[HN Gopher] The Uncertain Future of Ham Radio
___________________________________________________________________
The Uncertain Future of Ham Radio
Author : Stratoscope
Score : 64 points
Date : 2021-10-08 20:16 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (spectrum.ieee.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (spectrum.ieee.org)
| Koshkin wrote:
| It will be useful (and popular) again when SHTF...
| AlbertCory wrote:
| I got my General at age 14. I sat in the dark every night in my
| bedroom, which my grandmother had taken over in her (fatal)
| illness, to do CW practice.
|
| Nostalgia? Yeah, I'm afraid so. Most of the "conversations" were
| just reciting what equipment we were using, and how good our
| signal was for the other side. That stuff IS pretty outdated.
| There was a blind man down the block who was really into ham
| radio, and he had Braille on his equipment. He was very helpful
| to me.
|
| Emergency communications _are_ a valid use case, which the
| younger generation seems to have recognized. But the thrill of
| _working_ a station on the other side of the world? Not that
| much.
| wcfields wrote:
| Reposting from a previous Ham Radio comment thread [1]
|
| One factor that I bring up whenever the "ham radio is dying"
| discussion happen is the FCC public database and safety/doxxing,
| specifically for marginalized communities such as Trans
| individuals and Black folks. It, itself, is creating a safety
| concern in modern society for people that may want to join the
| hobby but fear doxxing and harassment.
|
| If I give out my call sign on the Internet (or on the air) you
| now know my real name, address, and every past address I've ever
| used. So let's say I registers as Bob Smith at 123 Fake St 4
| years ago, and now I go by Susan Smith at 456 Example Blvd you'd
| know all that information with a simple lookup.
|
| The only real semi-workaround is when someone first licenses (and
| you probably don't know this at first) is to use a PO Box,
| otherwise any address change will be on record.
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24308712
| urdum wrote:
| >Trans individuals and Black folks
|
| Comments like these are why I come here to hate scroll
| rmason wrote:
| I've been a ham for over fifty years. The problem with a lack of
| young hams starts at the local level. When I took my novice test
| at 14 the guy who was giving it became my lifelong friend or in
| ham speak my Elmer. I started a high school club (still going
| strong) and all its members were friends with this guy.
|
| He strongly encouraged me to join the local club and I did. Not
| only did I meet other teenage hams but I made friends with older
| hams who taught me stuff and were happy to be supportive.
|
| Contrast that with today, the club is still around but its
| moribund. I reached out when they were having problems keeping
| their repeater on the local university tower. I was told my help
| wasn't wanted.
|
| I reached out again when the local marker space wanted to do a
| joint event. I'm a life member of the group but I was rebuffed. I
| can only imagine the 14 year old me taking one look at this
| cliquish group of older guys and being discouraged about the
| hobby.
|
| I've run a programming group for twenty years. Sometimes the
| members get on me for having introductory type meetings. But I'm
| always reaching out to the greater community and trying to get
| new members. That's how you grow, if you don't do it you die.
| There's plenty in the ham radio hobby to attract young people,
| but if the local community turns them off they quickly chose to
| do something else.
| vegetablepotpie wrote:
| At 20 I was interested in HAM radio. I went to a meeting at my
| university. Meetings were entirely five retired engineers
| talking the whole time, that was boring. There was one other
| student, who was the president. When I asked questions about
| radio and RF, they recommended I go to the library to look for
| books. I felt that I really didn't need to spend an hour of my
| time to have them tell me that. I went to one other meeting,
| but I had school and work taking up my time and realized
| attending was not worth my time. I hope the community has
| improved since then, because it was not inviting to young
| people when I wanted to get involved.
| armadsen wrote:
| I'm 37 and got my ham radio license when I was 15. Ham radio
| captured my imagination in a way nothing has before or since, and
| led pretty directly to my career as a hardware and software
| engineer.
|
| In some ways I feel lucky that I encountered it when the internet
| was still young. The internet was there with tons of resources to
| learn about it, but not so ubiquitous as to have killed the magic
| of getting on my radio and talking to someone across the country
| or world.
|
| I'm primarily a CW (Morse Code) operator, and would so hate to
| see it die out as an art form, hobby, and useful technology. That
| said, I'm also well aware that the hobby is evolving and needs to
| evolve to survive, as it always has. I think accessibility of SDR
| and increasingly advanced digital modes is a great thing.
|
| If you're reading HN, you're probably the kind of person that
| would find stuff to enjoy in ham radio. It's a _huge_ hobby, and
| about much much more than "talking to people".
| trutannus wrote:
| > If you're reading HN, you're probably the kind of person that
| would find stuff to enjoy in ham radio
|
| Agreed. Plus if you want to just explore the ham world without
| going the license route, there's an abundance of cheep
| software-defined radio dongles (rx only) you can hook up and
| listen in with. There's a lot of weird and cool stuff on the
| air that'll keep you occupied for hours.
| Johnny555 wrote:
| I got my license when I was around 37 and was already very
| familiar with the internet. So the long distance communications
| part of Amateur Radio was less interesting to me, I was more
| interested in shorter range VHF/UHF disaster communications.
| And still am, I still participate in diaster drills and the
| occasional special event (running, biking, etc) support.
| resters wrote:
| similar story here. i mostly operate CW these days too.
|
| Many on HN would love one (or many) aspects of amateur radio.
|
| 73
| antisthenes wrote:
| Here's a good way to get kids more interested:
|
| _Give kids HAM radio equipment for free_.
|
| From what I understand, the setup can be quite expensive for the
| younger generations, who are struggling financially, compared to
| your "average HAM operator", who's a 60+ year old white baby-
| boomer.
|
| When we were the age where interests and hobbies are developed, I
| didn't know anyone who had anywhere near that amount available to
| spend at their discretion. At most, some of us could save up
| money and buy a $50 video game.
|
| To get a radio station, we'd have to save up for a year.
| Fordec wrote:
| I have no interest in setting up a bunch of engineering equipment
| to listen to a bunch of 60-70 year olds broadcast their
| uncensored perspective on things. If you know what I mean. If
| they want to protect that as "one of the best parts", they are
| welcome to keep it among themselves for the rest of their days.
|
| The original iteration of Ham is from a bygone era when phone
| calls and broadcasting was the primary method of information
| dissemination. I don't have a yearn to go back to those days,
| personally.
|
| Now amateur, self-built, internet routing outside of constraints
| like DNS or corporate owned infrastructure? As an augment of the
| modern internet where we can self host satellite endpoints to a
| community owned constellation and send files (not just mere morse
| code), _that_ I could be sold on.
| abbub wrote:
| "I have no interest in setting up a bunch of engineering
| equipment to listen to a bunch of 60-70 year olds broadcast
| their uncensored perspective on things."
|
| That was my take on it, too. I have one cheap Chinese radio in
| a box somewhere, but I got rid of all of my decent radios a few
| years back. I can just imagine what our local repeater devolved
| into during the Trump years. :/
|
| The once-a-month meeting at the Village Inn was filled with
| laments about how there were no young people involved, but the
| repeater was filled with conversation that no young people
| would possibly want to be a party to.
|
| I've discovered that it's unpopuler to point this out, but a
| big problem with amateur radio as a hobby is the current
| hobbyists involved.
| Johnny555 wrote:
| I'm a ham mostly for disaster comms, I only occasionally
| participate in the monthly nets and almost never engage in
| random chitchat.
|
| But I do join the annual disaster drills as well as try to
| help out with special events (like long distance runs or bike
| rides), but those aren't as numerous as they used to be
| because a lot of the cellular dead zones are covered, so race
| volunteers just need a cell phone.
| mmaunder wrote:
| The trouble with HAM radio is that it isn't that useful anymore.
| We have amazing cell coverage, wireless broadband just about
| everywhere and the ability to socialize online.
|
| Ham used to be incredibly useful for global communications, rural
| areas with no phone service, and a way for people to stay
| socially connected in remote (or not remote) locations. This
| isn't needed in the vast majority of cases now.
|
| That has led to most hams active on the airwaves being an older
| demographic. And the way they try to recruit others into the
| hobby is obsolete because the need just isn't there. It's a 100%
| academic exercise, rather than a way to connect with anyone
| around the world.
|
| There is a newer aspect to ham which is modern digital radio, but
| most old timers have no knowledge or interest in that. There's a
| subculture that exists that does amazing work in that space, but
| it's disconnected from the old-timers that represent the face of
| ham radio. You'll find this subculture at DEF CON and similar
| events.
|
| Even the things about ham that are still useful, like the marine
| net on 14.3Mhz which we used in the 90s for transoceanic sailing
| is about to become obsolete with affordable internet in the mid-
| pacific or mid-atlantic becoming a reality. And polar bases are
| about to get polar orbit Starlink satellites for broadband.
|
| So the hobby really needs to transform it it's going to survive.
| But the old guard and new world are so disconnected, destruction
| and recreation may be a better way to think about it.
|
| My wife and I are both ham Extras and we run a cybersecurity
| company. She's KF1J and I'm WT1J. We're passionate about the
| hobby, but both see the writing on the wall. Ham right now is a
| solution looking for a problem.
|
| 73.
| nerdwaller wrote:
| GMRS has been growing a good bit, at least in the off-road
| community. It's a step up from CB but much less involved than
| HAM. It's certainly more limited, but generally more than
| sufficient for most. Even better, when I go out with my
| immediate family+ for various outdoor activities they are
| covered under my license.
|
| I'll keep my HAM license active, but I rarely use it anymore.
| brightball wrote:
| IMO having at least a minimum ongoing Ham community is
| necessary globally as a precaution for society in the event of
| disasters.
|
| I don't know how to go about maintaining that group, but it
| needs to be done. Call it a community service activity if
| needed.
| resters wrote:
| that's like saying that surfboards are not useful because we
| have cruise ships.
|
| Radio is fun and a way to surf the ionosphere!
|
| 73
| TimTheTinker wrote:
| FPV RC plane/drone flying is an interesting space in which an
| amateur radio license is required to be able to transmit at the
| required power.
| n8cpdx wrote:
| The one area where it's still relevant is disaster response,
| but even that is questionable.
|
| Here in Portland, the city puts a lot of effort into emergency
| preparedness and getting people trained on radio, but the vast
| majority of people involved are 55+. I have my doubts about how
| effective it will be in an actual emergency.
|
| I tend to think the effort would be better spent on hardening
| the existing cell networks, and being ready to deploy public
| safety LTE, cells-on-wheels or similar. Mass produced consumer
| tech should enable economies of scale for cell phones that
| aren't there for ham radios. Full internet isn't actually
| needed, even just a few independent cells would perform a lot
| better than the walkie talkies that the CERT teams use.
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| > _The one area where it 's still relevant is disaster
| response, but even that is questionable._
|
| I mean it's more than questionable, it's tending towards the
| ridiculous with no well-formed concept of operations. Even in
| large scale disasters, virtually the only real usage of ham
| radio has been for 'welfare' traffic ("tell Bob at
| 212-555-1212 that Alice got out before the fire reached her
| house").
|
| Cellular providers now have COWs and COLTs for reinforcing
| networks where the fixed infrastructure has been affected.
| Iridium phones are easily available. Inmarsat BGAN terminals
| with high-speed data fit into a messenger bag.
|
| HF radio may be the only game in town if the really-big-one
| comes (HEMP / similar scenario) but it's just not relevant to
| either command-and-control or tactical operations in most
| disaster response scenarios.
| ericcumbee wrote:
| economies of scale like the little Baefung (spelling)
| handheld that you can buy on amazon for 30 dollars and you
| can listen and talk on ham, GMRS, FRS and Marine bands to
| name a few?
| mmaunder wrote:
| Same here in King and Snohomish counties last time I checked.
| The SAR teams have been using repeaters. I agree re better
| cell coverage for that use case, which would include data
| that could make SAR teams way more effective by e.g. tracking
| search team coverage in real-time on a single view shared by
| the entire response.
|
| A lot of ham culture is around emergency comms, and every now
| and then it's useful. But a single portable starlink dish
| absolutely destroys what ham can do. It would allow for e.g.
| 50 people on a local wifi network all taking comms requests
| from people in an impacted area, and sharing the same digital
| 100Mbps link to get those comms requests out. Can even be
| self serve. Ham requires an operator occupying dedicated
| spectrum, serving one customer at a time.
| sliken wrote:
| Do you hike? Even around the most popular areas in the USA
| (Yosemite, YellowStone, Tahoe, and many other national parks)
| it's pretty easy to get out of cell range. Similar with major
| highways, 5 in california is pretty good, but it's easy to not
| have a signal on 80 or 70 as you cross the country.
|
| I lost my dog and decided to track her, and all the systems I
| could find (up to $1,000) were either cellular or pretty much
| line of site. Ham APRS was AMAZINGLY better than anything
| commercial I could find. It does direct connections for decent
| range, but also there's surprisingly good APRS coverage using
| existing repeaters in the areas I hike in. http://aprs.fi
| allows global tracking if an APRS widget world wide, and
| trackers that fit in a dog collar are common and don't carry a
| monthly subscription fee.
| mmaunder wrote:
| I do. And I live on Orcas Island, so lets use that as an
| example. We have repeaters on Mt Constitution which is 2300
| ft. I live right next to it and I'm in shadow for repeater
| coverage. When we hike the lakes in the area, we also can't
| see the repeater, or each other thanks to topography. HF gear
| is too bulky to take with - even the QRP gear, and who has
| time to throw an antenna over a tree.
|
| Trust me, I want to believe. But the only practical use that
| my wife (KF1J) and me (WT1J) have for our ham gear is in the
| rare case where I'm on the boat far away from her and out of
| cell coverage and need to check in via the HF bands. I'm
| almost never away from cell coverage. For transoceanic stuff,
| that is still a common case, but it will soon be better
| served by portable global internet.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| I'm a Ham radio operator and when I hike I bring a Garmin
| InReach Mini. I might bring a portable too but just for fun,
| not with any expectations in terms of emergencies.
|
| It's a much better tool for the job. And unlike personal
| locator beacons it can also handle short personal messages.
| And it's far from $1000 (around $300 and the service from $15
| monthly) and really portable. For real emergencies a PLB is
| arguably better (and doesn't require a paid subscription) but
| you have to be conscious to activate it. The Garmin can send
| regular breadcrumbs without triggering an emergency so they
| will at least know where you were headed. If you are
| conscious it also allows you to communicate with the rescue
| operators.
|
| Ham radio is great but not meant to be reliable. It's about
| experimentation with technology and the sport of making long
| distance connections. It's not about a reliable rescue
| service even though it is very useful in emergencies.
| gsich wrote:
| >The trouble with HAM radio is that it isn't that useful
| anymore. We have amazing cell coverage, wireless broadband just
| about everywhere and the ability to socialize online.
|
| All insanely prone to failure. Power outage is enough, as cell
| towers don't have backup or only a very short amount. They also
| don't work without the backbone infrastructure.
| generalizations wrote:
| Probably a lot easier to run a starlink node off a car
| battery than to use HAM radio in those situations.
| mmaunder wrote:
| Unboxing starlink was a transformative experience for me.
| It was a weird feeling literally getting internet in a box
| without cable, copper or DSL or even a rural dish pointed
| at a local tower where you have to worry about obstacles. I
| plopped the dish on the dirt and it just frikkin worked. It
| was at that moment I realized how that technology will
| absolutely transform global society. I'm from Africa and
| now do philanthropy in rural areas out there, and it's
| going to take a minute, but it's going to absolutely
| transform regions like that.
| mmaunder wrote:
| Repeaters fail too. And the solar cycle has been at a low for
| the past few years for HF, but if you can wait until 2025,
| it's going to be amazing!! ;-)
|
| https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/solar-cycle-progression
| 0xdeadbeefbabe wrote:
| Seems like there was a failure just recently. Something about
| Facebook's BGP route?
| Karrot_Kream wrote:
| There's plenty of alternatives to amateur bands for backup
| communications. ZigBee and LoRA networks/repeaters, amateur
| WiFi in ISM, Starlink, GSM radios, modems over POTS lines,
| etc. Ham really is a solution looking for a problem. I was
| very interested in Ham and in college spent some time in the
| Ham club but even then, before LTE everywhere and
| smartphones, it was obvious that GSM could eat Ham's lunch.
| These days with smartphones I don't even bother. I have a
| GMRS setup I keep at home to tackle some dead spots in our
| area or to talk to my partner when I'm working in the garage
| (and as a backup in case of power outages), which works good
| enough for our purposes.
|
| Ham these days really is a solution looking for a problem.
| Probably its biggest advantage these days is how easy it is
| to get cheap, used ham equipment compared to some of the
| alternatives.
| Johnny555 wrote:
| You don't need to get too far out into rural areas to find
| places without "amazing cell coverage", and indeed no cell
| coverage at all. And anyone that's lived through a disaster
| (whether hurricane, blizzard, or regional power outage) can tel
| you that the cell phone network is just not that resilient.
|
| Maybe low earth orbit satellites will make satellite
| communications ubiquitous through cell phones, but we're not
| there yet. (The iPhone 13 was rumored to have satellite
| capability, it did not, but it sounds like it's technologically
| possible so we could see it in the not too distant future)
| mmaunder wrote:
| Side note: We use Hughes Satellite internet when camping in
| BLM land and it works great. The only down-side is that the
| dish is almost 1 meter and takes up my entire truck bed. It
| takes 15 mins to point at the bird, which isn't a biggie. But
| the propagation delay is a killer. Around 900ms.
|
| Can't wait for RV Starlink!!
| Johnny555 wrote:
| Yeah, if I spent significant time outside of cell range,
| I'd probably carry a real satellite phone or maybe one of
| the satellite communicators that let you send txt messages.
| Right now I just carry a personal locator beacon in case of
| emergency.
|
| I've been on the wait list for StarLink for 6 months, like
| you, I'm still hoping for the RV dish.
| 01100011 wrote:
| I feel like HAM Radio just can't compete for the minds of young
| people. There are just so many amazing things to play with these
| days. If I were a teen again, I probably wouldn't even bother
| with getting my HAM license because I'd be so busy programming
| and designing with microcontrollers, WiFi, LTE, lasers, genetic
| engineering, etc, etc...
|
| HAM Radio feels almost like a solved problem these days. Sure,
| there is room for advancement but to do anything interesting
| starts to require quite a strong background in communications
| theory.
| sparker72678 wrote:
| If you're interested in playing with radio, HAM equipment/bands
| aren't even the easiest/cheapest/most fun.
|
| You can buy breakout boards for all sorts of protocols and such
| (most in 2.4Ghz) on Adafruit et. al. for a few bucks, and hook
| them up and play with them with a RPi, Arduino, etc. to you
| heart's content. Without a license.
|
| Basic HAM gear is, for the most part, expensive (with the
| exception of cheap VHF hand helds), limited, big, heavy, bulky,
| and/or typically nowhere near cutting edge.
| zeckalpha wrote:
| (2020)
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| > And it will be hard to argue that spectrum reserved for amateur
| use and experimentation should not be sold off to commercial
| users if hardly any amateurs are taking advantage of it.
|
| > many are interested in the capacity for public service, such as
| providing communications in the wake of a disaster (...) having
| grown up with technology and having seen the impact of climate
| change, Michel says. They see how fragile cellphone
| infrastructure can be.
|
| They provided an argument for the preservation of the spectrum in
| their own text. Amateur Radio gives communities a means of long
| distance communication when all other infrastructure fails. That
| redundancy and resilience are precious and worthy of preserving.
| Spivak wrote:
| Well sure! But given that it's so important why reserve it for
| amateurs? Why isn't a spectrum dedicated for use by police,
| fire, emergency response, and local governments who would be
| required to have the equipment on site and at least one person
| on staff trained to use it?
|
| And then if you're not within some reasonable distance to a HAM
| operator then you as a civilian can apply for a license so you
| have a way to reach emergency services.
|
| Like this seems like a self defeating argument that HAM is
| crucial for emergency situations because if I agreed with you
| the logical thing to do would be to take it away.
| detaro wrote:
| > _Why isn't a spectrum dedicated for use by police, fire,
| emergency response, and local governments_
|
| What do you think their radio systems use?
| generalizations wrote:
| > Amateur Radio gives communities a means of long distance
| communication when all other infrastructure fails.
|
| Starlink and a car battery can do the same thing, though. HAM
| radio has a future, but it needs to adapt.
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| Starlink needs a commercial contract with a company that may
| choose to terminate your service or be dictated to do so.
|
| Starlink contracts specify a cell region in which you're
| receiver can work.
|
| If you fall out with a benevolent or not so benevolent
| government or you are running away from disaster region or
| war zone all of these solutions fall apart pretty quickly.
|
| I will repeat my own quote, Amateur Radio gives communities a
| means of long distance communication when all other
| infrastructure fails.
| generalizations wrote:
| > If you fall out with a benevolent or not so benevolent
| government or you are running away from disaster region or
| war zone all of these solutions fall apart pretty quickly.
|
| That use case would be suicidal without encryption. I'll
| repeat my quote also - HAM radio has a future, but it needs
| to adapt.
| sfblah wrote:
| I think making the tests to get licenses easier was a mistake.
| One of the things that intrigued me about getting my license back
| in the day was the Morse code requirement. I enjoyed climbing the
| ladder, and I was proud when I passed the 20wpm test to get the
| Extra license.
|
| I think young people like things like that: a challenge, followed
| by some kind of symbol of your achievement.
| trangus_1985 wrote:
| It took me almost a decade to become licensed because I
| couldn't find any tests that weren't at 9am on a sunday, an
| hour drive away. Maybe that seems like a low bar, because it
| is!
|
| But, I got into ham radio to do interesting things, and not
| communicate. After all, why bother with making sure you have
| line of sight to a repeater when you can just fire off a text
| message? I'm much more interested in telemetry,
| instrumentation, and remote control.
| jimhefferon wrote:
| Been a ham for many years. I like Morse, but don't think other
| modes are bad, just like Morse.
|
| I'm VP of a club that has had a lot of success, particularly at
| Field Day (we often win the most popular category). I find that
| young people are not interested in contesting. In particular, we
| put people on the air and they hear some of the poison, and they
| are out of there.
|
| One reason a lot of people are older is that it helps to be
| retired. Who else has time to get on the air at noon if that is
| what it takes?
| [deleted]
| vidanay wrote:
| >"Ham radio is really a social hobby...Here in Mississippi, you
| get to 5 or 6 o' clock and you have a big network going on and on
| --some of them are half-drunk chattin' with you."
|
| Is this supposed to be an endorsement?
| abruzzi wrote:
| The primary reason I got my license wasn't to talk--something I
| do very infrequently--but rather I was interested in the
| technlogy behind shared locations tracking, but without
| infrastructure requirements. (think all the phone apps that show
| the location of your friends or family, but without needing a
| cell provider or cloud server.) The tech is called APRS and
| usually works at 1200 baud on 2 meter radio, and runs on top of
| AX.25 packet radio. It grew up more or less at the same time as
| consumer GPS in the late 90's (though I think it was first
| specified in the late 80s.
|
| The article delicately hits on one of the biggest things
| potentially holding amateur radio back in the US (can't speak to
| other locations)--specifically that there is a strong and vocal
| contingent in the AR community that is negative, dismissive, and
| sometimes downright rude to newcomers. My age is somewhere in the
| middle--younger than most hams I've met, and probably older tham
| most people here. Fortunately, locally, most of the hams I've met
| have been very friendly and helpful, but online there is a lot of
| venom.
|
| Part of it is political--people frequently conflate two
| interests, say AR and politics, and assume everyone else has the
| same two conflated interested. While I don't like to discuss
| politics with people, I'm not interestedin going to a AR meeting
| or event, and having to spent the whole time hearing people
| discuss politics. Part is cultural--AR is like a clique where a
| lot of people who've been in it for 50 years are resistant to
| people with different uses joining. It was a very long time
| before people stopped looking down on "no-code" hams--i.e. people
| who took their licensing exam after the FCC removed the morse
| code test. I also remember reding an official article on one of
| the most popular ham forums (not a trash post, but a published
| article) trashing "maker fairs" because it made him think of
| "homemaker", and that demeaned what he did.
|
| Again, locally, I've never encountered this kind of attitude, but
| it is common enough online that I simply don't interact with
| other hams online. Its not whats interesting to me anyway--I got
| into it to get offline (I travel in places in my state that are
| over 100 miles from a cell signal, so infrastructure-free
| location tracking is great.) But I can see those attitudes
| poisoning interest from people younger tham me who socialize
| online and will think that this is the hobby, and walk away
| because they don't want to be a part of it. I hope I'm wrong, and
| I hope there are better resources online than what I saw a few
| years ago when I looked.
| gravypod wrote:
| Amateur Radio has a chance to become massively popular through a
| resurgence of interest in mesh networking but unfortunately laws
| are not evolving fast enough for this to become possible. Right
| now it's illegal to transmit encrypted data over the air [0]
| which basically kills everything like. The areas where people are
| becoming increasingly active in radio are things like NYC Mesh
| which can only utilize a very small segment of the bands (and not
| even the ones hams use!) for running their networks.
|
| I'd love for an IP over Mesh network to become popular. Doing IRC
| and reinventing a lot of the early internet in a distributed
| manor would be very fun.
|
| [0] - Unless it is for the control of a satellite.
| generalizations wrote:
| This is what I came here to say. The encryption prohibition
| destroys the biggest use case I can see, which is long distance
| mesh networks. Those networks would represent a leap forward
| for both HAM radio and for the development of a resilient,
| grassroots, worldwide communication system.
| op00to wrote:
| There's been long distance mesh networks since the 80s with
| packet radio. Unencrypted. Somehow they made it work then and
| it still works today.
| jcims wrote:
| There's limited bandwidth available. I definitely think it's
| worth experimenting, but my expectation would be that any
| bands that allow for encryption would quickly be saturated
| with traffic.
| generalizations wrote:
| I imagine there might be other mechanisms for limiting
| abuse - e.g., limit the traffic that any given call sign
| can generate. The call signs can help ensure it's non-
| commercial. Plus, don't people like doing fox hunts?
| trangus_1985 wrote:
| > illegal to transmit encrypted data over the air
|
| While a massive restriction, you can prevent interference (but
| not eavesdropping!) by signing your payloads. Maybe it's
| because ham radio and privacy aware people is a venn diagram
| with a lot of overlap, but it feels like perfect being the
| enemy of good.
| generalizations wrote:
| Completely different threat model. I want to send messages to
| my friend that are private, and it would be awesome if we
| could do it p2p on a mesh net that doesn't require any
| centralized infrastructure.
|
| Modification of those messages isn't something I'm worried
| about. It's not perfectionism, it's a different use case.
| sliken wrote:
| Check out LoRa.
| generalizations wrote:
| The bandwidth is abysmal, IIRC.
| trangus_1985 wrote:
| Trying to avoid proprietary things, where possible.
| Especially at the protocol/application layer.
|
| Lora and other chirp based protocols are incredibly cool,
| and I've been playing with them
| trangus_1985 wrote:
| Yes, but ham radio is all about being open and a community
| of people communicating together.
|
| And if that's the use case you want, you should look
| elsewhere.... At least, that's what the people leading the
| ham radio community and arrl say.
|
| I'm not sure I agree with that, but I'm not sure I disagree
| either. I certainly think the community aspect is less
| important today due to the internet, but it's probably
| still crucial.
| generalizations wrote:
| > you should look elsewhere.... At least, that's what the
| people leading the ham radio community and arrl say.
|
| And that's what people are doing, which is (I'd guess)
| why we're commenting on an article about the uncertain
| future of HAM radio.
|
| Also, that's going to change the community, but it won't
| erase it. Just like the HN community isn't hampered by
| the presence of encryption.
| trangus_1985 wrote:
| Yeah, I definitely think they come from an era where we
| all didn't have a pocket communicator that plugs us into
| any community at will.
|
| When I flung packets across the bay with a friend, we
| used cell phones to figure out antenna positioning and
| alignment. violating the spirit of the intention of these
| rules, imo, but hard to say
| generalizations wrote:
| > Yeah, I definitely think they come from an era where we
| all didn't have a pocket communicator that plugs us into
| any community at will.
|
| Makes sense. And my cohort comes from an era when we can
| talk to anyone, anywhere, but the channels are controlled
| and watched. The ability to communicate isn't special
| anymore, but the ability to communicate independently and
| privately is. We don't want communication, we want known-
| good (dare I say, safe?) communication channels.
| trangus_1985 wrote:
| > the channels are controlled and watched
|
| Do you think that ham radio couldn't be? Or isn't? What
| you really want is privacy, authz/authn concerns, and
| decentralization, it sounds like. And TCP/IP is about as
| useful as a "PHY" layer for your application as is ham
| radio.
|
| Plus, solutions like what you're describing require a
| relative ease of use - unless you only want to talk to
| the 17 other people in your geographical area who have
| similar technical backgrounds.
| Causality1 wrote:
| _Yes, but ham radio is all about being open and a
| community of people communicating together_
|
| My question is whether this kind of regulated openness is
| more worthy of the spectrum assigned to hams than some
| alternative scheme might be. It's certainly not a very
| efficient use of spectrum.
| riffic wrote:
| yeah I don't want encryption on the amateur bands.
| detaro wrote:
| Not going to happen. Amateur radio is very centrally about non-
| commercial use cases, with the encryption ban ensuring that's
| actually the case and trivially detected if not. Mesh networks
| for use by everybody for any purpose are a (valuable!) very
| different thing, living in differently regulated bands.
| generalizations wrote:
| > living in differently regulated bands
|
| People keep repeating that, but it's not actually true. There
| are no bands available for long range (50-100 miles between
| hops), decentralized, encrypted, mesh networks that are cheap
| enough for random people to connect to.
|
| You're probably thinking of random wifi meshnets that only
| work in densely populated cities. That's very different, and
| the limitations of those networks is exactly why HAM radio
| meshnets are so attractive.
| detaro wrote:
| I meant more structural, based on your mention of NYC Mesh:
| high-speed, carrying all-purpose (including commercial)
| traffic for random users. You are not getting that by
| allowing encryption on ham bands, that's fundamentally
| something different (and regulation world-wide would never
| allow that under "amateur radio"). What you want for that
| is expanded spectrum/power/easier permits for long-distance
| links, e.g. in the 60 Ghz band or even in WiFi bands.
|
| Edit: or in reverse, what kind of current ham radio use
| would you want to use more openly? Maybe I'm
| misunderstanding your scenario.
|
| Edit2: E.g. the closest thing maybe is hamnet. Which is
| literally IP networking, unencrypted, on modified Ubiquiti
| or Mikrotik WLAN gear so it uses ham bands right next to
| its usual frequencies and more power. As soon as you take
| the amateur radio restrictions out, it's just long-distance
| wifi links, which already have a clear space what they are
| regulations-wise, the regulations just don't permit as much
| for it.
| cwkoss wrote:
| would it be possible for such a system to scale without
| overwhelming the spectrum?
|
| I'm not a radio guy. But feels like if the mesh network
| became popular it could get clogged.
| Johnny555 wrote:
| But then it's no longer Amateur Radio, it'll just be another
| unlicensed spectrum like the Wifi spectrum since there's no way
| to know who is using it or what data is going over it.
|
| There may be value for this to the public, but it's not the
| same as Amateur Radio.
| nickysielicki wrote:
| That's fundamentally what's at question here: is amateur
| radio literally just non-professionals toying with RF, or is
| it some collection of rituals like HF ragchewing and SKCC? It
| seems that the ARRL has decided it's the latter while
| everyone under 40 years old has decided it's the former.
| mmaunder wrote:
| It can be if it's not available for commercial use. The WiFi
| spectrum is for commercial use. The ham spectrums could still
| require a license and could only be used for hobbyists. We'd
| need a way to verify who the sender is via unencrypted comms,
| but the rest could be encrypted. Maybe a standard header
| every 5 mins.
| Johnny555 wrote:
| How do you know whether Joe Blow H6F5KY is sending out
| personal messages to his wife from work, or broadcasting
| orders to his fleet of delivery drivers?
| drewcoo wrote:
| Ah. So it's not amateur unless it's policed!
| op00to wrote:
| SELF-policed.
| Johnny555 wrote:
| I'm pretty sure you were being snarky, but you're exactly
| right, otherwise it'll just become a commercial network.
|
| A "no commercial traffic but there's no way anyone could
| verify it" rule wouldn't be very effective.
| jjoonathan wrote:
| At low scale it's not a problem and at large scale it
| can't be hidden. Drama around tracking abusers with HFDF,
| gathering proof, and bringing them to justice? I'd watch
| that movie. Hell, I'd play that game -- it sounds like
| good fun.
| [deleted]
| mmaunder wrote:
| I actually think this is an excellent point and a good path
| forward. There's a LOT of spectrum available for this, and the
| HF bands could be particularly interesting. Right now we have
| large swaths of the bands used by contesters and rag chewers.
| That could be used for useful TCP/IP experimentation by
| hobbyists, which is what the hobby was intended to be.
| op00to wrote:
| Each of those rag chewers is a scientist doing experiments.
| He or she must build a station suitable to be heard. Which
| antenna works best in their own case? What about feedline?
| This is not a simple task, especially for the ragchewer class
| where you want to be clearly heard.
|
| You have a very narrow view of the hobby.
| aoeuasdf wrote:
| >illegal to transmit encrypted data over the air
|
| This restriction comes up quite a lot in discussions about
| "modernizing" ham radio. I predict that if encryption was
| universally allowed, the ham bands would quickly become
| saturated with encrypted channels as hobbyists and not-
| hobbyists start using the bands for their personal
| communications networks.
|
| The two main problems with allowing encryption are that 1. The
| HF bands often have worldwide propagation with very low power
| levels, which turns local interference into national or
| international interference, and 2. With encrypted
| communications it would be impossible to enforce other amateur
| radio laws, such as forbidding commercial uses.
|
| I think that allowing encryption on dedicated slices of the UHF
| bands would be a more realistic approach.
| op00to wrote:
| There is plenty of ISM spectrum for people to use however
| they like.
| mmaunder wrote:
| There's a difference between modernization and monetization.
| Commercial traffic can remain banned. License requirements
| remain in place. And we can have a standard way to transmit
| digital callsign before an encrypted packet. There are
| volunteers right now who do a great job of policing the use
| of ham bands, and FCC does actually initiate enforcement
| actions including 5 figure fines.
| aoeuasdf wrote:
| If the transmission consists of <CALLSIGN><ENCRYPTED
| PAYLOAD> then there is no way to determine if the payload
| is commercial in nature. One particular example is business
| owners using amateur radio spectrum for business
| communications. Or some wise-guy using amateur spectrum for
| his high frequency trading to beat the speed of copper.
| cwkoss wrote:
| can you actually beat copper?
| op00to wrote:
| Yes. It is a simple Google search away.
| sparker72678 wrote:
| Surprisingly, yes!
|
| Signals in copper travel at about 0.7C, while radio in
| air travels at ~1.0C. (Light in fibre optic cable is also
| about 0.7C).
| themulticaster wrote:
| Three thoughts:
|
| 1. HFT firms have definitely tried to perform HFT
| communication on HF bands before, see [1].
|
| 2. IIRC there have been some undecipherable transmissions
| in ham HF bands that were suspected to be associated with
| HFT, but I can't find a source right now.
|
| 3. While you don't have any additional latency from
| routers and serialization delays in the path across the
| pond, you need to keep in mind that long-range HF
| communications rely on bouncing the signal on the F1/F2
| layers of the ionosphere (an atmospheric layer with lots
| of charged particles/ions that act as a mirror to HF
| signals). If you're comparing HF transmission with a
| hypothetical straight-line fiber connection (assuming it
| the propagation speed in the fiber is comparable to the
| atmospheric propagation speed [2]), the fiber connection
| would win.
|
| Additionally, bandwidth is an extremely scarce resource
| in HF bands (compared to cellular networks or other
| common VHF/UHF systems). There's a reason people still
| use CW (morse code) or even PSK31 [3] instead of SSB
| (voice) [4] in HF bands: You need around 500 Hz for CW
| signals, around 3000 Hz for SSB signals. PSK31 only needs
| 31.25 Hz. My point is: While you might beat latency of
| fiber connections and routers along the path, the
| throughput is going to be quite low for HF transmission.
|
| [1] https://spectrum.ieee.org/wall-street-tries-
| shortwave-radio-...
|
| [2] Since you mentioned copper: Copper can be quite a bit
| slower than fiber depending on cable type, since the
| propagation speed of signals in copper cables depends on
| the velocity factor. Wikipedia gives a few examples:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velocity_factor
|
| [3] PSK31 stands for Phase Shift Keying at 31 Bd. The
| short explanation is that PSK31 is a bandwidth-optimized
| text transmission mode.
|
| [4] SSB stands for Single Sideband. The short explanation
| is that SSB is a bandwidth-optimized AM voice mode.
| sliken wrote:
| If encryption was legal the commercial sector would take over
| and fill all available bandwidth. The lack of encryption is
| what keeps it amateur and not commercial.
| rsync wrote:
| The use-case I am interested in - and what would have me
| licensing and tooling up next week - is _an actual qwerty device_
| for using that HAM text mode /feature (APRS, right) ?
|
| There's all kinds of info and notes and discussion about APRS
| _but there isn 't a single device for it_.
|
| No I am not interested in serial connecting my yaesu to a laptop.
| I mean a standalone handheld that I can type in a message without
| T9-style pecking.
|
| Why doesn't this exist ?
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