"I really like ad-hoc networks like this." As one who got my license and call sign decades ago when I was at school (but which I've long since let lapse), I'm

"I really like ad-hoc networks like this." As one who got my license and call sign decades ago when I was at school (but which I've long since let lapse), I'm very familiar with ad-hoc networks of this type. My past AR experience also made me a great believer in mesh networks for similar reasons. Both have one great virtue and that is that they're essentially independent from infrastructure that one doesn't own or control directly. When corporations, authoritarian states, dictatorships and or natural disasters get in one's way it's very comforting to know that one can always fallback upon some pretty low tech kit to communicate across the world. Under reasonable conditions, an old telegraph pounder, an 807 beam power tube designed in the late 1930s and a little help from the ionosphere will still easily get you across the planet. ;-)