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Document #26
ARRL Board of
Directors
2003 Second Meeting
Windsor, Connecticut
July 17, 2003
Members:
Howard Huntington, K9KM Chair
Tom Frenaye, K1KI
Mike Raisbeck, K1TWF
Paul Rinaldo, W4RI
ARRL Staff Liaison:
Ed Hare, W1RFI
1. TTF Activity.
The three working groups presented an outstanding TTF Forum at Dayton in May which was well attended by about 50 persons. Five different presenters from the three groups held the attention of the audience with slides, demos and audio tapes to inform the audience of progress in Digital Voice, Software Defined Radio, and High Speed Multimedia. The Dayton report in QST recognized this forum. A similar successful forum was presented at the ARRL National Convention at HamCom in Dallas in June.
The TTF committee has reviewed the nominations for the Technical Awards and will recommend the recipients at the Board Meeting. Reports from the individual Working Groups are attached as Documents 26A, 26B and 26C. Progress of the working groups is summarized in this report.
2. Digital Voice Working Group.
Two systems are emerging for digital voice at HF, the Thales system developed from digital broadcast and the AMBE codec systems of AOR Japan and Temple University. No specific standard has been adopted. These systems are progressing as software continues to evolve. Details of the Thales system are detailed in QEX Jan/Feb 2003. An interview with Doug Smith, KF6DX on digital voice progress appeared in Feb CQ. Simultaneous digital voice, data and video is the next step and will require some effort to harmonize international regulations to enable future progress.
3. Software Defined Radio Working Group.
The SDRWG has presented several programs in addition to the forums at Dayton and HamCom and were well attended. QEX has published four articles on SDR, some in multiple parts, and have been well received by readers. League publications also include SDR information. In addition to the published material, a significant number of newly available SDR transceivers have been purchased by the amateur community in the past twelve months. The TTF recognizes the achievement of the SDRWG to bring this technical information and actual hardware to the amateur community.
Next the SDRWG is advancing the performance of direct conversion digitized SDR to rival the performance of today's analog hardware.
4. High Speed and Multimedia Working Group.
An article describing the application of off the shelf IEEE 802.11b hardware in amateur operation at 2.4 GHz appeared in April QST. The resulting input to the HSMM web page indicated a significant interest among the membership. Functioning HSMM WG networks described in the article have been fully functional in Michigan and Texas. An opinion written by General Counsel Chris Imaly has determined that manual power control will meet the requirements of 97.311(d) and has been accepted by the HSMM WG. Designs of a BDA to increase power output to 2 to 10W are under investigation.
Additional projects in process by the HSMM WG in addition to the IEEE 802.11b network are:
5. Future Plans of TTF.
The TTF will assist the HSMM WG to set the parameters for the STA for HF high speed data. For the remainder of 2003 the TTF plans to define some new projects and to provide guidance for the existing projects among the three working groups and will investigate possible new areas to explore that may have lasting benefit to the amateur service.
Respectfully submitted,
Howard Huntington, K9KM
Chairman, Technology Task Force
