🇬🇧 I'm still searching for radio amateurs on mastodon, by the way.
🇩🇪 Ich suche übrigens noch nach Funkamateuren auf mastodon.
🇸🇪 Jag letar fortfarande efter radio amatörer på mastodon, för övrigt.
🇱🇺 Ik zoek overigens nog naar zendamateurs op mastodon.
Please retoot!
@DC7IA I don't have a license (yet), but I have a radio that I mess around with. Baofeng UV-5RA
I'm really interested in IP over HAM. Seems like a cheap-ish way to re-decentralize the web.
@DC7IA I'm not talking about replacing it. I'm talking about building it out, e.g. to rural areas.
Internet started on phone lines, but it didn't replace phones.
Don't think there's anything wrong with receiving text and images over one section of EM spectrum over another.
@teslas_moustache No, but you should be aware that a licence is needed to access that spectrum.
@DC7IA I am aware of this.
I don't have the resources to even begin implementing this. I'm just interested conceptually.
@teslas_moustache Same am I.
@teslas_moustache @DC7IA FWIW, there are lost of nonprofit WISPs out there that build wireless mesh networks, and those can extend quite far.
IIRC, there is also an amateur point-to-point microwave network that spans most of Austria and extends into Bavaria, but I can't recall the name right now.
@DC7IA @teslas_moustache Indeed: http://wiki.oevsv.at/index.php/Kategorie:Digitaler_Backbone
Also, that's way bigger than I recalled :O
@kellerfuchs @teslas_moustache It covers all of Germany except the eastern part, a lot of the Netherlands, part of Denmarks and via Internet the UK.
@DC7IA @teslas_moustache in most countries there are areas of spectrum that have a "blanket license" allowing use of certain frequencies without a further license, and they do get used for community wifi/mesh networks etc but these all vary within every country and sometimes even within regions.
Research online and if needed check with your local Communications Ministry; they can be more approachable than you might think!
@vfrmedia @teslas_moustache We don't have something like that.
I'm thinking of things like the SRD band allocations which are common to most CEPT countries (doesn't Freifunk make use of this, as commercial off the shelf WLAN equipment is in fact covered by the SRD license equivalent for each country?)
But I agree that using existing amateur spectrum for anything other than its correct licensed use is a bad idea (IP over HAM isn't a new idea, it grew alongside IP over PSTN in many countries including UK, US and DE)
@vfrmedia @teslas_moustache WLAN is ISM. We have ISM at 9-10 kHz, 6 MHz, 433 MHz, 2.4 GHz, 5 GHz.
simlar to the the UK (although also 169, 868 MHz for some alarms esp for elderly people). I have the big CEPT document somewhere at work but its 87 pages long!
But other than WLAN, most of this spectrum really isn't that suitable for resource intensive IP-based traffic and is near other allocations so equipment must be compliant and deployed correctly to avoid harmful interference to other users (or issues with adjacent strong signal from other systems).
@teslas_moustache Don't try to replace the WWW, amateur radio isn't meant to replce something else.