Welcome (in 4 languages!)

This is Ron LaPedis' Home Page

To help Carnegie Mellon University digitize books, newspapers, and old time radio shows, I use reCaptcha to protect my email address.

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I am a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) with mangagement and architecture endorsements, a Master Business Continuity Professional (MBCP), and a Member of the BCI (MBCI).

I serve on the San Bruno Community Preparedness Committee, the San Bruno amateur radio volunteers, and teach CISSP classes for the Silicon Valley chapter of the Information Systems Security Association.

Click here to see articles and collateral that I've authored. (link will open in a new window)

Quick links to the rest of the page

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Pictures from the 2008 HP Community Connect Europe conference
Pictures from our cruise down the upper Mississippi river from Minneapolis to St. Louis.
Pictures from my 2 trips to SanDisk Israel in May 2007, and the Gartner Security Summit in Washington DC
Pictures from RSA Europe in Nice, Cartes in Paris, and Disneyland Paris in Novermber 2007
Pictures from the January 2007 Disneyana show in Anaheim and RSA 2007 held in San Francisco
Pictures that for one reason or another never made it to this site. Europe, Asia, the Napa valley, family, and so on.
 China and our paddlewheeler cruise down the Mississippi river.
New Zealand and Asia in July / August 2005
Family and my 8-country tour through Europe and Asia in May/June 2005
An earlier trip through Europe in March 2005
Pictures from my trip to Disney World over Christmas vacation
Pictures from the Pan family trip to China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan.
Pictures from the HP NonStop European ITUG meeting, Canadian World Conference on Disaster Management, and family in May and June of 2004.
South African safari! (along with BITUG and SATUG)
Pictures from the RSA Security Conference in San Francisco along with some family pictures.
Pictures from my trip toShanghai in Chinese (Shanghai) in November 2002 including 3 at BA4AA and 2 of me at BY4CYL (The Shanghai #3 Girl's Middle School). The call sign is a play on words. In amateur radio parlance, YL means Young Lady (XYL means "wife"). So this call means Chinese girls. Hint: click on the red "Shang Hai" characters!

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ARRL logo

I am an amateur radio operator, instructor, and volunteer examiner. Click the icon to the left to be taken to the American Radio Relay League's home page, click here to be taken to the Pacific Division of the American Radio Relay League's home page, or click here to download a PDF that shows you how to build a Yaesu VX-7 adaptor cable that allows you to use your older Yaesu accessories.

Carniverous
Plants
Click here to download my full article on Reverse Osmosis systems including a diagram, construction hints, parts list, and sources. A condensed version of this article appeared in the June 2001 issue of the Journal of the ICPS.
www.LaPedis.com The old new-economy LaPedis family home.

 

Interesting mobile phone info

In the USA, there are multiple incompatible radio signals that can be used between a mobile (cellular) phone and the base station towers, called the air format -- GSM, CDMA, IDEN, TDMA, and AMPs. See the chart at the right. The latter two are older technologies and are being phased out in urban locales but are still sold into rural America. This means that you normally cannot use your phone with a different national carrier even though you can take your phone number with you. In the rest of the world, all of the carriers in a particular geography agree to use the same air format.

AT&T Wireless, Cingular, and T-Mobile all support the same signal, called GSM. Even though there are different model phones from different manufacturers, all GSM phones use a small chip called a Subscriber Identity Module, or SIM. The SIM can be moved from phone to phone and whatever phone it is installed in takes on your phone number; with some exceptions - see below. Any GSM phone that supports GSM 1900 will work with all 3 USA carriers (if it is not SIMLocked*), and if the phone also supports GSM 900 and/or GSM 1800 (The PalmOne Treo 600/650 support both) it will work anywhere in the world except Japan and Korea which use unique versions of CDMA. Similarly, Sprint and Verizon share the same air format but you cannot take your phone from one carrier to the other carrier.

* At the request of the carriers, phone manufacturers can install a SIMLock. This ensures that the phone can only be used with the carrier you bought it from since of course they subsidized the device. Some carriers will unlock your phone after a few months, and most carriers around the world will unlock your phone for a small fee after you have satisfied the terms of your contract. Check with your carrier if you have questions about this.

Carrier
Air Format
AT&T GSM 1900
Cingular GSM 1900
Nextel IDEN 800
Sprint CDMA 1900
T-Mobile GSM 1900
Verizon CDMA 800/1900
Europe GSM 900/1800
Asia

GSM 900/1800
CDMA 900/1800

Click here for WW GSM roaming info

 

Feedback? Questions? Comments? Send an email to me.

Last Updated: 2009-03-15