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This is it exactly. You may not try to hide the information that you transmit, but you sure as hell can make it obscure as fuck. Just imagine the fictional co

This is it exactly. You may not try to hide the information that you transmit, but you sure as hell can make it obscure as fuck. Just imagine the fictional conversation: FCC/CRTC: On July the 1st at 14:00 you transmitted an undecipherable message on 28MHz. Amateur Radio operator: I used y-modem protocol to transmit an image using 7P1 (7bits Parity 1 Stop bit). FCC/CRTC: but's that's stupid! Nobody has used that in 40 years! AMO: But it wasn't encrypted. Good bye.

kawfey 6y ago
This video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIyckKhZrpA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIyckKhZrpA) has a few good points on having private conversations via that don't "obscure the message" via ham radio, namely: - Use rare/odd frequencies that are hard to access with commercial off the shelf gear - use esoteric modes and modulations (like you mention)
siberianbear 6y ago
Is this a thought experiment, or does the FCC really do this? It's hard for me to imagine that they have an army of radio engineers to go looking at all signals, figuring out which ones are "undecipherable", physically identifying the transmit locations and then determining who did it.
- jki275 6y ago
  hams do it. The entire culture works hard to weed out anybody that doesn't follow the rules. If you do something you're not supposed to, there's a good chance someone will figure it out and report you. Foxhunting is a sport for them.
- kayfox 6y ago
  Undecipherable signals in strange places present an interesting challenge that the ham radio community does rise to explore. During the cold war ham radio operators spent years analyzing and characterizing over the horizon radar systems (The Woodpecker) and other strange signals like numbers stations. Its especially common these days with the advent of software defined radio, spectral displays and large amounts of storage for operators to come across a strange transmission and record it for further analysis, often posting in forums and sending the recordings to other people for them to try and analyze it. And some times those recordings are sent to the FCC and the FCC sends out strongly worded letters. If it really gets bad, the FCC will act and IIRC they average about 20~50 or so fines a year.

kawfey 6y ago

This video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIyckKhZrpA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIyckKhZrpA) has a few good points on having private conversations via that don't "obscure the message" via ham radio, namely: - Use rare/odd frequencies that are hard to access with commercial off the shelf gear - use esoteric modes and modulations (like you mention)

siberianbear 6y ago

Is this a thought experiment, or does the FCC really do this? It's hard for me to imagine that they have an army of radio engineers to go looking at all signals, figuring out which ones are "undecipherable", physically identifying the transmit locations and then determining who did it.

jki275 6y ago
hams do it. The entire culture works hard to weed out anybody that doesn't follow the rules. If you do something you're not supposed to, there's a good chance someone will figure it out and report you. Foxhunting is a sport for them.
kayfox 6y ago
Undecipherable signals in strange places present an interesting challenge that the ham radio community does rise to explore. During the cold war ham radio operators spent years analyzing and characterizing over the horizon radar systems (The Woodpecker) and other strange signals like numbers stations. Its especially common these days with the advent of software defined radio, spectral displays and large amounts of storage for operators to come across a strange transmission and record it for further analysis, often posting in forums and sending the recordings to other people for them to try and analyze it. And some times those recordings are sent to the FCC and the FCC sends out strongly worded letters. If it really gets bad, the FCC will act and IIRC they average about 20~50 or so fines a year.