Suffering from BufferBloat ?

I picked up on this story from AI4QR‘s Illruminations Blog, and expect to follow up on some of the leads presented. The actual story comes Jim Gettys investigation of congestion issues on networks that should be able to perform better than they do. Jim has posted several threads about this on his blog.

1. excessive buffering in a network path
2. ? what is going on ?
3. saturated links & network neutrality
   and more (each with loads of good comments)

from DSL Report's SmokePing testing

OK, I’ll be following this – and reading more.
Also passing this around among the various network experts that i know…
Most of them are saying, Hmmm – always wondered why . . . . . . . .

/;^)

WhiteStar Balloon Update

There is a new update on http://whitestarballoon.com today;

White Star Balloon's website

and Dan Bowen boldly explains some of the complications encountered on their first launch attempt. There is a lot more complexity here than most casual observers may expect. What you don’t see is how many little details DID work as expected. This ain’t a typical party balloon, you don’t just ‘Let it go.”…

We will keep watch for future updates, and expect to be listening on the downlink for the telemetry when you are ready to try again.

/;^)

Why JNOS ??

Anyone who knows me, or has read much of my blog – recognizes I have a lingering interest in an old-school method of providing basic text-messaging.
In today’s world of instant Internet and SMS at our fingertips, it is still easy for me to remember when that was a fantasy. We felt rather state-of-the-art when we could boast of inter-continental email via satellite gateways in the late 1980s, way before most folks had even heard of the Internet. And all this was via RF, and amateur radio operators who had a vision and a passion for providing such a service well before the “When All Else Fails” phrase was coined…

To me, this simple infrastructure is

Help save our 70cm ham band

This is from an email from our ARRL Division Director
Greg Sarratt – W4OZK…
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Your prompt help to defend one of our amateur bands is urgently requested.

You may have already heard that our 440 MHz band is being attacked by a bill introduced into the US House of Representatives. In its current form, HR 607 would take away the 420-440 MHz segment that is presently allocated to Amateur Radio on a secondary basis as our 70 cm band. Along with certain other segments not allocated to Amateur Radio, the 420-440 MHz segment would become part of a spectrum “give back” involved in allocating 758-763 and 788-793 MHz for a Public Safety broadband network.

The concept of this network has merit. Everyone wants first responders to have the radio systems they need in order to protect themselves and us. However,