Ok, so, from what I gather, from 10 meters - 2 meters, 1200 bps is the top "modulation speed" allowed for digital operations.
So, I got the idea, that one could plunk compression on top of that, in order to squeeze about 9.6K onto that line (Top speed for phone lines are 14.4K, add in compression technology, and you can get 56K).
Which leads me to this question: Is there any work on applying compression techniques to amateur packet? Seems somewhere along the lines, we just settled on Bell 202 technology for packet, and stayed there.