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I'm curious as to why you would bother with HAM. It used to give you something that wasn't available otherwise, but that hasn't been the case for a very long ti

I'm curious as to why you would bother with HAM. It used to give you something that wasn't available otherwise, but that hasn't been the case for a very long time. There are plenty of ways to communicate with whoever you want, however you want, whenever you want and completely encrypted too! I see a lot of anecdotes of special distaster cases when HAM was the magical solution, but I don't remember normal communications infrastructure not being available for the last 30 years. Perhaps this is more of a thing in sparsely populated countries?

asperous 6y ago
My understanding is that it's a mix between a social club and a tinkering hobby. Just like people who own old motorcycles and tinker with them and join biker gangs. Similar idea
kawfey 6y ago
Because ham radio is fun. It's a different hobby than the other myriad ways of communications which you describe. It's a radio service explicitly dedicated to the personal enjoyment of radio. It is not a personal communication service in the likes of FRS, GMRS, or even part 15 (wifi), microwave, or cellular networks. Think of ham radio as a sandbox for radio experimentation. There is a LOT to ham radio that you've overlooked. It is however unfortunate for many commenters on HN is that encryption is not allowed on amateur spectrum, but it's important that it stays this way. The amateur radio spectrum is worth billions of dollars to the telecom industry, but we've been fortunate to have it protected by the FCC (in the US) and international agreements. If encryption were allowed, there would be no reasonable means of verifying that a communication on ham radio is compliant to its regulations, especially those preventing communications of a pecuniary interest. In other words, encryption would open the doors to telecom companies and other businesses to use amateur spectrum instead of acquiring a license for radio services that would otherwise suit their needs, i.e. an illegal workaround to save money from licensing fees. Encryption also puts a downer on the spirit of ham radio, which is built on random conversations between the technically minded folk on ham radio to share information and knowledge of ham radio itself. You can't drop in on an encrypted conversation. There could be changes to regulations that would mitigate these concerns (for example periodic unencrypted plain text/voice identification, private keys made public and broadly shared, etc), but such changes would be hard to come by, especially blocked by international bureaucratic processes, and a lot of the "old guard" fearful for the state of their hobby were encryption to be allowed. Ham radio also has a broad base of experienced communications volunteers, which comes in handy during earthquakes, hurricanes, rural/remote search and rescue, in which the amateur service supplants ruined communications infrastructure while telecommunications companies and governments mobilize their recovery efforts. Examples include 9/11, Hurricanes Katrina, Maria, Irma, Andrew, and more, numerous fires in the west US, earthquakes of Haiti, Iran, China, and Indonesia; and even plays a role in ground-truth tornado spotting and tracking.
- oneplane 6y ago
  So it's a hobby for people who are already working with unencrypted radio?
jdietrich 6y ago
Why do people buy vinyl records or ride horses? There's something completely magical about making an inter-continental contact with 5 watts and a wire in a tree, or bouncing your voice off an amateur-built satellite with a handheld yagi. There's an eerie beauty to the atmospherics on the HF band, the music of signal emerging from the noise. The anticipation of the dah-dit-dah-dit dah-dah-dit-dah of a CQ call, the excitement when a rare callsign weakly breaks through, the frenzied pile-up of operators jostling to get their QSL. The bizarre geopolitical madness of 7055kHz. Hardly anyone needs to use amateur radio, but it can be a tremendous amount of fun. http://websdr.ewi.utwente.nl:8901/ http://websdr.ewi.utwente.nl:8901/
- justusthane 6y ago
  Thanks for linking, this is a fantastic taste of SDR!
nucleardog 6y ago
> I see a lot of anecdotes of special distaster cases when HAM was the magical solution, but I don't remember normal communications infrastructure not being available for the last 30 years. Perhaps this is more of a thing in sparsely populated countries? I'm in North America somewhere densely populated that you could reasonably expect a massive earthquake to hit. Nobody realistically expects that this will be an issue any time soon. It hasn't been in the past 30 years, and hopefully won't be for the next 30. The government here _does_ prepare for it because it would be irresponsible not to. It's at the same level as maintaining a stockpile of medical supplies to prepare for a one-in-a-hundred year pandemic. Looks silly until it doesn't and tens or hundreds of thousands of people die following a disaster due to a lack of preparedness. And in this case, "preparing" is basically letting a bunch of volunteers provide these services largely for free. I volunteer with an organization that is integrated into the disaster response planning at multiple levels of government and with the local police. The group spends a lot of time building out and maintaining backup communication infrastructure throughout the area as an integrated part of the emergency response plans. Not just with amateur radio, but with satellite phones, the police radio systems, some of the regional backup radio systems the government maintains, some of the city departments' independent radio systems, etc. We're tied into it all. There's another group here that maintains a microwave link from within the city to 250 miles outside of it that provides communication outside of the potentially impacted area. Our systems are the _only_ point to point communication systems left in the city as far as I know. Every city radio relies on a repeater or system of repeaters. The police radios are all cells with a physical back haul between sites. We have systems tied in at most main city services, community centers, the regional staging areas, etc and plans for how to get the appropriate information where it needs to go and people trained to do so if it ever needs to be turned on. The tie-ins with the other radio systems at points throughout the city allow us to act as a backup route if for some reason part becomes segmented and direct communication isn't possible. No matter how bad the physical damage, our system will be working as long as there are people still alive. Some people volunteer at a soup kitchen or animal shelter. Myself and a couple hundred others use our technical skills volunteering to maintain a resilient communication backbone for the community. And I mean... it's fun?

asperous 6y ago

My understanding is that it's a mix between a social club and a tinkering hobby. Just like people who own old motorcycles and tinker with them and join biker gangs. Similar idea

kawfey 6y ago

Because ham radio is fun. It's a different hobby than the other myriad ways of communications which you describe. It's a radio service explicitly dedicated to the personal enjoyment of radio. It is not a personal communication service in the likes of FRS, GMRS, or even part 15 (wifi), microwave, or cellular networks. Think of ham radio as a sandbox for radio experimentation. There is a LOT to ham radio that you've overlooked. It is however unfortunate for many commenters on HN is that encryption is not allowed on amateur spectrum, but it's important that it stays this way. The amateur radio spectrum is worth billions of dollars to the telecom industry, but we've been fortunate to have it protected by the FCC (in the US) and international agreements. If encryption were allowed, there would be no reasonable means of verifying that a communication on ham radio is compliant to its regulations, especially those preventing communications of a pecuniary interest. In other words, encryption would open the doors to telecom companies and other businesses to use amateur spectrum instead of acquiring a license for radio services that would otherwise suit their needs, i.e. an illegal workaround to save money from licensing fees. Encryption also puts a downer on the spirit of ham radio, which is built on random conversations between the technically minded folk on ham radio to share information and knowledge of ham radio itself. You can't drop in on an encrypted conversation. There could be changes to regulations that would mitigate these concerns (for example periodic unencrypted plain text/voice identification, private keys made public and broadly shared, etc), but such changes would be hard to come by, especially blocked by international bureaucratic processes, and a lot of the "old guard" fearful for the state of their hobby were encryption to be allowed. Ham radio also has a broad base of experienced communications volunteers, which comes in handy during earthquakes, hurricanes, rural/remote search and rescue, in which the amateur service supplants ruined communications infrastructure while telecommunications companies and governments mobilize their recovery efforts. Examples include 9/11, Hurricanes Katrina, Maria, Irma, Andrew, and more, numerous fires in the west US, earthquakes of Haiti, Iran, China, and Indonesia; and even plays a role in ground-truth tornado spotting and tracking.

oneplane 6y ago
So it's a hobby for people who are already working with unencrypted radio?

jdietrich 6y ago

Why do people buy vinyl records or ride horses? There's something completely magical about making an inter-continental contact with 5 watts and a wire in a tree, or bouncing your voice off an amateur-built satellite with a handheld yagi. There's an eerie beauty to the atmospherics on the HF band, the music of signal emerging from the noise. The anticipation of the dah-dit-dah-dit dah-dah-dit-dah of a CQ call, the excitement when a rare callsign weakly breaks through, the frenzied pile-up of operators jostling to get their QSL. The bizarre geopolitical madness of 7055kHz. Hardly anyone needs to use amateur radio, but it can be a tremendous amount of fun. http://websdr.ewi.utwente.nl:8901/ http://websdr.ewi.utwente.nl:8901/

justusthane 6y ago
Thanks for linking, this is a fantastic taste of SDR!

nucleardog 6y ago

> I see a lot of anecdotes of special distaster cases when HAM was the magical solution, but I don't remember normal communications infrastructure not being available for the last 30 years. Perhaps this is more of a thing in sparsely populated countries? I'm in North America somewhere densely populated that you could reasonably expect a massive earthquake to hit. Nobody realistically expects that this will be an issue any time soon. It hasn't been in the past 30 years, and hopefully won't be for the next 30. The government here _does_ prepare for it because it would be irresponsible not to. It's at the same level as maintaining a stockpile of medical supplies to prepare for a one-in-a-hundred year pandemic. Looks silly until it doesn't and tens or hundreds of thousands of people die following a disaster due to a lack of preparedness. And in this case, "preparing" is basically letting a bunch of volunteers provide these services largely for free. I volunteer with an organization that is integrated into the disaster response planning at multiple levels of government and with the local police. The group spends a lot of time building out and maintaining backup communication infrastructure throughout the area as an integrated part of the emergency response plans. Not just with amateur radio, but with satellite phones, the police radio systems, some of the regional backup radio systems the government maintains, some of the city departments' independent radio systems, etc. We're tied into it all. There's another group here that maintains a microwave link from within the city to 250 miles outside of it that provides communication outside of the potentially impacted area. Our systems are the _only_ point to point communication systems left in the city as far as I know. Every city radio relies on a repeater or system of repeaters. The police radios are all cells with a physical back haul between sites. We have systems tied in at most main city services, community centers, the regional staging areas, etc and plans for how to get the appropriate information where it needs to go and people trained to do so if it ever needs to be turned on. The tie-ins with the other radio systems at points throughout the city allow us to act as a backup route if for some reason part becomes segmented and direct communication isn't possible. No matter how bad the physical damage, our system will be working as long as there are people still alive. Some people volunteer at a soup kitchen or animal shelter. Myself and a couple hundred others use our technical skills volunteering to maintain a resilient communication backbone for the community. And I mean... it's fun?