Sun
28
Sep '08
I guess 20 meters is very quiet. I heard some activity on 40 meters, today. However, the amount of DX seems very limited.
n1ey
Wed
10
Sep '08
Some of you might have heard that the FCC wants to create free broadband. I have heard people discussing it on the air. Many of these folks are alledged extra-class hams. Unforunately, most of these supposedly intelligent individuals have not read anything on the subject. Most people have assumed that broadband implies significant speeds such as 5 mbps or perhaps 100 mbps.
In fact many silly hams in the area think that the FCC proposal is a mandate to open their wifi networks to public access. It is not. The FCC had set aside a good portion of spectrum from 2155 Mhz to 2180 Mhz for this special auction.
The winner would purchase the auction and provide telecommunications services for a fee. They would also provide an open access component, which would be supported by advertising.
There are several flaws in the proposal. The largest problem would the massive costs of rolling out so many cells to provide coverage throughout the country. There would have to be many installations to provide complete coverage and capacity for a large amount of users. I also do not see the possibility of any third party paying them to stream broadcast radio; the network costs are going to be very high.
The second problem is the proposal also wants pornography to be banned. All IP traffic is routed from origin to destination. People do not unintentionally browse IP traffic of other users. I worry about the start of any government mandated censorship.
The third problem is that the frequencies are adjacent to cellular telephone frequencies. Did anyone ever consider interference problems? Supposedly, only t-mobile is concerned!
N1EY
'
I have to say that 440Mhz has become akin to the bad band. I know how californians have flocked to 440 to escape the riff-raff. I think that our riff-raff reside on 440. I had been listening to two fellows talk for awhile on one machine, today. I heard one identify properly and repeatedly. The other station never took a cue to identify. I heard the repeater ID twice during the conversation and the second station never identified.
Lately, I have been hearing various individuals talk on 440 without ever identifying.
Plus, the 440 coverage on the Norwell machine seems to be very tough to the west and south of the machine. We can thank pave-paws for this.
N1EY
Sat
6
Sep '08
the solar cycle continues to depress my fellow hams. I have remarked to others that we should be hoping for a new Maraunder Minimum as this might revert the effects of the global greenhouse pheneoma in increasing average global temperature. The A and K indices were high. I heard several reports of complete band failure instead of gradual fadiing or flutter during this past week.
One of my friends, KA1EUI, just finished some tower work. You can review some of his photos, here. I need to get some towers, going. I would like to get a beverage or two going for 75 meters DX phone as well.
N1EY
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