[Cu-wireless] ARRL interested in 802.11b for long range wireless network

[Illustrious niteshad]

Last Friday, I attended a meeting of the Motor City Radio Club (www.w8mrm.org) where I learned about the National Traffic System, which is a network of amateur radio networks, much like the Internet is a network of computer networks.  The only difference is that NTS has been operating since the 1920s, and thus is voice and CW driven rather than digital data.  In 2003, the Amateur Radio Relay League (ARRL, www.arrl.org) announced an interest in adding long range digital data networks to NTS using 802.11b as the underlying network protocol.  Remember that holders of amateur (aka "Ham") radio licenses operate under part 97 of the FCC rules, rather than part 15, thus they are able to broadcast at much higher power levels than the unlicensed part 15 equipment that we're using.
 
The speaker at the MCRC meeting expressed an interest in attracting younger people (average age of hams is currently 56 years old) to the hobby and noted that digital data networks are the interesting problem to work on right now.  It sounds like not all amateur groups are as anti-802.11 as the Urbana group.  Perhaps if everyone plays their cards right, both the Community wireless networking groups and the licensed radio amateurs will benefit from this convergence.  If, however, a turf war developes, one or the other group is going to come off bloodied by the FCC rules.
 
Much more information on this is available at:
 
http://www.arrl.org/htdig/?method=and&words=high+speed+multimedia
 
A group in Howell, MI is working on the "Hinternet" (power-boosted 802.11b) and I hope to make contact with them in the near future.
 
best regards,
 
Mark Lenigan

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