Amateur Radio Wireless

The ARRL calls it their "High Speed Multi-Media" network:

the best of my knowledge, it's legal.

I personally do not approve. Ham radio operators are allowed to use much higher power levels on 2.4GHz than unlicensed users. In addition, the letter of the law claims that in cases of conflict, the licensed operator always wins. The problem is that any abuse of this anomaly in the rules is most likely going to be judged by the FCC in favor of approximately 50 million unlicensed 801.11b users, with large corporations behind them, instead of a few ham radio operators. Getting a ham radio license and operating at very high power levels is also not going to make you very popular. Most hams are voluntarily staying within the 15.247 power limits and are being very careful to not compete with commercial services.

If you have a lousy line of sight over an unspecified path, you might look into 900Mhz wireless:

's not broadband but it will go through a forest. However, it won't go through a pile of dirt very well.

Interesting thread. I had a general ham license for probably 30 yrs (damn, dating myself, got it when I was 15). Unfortunatly lost it about 10 ago since I was busy and failed to renew. It used to be a fun hobby, but the internet offers a lot I think. I ran across this link a few days ago about a 30 mile cordless phone.

From my memory of FCC regulations, I would think this would be illegal in the US, and I doubt it work any distance only with line of sight.

Its an interesting website, but it would not be legal to interface amateur radio to the general internet nor to use amateur radio for commercial purposes.

Barry

Not all that much more power; only up to 1 W without automatic power control, but up to 100 W if APC is used. Of course, if APC is being used, the chances of actually running 100W is small.

The big deal is that hams can use any sort of antennas they can dream up or get into the air. Since directional antennas are the order of the day, the opportunity for interference is minimized.

Whose fault is it if the 802.11 manufacturers chose to use an "unlicenced" band that was already occupied by a licensed service with rights to run high power?

I guess if internet connections to ham radios are "illegal" all hams should immediately disconnect their APRS trackers, Winlink email, Echolink remotes, IRLP connected repeaters, and all manner of remote base and repeater operation.

more that are connect to the internet.

Now, that's correct. Hams cannot charge money for communications services nor act as transit for commercial services (i.e. advertising, commerical email, purchases, etc).

Actually, that's only for 802.11 and 802.11b. You can go 1500 watts with other modulation methods (i.e. frequency hopping). I know of several high power 2.4GHz ham stations with big dishes. Mostly used for 9600 baud satellite work.

Yep. Directional antennas are a good thing.

Oh, assigning the blame is easy. The FCC had a problem. Hundreds of manufacturers, inventors, hams, and experimenters had all these really great ideas for communications. Just one problem, there were no frequencies available for them to play. Most did their testing on ham frequencies, but eventually everyone came to the FCC for an allocation. Lacking the technical abilities to evaluate the merits of all these proposals, and getting armtisted by corporate influence peddlers, the FCC took the easy way out and dumped everything into the ISM bands. I once saw a staff report claiming that the 900MHz ISM band was "under-utilized". The theory was for each of these great ideas to prove themselves in the ISM bands, and then the FCC will consider allocating additional frequencies.

Well, along came the spectrum auctions and spectrum suddenly became valueable. There was no revenue in unlicensed operation (spectrum auctions are essentially license auctions). Predictably, there was no spectrum for those not willing to pay for it. Meanwhile, much of the spectrum was sold for pennies, while other spectrum went for prices well beyond economical. The spectrum auctions soon became a fiasco.

Then, somone at the FCC noticed that the most successful thing they ever did was to get out of the way and let the IEEE handle the technical part of unlicensed wireless. This is terrible for the FCC as it neither generates revenue or actually requires any FCC involvement beyond rubber stamping type certification on equipment. So, the FCC has finally, after 8 years of f*****g around, released a fabulous 50MHz of former military bandwidth, with a minimum of licensing (they just can't let go of the license game), and enough grandfathered ground stations to make the spectrum useless in metropolitan areas. Great praise should be given to the attorneys at the FCC for having done this much.

So, what should a manufactory do with literally millions of customers waiting for the FCC to throw together some sane spectrum policy? I dunno. I seriously don't expect the attorneys that are running the FCC to give much consideration any such technical considerations like co-channel users, adjacent user protection, and service compatibility. Spectrum is politically motivated, horded by the commissioners, and technical considerations are secondary. (I can supply examples but then this rant would last forever).

Bottom line is the manufactories did not "choose" to use 2.4Ghz. They were told that it's 2.4GHz or go fly a kite by the FCC. Since two tin cans and a string were not selling well, they decided 2.4Ghz was better than nothing.

But wouldn't a private, non-commercial, "home" network be ok? And perhaps even websites (www.*.gov, etc) that have no commercial content? Other restrictions I've run across is that one can't encrypt and one must transmit his/her call sign periodically.

Haven't gotten to all thest yet but I'm getting the sense of an interesting idea that never quite got off the ground. Not much dated after 2003 and lots of dead reference links.

Nearest house is 1/4 mile away. Though I wish there was, there is no commercial wireless. The nearest hot-spot I'm aware of is 9 miles away.

I'm not clear on "line-of-sight". The trees here are mostly hardwoods and when the leaves are off, I can receive FRS radios (on a radio scanner) 1-2 miles away. (Read in an article about packet radio that VHF is considered l-o-s.) So how is the FRS signal getting through trees so thick (collectively) that I can't see a pole light only 1/4 mile away? What am I missing?

Thank you ... wasn't aware of that option. Now if only it would get very popular so the price drops like a stop.

Oopa, FRS is UHF, not UHF.

Yep, that's about it. We have a local group of hams that are involved in 802.11 type wireless networks. It's difficult and tricky keeping the ham radio and commercial sides seperate. At this point, they're seperate networks, with a gateway that only allows ham radio related traffic. In my opinion, it's a waste of time and effort.

Can you see the other end of the radio link? If not, what's in the way? Trees or hills? 2.4GHz does not go though anything with water very well and does not go through dirt at all.

FRS/GMRS and 2.4Ghz are VERY different.

FRS is 462MHz. There's very little water absorption at this frequency. It bounces around quite well, and defracts from knife edges. However, the resultant multipath does not totally destroy communictions. If used for data, FRS/GMRS can do about 9.6Kbits/sec. FRS radios run 0.5 watts. Similar GMRS radios run up to 5 watts.

2.4Ghz 802.11 wireless is blocked by water. It bounces quite well but is seriously affected by multipath. Most access points run about 0.035 watts xmit power. Data rates are up to 54Mbits/sec or 5000 times faster than FRS/GMRS. Totally different animals.

Ham packet radio is mostly 1200 and 9600 baud. That's really slow when compared to broadband wireless.

For 900Mhz also look into:

're a Canadian company that provides 900MHz systems used mostly in the trees. The units can often be found on eBay. Typical is a central base unit, plus 5 CPE radios for about $2000. About

2Mbits/sec thruput maximum. Not cheap, but that's what works in the forest.

Speaking of the FCC, over the air HDTV will be potentially beneficial to me if the proposal to open vacant tv channels to unlicensed wireless goes through. The bad news is that digital transmission will likely kill 3 of my 5 channels. Even if it doesn't, I'm guessing that 85 miles will be outside the protected zone.

Thanks to the group for your comments. I've Googled to point of glazing over but do now have a better sense of what's available. Am satisfied I've not missed something (in my price range).

Understood about the frequency part. Wasn't aware of the major difference in power.

What I mainly want to do is (serially) monitor different areas (on 200 acres) to see what wildlife is using them. Could just set up a computer, camera and power source and store periodic snapshots, but "live" would make it a lot more interesting. Have decided to go ahead and get two WAP11s; more bandwidth than I need and the antenna(s) is removable. (Cantenna on the client?)

Ummm, did you look into various network web cams with 802.11a/g wireless built in? For example:

I do already have an Axis, sans wifi. Undecided if that's what I'll use but imo what would be the best place for it (up a tree) would not be the best place for the antenna.