6 ms·

Where I used to live no one plowed the road so every time it snowed my dad to drive his bobcat (he's one of those tech workers that owns machinery "for fun") do

by swiley 6y ago

Where I used to live no one plowed the road so every time it snowed my dad to drive his bobcat (he's one of those tech workers that owns machinery "for fun") down an hilly icy road with huge ravines on each side and no cell signal. After we both got our HAM license he would carry one of these cheap 2m handhelds with him and could check in with us every so many minutes. They work way better than FRS radios (much more power, longer antennas, more bandwidth (FRS is almost unintelligible by comparison.)) Some people feel like HAM has no practical use outside of emergencies but there are definitely places where the owners of the spectrum have failed to build the infrastructure needed to use it.

jasonwatkinspdx 6y ago
HAM is still a very necessary tool for keeping in contact in the mountains and such. When I was younger I did some SCCA rally events. Those events would be impossible without the volunteer HAM operators that show up and set up temporary relays on a couple of the biggest foothills in the race area. Cell coverage is just too spotty, and satcom stuff is just too expensive. My understanding is that search and rescue uses the same approach for the same reasons.
- thangalin 6y ago
  > HAM is still a very necessary tool for keeping in contact in the mountains and such. Depends on the location. The company I work for produces a mountain-top repeater[0] series. Hundreds of them are distributed throughout the Rocky Mountains in British Columbia, providing an expansive coverage for handheld devices. If you're curious about what an installation site looks like atop a mountain, check out pages 38-39 in an older product guide[1]. [0]: https://codancomms.com/products/mt-4e-series https://codancomms.com/products/mt-4e-series [1]: https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/read/38724760/land-mobile-radio-system-training-and-design-guide-daniels- https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/read/38724760/land-mobile-...
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - imwillofficial 6y ago
    This is cool! Thanks for sharing!
  - mleonhard 6y ago
    NSFW WARNING: The link [1] above (yumpu.com) is showing an ad with topless women over the document.
    - kwhitefoot 6y ago
      Not when I looked :-( :-) Perhaps you should install UBlock origin.
    - thangalin 6y ago
      Oof! Thank you for pointing that out. I'll check into why this file isn't on our public CDN and why a spam site has our document. Meanwhile, a few safer links: * https://caraham.org/resources/Documents/Learning%20Conference%202013/Codan%20-%20Daniels/Daniels_TG-002-2-0-0%20Radio%20System%20Design_red-v10.pdf https://caraham.org/resources/Documents/Learning%20Conferenc... - page 37 in the PDF (29 in the document) shows various radio towers atop of mountains * https://cdn.codancomms.com/general-downloads/Products/User-Guides/Codan_TG-003-1-0-0-Radio-Basics-Training-Guide.pdf https://cdn.codancomms.com/general-downloads/Products/User-G... - overview of radio communications fundamentals
rsync 6y ago
"Some people feel like HAM has no practical use outside of emergencies but there are definitely places where the owners of the spectrum have failed to build the infrastructure needed to use it." I keep reading about all of these very interesting protocols for texting over HAM radio ... and a lot of them seem very promising. My next step is to survey the landscape of devices that could be used to actually send and receive these text messages ... and there are none. Am I mistaken ? Does there exist a handheld radio that can be used to send and receive text messages over one of these HAM protocols ?
- swiley 6y ago
  lots of people are using a PC or phone running the software and either connecting that to a radio via the line-out port or using an SDR.
- 177tcca 6y ago
  Are we done caring about the restriction on encryption? I'm down.
  - throwaway3neu94 6y ago
    No, we aren't and we like it the way it is. The last thing ham radio needs is corporations just taking our bands, or ham radio getting banned in unstable countries over espionage concerns. If you want encryption, use a cellphone, LoRaWAN etc.
    - 177tcca 6y ago
      But...there's tons of projects already in use which use protocols that, if the regulatory body isn't following every open source project & actively updating their intake tools, effectively act as encryption schema.
      - throwaway3neu94 6y ago
        Could you give me an example or two so I can better understand what you mean? You're not entirely wrong, an undocumented plaintext protocol is functionally not much different from encryption. However, those which are legitimate (ie, just undocumented, not intentionally encrypted/obfuscated) don't tend to cause problems as only one or few ham devs would be using them. They can only get widespread adoption by other hams if they are documented. So this regulates itself. A corporation, on the other hand, is not like some ham dev coming up with their own protocol. They can design their own protocol, and then roll it out on thousands (or much more) of transmitters. So just one corporation can cause quite a big problem, with zero public documentation. The laws as they are, together with direction finding skills, are the communities only (legal) tool to defend against that. That does not mean hams don't see the value in encryption. I do! But it's a trade-off, and I think this is the only way it can work. The legal change I would like to see is explicitly allowing cryptographic signatures. Right now it's a grey area (likely legal, but not court tested)

by swiley 6y ago

jasonwatkinspdx 6y ago

HAM is still a very necessary tool for keeping in contact in the mountains and such. When I was younger I did some SCCA rally events. Those events would be impossible without the volunteer HAM operators that show up and set up temporary relays on a couple of the biggest foothills in the race area. Cell coverage is just too spotty, and satcom stuff is just too expensive. My understanding is that search and rescue uses the same approach for the same reasons.

thangalin 6y ago
> HAM is still a very necessary tool for keeping in contact in the mountains and such. Depends on the location. The company I work for produces a mountain-top repeater[0] series. Hundreds of them are distributed throughout the Rocky Mountains in British Columbia, providing an expansive coverage for handheld devices. If you're curious about what an installation site looks like atop a mountain, check out pages 38-39 in an older product guide[1]. [0]: https://codancomms.com/products/mt-4e-series https://codancomms.com/products/mt-4e-series [1]: https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/read/38724760/land-mobile-radio-system-training-and-design-guide-daniels- https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/read/38724760/land-mobile-...
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- imwillofficial 6y ago
  This is cool! Thanks for sharing!
- mleonhard 6y ago
  NSFW WARNING: The link [1] above (yumpu.com) is showing an ad with topless women over the document.
  - kwhitefoot 6y ago
    Not when I looked :-( :-) Perhaps you should install UBlock origin.
  - thangalin 6y ago
    Oof! Thank you for pointing that out. I'll check into why this file isn't on our public CDN and why a spam site has our document. Meanwhile, a few safer links: * https://caraham.org/resources/Documents/Learning%20Conference%202013/Codan%20-%20Daniels/Daniels_TG-002-2-0-0%20Radio%20System%20Design_red-v10.pdf https://caraham.org/resources/Documents/Learning%20Conferenc... - page 37 in the PDF (29 in the document) shows various radio towers atop of mountains * https://cdn.codancomms.com/general-downloads/Products/User-Guides/Codan_TG-003-1-0-0-Radio-Basics-Training-Guide.pdf https://cdn.codancomms.com/general-downloads/Products/User-G... - overview of radio communications fundamentals

rsync 6y ago

"Some people feel like HAM has no practical use outside of emergencies but there are definitely places where the owners of the spectrum have failed to build the infrastructure needed to use it." I keep reading about all of these very interesting protocols for texting over HAM radio ... and a lot of them seem very promising. My next step is to survey the landscape of devices that could be used to actually send and receive these text messages ... and there are none. Am I mistaken ? Does there exist a handheld radio that can be used to send and receive text messages over one of these HAM protocols ?

swiley 6y ago
lots of people are using a PC or phone running the software and either connecting that to a radio via the line-out port or using an SDR.
177tcca 6y ago
Are we done caring about the restriction on encryption? I'm down.
- throwaway3neu94 6y ago
  No, we aren't and we like it the way it is. The last thing ham radio needs is corporations just taking our bands, or ham radio getting banned in unstable countries over espionage concerns. If you want encryption, use a cellphone, LoRaWAN etc.
  - 177tcca 6y ago
    But...there's tons of projects already in use which use protocols that, if the regulatory body isn't following every open source project & actively updating their intake tools, effectively act as encryption schema.
    - throwaway3neu94 6y ago
      Could you give me an example or two so I can better understand what you mean? You're not entirely wrong, an undocumented plaintext protocol is functionally not much different from encryption. However, those which are legitimate (ie, just undocumented, not intentionally encrypted/obfuscated) don't tend to cause problems as only one or few ham devs would be using them. They can only get widespread adoption by other hams if they are documented. So this regulates itself. A corporation, on the other hand, is not like some ham dev coming up with their own protocol. They can design their own protocol, and then roll it out on thousands (or much more) of transmitters. So just one corporation can cause quite a big problem, with zero public documentation. The laws as they are, together with direction finding skills, are the communities only (legal) tool to defend against that. That does not mean hams don't see the value in encryption. I do! But it's a trade-off, and I think this is the only way it can work. The legal change I would like to see is explicitly allowing cryptographic signatures. Right now it's a grey area (likely legal, but not court tested)