[Milsurplus] Re: Virtual Spectrum

[David Stinson]

Ray Fantini wrote:

> Radio is radio. What challenge would their be to a WAS that was gained
> just by calling a ham in each state over the telephone. Use of the
> internet to make distance unimportant would be the same idea!

Removing the distance problem is just one facet,
and not even the most important one, by my lights.
The thing that got me going was the ability to use 
*ANY* radio with *ANY* mode, legally. 
I've been thinking about this concept for at least 20 years. 
The first time I did it,
I recorded HF signals on video tape back in 1984 
and played them back through a service monitor.
It was all analog and the tape sync noise was bad, 
but it worked.
Got serious about the idea again while working on a TBY.

As you know,
I don't like chopping up my WWII military rigs.  
I wanted to get a TBY talking without having to drastically modify it.
I tried a few things, but was unhappy with them.
No matter how I looked at the problem, 
it was going to change the whole character of the radio.  

If I can't change the nature of my TBYs, why not change 
the nature of the ether?  So now I have my answer-
my TBY will talk to other TBYs on our *own* ether, 
which has *no* government restrictions
and *no* stupid band-cops telling me they don't like my wide signal.

I want to use my WWII ferrying radios in their original 
configurations (longwave receive, HF transmit).  
I can do that now.  
I want to use a maritime A-2 transmitter 
to make contacts on 425 KCs.  
I can do that.
I want to build a very early spark station with 
a mechanical detector and make contacts with it.  
I can do that, too.

I'll bet I'm not alone in wanting to do all this.
And it's all 100% legal, with 100% radios.   
Consider the transverters as "portals" to an 
alternate ionosphere, one that YOU control and regulate.
This is an exactly correct analogy.
73 Dave AB5S