Although hams' belts are already overpopulated with HTs, there's still plenty of unused real estate on suspenders for clipping on an entire zoo of pagers. You know ... cool factor? Babe magnet?
Uh its over the internet through your hotspot Yup another wasted $100 like all this dmr stuff I have sitting here most of it is very boring to me. I always go back to HF and I seem to get much more enjoyment out of that. Buts its a hobby each to his own. I personally like to play with high voltage and stuff that can kill you :=)
But a hotspot is an amateur transmitter, and has to comply with amateur rules. One big problem, from a rules standpoint, is that "one way transmissions" are generally not allowed on amateur frequencies. There are some exceptions, but most uses of a pager would not fall into those exceptions. Some would, however.
Even cooler would be getting some old GSM phones and setting up ham op's on 900 MHz with them, as derived from the earlier hacking of Chris KJ6GCG seen in his video below.
Yes, there are exceptions, as in bulletins of interest to amateurs and not to the general public--which would include what people are doing with pagers. No different than running Amateur Radio Newsline or something like that on your repeater.
Right, and I agree with that. But historically, the purpose of a pager was to direct a specific message to a specific person, like "Bring home a gallon of milk", and those types of one way, person specific messages, would generally not be allowed under the rules.
AFAIK, hams aren't actually using the things as pagers. However, if the people at both ends were hams, it would be OK to request a milk stop on the way home. That kind of "traffic" goes over FM voice rather frequently on every repeater I've ever heard.
Yes, but it is not a "one way transmission". A pager, by necessity, is a "one way transmission", so all of the rules regarding them must apply. You can't get on a repeater and simply say "K1XXX, bring home a gallon of milk please. This is K1XYY", without establishing a two way communication. You could say, "This is K1XXX with a QST. The 10M band is wide open to Europe right now".
I understand...but as I said, I don't think they are being used this way. Also, how is that any different from sending an email over packet or Winlink?
Those are not one way transmissions. There are two stations involved with sending the messages, and both of them have to be able to transmit and send a callsign and acknowledgement. A pager has no transmitter.
My heart still skips a few beats when i hear a pager go off. It really is PTSD for me with pagers. And now I'm getting it when ever I get alerts on my phone after 10pm. Working in IT can do that to you.
My assumption was Hampaher.de prevents non-hams from having accounts or sending messages. And you have to be a ham to setup your pistar to receive anything via the requirement of the auth key.
It's not a question of being licensed, it's a comment that transmissions to pagers are defined as "one way transmissions", and as such, have to obey a different set of FCC rules than "normal" two way transmissions. IOW, your page has to fit into one of the categories that are allowed for one way transmissions: (b) In addition to one-way transmissions specifically authorized elsewhere in this part, an amateur station may transmit the following types of one-way communications: (1) Brief transmissions necessary to make adjustments to the station; (2) Brief transmissions necessary to establishing two-way communications with other stations; (3) Telecommand; (4) Transmissions necessary to providing emergency communications; (5) Transmissions necessary to assisting persons learning, or improving proficiency in, the international Morse code; and (6) Transmissions necessary to disseminate information bulletins. (7) Transmissions of telemetry. Of the above types, number 2 would be "Meet me on 14.255 MHz" number 4 would be "A tornado is coming our way!" number 6 would be, "Ten meters is open to South America". The rest of the categories probably wouldn't apply. The normal types of pages that people get on pagers would not be allowed, since they don't fit into one of these categories. Things like "call home" "Meet me for lunch" "Pick up some bread" "see you at 6pm" and other such messages would be prohibited.
