Satellites 'n' stuff (was: Internet to your Sailboat)

[Mike Hicks <hick0088@tc.umn.edu>]

Andy Zbikowski wrote:
> 
> Satellite ($$$) Guess HAM radio can be pushed to 56k. No encryption
> allowed though. SSH is out. Read the article.
> 
> http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/05/31/0037251&mode=nested

Speaking of satellites (and weather, which really wasn't part of the
initial conversation), I came across some interesting stuff.  There's a
weather system called EMWIN, which disseminates various different
`products' (just another name for different kinds of data and
information..) over a 1200 bps radio link or a 9600 bps satellite link. 
Anyway, there's an interesting chunk of information over at
http://master.debian.org/~bottoms/, and some notes about the politics
involved (apparently, the US government is much nicer about giving out
weather information than other countries).

I guess the project looks somewhat quiet right now, but maybe this quote
from the homepage will motivate some people:

"We need a low-cost solution to distribute raw data to researchers,
educators, hobbyists as well as the professional forecasters. And we
need to get timely results of analysis of observations to warn the
population at large when there is danger. The system needs to
interoperate with an existing Internet structure, but also operate under
emergency conditions when Internet connectivity is lost. This is a big
job."
...
"Debian should be the prime contractor for the follow-on to EMWIN.
Xenocode has provided a valid proof of concept of the utility and
desireability of digital weather data dissemination. But Debian is in a
better position to bring the information infrastructure required to the
people."

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[ Mike Hicks | http://umn.edu/~hick0088/ | mailto:hick0088@tc.umn.edu ]