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Comment by dacohenii | Hacker News Reader

Agreed. It's infeasible to (legally) connect this type of system to the internet, at least in the US. FCC Part 97 also prohibits commercial transmissions, which would conceivably include advertisements, so you couldn't use this page to view any web page that contains ads. There goes most of the internet.

That said, I don't think this was ever intended to connect directly to the internet in this manner.

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Part 97 prohibits communications in which the station licensee or control operator has a pecuniary interest.

As long as the control operator, or her employer are not making money on the advertisement displayed it would likely be A-OK.

It's perfectly legal or order pizza via autopatch over amateur radio, although impractical now that everyone owns a cell phone.

Interesting, using the autopatch to order food has been repeatedly cited to me as an example of barred commercial traffic.

Maybe I am getting some specific local or machine rules confused with the FCC's rules.

Here's what the ARRL has to say about it:

"...snip... Calls to place an order for a commercial product may be made such as the proverbial call to the pizza restaurant to order food, but not calls to one's office to receive or to leave business messages since communications on behalf of ones employer are not permitted..." http://www.arrl.org/phone-patch-guidelines

Then I might try it. If done at the right time, it might kick off a two hour ragchew about health problems associated with elderly people and unhealthy food.

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