Registered: Jan 2000
Location:
Posts: 100

My husband and I were watching Hollow Man tonight, starring Kevin Bacon (okay, the movie sucked, but nods to the FX since I'm acquainted with a guy over at Tippett Studio). In one scene, Elizabeth Shue's character grabbed what looked like an FRS (Family Radio Service -- for example, those clunky yellow Motorola radios)... except the radio was extremely thin. It made me sit up and say, "Oh, an FRS Springboard module! Would't THAT be cool?!"

I'd get one of those.

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Registered: Jan 2001
Location: Midwest
Posts: 232

I've got a couple of Family Service Radios. They come in very handy for short range wireless communication. I'm not sure mine were worth the $90 each I paid, though, since I've used them maybe 4 times in 3 years. One thing about them, though, is that their effective range is almost directly a function of the battery power available. I'm not sure Springboard powered radios would find power for useful range. If they had their own batteries, your visor and the radio springboard would no longer be thin.

A great reason to have inexpensive radio technology in your Visor, though, would be the ability to BEAM digitally thru it. My wife and I both have visors. We often get seperated while shopping. One reason we got the radios was so we could "find" each other in large shopping malls. But there is often to much noise (especially in food courts) to hear each other. Other times you don't want to be the one making "noise" to communicate. If you could write a note in memopad and beam it to another visor on the same frequency (with a little encryption, maybe), you wouldn't need the voice capability of the radios. "I'm at Sears, Honey. Meet me by the fountain in 5 minutes."

They'd definitely need to improve the antenna design. They'd need to improve the range. They'd need a digital communication standard, and they'd need a way to take the 14 channels with 38 privacy codes and convert them to a useful FRS LAN standard. As a college professor I roam between desks to answer architecture students' questions. IF a studio full of students each had their own unique "channel", and I could network via FRS frequencies with each indivudually or all at the same time it would be a killer app for the Visor. I might actually be able to remain in my comfortable office and still chat with students in the studio down the hall.

I want one!

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Registered: Jan 2001
Location: Midwest
Posts: 232

Another excuse for FSR/beaming capabilities...

Many games are designed to use the IR port so players could play "head to head" against each other, but each using their own Palm and it's IR port. On the Visor this is a little less fun, since the Visor's IR port is on the side. Players have to be a little offset or twist their Visors

What if FSR frequencies could replace this IR utility? OK, Blue Tooth, 802.11b, and a few other standards are already out there, but none of them seem to be ready for "prime time" either. I want to make an explicit RF connection with just one other Visor. At the power level available in the Visor I suspect FSR would have roughly the same range as 802.11 does. But since FSR is a "public access" frequency range, perhaps it could be cheaper. Ham radio operators have been using HAM frequencies for digital communication for several years now.

The technological know-how is out there, I'm sure. Some one DO IT!

Dave

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Registered: May 2000
Location:
Posts: 209

There are probably are folks who know how to do it. And there's probably someone that's tinkering around with it as we type.

However, the current FCC rules only allow narrow-band FM voice transmissions (F3E, I believe) and CTCSS tones. With the exception of one waiver, no digital communications allowed.

Other restrictions included:

- antenna cannot be modified
- low power output (thus creating, by design, short-range communications)

To the best of my knowledge, only one waiver has been granted to test other types of communications on the FRS frequencies-- Garmin, the makers of popular GPS systems, was granted a one-year wavier late last year to experiment with FRS radios capable of transmitting information derived from GPS (F2D emissions).

And since some of the FRS channels are shared with GRMS and one of the FCC rules state that FRS channels must be shared with other FRS users, you'd need a new channel or service to allow public radio wireless-- else, you'd get interfered with (if you've ever been to Disneyland/Disney World on a weekend with a FRS radio, you'll know what I mean).