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But then it's no longer Amateur Radio, it'll just be another unlicensed spectrum like the Wifi spectrum since there's no way to know who is using it or what dat

But then it's no longer Amateur Radio, it'll just be another unlicensed spectrum like the Wifi spectrum since there's no way to know who is using it or what data is going over it. There may be value for this to the public, but it's not the same as Amateur Radio.

mmaunder 5y ago
It can be if it's not available for commercial use. The WiFi spectrum is for commercial use. The ham spectrums could still require a license and could only be used for hobbyists. We'd need a way to verify who the sender is via unencrypted comms, but the rest could be encrypted. Maybe a standard header every 5 mins.
- Johnny555 5y ago
  How do you know whether Joe Blow H6F5KY is sending out personal messages to his wife from work, or broadcasting orders to his fleet of delivery drivers?
  - drewcoo 5y ago
    Ah. So it's not amateur unless it's policed!
    - Johnny555 5y ago
      I'm pretty sure you were being snarky, but you're exactly right, otherwise it'll just become a commercial network. A "no commercial traffic but there's no way anyone could verify it" rule wouldn't be very effective.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - jjoonathan 5y ago
        At low scale it's not a problem and at large scale it can't be hidden. What would the nightmare scenario look like? Drama? The community gits gud at MIMO, to work around the abuse, and HFDF, to track it down and police it? I'd watch that movie. Hell, I'd play that game, sign me up! If all else fails, what about new legislation involving cryptographic signatures and bandwidth quotas? What if those spawn a secondary market where people take the HAM test just to rent out their callsign for crypto tokens? Would that be a bad thing or spawn a crazy collectively-owned disintermediation of telcos? Would the world really be such a bad place if instead of paying $60 to ATT I could pay $30 to some teenagers who memorized RF facts long enough to pass a test? I'd say that HAM can evolve or it can die -- but eventually the people holding it back will literally die and then it will evolve all the same. That's how actual evolution works. You can't stop the future. Still, you can hold it back, and it's unfortunate to see that happening, from a community of techies no less.
        kongin 5y ago
        >I'd say that HAM can evolve or it can die -- but eventually the people holding it back will literally die and then it will evolve all the same. That's how actual evolution works. You can't stop the future. Still, you can hold it back, and it's unfortunate to see that happening, from a community of techies no less. Pretty much sums it up. Locally the people who are in charge of the clubs which ultimately advised the government were in their 50s to 90s (yes that's a 9). The people doing anything more interesting than talking on on those channels are all under 40. Ham radio is meant for experimentation, not (just) talking to your friends. These people remind me of Bell in the 70s forbidding you from connecting anything that's not a phone to the telephone network.
        gorgoiler 5y ago
        What about LoRa? Doesn’t that exist precisely to scratch these itches, without impacting traditional HF QRP etc.?
        kongin 5y ago
        Different bands have different physical properties. One of the points of amateur radio is experimentation. Right now the old boys clubs that all ham radio organizations have turned into to have decided that packet networking isn't real ham radio and you shouldn't be able to do it on "their" spectrum. Apart from talking to satellites, packets and encryption are fine there for some reason.
    - op00to 5y ago
      SELF-policed.
nickysielicki 5y ago
That’s fundamentally what’s at question here: is amateur radio literally just non-professionals toying with RF, or is it some collection of rituals like HF ragchewing and SKCC? It seems that the ARRL has decided it’s the latter while everyone under 40 years old has decided it’s the former.
- gravypod 5y ago
  As a general class operator under 40 I wish it was the latter. Marconi and the other greats in the history of radio were people messing around in an unregulatedish space. The only place you find those kinds of hams anymore is in THz operators who do some crazy shit.
JKCalhoun 5y ago
Don't encrypt. Problem solved?
- salawat 5y ago
  Orders received. The cake is in the oven.
KingMachiavelli 5y ago
Exactly, amateur radio needs to be bandwidth for testing and experimentation not building out long term projects on it - basically just assume someone else is going start using the same frequencies. Also, my understanding is that the encryption rule isn't really enforced but still prevents mass abuse. Plus if the entire stream is encrypted then you can always claim to be transmitting random data as a public good for random number generation.
kongin 5y ago
>But then it's no longer Amateur Radio, Take your binary message, encrypt it, use a lookup table to encode the bits into common English words, send them in the clear. >No sir, this is just a random word service which provides random words free on the air.
- Johnny555 5y ago
  Usually when you come up with an obvious solution around a problem that no one else has thought of, it's because it's not a solution. The actual rule would prohibit this since it prohibits: messages encoded for the purpose of obscuring their meaning And I think a "random word service" would also violate: nor may an amateur station transmit one-way communications except as specifically provided in these rules

mmaunder 5y ago

It can be if it's not available for commercial use. The WiFi spectrum is for commercial use. The ham spectrums could still require a license and could only be used for hobbyists. We'd need a way to verify who the sender is via unencrypted comms, but the rest could be encrypted. Maybe a standard header every 5 mins.

Johnny555 5y ago
How do you know whether Joe Blow H6F5KY is sending out personal messages to his wife from work, or broadcasting orders to his fleet of delivery drivers?
- drewcoo 5y ago
  Ah. So it's not amateur unless it's policed!
  - Johnny555 5y ago
    I'm pretty sure you were being snarky, but you're exactly right, otherwise it'll just become a commercial network. A "no commercial traffic but there's no way anyone could verify it" rule wouldn't be very effective.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - jjoonathan 5y ago
      At low scale it's not a problem and at large scale it can't be hidden. What would the nightmare scenario look like? Drama? The community gits gud at MIMO, to work around the abuse, and HFDF, to track it down and police it? I'd watch that movie. Hell, I'd play that game, sign me up! If all else fails, what about new legislation involving cryptographic signatures and bandwidth quotas? What if those spawn a secondary market where people take the HAM test just to rent out their callsign for crypto tokens? Would that be a bad thing or spawn a crazy collectively-owned disintermediation of telcos? Would the world really be such a bad place if instead of paying $60 to ATT I could pay $30 to some teenagers who memorized RF facts long enough to pass a test? I'd say that HAM can evolve or it can die -- but eventually the people holding it back will literally die and then it will evolve all the same. That's how actual evolution works. You can't stop the future. Still, you can hold it back, and it's unfortunate to see that happening, from a community of techies no less.
      - kongin 5y ago
        >I'd say that HAM can evolve or it can die -- but eventually the people holding it back will literally die and then it will evolve all the same. That's how actual evolution works. You can't stop the future. Still, you can hold it back, and it's unfortunate to see that happening, from a community of techies no less. Pretty much sums it up. Locally the people who are in charge of the clubs which ultimately advised the government were in their 50s to 90s (yes that's a 9). The people doing anything more interesting than talking on on those channels are all under 40. Ham radio is meant for experimentation, not (just) talking to your friends. These people remind me of Bell in the 70s forbidding you from connecting anything that's not a phone to the telephone network.
        gorgoiler 5y ago
        What about LoRa? Doesn’t that exist precisely to scratch these itches, without impacting traditional HF QRP etc.?
        kongin 5y ago
        Different bands have different physical properties. One of the points of amateur radio is experimentation. Right now the old boys clubs that all ham radio organizations have turned into to have decided that packet networking isn't real ham radio and you shouldn't be able to do it on "their" spectrum. Apart from talking to satellites, packets and encryption are fine there for some reason.
  - op00to 5y ago
    SELF-policed.

nickysielicki 5y ago

That’s fundamentally what’s at question here: is amateur radio literally just non-professionals toying with RF, or is it some collection of rituals like HF ragchewing and SKCC? It seems that the ARRL has decided it’s the latter while everyone under 40 years old has decided it’s the former.

gravypod 5y ago
As a general class operator under 40 I wish it was the latter. Marconi and the other greats in the history of radio were people messing around in an unregulatedish space. The only place you find those kinds of hams anymore is in THz operators who do some crazy shit.

JKCalhoun 5y ago

Don't encrypt. Problem solved?

salawat 5y ago
Orders received. The cake is in the oven.

KingMachiavelli 5y ago

Exactly, amateur radio needs to be bandwidth for testing and experimentation not building out long term projects on it - basically just assume someone else is going start using the same frequencies. Also, my understanding is that the encryption rule isn't really enforced but still prevents mass abuse. Plus if the entire stream is encrypted then you can always claim to be transmitting random data as a public good for random number generation.

kongin 5y ago

>But then it's no longer Amateur Radio, Take your binary message, encrypt it, use a lookup table to encode the bits into common English words, send them in the clear. >No sir, this is just a random word service which provides random words free on the air.

Johnny555 5y ago
Usually when you come up with an obvious solution around a problem that no one else has thought of, it's because it's not a solution. The actual rule would prohibit this since it prohibits: messages encoded for the purpose of obscuring their meaning And I think a "random word service" would also violate: nor may an amateur station transmit one-way communications except as specifically provided in these rules