[PVRCNC] North Dakota RF (the missing msg)

[Pete Soper]

Pete Soper wrote:
> Hmm. I didn't actually hit "send" on that msg, but it went out 
> anyway.  Carrying the laptop out to the shack to work out a network 
> issue must have goosed Thunderbird. I would have toned it down before 
> sending it, but it's history now.
What's that boy jabbering about this time?

So a reply to Brian's mail didn't happen after all. I was staring at my 
drafts folder. Duh.  Here's what I meant to send:

alsopb wrote:
>
> Here is one idea which is being tested.  Cellular repeaters 20 miles 
> up on unteathered balloons.
>
> A lot of hot air?

| 
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/C/CELLULAR_BALLOONS?SITE=OHCIN&SECTION=HOME

This was surely on the cover of "Popular Science" in the 80s?  I did see 
this idea floated in a broadband trade press article a year two back, 
but it was written up as pure speculation.  It's good to see they may be 
close to having a workable solution. There are quite a few attractive 
aspects. On the one hand they leave out the ground station equipment 
that's got to be more involved than for tower-based gear. But even 
taking that into account the cost seems to be so drastically reduced 
compared to conventional tower usage that even if they have to have 12 
or 20 or 50 balloons in the air at once to keep three on task at any one 
time they still come out ahead. Now if it was Wisconsin instead of North 
Dakota that "in the lake" factor would be much more serious.

The part I have trouble with is the notion of any kind of reasonably 
small package and number of small balloons getting the job done over 
time. The article effectively describes all of ND's cellphone service 
needs being handled by three devices the size of bread toasters.  
Regular celltower systems operate at pretty high power levels, don't 
they? Like dozens of watts per transceiver across relatively short 
distances? And there are size/separation requirements for the antennas 
imposed by physics. So when the article says they only need three 
balloons to cover the state, that's got to be a statement of how very 
few simultaneous calls they expect to support. But if this works it will 
be reasonable to expect cellphone usage in ND to increase dramatically  
(but still, of course, up to a very modest density of people for the 
given area). I guess I'm making obvious the notion that to yank all the 
towers out of New Jersey and switch to balloons would take a ridiculous 
number of balloons and/or very much larger ones. So this isn't an 
either/or type solution as described (not that I think the article is 
suggesting that it is). I guess I'm skeptical about whether there are 
hidden costs related to scaling that won't surface until the first deal 
is done.  The next thing to look for is balloons floating across Africa 
or China as proof that the price/performance is real.

Going up another several miles above the Earth we see that success is 
not guaranteed:

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/02/03/aramiska_staff/

This is just one mid-tier organization, but we've seen other big, 
expensive satellite ventures like Iridium crash and burn too (Iridium 
didn't fail completely but is now an insanely expensive solution for 
voice and very low speed data).  I guess I'm saying a kneejerk reaction 
of satellite services as the obvious other solution isn't clear for a 
number of reasons.

But assuming broadband is close on the heels of voice services provided 
by the cell companies, these balloons would seem to be an interesting 
way to close the digital divide in this country and elsewhere. I'd like 
nothing better than to see  balloons cause Starband 's satellite 
broadband business to be blown right off the competitive map. But only 
after I start spotting the balloons here on the fringe of Wake county! :-)

As voice moves closer to being an  "oh, it does that too" feature of 
cellphones (as is happening in a few parts of the world already) it 
would sure be nice to see the USA's infrastructure closer to 
"everywhere" and "homogeneous", the latter being at least from the 
user's perspective.

The part I thought I'd sent out both incomplete and half-baked (instead 
of just the latter!) is the notion that communication systems here in 
the early 21st century are kind of like transportation systems: becoming 
more sophisticated and refined and effective over time. Depending on the 
definition of "cool communication", we could say the average Joe in the 
'States in 2006 has something akin to a bicycle plus access to the odd 
canal barge or steam driven train. I know, some would say our cellphones 
are more like personal rocket backpacks in comparison to regular phones. 
But that's a statement about what's being sent/received now and how much 
more sophisticated that form of "info transportation" is now.  But if 
"sending my voice to an arbitrary part of the world" is like a bicycle, 
what would be equivalent to a space vehicle? Hard to guess, but with 
several orders of magnitude more bandwidth it would seem possible to 
send a "simulation" of yourself some day: a realtime and proper size and 
quality version of the teeny holographic projection of Princess Leia 
that R2D2 provides in "Star Wars", perhaps. It seems hard to imagine a 
need for this, of course, and to maintain the analogy, who's got the 
price of a spacecraft ride? (yet!)

OK, back to contesting. If W0UCE can get get a handful of these $55 
balloons he can put up the Loud and Amazingly Large Array for 160 
(slogan "Ooh, Lala!") and give W4AN a run for their money next year.  Oh 
wait, do the rules constrain the operators to the club geographic 
circle, or is it operator plus station? But the 1000 foot "station 
circle" can extend up and and out to the edge of the club circle, 
surely? N1ND is a reasonable guy and would allow a "tilted columnar" 
station configuration, right? And can a few toasters full of NiMH 
batteries pump 1.5kw for the whole test, or would less power and more 
antenna gain at stratosphere height be enough to blow W8JI's headphones 
right off his head?  But this would not be terribly much more 
enthusiastic and effective a project for K2AV to accomplish than his 
past year's work, assuming he avoids large toroids!


-Pete AD4L