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From: chris@hplvdd.HP.COM (Chris Kelly)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.modems
Subject: Re: Public Digital Radio Service wireless modem proposal
Message-ID: <3850001@hplvdd.HP.COM>
Date: Fri, 21-Aug-87 12:44:10 EDT
Article-I.D.: hplvdd.3850001
Posted: Fri Aug 21 12:44:10 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 23-Aug-87 21:56:04 EDT
References: <KPETERSEN.12325781935.BABYL@SIMTEL20.ARPA>
Organization: HP Loveland Inst Div, CO
Lines: 124


I am not sure why Jim Gilmore has an axe to grind against the amateur
radio service, but I think he either misunderstands the service itself
or expected that it was a homogeneous group just waiting to serve his
particular needs in some way.

The amateur radio service predates the formal regulation of radio, and
did indeed start as individuals who wanted to try out the use of "Spark"
to communicate without wires. It was morse code and exotic spark transmitters
used by folks who were radio pioneers and later became major contributors
to the development of broadcast radio, TV, Radar, etc.

Today the amateur service is regulated by the FCC, to try to bring order to
the chaos which would otherwise result if the use of radio spectrum were
unregulated. Unlike scenes from "Smokey and the Bandit", one cannot pick up
the mike of any radio anywhere and talk to the sheriff, because CB, TV, 
shortwave, radar, aircraft, police and hams all have their own "slices" of
the available spectrum, which do not overlap and interfere.

Radio amateurs are not a homogeneous group, and the service (which is a 
licensed service and not just a hobby) is almost as diverse as any
cross-section of people anywhere. Some folks enjoy Public Service communications,
which include providing comm for bicycle races, yachting regatta, 
severe weather reporting nets, "health fairs", equestrian events, 
and other non-commercial events which are distributed over wide areas.

Other folks are dedicated to emergency communications, and prepare in advance
for everything from floods, tornadoes and hurricanes to airplane crashes and
rescuing injured rock climbers. Recent examples include the Mexico City 
Earthquake and the major tornadoes in Canada.
Amateur radio is an important part of many local, county and state emergency
communications plans, because hams are not just using radio as a tool of their
job (like police do) but are familiar with the vagaries of propagation because
they study and use the various modes and know what frequency band and technique
can accomplish the desired result. Additionally, "hams" can and do provide
large "bandwidth" channels to relieve the usual immediate overload of the
public safety channels when a disaster occurs.

Others enjoy the examples given of "talking to the other side of the world
using morse code", using the lower-frequency, long-range bands.
Hams also are involved in many technical aspects of radio, including 
"moonbounce" (in which VHF and UHF signals are reflected from the moon and
back to another spot on earth), amateur satellite building and use (many
new concepts were first used and proven on amateur satellites),
"meteor scatter" (in which signals are reflected off fleeting ionized trails
of meteors burning up in the atmosphere), experiments in the multi-gigahertz 
microwave region, amateur television, and of course packet radio.

These interests are not all overlapping, and nobody I know or have ever heard
of has been seriously involved in more than a few areas of the service.
It is a very diverse area, with a lot of room for new ideas. 
I think perhaps Jim Gilmore expected that because he had a great idea for
how he would like to use his amateur license, the whole US population of 
hams would jump at the opportunity to serve his needs in some unstated way.

The way new ideas become realized, accepted and operational is through 
simple hard work, not through repeated assertion. One example is that 
of amateur packet radio: many hams, myself included, had been thinking of
how best to make digital connections over the air. Many experimental systems
were built using various techniques on various frequencies, but most stayed
very local inside closed systems, because most hams built their own gear.
Then a group of hams in Tucson formed a nonprofit R&D corporation called
Tucson Amateur Packet Radio, and designed and offered for sale a radio modem
called a Terminal Node Controller, or TNC. This took a lot of work and
actually involved hams from throughout the US, but the key point is that a
few people with a good idea worked hard to make it generally available
for a reasonable price. The protocols were based on X.25 and became a 
standard, called AX.25, or Amateur X.25, so anybody could make and sell
a TNC which would interoperate with any other TNC abiding by the standards.

Since this time (1982 or so) the TNC's have been manufactured by many 
commercial outfits, and their price ($130 and up) has been dropping due to
widespread acceptance and competition among vendors.
The evolution of how these TNC's are used in the amateur service has been a 
somewhat random walk, since different areas grew at different rates,
and considerable diversity in "local area networks" is still evident.
There is an emerging national network of packet radio stations using some
HF (long range) and VHF (short range) amateur radio bands.
How the network operates is primarily dependant upon how much time and
money is available to individual hams, and how altruistic they individually
are in willingness to provide their equipment for shared use.

The network is loosely coupled, but I can still get an error-free message to
either coast in a few hours, using linked BBS stations which unload into
long-distance HF "gateways". All this is done at 300 to 1200 baud, since in
every case the equipment used transmits over radios designed for voice
operation, and respond only to frequencies in the 300-3000 hertz range.
To gain free use of the "network" I have to expect that my operation will
conform to the net, not vice-versa.

The amateur service has several bands in relatively constant use, but even
with about 1/2 million hams using the bands, there is room for new modes,
especially at the higher range of frequencies. If Jim Gilmore wants to 
operate some other form of packet radio, there is room for him to do it, 
he need only coordinate his frequency use with other hams in the area
and go to it! If he wishes to use some other type of equipment than the
de-facto standard TNC's, he is free to design, build, buy, borrow or 
otherwise acquire such equipment and put it on the air. Only loose 
legal restrictions apply, as noted in other messages, which are designed to
prevent interference to other services and maintain reasonable channel-loading
on limited spectrum space (lower frequencies mean lower bandwidth).

What Jim Gilmore will find is that there is nobody out to get him, but that
there may be only a few hams interested in his particular form of digital
radio (just like only a few hams like to talk via moonbounce).
It will take a lot of work to reinvent the standards, just as TAPR found
out. What has evolved in the amateur service is very heavily dependant on the
foresight and hard work of a very few, since there are not many folks out
there competent to write network communications software with the time
and eagerness to spend months of their non-working hours to do it.

As a sidenote, because it takes much time and effort to accomplish 
almost anything worthwhile in radio (or life) the folks you find on
the air a lot "rag-chewing" are often NOT the folks that are doing the
technical innovation and work. Picking up a radio and talking may put you
in touch with hams, but they may not be the particular hams with whom
you would like to speak. For example, there are probably 500 hams
within 30 miles of me in northern Colorado, but only 3 of us were 
interested enough to work on the local packet radio repeater.

The hobby is as diverse as the people in it, and "it" accomplishes exactly
as much as the people in it. If Jim sees an opportunity to do some new
thing, he need only do it, not kick because it hasn't been done for him.
.....Chris