I guess it better to be safe than sorry, but if I run VoIP over the mesh, and have music on hold configured and place a call on hold, am I violating the rules in section 97.113?  It is a royalty free music selection and can hardly be considered "music" but my guess is that this is a no no. 

Thanks

Jesse - WC3XS

"No your honor, it wasn't porn, it was just a bunch of 1's and 0's.  It didn't become porn until officer Jones ran it through his computer program and displayed it on the screen." 

"It's not porn, it's just a pattern of colored dots of light on the computer screen."

"It's not music, it's variable wavelength electromagnetic radiation at a frequency far above the range of human hearing." 

"It's not music, it's Nickelback"

Seriously, it's like encryption.  Nothing anyone here says is going to prevent the FCC from deciding it's against the rules.

Put your own license at risk if you want to, but I'm going to just avoid music.

I just realized the obvious answer.

Put an MP3 file of code practice as the on hold "music."

Or the Amateur Radio Newsline.

Excellent solution!

Let's ask the FCC about music on hold.

§ 97.113 Prohibited transmissions.
(a) No amateur station shall transmit:
(4) Music using a phone emission except as specifically provided elsewhere in this section; . . . [exception not relevant, here]

It looks like music on hold is legal if you are not using a phone emmission.

By the way,

§ 97.113 Prohibited transmissions.
(a) No amateur station shall transmit:
(4). . . obscene or indecent words or language; . . . [most rap fits here]

is not restricted to phone emmissions.

Also from my 2000 ARRL FCC Rule Book, page 2-27, Q&A on Music:

Q. My friend and I are music composers. Can we trade compositions in ASCII code across town on 2 meters?

A. The music prohibition concerns the playing of music itself, not information about the music. As long as no musical nodes can be detected on the air, you're okay.

Q. What if we send commands to each others MIDI synthesizers over the air?

A. Again no problem, as long as no actual music is played on the air.

Regardless of the FCC definition, I like the idea of using a Morse code message as my MOH.  I found a website that converts text to Morse in mp3 format, converted that mp3 to 8Khz 16 bit mono wav for install in a RasPBX/FreePBX 2.11.0.0rc1.2 (Asterisk v11.5.0) box.  Under Settings -> Music On Hold I've deleted all the other wav files in the "Category:default" after I successfully uploaded my Morse wav file. 

I have 6 nodes, 4 with extensions active.  When I put an extension on hold from another (or put an inbound call from my GoogleVoice trunk on hold), I still get what appears to be the MIDI from the PBX. 

Anybody know where I select my Morse wav file to be played system-wide for all instances that a party would be put on hold?  I saw some FreePBX forum posts regarding Asterisk storing the recordings under "moh" and FreePBX under "mohwav" but that was back in 2011 and a final post said things were fixed.  So I'm looking for info from anyone that's set this up in a current version.

If I have to do it at the CLI be gentle and step me through it.  :-)

Is there a writeup somewhere about setting up a basic version of asterisk on a mesh node?

[EDIT]

Never mind.. found it.

http://hsmm-mesh.org/hsmm-mesh-forums/view-postlist/forum-9-voip/topic-284-asterisk-running-natively-on-hsmm-mesh-node.html

These types of questions can get many different responses and opinions from many different users. I am no lawyer, but here is my take on it:

FCC 97.113.5 states that "No amateur station shall transmit...Music using a phone emission except as specifically provided elsewhere in this section; communications intended to facilitate a criminal act; messages encoded for the purpose of obscuring their meaning, except as otherwise provided herein; obscene or indecent words or language; or false or deceptive messages, signals or identification."

With that, what is the FCC's definition of a "phone emission?" In FCC Part 97.3(c)(5) it states "The following terms are used in this part to indicate emission types: Phone. Speech and other sound emissions having designators with A, C, D, F, G, H, J or R as the first symbol; 1, 2 or 3 as the second symbol; E as the third symbol. Also speech emissions having B as the first symbol; 7, 8 or 9 as the second symbol; E as the third symbol. MCW for the purpose of performing the station identification procedure, or for providing telegraphy practice interspersed with speech, incidental tones for the purpose of selective calling or alerting or to control the level of a demodulated signal may also be considered phone.

So with that, what type of emission is 802.11g? According to Cisco's documentation, 802.11g uses OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing), Documentation.

So what is OFDM? What's its emission type? Wikipedia (as much as I try to stay away from them) has a good article. Acording to Digi, OFDM, DSSS has an emission designation of 16M8GXW.

What does 16M8GXW mean? Take a look at this article for the FCC's emission designation definitions. And remember what was mentioned earlier? A phone emission is that which has "designators with A, C, D, F, G, H, J or R as the first symbol; 1, 2 or 3 as the second symbol; E as the third symbol. Also speech emissions having B as the first symbol; 7, 8 or 9 as the second symbol; E as the third symbol."

Since 16M8GXW doesn't have an A, C, D, F, G, H, J or R, a 1, 2, or 3 nor an E as the thrid simbol (and likewise with the "Also speech emission..." part), OFDM is not a phone emission. This means that 97.113, "No amateur station shall transmit...Music using a phone emission except as specifically provided elsewhere in this section." does not apply to OFDM and therefore we can send databit across the mesh that are interpreted by the VoIP phones as electrical waveform that command the phone speaker to make the sound, or "music" we hear.

Aah, but Wes, I consider code practice a-tonal music (one that lacks a tonal center). A-tonal or not, code practice is music to my ears! Under your definition, I'd best not do code practice either.

Thanks for reviving a dead thread.