Replying to BB.
I was really kind of surprised to find people in MI using pagers [for APRS messages], up until then I wasn't sure if they were premitted via Part 97.
Since pagers are available for peanuts as the cell phone industry steamrolls over them, it is frustrating to me that we hams have not jumped on these truck loads of text-messaging devices that can be converted over to a frequency in our bands and used for this kind of amateur radio text messaging capability.
Pagers are very easy to understand - the only thing is you need a radio that is capable of sending the page
Yes, and the Kantronics 9612 TNC's for the last many years can generate the POCSAG Pager formats, so it is easy to do. I'm sure it could also just be done in soundcard software too if we just found someone motivated to do it.
A database could be made simular to dstar that holds your "personal" capcode - that would equal your call sign - so sending a page to one pager should be fairly easy to do
But the great thing is most pagers can have 4 5 or 6 or more cap codes - if the cap codes are the same then all of the pagers that "hear" the paging signal will display the same information at the same time
Yes group codes can be very versatile.
Anyways, I would welcome you to take a look at my site, and or my blog.... http://www.box.net/shared/f20sjvtxyf
Using paging devices on Amateur Radio is perfectly legal like any other radio. It all boils down to use. If you use it for setting up a one-way systemm for a pizza delivery service, it is clearly illegal. If you use it as part of your overall local communications network of amateur radio volunters it is just one more tool in the tool box.
You just have to ignore the curmudgeons who have nothing better to do than nit-picking ways to prevent other hams from developing useful applications of technology. A pager is simply the text-to-user device integrated into the normal local 2-way amateur radio communications system.
My Universal Text Messaging Web page (www.aprs.org/aprs-messaging.html) has a link to a web page that highlights the conversion of these pagers to amateur use. UNFORTUNATELY, the pager site activity appears to have dried up since nothing new has been posted in a year or so. Just too many people buying blackberry's I guess. But I'd sure like to see a revival. These devices are out there by the millions.
An amateur satellite would make a great downlink to these pagers. Again, the goal should simply be, any message, any time, anywhere using any device to any user by callsign alone.
Bob, WB4APR
-----Original Message----- From: "Bob Bruninga " bruninga@usna.edu
Date: Sun, 5 Jul 2009 19:15:19 To: kd8bxp@aol.com; amsat-bb-bounces@amsat.org; John B. Stephensenkd6ozh@comcast.net; kc6uqh@cox.net; 'rupert red'rupert.red@live.it; amsat-bb@amsat.org Subject: Re: [amsat-bb] Re: dream .. Universal Text Messaging
I had an idea of setting up a pager network. That could be used for national or local emegrancy.... There is a man in MI doing this with his APRS group and emegancy coms now. I like the idea of being able to text any call sign by just knowing the call sign -
Yes, that is the goal of the Universal Text Messaging Initiative. www.aprs.org/aprs-messaging.html
doesn't DStar offer a way to do this?
Yes via client software called D-Rats. It cross connects messages from D-Rats laptops to the APRS system, where for years text messages are delivered to the front panel of any APRS mobile or hand held radio, cellphones, pagers or anything via any callsign @ARRL.net or @AMSAT.org etc
It would or shouldn't be too hard to setup a way for someone to know the call and have it routed to a pager.
Yes, that is the goal, any message to any call, using any device for sending or receiving.
It is still an idea but at this point it is just an idea.
No it is more than that, it is an Initiative that we hope more authors and systems will get on board. We have been trying to get an article into QST on this subject since last November, and it will finally appear in the Septermber EMCOM issue of QST. (initiall they rejected it because it was not "broad enough to appeal to a majority of readers" or something like that.
But with over two dozen text messaging systems in Amateur Radio already, we have just got to start linking them otogether seamlessly!
LeRoy, KD8BXP http://www.HamOhio.com Sent on the Now Network? from my Sprint® BlackBerry
Yes! That's the idea!
Bob, WB4APR
-----Original Message----- From: "Bob Bruninga " bruninga@usna.edu
Date: Sun, 5 Jul 2009 18:01:25 To: John B. Stephensenkd6ozh@comcast.net; kc6uqh@cox.net; 'rupert red'rupert.red@live.it; amsat-bb@amsat.org Subject: [amsat-bb] Re: dream your own sat
Any interest by the Red Cross would not be in the satellite but in human volunteers that might come with it. Unfortunately, the LEO satellites that hams can afford generate little interest in this forum.
I wish we could some how better influence the dozens of cubesat satellites being built with AX.25 packet comm systems to at least consider a backup digipeater comm system. If just six of these allowed for a possibility of user digipeating, we would have a constellation that would provide worldwide text messaging capability from mobiles and handhelds with delays no more than 30 minutes.
What a fantastic emergency comm system we could have. If ten of them were available, then the coverage would be nearly continuous.
Amateur Radio needs to recognize its trememdous legacy of over a century of wireless text messaging and our ability to bring that connectivity to the field any time anywhere. We simply need to link them together to meet our overall "Universal Amateur Radio Text Messaging Initiative", that is, any ham, any where, any time, able to text message any other ham anywhere using any hardware device, commercial or amateur by callsign alone.
Please see www.aprs.org/aprs-messaging.html
I count over 2 dozen existing amateur radio text messaging systems few of which are currently crossconnected. Most talk only within their own constituents. APRS and some others are already cross connected at the email level which then connects to cellphones and other wireless devices. So crossconnecting at the APRS internetwork or at the email level is easy to do. We just need all authors to consider transparent cross connection as a goal as per the above web page.
This has already been done for all APRS satellites and even the ARISS system when it came over the the Satellite APRS channel 145.825. When ARISS is in packet mode, it enables text messaging and Email to and from the front panel of any APRS radio in the world via our existing network of APRS ground stations. See the downlinks on www.ariss.net
We have tried to get other packet satellites on that channel, SUNSAT, PCSAT1, PCSAT2, ANDE, RAFT and ISS all of which supported this universal text messaging. We need more, and longer lived satelites. And most any AX.25 cubesat could do it as a secondary mission. We need to look for opportunities there.
We had GO32 also for a year or so until its recent demise, though it's frequency was different.
Bob, WB4APR
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