A gateway, using our existing Internet service to SRJC is possible, would cost the District nothing and could provide a number of interesting new pluses for the College. I see an Internet to Amateur Radio Gateway doing these things:
Perhaps no where else in the world could a gateway provide as effective a research tool for non-commercial wireless networking at this time. The proposed Internet gateway is a part of a Northern California High Speed Digital Radio Frequency Network program currently being developed by several amateur radio operators. The local group includes an engineer and network specialist from Hewlett Packard, an independent technician (and pilot) from Seaview and a retired Pacific Bell technician in the East Bay. Keep in mind that all participants are volunteers, have independent Internet accounts for mail and Web browsing and experimentation normally takes place after work hours.
Although the gateway combined with the physical proximity of those developing the wireless network are what primarily enable this research, there is significant potential for worldwide involvement in these endeavors. In fact, some of the possible applications being considered would best be fulfilled this way. Not only would other gateways be involved, but individuals in many countries with a variety of expertise could participate. (see end paper)
I will provide the necessary equipment and maintain it; a computer, small radio and radio frequency modem and antenna (which is about half the size of a TV antenna). The equipment needs to be housed in my office so that I can interact with the software. The antenna needs to be located nearby, on Analy Hall and would be fairly inconspicuous.
97.1 Basis and purpose.
The rules and regulations in this Part are designed to provide an
amateur radio service having a fundamental purpose as expressed in the
following principles:
(a) Recognition and enhancement of the value of the amateur service
to the public as a voluntary noncommercial communication service,
particularly with respect to providing emergency communications.
(b) Continuation and extension of the amateur's proven ability to
contribute to the advancement of the radio art.
(c) Encouragement and improvement of the amateur service through
rules which provide for advancing skills in both the communications and
technical phases of the art.
(d) Expansion of the existing reservoir within the amateur radio
service of trained operators, technicians, and electronics experts.
(e) Continuation and extension of the amateur's unique ability to
enhance international goodwill.
The Internet and it's protocols grew out of (D)ARPA research and
activities more than 20 years ago. There was the need for
interconnecting diverse computer systems of military, educational
institutions and industry so that they could all collaborate.
The Internet Protocol (IP), which is actually a 'stack' of protocols,
resulted from this common need and joint effort. Somehow, in spite of
the defense/military presence, a rather open and evolving research and
development environment resulted. Needs and requirements were discussed
and then Requests For Comment (RFCs) were submitted by the physically
diverse members as a sort of suggestion as to how/what a new protocol
should be. These RFCs were made generally available, haggled over,
implemented and changed until they served. This process has continued
until the present and is the primary means for improvement.
As with most developments, a relatively small number of experts
emerged in the various areas of endeavor. Some wrangled out lower level
issues. The Ethernet protocol started at DEC, I think, and was later
codified into IEEE 802.3 after a few changes (Ethernet and 802.3 aren't
identical but similar). Similarly, higher layer protocols, like FTP,
Telnet, SMTP which were closer to the users need were also proposed,
improved and implemented, tested, improved ...
All this made a great "playground" for academic types while also
providing useful results. The Internet began to emerge out of an
assemblage of interconnected subnets. ARPAnet, MILnet and others I
think were early but others were added and the Internet rapidly grew to
be what it is today. Somewhere along the way, the Internet Engineering
Task Force was created. It was more or less the 'group of experts'
involved in the above.
Somewhere along in the early 1980's not long after TAPR introduced the
TNC and amateur packet began, a number of folks, some of whom were
involved in the IETF and Internet development and were also hams,
thought it would be interesting and worthwhile to run IP over amateur
radio. This very much fit with amateur radio's charter and history as a
development ground for new technologies. Phil Karn, one of those
involved in Internet protocol development (he has his name on several
RFCs I think as well as perhaps more than one implemented and active
protocol, VanJacobson/Karn being a combination I remember) is also KA9Q
and wrote some code to run on a readily available CPU board and also
interface to TAPR TNCs. (I think I have this more or less right, don't
hold me to it).
There are probably a dozen names on TAPR's WWW page of "pioneers" in
packet. I can't recite them, but they include Phil Karn KA9Q , Bdale
Garbee N3EUA (at HP in Colorado), Mike Chepponis K3MC (Freemont, CA, old
roommate of Bdale's who got him to take the ham test), Harold Price NK6K
and others.
In addition to these there are many amateurs worldwide involved
professionally with networking and the Internet who are also active in
developing and researching wireless networking with amateur radio.
Brian Kantor at UCSD (major sysop, as far as I can tell, also card
carrying Hell's Angel!) started a distribution list in which amateurs
could further develop IP as applied to radio. There had been some
previous work in wireless networking but the bulk of Internet
development used existing connections (phone lines and the like) rather
than radio. The University of Hawaii is noted for some of it's early
wireless work. The ALOHA environment came from them. (ALOHA has to do
with a node shouting "hello" rather than with UofH per se, I think) This
distribution list, tcp-group@ucsd.edu, now has many thousands of readers
worldwide, largely but not entirely amateur. Phil's original "KA9Q"
code has been ported to a very wide variety of hosts and is used
throughout the world. It's free to amateurs but must be licensed by
others. HP here in Santa Rosa is one of the many who have so licensed
it. The myriad of adaptations of Phil's original code have shown up as
PA0GRI, JNOS, TNOS, MFNOS etc., etc. and are currently being jointly
developed worldwide. It really is a widespread development project and
many of the participants are "major networking types", many of whom are
located at Universities around the world.
Along with the collaboration among amateurs using the Internet itself,
development was further fostered when the American Radio Relay League
got interested in networking and early in 1980's started the (then) ARRL
Computer Networking Conferences. These are annual conferences which
accept papers on a wide variety of wireless networking topics and
publish proceedings. These proceedings have filled something of the
same role in amateur radio networking as RFCs have in network
development.
Interestingly, all though it is primarily an amateur radio group, most
of the contributions (starting with Phil's code itself) have been on the
computer and software side. Not much fundamentally new has been added
in the radio/hardware side. This is in part due to the difficulty of
collaborating across states/countries/continents on hardware. Software
is easier to clone and probably easier to test and measure for the vast
majority.
I came along about 1986 or so and started to get interested in first
packet and then in IP. I was rather unique in the development group in
having primarily RF/microwave experience rather than a CS background. I
stumbled into packet/IP after having successfully led 'projects' to
build a TVRO system from scratch, a group project to build an EME
station and another group endeavor to break the 10GHZ terrestrial DX
record. All of these had aspects of microwave design and signal
propagation which prove relevant to high speed data flow over a wireless
network.
It didn't take long to discover that amateur networking was severely
hampered by the lack of suitable RF development. I looked at the
fundamentals and produced my "teaser"; the 10 GHz 2 MBps microwave data
link made from door-opener transceivers. Kevin Rowett, N6RCE (at Tandem
Computers at the time), handled the CS and networking side, I did the
RF. This was first published in Ham Radio Magazine in December of 1989
(following the 3 part "Designing a Station for the Microwave Bands" the
year before). It was also published in the 8th ARRL CNC proceedings as
was a 5 way article (Bdale, Mike, Phil, Kevin and myself) dealing with
the general potential for high speed amateur and wireless networks. The
ARRL picked it up and has included it in the last several Handbooks as
well as the new "Advanced Packet" publication (I just got my
complementary copy and you're welcome to browse it, but it's mostly
reprints and old news).
The microwave link was meant to expose the fact that orders of
magnitude of improvement were possible for no more investment if things
were done "right". I followed it up the next year with my paper
"Physical Layer Considerations in Building an Amateur Radio Network".
This justified the approach based on fundamentals.
The same year (CNC #9) as my physical layer paper, Kevin N6RCE, Ed
Satterthwaite N6PLO and I presented the "Hubmaster" paper which was a
new protocol based on the preceding work and appropriate for the amateur
environment. Kevin and I presented a "status" paper in CNC 10 the
following year. The existing 904 radios were being developed and
deployed along with "MIO", a digital controller Kevin designed and
built, at this time.
Kevin got busy and I was left on my own to try to make things work
properly. Developing/supporting MIO was more than I was up for
alone(having radios to do as well) so I first bought 10 MHz TNCs and put
them on with Bob, Dale's help at 38.4 kbps, and then PI2 cards in
386DX40 hosts at 230.4 kbps. I think you came in along about that time
and know the rest.
Glenn Elmore
Internet: glenne@sr.hp.com