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> Ham radio can't be used for commercial purposes nor can it carry encrypted content. Operators also have to be licensed which means all of their personal deta

by ColanR 6y ago

> Ham radio can't be used for commercial purposes nor can it carry encrypted content. Operators also have to be licensed which means all of their personal details are on file with the licensing government. If they're caught breaking the bounds of their license it will be revoked and they can personally face fines and even criminal charges. I know that, it's what I was referring to when I was talking about the ability to use HAM radio. It's trivially easy to relay packets over HAM bands right now, given a transciever; the biggest thing preventing fairly wide-spread use is the legality. > the ham bands aren't exactly brimming with available bandwidth Even slow dialup speeds would be nice. I'm thinking of more-or-less direct internet connections between e.g. the US, Europe and Russia, or even just over a few hundred miles. Doesn't have to be fast; the ability to send anything at all over that distance in a direct connection would be an improvement. A wifi mesh can't do that.

giantrobot 6y ago
Lay off the ham stuff. It's not and will never happen. Anything you suggest is just pirate transmissions so go suggest a totally illegal pirate wireless network with no power limits or band plan.
- ColanR 6y ago
  Eh, it might. Would probably rejuvinate the field. There's a lot of advances in digital signal processing that could be applied to those bands. The limitation on encryption would have to be lifted first, and maybe the commercial limitation you mentioned, but that's likely the only thing that would have to be fixed. Overpowered transmissions aren't needed. I don't get why you think I'm suggesting pirate transmissions.
- Snitch-Thursday 6y ago
  I think GP is saying that there would be a sea change IFF 1. there was legal unlicensed radio bandwidth for any radio services that had cognitive radio capabilities (constant frequency hopping, coordinating frequencies with other nodes after negotiating what frequencies, ensuring the radio bandwidth used is only using whitespace or can be empirically proven to not interfere with other radio transmissions) 2. HAM radio bands aren't touched. Some HAMers are grumpy enough about radio licensing dogma / vigilante radio spectrum law enforcement duty, no need to kick the hornets nest of telling them that not only are radio licensing rules changing from the paradigm introduced in the 30s (see point 1) but that it would remove some of their own dwindling radio bands as well.

by ColanR 6y ago

giantrobot 6y ago

Lay off the ham stuff. It's not and will never happen. Anything you suggest is just pirate transmissions so go suggest a totally illegal pirate wireless network with no power limits or band plan.

ColanR 6y ago
Eh, it might. Would probably rejuvinate the field. There's a lot of advances in digital signal processing that could be applied to those bands. The limitation on encryption would have to be lifted first, and maybe the commercial limitation you mentioned, but that's likely the only thing that would have to be fixed. Overpowered transmissions aren't needed. I don't get why you think I'm suggesting pirate transmissions.
Snitch-Thursday 6y ago
I think GP is saying that there would be a sea change IFF 1. there was legal unlicensed radio bandwidth for any radio services that had cognitive radio capabilities (constant frequency hopping, coordinating frequencies with other nodes after negotiating what frequencies, ensuring the radio bandwidth used is only using whitespace or can be empirically proven to not interfere with other radio transmissions) 2. HAM radio bands aren't touched. Some HAMers are grumpy enough about radio licensing dogma / vigilante radio spectrum law enforcement duty, no need to kick the hornets nest of telling them that not only are radio licensing rules changing from the paradigm introduced in the 30s (see point 1) but that it would remove some of their own dwindling radio bands as well.