You are correct on the speed issue... Until we can megabit+ speeds that are
easy enough for the appliance operators to use, we will likely see little
growth.

But as you point out, there has been little development or growth in the
past 20 or so years... The interest was gone long before the "typical" ham
was an appliance operator. It seems to me that, in about the same time
frame, perhaps +5 years, there was a rather vocal minority that were
anti-digital that drove many folks away from the modes, people who had the
knowledge and skills to make high speed systems work...

In about 1989 there was a local ham (now SK named Frank whose last name and
call I can not remember now) who came to me with a design for a device that
would plug into a 100BaseT NIC and generate low power (about 50 mW as I
recall) at either 70 cm or 23 cm. He wanted my input on the protocol stack
(networking is my thing). Effectively, the device simply sent and received
TCP/IP over an RF Ethernet link. He had built a pair of prototypes that
worked very well. He then built a simple amplifier to get the RF up to about
10 watts and it worked very well between his house and mine, about 8 miles
apart, on J-Poles. We were able to get about 80 Mbps at 23 cm.

He was then attacked by a few of the vocal minority fussing about their
opinion that anything faster than 56 Kbps was not for "real hams" and he
scraped the project rather than put up with heat from these folks.

I wish that I still had the schematic for the prototype that he gave me, but
over the course 15+ years and 3 cross-country moves, I have misplaced them.
It would need significant updating... The prototypes were xtal controlled
and did not use SS. I would think (I am a network engineer, not RF or
electronics!) that the system could benefit from DDS, DSP, and SS
procedures.

I suspect that a team of RF, electronics, and network experts could probably
reproduce the device, given the motivation and if left alone by (or were to
simply ignore) the doom-sayers. And, I would wager, that the team could come
up with improvements that would let get even closer to 100 Mbps, if not
faster, when used on a 1000BaseT NIC.

I further suspect that if such a device could be designed, built, tested,
and then given to one (or more) of the several manufacturers that they would
sell like hotcakes, again assuming that something could be done about the
doom-sayers.

Take Care & 73
--
From The Desk Of
Marty Albert, KC6UFM


"Jayson Davis" wrote in message
...
Marty Albert wrote:

I am curious as to what people attribute the (apparent) death of digital
systems overall.

I, of course, have my own ideas that have, by the way, not changed for
more
than a decade.

So, what say you about the life of digital services?

The death of the digital modes is directly attributible to the fact that
the protocol is 20 years old and has throughput equal to the speed of an
old lady sitting in a motorized wheelchair trying to check-out her
groceries in the express isle.

TAPR had a great spread-spectrum board, but the project died a death due
to a thousand cuts of various sorts. Until amateur radio gets a similar
project that makes speeds 384 kbps and in a form that makes it easy
for appliance operators to plug-n-play, packet is all we have.

I'm surprised the ARRL hasn't sponsored a project. Kids playing with
802.11 are having far more success in building networks that amateur
radio operators.

The single biggest drawback that US digital hams face is TAPR.

The second largest drawback US digital hams face is the ARRL.

Between the two, they have managed to keep the US somewhere between fifteen
to twenty years behind the rest of the world.

Charles Brabham, N5PVL

Director: USPacket http://www.uspacket.org
Admin: HamBlog.Com http://www.hamblog.com
Webmaster: HamPoll.Com http://www.hampoll.com
Weblog: http://www.hamblog.com/blog_n5pvl.php

"Charles Brabham" wrote in message
. ..
The single biggest drawback that US digital hams face is TAPR.

The second largest drawback US digital hams face is the ARRL.

Between the two, they have managed to keep the US somewhere between
fifteen
to twenty years behind the rest of the world.

Charles Brabham, N5PVL


There is nothing stopping the hams from changing it except for lack of
money. Too many people come up with these grandiose ideas and expect
somebody to fund it. Well it isn't going to happen. Many clubs are
struggling just to keep their repeaters funded and maintained.
Individuals face dilemmas of their own on how to allocate their financial
priorities.

Dee D. Flint, N8UZE

Yep... Who will pay for it?

The gizmo that Frank designed (16+ years ago) could be built for about
$25.00 (USD) buying the parts retail. I would suspect that, at that time, a
manufacturer going all out in building and selling these things could have
got all the parts for around $4.00 or so. With a redesign to take advantage
of today's DDS, DSP, SS, uControllers, etc., I would suspect that
manufacturer, buying in lots to build 5000 units, would probably pay about
$6.00 for the parts and perhaps another $8.00 in labor. That would put their
wholesale price to dealers at about $40.00 and retail price at about
$80-$100.

You'll pay that for a 1200 bps TNC!

But, actual prices aside, we hams need to start doing some innovative and
interesting things that private industry can pick up on and make a few
dollars. Want to get really bad news? Go to the FCC site and take a look at
what bands the size of, for example, our 70 cm band are selling for at
auction. Hams in the US are probably sitting on a couple of billion dollars
worth of bandwidth.

How long do you think it will be before some congress critter notices that
hams, (A) Ham a lot of valuable bandwidth, (B) Have not contributed very
much to the electronics or radio industries since the early 1950's, (C) Are
shrinking in numbers and spend most of their time acting just like CBer's,
and (D) Are basically a moot point when it comes to emergency
communications.

In other words, the people that really like ham radio will come up with the
money because it matters to them if it goes away.

And, BTW, there were the same arguments about money when we had a lot of
privately owned BBSs for computer users to call into.

Take Care & 73
--
From The Desk Of
Marty Albert, KC6UFM




"Dee Flint" wrote in message
...

There is nothing stopping the hams from changing it except for lack of
money. Too many people come up with these grandiose ideas and expect
somebody to fund it. Well it isn't going to happen. Many clubs are
struggling just to keep their repeaters funded and maintained.
Individuals face dilemmas of their own on how to allocate their financial
priorities.

Dee D. Flint, N8UZE

Up to a point, I think that you are correct, but there far more dynamic
forces acting on this than just the ARRL and TAPR. (a side note: I gave up
membership in both about 1991)

Take Care & 73

--
From The Desk Of
Marty Albert, KC6UFM




"Charles Brabham" wrote in message
. ..
The single biggest drawback that US digital hams face is TAPR.

The second largest drawback US digital hams face is the ARRL.

Between the two, they have managed to keep the US somewhere between
fifteen
to twenty years behind the rest of the world.

Charles Brabham, N5PVL

Director: USPacket http://www.uspacket.org
Admin: HamBlog.Com http://www.hamblog.com
Webmaster: HamPoll.Com http://www.hampoll.com
Weblog: http://www.hamblog.com/blog_n5pvl.php