Rocky Mountain Ham Radio operates and maintains a fully managed, IP-based, routed microwave backbone network currently spanning from North to South from Cheyenne, Wyoming throughout Colorado all the way through to Southern New Mexico terminating at El Paso Texas. West to East from Grand Junction to Burlington in Colorado. This system is built using unlicensed commercial 5 GHz off the shelf microwave gear operating on licensed Part 97 Amateur radio frequencies in the 5 GHz band. We have 50+ hops of microwave in three states currently and we are adding more. The table below shows the list of active sites and devices connected on the network in 3 states. These figures are derived real-time from our network management system.
| Sites | 283 |
| Devices | 1001 |
With a very few exceptions, this system is independent of the Internet and does not require any commercial Internet to function. If the Internet is down, the RMHAM network will remain fully functional. We do utilize commercial Internet for failover purposes if one of our links becomes inoperable, but only until the problem is resolved.
This 
system was not free to install, nor is it free to operate. Only through the kindness and generosity of many hams throughout our coverage area has this network come to fruition. Our network expansion was made possible by a substantial grant obtained from the Amateur Radio Digital Communications Foundation (ARDC) in 2020. Click map to the left to expand the view of the RMHAM Colorado sites and click the right map to view the RMHAM New Mexico sites.
Our network is not internally compatible with AREDN, BBHN or HAMNET and direct interconnection is not possible for these systems. They have their place within the amateur radio community, but they are just not compatible with this network. These technologies use up all available address space and are not a good fit for our fully managed and routed network.
The system is designed to be robust and carry traffic from point-to-point along the network only. We are NOT an ISP (Internet Service Provider), we are only an “amateur radio common carrier” serving numerous points throughout Colorado, New Mexico and Wyoming. This network uses amateur radio and therefore cannot be used to provide commercial Internet services. If you need access to the Internet, you will need to look elsewhere.
The network is designed to be a co-op, from the standpoint that it carries traffic from many different entities along the network terminating on many points elsewhere on the network. The traffic will sometimes be directed to nodes that were built and are operated by our co
operating partner amateur radio organizations. The nodes that we connect to are designed to provide traffic for amateur radio only and NOT to provide Internet access to residences which carry commercial traffic.
Our partners in Colorado include Arkansas Valley Radio Club (AVRC), Boulder County ARES™ (BCARES), Colorado Connection Repeaters, Colorado Repeater Association (CRA), Colorado Traffic League (CTL), Cheyenne Mountain Radio Group, Edge of Space Sciences (EOSS), Estes Valley Amateur Radio Club (EVARC), Longmont Amateur Radio Club (LARC), Northern Colorado Amateur Radio Club (NCARC) Ski Country Amateur Radio Club (SCARC) and WE0FUN Fun Machine linked repeater network.
Our partners in New Mexico include High Desert Amateur Radio Club, Jacks Peak Amateur Radio Association, Los Alamos Amateur Radio Club, Mesilla Valley Radio Club, Pecos Valley Radio, Santa Fe ARES, Socorro Amateur Radio Association, Taos Amateur Radio Club, T.R.A.S.H. Radio Group, Upper Rio FM Society and the Valencia County Amateur Radio Association.
RMHAM’s network is a secure, private system that can only be accessed via a physical connection to a Rocky Mountain Ham Radio access node by wire, fiber or dedicated microwave radio via one of our radio sites.
We built the network with backup routes and loops connected with “OSPF” routing protocol. Open Shortest Path First means that all routers on the network know how to access all other routers on the network dynamically and automatically. The route information updates in real time when a link goes down or gets congested. This is a fully self-healing network.
The locations currently connected by our microwave network are sites from throughout Colorado and into New Mexico, and stretching to El Paso, Texas and Syracuse, Kansas. Please see the accompanying maps for individual locations.
If you have interest in accessing our network to feed your sites, please contact Doug Sharp K2AD (Colorado), Brian Mileshosky N5ZGT (New Mexico), or make yourself known to any RMHAM officer or board member at an event.