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Winter 2005 Issue |
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HSMM S.H.A.R.K.s and Tsunamis By John Champa,* K8OCL |
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This column is on the easy use of Amateur High Speed Multimedia (HSMM) radio in an emergency. HSMM radio is packet radio, but thousands of times faster. It is so fast that we can use simultaneous voice, data, text, and video modes. What a godsend this can be for hams working in a disaster area, such as the world is now facing in the aftermath of the tsunamis in Asia. Walt DuBose, K5YFW, the ARRL’s HSMM Working Group Assistant Chairman, reported the following on January 4: The Texas Baptist Men are deploying four or five water-purification units and three feeding units. They will likely want our Command, Control, and Communications unit next (that’s my crew and me), but we will need State Department appointments to do our work and use ham frequencies. There is already talk of needing 802.11b links between communications centers and the various distribution points, using an AP (access point—ed.) that is high up on a mountain.
The accompanying sidebar contains their
recommended packing list. There are a number of significant reasons why HSMM radio is the wave of the future for many Emergency Communications (EmComm) situations such as those encountered by RACES, ARES, and other radio amateurs responding to disaster locations. These reasons include: 1. The amount of digital radio traffic on our 2.4-GHz band, presently the most common band used by hams for HSMM radio, is increasing. Operating under low-power, unlicensed Part 15 limitations cannot overcome this noise.
2. Higher power is sometimes needed for longer
range, higher reliability, and high data-speed links (i.e., improved
signal margins), so operating under Part 97 makes sense. |
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