One of our readers sent us this:

Wayne Spires, KF4BJT, has climbed his 56 foot tower in protest of his homeowner’s association.  I heard him interviewed on the Rick and Bubba morning show.  Bill “Bubba” Bussey is a ham radio radio operator, KJ4JJ, so he is sympathetic to Wayne’s Plight.  Wayne, however, appears to be a QRZ.com worth NUTJOB.  He kept rambling on, about how he bought the house free and clear in 1995 and now the homoeowner’s association has attached a $1500 lien against his property.  The association was apparently not formed until 2000, or so.  Interesting story, though.

http://www.wsfa.com/Global/story.asp?S=5883357

The topic comes up now and then – pagers on the amateur bands. It’s a fine idea on paper, but unfortunatley some of the ‘old guard’ declare it illegal and blasphemy against ‘all things ham’. It’s an issue that will be debated until the end of time (or ham), and those brave enough to put such systems up endure the hang-wringing and cries of those who don’t like to hear ‘nuthin’ but code and voice’ on the bands.

Pager comms come in a variety of flavours and types – it can be as simple as DTMF or QuickCall to more exotic digital signalling modes such as MDC-1200, FLEX, POCSAG and GOLAY. Unfortunatley, some hams still consider digital modes on ham to be verboten (friends experimenting with digital voice on ham have run into this problem), so paging will never gain hobby-wide acceptance (unless it’s SELCALLs oh-so-familiar to our resident Motorola geeks)

A few years ago I attempted to set up an incident alerting system on the ham bands – the plan initially called for incidents (to be sent via e-mail from a protected system) to be read over the air by a computer. While the plan seemed simple in it’s concept stage, it ran into some friction from some local hams. Most of them weren’t too pleased with such a new concept on ‘their’ airwaves, while most weren’t considerate enough to even give me a reason. The project was eventually scrapped, but not before I learned a few valuable lessons about my local hams: If it’s new and never been done before, it isn’t welcome.

Thankfully, not all hams are as closed-minded to the idea. In the world of ARES and incident activation, it seems that some are realizing the potential for paging over the amateur airwaves. A recent article written by Bob Cooke VE3BDB on the Radio Amateur of Canada website described a nifty little invention by Bob Simpson VE3ODR and Jim Robinson, VE3JPR. Using the (more-or-less) already accepted mode of DTMF, this unit allows mutiple and specific alerts to be broadcast over existing airwaves using existing equipment. (click in image to see bigger)

While not exactly portable (it requires an external power supply and speaker for audio alerts), it’s a step in the right direction. Another option some hams have toyed with is using existing commercial pagers in the ham bands. Some transmitters and receivers are able to be set to operate in the ham bands – getting a community already set against commercial equipment in the ham bands to accept it is a whole different story.

We here at Hamsexy support efforts to bring paging into the forefront of amateur radio. While we like VE3ODR and VE3JPR’s efforts, we feel the unit should be re-designed to fit the true needs and priorities of today’s radio amateur:

Perhaps…?

The Hamsexy Net is tonight…. never duplicated, and never imitated!!
The net will begin at 9pm Eastern time, 6pm Pacific on IRLP Reflector 9008 and Echolink conference *VAN-IRLP*.

Net control will be VE3HBD, my first Net Control since returning home.

The theme for the net will be announced at net time.

For those who are lacking access to Echolink or IRLP, the net will be broadcasted on the Warp Radio Network – listen to the stream and participate in the live chat. As well, stick around for the great tunes after the net.

Thanks to our Vice President of Dayton Operations Batdude, we will have shirts for sale at our booth at the Hamvention.

We will also be raffling off a VHF model 1 Astro Saber w/ chest pack, donated courtesy of Batdude. Raffle tickets are one dollar each, and the drawing will be at the booth on Saturday, May 20th at 2pm. You *MUST* be present to claim your prize! The winner will get the radio, battery, charger, antenna, chest pack and a free XL tee-shirt. The radio is flashed for IMBE Smartzone (100008-000000-1). Good luck!!