4 ms·

"I hear this argument a lot, but it feels like a weird back-justification for the restrictions imposed by the government." I continue to be amazed at what I co

by rsync 6y ago

"I hear this argument a lot, but it feels like a weird back-justification for the restrictions imposed by the government." I continue to be amazed at what I consider to be a very unexpected cultural intersection: Technical, do it yourself, nearly exclusively male, out-hacking one another with radio bits ... but simultaneously vehemently defensive of, and slavishly adherent to, arbitrary government regulations that strictly limit what they can do with their hobby. The deference to arbitrary authority in the HAM community is really jarring ...

BenjiWiebe 6y ago
I know people that would gladly use ham bands for business uses, and with encryption allowed it would be "just another encrypted QSO". And the ham bands would slowly fill up with non-ham use.
- ac29 6y ago
  I know these people too, and its a little odd since commercial/business licenses in the VHF/UHF part 90 bands are dirt cheap - a few hundred dollars for a ten year license, and no need to pass a test.
giantrobot 6y ago
This is an extremely ignorant position to take. For starters amateur licenses have mode and modulation restrictions in certain bands and power output limitations in all of them. Secondly despite far higher power privileges than unlicensed users amateurs have to keep their power output appropriate for their use. They can't just crank the output up to 11. Third, amateurs are prohibited from commercial communications and broadcasting on amateur bands. Everyone with some sort of radio license from commercial broadcasters to amateurs have some sort of legal limits on their operation. Radio is a shared medium and being an asshole can ruin the medium for other uses over a huge area. When it comes to encryption, good encryption is little different from noise. I also have no idea what you're doing on the band. Do you just have a mistuned radio? Are you overdriving your transmitter? What I do know is you're raising the noise floor on whatever band you're on and keeping me from using it. Your WiFi being encrypted is a much different situation. Best case propagation is hundreds of feet and the PEP is so low that beyond a relatively short distance your transmissions literally blend into background noise for me. So your WiFi doesn't affect me too badly unless we're in adjacent apartments and you've got your output power maxed out. Your encrypted transmissions on the rarified space available for hams ruins it for a lot of users over a wide area. That is why hams are fine with no encryption for amateur operation.

by rsync 6y ago

BenjiWiebe 6y ago

I know people that would gladly use ham bands for business uses, and with encryption allowed it would be "just another encrypted QSO". And the ham bands would slowly fill up with non-ham use.

ac29 6y ago
I know these people too, and its a little odd since commercial/business licenses in the VHF/UHF part 90 bands are dirt cheap - a few hundred dollars for a ten year license, and no need to pass a test.

giantrobot 6y ago

This is an extremely ignorant position to take. For starters amateur licenses have mode and modulation restrictions in certain bands and power output limitations in all of them. Secondly despite far higher power privileges than unlicensed users amateurs have to keep their power output appropriate for their use. They can't just crank the output up to 11. Third, amateurs are prohibited from commercial communications and broadcasting on amateur bands. Everyone with some sort of radio license from commercial broadcasters to amateurs have some sort of legal limits on their operation. Radio is a shared medium and being an asshole can ruin the medium for other uses over a huge area. When it comes to encryption, good encryption is little different from noise. I also have no idea what you're doing on the band. Do you just have a mistuned radio? Are you overdriving your transmitter? What I do know is you're raising the noise floor on whatever band you're on and keeping me from using it. Your WiFi being encrypted is a much different situation. Best case propagation is hundreds of feet and the PEP is so low that beyond a relatively short distance your transmissions literally blend into background noise for me. So your WiFi doesn't affect me too badly unless we're in adjacent apartments and you've got your output power maxed out. Your encrypted transmissions on the rarified space available for hams ruins it for a lot of users over a wide area. That is why hams are fine with no encryption for amateur operation.