In article .com,
wrote:
All,

I've got a brother who works for a consulting firm whose main customer
is Homeland Secrity.

What the feds want to do is to be able to communicate mil-spec digital
packets over low power links in the middle of a disaster-hit area
between squads of Guards deployed across a destroyed city.

They cannot assume that hams and ham equipment will be available, and
they do not want to carry heavy equipment into a city. They want to be
able to use equipment that they can readily commandeer from stores such
as Radio Shack.

That pretty much means CB radios. I have heard of hams working DX
using 5 watts of PSK on 10 meters using poor antennas, so that gives me
the idea that Guard units could form medium range mobile networks using
5 watts of PSK on 11 meters using wires dropped off bridges.

Eventually the hams that do get on the scene could set up a CB to HF
gateway so that the packets could make it out from the Guards to the
NGOs.

While I am more than willing to test this setup out for my brother on a
pair of CB radios, I told him I might need an STA from the FCC to
communicate data on CB channel 40. He tells me that in an emergency,
anyone can use any frequencies they want, any power, any mode. I told
him true, but that does not help me as an OEM getting fined for testing
out an emergency scenario in a nonemergency situation.

Suggestions?

The CB band is also listed under the license free regulations, Part 15
so if you run low enough power, you don't need a license, and there are
no particular restrictions on mode.

15.227 Operation within the band 26.96-27.28 MHz.

(a) The field strength of any emission within this band shall not
exceed 10,000 microvolts/meter at 3 meters. The emission limit in this
paragraph is based on measurement instrumenta-tion employing an average
detector. The provisions in § 15.35 for limiting peak emissions apply.

(b) The field strength of any emissions which appear outside of this
band shall not exceed the general radiated emission limits in § 15.209.

Channel 40 is above 27.28 MHz, about channel 27 as near as I can tell
(channels are not sequential frequencies).

Contrary to popular opinion, I think that a packet radio relay made with
a portable computer with a sound card, a CB transceiver, and a patch cable
all made from stuff that you could "liberate" from the local Radio Shack
is possible. Some sort of PTT control (VOX?) would be the hardest part.

Given my opinion of the average CBer's conception of "The Public Good",
I don't expect that a system could run without getting the hell jammed
out of it, even if the military is exempt from FCC regs.

Mark Zenier
Googleproofaddress(account:mzenier provider:eskimo domain:com)