-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 03/06/2013 05:41 PM, Sky (Jim Schuyler) wrote:

The Byzantium Project folks (wi-fi mesh) have some amateur operators among their numbers and might also have opinions on how easy it is to

We do.

get folks licensed, and also on "edge" connections of mesh and other

I can't speak for Haxwithaxe, but I took two weekend classes for the Tech class licensing exam (total time: sixteen hours) and re-read the course materials twice (http://www.kb6nu.com/tech-manual/), and passed the exam on the first try. I'm friends with a couple of hams in the DC metroplex who aced all three exams (Technician, General, and Extra) in one shot and know more about amateur radio and RF theory off the tops of their heads than I do.

networks to amateurs (which is severely limited by law). My take is that even though hams tend to think it's easy to get a license, there are significant (maybe psychological) barriers to entry. Maybe it's just

I think it depends on the ham you talk to. Before taking the exam I studied the ARRL's official Tech class study guide off and on for a couple of years (and did the practice sets for every chapter) and it was easily the most difficult exam I've ever studied for. Then again, I'm a coder and not particularly skilled with electronics (I thought operating systems and compiler theory were easy). That one has to study to take the amateur radio licensing exams puts a lot of people off. They just don't want to put in the effort "to sit around talking to people." I got that a lot from non-hackers when I was studying for the exam in late 2011 and early 2012. There is also the (largely correct) perception that amateur radio equipment is very expensive. A lot of it is. HT's (hand-held portable units) are much less expensive (and getting cheaper - thank you, Baofeng) but the common response is still "I don't want to sit around studying when I could just talk on the phone."

that mobile phones provide so many of the same benefits without the licensure hassle?

One definitely has to put in much less work up front to be allowed to chat on a cellphone.

Some of the people on this list know how wi-fi can be provisioned over fairly long distances using high-gain antennas and mesh software. It

Project Byzantium does. We've done it around DC and in New York City. Do you have any specific questions on this topic? Do you have any specific questions pertaining to amateur radio and wi-fi (because there is a bit of overlap)?

seems to me that this might be an interesting way to go about getting real Internet connectivity. I've been on the list a couple of years and

That may be why so many community wireless projects in the States draw fire from telecom companies, but that's a rant for another mailing list (such as IS4CWN). - -- The Doctor [412/724/301/703] [ZS] Developer, Project Byzantium: http://project-byzantium.org/ PGP: 0x807B17C1 / 7960 1CDC 85C9 0B63 8D9F DD89 3BD8 FF2B 807B 17C1 WWW: https://drwho.virtadpt.net/ On the Internet, nobody knows you're a Perl script. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.19 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with undefined - http://www.enigmail.net/ iEYEARECAAYFAlE4wigACgkQO9j/K4B7F8HJdgCeKhobX6jleUjl3Ze8bSomqR+A Ha8AnAjsBlpyOTzIUFEvP7MluTWQYBdc =//Qw -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- Too many emails? Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at companys@stanford.edu or changing your settings at https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE