Thanks Wyatt -- great discussion.
Interesting to point out that while the Manitoba Unix Users Group (
http://muug.mb.ca) had it's meeting discussing RF and radio communications, the Winnipeg Amateur Radio Club (
http://winnipegarc.org) had it's meeting a day prior discussing computers and applications. :-)
There are at least a half dozen ham radio operators (including Wyatt, who presented) that are MUUG attendees.
There is a Winnipeg and regional ham-radio wireless network which is established, operating and routing within the city. This is using amateur radio specific frequencies outside the unlicenced 2.4/5.8 GHz spectrum - that being 2.3/etc frequencies. These frequencies are allocated by Industry Canada and amateur radio operators have assignments in those bands. We also can run higher power with much more directional control of RF than would otherwise be available to the public.
As an example, we have sector antennas mounted on a tall building in downtown area which provides a 5 MHz channel. With that, I can sustain 10Mbps down and 2Mbps up on a 20(ish) db antenna mounted on my house - all within the amateur radio spectrum allocation. There are backhaul links for a few other connections that are in place. We also provide a PBX for local and regional calling.
One item was mentioned at the meeting and that was there is an upcoming ham radio class where you can write the exam and get your ham radio licence. Information can be found on the WARC website as such:
http://winnipegarc.org/basic_course.html It is a highly popular course these days with over 2 dozen currently scheduled in the class. (And no, you don't need to know morse code to get your radio licence these days -- but it is a fun mode).
There's been a significant amount of convergence between the radio (RF) world and the digital (CPU) world in the past while -- things are getting interesting.
Dan.