Baslinux mailing list

["S. Porter" <srporter AT gmail.com>]

James Miller wrote:
> 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?)

[lurkmode off]
OK, you flushed me out!  There are several ham radio HSMM (high speed 
multimedia) groups, but their focus is exactly that...reproducing a network 
that will deliver multimedia rather than a minimalistic approach.  For more 
info, see http://www.arrl.org/tis/info/HTML/high-speed-digital/
and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_speed_multimedia.

While this is going in the opposite direction, the basic operation and 
hardware is the same.

> > 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 :)

On HF, 300 baud is the max allowed for packet radio, except for 10m. Current 
wireless at 2.4 GHz is partially within the ham allocation, and, in fact, a 
group of students/hams from Ohio set the world record for 802.11 using 
off-the-shelf (sorta) components. I won't get into the details (see 
http://www.wifi-shootout.com/index.html), but they used large dishes and 
began with amps inline (legal by hams within their allocation) and after the 
link was established, removed the amps. Hams have been networking over long 
distances for decades on the microwave bands.  Why it hasn't gained 
widespread popularity is beyond me.

> > Specifically, can you do packet radio using SSB on the High Frequency bands? 
> > That would be a must to make it work.

As I stated above, FCC regs prohibit data rates exceeding 300 baud on most 
HF bands, 1200 baud on 10m.  It's a bandwidth thing.  Here in Arkansas, we 
have a 1200 baud packet network on 2m with a 9k6 backbone on 6m. 9k6 is used 
a bit on 70cm, but not much. Current technology can support 56k, but again, 
for some reason it hasn't caught on.

To get back on topic, BL would be a wonderful tool for use in such a 
networking environment. There are a couple of ham-oriented distros, which, 
to me, are natural for each other (linux and ham radio, that is).  JNOS was 
the DOS equivalent to BL for packet TCP/IP, but linux is much better suited 
for a variety of reasons.

> > 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.

I'm a fellow qrper as well. :-)

73,
Steve

[lurkmode on]