Ham population stats

From: Kevin McQuiggin <mcquiggi_at_sfu.ca>
Date: Wed Feb 16 23:13:56 2000

Hi Folks:

56K packet has been running the Vancouver area for over 5 years. We have
two repeaters and a third waiting to be installed. It's on the 70 cm band.
It's a TCP/IP network, UNIX based, and fully interconnected to the Internet.

Kevin

At 06:57 PM 00/02/16 -0700, you wrote:
>On Wed, Feb 16, 2000 at 04:31:51PM -0800, Ethan Dicks wrote:
>> In the 2 meter band in the U.S., at least, Hams are restricted to 1200
baud.
>
>No, not exactly. But we are limited to the same bandwidth as an FM
>voice channel, so there is a practical limit. 9600 baud fits into the
>permissible deviation well enough and is commonly used on 2 meters. (Doing
>true FSK rather than an audio simulation of FSK helps minimize the bandwidth
>used.) More speed might be possible with the kinds of fancy tricks that
>gave us 56K landline modems (and some hams experiment with that kind of
stuff).
>
>On 440MHz and above there are some 100khz channels available. For those,
>56K is the most popular high-speed mode (but pretty scarce at that). You
>need a modem that outputs a 10 meter carrier pre-modulated with the signal,
>and a transverter to get from there to the desired frequency; so that makes
>it expensive (~$1000 to fully equip a station with new equipment) and
>that's why it's not really common IMO. There have also been experiments
>with 2 and 10 mbps microwave links using gunn diode transceivers and
>ethernet cards and slower network cards. And now that spread-spectrum
>is wide open for experimentation without any STA's required, I expect
>that to be the next hotbed of activity. Most or all of the
no-license-required
>wireless ethernet devices operate in ham bands (we have to share the
>bandwidth with them), so it's possible and legal to use high-gain antennae
>and perhaps bigger power amps to use that kind of equipment for long-
>distance links. The new regs require dynamic control of output power
>though - you can't output any more power than is necessary to maintain
>the link, and the control of it must be automated.
>
>But so far the fastest I'm doing is 9600 baud (on 2 meters).
>
>--
> _______ http://www.bigfoot.com/~ecloud
> (_ | |_) ecloud_at_bigfoot.com finger rutledge_at_cx47646-a.phnx1.az.home.com
> __) | | \__________________________________________________________________
>
>

---
Kevin McQuiggin VE7ZD
mcquiggi_at_sfu.ca
Received on Wed Feb 16 2000 - 23:13:56 GMT

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