Background

By mobile data for Ham Radio, I am referring to mostly accessing the DX Cluster with a laptop. The DX Cluster network used to be entirely connected by amateur Packet Radio and as such uses very little data. In some countries the Packet Cluster still exists but unfortunately this has ceased in the UK and attempts to source suitable software to link to my own internet connection at home, while out portable, have come to nothing.

The next best option was to use one of the many mobile phone mobile "pay as you go" data packages. The mobile phone charges in the UK are excessive to say the least and for amateur radio purposes it's not good value to use a monthly contract package. At the time of writing (November 2012) there are various deals on a pay as you go basis of one day of "unlimited" access or use of a bundled data package of 150 MB (as part of a pay as you go package). It is not strictly necessary to use one of the USB "dongles", but see further down for the issues of various phones and dongles.

Software applications

Several Ham friends use web access to view DX Cluster style applications, while there is nothing wrong with that approach web page access tends to use greater amounts of data than is necessary and may not provide a "spotting" facility. My own current favourite programs are G7RAU's "Live MUF" program (mainly for VHF and above) which draws a scaleable map showing different coloured lines between stations for different bands, for example red lines for 6m and yellow lines for 2m. The program is free and utilises any of the DX Cluster nodes. For HF, VE7CC's CC CLuster program works very well and is again mobile data friendly.

Live MUF from G7RAU
CC Cluster Software from VE7CC

Both of the above programs are written for Microsoft Windows and are intended to run on laptop or home PC sized screens.

Most of the internet uses bandwidth like it's going out of fashion, for example many web sites will hit you with a 1 MB opening page! A few sites are friendly towards access via a mobile phone or PDA, however if you browse via a laptop connected to a phone the page switching feature will not normally recognise the fact as it works on the browser ID. There are some low bandwidth pages, but they are few and far between. Exceptions to this include my own weather site which will auto switch if a mobile is used, but equally the low bandwidth version can be directly accessed from a normal browser, try http://www.astromag.co.uk/wxm.html for the mobile version as opposed to the "wx.html" full version. The BBC provide news pages in a low graphics version, but other than that you will pretty much find your bandwidth being eaten at an alarming rate.

My own pages are hosted on a Linux server and utilise PHP server side coding for both the menu and to auto switch mobiles and PDAs to reduced bandwidth pages. The PHP code to switch to a mobile friendly page is beyond the scope of this page, but a Google search will provide several free sources for suitable code if you want to add mobile access to your own pages.

Suitable mobiles/dongles

Until recently hooking up a mobile phone for mobile data use was a real chore, often involving contacting the service provider and trying to find someone "technical" at the provider to re-configure your SIM card by remote for mobile data. You also often had to hand configure a Windows "dialer" in order to access the service and may still have had problems with the service provider getting upset that you were accessing mobile data via a laptop hooked to a phone. On top of that, the deal might involve specifically dialing a number to request mobile access for the day! One of these deals was the Orange World "unlimited access for one day for £1", while it did work it was tedious to set up and only offered slow but adequate GPRS access.

There are some very interesting deals and packages around at the moment, at one time Vodafone UK offered a dongle on pay as you go that came with 1 GB of data that didn't expire at the end of 30 days and 3 UK offer 150 MB top ups that last for 45 days for £10 as part of their standard pay as you go package. Beware that some of the data bundles are only for access via a mobile phone browser and may incur a higher charge if you access data via a laptop connected to a phone, being a cynic suggests to me that these " unlimited" bundles are there to tempt the unwary into thinking they can use the phone with a laptop - it's not necessarily the case.

An other means of accessing the DX Clusters is to point a 3G Kindle's "experimental" browser at a mobile data friendly cluster site. It works and is free (UK Kindle, at the time of writing this page in November 2012 is free to browse). The 3G Kindle uses Vodafone in the UK, which in my area has very poor coverage and only operates at GPRS speeds here.

A typical mobile phone running as a modem and accessing the internet via 3G or HSDPA will run it's battery flat in as little as 3 hours (and that's with a brand new battery), so you need to consider additional power if you plan on operating all day and your phone isn't powered by the USB connection.

The coverage of the mobile phone networks is mostly along main roads and in town/city centres... Not the usual locations for ham radio operation. In addition, 3G and HSDPA data coverage may differ from that provided for normal voice calls. Check the predicted coverage (for 3G/HSDPA) where you plan to operate from before spending money on a new phone or dongle only to find it doesn't work from your favourite location.