For those that may not recall —or are new to the club —HamWAN is a project with the goal to use commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components to establish a high-speed data link. Think WiFi but at 5.6 Ghz across greater distances and with higher power (ERP).
UPARC’s efforts for HamWAN include the ability to create an Internet connection that we have full access (inbound and outbound connections). This will enable us to use EchoLink to connect the repeater to EchoLink users.
Another benefit of HamWAN is it provides an emergency backup for the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) that is in the Palm Harbor fire house. During Hurricane Irma, the area experienced Internet outages. If we had HamWAN in place, we could have offered the EOC a backup link to the county EOC.
Work progresses on the HamWAN project with a work team that worked after the October 2019 meeting to run some cables including lightning protection for the Ethernet cable from the dish.
For more information on HamWAN, consult the original website from the Seattle HamWAN group. You can also consult the Tampa Area HamWAN group which is the site to which we connect.
