Hi Bonnie, Several points to ponder:
-Is this cross banding something that can be done whenever the two parties wish to do so so? I am not familiar with this except for special temporary type authorization by the FCC based upon 97.111(a) such as for Armed Forces Day and certain RACES stations (which may not even be done anymore). - The technology you recommend requires considerable extra equipment (computers/interfaces/frequency agile antennas and band hopping) which is fairly complicated to set up and requires several levesl of expertise above standard CW and analog voice transmissions. While the equipment might possibly be easy to use once it is set up, someone has to have that higher expertise level. We are now finding that with newer hams, there is less interest than ever in anything beyond VHF and maybe UHF voice. Even packet radio and related digital techniques are beyond what many new hams desire to do. I have watched this unfold since around 1980 when packet came and later became almost completely discontinued except for APRS and some DX Spotting links. - With complicated technology you would need a great deal of promotion and training to attract many hams toward using this new technology and there has to be some kind of payback for them or it will never happen. I know three hams within 50+ miles who have a long term interest in HF digital. Only one has a slight interest in emergency use and he is in MARS. All of us have been licensed for many years (typically licensed in the late 1950's, early 1960's) so it is not the new entrants who are doing this. - If you do not use this technology on a frequent basis, it will not be there when the emergency occurs. We used to use VHF packet for major tests of emergency prepardness of a nuclear power site with FEMA providing the exercise scenario. When the facilitator announced that all phone lines were "dead" and we needed to send a message to the state capital, the only communications was via ham radio packet VHF links. Twenty years later, none of this infrastructure remains. Even our state ham leaders discontined an HF Pactor I system and moved it to SHARES. The plan is to force everyone else to go to Winlink 2000 for a total digital solution for messaging. Because they have very few HF hams anymore, and almost none who are interested in digital, they are trying to move everything toward VHF/UHF and also developing a duplicate interlinked repeater system. - If you want to sell a system, you would need to clearly spell out what it can do and why hams would want it. I have not seen anything that compelling thus far and have read much of the items on your web site. Being able to (maybe) set up a station to contact someone outside the ham bands in an emergency seems very tenuous to most of us if we don't do this on a regular basis and have some practical use. - In a real emergency it won't be necessary to notify anyone on HF. It will be very obvious. Our emergency plans would activate the hams in the affected areas and we would be working with those agencies we have current agreements with. For example, in our immediate area, we do not have very good interoperability with ambulances brought in from different areas should we have a large scale incident. Amateur radio fills that interoperability now with standard VHF voice. We also are part of the EM HQ and if needed, part of the mobile ICP. All of this is tactical voice, but we could do some digital packet. HF would rarely be used, but if all other means failed, including sat phones, I can see where it might be needed to contact the state level. I am not so sure about needing to directly contact higher levels since they would not normally bypass the chain of command. May I suggest that you come up with some real world scenarios where your ALE/5066 systems would be vital. Then come up with some standard equipment implementation that an interested ham could put together including cost, etc. This is not really all about the technical aspects as some have suggested. It is a combination of the technical with the practical. It is not unlike the attempt to use TCP/IP over radio on VHF/UHF. Maybe it has some technical value, but since it was not very practical it never developed very far due to low interest. 73, Rick, KV9U expeditionradio wrote: >The assigned channel interoperation problem already has a >solution that neither requires hams to transmit outside >the ham bands, nor gov/ngo/agency stations to transmit in the >ham bands. See: >http://www.hflink.com/interoperation/ > > > >>There will NO computers running at most hamshacks if you had >>a week without power. I have emergency back up AGM 80 amp >>hours but only for voice and HF. I could run a laptop but >>that would use up so much power that it would not be very wise. >> >> > >A standard battery-operated transceiver like the FT-897 or a mobile or >car battery running almost any other ham rig would do fine. Add a >small laptop running on its own battery or an external battery. To >conserve battery power, simply turn on the radio when you want to >connect, link and pass the traffic, then turn it off. Continuous >operation isn't necessary with HF ALE to establish the link then using >5066 to run the data. It would take very little time to send a 5000 >word message via digital HF. > > > >>Are you suggesting that somehow you are going to have computers >> and rigs on and running PC-ALE and somehow you are going to >>contact someone outside the ham bands? >> >> > >That is certainly possible if no ham contact is available. But other >methods of interoperation are available to us with some advance >planning: http://www.hflink.com/interoperation/ > > > >>Maybe it just me, but many of your ideas don't make any sense. >>And when you are asked about them, you can't even explain them. >> >> > >Perhaps it is just that my explanations are not acceptable within >your framework of thought, or what you are seeking to know. >But if you want to engage in a discussion about a techical subject, >you would do well to learn a little background on it through your >own efforts, rather than rely upon others to explain everything >to you in bits and pieces, correcting your misconceptions. > >Bonnie KQ6XA > > > > > Need a Digital mode QSO? Connect to Telnet://cluster.dynalias.org Other areas of interest: The MixW Reflector : http://groups.yahoo.com/group/themixwgroup/ DigiPol: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Digipol (band plan policy discussion) Yahoo! 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