Baslinux mailing list

[James Miller <jamtat AT mailsnare.net>]

On Wed, Jan 10, 2007 at 07:57:15PM +0000, Lee Forrest wrote:
> 
> Aha! Another Evil Genius 8-) after my own heart! I used to be a ham, but 
> did mostly CW
> (radio telegraphy/Morse code for the non-hams) and SSB (a type of voice 
> transmission
> related to AM) on the High Frequency bands (3-30 Mhz; you 'bounce' the 
> signals off
> of the ionosphere so you don't need repeaters to communicate around the 
> globe).
> 
> _That's_ how you break free of the ISPs, isn't it?

You heard it here first, folks: creation of the "alternet," courtesy of Lee 
Forrest and 
James Miller :) (actually, I haven't looked: is anyone else trying to/talking 
about doing 
something like this?)
 
> Never did packet radio, and don't remember the questions from the General 
> exam (an
> intermediate ham rating).

You're alot farther along than me on this one, my friend. I've never touched 
a ham radio, 
let alone taken any test. I knew people who were into it as I was growing up, 
but somehow 
never got involved in it myself. But I've tried to dream up ways of making 
the internet more 
like it was 10 - 15 years ago (in the good ways; less spam, advertising, and 
malicious 
activity) and this sort of scenario seemed to offer some promise. I did a bit 
of reading on 
packet radio and discussed it a little with a fellow who joined the list 
briefly a few years 
ago and was heavily involved in packet radio (JP, creator of Drinou 
Linux--anyone remember 
him? The discussion was off-list, btw, so there won't be any info on this in 
the archive). 
He was in France where they have stricter limits than here in the US.

> Is it restricted to certain bands or sub-bands or emission types?
> How much bandwidth is required to get, say, 1KB/second? (I normally get
> an average of 1.3 on my dialup connection.)

Dunno about that. JP seemed to be saying his speeds on packet radio were in 
the range of 56K 
modems, due to restrictions in Europe. He said things were different in the 
US, indicating 
that higher data transfer speeds would be possible. It was a pretty brief 
discussion and I'm 
not sure I'm recalling accurately what he said. And my understanding of the 
technical issues 
is really like what Greg Mayman has been saying about his understanding of 
Linux: I barely 
know enough to even ask meaningful questions. Sorry, but what you're seeing 
here is alot of 
dreaming unfettered by the harsh realities of reality :)

> Specifically, can you do packet radio using SSB on the High Frequency 
> bands? 
> That would be a must to make it work.
> 
> Of course, you can't do commerce via amateur radio, which is not something I
> would exclude. I'd just make the merchants use ".com" names and obey the 
> same
> rules as everyone else regarding file types and protocols and such.
> 
> The good news in this area is that you don't any longer have
> to learn Morse code to get a ham license. 
> 
> Although personally I think it is pretty neat. The original
> digital communications network. _Very_ simple technology. I had a
> little transceiver that would fit in my pocket (made it myself),
> along with a small battery pack and wire antenna, and could
> communicate all around the world on about 3-1/2 watts of power.

Sounds like great stuff. I don't know how much my first career (teaching) is 
going to allow 
me to participate in second career projects like this: heck, I have a hard 
time finding time 
to admin my Linux systems and tend to my herd of aging computers (actually, 
it's probably 
about time to send a few of them along to the great computer beyond)! For a 
minute there, 
when I saw a response to this thread from Anthony Albert, I thought to 
myself: "hey, right 
there we have the beginnings of a nationwide alternet; Lee on the west coast, 
me and Sindi 
in the midwest, and Anthony way up there in the northeast!" Anyways, a fella 
can dream, 
can't he? :)

James