building blocks,
and anyone can make those.
I could make a nicely functioning radio out of pencils, microscope
slides, aluminum foil, scrap wire, an old oatmeal box, and If I really
wanted to get involved, I could construct my own vacuum tubes and design
and build a superheterodyne radio.
As long as I built them according to my own methods, and did not
infringe on the methods used by a manufacturer, not one patent, nor
intellectual property would be violated.
Another way of looking at this, is that I can go to the local Radio
Shack, and buy a handful of components to build say, a blinking light.
Maybe an IC-type 555, an op amp or two, and their needed peripheral parts.
My finished device is not owned by the companies that made the parts. If
it is my original design, I can claim copyright on it.
Now on to the intellectual property of the D-Star codec.
D-Star uses this Codec, and it is proprietary.
If you do not use the Codec, you will not be able to use the D-Star
repeater.
If you can use the repeater, you have the Codec.
This differs in many important ways from normal repeaters, and normal
Codecs in use by Amateurs.
Examples of non proprietary Codecs are(randomoly picked except for D-Star:
SPEEX- lossy but good ro IRLP
FLAC - lossless
Proprietary codecs:
AMBE
The D Star Codec.
The ramifications of using each are important.
Amateur Radio has traditionally used open source whenever possible,
because we also have a tradition of working on and improving those
things that we work with. Examples are the PSK31 and RTTY modes.
Amateurs are continually providing new and improved software for those.
There are even multi PSK channel data transmission softwares out there.
A lot of PSK signals fit within the bandwidth taken up by one SSB voice
transmission.
My experimenting with a particular PSK engine is usually based on going
to the web, and downloading it. Most applications are free, but even
those that have to be purchased, the whole sum is going to the developer.
Hypothetically, say a group of hams came up with a digital repeater
using the SPEEX Codec. (SPEEX is used for illustration purposes only, it
might not be the best choice)
Most of us would be able to either build or purchase an interface that
would allow us to interface our radios to the computer, as software
would be easily available to run them.
Hand helds would be easily adaptable, as there is no specific need for a
computer, just the necessary software and hardware to turn an audio
stream into a digital stream, in the same manner as cell phones do (they
use a different codec, but the principle is the same.
I would note that there has not been a huge amount of work done by
Amateurs in the VHF and up region as related to Digital voice. A lot of
this can be ascribed to the fact that an SSB channel is already pretty
narrow, so there aren't orders of magnitude gains to be made in
conserving bandwidth. Another issue is that with digital signals,
multipath can be a severe problem. Anyone who does doppler direction
finding (I do) can tell you that at VHF and up, Multipath is a major
problem. What might be a little whoosh or garble on FM without upsetting
readability can sometimes just keep the digital system nice and quiet.
Now let us turn to our D-Star equipped repeater.
What will communicate with it:
Icom D-Star Equipment
Kenwood ( a rebranded Icom, sold only in Japan
Moetronix Can hear and talk D-Star on the internet.
That is a pretty short list. One for all practical purposes You buy the
equipment and you use it.
Do you know what the price for the AMBE Chip is in quantities of one? It
may not even be realistic for an amateur to attempt to build one of
their own.
Mike
Phil Kane
>Now let us turn to our D-Star equipped repeater.
>
>What will communicate with it:
>
>Icom D-Star Equipment
>Kenwood ( a rebranded Icom, sold only in Japan
>Moetronix Can hear and talk D-Star on the internet.
>
>That is a pretty short list. One for all practical purposes You buy the
>equipment and you use it.
The "leadership" of our ARES/RACES group are D-Star fanatics. They
claim, though, that the ICOM equipment does have an FM mode to pass FM
signals through. I have no idea how that works (dual detection
channels?).
As I understood it, D-Star is a set of open protocols generated by
individuals in the Japan Radio Club (or whatever the formal name is)
and ICOM was the only one so far to implement them in hardware. If
someone else wants to implement them, a good IP lawyer can steer them
in the direction of non-infringement. A good (non-ham) friend of mine
is the IP attorney for Nikon USA and he is always checking to see that
the newest stuff proposed does not infringe patents by Canon and
others, yet digital photography uses open standards that everyone
implements in their own way.
One of our club members is the author of D-Rats (that's Star spelled
backwards), a set of open-source applications for functionality of
D-Star radios. There's nothing proprietary about what he is doing or
its applications, and he comes out with updates weekly. I'm not a
software person so I can't comment on hooks and APIs and such.
Hey, I would be a D-Star "nut" also were the radio fairy to deliver
four dual-band mobiles and an HT on my doorstep one night. We'll
leave the light on for ya'.
Michael Coslo
> On Tue, 27 May 2008 19:38:13 EDT, Michael Coslo <mj...@psu.edu> wrote:
>
>> Now let us turn to our D-Star equipped repeater.
>>
>> What will communicate with it:
>>
>> Icom D-Star Equipment
>> Kenwood ( a rebranded Icom, sold only in Japan
>> Moetronix Can hear and talk D-Star on the internet.
>>
>> That is a pretty short list. One for all practical purposes You buy the
>> equipment and you use it.
>
> The "leadership" of our ARES/RACES group are D-Star fanatics. They
> claim, though, that the ICOM equipment does have an FM mode to pass FM
> signals through. I have no idea how that works (dual detection
> channels?).
I've looked to see if such a thing (fm voice) exists within D-Star.
Could these folks steer us to some documentation? Here are the RF
modules I've found:
http://homepage.mac.com/rrucker/d-star/D-Star_repeater_modules.pdf
Do you know of any coordination or frequency placement issues involved
with opening a presumptive FM side?
You know that whole D-Star "repeater" is not a repeater issue, so
frequencies are opened up for it in repeater crowded areas. Those
frequencies would not be proper repeater frequencies for an FM repeater.
Do you know a reference for that action Phil? I've looked a bit on the
FCC site, but haven't found it yet. I think it was in 2006.
> As I understood it, D-Star is a set of open protocols generated by
> individuals in the Japan Radio Club (or whatever the formal name is)
> and ICOM was the only one so far to implement them in hardware. If
> someone else wants to implement them, a good IP lawyer can steer them
> in the direction of non-infringement.
I would really hate to have to hire a lawyer to consult on my
homebrewing... ;^)
> A good (non-ham) friend of mine
> is the IP attorney for Nikon USA and he is always checking to see that
> the newest stuff proposed does not infringe patents by Canon and
> others, yet digital photography uses open standards that everyone
> implements in their own way.
>
> One of our club members is the author of D-Rats (that's Star spelled
> backwards), a set of open-source applications for functionality of
> D-Star radios. There's nothing proprietary about what he is doing or
> its applications, and he comes out with updates weekly. I'm not a
> software person so I can't comment on hooks and APIs and such.
>
Does he have a website? I'd like to take a look.
> Hey, I would be a D-Star "nut" also were the radio fairy to deliver
> four dual-band mobiles and an HT on my doorstep one night. We'll
> leave the light on for ya'.
I'd be interested in experimenting with it. We just don't have a
digital repeater for a long way around here, and the costs of putting
one up just don't make it happen. It kind of reminds me of the old
credit problem for young people.
Need a loan? You need a good credit rating
Need a good credit rating, you need to get a loan.. 8^)
Like you said, if the radio fairys were to drop a system off... 8^)
Mark Kramer
Michael Coslo <mj...@psu.edu> wrote:
>As long as I built them according to my own methods, and did not
>infringe on the methods used by a manufacturer, not one patent, nor
>intellectual property would be violated.
Yes, by definition, if you don't infringe, you haven't infringed. You can
build just about anything for personal use and not infringe.
>D-Star uses this Codec, and it is proprietary.
The digital voice part of D-Star uses a codec. The rest does not. The
protocol is open and published. Certain parts used to implement the
protocol are patented and sold only by a single source. When 741s were
new, they were expensive and sole-sourced.
>If you do not use the Codec, you will not be able to use the D-Star
>repeater.
I'm not sure you are correct about that.
>This differs in many important ways from normal repeaters, and normal
>Codecs in use by Amateurs.
If you don't have an FM radio, you cannot use an FM repeater.
Just as you can build your own copies of patented things for personal
use, as you mentioned earlier, you can build your own copy of an AMBE
codec for personal use. TI won't tell me how to build a 741 IC; AMBE is
under no compulsion to tell you how to build their codec. If you buy one
and reverse engineer it, that's fine -- for personal use.
>Amateur Radio has traditionally used open source whenever possible,
Airmail and Winlink 2000 are two very large obvious counterexamples. The
firmware in a KPC3+ another. The firmware in the repeater controller
I had to reverse engineer to make usable, ditto. It is common for ham
applications to run only on Windows -- the epitome of closed source. The
control and programming software from Kenwood for the D700 is -- closed
source windows only. Look around at all the Motorola gear in use in ham
radio. I've yet to see an open-source version of ANY of the programs
required to program a Motorola.
Yes, there is open source for many things. No, it's not always used. The
"tradition" is limited.
>Now let us turn to our D-Star equipped repeater.
>
>What will communicate with it:
>
>Icom D-Star Equipment
>Kenwood ( a rebranded Icom, sold only in Japan
>Moetronix Can hear and talk D-Star on the internet.
>
>That is a pretty short list.
A very incomplete list, I believe. And, at an early stage of development,
not unexpected.
>One for all practical purposes You buy the equipment and you use it.
For all practical purposes, 2m and 440 are "you buy the equipment and
you use it". I don't know many people building their own HTs, and even
those that did used the Heathkits. For most commodity ham uses, homebrew
is rare.
>Do you know what the price for the AMBE Chip is in quantities of one?
About $200.
>It
>may not even be realistic for an amateur to attempt to build one of
>their own.
The ID-1, last I looked, is $1000. About. The IC-V92AD is about $600.
An SDR is on the order of $1000 and up. A lot of bleeding edge components
are a bit spendy. Ham radio experimentation is a spendy hobby.
N2...@aol.com
In theory, yes, the teacher doesn't have to be a ham.
But in practice, I think a teacher who was that interested in having
ham radio in the school would *be* a ham, if for no other reason than
it makes the whole thing easier.
--
A lot depends, too, on what level of involvement ham radio is to be in
the school. For example, in increasing order of involvement:
1) Books, magazines and other info on ham radio could be provided to
the school libraries.
2) Local amateurs could give a presentation/demonstration at an
assembly, student activity day, etc. This would simply say "Here's
what ham radio is, what hams do, what it takes to become one.." etc.
3) Ham radio could be introduced as an extra-curricular activity, same
as computer clubs, robotics clubs, etc. (The local high school has a
computer club that focuses on rehabbing older computers for use by
students who can't afford their own, and a robotics club that designs
and builds machines for competition).
4) Ham radio could be part of the curriculum, integrated into the
math, technology, communications and geography parts.
IMHO the bell-the-cat question at all levels is: Who's going to do the
work, and pay the costs?
73 de Jim, N2EY
Phil Kane
>> The "leadership" of our ARES/RACES group are D-Star fanatics. They
>> claim, though, that the ICOM equipment does have an FM mode to pass FM
>> signals through. I have no idea how that works (dual detection
>> channels?).
>
>I've looked to see if such a thing (fm voice) exists within D-Star.
>Could these folks steer us to some documentation? Here are the RF
>modules I've found:
>
The FM voice is not part of the D-Star specs. It is built into the
ICOM hardware. The IC-2820 dual-band dual-channel mobile comes
"D-Star ready" for $600 and the add-on D-Star module is another $200+.
I'd just as soon wait for the prices to come down.
>
>Do you know of any coordination or frequency placement issues involved
>with opening a presumptive FM side?
No, the local coordinator handles that as any other frequency
coordination matter.
>You know that whole D-Star "repeater" is not a repeater issue, so
>frequencies are opened up for it in repeater crowded areas. Those
>frequencies would not be proper repeater frequencies for an FM repeater.
>
>Do you know a reference for that action Phil? I've looked a bit on the
>FCC site, but haven't found it yet. I think it was in 2006.
According to what I've heard, that's a "hot button" topic, but Bill
Cross of the FCC (an active ham) said at Dayton that he applies the
"duck test" to the D-Star repeaters (making them eligible for
automatic control).
Dave Platt
Phil Kane <Phil...@nov.shmovz.ka.pop> wrote:
>>You know that whole D-Star "repeater" is not a repeater issue, so
>>frequencies are opened up for it in repeater crowded areas. Those
>>frequencies would not be proper repeater frequencies for an FM repeater.
>>
>>Do you know a reference for that action Phil? I've looked a bit on the
>>FCC site, but haven't found it yet. I think it was in 2006.
>
>According to what I've heard, that's a "hot button" topic, but Bill
>Cross of the FCC (an active ham) said at Dayton that he applies the
>"duck test" to the D-Star repeaters (making them eligible for
>automatic control).
That makes good sense to me.
As I understand it, some D-Star advocates are claiming that a D-Star
repeater isn't a repeater, because the regs state that a repeater
retransmits the incoming signal "instantaneously", and the packet
delay in a D-Star system makes it not-instantaneous... that it's
fundamentally a store-and-forward system, more like a BBS (albeit with
a very short storage time).
That same line of thought (if valid) would seem to apply to a fairly
high percentage of ham-radio analog repeaters on the air today. It's
quite common to have a digital or bucket-brigate delay device in the
receiver audio path, with the analog audio being presented to the
repeater controller and transmitter some time (up to tens of
milliseconds) after it was actually demodulated by the receiver. This
can help reduce the chopping-off of the first part of the first
syllable, and allows the transmitter to be un-keyed at the end of the
transmission before the beginning of the squelch-tail noise burst gets
out of the delay pipeline.
I can't recall hearing anyone argue that an FM analog repeater with an
analog bucket-brigade (or even ADPCM digital) audio delay circuit was
magically "not a repeater" because the audio retransmission was not
"instantaneous". If the D-Star not-a-repeater proponents were to win
their case, it might be a *very* pyrrhic victory, as analog repeater
owners might also qualify to move into non-repeater frequency
segments. Sauce for the goose...
--
Dave Platt <dpl...@radagast.org> AE6EO
Friends of Jade Warrior home page: http://www.radagast.org/jade-warrior
I do _not_ wish to receive unsolicited commercial email, and I will
boycott any company which has the gall to send me such ads!
Michael Coslo
> On Wed, 28 May 2008 09:33:52 EDT, Michael Coslo <mj...@psu.edu> wrote:
>
>>> The "leadership" of our ARES/RACES group are D-Star fanatics. They
>>> claim, though, that the ICOM equipment does have an FM mode to pass FM
>>> signals through. I have no idea how that works (dual detection
>>> channels?).
>> I've looked to see if such a thing (fm voice) exists within D-Star.
>> Could these folks steer us to some documentation? Here are the RF
>> modules I've found:
>>
> The FM voice is not part of the D-Star specs. It is built into the
> ICOM hardware. The IC-2820 dual-band dual-channel mobile comes
> "D-Star ready" for $600 and the add-on D-Star module is another $200+.
Right. My thoughts on the whole thing are that with the Bizarre
"repeater that isn't a repeater" argument they couldn't run FM analog
because it would turn the "repeater that isn't a repeater into a
repeater that is a repeater."
Now repeat that ten times real fast! ;^)
Michael Coslo
> In article <utce44psts93mtapb...@4ax.com>,
> Phil Kane <Phil...@nov.shmovz.ka.pop> wrote:
>> According to what I've heard, that's a "hot button" topic, but Bill
>> Cross of the FCC (an active ham) said at Dayton that he applies the
>> "duck test" to the D-Star repeaters (making them eligible for
>> automatic control).
>
> That makes good sense to me.
>
> As I understand it, some D-Star advocates are claiming that a D-Star
> repeater isn't a repeater, because the regs state that a repeater
> retransmits the incoming signal "instantaneously", and the packet
> delay in a D-Star system makes it not-instantaneous... that it's
> fundamentally a store-and-forward system, more like a BBS (albeit with
> a very short storage time).
One B too many IMO! ;^)
> That same line of thought (if valid) would seem to apply to a fairly
> high percentage of ham-radio analog repeaters on the air today. It's
> quite common to have a digital or bucket-brigate delay device in the
> receiver audio path, with the analog audio being presented to the
> repeater controller and transmitter some time (up to tens of
> milliseconds) after it was actually demodulated by the receiver. This
> can help reduce the chopping-off of the first part of the first
> syllable, and allows the transmitter to be un-keyed at the end of the
> transmission before the beginning of the squelch-tail noise burst gets
> out of the delay pipeline.
Our repeater system uses several polling receivers at different sites.
(6 or 7 IIRC) The recievers transmit their received signals to the main
site. The main repeater site determines which is the strongest signal,
and sends that one through to the main repeater transmitter.
As you can imagine, there is some delay there too. Maybe 250 milliseconds.
> I can't recall hearing anyone argue that an FM analog repeater with an
> analog bucket-brigade (or even ADPCM digital) audio delay circuit was
> magically "not a repeater" because the audio retransmission was not
> "instantaneous". If the D-Star not-a-repeater proponents were to win
> their case, it might be a *very* pyrrhic victory, as analog repeater
> owners might also qualify to move into non-repeater frequency
> segments. Sauce for the goose...
One of the biggest problems putting up a repeater these days is that
many areas are just full. There's no room at the Inn. And the area in
which a D-Star is likely to do best is in those crowded areas. So they
tried to do an end run around the issue. Without a lot of thought.
Seems like we have a nice patch of bandwidth between 2 meters and 440
that is a bit underutilized?
KØHB
>
> One of the biggest problems putting up a repeater these days is that many
> areas are just full. There's no room at the Inn. And the area in which a
> D-Star is likely to do best is in those crowded areas. .
>
Depends on the definition of "full" or the definition of "crowded".
I live in a metropolitan area in which there are no VHF pairs available for
assignment. By some definition that might mean that the spectrum is "full" or
"crowded".
But you could shoot off a cannon on 2M most of the time and it wouldn't hit a
soul. Nobody. Not a signal to be heard. Some days you can scan every channel
in sequence for hours on end with not a peep heard. Then go to each QRG in
sequence and transmit "K0HB LISTENING". Nobody home.
I travel a lot, to large cities like Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Louis, Tucson,
Kansas City, Indianapolis, Detroit, OKC, DFW, Tucson, Phoenix, Denver, El
Paso/Las Cruces. It's the same everywhere. Just a scattering of signals on the
bands, but EVERY PAIR spoken for.
The NFCC needs to quit being the lapdog of the repeater owners, and do some
spectrum management housecleaning.
Before Bill Cross does.
Alan
>But you could shoot off a cannon on 2M most of the time and it wouldn't hit a
>soul. Nobody. Not a signal to be heard. Some days you can scan every channel
>in sequence for hours on end with not a peep heard. Then go to each QRG in
>sequence and transmit "K0HB LISTENING". Nobody home.
Well, "listening" generally is taken by an increasing number of folks as
meaning you are listening, not that you are soliciting a call. If I hear it,
and I also have some reason to talk to you, I may call. Of course, if I had
something to call you about, the cellphone in my pocket probably already took
care of that.
If you want to talk to someone, call them, or call cq.
>I travel a lot, to large cities like Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Louis, Tucson,
>Kansas City, Indianapolis, Detroit, OKC, DFW, Tucson, Phoenix, Denver, El
>Paso/Las Cruces. It's the same everywhere. Just a scattering of signals on the
>bands, but EVERY PAIR spoken for.
True. 10 - 15 years ago, they were busy. Now --- silent. It seems that way
everywhere.
I know that for me, I now have a small car with no good place for a rig, and
park in places where one might not want to leave one in the car. At home, being
married sort of cuts in to sitting in front of the radio all evening.
I don't know what took the interest away for everyone else. However, with
nobody on to talk to, I am less interested in solving the problems in the car
to get on, so if others are in the same boat, we all contribute to the
silence.
Alan
wa6azp
Michael Coslo
> "Michael Coslo" <mj...@psu.edu> wrote in message
> news:g29612$vda$1...@f04n12.cac.psu.edu...
>
>> One of the biggest problems putting up a repeater these days is that many
>> areas are just full. There's no room at the Inn. And the area in which a
>> D-Star is likely to do best is in those crowded areas. .
>>
>
> Depends on the definition of "full" or the definition of "crowded".
>
> I live in a metropolitan area in which there are no VHF pairs available for
> assignment. By some definition that might mean that the spectrum is "full" or
> "crowded".
>
> But you could shoot off a cannon on 2M most of the time and it wouldn't hit a
> soul. Nobody. Not a signal to be heard. Some days you can scan every channel
> in sequence for hours on end with not a peep heard. Then go to each QRG in
> sequence and transmit "K0HB LISTENING". Nobody home.
It is possible that I live in an anomalous area, but in Central PA, the
repeaters are pretty busy. And State College is the smallest
metropolitan area in the country. We have 5 repeaters, although one is
down for maintenance right now. Altoona to the southwest has a number of
repeaters that have traffic on them also.
naive mode on:
One of the most interesting aspects of Amateur radio is that we kind of
expect someone to be waiting there to talk to us. While we can't control
what happens in other areas, we can control our own.
If we want to generate traffic on the repeaters, the simplest way is to
generate some traffic on them. Get a friend and talk on the thing. Next
thing you know, others will join you. If enough places do that, there
will be plenty of traffic.
naive mode off:
That is what we did in our area. Traffic was down, and the obligatory
bemoaning of the problem was up.
We just had people get on the air and yak it up. Could be coincidence,
but more and more people joined the party, and a few years later the
repeater is in constant use.
This is one that Hams themselves have to bootstrap.
> The NFCC needs to quit being the lapdog of the repeater owners, and do some
> spectrum management housecleaning.
Interesting concept, but how to determine use or lack of use? (sounds
easy, but in practice it isn't.
Steve Bonine
> "KØHB" writes:
>> I travel a lot, to large cities like Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Louis, Tu
cson,
>> Kansas City, Indianapolis, Detroit, OKC, DFW, Tucson, Phoenix, Denver,
El
>> Paso/Las Cruces. It's the same everywhere. Just a scattering of sign
als on the
>> bands, but EVERY PAIR spoken for.
>
> True. 10 - 15 years ago, they were busy. Now --- silent. It seems
that way
> everywhere.
It's certainly that way in rural Minnesota. There are repeaters in many
of the small towns, and they're alive in the sense of being technically
there, but they're dead in the sense of anyone using them on a regular
basis. Sometimes there's a regular group who gets together in the
morning, but for our local repeater even that custom has faded away.
We lost our UHF repeater almost a year ago when the elevator it was on
was destroyed by lightning. [For you city slickers, the word "elevator"
out here in the sticks is used to describe a large structure in which
grain is stored.] That repeater is still silent. A new location was
secured, and funding for it was provided by the local emergency
management agency, but the antenna still hasn't been erected.
So I have to wonder, in metro areas where all the slots are "full", how
many of those repeaters actually exist and would respond if presented
with a correctly-toned signal on their published input frequency.
Perhaps more important, how many of them are used regularly? It might
actually make more sense to shut down several repeaters that don't have
a critical mass of users and move those small groups to the remaining
repeaters so that there was actually someone there to talk to. Better
to have two or three active repeaters in a metro area than a dozen dead
ones.
> I don't know what took the interest away for everyone else. However,
with
> nobody on to talk to, I am less interested in solving the problems in t
he car
> to get on, so if others are in the same boat, we all contribute to the
> silence.
It's a chicken and egg problem. I know that I'm contributing to the
problem; my 2-meter equipment consists of an HT, and I've considered
that I need to buy a "real" 2-meter rig and put up an antenna . . . but
it's difficult for me to justify the time and expense to do so when
there's no activity.
73, Steve KB9X
Mark Kramer
Steve Bonine <s...@pobox.com> wrote:
>Better
>to have two or three active repeaters in a metro area than a dozen dead
>ones.
Until there is an emergency and those two or three repeaters aren't
sufficient to support the emergency services operations going on.
Mark Kramer
Please speak english.
>in sequence and transmit "K0HB LISTENING". Nobody home.
When I hear someone say "listening", I think, "that's nice, they're
listening". I'm listening, too. If I don't know them or have some reason
to talk to them, I don't call them.
>The NFCC needs to quit being the lapdog of the repeater owners, and do some
>spectrum management housecleaning.
So now it is also the responsibility of the repeater owner to protect
his investment in equipment by seeking people to use his repeater all
the time? Otherwise, it will be "housecleaned" out from under him?
Do we have enough people to use all the possible repeaters all the
time? If not, then "housecleaning" to open spectrum up for other people
to install repeaters will just result in more empty repeaters. If you say
you just want to houseclean out all the unused repeaters and replace them
with nothing, what value is the housecleaning? You'll remove valuable
resources and replace them with nothing. The only "gain" (in the former
case) will be that new people who want the status of owning a repeater
will own repeaters that are empty. No gain at all in the latter.
I'll point out the opposite opinion: a repeater that is filled with
chit-chat all the time is unlistenable. It just drones on and on and
becomes background noise. Couple that with people who think they need
to be cute and entertaining on the air and it's no longer just noise,
it's painful. We have a "lunch bunch" on a local system every day. The
net control seems to think a sing-song delivery and "creative phonetics"
for everyone checking in is mandatory. I know some people like it. I
find it difficult to understand what he's saying most of the time. Is
he saying something important, or is he just spouting words with the
right first letters for the callsign he just heard? I turn it off.
Ivor Jones
Alan <nos...@w6yx.stanford.edu> typed, for some strange, unexplained
reason:
[snip]
: Well, "listening" generally is taken by an increasing number of
: folks as meaning you are listening, not that you are soliciting a call.
: If I hear it, and I also have some reason to talk to you, I may call.
: Of course, if I had something to call you about, the cellphone in my
: pocket probably already took care of that.
:
: If you want to talk to someone, call them, or call cq.
Now that's an interesting thought. When I was studying for my licence back
in 1982 we were told quite categorically that one didn't "call CQ" on
repeaters, but that we should announce that we were "listening through"
the repeater.
Even now, someone calling CQ via a repeater makes me wince ever so
slightly..!
73 Ivor G6URP
KØHB
>
> If we want to generate traffic on the repeaters, the simplest way is to
> generate some traffic on them. Get a friend and talk on the thing. Next thing
> you know, others will join you. If enough places do that, there will be plenty
> of traffic.
>
I didn't make my point very well. We don't need to "generate traffic", we
simply need to clean out the dead "legacy" assignments and free up room for
things like DStar and other emerging technologies.
I just had a look at our local (Minneapolis/St Paul) pair assignments. In the
2M and 75CM bands there are 108 repeater pairs assigned. You read right --- ONE
HUNDRED AND EIGHT! Yet I can scan both bands for hours on end and hear nothing.
Since this thread is about the "5th Pillar" of ARRL emphasis, "technology",
perhaps ARRK and NFCC could jointly sponsor a Skimmer-like technology initiative
which would put up a broadband receiver on a local highrise (we're in flatland
country out here) and count squelch-tails per QRG for three months. Then
approach the low 10% and suggest they might reconsider their needs. Especially
those clubs who sponsor multiple quiet repeaters all covering an identical
footprint.
73, de Hans, K0HB
David G. Nagel
Ivor;
Amazing, that is what I was taught back in the mid 70's. Times they are
a changing....
Dave WD9BDZ
Howard Lester
> It's a chicken and egg problem. I know that I'm contributing to the
problem; my 2-meter equipment consists of an HT, and I've considered
that I need to buy a "real" 2-meter rig and put up an antenna . . . but
it's difficult for me to justify the time and expense to do so when
there's no activity.
There used to be so much activity around here in Tucson a decade or more
ago, and I was active in it, but I suppose everyone migrated to the
internet... ? I thought about installing my 2m radio in my car so that I
have something to occupy part of my cross-country drive next year (I hope),
but maybe it's not worth it. If I knew there were folks along the way
regularly monitoring .52, I'd do it. If repeaters didn't have all these
different tone accesses, I'd do it. I'm not going to spend each night of the
trip programming the radio to accommodate what repeaters I may encounter for
any given upcoming 500 mile stretch.
Howard
Mark Kramer
KØHB <grou...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>I didn't make my point very well. We don't need to "generate traffic", we
>simply need to clean out the dead "legacy" assignments and free up room for
>things like DStar and other emerging technologies.
If you know a "dead" frequency pair, what interference do you imagine you
will create by using it for Dstar or other emerging technology? If you
aren't creating interference for a coordinated repeater, what prevents
you from using that pair?
>which would put up a broadband receiver on a local highrise (we're in flatland
>country out here) and count squelch-tails per QRG for three months.
I'm not sure how you count "squelch tails", but that's such a simple
system to game that it would mean nothing. If I wanted my pair kept
"active", I'd simply make a dozen calls a day on the output frequency. (Is
THAT what this QRG thing you keep talking about is? I don't speak CW
on Usenet.) Heck, I'd just set up an APRS beacon on the output. They have
squelch tails too.
>Then
>approach the low 10% and suggest they might reconsider their needs. Especially
>those clubs who sponsor multiple quiet repeaters all covering an identical
>footprint.
And then the stuff hits the fan and the groups that were going to support
the local hospital and power company and red cross and cop shop and road
department find themselves all trying to use the one or two repeaters
you'd like them to be limited to, while the DStar systems sit silent
because nobody could afford the radios to use them.
Steve Bonine
> Steve Bonine <s...@pobox.com> wrote:
>> Better
>> to have two or three active repeaters in a metro area than a dozen dead
>> ones.
>
> Until there is an emergency and those two or three repeaters aren't
> sufficient to support the emergency services operations going on.
If there are a dozen repeaters with zero activity, most will go dead in
any disaster because it takes real human interest and work to provide
emergency power. I'd rather have two or three solid repeaters than a
dozen where the maintenance is hit-and-miss and there's no one who
really cares whether they are up or not.
73, Steve KB9X
Steve Bonine
> So now it is also the responsibility of the repeater owner to protect
> his investment in equipment by seeking people to use his repeater all
> the time? Otherwise, it will be "housecleaned" out from under him?
KØHB wrote:
> I just had a look at our local (Minneapolis/St Paul) pair
assignments. > In the 2M and 75CM bands there are 108 repeater pairs
assigned.
There must be a compromise between these two opinions. There cannot be
108 active repeaters in one urban area. Frequency coordinators need a
way to reassign pairs that really are no longer being used.
73, Steve KB9X
KØHB
"Mark Kramer" <c28...@TheWorld.com> wrote in message
news:g2caks$ts6$1...@vulture.killfile.org...
>
> And then the stuff hits the fan and the groups that were going to support
> the local hospital and power company and red cross and cop shop and road
> department find themselves all trying to use the one or two repeaters
> you'd like them to be limited to, while the DStar systems sit silent
> because nobody could afford the radios to use them.
>
Hi again Mark,
Certainly there are places where there or only "one or two repeaters", but my
hypothetical example was built from my own local area where there are 108 pairs
assigned. If my PBI were implemented and the Repeater Council could harvest the
arbitrary 10% I mentioned, then there'd still be 97 legacy machines to choose
from, and 11 pairs opened for emerging technologies.
QSL?
73, de Hans, K0HB
Bryan
> There used to be so much activity around here in Tucson a decade or more
> ago, and I was active in it, but I suppose everyone migrated to the
> internet... ? I thought about installing my 2m radio in my car so that I
> have something to occupy part of my cross-country drive next year (I
hope),
> but maybe it's not worth it. If I knew there were folks along the way
> regularly monitoring .52, I'd do it. If repeaters didn't have all these
> different tone accesses, I'd do it. I'm not going to spend each night of
the
> trip programming the radio to accommodate what repeaters I may encounter
for
> any given upcoming 500 mile stretch.
>
> Howard
Hence, HF. You might hear more local activity on 10m. 80 or 40m during
daylight hours should also be good for local/regional activity.
Bryan WA7PRC
Howard Lester
> Hence, HF. You might hear more local activity on 10m. 80 or 40m during
> daylight hours should also be good for local/regional activity.
> Bryan WA7PRC
Mr. Bryan,
I have neither the room in my car for my IC-735, nor the willingness to put
up a 4BTV on my car's plastic bumper. (You'll find them in the back by the
shipping area.)
;-)
KØHB
"Howard Lester" <heyl...@dakotacom.net> wrote in message
news:vsKdnUEgluqLdNTV...@posted.dakotacomip...
> I thought about installing my 2m radio in my car so that I have something to
> occupy part of my cross-country drive next year (I hope), but maybe it's not
> worth it. If I knew there were folks along the way regularly monitoring .52,
> I'd do it.
Fugetaboutit!
K0CKB and I travel many thousands of miles a year in a coach with "K0HB & K0CKB
monitoring 146.52" prominently displayed on the back.
We also frequently announce our presence on .52. In the past 5 years we've had
precisely 2 QSO's on .52 as a result.
Don't bother.
73, de Hans, K0HB
Howard Lester
> K0CKB and I travel many thousands of miles a year in a coach with "K0HB &
> K0CKB monitoring 146.52" prominently displayed on the back.
>
> We also frequently announce our presence on .52. In the past 5 years
> we've had precisely 2 QSO's on .52 as a result.
>
> Don't bother.
Thanks, Hans. That'll save me from making a bunch of unnecessary holes in my
nice car.... and the price of a fancy new repeater directory. *sigh* I'll
wait until I get to 1-land and get to know my new neighbors.
N7SO
Phil Kane
wrote:
>And then the stuff hits the fan and the groups that were going to support
>the local hospital and power company and red cross and cop shop and road
>department find themselves all trying to use the one or two repeaters
>you'd like them to be limited to, while the DStar systems sit silent
>because nobody could afford the radios to use them.
One of the several radio clubs which I am a member of maintains a
rather extensive UHF repeater system which usually sits silent except
for about a half-dozen of us during commute hours or when we are doing
some exercise like Field Day. If this was to "go away" (fat chance of
that, knowing the reality of the situation and the folks involved) the
local medical center where I am the Disaster Communications Team
co-manager would be without required ham radio backup. We went to
that arrangement when we found out in a real disaster last December
that the local ARES groups could not accommodate the type of traffic
that we needed because of their own overloads.
Consider the trap that the FCC's first-generation automated Spectrum
Management System fell into some 30+ years ago. It sat on Fire Radio
Service frequencies and reported no activity. Of course not - if
there are no fires there is no radio traffic, and the vast majority of
fire radio activity is with 5-watt on-scene HTs. Similarly, it
reported almost no Railroad Radio Service traffic in New York City -
where the monitoring was done during daytime and the bulk of freight
movements are at night. And to cap it off, it reported continuous
occupancy of a lot of channels in Chicago 24/7, until one of the old
hands at the Field Office listened and found out that it was a
defective electrical device throwing RFI into the air.
Phil Kane
>If there are a dozen repeaters with zero activity, most will go dead in
>any disaster because it takes real human interest and work to provide
>emergency power. I'd rather have two or three solid repeaters than a
>dozen where the maintenance is hit-and-miss and there's no one who
>really cares whether they are up or not.
You assume that those repeaters do not have backup power. I found
that this was not the case in the ham communities of San Francisco and
Portland (OR) areas, the two places that I have had extensive
experience with VHF/UHF repeaters. Backup power is relatively easy to
get at those sites where ham and commercial facilities are co-located,
which are most of the places where the ham repeaters are.
Similarly, you assume that because a repeater is silent that "the
maintenance is hit-and-miss and there's no one who really cares
whether they are up or not". Again, my experience does not bear this
out. Most of the repeaters that are reported "silent" are because
they are kept alive by a small group of people whose activity is not
always observed by the casual ham. I'm the trustee of two club
repeaters maintained by one of the other members who is a 2-way radio
tech. Our 2 meter machine is used all the time by ham-licensed
truckers driving up and down the Interstate. The other is used only
by the few club members who have the 223 MHz band in their radios. The
casual listener would consider that one "unused", which is not the
case.
Similarly, during the many hours each day that I spend in my Comm
Center at home - a cross between a home office, a library, and a ham
shack - I maintain a speaker watch on the UHF repeater that my other
local club uses for commute-hour rag chews and is available for use
for hospital disaster communications. Except for the commute hours,
it is "silent" but I'm there to answer any calls and to join in the
rag chews. That seems to be the norm for the "silent" repeaters in
this "no pairs available" area. We do have several where there's
pretty frequent use, though.
Repeater-based ham radio is alive and well in Webfoot Country.
David G. Nagel
radio in his car. Hard to communicate that way.
Dave WD9BDZ
Jeffrey D Angus
> K0CKB and I travel many thousands of miles a year in a coach with "K0HB & K0CKB
> monitoring 146.52" prominently displayed on the back.
>
> We also frequently announce our presence on .52. In the past 5 years we've had
> precisely 2 QSO's on .52 as a result.
Hans, reminds me of a story about a person I knew complaining
that he called several times and I didn't answer (the cell
phone.) I just looked at him and said, "I know. That's why I
have caller ID."
Do I need to put a smiley face here so every ones I'm just
teasing Hans a teensie bit?
Jeff-1.0
wa6fwi
Steve Bonine
> On Fri, 6 Jun 2008 23:05:49 EDT, Steve Bonine <s...@pobox.com> wrote:
>
>> If there are a dozen repeaters with zero activity, most will go dead in
>> any disaster because it takes real human interest and work to provide
>> emergency power. I'd rather have two or three solid repeaters than a
>> dozen where the maintenance is hit-and-miss and there's no one who
>> really cares whether they are up or not.
>
> You assume that those repeaters do not have backup power. I found
> that this was not the case in the ham communities of San Francisco and
> Portland (OR) areas, the two places that I have had extensive
> experience with VHF/UHF repeaters. Backup power is relatively easy to
> get at those sites where ham and commercial facilities are co-located,
> which are most of the places where the ham repeaters are.
I am assuming that a repeater with ZERO activity is a repeater with no
one who cares about it. In one of your previous posts you mentioned a
repeater in your area which is "only" used during commute times and FD;
this is not zero activity and indicates that there is a core group of
people who care about the repeater.
The kind of repeater I'm talking about is one that might have been quite
active a decade ago, but has been running on inertia for several years.
Maybe it still responds to a signal on the input frequency, but the
chance of it having usable backup power is extremely low. Another issue
is potential damage during the disaster; if there is not a group of
people who use the repeater, no one will be there to make the
perhaps-trivial repairs necessary to get it back on the air.
> Similarly, you assume that because a repeater is silent that "the
> maintenance is hit-and-miss and there's no one who really cares
> whether they are up or not". Again, my experience does not bear this
> out. Most of the repeaters that are reported "silent" are because
> they are kept alive by a small group of people whose activity is not
> always observed by the casual ham. I'm the trustee of two club
> repeaters maintained by one of the other members who is a 2-way radio
> tech. Our 2 meter machine is used all the time by ham-licensed
> truckers driving up and down the Interstate. The other is used only
> by the few club members who have the 223 MHz band in their radios. The
> casual listener would consider that one "unused", which is not the
> case.
The key word in your sentence is "used". "Zero activity" is
incompatible with "used".
I said, "I'd rather have two or three solid repeaters than a dozen where
the maintenance is hit-and-miss and there's no one who really cares
whether they are up or not." I did not imply that if a repeater is
silent that the maintenance is hit-and-miss. What I said is that if
there is not a group of people who care about the repeater, it's likely
to be useless in a disaster, and I stand by that statement.
> Similarly, during the many hours each day that I spend in my Comm
> Center at home - a cross between a home office, a library, and a ham
> shack - I maintain a speaker watch on the UHF repeater that my other
> local club uses for commute-hour rag chews and is available for use
> for hospital disaster communications. Except for the commute hours,
> it is "silent" but I'm there to answer any calls and to join in the
> rag chews. That seems to be the norm for the "silent" repeaters in
> this "no pairs available" area. We do have several where there's
> pretty frequent use, though.
Any repeater that has a regular group that uses it during commute does
not fall under the category of "zero activity", and obviously there is a
group of people who care about it.
> Repeater-based ham radio is alive and well in Webfoot Country.
Good. I think that perhaps you misinterpreted my initial comment to be
that a repeater needs to have constant activity to be viable, and that's
not what I was trying to say. I do stand by my initial statement that,
given the choice of a dozen zero-use repeaters or a couple of busy ones,
I'll take the lower number of busy ones because they will be more likely
to survive a disaster.
And again let me point out the difference between urban and rural
environments. The simple fact that you have a higher population density
almost guarantees that you have more people using the repeater(s). Of
course, if you have many repeaters, the person-per-repeater number may
be as low as ours.
Our situation here in rural Minnesota is rather marginal. We do have a
local club with a core group of people who care enough about the
repeater to keep it going. On the other hand, our UHF repeater has been
down for almost a year now, and somehow the group has not been able to
get it back on the air, primarily because one person has promised to
provide a new site for the repeater and has not followed through on that
commitment.
We had an actual disaster a few months ago, not in this immediate area
but in rural Minnesota. There was a need for ham radio communications
because the incident was "down in a hole" where cellphones wouldn't
work. (Floods often happen in river valleys.) The response was not
what it should have been. Part of this is due to the low number of
hams, and part is due to the lack of organization.
73, Steve KB9X
Mike Coslo
news:-LSdnUEglurJAtTV...@earthlink.com:
>
> "Michael Coslo" <mj...@psu.edu> wrote in message
> news:g2bd2k$riu$1...@f04n12.cac.psu.edu...
>
>>
>> If we want to generate traffic on the repeaters, the simplest way is
>> to generate some traffic on them. Get a friend and talk on the thing.
>> Next thing you know, others will join you. If enough places do that,
>> there will be plenty of traffic.
>>
>
> I didn't make my point very well. We don't need to "generate
> traffic", we simply need to clean out the dead "legacy" assignments
> and free up room for things like DStar and other emerging
> technologies.
>
> I just had a look at our local (Minneapolis/St Paul) pair assignments.
> In the 2M and 75CM bands there are 108 repeater pairs assigned. You
> read right --- ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHT! Yet I can scan both bands for
> hours on end and hear nothing.
I'm not sure that the idea of getting rid of analog repeaters so that D-
Star repeaters can be given those frequencies is really going to do
much. If your area has 108 repeater pairs coordinated, and no activity,
I suspect that a D-Star repeater will be likewise not have much
activity. At this time you would probably just have one more repeater
that isn't used.
Your area's problem is lack of interest, not too many repeaters. My
point is if Hams start using the repeaters, they might bootstrap
interest.
After interest is generated, then the possible next conversation might
be "Hey, we have that old repeater on the south side of town, maybe a
group of us can get together and go digital....
KØHB
"Mike Coslo" <mco...@youknow.comcast.net> wrote in message
news:Xns9AB7788E1CB05...@216.196.97.136...
>
> I'm not sure that the idea of getting rid of analog repeaters so that D-
> Star repeaters can be given those frequencies is really going to do
> much. If your area has 108 repeater pairs coordinated, and no activity,
> I suspect that a D-Star repeater will be likewise not have much
> activity. At this time you would probably just have one more repeater
> that isn't used.
>
> Your area's problem is lack of interest, not too many repeaters. My
> point is if Hams start using the repeaters, they might bootstrap
> interest.
>
> After interest is generated, then the possible next conversation might
> be "Hey, we have that old repeater on the south side of town, maybe a
> group of us can get together and go digital....
>
Condensing that, could we say "You guys can't have a pair for your newfangled
technology until you busy up all the silent analog repeaters." ?
73, de Hans, K0HB
Still listening.
Michael Coslo
> Condensing that, could we say "You guys can't have a pair for your newfangled
> technology until you busy up all the silent analog repeaters." ?
Respectfully no. my lack of communication skills is showing sorely.
What I am saying is that if the sum total of communications is Zero, no
one will use a new repeater, D-Star or analog.
Further, I am saying that if no one is interested, who among the
disinterested is going to put up that repeater?
Finally, if interest is generated, perhaps some of the interested will
remove that unused analog repeater, and put a digital one in it's place.
Or the condensed version:
An unused digital repeater sounds the same as an unused analog one. ;^)
Mark Kramer
Steve Bonine <s...@pobox.com> wrote:
>I am assuming that a repeater with ZERO activity is a repeater with no
>one who cares about it.
Your assumption is just that, an assumption.
>> Similarly, you assume that because a repeater is silent that "the
>> maintenance is hit-and-miss and there's no one who really cares
>> whether they are up or not". Again, my experience does not bear this
>> out.
Ditto.
>The key word in your sentence is "used". "Zero activity" is
>incompatible with "used".
Unless you monitor a frequency 24/7/365, it is impossible to claim
"zero use". When most people say "zero use", they mean "I never hear
anything on it". There is a BIG difference.
>I did not imply that if a repeater is
>silent that the maintenance is hit-and-miss.
"I am assuming that a repeater with ZERO activity is a repeater with
no one who cares about it." Define the difference between "silent" and
"zero activity".
Mark Kramer
KŘHB <grou...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>"Mark Kramer" <c28...@TheWorld.com> wrote in message
>news:g2caks$ts6$1...@vulture.killfile.org...
>> And then the stuff hits the fan and the groups that were going to support
>> the local hospital and power company and red cross and cop shop and road
>> department find themselves all trying to use the one or two repeaters
>> you'd like them to be limited to, while the DStar systems sit silent
>> because nobody could afford the radios to use them.
>
>Hi again Mark,
>
>Certainly there are places where there or only "one or two repeaters",
I wasn't talking about a place where there are only one or two repeaters.
I was talking about a place where there are a large number of repeaters,
but only one or two have a lot of activity. If you want to got through
and shut down the "inactive" repeaters so you can harvest the assigned
pairs, then you will wind up with not enough infrastructure when it is
really needed.
>If my PBI were implemented and the Repeater Council could
>harvest the
>arbitrary 10% I mentioned, then there'd still be 97 legacy machines to choose
>from, and 11 pairs opened for emerging technologies.
If there are 10% of those pairs truly unused, there doesn't need to be any
harvesting. Just use them. Who will you be interfering with?
>QSL?
I verify this conversation took place.
Mark Kramer
KØHB <grou...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>Condensing that, could we say "You guys can't have a pair for your newfangled
>technology until you busy up all the silent analog repeaters." ?
No, we could say "who are you interfering with if you put your newfangled
technology on a pair where there is no repeater active?"
How did we ever have repeaters before coordinating agencies were formed?
Mark Kramer
Steve Bonine <s...@pobox.com> wrote:
>There must be a compromise between these two opinions. There cannot be
>108 active repeaters in one urban area. Frequency coordinators need a
>way to reassign pairs that really are no longer being used.
Ummm, they already have it. If the pair really is unused, who is
going to tell you to stop using it?
KØHB
"Mark Kramer" <c28...@TheWorld.com> wrote in message
>
> No, we could say "who are you interfering with if you put your newfangled
> technology on a pair where there is no repeater active?"
>
The tone of this (and other) responses seems to suggest "just stroke up on a
convenient pair, and wait to see if the coordinated person/club complains".
If I lived in Resume Speed, Montana that might work, at least for awhile, if I
had the bad manners and grapes to try. But if you commandeer a pair in an
already wait-listed/saturated environment, you can kiss off EVER getting a
coordinated pair (and for good reason).
73, de Hans, K0HB
Klystron
> [...]
> Unless you monitor a frequency 24/7/365, it is impossible to claim
> "zero use". When most people say "zero use", they mean "I never hear
> anything on it". There is a BIG difference.
> [...]
It would be far easier to connect a voice-activated tape recorder
(like a Sony TCM-37V recording walkman) to a scanner that was set to
scan just the frequencies that are suspected of being dead. Then, you
could document your results when claiming that the frequencies should be
reassigned.
--
Klystron
Bryan
Ja sure you betcha. B'sides, you'd have to plan your route to avoid
overpasses! <g>
Note to others: Howard and I used to "work" together back "when dirt was
new".
Bryan ;-)
Mark Kramer
KØHB <grou...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>"Mark Kramer" <c28...@TheWorld.com> wrote in message
>news:g2jror$1ns$1...@vulture.killfile.org...
>> No, we could say "who are you interfering with if you put your newfangled
>> technology on a pair where there is no repeater active?"
>
>The tone of this (and other) responses seems to suggest "just stroke up on a
>convenient pair, and wait to see if the coordinated person/club complains".
No, that is not what was said at all. That is not the tone of what was
said, nor was it said directly.
If you know a pair where there is no active repeater, you are not just
"stok[ing] up on a convenient pair", you've picked the pair with an
explicit reason. If a coordinated user complains that you are interfering
with a repeater that does not exist, you are free to laugh at him. Tell
me, just how DO you interfere with a non-existant system? Do you think
the FCC is going to listen to him?
>If I lived in Resume Speed, Montana that might work, at least for awhile, if I
>had the bad manners and grapes to try.
You think it is bad manners to use a frequency that is not being used? You
only join conversations already in progress? You never make a call on
an unused frequency?
>But if you commandeer a pair in an
>already wait-listed/saturated environment,
The the pair is wait-listed and saturated, then it isn't unused, now is it?
David G. Nagel
Gentlemen;
The point to remember is that NO repeat NO one has a right to any
particular radio frequency. Even coordination does not grand any right
to a particular radio frequency, only license to use the frequency.
The repeater coordinator has a responsibility to insure that an
applicant really does intend to utilize the assigned radio frequency. If
the applicant does not do so after a reasonable time then the
coordination is or should be null and void. No, I am not going to define
reasonable.
It's like cell phone companies getting assignment to a block of 10,000
numbers and not using them causing the creation of a new area code to
free up new numbers. The FCC, I believe, has baned this practice.
Repeater Coordinators have a responsibility to allocate an extremely
scarce resource in a fair and reasonable manner. Those who get a
coordination just to have one and don't place equipment on the air, even
if they use it in a limited manner, do not deserve to retain the
coordination and the frequency should go to a new applicant.
Remember the FCC gives precedence to a valid coordinated applicant over
a claim jumper. But the coordinated applicant must be using the
coordination. Maybe applicants should report back to the coordinator
when the repeater is placed into service and when it is removed from
service for reasons other than routine maintenance to include damage due
to natural causes. This will keep applicants on their toes to keep their
repeater on the air and active.
Dave WD9BDZ
Steve Bonine
> The point to remember is that NO repeat NO one has a right to any
> particular radio frequency. Even coordination does not grand any right
> to a particular radio frequency, only license to use the frequency.
97.205(c).Where the transmissions of a repeater cause harmful
interference to another repeater, the two station licensees are equally
and fully responsible for resolving the interference unless the
operation of one station is recommended by a frequency coordinator and
the operation of the other station is not. In that case, the licensee of
the noncoordinated repeater has primary responsibility to resolve the
interference.
So does 97.205(c) give the licensee of the coordinated repeater any
rights? Seems to me that it does.
We can go on and on with "could of" and "should of", and with discussion
of what "harmful interference" means. The bottom line is that frequency
coordination is recognized in the regulations and thus it's not a
prudent idea to simply ignore it and pick a pair for your new repeater.
73, Steve KB9X
Howard Lester
> Ja sure you betcha. B'sides, you'd have to plan your route to avoid
> overpasses! <g>
> Note to others: Howard and I used to "work" together back "when dirt was
> new".
> Bryan ;-)
"Line one for the counter..."
- RIP, Dick
(Bryan and I worked behind the counter of a ham radio store. The owner's
name was Dick.)
Howard
Steve Bonine
> In article <VfOdnc0nKN_1FNDV...@earthlink.com>,
> KØHB <grou...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>> "Mark Kramer" <c28...@TheWorld.com> wrote in message
>> news:g2jror$1ns$1...@vulture.killfile.org...
>>> No, we could say "who are you interfering with if you put your newfan
gled
>>> technology on a pair where there is no repeater active?"
eady have it. If the pair really is unused, who is
going to tell you to stop using it?
>
> said, nor was it said directly.
Your actual words in <g2jrrg$1tf$1...@vulture.killfile.org> were "Ummm,
they already have it. If the pair really is unused, who is going to tell
you to stop using it?". That looks exactly like, "Ummm, they already
have it. If the pair really is unused, who is going to tell you to stop
using it?"
> If you know a pair where there is no active repeater, you are not just
> "stok[ing] up on a convenient pair", you've picked the pair with an
> explicit reason.
How is this different than picking a pair where there's an active
repeater, or a repeater that is temporarily down? It's not your
prerogative to "pick a pair", just because you think it's unused.
That's what frequency coordination is for, and the reason it exists. Of
course you have an "explicit reason"; that doesn't give you the right to
ignore the law. And yes, it is "the law".
> If a coordinated user complains that you are interfering
> with a repeater that does not exist, you are free to laugh at him. Tell
> me, just how DO you interfere with a non-existant system? Do you think
> the FCC is going to listen to him?
Yes, the FCC is going to listen to him, because he has the right to use
that pair, while you do not. The FCC does recognize the work of
frequency coordinators.
>> If I lived in Resume Speed, Montana that might work, at least for awhi
le, if I
>> had the bad manners and grapes to try.
>
> You think it is bad manners to use a frequency that is not being used?
You
> only join conversations already in progress? You never make a call on
> an unused frequency?
You just don't understand the concept of formal frequency coordination,
do you?
>> But if you commandeer a pair in an
>> already wait-listed/saturated environment,
>
> The the pair is wait-listed and saturated, then it isn't unused, now is
it?
I am sure that in many areas there are repeater pairs that, in your
eyes, would appear unused. It is the charter of the frequency
coordinator to make that determination, not each individual ham.
It's too bad that we need formal frequency coordination and can't go
with the concept of "no one owns any frequency". Experience has shown
that the formality is needed in this case, and I your explanation of how
you could just jump in and squat on any repeater pair because you want
it is a fine illustration of how we got to this point.
73, Steve KB9X
Jeff
>"How is this different than picking a pair where there's an active
>repeater, or a repeater that is temporarily down? It's not your
>prerogative to "pick a pair", just because you think it's unused. That's
>what frequency coordination is for, and the reason it exists. Of course
>you have an "explicit reason"; that doesn't give you the right to ignore
>the law. And yes, it is "the law".
Could you please remind us where the work of the frequency coordinator is
enshrined in law?
Sure there is a legal duty not to cause interference, but as the OP said it
is not possible to interfere with a non-existent system.
Jeff
Jeffrey D Angus
> It's too bad that we need formal frequency coordination and can't go
> with the concept of "no one owns any frequency". Experience has shown
> that the formality is needed in this case, and I your explanation of how
> you could just jump in and squat on any repeater pair because you want
> it is a fine illustration of how we got to this point.
I used to be involved in packet radio coordination, a subset of
frequency coordination. As I explained to people, "If you're not
getting any death threats, you're not doing your job."
On frequency coordinators. They are necessary because people
have shown repeatedly that they can not all work together.
From the very beginnings in the early '70s out here in Los
Angeles people have shown a propensity for acting like fools.
Not that the frequency coordinators "do it right" all the
time. Notably the 220 disaster. How do you reallocate all
the repeaters when you lose a big chunk of spectrum? Easy,
You tell everyone at the low end of the band, "You lose."
That actually required the FCC to step in and force band
plans on the coordinators.
The bottom line, frequency coordination is necessary. As
they say, "Good fences make good neighbors."
Jeff-1.0
wa6fwi
Michael Coslo
>> "How is this different than picking a pair where there's an active
>> repeater, or a repeater that is temporarily down? It's not your
>> prerogative to "pick a pair", just because you think it's unused. That's
>> what frequency coordination is for, and the reason it exists. Of course
>> you have an "explicit reason"; that doesn't give you the right to ignore
>> the law. And yes, it is "the law".
>
>
> Could you please remind us where the work of the frequency coordinator is
> enshrined in law?
Try going without one. Who wins the frequency? the one with th e
strongest signal, I suppose.
> Sure there is a legal duty not to cause interference, but as the OP said it
> is not possible to interfere with a non-existent system.
Squatting is just bad manners, and not terribly civilized. Hams are
supposed to be civilized. Let's say that you put up an uncoordinated
repeater on a frequency that someone else has coordinated. Then le't
suppose another uncoordinated repeater goes up on the frequency you
picked. Who controls that frequency? You or the second squatter? Who moves?
I looked up the repeater coordination in Hans' area. Although I didn't
come up with 108 allocations, I might not be using the same total area
he is. I used Minneapolis/St Paul, and came up with a hundred - 76 in
Minneapolis and 24 in St Paul. Fairly close at any rate.
On Artscipub.com, they have listed 21 repeaters for Minneapolis, and 1
for St Paul.
Note that 3 of those are in the 6 meter band, and 4 are on 222 MHz band.
That leaves us with 8 on 144 MHz and 7 on 440 MHz. Less than 10 percent
utilization.
There is no reason that application can not be made to acquire one of
those unused pairs. I don't know if it is universal, but in at least
some repeater councils, after 6 months of no use, and no extenuating
circumstances, a repeater pair can come up for re-coordination.
But looking at the disparity between the assigned numbers, the repeaters
in use, and what Hans has to say about the situation, adding a new
repeater is not going to cure what appears to be a severe lack of
interest in V/UHF repeater use in his area. Seriously, that needs fixed
first.
Has anyone tried re-coordination, Hans?
Mark Kramer
David G. Nagel <nagel...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>The point to remember is that NO repeat NO one has a right to any
>particular radio frequency. Even coordination does not grand any right
>to a particular radio frequency, only license to use the frequency.
Umm, no, the FCC grants the license, not the coordinating body.
The coordinating body picks who gets preference when there is an
interfering use.
If there is no interference, coordination doesn't come into play.
If I use the output frequency of the local repeater in simple mode,
I am not interfering with that repeater. The repeater won't even know
I am there. The users of the repeater who can't hear me won't know. The
users who do hear me hear nothing different than if I was using it. If
someone keys up the repeater on top of me, they interfere with me, but
that's life. If they are coordinated and I am not, I have to put up with
them. If they are not coordinated, we have to work to solve the problem.
>Repeater Coordinators have a responsibility to allocate an extremely
>scarce resource in a fair and reasonable manner. Those who get a
>coordination just to have one and don't place equipment on the air, even
>if they use it in a limited manner, do not deserve to retain the
>coordination and the frequency should go to a new applicant.
Of course.
Mark Kramer
Michael Coslo <mj...@psu.edu> wrote:
>> Could you please remind us where the work of the frequency coordinator is
>> enshrined in law?
>
>Try going without one. Who wins the frequency? the one with th e
>strongest signal, I suppose.
What, exactly, is the signal strength coming from a repeater that does not
exist? I suspect 0 is a correct answer.
>> Sure there is a legal duty not to cause interference, but as the OP said it
>> is not possible to interfere with a non-existent system.
>
>Squatting is just bad manners,
Using an unused frequency is not squatting. It's done every day.
>Hams are
>supposed to be civilized. Let's say that you put up an uncoordinated
>repeater on a frequency that someone else has coordinated.
Ok. He's the coordinted user, but hasn't installed any hardware in the three
years that he's had that coordination. That frequency pair is coordinated
but unused.
>Then le't
>suppose another uncoordinated repeater goes up on the frequency you
>picked.
Ok. Someone else puts up a repeater on the frequency you put yours on.
Good so far.
>Who controls that frequency? You or the second squatter? Who moves?
Nobody controls it. The law says that you are both responsible for
solving the interference issues. Nobody has to move. You might solve
it by putting different tones on the inputs. You might solve it by
lowering power, or in any number of other ways. But nobody "controls"
the frequency. You are both on the hook. That's part of the privilege
of being able to select one's operating frequency.
>On Artscipub.com, they have listed 21 repeaters for Minneapolis, and 1
>for St Paul.
Repeater directories are really good for telling you where the repeater
is, but notoriously bad for telling you what they cover. To know a pair
is unused, you need much more than a repeater directory.
>That leaves us with 8 on 144 MHz and 7 on 440 MHz. Less than 10 percent
>utilization.
>
>There is no reason that application can not be made to acquire one of
>those unused pairs.
How do you know they are unused? In my state, you ask for a pair but you
don't ask for a specific one. They tell you what you get.
>I don't know if it is universal, but in at least
>some repeater councils, after 6 months of no use, and no extenuating
>circumstances, a repeater pair can come up for re-coordination.
So the coordinators have a means of reallocating unused pairs.
>But looking at the disparity between the assigned numbers, the repeaters
>in use, and what Hans has to say about the situation, adding a new
>repeater is not going to cure what appears to be a severe lack of
>interest in V/UHF repeater use in his area. Seriously, that needs fixed
>first.
Yep.
KØHB
>
> I looked up the repeater coordination in Hans' area. Although I didn't come up
> with 108 allocations, I might not be using the same total area he is. I used
> Minneapolis/St Paul, and came up with a hundred - 76 in Minneapolis and 24 in
> St Paul. Fairly close at any rate.
>
> On Artscipub.com, they have listed 21 repeaters for Minneapolis, and 1 for St
> Paul.
>
> Note that 3 of those are in the 6 meter band, and 4 are on 222 MHz band.
>
> That leaves us with 8 on 144 MHz and 7 on 440 MHz. Less than 10 percent
> utilization.
>
> There is no reason that application can not be made to acquire one of those
> unused pairs.
The pairs are all assigned, Mike, or are assigned in other nearby areas too
close for geographical sharing.
If you must check my numbers (why would I make something up?) the official
coordinated list is at http://www.mrc.gen.mn.us/MN_List.pdf ... scroll down to
about page 10 under the heading <<METRO>>
Now where did I lay my Skimmer......
Sheeeeeesh!
73, de Hans, K0HB
KØHB
"KØHB" <grou...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:o4CdnSoQedjzdLDV...@earthlink.com...
>
> If ARRL will put enough weight into this idea that it can gain traction, I
> feel this may be the key to a renewed health for our hobby.
>
ARRL >>IS<< putting some weight into this idea! See this great site!
---> http://www.wedothat-radio.org/wedothat/
Good stuff!
73, de Hans, K0HB
Grand Exhalted Liberator of the Blue Electric Smoke
KØHB
"Mark Kramer" <c28...@TheWorld.com> wrote in message
>
> I wasn't talking about a place where there are only one or two repeaters.
> I was talking about a place where there are a large number of repeaters,
> but only one or two have a lot of activity. If you want to got through
> and shut down the "inactive" repeaters so you can harvest the assigned
> pairs, then you will wind up with not enough infrastructure when it is
> really needed.
>
The notion I advanced wasn't an arbitrary and heavy-handed "mass extinction",
but a deliberate cooperative "needs assessment" process. Here is what I
suggested:
Since this thread is about the "5th Pillar" of ARRL emphasis,
"technology", perhaps ARRL and NFCC could jointly sponsor
a Skimmer-like technology initiative which would put up a
broadband receiver on a local highrise (we're in flatland
country out here) and count squelch-tails per QRG for three
months. Then approach the low 10% and suggest they might
reconsider their needs. Especially those clubs who sponsor
multiple quiet repeaters all covering an identical footprint.
An obvious part of that needs assessment process would be to identify (and
protect) critical infrastructure. The desired end result (not well stated,
perhaps), would be a small pool of QRGs set aside as an "emerging technology
corridor" (DStar mentioned only as an example) where tinkering and
experimentation were encouraged.
Mike suggests that there would be very few users of such a "technology
reservation". That's almost certainly true, but I don't think that makes it a
"bad thing". It's no secret that homebrewing and "radio for the sake of
advancing the art of radio" (in Mikes terms "technology for it's own sake") is a
minority share of our hobby. But I think that it's an important minority,
critical to our future, and that we can afford to set aside "incubation
spectrum" to nurture it.
73, de Hans, K0HB
Phil Kane
> It would be far easier to connect a voice-activated tape recorder
>(like a Sony TCM-37V recording walkman) to a scanner that was set to
>scan just the frequencies that are suspected of being dead. Then, you
>could document your results when claiming that the frequencies should be
>reassigned.
I spent a good chunk of my career gathering info on use (and non-use)
of radio channels as evidence. It is easy to show something is used -
play the tape / show the printout. Showing that a channel is not used
is quite a bit more difficult - is the blank tape real or a sham?
We're going through that right now in a commercial channel reclamation
proceeding before the FCC where it's our word against theirs.
--
73 de K2ASP - Phil Kane
>From a Clearing in the Silicon Forest
Beaverton (Washington County) Oregon
e-mail: k2asp [at] arrl [dot] net
Mark Kramer
Steve Bonine <s...@pobox.com> wrote:
>Mark Kramer wrote:
>> In article <VfOdnc0nKN_1FNDV...@earthlink.com>,
>> KØHB <grou...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>>> "Mark Kramer" <c28...@TheWorld.com> wrote in message
>>> news:g2jror$1ns$1...@vulture.killfile.org...
>>>> No, we could say "who are you interfering with if you put your newfan
>gled
>>>> technology on a pair where there is no repeater active?"
>>> The tone of this (and other) responses seems to suggest Ummm, they alr
>eady have it. If the pair really is unused, who is
>going to tell you to stop using it?
That is not what K0HB wrote. In
<VfOdnc0nKN_1FNDV...@earthlink.com> what he actually
said was:
]The tone of this (and other) responses seems to suggest "just stroke up on a
]convenient pair, and wait to see if the coordinated person/club complains".
That is also what appears in the article you replied to.
What YOU claim he wrote was something I wrote in a different
sub-thread. Yes, when what he actually wrote is replaced with something
I wrote, then what I wrote will look exactly like what you claim he said.
So, when I wrote:
>> No, that is not what was said at all. That is not the tone of what was
>> said, nor was it said directly.
I was replying to the actual statement made by K0HB. I did not say
"convenient", nor "just stroke up", nor "wait to see" if anyone complains.
I said that there WILL be nobody to complain about the use of an unused
coordinated pair, because there will be no interference to complain about.
A coordination owner can complain that someone is using "his" frequency,
but all I have to do is ask what interference I am causing. And then
I'll ask him what rule makes that "his" frequency. When he answers "none"
and "none", the complaint will have been dealt with.
>> If you know a pair where there is no active repeater, you are not just
>> "stok[ing] up on a convenient pair", you've picked the pair with an
>> explicit reason.
>
>How is this different than picking a pair where there's an active
>repeater, or a repeater that is temporarily down?
An unused pair is one where there IS NO REPEATER. That's how it's
different. A pair with an active repeater on it is not unused. I've
said that before.
>It's not your
>prerogative to "pick a pair", just because you think it's unused.
First of all, I did not say "because I think it's unused". I said a known,
unused pair. That's not "think", that's KNOW. There is a difference.
Second, yes, the FCC gives ALL of us the prerogative of picking the
frequency we operate on. With the restriction that I may not cause
malicious or deliberate interference to another operator, and must operate
within the CFR allocations, I am free to pick any frequency I wish, just
as you are. Since I cannot possibly cause any kind of interference to a
repeater that does not exist, I have met the limitation of "no malicious
or deliberate". Since there is no repeater to interfere with, there is no
action I am required to take under the section that deals with coordination,
since the only required act is for the uncoordinated operator to solve any
interference issues. There are none to solve.
If you think there is a rule that says I don't get to pick my own
frequency to operate on, other than the limits I've already mentioned,
please quote it. The one about coordination isn't it.
>That's what frequency coordination is for, and the reason it exists.
No. Frequency coordination is intended to mitigate interference issues. It
can't solve them (because they sometimes create the problem themselves
by coordinating two systems on the same pair too close together -- even
professional coordinators sometimes do that.) They are there to identify
the station who must act to solve interference issues. They do not grant
exclusive rights to a frequency. They cannot. The rules do not allow it,
and every 605 contains a statement that nobody owns a frequency. That
applies to repeater ops, too.
>Of
>course you have an "explicit reason"; that doesn't give you the right to
>ignore the law. And yes, it is "the law".
Please quote the law that says I may not use an unused repeater pair.
I cannot ignore a law that does not exist. In the meantime, I am obeying
the "uncoordinated must solve interference" law fully, in both spirit
and letter. I am ignoring or breaking no law.
>Yes, the FCC is going to listen to him, because he has the right to use
>that pair, while you do not.
Please quote the law that says THAT.
>You just don't understand the concept of formal frequency coordination,
>do you?
Yes, I do, and that insult was unwarranted.
>I am sure that in many areas there are repeater pairs that, in your
>eyes, would appear unused. It is the charter of the frequency
>coordinator to make that determination, not each individual ham.
I said "known unused". I did not say "in my eyes appears".
>It's too bad that we need formal frequency coordination and can't go
>with the concept of "no one owns any frequency". Experience has shown
>that the formality is needed in this case, and I your explanation of how
>you could just jump in and squat on any repeater pair because you want
>it is a fine illustration of how we got to this point.
This paragraph is a deliberate insult. I have never caused interference
to a coordinated (or uncoordinated) system, and never plan to, despite
your implication.
"This case" is not about the need for coordination because it is
not about interference. It is about the use of an UNUSED pair without
coordination. Since there is nobody using the pair, there is nothing
to interfere with. Since there is no interference, the law dealing with
who has to solve interference issues is moot. Even were the law to say
that the uncoordinated use must change frequency (which it does not)
there is no interference issue to force a change.
Dick Grady AC7EL
>Mark Kramer wrote:
>> Steve Bonine <s...@pobox.com> wrote:
>>> Better
>>> to have two or three active repeaters in a metro area than a dozen dead
>>> ones.
>>
>> Until there is an emergency and those two or three repeaters aren't
>> sufficient to support the emergency services operations going on.
>
>If there are a dozen repeaters with zero activity, most will go dead in
>any disaster because it takes real human interest and work to provide
>emergency power. I'd rather have two or three solid repeaters than a
>dozen where the maintenance is hit-and-miss and there's no one who
>really cares whether they are up or not.
An emergency service organization should put up and maintain their own
repeaters. For example, in the last 3 years, the Southern Nye County (NV) ARES
group put up and maintain four repeaters (2 on 2M and 2 on 70cm) so we will have
them in emergencies. We make a point to talk on them at least once a day to
make sure they work. But 99% of the time they are idle, and thus may appear to
the casual observer to be unused.
73 de Dick, AC7EL
Tony VE6MVP
<r...@richbonnie.com> wrote:
>An emergency service organization should put up and maintain their own
>repeaters. For example, in the last 3 years, the Southern Nye County (NV) ARES
>group put up and maintain four repeaters (2 on 2M and 2 on 70cm) so we will have
>them in emergencies. We make a point to talk on them at least once a day to
>make sure they work. But 99% of the time they are idle, and thus may appear to
>the casual observer to be unused.
If the area is urban enough. In rural Alberta we don't have a lot of
overlap between repeaters. But it's clearly understood by everyone
that emergency service has complete priority over all other traffic.
In Edmonton, a city of about 1 million yes they do have a repeater
dedicated to ARES without a lot of other chatter on it.
Tony