I found an interesting story about Cisco's Internet Routers in Space (IRIS) project.
"Cisco's new-market ambitions extend into orbit" http://www.networkworld.com/news/2009/070709-ciscos-new-market-ambitions-extend-into.html
Cisco's router will be hosted by Intelsat IS-14. (Is this the platform on which AMSAT had hoped for a ride?)
In my view, AMSAT has perhaps two good stories that might warrant cheap or free launches: education (developing the next generation of space scientists and engineers) and research (in this case, IP in space).
I believe that the proposed Advanced Communications Package (ACP) had a strong research story to tell. The ACP, like Cisco's IRIS project, probably would have been an IP router in space (a view I articulated in my 2008 AMSAT paper, although the general idea had been mentioned earlier, I think).
I claim that the ACP project could have provided the basis for a story about the relevant and cutting-edge research that the project would have enabled. The story might have been competitive enough to, for example, win support via the DoD Space Test Program (I wrote a Symposium paper about that, too). Or, maybe we could have teamed with Cisco. (Obviously, we have built a lot more satellites than has Cisco...) The primary point being that I believe that organizations with money are more likely to fund a research project, than our usual alternatives (e.g., emergency communications [there is a ton of bandwidth in orbit these days, to mix metaphors], developing skilled radio operators [who needs them?], contesting ["you want a really expensive satellite to do what???"], or fostering international understanding [in the age of the Internet]).
But, to take advantage of these [alleged] opportunities, we need to get much better at creating and telling a research story. And, this would require a dramatic (perhaps impossible) cultural change for AMSAT. Voice communications would no longer be the primary motivation or justification for a project; it would merely be a nice side-effect.
I suppose that the real difference between AMSAT's ACP and Cisco's IRIS is that Cisco has a development team and has more money to pay launch fees. But, maybe AMSAT could have been a subcontractor...
-tjs
cultural change for AMSAT. Voice communications would no longer be the primary motivation or justification for a project; it would merely be a nice side-effect.
I believe the number 1 thing we should be working on is "Universal Amateur Radio Text Messaging". The goal is to be able to text message any ham anywhere, anytime using any device using only his call.
I have counted over TWO dozen existing text messaging capabilities in Ham radio and the problem is, that few of them are cross connected or integrated, yet we could do it easily if we just took it on as the big picture!
See www.aprs.org/aprs-messaging.html
APRS has had the above local and global terrestrial and satellite text messaging between mobiles and handhelds for over a decade, now cellphones and blackberry's and Iphones are being integrated. There are 300,000 older DTMF Text Paging ham HT's out there from the 90's that could be integrated. There are millions of surplus text pagers going to the landfills... Even the shack-potatos who use Echolink have text messaging while on-line... I want to extend that to the mobiles too.
And a satellite transponder to support this is now small enough to fit in HALF of a cubesat. 10 such cubesats would extend this existing network to every foot on earth at any time.
Oh, and of course, once you can text message anytime, anywhere, to any ham on any device, then you can QSY to voice on something like Echolink or IRLP the phone.
But Universal Amatuer Radio Text messaging should be our immediate goal, instead of dozens of isolated systems only serving their own users within their own feifdoms.
We have 6000 frequencies below UHF, and by that same token, 6000-to-1 ways not to find each other. Universal Text messaging if for no other purpose than announcing our immediate monitoring frequency is a very powerful aid to communications.
APRS now automatically not only includes your position, but also your FREQ in every packet, making human-to-human contact fruitful. www.aprs.org/localinfo.html
THis includes showing you on your mobile display the freq, tone, and location of nearby EchoLink and IRLP nodes wherever you go. AND where implemented, the location, freq and instantaneous DOppler of any satellites in view show up on your Mobile heads-up display. Making Mobile operation of the FM sateliltes easy.
Bob, WB4APR
Bob Bruninga wrote:
There are 300,000 older DTMF Text Paging ham HT's out there from the 90's that could be integrated.
Surely, as these don't have a writeable alpha numeric display they will be Tx only?
There are millions of surplus text pagers going to the landfills...
Most of which would be Rx only.
I want to extend that to the mobiles too.
Texting whilst mobile is extremely dangerous. Surely you mean to make it available to "out of shack" operators.
There are 300,000 older DTMF Text Paging ham HT's out there from the 90's that could be integrated.
Surely, as these don't have a writeable alpha numeric display they will be Tx only?
No the FT-51 family and TH-78 all have TEXT DTMF text paging displays too. It's just that hams didn't use the feature, so most people ignored it. THey display 6 characters at a time in messages up to 60 bytes long.. see the web page:
www.aprs.org/FT51-TH78.html
That 300,000 2-way DTMF text paging HT's is a reasonable number based on some data I had from some of the manufacturers. You are thinking about the 10's of millions of regular HT's that can TX DTMF messages as-is. But they too can RX messages by voice synthesis from the local repeater!
That is why we need APRSTouchtone www.aprs.org/aprstt.html so that anyone with any old HT can be seen, can send and receive messages. THey RX messages by VOICE synthesis from the local APRStt engine just like someone hears voice messages on his phone answering machine.
There are millions of surplus text pagers going to the landfills...
Most of which would be Rx only.
Which is what 98% of any commmunications mode is.... being available for a call. The value of Universal Amateur Radio Text Messaging is to be able to at least CALL any person, anytime, anywhere, using any device using only his callsign, means the callee has to have a receiver, Iphone, Blackberry, pager, APRS, or just his ears monitoring the local APRStt channel.
Having a converted $20 text messaging paging receiver on the dashboard of every ham radio mobile would sure make it a lot easier to contact people and call-up when there is a need and distribute local immediate info of value. Once called, then the called party uses whatever HIS available system is to respond. So Text Pagers in amateur radio are just part of the overall two-way communicaitons network, but they fulfill the call-up need very well for those old mobiles that will never upgrade to APRS or Iphone's or whatever...
Texting whilst mobile is extremely dangerous.
Life is dangerous and fools are everwyhere. Some people shouldnt get out of bed in the morning, they are a danger to themselves and everyone around them. But glanicing at a head's-up message disply window properly mounted in a vehicle can be done safely.
Surely you mean to make it available to "out of shack" operators.
Yes, we are amateur radio communicators, and being accessible for a call is important. The one lesson from Katrina (New Orleans Hurricane) was that we had thousands of hams in the area and in the response effort, and we had 6000 amateur radio frequencies from HF to UHF, yet most of our effort was just trying to find people... Not just in the lat/long domain, but in the Frequency domain too.
THe goal of the Universal Text Messaging Initiative is to provide a fundamental capability that anyone with any device on any system, anywhere can send and receive a call. THis has been the goal of APRS for over 16 years on its national channel, but now with the proliferation of compatible text messaging devices, we just need to keep everything talking to everything so we can communicate independent of system.
There was an initiative a few years ago to convert pagers, but because it was not tied into APRS, Email and the internet, it was again, just another of the dozens of isolated only-talk-to-same-devices narrow-application dead-end projects.
I'd love to carry a text pager (or other device) that would: 1) receive messages to my callsign 2) list nearby mobiles and operators 3) alert me to satellites in view and freqs 4) alert me to freq of nearby EchoLink/IRLP node 5) alert me to nearby nets in progress 6) Alert me to ham radio bulletins in the area announcing any other ham radio activity.
APRS does that now, but other systems can also...
Tying together all the text messaging capabilities and chat modes in Amateur Radio is something we need as a national priority.
Hope that helps Bob, WB4aPR
I think an interesting current use for paging in Ham Radio at this point would be a "Spotting Network" for favorite modes or grid squares on satellites...the infrastructure is all there...the code transition to "paging" is all that is necessary...
The "Fire Buffs" already have such a paging notification network in place which could be mimicked to alert Satellite "DX'ers" to "hot" info via pagers.
You just have to run to your car from your meeting and "Work the World" ;-)
Build it and they will come...
Roger WA1KAT
----- Original Message ----- From: "Bob Bruninga " bruninga@usna.edu To: "Timothy J. Salo" salo@saloits.com; amsat-bb@amsat.org Sent: Sunday, August 02, 2009 9:56 AM Subject: [amsat-bb] Re: Internet Routers in Space
I believe the number 1 thing we should be working on is "Universal Amateur
Radio Text Messaging". The goal is to be able to text message any ham anywhere, anytime using any device using only his call.
I have counted over TWO dozen existing text messaging capabilities in Ham
radio and the problem is, that few of them are cross connected or integrated, yet we could do it easily if we just took it on as the big picture!
See www.aprs.org/aprs-messaging.html
Bob Bruninga wrote:
cultural change for AMSAT. Voice communications would no longer be the primary motivation or justification for a project; it would merely be a nice side-effect.
I believe the number 1 thing we should be working on is "Universal Amateur Radio Text Messaging". The goal is to be able to text message any ham anywhere, anytime using any device using only his call.
I have counted over TWO dozen existing text messaging capabilities in Ham radio and the problem is, that few of them are cross connected or integrated, yet we could do it easily if we just took it on as the big picture!
See www.aprs.org/aprs-messaging.html
APRS has had the above local and global terrestrial and satellite text messaging between mobiles and handhelds for over a decade
Even if we endorse the view of universal messaging APRS should not be the underlying protocol. Rather then bolt something on to an OSI layer 4 (-ish) protocol, lets approach this with no preconceptions and start fresh. Heck, if we want to reuse something, let's tear a page from Cisco's book and implement something that does IP since almost everything except my toaster speaks IP. Anything else relegates our hobby to the digital stone age.
ACP is a good step in the right direction. The fact that it understands that bits are bits and doesn't give a hoot about what's on top of it allows us to get back into relevance again.
</rant>
participants (5)
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Ben Jackson -
Bob Bruninga -
Nigel Gunn G8IFF/W8IFF -
Roger Kolakowski -
Timothy J. Salo