N2EY:

If there are going to be fully automated nets run by automatons, then
practical "open" protocols and hardware need to be established. Wide
experimentation of many different protocols needs to be experimented with
and the best one or two adopted--and, the ease which "newbies" can
participate should be given a substantial weight in this endeavor. A
narrow range of freqs would best be established for robots, it can always
be widened if there is sufficient call for such.

A protocol where a "control robot" to be chosen, and adaptive
procedures so the control can change as necessary. A protocol where a
robot requests entrance in the net and its' traffic logically queued and
handled in a "ring" approach. Also, a protocol which allows for a human
operator (with the correct software/hardware) to get info and interact in
an emergency or otherwise situation.

I find discussion of these matters highly exciting and believe amateur
radio should help foster such directions, seems it would be beneficial to
all...

John

On Sun, 21 Aug 2005 10:15:41 -0700, N2EY wrote:

wrote:
an_old_friend wrote:
wrote:

and why is it a problem I thought CW always got through, yet it needs protecting from Pactor?

No, CW does *not* "always get through".

No mode always gets through. There are some times when Morse
Code gets through and other available modes do not. This plain,
simple fact has been misquoted and perverted by some.

Assuming the robot listens before sending well it looks like anything else I hear about in HF

No, robots do *not* listen before transmitting which is against the regs and is the crux of the problem.

There's also the issue of what constitutes "listening". A robot
may listen for another Pactor III signal, yet not for a PSK31
or Morse Code signal.

How much of a listen is long enough, and on how much on either
side of the frequency?

A human operator causing QRM is either lousy operating practice or an accident, a robot blindly causing QRM via it's inherent
design is illegal.

There's also the 24/7 nature of the robots.

One solution might be to come up with a robot which tunes
around it's frequency before transmitting.

Yup. And maybe sends "QRL?" in Morse Code before it opens up.

There's one for you code-writers to chew on.

The situation is somewhat like the dawn of the FM repeater
era on the ham bands. A typical ham FM repeater essentially
takes over two frequencies (input and output)in its coverage
area.

There was a time when a ham repeater required a special license
with special callsign, and the application for it involved a
pretty detailed description of the setup, its operation, etc.,
with things like HAAT specified. Even today we have repeater
coordination.

But VHF/UHF coverage is fairly predictable and consistent. A
typical ham VHF/UHF repeater covers a few hundred square miles
except during unusual conditions. Even a moderately powered HF
station can cover millions of square miles.

The "regulation by bandwidth" proposal has some good basic
concepts, but it needs some serious work before it is ready
for prime time. The fact that so many different groups are
opposed to it, and so few in favor, shows that it needs rework.

73 de Jim, N2EY