[HN Gopher] ARRL hails FCC action to remove symbol rate restrict...
___________________________________________________________________
ARRL hails FCC action to remove symbol rate restrictions
Author : 7402
Score : 212 points
Date : 2023-11-15 00:16 UTC (22 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.arrl.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.arrl.org)
| charcircuit wrote:
| Next the restriction on encryption should be removed
| vitaflo wrote:
| There is no reason to have encryption on the ham bands.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| What for?
| wcfields wrote:
| Internet gateway traffic most likely.
|
| Me, personally, I would like to see the bands filled to
| capacity and it be common/everyday that ordinary people use
| 2m/70cm data modes for things besides DX'ing.
| edrxty wrote:
| This is also the absolute worst nightmare of all the
| ragchew/gout-net types. The thing is [opens SDR waterfall]
| 70cm/2m is a wall of blue occasionally punctuated by a
| lonely repeater kerchunk so I'm not sure what's driving the
| fear.
|
| In fact, the most reliable traffic is the one narrow APRS
| frequency full of generally indecipherable digital packets
| from all the proprietary over-landing rigs.
| wcfields wrote:
| My inspiration has been this video:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMZ8mawceuk (Building a
| Linux Packet Node) and inspired me to buy a used Kenwood
| TM-D700 to operate a packet node station.
|
| I think something like that coupled with something like
| https://hamwan.org/ to route high-bandwidth traffic could
| be a great combo, almost like an adaptive bandwidth.
| BenjiWiebe wrote:
| I'd be pretty tempted to use 70cm for some business uses if
| it were legal. Good range and cheap tx/rx PCBs readily
| available. However I'd end up using 20kb/s of data 24/7
| over a large range. Can't have very many people doing that
| or there's no bandwidth left.
| ianburrell wrote:
| The 2m/70cm bands wouldn't be that useful for data. They
| are 4MHz and 30MHz (in US) wide. By comparison, Wifi is
| 20MHz, LTE is 1.4-20 MHz. The bandwidth wouldn't be that
| high for general use.
|
| One place that extra space would be useful is for digital
| walkie-talkies, as an expansion of FRS.
| JoshTriplett wrote:
| > Internet gateway traffic most likely.
|
| Or use of existing internet protocols, yes.
|
| Here's an example: I was in an amateur rocketry group. One
| of our primary telemetry connections was _wifi_ ; 802.11b
| channel 1 is in an amateur band. We used directional
| antennas on the ground, cylindrical patch antennas on the
| rocket, and 1W of power (which is why we needed amateur
| licenses, to exceed the standard 100mW for wifi) and we
| could reliably communicate via standard IP while the rocket
| was a long distance away and breaking the sound barrier.
| The ESSID was one of our callsigns.
|
| Our standard telemetry protocol was unencrypted packets,
| because ham radio. But a common need while debugging the
| rocket on the launchpad was to SSH in (it ran Linux). So
| our options were:
|
| - Use something obsolete with much worse UX, like telnet.
|
| - Use SSH and try to convince it to run without encryption,
| an option which is a bad idea for _every other use case_
| and which modern SSH rightfully refuses to contemplate.
|
| - Use SSH with published keys, and hope that suffices to
| meet the spirit of the regulation.
|
| - Add some complexity to the system to reduce power level
| while on the pad so that we weren't actually using a ham
| license.
|
| - Safe the engines, go out to the pad a mile away, and hook
| up to the wired umbilical for debugging.
|
| Removing the encryption restriction would allow using
| standard SSH and similar systems.
| threemux wrote:
| Doesn't this fall under the "telecommand of model craft"
| exception?
|
| https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/47/97.215
|
| It seems to me encrypted ssh is totally within the rules
| in this case.
| JoshTriplett wrote:
| Leaving aside the question of whether a 3 meter tall
| rocket that breaks the sound barrier is a " _model_ craft
| ", that just says "The control signals are not considered
| codes or ciphers intended to obscure the meaning of the
| communication.". It's not _completely_ unambiguous that
| SSH and other protocols qualify as "control signal"
| (they were not used to control the "craft" itself), nor
| whether they qualify as "telemetry" per 47 CFR SS 97.217.
| This exception unambiguously gives a pass for control
| protocols that aren't _obvious_ to observers on the
| frequency, but not necessarily for communication
| protocols that are actually _encrypted_.
|
| Those statutes _might_ provide the necessary exception
| but that 's not unambiguous.
| threemux wrote:
| Yes unfortunately "model craft" is not defined anywhere
| in Part 97 that I can find.
|
| I can't say I understand the rest of the first paragraph
| - Part 97 doesn't actually ban encryption, just "codes or
| ciphers intended to obscure the meaning of the
| communication", from which "telecommand of model craft"
| is specifically exempted.
|
| I'm not as familiar with the Part 15 rules - do they
| allow high gain antennas? Since this case is about
| stationary command and control, I wonder if lower power +
| high gain wifi antennas at both ends would close the
| link.
| JoshTriplett wrote:
| I'm saying that "control signals" and "telemetry" also
| aren't clearly defined, and while dedicated protocols
| like those used to control an RC airplane are clearly
| "control signals", it's not obvious if SSH-over-IP-over-
| wifi to poke around and debug an avionics system counts
| as either "control signals" or "telemetry". You could
| make a case that it is, but it seems much closer to the
| line and not _obviously_ permitted.
|
| > Since this case is about stationary command and control
|
| It's not; this was the same system used while the rocket
| was in motion, and part of the point of using the same
| system was to make sure it's working before launching.
|
| > I wonder if lower power + high gain wifi antennas at
| both ends would close the link
|
| We were using high-gain antennas already, and IIRC that
| didn't suffice within the 100mW power limit.
| fragmede wrote:
| I've always wanted to make a ssh-telnet hybrid that sends
| data plaintext but with an authentication mechanism so
| that commands get sent in the clear, to meet the
| requirement that it's not encrypted, while the
| authentication layer prevents others from spoofing
| commands.
|
| thinking about it, presharing keys and then using gpg to
| authenticate the message should work. just need client
| and server programs to make it convenient.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| I think at some point you just do what's right
| technically and let the legal chips fall where they may.
|
| Failing that, would a repeater or two have helped?
| abstractbeliefs wrote:
| Why? Amateur radio is supposed to be an open spectrum for
| people to communicate and experiment on, not provide services
| on.
|
| If you need to privately communicate, use the ISM bands, don't
| consume the amateur experimentation bands.
| charcircuit wrote:
| Because the modern tech world operates with security on by
| default. Amateurs should be able to experiment with radio and
| run the same protocols that pros use.
| abstractbeliefs wrote:
| The pros have to bid at auction to tie up bandwidth with
| encrypted comms that cannot benefit or be used by others.
|
| If people want encryption, they are welcome to use the ISM
| bands where it is allowed, or get licenses for the
| commercial areas of the spectrum.
|
| But amateur radio is a public commons for those who have
| the interest in getting licensed, and encrypted comms being
| normalised damages that, making it less accessible to
| others and discouraging interaction between enthusiasts.
|
| I fear that with encryption allowed, amateur radio will
| become a collection of competing 1-to-1 links and hidden
| commercial activity taking advantage of the cheap spectrum
| at everyone else's expense.
| charcircuit wrote:
| There is a lot of utility in having a bunch of 1-to-1
| links. If you look at the internet you will see that it
| supports multitask, but it is rarely used nowadays. You
| would expect to see similar things from other
| communication protocols. The days that everyone's
| communications went to everyone are over.
|
| Even if there is hidden commercial activity going on, is
| that really so bad? Imagine if the internet banned
| commerce on it, there wouldn't be so much investment into
| it.
| abstractbeliefs wrote:
| There is a lot of utility in 1 to 1 links, but you don't
| need encryption to do that, while adding it does
| encourage it at the expense of other modes.
|
| As for commercial activity, the whole point of the
| amateur spectrum is specifically to carve out portions of
| the spectrum protected from commercial interests! I agree
| that commercial, and also unlicensed use of radio is
| important, but leave commerce out of the tiny portion
| (and it really is small) part of the spectrum that's
| specifically regulated to be free of commercial
| interference.
| peddling-brink wrote:
| What percentage of the Internet, and the devices that
| connect to it, is devoted to ads, spam, malicious
| traffic, and the prevention of malicious traffic?
|
| I'd rather not have the ham bands reduced to more of the
| same.
| charcircuit wrote:
| Why are ads lumped in? Typically they are only a fraction
| of the content they are sponsoring and they provide a
| service to consumers by connecting them to businesses
| they may find value in.
|
| Nothing stops spammers from spamming on HAM right now and
| it's 1 to many which makes it more effective.
| resters wrote:
| If encryption were allowed, there would be no way to
| observe that hams were using their licenses in ways that
| comply with most of the FCC rules that differentiate
| "amateur" from professional radio use cases.
|
| In my view, of course many hams would use encryption in
| reasonable ways but quite likely other uses of the spectrum
| would proliferate that are explicitly forbidden by the
| rules that carve out the amateur service as distinct from
| all the other ones.
| charcircuit wrote:
| This same argument applies to all encryption. If E2EE is
| allowed people can't monitor that people aren't breaking
| the law on whatever messaging service. Privacy is deemed
| to be more important than being able to enforce the law.
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| "The pros" pay for a slice of bandwidth every year.
|
| If you want private communication, use a private frequency.
| If you want to use a shared spectrum, do it in a way, where
| everyone can tell you to buzz off.
| charcircuit wrote:
| >If you want private communication, use a private
| frequency.
|
| Which the HAM bands could be which is the point of my
| comment.
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| But the idea behind ham radio is that everything is open
| for everyone to learn, try and experiment, and not that
| you can have private conversations without paying your
| phone bills.
|
| This is like having an open public square, and then
| someone decides to "privatize" an area, cordon it off,
| put temporary walls around and not-let anyone else look
| at (well.. listen) to what's happening there.
| edrxty wrote:
| Seconded. You can still have a requirement to ID in the clear
| if you want, but all other modern radio systems are encrypted
| and any interesting protocols will be largely indistinguishable
| from encryption from a regulatory point of view. Ham radio is
| first and foremost for experimentation, not ragchew, and
| there's no point maintaining a radio service that is
| fundamentally crippled.
| threemux wrote:
| I see these takes pop up all the time but I have yet to hear
| of a legitimate use case that wouldn't be solved with digital
| signatures which are allowed under current rules
| edrxty wrote:
| The most common case people run into: I want to be able to
| interface with literally any other communication technology
| in common use without having to strip TLS.
|
| The basic case: Alice wants to talk to Bob and would rather
| not have their crazy neighbor listen in and threaten
| violence because psychosis (Don't believe me? Hang out on
| the fun parts of the HF spectrum).
|
| The public service use case: a disaster occurred, I need to
| send medical information to a known recipient. Other
| countries have allowances for this but the US does not.
|
| The because it's literally unenforceable anyway case: yeah,
| go after noise sources that don't have an ID but prove to
| me my shitty CW transmitter with a trillion ppm of phase
| noise isn't actually broadcasting encrypted PSK within
| pulses.
| jrockway wrote:
| > a disaster occurred
|
| In the case of emergency, the restrictions on your
| license no longer apply. You can use whatever means
| necessary to establish the desired communications.
| edrxty wrote:
| Cool, so a central component of a disaster response is
| preparation. How do you practice for that when you can't
| do real key enrollment/management outside of a real
| disaster?
| ianburrell wrote:
| There is a difference between disaster and emergency. The
| emergency exception is for immediately saving a life. It
| is basically that if need to call 911 and can't, you can
| break rules on radio.
|
| There are lots of people who think the rules are
| suspended during disaster. That is only true if actively
| saving a life during a disaster.
| threemux wrote:
| Eh yeah I've heard these. The important bit to remember
| is Part 97.113 on prohibited transmissions:
| "Communications, on a regular basis, which could
| reasonably be furnished alternatively through other radio
| services." That's the bit that trips these up rather than
| the encryption prohibition.
|
| The common case: this is vague and probably falls under
| the above. What's an example?
|
| The basic case: use phones. All of us that have spent
| time on HF are well aware of the antisocial behavior
| sometimes found there. I don't think you'll run into any
| ham that's against stricter enforcement in this area.
|
| Public service: SHARES is probably the move here. I think
| I would support waivers similar to how they were
| previously allowing PACTOR 4 though. Despite what the
| ARRL says I'm a little dubious of our utility in
| disasters these days in any case.
|
| I mean sure you can come up with any number of ways to
| get away with it but that doesn't mean we should endorse
| that behavior.
| edrxty wrote:
| Re common case, it's typically an accidental thing. Lots
| of people are standing up things like ham mesh networks
| and similar but anything internet proximal has a very
| high likelihood of leaking cypher text over the air.
|
| Re basic case, I should refine my statement a bit, HF is
| currently populated enough that having more traffic there
| is probably not advisable yet. If I was given a magic
| pen, I'd probably allow encryption on the lesser used HF
| bands and 6m on up.
|
| As far as public service/phones/other services, I don't
| really buy into the disaster prepper stuff that's been
| popular as of late, but there's an opportunity for
| amateur radio to remain relevant. Rather than trying to
| prevent encryption and keep all that stuff on other ISM
| type bands, putting some of it under the ham umbrella
| could be very positive development.
| akira2501 wrote:
| > all other modern radio systems are encrypted
|
| So, what's stopping you from using _those_, then?
| edrxty wrote:
| They're used on the ham bands all the time, you just don't
| notice.
| abstractbeliefs wrote:
| My concern is that the moment you implement encryption you've
| opened a race to the bottom in people abusing the license for
| purposes outside the license. Even if you know who it is, you
| don't know what they're doing.
|
| The temptation to use up the limited spectrum for reasons
| outside the spirit of the license will undoubtedly be taken
| by some, we know how bad it can be already when you can
| clearly identify it.
| kmbfjr wrote:
| How is a lack of encryption "crippling " the hobby?
|
| DMR is used without encryption as are other commercial modes.
|
| The point if the experimental nature is that it is open.
| gorkish wrote:
| It's not crippled; It's the opposite. Its the only radio
| service where when you want to do something new with it, you
| are supposed to publish how. If you want to do something
| different, use a different band where it's permitted. The
| amateur bands continue to have a valid purpose the way they
| are.
|
| I would advocate strongly for additional spectrum becoming
| available for public use as it is evacuated as an alternative
| to the fcc reselling it. I have zero problems with /new
| bands/ being made available on potentially /new services/
| that would allow for what you want.
| RF_Savage wrote:
| CBRS in USA is a good example of a new band that allows new
| things to be done.
|
| I'm rather jealous of the ease of it for standing up a
| proper private 5G network for experimentation and learning.
|
| Unlike GSM almost none of the modern cellular standards can
| be configured to run without encryption, so hambands are
| out of the queation sadly.
| tzs wrote:
| For experimentation you should be able to use those protocols
| with the cipher replaced with a null cipher. The aspects of
| the protocols that are radio-related should not be affected.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| The amateur bands are supposed to be for open communication for
| everyone to use and communicate with each other.
| gorkish wrote:
| Hard disagree. There should be more effort made to promote
| authentication and message signing (which does not require
| encryption to obscure meaning) and less tolerance for the use
| of proprietary codecs, modulations, and protocols (unpublished
| codes) like AMBE and PACTOR in amateur radio. It is unfortunate
| that there are many hams who misunderstand or mischaracterize
| Part 97 rules; even if there was broad support for the position
| of allowing "encryption" in the amateur community (there isn't)
| you could never get it done. It has taken a decade of concerted
| effort to get this 300-baud nonsense wiped out against an
| overwhelmingly vocal cadre of people who seem to ... really
| hate sailboats?! C'mon
| PumpkinSpice wrote:
| This is such a weird topic in the ham community. The reason
| this restriction exists has nothing to do with the retro-
| justifications used by the community.
|
| For a long time, the US government genuinely feared that ham
| radio would be used for espionage. It had listening stations
| across the nation to monitor all communications. It flat out
| shut down the entire service (!) during WWII. And it came up
| with the idea that you have to communicate in the open, and
| that no form of obfuscation or encryption is permissible.
|
| And then hams came up with this roundabout explanation that
| actually, it's good that you can't have privacy. No matter that
| it holds back a hobby that is by all usage metrics dying, and
| that there are many countries where encryption is allowed and
| doesn't lead to any terrible outcomes.
|
| Privacy is useful in hobby uses. Maybe you want to talk to your
| spouse without a nosy neighbor listening. Maybe you want to
| periodically beacon your GPS location without the whole world
| knowing. There are so many cool things you can do, and there is
| spectrum that is... quite frankly, largely dead right now, and
| if you don't encourage new uses, it _will_ be reclaimed by the
| government.
| edrxty wrote:
| The secret is there's already tons of encrypted
| communications on the bands because of cheap chinese DMR
| radios that unlicensed teenagers use for airsoft and the
| like. It has yet to ruin ham radio and nobody has even
| noticed enough to attempt enforcement.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| Those radios are very low power, so they don't really get
| in anyone's way.
| edrxty wrote:
| There are power limitations on spread spectrum emissions
| in some of the bands, you could have the same thing here.
| ianburrell wrote:
| DMR isn't encrypted. You can listen to them with any SDR.
| The voice codec is patented but well known. DMR itself is a
| standard.
| piperswe wrote:
| DMR can be encrypted, and I know from experience that
| there are people (not me, but people) running encrypted
| DMR on ham bands.
| scotteric wrote:
| How would one distinguish legal traffic from illegal? If
| encrypted communications were to be allowed, what is stopping
| people using the amateur bands for commercial use? This is
| the main concern of hams, not that it's good that you can't
| have privacy.
| edrxty wrote:
| You can still have an In-The-Clear ID requirement, ie frame
| packets as:
|
| AB0CDE--*UI93.8u[3u9,8husoa...
| Crunchified wrote:
| Sure you can. This still does not ensure that the
| communications embedded within the encrypted portion of
| the data does not violate amateur rules. Encryption of
| communications effectively removes the ability of hams
| (and government regulators) to monitor their service for
| rule breakers. It would invite commercial users to
| exploit hams' valuable bandwidth.
|
| I would go so far as to say encryption is not needed in
| the amateur radio domain, outside of limiting access to
| the control and configuration of remote devices. The
| established goals of the amateur radio service can be
| achieved without encrypted communications.
| lrvick wrote:
| My goal is to be able to privately communicate with other
| people at a distance without relying on cell phone
| carriers, ISPs, or other brittle corporate
| infrastructure.
|
| Privacy is a human right, and that applies over radio.
|
| If I need to register my public keys like a license
| plate, fine, but the content is only the business of the
| recipient.
| mike_d wrote:
| Think of Ham like Usenet or posting to a forum. You are
| in the public square talking for all to hear.
|
| If you want something more akin to private email, that is
| possible you just need a difference license.
| https://www.fcc.gov/wireless/bureau-divisions/mobility-
| divis...
|
| I have frequency allocations (well technically a radio
| shop manages them for us) and use AES128 encryption with
| no issues.
| lrvick wrote:
| So by this license only businesses are allowed to have
| private communications, not individuals?
| mike_d wrote:
| Hypothetically you could get a license just for yourself,
| but only you'd be able to use it which might get kinda
| lonely. Using a LLC is much more practical as the entity
| can own the radios and assign them to authorized users
| acting on behalf of the company.
|
| Forming a corporate entity and paying the frequency
| coordination fees are going to be minimal in comparison
| to the hardware costs to communicate at a distance
| (encrypted or clear) reliably.
| withinboredom wrote:
| Businesses are the only legal way to "group" people
| together and hold them accountable. Since you are
| purchasing a license for some spectrum, they need a way
| to hold that group accountable. A common business
| arrangement is to create a "co-op" to work together,
| usually owned equally by the members. For example, there
| are a couple of developer co-ops around here to get
| discounts on IDEs and resources by appearing as a large
| org. Almost like what you'd expect from a union, but most
| clearly not a union.
| throw0101a wrote:
| > _So by this license only businesses are allowed to have
| private communications, not individuals?_
|
| The first words on that pages are " _Individuals or
| entities desiring to_ [...] ".
|
| You, as an individual, can get a license. It's probably
| just more common for legal persons [1] to go through the
| effort rather than natural persons [2].
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_person
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_person
| lrvick wrote:
| That is something, I suppose, though every person I want
| to communicate with would need one which is a real pain.
|
| Still, will explore this.
|
| If anyone has any tips for encrypted voice comms using
| this path I would welcome it
| zeckalpha wrote:
| Have you looked into laser?
| throw0101a wrote:
| > _Privacy is a human right, and that applies over
| radio._
|
| You do not have a right to use common space (e.g., radio
| spectrum) without regard to the rest of society. If are
| given permission to use a common space, you have to use
| it with the stated conditions.
| btreecat wrote:
| Isn't that why you would use a letter and post system?
| deepsun wrote:
| I think because any commerce is visible (e.g. they register
| with Secretary of State, pay taxes etc).
|
| If it's a tiny commerce, no-one would notice. Probably.
| Neither ham community.
|
| But no one seriously would invest time and money in a
| business that's, well, illegal.
| wiml wrote:
| > _But no one seriously would invest time and money in a
| business that 's, well, illegal._
|
| I ... what? That really doesn't jibe with my observations
| of the world.
| I_Am_Nous wrote:
| FCC don't play when they assign fines.
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| Which they can only do for unencrypted traffic, encrypted
| traffic by definition would not be examinable by the FCC
| for determining whether to assign fines.
| I_Am_Nous wrote:
| They don't have to know what you are sending to know you
| are sending in a way you shouldn't. It's not even about
| the content of the encrypted traffic at that point. They
| just see broadcasts (which...good luck hiding them from
| the FCC) and if they see the bandwidth being used but
| aren't receiving a usable audio/data stream from it, it's
| really easy to tell if the rules are being followed.
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| How would anyone determine whether 'a usable audio/data
| stream' exists in encrypted traffic?
| I_Am_Nous wrote:
| Is the band you are transmitting over restricted in any
| way? If they say no encryption, it doesn't matter what
| you are encrypting. If you are caught broadcasting in
| that no encryption band, and they see broadcasts in that
| band that don't correspond with signals they can pick up,
| it's a red flag that it's encrypted traffic.
|
| Think of it this way - hypothetically if I'm on an
| English only band, and it's illegal to speak Spanish
| because English speakers can't understand Spanish, and I
| get caught transmitting anything other than English it
| doesn't matter what the content is.
|
| Encryption doesn't magically make the RF you are using
| invisible. It makes it unreadable. It's still
| broadcasting and can be picked up by sniffers that flag
| it as data it can't interpret. It is NOT a no-risk
| choice.
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| How does this relate to the potential opening up of ham
| radio bands to encrypted traffic?
| I_Am_Nous wrote:
| My original comment was made with regard to someone being
| incredulous that illegality would prevent someone from
| starting a business using encrypted ham bands. I said
| that the FCC fines are quite steep, implying that the
| risk of FCC fines for running an illegal encrypted
| broadcast would explain why someone would not like to be
| involved with such a business.
|
| Obviously if the FCC opens up ham for encryption, it
| would be legal and totally fine. Currently it is not (the
| whole point of our conversation), and starting a business
| like that would be risky. You implied that the FCC can't
| fine you if they can't prove that you were sending
| encrypted traffic, and I argued that they'll still see
| the broadcasts and be able to tell they are encrypted.
|
| So this is kind of a strange question for you to ask
| _now_ lol
| abstractbeliefs wrote:
| You talk about retrojustification, but in many parts of the
| world this has long been written into law, for example in the
| UK's Wireless Telegraphy act:
|
| 1(1) The Licensee shall ensure that the Radio Equipment is
| only used:
|
| a) for the purpose of self-training in radio communications,
| including conducting technical investigations; and
|
| b) as a leisure activity and not for commercial purposes of
| any kind
|
| As for it being "good" not to have privacy, it's really not
| about having privacy or not, but respecting the situation
| that there are different tools for different needs. If you
| need to speak to your spouse, there are tools to speak to
| them privately! Amateur radio isn't the only option, and it
| isn't the best.
|
| The problem is that encrypted comms tie up spectrum space
| without giving anything back. Now, I don't ragchew, I think
| it's incredibly boring and unnecessarily toxic chat given
| most of the personalities and topics involved, but at least
| anyone can choose to drop in/out of that as needed.
|
| What I'm more interested in is radio as a sport, where I can
| climb mountains and operate from them, pushing myself and
| engaging in that competitive activity with others. It's hard
| to do that if everyone has decided to start using the 2m band
| as their private internet link because it goes further than
| WiFi.
| lrvick wrote:
| > If you need to speak to your spouse, there are tools to
| speak to them privately!
|
| Apart from amateur radio, what tool exist, that does not
| require the assistance of private corporations, ISPs,
| service fees, patents etc? I go camping way outside of cell
| phone tower ranges and it would be should be legal to
| communicate with my group privately.
|
| Radio is the only form of totally citizen controlled real
| time distance communication we have, if we do not count
| smoke signals. Snail mail encryption is already allowed.
| Encryption must be allowed on radio as well.
| cornholio wrote:
| I think a legitimate fear of radio amateurs is that
| encrypted, fully autonomous, long distance communication
| is such a killer application that usage would explode
| from commercial devices sold to take advantage of the ham
| space, leading to some kind of WiFi cacophony.
|
| Perhaps some kind of compromise is possible, where all
| encrypted ham must broadcast their callsign in the clear
| every few seconds.
| bradfa wrote:
| With 2.8kHz of bandwidth, the requirements to obtain a
| license to transmit, and the restrictions on commercial
| use in the ham bands, I don't think your fears are
| warranted. I definitely think the ham bands would get
| more active for data uses, but I doubt they would get
| flooded with newcomers.
|
| You must already broadcast your call sign at a regular
| interval when transmitting.
| shawnz wrote:
| It seems like that frequency space would be doing more
| good for more people if that were the case?
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| You want to use a piece of limited spectrum, don't want
| to pay for a private slice of it, and complain that you
| have to be 'public' in a public slice of it?
| threemux wrote:
| What countries allow general encryption on the ham bands
| (e.g. not limited exceptions for particular cases)
|
| "The hobby is dying" has been a trope longer than nearly
| everyone in this thread has been alive - give it a rest.
|
| We've always had allocations because there wasn't a
| commercial use for it. As soon as there is, we lose it. See
| the loss of part of 220mhz and all the higher frequencies
| we're in the process of losing to 5G/other commercial use. I
| recommend embracing this reality
| ztetranz wrote:
| >there are many countries where encryption is allowed
|
| I don't think that's true. I assume you mean on the ham
| bands.
| justin66 wrote:
| > For a long time, the US government genuinely feared that
| ham radio would be used for espionage. It had listening
| stations across the nation to monitor all communications.
|
| Well this is all somewhat ahistorical. The people monitoring
| ham radio for abuses were, and are, ham radio operators.
|
| A task which would, you know, be more difficult if everything
| was encrypted.
| swixmix wrote:
| There is no restriction on encryption, just a restriction to
| not obscure the meaning.
|
| See (PDF)
| https://www.qsl.net/kb9mwr/projects/wireless/Data%20Encrypti...
| Manuel_D wrote:
| Isn't encryption, by definition, obscuring the meaning of
| messages to everyone except authorized recipients?
|
| I guess you could transmit the contents of messages in plain
| text but cryptographically sign the contents to authenticate.
| This would probably be useful to remotely administer
| infrastructure: e.g. have an "net operator only" mode for a
| repeater when pileups occur or somebody is not abiding by
| rules.
| BenjiWiebe wrote:
| You could transmit stuff encrypted with AES as long as you
| also transmitted your key (and scheme) in plaintext, afaik.
| So you could use ham radio to experiment with an encrypted
| scheme that you'd later use with non-ham bands/licenses.
| Manuel_D wrote:
| You're allowed to send encrypted traffic to a remote controlled
| vehicle. Solution: put wheels and servos on your transceiver,
| and hack together a means to move and steer it via radio
| signals. It is now a remote controlled vehicle. Then maybe just
| send some encrypted data and voice along with the occasional
| command to steer and accelerate.
|
| Troll comment, mostly, but reading the text of the regulations
| it might be viable.
| jjjjmoney wrote:
| There are ways to transmit encryption legally if you really
| want to. It just take a bunch of time and a little money to
| get the right licenses.
|
| Encryption really isn't in the spirit of ham radio, and the
| other licenses are honestly probably easier to get anyway.
| Manuel_D wrote:
| While I wouldn't want encrypted traffic completely taking
| over the bands, part of the spirit of amateur radio is
| encouraging experimentation and expanding technical
| understanding [1]. Encryption is pivotal to modern wireless
| communications, and allowing it would expand amateurs'
| ability to experiment and building understanding in radio
| encryption.
|
| Methods like spread-spectrum communication are allowed.
| It's not the same as encryption, but it it similar in that
| people without knowledge of the frequency hopping pattern
| are not capable of receiving the transmission [2].
|
| Ultimately I'm not particularly invested in permitting
| encryption in amateur radio - my personal involvement is
| mostly homebrewing simple equipment - but I'd consider it a
| plus. I doubt it'd displace public participation around
| local repeaters and the existing radio activity.
|
| 1. https://www.arrl.org/about-arrl
|
| 2. Well, if they have an SDR with a wide enough bandwidth
| they can receive spread spectrum communications. And with
| modern SDR's that probably not that rare.
| jjjjmoney wrote:
| The problem with encryption is that it discourages
| interaction between hams (which is already pretty bad,
| tbh). Yes, you're supposed to announce your callsign, but
| my bet is that unsavory characters would take advantage
| of that. I think it's pretty cool to listen in on
| different protocols and see what people are trying out
| (M17 is an excellent example).
|
| FHSS is pretty trivial to "decrypt" these days with an
| SDR.
|
| While you're not wrong about experimentation, I feel like
| ham radio should be focused more on the _radio_ side of
| things rather than encryption implementations.
| Implementing the hardware and software encoding /decoding
| is the hard/fun part (at least to me). Encryption should
| come as a piece of cake after than if you can achieve a
| given bitrate.
|
| And again - there already are bands that allow
| encryption. A couple hundred bucks and a few
| applications, and you're free to go nuts.
|
| And I completely forgot, but ISM bands _do_ allow
| encryption, are free, and there is plenty of hardware out
| there readily available.
| donw wrote:
| I would argue that the behavior of hams discourages
| interaction between hams.
| lrvick wrote:
| What open hardware can legally do any useful (open
| source, auditable, and secure) encrypted voice
| communication at long distance via ISM?
| rsync wrote:
| Yes, please - I would like to see examples of the
| hardware stack that enables this use-case.
|
| Thanks.
| Crunchified wrote:
| I just don't see anything fundamentally unique about an
| encrypted communications stream that would require it to
| be used on the ham bands for 'furthering the radio arts.'
| Any stream being developed or tested for use over the air
| should be able to be effectively tested _in the clear_ as
| allowed by amateur rules. Then further testing
| (incorporating encryption) can be done over internet or
| closed circuits. It seems to me that encryption as such
| is unlikely to have any fundamental effect on the outcome
| of on-air testing.
| lrvick wrote:
| What I am hearing is we should only be permitted to have
| encrypted communication if we are near a cell phone tower
| and pay a corporation the appropriate fees?
| Gracana wrote:
| You can use the ISM bands for free.
| lrvick wrote:
| What open hardware can legally do any useful (open
| source, auditable, and secure) encrypted voice
| communication at long distance via ISM?
| riffic wrote:
| this is such a lid comment to make buddy
| edrxty wrote:
| Ok phonetic phonatic
| fortran77 wrote:
| I've been an Extra since 1978. I love ham radio and I love
| encryption, but I'm against encryption on ham radio for the
| same reason I'm against encryption for radio stations on the
| broadcast bands. It's a limited natural resource and we should
| all get some benefit from it. I should be able to tune around
| the ham bands and listen in.
| dragontamer wrote:
| I'm fairly certain that if you wanted long distance encrypted
| communications, you could just grab a LoRa module today and
| send out some AES-encrypted stuff and no one will bother you.
|
| Isn't the point of the Ham community supposed to be about low-
| tech solutions? I wouldn't quite say they are "preppers", but
| maybe "prepper-adjacent" ?
|
| Leaving some radio frequencies for unencrypted communications
| or Morse code or whatever hams are doing was the point of the
| ham frequencies, right? For encryption, we've got like
| everything else (cell phones, WiFi, etc. etc.)
| RF_Savage wrote:
| Depends on the national regulations. "Furthering the art of
| radio." is mentioned in some of them. So is self-training and
| experimentation.
|
| That can be low tech or something more modern. Good modern
| examples are M17, freeDV, NPR-70 and FT8.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| That's definitely an inflammatory comment and I would applaud
| you more if you put effort into it. But I'll bite.
|
| If encryption were allowed, it should be frequency constrained
| so the majority of the bands were in the open, and non-
| encryption citizens can still listen to the open airwaves.
| lrvick wrote:
| Has there ever been a case of anyone actually being fined for
| using encryption?
|
| It seems this antiquated law is enforced only by chilling
| effect.
|
| Maybe this issue just needs some good old civil disobedience,
| like back when crypto export regulations were skirted by
| printing PGP code in a book.
|
| Also sending of physical mail with privacy has established case
| law for 4th amendment protections. Somehow this does not apply
| when the message does not touch paper?
|
| Given the rule seems rarely, if ever, enforced, and similar
| laws from the same historical justification are already
| repealed, I say just collectively ignore it.
|
| Use encryption openly over radio (otherwise following all
| rules, have callsigns in the clear, etc), and let the FCC
| decide try to justify fining people for exercising their right
| to private corporate-free distance communications to the press.
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| If you want private conversations, use private frequencies.
| If you want a "public square" type of communications, then
| just accept that there's no privacy.
| lxe wrote:
| I can finally CW at my full speed!
| chmaynard wrote:
| Another open issue is the threat to limit amateur radio access to
| the 60-meter band (shared with commercial interests).
|
| https://www.arrl.org/news/deadline-extended-to-november-28-2...
| threemux wrote:
| Well we're not really being kicked off, the FCC is proposing to
| change the allocation to match what was agreed to in WRC-15.
| This page summarizes:
|
| http://arrl.org/60-meter-band
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| The power limit would be 15 W EIRP under that provision. It's
| basically useless to amateurs
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| That's around 10W with a dipole. With some modes (even FT8,
| not just stuff like WSPR), that's enough to reach around
| the globe.
|
| I support less limitiatons for ham radio operators, but 15W
| eirp is really not that useless.
| kloch wrote:
| I always thought it was weird and unnecessary to use EIRP
| power limits on 60m vs transmitter output power (before
| feedline losses and antenna gain) as on every other band.
|
| The TX power limits were primarily driven by
| builder/operator safety - higher power requires higher
| amplifier voltages. If there is a lower requirement for a
| band to avoid interference with shared uses, why not just
| specify a lower power level? Why add a requirement that
| involves antenna and near-field environment modeling?
| baz00 wrote:
| I think that's probably because 5MHz already has shared
| military use in some countries.
|
| Also to remember what I was told: it's a privilege not a right.
| Limitations are to be expected.
| bigallen wrote:
| Doesn't this kind of rub you the wrong way? The government
| telling you "hey, private citizen, we decided we are going to
| manage the EM spectrum, so you'd better follow our rules if
| you want to transmit anything." I understand it's to help
| coordinate everything and make the space better for the
| largest amount of people, but referring to transmitting as a
| privilege, not a right, seems asinine
| mpalmer wrote:
| It's critical infrastructure and it can be abused. What's
| controversial about this?
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| I'd love to hear a description of your utopia with a
| totally unregulated spectrum space.
|
| Or perhaps your thinking is "I wish it was open, and
| everyone just mutually respected it".
|
| Which is great. Everyone agrees. But most people realize
| that their mass mutual collaboration ideas will never work
| by the end of high school. "If we all stopped stealing we
| wouldn't need locks!"
| everforward wrote:
| Great, then you'll have no issue if the government hands
| me the rights to a band around 430 THz then (red visible
| light)? You'll soon forget that you used to be able to
| own red stuff.
| treyd wrote:
| That's very obvious reducto ad absurd. The FCC has a
| clear mandate with regard to radio regulation. Visible
| light is clearly outside that domain.
| everforward wrote:
| Whether the FCC has the authority to regulate visible
| light wasn't particularly the point, though it is an
| interesting question. This article [1] was pretty
| interesting; the Telecommunications Act of 1996 does not
| restrict their authority by medium in several locations.
| If the medium is used for telecommunications, they may
| already have the authority to regulate it. The article in
| question is talking about lasers, but the same thing
| would apply to visible light if it were used for
| telecommunications.
|
| The point I was trying to make is that these are
| practically the same thing just shifted around in
| wavelength. That it's somehow reasonable for the FCC to
| regulate some wavelengths of EM, but "reducto ad absurd"
| to propose that they could regulate others.
|
| I agree, it would be absurd for the FCC to regulate
| visible light. I just think it's also absurd for them to
| plant their flag in another wavelength. I don't think
| anyone can "own" a wavelength anymore than they can own a
| particular level of gravity or voltage.
|
| 1: https://digitalcommons.wcl.american.edu/cgi/viewconten
| t.cgi?...
| carbotaniuman wrote:
| I mean it does feel right for the government to regulate
| visible light? The same way you can't have flashing
| lights on the road or have a massive blinding beacon in
| your backward, you can't yell on the airwaves. I'm sure
| if visible light could be seen from halfway across the
| globe, we would also have that regulated.
| baz00 wrote:
| Asinine is to suggest society does not need rules and
| boundaries.
| throwaway128128 wrote:
| So what sort of symbol rate becomes theoretically possible within
| a HF frequency band?
| hedgehog wrote:
| Potentially around 5Kbps in good conditions. I think it makes
| applications like e-mail over HF a lot more workable.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| I used to dialin to Pine (and Lynx) at 1200bps. If I remember
| correctly, I could read about as fast as the words came to
| screen. If you're just saving for reading later, 5kbps is
| tons for email.
| throwaway128128 wrote:
| It's really hard to do on modern operating systems. Too
| many services that will dogpile a low bandwidth link once
| they see that a network adapter is up.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| TripMode on Mac is supposed to fix this.
| drmpeg wrote:
| MIL-STD-188-110D defines a 38,400 baud modem at 48 kHz
| bandwidth. With 256QAM, the raw data rate is 240 kbps.
|
| Of course, the 2.8 kHz bandwidth rule prohibits that in the ham
| bands. The FCC had originally declined to set a maximum
| bandwidth in their first ruling, but that caused everyone's
| head to explode (and that's one of the reasons this ruling has
| taken so long).
|
| http://tracebase.nmsu.edu/hf/MIL-STD-188-110D.pdf
| MPSimmons wrote:
| >The FCC had originally declined to set a maximum bandwidth
| in their first ruling, but that caused everyone's head to
| explode
|
| I'm ignorant of what the ramifications would be of this - can
| you explain why people would have responded like that?
| drmpeg wrote:
| The HF ham bands aren't very wide. With the exception of 10
| meters, from 50 to 500 kHz wide. Folks (including the ARRL)
| were afraid of abuse. With an SDR, you can generate a
| signal with any bandwidth you desire.
|
| The reason the FCC didn't want to set a limit is because
| it's arbitrary. For example, MIL-STD-188-110D (which is an
| open standard) has a 2400 baud 3.24 kHz mode. But now it's
| illegal.
| RF_Savage wrote:
| You mean, still illegal, as it definitely was more than
| 300baud?
|
| I'd still call this a win. The 300baud limit in USA was
| keeping the whole field behind by preventimg world wide
| adoption of more efficient modems.
| drmpeg wrote:
| Yeah, that wasn't a good choice of words. "It won't be
| allowed even with the new rules." would have been better.
|
| But I agree. Even with the 2.8 kHz limit, it's still a
| big step forward.
| drmpeg wrote:
| Taking the 2.8 kHz bandwidth limit into account, around 2000 to
| 2400 baud depending on the excess bandwidth of the root-raised-
| cosine filter used to shape the signal.
|
| The bandwidth of a single carrier signal is symbol rate * (1 +
| RRC excess bandwidth). A typical excess bandwidth is 0.35, so
| 2000 syms/s * 1.35 = 2700 Hz.
|
| You can use a tighter roll-off, like 0.2. 2400 syms/s * 1.2 =
| 2880 Hz. Unfortunately, the tighter roll-off increases the PAPR
| (Peak to Average Power Ratio) of the transmitted signal.
| hatsunearu wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shannon%E2%80%93Hartley_theore...
|
| This theorem states that the theoretical maximum channel
| capacity ("bandwidth" as measured by bits per second) is
| dependent on analog bandwidth (the other "bandwidth" lol) and
| signal to noise ratio.
|
| Now that's the information theoretical maximum, but stuff like
| QAM as people mentioned, and other more advanced techniques
| like OFDM and "next layer" stuff like FEC can get you very
| close to the theoretical maximum.
| ggm wrote:
| Are you allowed to use phase to double or quadruple the effective
| signal "density" in the bandwidth? Or, is that part of the 2.8khz
| no matter how you "time" it?
|
| (Not a ham. In microwave point to point space, you can usually
| get two customers on a direction by exploring the space around
| the 360 clock for angle/phase of the signal being sent,
| horizontal vs vertical is not uncommon)
| jdiez17 wrote:
| Yes, that's basically Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM).
| You divide the "amplitude vs phase" 2D space into a grid of
| points (typically 4, 8, 16, 32, ...) and assign a code to each.
| That way you can send 2, 3, 4, 5, (...) bits per symbol. Of
| course, the downside is that you need a higher signal to noise
| ratio to resolve which point a symbol represents.
|
| Edit: fixed bits per symbol
| drmpeg wrote:
| 4,8,16,32QAM would correspond to 2,3,4,5 bits per symbol. 16
| bits per symbol would be 65536QAM.
| jdiez17 wrote:
| Ah, of course!
| gorkish wrote:
| What you are describing is antenna polarization, not phase. It
| seems another reply covered phase pretty well, but yes you are
| correct that you can also put more than one signal into the
| same bandwidth - so long as you are able to disambiguate them
| from one another. This can be done generally by 1) sending
| signals at different times but on the same frequency 2) sending
| signals at different frequencies at the same time (multiple
| carriers within the same bandwidth) or 3) sending separate
| signals between separate antennas at the same time and
| frequency. Using antennas with different polarity is a crude
| and simple form of spatial multi access, but as it turns out,
| it's not the only way. This is the trickery behind how sm-ofdm
| / mimo and other spatial modulations multiply their spectral
| efficiency, with current state of the art being around 20 bits
| per second per hz in 8x8 configurations.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| There are a few attempts today to combine polarization with
| QAM to effectively double data rates again without impacting
| SNR. You can have two polarizations of radio waves at any
| time (horizontal + vertical or left-handed + right-handed),
| and each of these polarizations can carry separate QAM-
| modulated data. Supposedly this all also works with MIMO as
| long as you have the appropriate antennas.
| gorkish wrote:
| Spatial division works regardless of whether the antennas
| self interfere; it works better when they don't.
| Overlapping two polarity-isolated qam signals is a good way
| to explain rudimentary spatial multiplexing but the current
| state of the art is way way beyond that, I'm pleased to
| say.
| lxe wrote:
| Yes. I'm pretty sure P25 and DMR are phase modulation modes.
| And nothing (bureaucratic, at least) is preventing experimental
| phase modulation modes from what I understand.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2023-11-15 23:02 UTC)