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Amateur radio skills prove useful during bushfire emergencies
- softwaredoug 7y agoSomething about tech I learned when I worked on container ship autopilots: always have a manual failover! The highest layer of abstraction invariably fails due to its complexity and you’ll need to be able to use the next layer down the stack... all the way to rudder control by hand.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- falcolas 7y agoThis is particularly amusing to me, after the “amateur radio is obsolete” sentiment expressed by the general public and FCC when a portion of the spectrum was scheduled to be reallocated to unlicensed commercial use last year. Raw voice, or even morse code, will always have value in emergencies; but it’s easy to forget and ignore that when everything is calm. EDIT: Clarified that the bands were not sold, but up for re-allocation for commercial use.
- HenryKissinger 7y agoI'd like to learn Morse, but I'm concerned that my skills would quickly atrophy if I stopped practicing.
- falcolas 7y agoThankfully, there’s lots of practice options, including a number of apps. Here’s the one I’ve used for years now: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/morse-it/id284942940 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/morse-it/id284942940
- HenryKissinger 7y agoI'm on Android. Morse Mania looks decent.
- jimhefferon 7y agoLearing is not too hard. It took me about a month of drilling while I was walking to work to learn the letters and digits well enough to do 5 wpm (which basically means that you have memorized them). Are you interested in keeping them up? Morse on the air can be fun, and a not too expensive hobby.
- wglb 7y agoMy experience as well. And one hour on the air each day led to a 5 wpm increase each month for several months.
- Stratoscope 7y agoYou may already know this, but for anyone else reading, Morse code is no longer a requirement for any amateur license in the US. (I don't know about other countries.) It still can be a useful skill - and fun when you get into it - but there is a lot you can do in ham radio without Morse.
- parvenu74 7y agoIs there such a thing as a straight key or paddle (iambic?) key that connects to a USB interface? The amount of bandwidth required to conduct a CW QSO via the internet would be far less than a VoIP call. A Morse code chat program would make for an interesting Show HN project.
- gh02t 7y agoYes. https://hackaday.com/2017/10/03/a-vintage-morse-key-turned-into-usb-keyboard/ https://hackaday.com/2017/10/03/a-vintage-morse-key-turned-i... There are others. Making one to your own spec is actually pretty easy with an Arduino.
- dsd 7y agohttps://hamprojects.info/mortty/ https://hamprojects.info/mortty/
- Johnny555 7y agoYou probably already know this, but for the information for anyone else interested in becoming a Ham, you don't need to learn Morse to get an amateur radio license - that requirement was dropped in 2007. In all of the disaster drills or other ham volunteer events I've participated in (like providing radio support for a race in an area with little cell phone coverage), Morse was not even a part of it -- it was all VHF/UHF voice communication. That's not to say that morse is useless or completely unused, but don't feel that you have to learn it to become a ham.
- missosoup 7y agoAlso there are morse modem apps you can get on the smartphone and just put it next to your radio. It's a non-issue these days.
- HenryKissinger 7y agoI don't really care if it's not a formal requirement. At least I can flex on my friends :)
- melling 7y agoI think Morse code was dropped in the 1990s. I got a license without Morse code back then. Never really use it though. I always thought packet radio might be interesting, but no one in my local group was interested. Did it ever become popular.
- splintercell 7y ago- install Google keyboard - use the Morse code Tasker plugin to read your messages to you using morse code vibrations
- ChuckMcM 7y agoUse a Morse code email reader :-). I started implementing an Android "Morse" keyboard widget but gave up realizing how deeply into Android I was going to have to go to make it do what I wanted. My plan was to use the accelorometer to read the finger taps so that I could send texts by tapping my phone while it was upside down on the table next to me.
- lonelappde 7y agoGmail Tap gmail.com/mail/help/promos/tap/
- ChuckMcM 7y agoOkay, that is just hilarious.
- rmason 7y agoWhen I was in the ham club at Michigan State knew a student who built a code reader for his Masters. He wrote the code for the university's IBM 360, inputting it with punch cards. My memory is that it worked quite well. Now you can get one that runs on your cell phone, that's progress!
- ChuckMcM 7y agoI've got a Morse code decoder and encoder running on a Rasberry Pi, it both sends the ident for my WSPR beacon and records contacts of other beacons. It does better on non-human encoded Morse which is more consistent than a human but still does pretty well.
- kawfey 7y agoI'm learning morse code, and I stream my lessons daily on Youtube [0] and twitch [1] using LCWO [2]. It just takes 10 minutes a day, and if you leave it it's incredibly easy to pick up again, just like riding a bike. [0] https://youtube.com/c/n0ssc https://youtube.com/c/n0ssc [1] https://twitch.tv/kawfey https://twitch.tv/kawfey [2] https://lcwo.net/ https://lcwo.net/
- chipperyman573 7y agoRe allocated for unlicensed commercial use = more airspace where wifi- and bluetooth-type protocols can exist?
- jedimastert 7y ago> Re allocated for unlicensed commercial use = more airspace where wifi- and bluetooth-type protocols can exist? No, they were gonna be used for some sort of drone company in France.
- detaro 7y agoIt wasn't been planned for unlicensed commercial use, and the 2m band is quite useless for "wifi- and bluetooth-type" things.
- rado 7y agoProgressive enhancement
- Dicey84 7y agoThis redundancy and skill set is paramount. In a past life as a Police officer in a very remote and isolated town, we had a fibre cable severed which took out all telecommunications (fixed/internet/wireless - the works). Besides myself, not a single office knew how to work the HF radio, which was our only lifeline to the outside world thanks to a broken sat phone. Moral of the story is don't get complacent and forget how to use old tech, when the unexpected wipes out modern methods.
- jstummbillig 7y agoWhile you make a good case for radio, there have to be cut-off points, at which techniques must be considered obsolete, not to burden educational systems and students unnecessarily in perpetuity. While having the skill is a 1 or a 0 (either you know how to use a radio with some proficiency or you do not) the use cases for older/simpler technology get fewer and fewer gradually. At which point can a system no longer afford to support technique x? Of course, it depends on the system but you are probably not going to wait before the probability hits 0 if you care even slightly about being efficient – but it's never an easy call to make.
- mrspeaker 7y agoOf course that's true - we probably don't need to start re-teaching the abacus... but I'm careful about getting too complacent. When everything has been going well for a long time it's tempting to think this will continue forever. But one, say, global pandemic can bring everything down - and some of our modern conveniences can be gone... possibly for centuries. An interesting (programming) talk by Jonathan Blow on the subject of losing knowledge! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pW-SOdj4Kkk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pW-SOdj4Kkk
- jstummbillig 7y agoWell, yes, a big enough global pandemic can derail a lot of our current systems. That is exactly where it gets problematic to me: To what extent is what kind of crisis a reasonable scenario that has to be taken into consideration? Is it reasonable to widely prepare people for a civilization ending pandemic? A meteor impact? And to what extent? The potential costs are limitless (both in money and in lifetime because you can never be too prepared), the potential benefit is absolute, the risk (when assessing by statistical impact on total human lifes so far) very low. How do you possibly weigh such things?
- Fricken 7y agoWhen I was a bicycle messenger 13 years we used two way radios, celphones weren't reliable enough. They still use two-way radios out there today. When it's clear that civilization is going to collapse, I'll figure out how to use grampa's old ham radio equipment.
- adrianpike 7y agoYou might want to do it early - it's so much easier to learn with the wealth of the internet to help you. I'm a huge fan of https://hamstudy.org/ https://hamstudy.org/, I've gone from zero to making my own gear and playing a lot with gnuradio in a little bit of time. It's really fun stuff. :)
- flashman 7y agoOne of the issues around amateur radio operators is their age. I have a friend who, at 55, was the youngest member of his local ham radio club. It's just not a hobby many people pick up any more.
- vvanders 7y agoEnrollment is up but it's not clear how many actually engage with local clubs. Age and gatekeeping is definitely an issue. It would be nice to see more focus on SDRs, GNURadio and things that connect more with a wider crowd.
- parvenu74 7y agoA lot of the gatekeeping and lack of interest in SDR, GNURadio, etc is from the older HAMs. Having local clubs with upper age limits of 45 or so might encourage more digital experimentation and openness to the kinds of innovation that used to go hand-in-hand with amateur radio clubs.
- ajdlinux 7y agoA friend of mine who's in his mid-20s works at an infosec firm where he and quite a few of his colleagues have recently obtained ham licences. They went along and tried to engage the local club. They gave up and now refuse to deal with them. He suggested to me that either someone needs to start a digital-only club, or, as recently happened with our overarching national body, someone needs to intervene and take over the club to keep it relevant.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- Johnny555 7y agoHow capable are the satellite communication devices (Iridium, Inmarsat, etc) in a disaster? Do the satellites get overloaded easily? They aren't that expensive any more, you can get a phone for around $500 and basic plan for $50/month. Or you can get a satellite communicator (mostly meant for hiking in the backcountry) that can only send an SOS message or text message for ~$300 for the device and as little as $12/month for a basic plan with a few SMS's included.
- closeparen 7y agoAlways on party line PTT is a very different thing from PSTN voice calling, although some satellite networks do offer the former. PTT is indispensable in a real-time group coordination scenario, but can’t support in depth conversations or (usually) long distances. You want both. It’s also basically impossible to receive a call on a handheld sat phone unless you schedule a time to be pointing the antenna at the sky.
- tspike 7y agoDoes smoke interfere with operation? Is a clear line of sight to the sky required?
- dav43 7y agoSeperate but related, I hope it draws attention to the fact that FM receivers should be a legal requirement in mobile phones. Even if just for emergency purposes
- peckrob 7y agoI live in an area [0] prone to severe weather and especially violent tornadoes. The local Skywarn [1] repeater is probably the best source of immediate first-hand information when things get bad. There's usually at least a few storm chasers out following the storms, and reports from various places in the area help you get a real feel for how bad a particular storm is. Moreover, the repeater is monitored by all of the local TV and radio stations as well as the city EMA (Emergency Management) and the local National Weather Service office. I'm not licensed (yet, it's on my to-do list for this year), but I still have a small handheld that I tune in whenever the weather is bad. Ham radio is still very much alive. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dixie_Alley https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dixie_Alley [1] https://www.weather.gov/SKYWARN https://www.weather.gov/SKYWARN
- swalberg 7y agoSince you're planning far ahead for the exam, have a look at writing both Technician and General in the same session. I took (just) my Tech a few months ago and several people at the session did both. After studying for General I'm kicking myself for not doing it myself. There's a lot of overlap and a lot of it is pretty intuitive if you have a science background.
- smabie 7y agoWhat happens if you use the ham radio without taking the test? Like, what’s the point of this whole system?
- JshWright 7y agoYou run the risk of getting fined by the FCC (and having your equipment confiscated).
- brians 7y agoYeah, and you also run the risk of breaking something important: your neighbor’s circuit breaker, or a nearby hospital pager system, for example. Power tools require care; you could know how to use them without the license, but if you do know how the license is $15 and an easy evening test.
- thisrod 7y agoI admire the WICEN volunteers. Sending messages across oceans with a AAA battery is not easy, and a community will only need to do that once in anyone's lifetime. But, on rare occasions like the Indian Ocean tsunami, when a continental-scale catastrophe destroys whatever didn't fit in anyone's pocket, that capability is really useful to have. You have to respect the people who keep organising to make it available through the decades where nothing happens, and organise effectively enough that things work when they need to.
- dsd 7y agoRadio is very decentralized. I wonder if that could be a nice avenue for modernizing the hobby.
- dsd 7y agoI feel like amateur radio is dying not because it's old, but because regulation blocks it from staying new.
- metaphor 7y ago> ...regulation blocks it from staying new. What do you mean?
- testis321 7y agoNah... it's just that we've got flashy new devices to communicate with, and "noone" cares about the old ones. The same thing is happening to every other tech, from IRC to SMS.
- ken 7y agoI’m pretty sure the Ragnar Relay uses ham radio volunteers to call in finishers. I don’t know if there’s any technical reason for it.
- 3fe9a03ccd14ca5 7y agoIt’s amusing to me when they market 5G network like it’s going to be a big help to emergency workers. They even have a scene of firefighters battling a forest fire. 5g has a range of 1000 feet in perfect conditions. Nobody is going to be using it in a forest fire, unlike amateur radio and HAM.
- hdkwowjdj 7y ago5G New Radio (the 5G physical layer) adds a couple of high frequency, low range bands to the game. But low-frequency, high-range bands are available with 5G, too. It's a matter of policy and deployment strategy if you use these bands for 4G, 5G wide area coverage. Some countries will continue having 2G on these Higher range bands. Others will re-use the bands for 5G. So far, it's about public networks. You can use network technologies like 5G to roll your own network, too. The vendors market turn-key solutions for emergency services, e.g. a basestation on top of the firefighters truck.
- testis321 7y ago5G works perfectly fine on same long distances as 2G/3G/4G did. But it adds a dedicated frequency range for emergency services, so when shit hits the fan, and everybody is calling everybody, the emergency workers can still communicate. Compared to TETRA, pretty much everything is an upgrade.
- simonblack 7y agoso when shit hits the fan .... ... the infrastructure that mobile phones and the internet depend on, will be non-operational. It's 'wonderful' having a laptop or mobile phone when those things have nothing to connect to. Spend a bit of time in places where your phone says 'no coverage' and you'll understand just what a great paper-weight it can be. <grin>
- Dylan16807 7y agoSo it becomes merely a PDA taped to an iPod. That's still pretty good.
- ngcc_hk 7y agoThe story about nasa and Russian Mir with The 80 years old ham radio operator Is good.
- kawfey 7y agoHam radio volunteer and emergency communications is an awesome way to serve the community. It's also 99% of the reason why I got into electrical engineering and landed in the career I'm in. It's still a fun and technically relevant STEM hobby. de NØSSC