[BARC-List] a ham doing some high-tech stuff

[Jason Pramas]

Hi,

Below find a message from an eham discussion on IRLP. While kinda
persnickety in tone (though in fairness, eham gets some pretty serious
flamewars going almost daily), perhaps BARC people interested in 802.11,
etc., might find it useful to get a hold of this guy--in light of the
HSMM/802.11 discussion of last week. He seems pretty wired (in more ways
than one).

His name is Joe Hamelin from Yakima, WA, and his email address is:
joe@nethead.com

Read on,

Jason, KB1JPB
**************

W7COM on 2003-03-31 
I'm the type of ham all you OFs just hate. I'm a no-code tech, I have an
"olde time" vanity call and I run an IRLP node. The only tube rigs I've
ever tuned up ran 5KW at 1000KHz and 100MHz. The only tube rig I've
owned was a Knight 11M job that was rock bound (back in the early 70s.)
I've pushed over 1Gb/s through Cisco routers and have linked sites miles
apart with 802.11b running part 15. I run *nix servers and enjoy writing
code. My ham friends are into APRS and high speed DX data links using
part 97. I could take the elements to get my extra now, except for the
code part. I'm taking my time and learning about one letter a week. I'm
in no rush to get on HF and have to spend about $1000 to build a decent
station. I don't need HF for emergency use, my 2m rig will reach into
Canada without a problem. (If Seattle, Vancouver and Victoria are all
down, then I'll have more problems than any radio is going to solve.)

Why do I run IRLP? So I can talk to other hams that are not afraid to
think out of the HF box. People that like to push the technological
limits with their knowledge and the service. I run IRLP because out of
the 100 or so repeaters in the area, not much interesting is going on..
nothing challenging.

This is a big hobby. If you don't like IRLP or anything new, then just
go back to what you are comfortable with and let those with some vision
get on with expanding the reach of ham radio.