Local Distribution in the Amateur Radio Environment

Packet radio is of ten used as a means of access ing comput ing faci l i t ies or , more general ly , a larger ter res t r ia l network. In th is respect , i t can be seen as a form of local dis t r ibut ion. Similar ly , in te l l igent repeaters in terconnect ing s ta t ions that are not in one a n o t h e r ’ s h e a r i n g r a n g e c a n b e t h o u g h t o f a s p e r f o r m i n g a n a n a l o g o u s f u n c t i o n . W h e n e v e r t h i s i s t h e c a s e , a l ternat ives to the popular CSMA access protocol may be considered, t h a t a r e b e t t e r s u i t e d t o w o r k i n a s e m i c e n t r a l i z e d e n v i r o n m e n t . I n t h i s paper, we descr ibe some vers ions of one of these protocols (R-ISA), and i t s in tegra t ion with higher layer ones.