[Packet] Inexpensive High Speed Packet Radio Is Here

[Steve Lampereur]

Yes that's right it is so close to home you may not even realize its 
potential ham implementations. 

What I'm talking about is all of the Part 15 spread spectrum wireless 
ethernet devices. There are numerous manufactures of these devices. 
They operate on the shared 900 MHz, 2.4 & 5.7 GHz bands with speeds 
between 1.5 and 11 Mbps! The common 802.11b devices are 11 Mbps and 6
of the 11 user settable channels operate in overlapping ham allocations.

The beauty of this kind of operation is that it can be done by those 
with no desire to "get technical". Numerous hams have reported 
successful 10-15 mile paths by attaching nothing more than a higher gain 
antenna to the devices.

This idea is nothing new. As a matter of fact 13 years ago Al Broscious,
N3CFT suggested this very idea at a computer conference. But at the time
amateur spread spectrum rules where more restrictive and prohibited 
certain spreading codes. None the less TAPR attempted to urge interested
hams to obtain a special temporary authorization permit from the FCC. 

Well a few years have past and the ham rules have been relaxed and the 
price on this technology has come down considerably. Now for about $150 
you can pick something up locally and thrown in a $60-70 24 dB parabolic 
antenna and your all set to build that high speed affordable RF network,
where you can mimic the internet by having web pages, conferencing, FTP 
and so on.

There is absolutely no reason not to explore this technology. Existing 
AX.25 traffic can be ported over a wireless ethernet link using AXIP 
encapsulation.

Further information & details:
Using Part 15 Wireless Ethernet Devices for Amateur Radio:
http://www.qsl.net/kb9mwr/projects/wireless/plan.html

Green Bay Professional Packet Radio:
http://www.gbppr.org

Amateur Broadband Radio Network:
http://www.abrn.org