4 ms·

Yes! I'm totally 100% on board with this as a secondary data/telemetry mechanism. For all the open source software out there it's a tragedy that there's less

Yes! I'm totally 100% on board with this as a secondary data/telemetry mechanism. For all the open source software out there it's a tragedy that there's less of that culture in ham radio(which is one of the primary charters of the spectrum-carve out we have). Stuff like this and the M17 project give me hope that we might some day have something more than just the dumb AX25 packet radios(which are stuck in the 80s at 1200bps and zero FEC).

bsder 6y ago
> Stuff like this and the M17 project give me hope that we might some day have something more than just the dumb AX25 packet radios(which are stuck in the 80s at 1200bps and zero FEC). Isn't there some weird regulation about "non-decipherable" communication holding back usage of Ham bands?
- adrianpike 6y ago
  Wasn't able to reply when I first saw this, I think because it was too new a comment - posted a long-winded reply as a sibling though, but generally it's not a matter of regulation, just a matter of interested and skilled parties willing to donate their time.
- vvanders 6y ago
  Not really, as long as you publish a spec and it isn't encrypted(except for some really rare satellite control use cases) it's fair game. The really annoying one is they put symbol rate into law instead of bandwidth so we'll never see above 9.6kpbs in the VHF bands(there was a petition a while back to repeal it but from what I recall a bunch of HF folks though it was going to cause chaos across the bands and I don't think it went anywhere).
adrianpike 6y ago
Not able to reply to the sibling comment from bsder, but yes, encryption is forbidden in the ham bands. What vvanders is talking about, and it's a massive point of frustration for me too, is that all of the layer 2 open standards that have actual use are ancient. Like, we're supposed to feel lucky that we whave ARQ. Ridiculous. It's not really anything to do with encryption or indecipherability, but all about spectral efficiency, and most of that really comes down to coding. I can pop open fldigi and generate a 64QAM signal really easily, but actually coding the data to ship over that pipe starts getting into some pretty arcane territory. Think about just how good a modern cellphone is - 100+ megabit connection in the palm of your hand, competing for spectrum with hundreds or thousands of other devices, with a handset power of less than 1 watt (usually). There's nothing inherently magical about it, it's just not something that there's a lot of FOSS work around. I've been working on deep diving on this a lot lately, I really think there should be more open source libraries around coding, but I have a funny feeling anyone who gets good at this gets snatched up by someone in the 3GPP consortium.

bsder 6y ago

> Stuff like this and the M17 project give me hope that we might some day have something more than just the dumb AX25 packet radios(which are stuck in the 80s at 1200bps and zero FEC). Isn't there some weird regulation about "non-decipherable" communication holding back usage of Ham bands?

adrianpike 6y ago
Wasn't able to reply when I first saw this, I think because it was too new a comment - posted a long-winded reply as a sibling though, but generally it's not a matter of regulation, just a matter of interested and skilled parties willing to donate their time.
vvanders 6y ago
Not really, as long as you publish a spec and it isn't encrypted(except for some really rare satellite control use cases) it's fair game. The really annoying one is they put symbol rate into law instead of bandwidth so we'll never see above 9.6kpbs in the VHF bands(there was a petition a while back to repeal it but from what I recall a bunch of HF folks though it was going to cause chaos across the bands and I don't think it went anywhere).

adrianpike 6y ago

Not able to reply to the sibling comment from bsder, but yes, encryption is forbidden in the ham bands. What vvanders is talking about, and it's a massive point of frustration for me too, is that all of the layer 2 open standards that have actual use are ancient. Like, we're supposed to feel lucky that we whave ARQ. Ridiculous. It's not really anything to do with encryption or indecipherability, but all about spectral efficiency, and most of that really comes down to coding. I can pop open fldigi and generate a 64QAM signal really easily, but actually coding the data to ship over that pipe starts getting into some pretty arcane territory. Think about just how good a modern cellphone is - 100+ megabit connection in the palm of your hand, competing for spectrum with hundreds or thousands of other devices, with a handset power of less than 1 watt (usually). There's nothing inherently magical about it, it's just not something that there's a lot of FOSS work around. I've been working on deep diving on this a lot lately, I really think there should be more open source libraries around coding, but I have a funny feeling anyone who gets good at this gets snatched up by someone in the 3GPP consortium.