7 ms·

I've had a number of "cordial debates" with crusty old hams on this subject. The old guard is still very much hung up on the Old Way. Change scares a lot of t

by edrxty 5y ago

I've had a number of "cordial debates" with crusty old hams on this subject. The old guard is still very much hung up on the Old Way. Change scares a lot of the people who learned on expensive vaccum tube systems before the hobby was more broadly accessible. Things like high baudrate, bandwidth negotiation, spread spectrum and encryption scare the pants off of them regardless of the fact that the bands are mostly empty.

fortran77 5y ago
It’s disgusting how hacker news allows attacks on people because of their age.
- edrxty 5y ago
  Apologies, I was trying to point at a mentality rather than an age but obviously the wording could be better. There are plenty of 20-30 somethings that hold the same beliefs and plenty of older ones that agree with me. The amateur radio community is a rather complicated landscape and that bears acknowledging.
poetaster 5y ago
Old guard. VLM is in the right. As a kid i was a terror. Killowatts of power. Irressistable! But we decided, ricky and i, to stick to fm. I do not believe we were loved.
VLM 5y ago
"bandwidth negotiation" - HF paths are often unidirectional in the sense that you can interfere with station A without station B being able to hear. You can easily interfere with people you can't hear and autonegotiation mean you're autojamming without being aware of it. Not an issue with "human in the loop" modes. No application layer need for it anyway. "spread spectrum" - See above, plus raising the noise floor means the death of entire weak signal modes. "encryption" - Absolutely no need. Would be death of ham radio. Why bother with cheap ham radio licenses if you can just transmit anything you want but encrypted. "the bands are mostly empty" Buy a better antenna LOL.
- edrxty 5y ago
  Found one Bandwidth negotiation - you can already interfere in the same way without it. This is also true of any radio communication, ELF or EHF Spread spectrum - yes but has the ability to not significantly interfere with any single other link, can obviously otherwise be kept out of the tiny segment for weak digital or otherwise confined to sub bands Encryption - this one's my favorite: the hardware is already common, if this argument were true then ham would already be dead. If someone is being abusive they don't give their call anyway and we hunt them with DF the way we always have. Bands - have you seen 17m to light? Tldr we have coexisted by being neighborly for over 100 years. New technologies won't add or remove the underlying need for being neighborly. We can therefore play with the new toys if we continue to uphold those principles as we always have.
  - VLM 5y ago
    Bandwidth negotiation - Uh, no. Human in the loop with ears can hear a complaint of interference and stop or adjust. Autonegotiation just turns up the power until the victim can't use the service anymore. RF is not a phone line. Note that we have legal things like RSID mode detection, which is not autonegotiation. Autonegotiation is a great technology for military anti-jamming purposes, not ham radio. Spread spectrum - The coding gain from SS varies with the bandwidth spread across, so SS over a narrow enough channel... isn't even SS anymore. That said we seem to agree that VHF and up there's plenty of space to channelize and regulate by frequency. What does anyone gain from it other than it interferes with anything else in its channel? Encryption - You haven't explained why its needed. "I can't talk to you, you can't talk to me" isn't very neighborly or ham radio friendly. So its not needed and only provides downsides. Emcom is difficult enough without everyone not sharing secret keys. What part 97.1 "basis and purpose" section does secretive private transmissions benefit? I mean, if it was useful for some ham radio purpose, sure sounds cool go for it. Encryption is certainly very useful for non-ham-radio purposes, but then by definition it shouldn't be on the ham bands anyway. I admit there are weird exceptions where encryption might be useful, which are already written into regulation, like 97.211 "Space telecommand station" part (b) permits space satellite control uplinks to be encrypted, but only the control signals, which makes sense, so some rando doesn't take over a satellite... "New technologies won't add or remove the underlying need for being neighborly." Agreed. As of 2021 nobody has invented a technology for wideband digital to coexist with, well, anything, other than regulating under a channelized system, which seems impossible for international HF. Your three main arguments seem to boil down to "why can't I jam other people?" whereas my point of view is "why would anyone want to jam other people" so we're probably never going to get along.
fortran77 5y ago
I’ve been an Extra since 1977. My pants are not scared off.
giantrobot 5y ago
Radio engineering doesn't mesh well with a "move fast and break things" world view. Often the things you're breaking mean other people are losing out. The world of HF is very different from higher bands because of propagation and low band width (especially for hams). With a well tuned antenna even a relatively modest transmitter can DX hundreds or thousands of miles. * The low band width on HF with a high noise floor makes high symbol rates pointless throughout the band. You'd need so much FEC there'd be little benefit from the higher rates. A symbol rate that might work fine for contacts a hundred miles apart will just be noise for contacts five hundred miles away. Because of DXing on HF it's entirely possible to have your transmissions picked up across the hemisphere. * Likewise symbol rate negotiation is problematic because of propagation. Transmissions aren't point to point links even if you're addressing a particular station. Like the point above symbol rates that work for two stations will not necessarily work for all stations that will receive the signal. That's just more noise for them and an inability to use that part of the band. * The band width for hams on HF is too small for spread spectrum comms to be useful. Yet again transmissions that work in some conditions won't necessarily work everywhere the transmission reaches. * Quick, what's the difference between an encrypted signal with a long duty cycle and noise? NOTHING. Every aspect of ham radio comes back down to being good stewards of a scarce resource and sharing it. If you blast your headphones you're not going to affect me living next door. You can listen to whatever you want at any volume. If you blow out your ear drums that's your business. If you instead blast your big-ass stereo speakers now you're affecting me next door. You've got a right to blast out your eardrums, not mine. Radio, like the air between our houses, is a shared medium. There's bands where if you want to blast signals or play around with different modes, I'll never detect it even living next door. There's also bands, like HF, where you can affect my use of the band even on opposite sides of the state. You don't have more of a right to hams bands than I do. If you want to blast high powered wide bandwidth transmissions, petition the FCC to buy a license to some spectrum (good luck). The issue isn't graybeard hams being afraid of new fangled technology. While those do exist the much bigger issue is the whole of the HF band (and all uses of it) could fit in a single WiFi channel with room to spare. Of that tiny space hams have privileges on a tiny subsection. To even use that tiny subsection requires advanced licensing and a fair investment in equipment. Any individual user wants to put that time/money investment to use but so does every other user. It's hard to share a sliver of bandwidth if there's a couple assholes essentially blasting out noise all across that sliver of spectrum.
TrevorJ 5y ago
I am not unamenable with the crusty old hams in some regards. Part of the charm of these little slices of the spectrum are that they are are, in some part, the only place where you can meaningfully interact with legacy analog radio technology and specifications. There are lots of places you can muck about with digital radio, shiny new specs, mesh networks, etc etc. But if you want to build your own antenna, grab a super low powered transmitter and bounce an analog signal off the atmo to talk with a person halfway around the globe, Ham radio is where to be. It's reasonable for people to desire to protect that.
- BenjiWiebe 5y ago
  If you want to muck around with fancy digital stuff that you put together yourself, the ham bands is where you do it.
ggm 5y ago
Those "crusty old hams" include people who designed VLSI. Designed modern computer languages. Wrote the RFCs in IETF on how to do things. I think you seriously mis-understand how much the "crusty old hams" know, and do, in the modern Internet: They helped build it. Not only the SL/IP and AX25 part, a lot more than just that. Read up on KA9Q. Top hit in wikipedia is good. Now, look at the person. The wikipedia link is good. Now, go look at the company he works at, or used to. Now, open your cellphone, and look at the logo on the chipsets...

by edrxty 5y ago

fortran77 5y ago

It’s disgusting how hacker news allows attacks on people because of their age.

edrxty 5y ago
Apologies, I was trying to point at a mentality rather than an age but obviously the wording could be better. There are plenty of 20-30 somethings that hold the same beliefs and plenty of older ones that agree with me. The amateur radio community is a rather complicated landscape and that bears acknowledging.

poetaster 5y ago

Old guard. VLM is in the right. As a kid i was a terror. Killowatts of power. Irressistable! But we decided, ricky and i, to stick to fm. I do not believe we were loved.

VLM 5y ago

"bandwidth negotiation" - HF paths are often unidirectional in the sense that you can interfere with station A without station B being able to hear. You can easily interfere with people you can't hear and autonegotiation mean you're autojamming without being aware of it. Not an issue with "human in the loop" modes. No application layer need for it anyway. "spread spectrum" - See above, plus raising the noise floor means the death of entire weak signal modes. "encryption" - Absolutely no need. Would be death of ham radio. Why bother with cheap ham radio licenses if you can just transmit anything you want but encrypted. "the bands are mostly empty" Buy a better antenna LOL.

edrxty 5y ago
Found one Bandwidth negotiation - you can already interfere in the same way without it. This is also true of any radio communication, ELF or EHF Spread spectrum - yes but has the ability to not significantly interfere with any single other link, can obviously otherwise be kept out of the tiny segment for weak digital or otherwise confined to sub bands Encryption - this one's my favorite: the hardware is already common, if this argument were true then ham would already be dead. If someone is being abusive they don't give their call anyway and we hunt them with DF the way we always have. Bands - have you seen 17m to light? Tldr we have coexisted by being neighborly for over 100 years. New technologies won't add or remove the underlying need for being neighborly. We can therefore play with the new toys if we continue to uphold those principles as we always have.
- VLM 5y ago
  Bandwidth negotiation - Uh, no. Human in the loop with ears can hear a complaint of interference and stop or adjust. Autonegotiation just turns up the power until the victim can't use the service anymore. RF is not a phone line. Note that we have legal things like RSID mode detection, which is not autonegotiation. Autonegotiation is a great technology for military anti-jamming purposes, not ham radio. Spread spectrum - The coding gain from SS varies with the bandwidth spread across, so SS over a narrow enough channel... isn't even SS anymore. That said we seem to agree that VHF and up there's plenty of space to channelize and regulate by frequency. What does anyone gain from it other than it interferes with anything else in its channel? Encryption - You haven't explained why its needed. "I can't talk to you, you can't talk to me" isn't very neighborly or ham radio friendly. So its not needed and only provides downsides. Emcom is difficult enough without everyone not sharing secret keys. What part 97.1 "basis and purpose" section does secretive private transmissions benefit? I mean, if it was useful for some ham radio purpose, sure sounds cool go for it. Encryption is certainly very useful for non-ham-radio purposes, but then by definition it shouldn't be on the ham bands anyway. I admit there are weird exceptions where encryption might be useful, which are already written into regulation, like 97.211 "Space telecommand station" part (b) permits space satellite control uplinks to be encrypted, but only the control signals, which makes sense, so some rando doesn't take over a satellite... "New technologies won't add or remove the underlying need for being neighborly." Agreed. As of 2021 nobody has invented a technology for wideband digital to coexist with, well, anything, other than regulating under a channelized system, which seems impossible for international HF. Your three main arguments seem to boil down to "why can't I jam other people?" whereas my point of view is "why would anyone want to jam other people" so we're probably never going to get along.

fortran77 5y ago

I’ve been an Extra since 1977. My pants are not scared off.

giantrobot 5y ago

Radio engineering doesn't mesh well with a "move fast and break things" world view. Often the things you're breaking mean other people are losing out. The world of HF is very different from higher bands because of propagation and low band width (especially for hams). With a well tuned antenna even a relatively modest transmitter can DX hundreds or thousands of miles. * The low band width on HF with a high noise floor makes high symbol rates pointless throughout the band. You'd need so much FEC there'd be little benefit from the higher rates. A symbol rate that might work fine for contacts a hundred miles apart will just be noise for contacts five hundred miles away. Because of DXing on HF it's entirely possible to have your transmissions picked up across the hemisphere. * Likewise symbol rate negotiation is problematic because of propagation. Transmissions aren't point to point links even if you're addressing a particular station. Like the point above symbol rates that work for two stations will not necessarily work for all stations that will receive the signal. That's just more noise for them and an inability to use that part of the band. * The band width for hams on HF is too small for spread spectrum comms to be useful. Yet again transmissions that work in some conditions won't necessarily work everywhere the transmission reaches. * Quick, what's the difference between an encrypted signal with a long duty cycle and noise? NOTHING. Every aspect of ham radio comes back down to being good stewards of a scarce resource and sharing it. If you blast your headphones you're not going to affect me living next door. You can listen to whatever you want at any volume. If you blow out your ear drums that's your business. If you instead blast your big-ass stereo speakers now you're affecting me next door. You've got a right to blast out your eardrums, not mine. Radio, like the air between our houses, is a shared medium. There's bands where if you want to blast signals or play around with different modes, I'll never detect it even living next door. There's also bands, like HF, where you can affect my use of the band even on opposite sides of the state. You don't have more of a right to hams bands than I do. If you want to blast high powered wide bandwidth transmissions, petition the FCC to buy a license to some spectrum (good luck). The issue isn't graybeard hams being afraid of new fangled technology. While those do exist the much bigger issue is the whole of the HF band (and all uses of it) could fit in a single WiFi channel with room to spare. Of that tiny space hams have privileges on a tiny subsection. To even use that tiny subsection requires advanced licensing and a fair investment in equipment. Any individual user wants to put that time/money investment to use but so does every other user. It's hard to share a sliver of bandwidth if there's a couple assholes essentially blasting out noise all across that sliver of spectrum.

TrevorJ 5y ago

I am not unamenable with the crusty old hams in some regards. Part of the charm of these little slices of the spectrum are that they are are, in some part, the only place where you can meaningfully interact with legacy analog radio technology and specifications. There are lots of places you can muck about with digital radio, shiny new specs, mesh networks, etc etc. But if you want to build your own antenna, grab a super low powered transmitter and bounce an analog signal off the atmo to talk with a person halfway around the globe, Ham radio is where to be. It's reasonable for people to desire to protect that.

BenjiWiebe 5y ago
If you want to muck around with fancy digital stuff that you put together yourself, the ham bands is where you do it.

ggm 5y ago

Those "crusty old hams" include people who designed VLSI. Designed modern computer languages. Wrote the RFCs in IETF on how to do things. I think you seriously mis-understand how much the "crusty old hams" know, and do, in the modern Internet: They helped build it. Not only the SL/IP and AX25 part, a lot more than just that. Read up on KA9Q. Top hit in wikipedia is good. Now, look at the person. The wikipedia link is good. Now, go look at the company he works at, or used to. Now, open your cellphone, and look at the logo on the chipsets...