2 ms·

This is a cool project, but fyi, in the US, this would require a license to broadcast (not receive), and I am pretty sure encryption, even with a license, is no

by mesh 6d ago

This is a cool project, but fyi, in the US, this would require a license to broadcast (not receive), and I am pretty sure encryption, even with a license, is not legal (again, when broadcasting from US). And then only on certain bands: https://www.arrl.org/files/file/Regulatory/Band%20Chart/Hambands4_Color_17x11.pdf https://www.arrl.org/files/file/Regulatory/Band%20Chart/Hamb...

bityard 6d ago
Correct. Encryption (or more specifically, obscuring the meaning of a message) is generally not allowed for amateur radio stations except in very narrow circumstances. So any hams using this would have to turn the encryption off. However, it looks like this stack has encryption available as an option for stations who are transmitting sensitive data and are NOT operating under an amateur license. (Probably government-sanctioned communications or emergency humanitarian efforts.)
- zikduruqe 6d ago
  > except in very narrow circumstances Usually it is for the uplink control for satellites. That you'd like to keep encrypted, so that someone does not hack your bird.
- nowittyusername 6d ago
  what would happen if you were to break that law? like im talking enforcement here not whats on the books.. for example torrenting and uploding copyrighted files is illegal but most people dont give a shit as enforecement is almost non existant. i know radio is taken more seriously then torrenting but this must also be very low on priority for the government unless you are jamming people or somehow stand out enough for anyone to care or notice....
  - ErroneousBosh 6d ago
    > what would happen if you were to break that law? like im talking enforcement here not whats on the books. In the UK, nothing. There are far more important laws to enforce. You will get some fat whiny old guy bitching about it to anyone who will listen, but you literally could not pay Ofcom to take an interest, and there are only about two people in the whole of the UK who have the skill to do anything about it.
  - wmchen 6d ago
    You're right that most amateur radio regulations are self-policed by other amateur radio operators, and true enforcement is probably rarer than folks like to imagine. But depending on the environment (and noting that this project is specifically targeted towards communities seeking last-resort communication), there's definitely still risk, even if there isn't a spectrum authority with any real policing powers. For example (and I say this speculatively), if you're broadcasting encrypted radio traffic in a conflict zone, it could be hard to differentiate between civilian traffic and military traffic happening on civilian bands, so you might be wrongly targeted by a drone strike. If you already have a target on your back, radio laws can still be arbitrarily applied upon oneself, as in the case of Aung San Suu Kyi, who was once detained on the pretense of illegally importing handheld radios. [1] [1]: https://apnews.com/article/aung-san-suu-kyi-myanmar-asia-ap-news-alert-government-and-politics-de86b98d2698ecdee1d17a84efa33808 https://apnews.com/article/aung-san-suu-kyi-myanmar-asia-ap-...
_whiteCaps_ 6d ago
Going to be super pedantic here - in ham radio you don't broadcast, you transmit.
tarxvf 6d ago
https://n5dux.com/ham/files/pdf/Data%20Encryption%20is%20Legal.pdf https://n5dux.com/ham/files/pdf/Data%20Encryption%20is%20Leg...
retrac 6d ago
The licence is not a hurdle. HF licencing in Canada is simple. You get the transmitter certified ($500) and then you rent the spectrum licence. Since there is actually not much demand for HF spectrum it's quite cheap. If you plan to use it domestically it's the same process as like licensing a single 25 kHz VHF channel for a walkie-talkie. And on licensed channel you can encrypt if you want. But putting a useful transmission on air is expensive. Commercial long-distance shortwave transmitters are megawatt-class. That seems to be the biggest barrier. It turns out to be much cheaper and easier to provide an unreliable 10 kHz channel between A and B through almost any other means. That said: it's clear there's an uptick in data transmission on shortwave over the last ~decade or so. Get a broadband SDR receiver and look at the spectrum waterfall. Here's a capture live from an SDR in New Zealand: https://i.imgur.com/NfFBO34.png https://i.imgur.com/NfFBO34.png Between 8250 and 8300 kHz and slightly more faintly centred at 8200, and also at 8150 see the 50 kHz wide spectrum bands of /// rising diagonal lines? That is a 50 kHz wide channel. Which is broadband in the context of HF when voice band is 3 kHz. It's some kind of spread-spectrum chirp modulation. I've seen broadband OFDM on air as well at extremely low baud like 1 baud but presumably many channels and possible frequencies. Throughput depends entirely on the levels of error correction etc. but the Shannon limit for a 50 kHz channel at low noise is like ~200 kbps. Well beyond sending some weather reports and teletype data. Who? Probably military. Spread spectrum techniques are illegal in Canada and the US at least, on HF, for both amateur and commercial users.

by mesh 6d ago

bityard 6d ago

Correct. Encryption (or more specifically, obscuring the meaning of a message) is generally not allowed for amateur radio stations except in very narrow circumstances. So any hams using this would have to turn the encryption off. However, it looks like this stack has encryption available as an option for stations who are transmitting sensitive data and are NOT operating under an amateur license. (Probably government-sanctioned communications or emergency humanitarian efforts.)

zikduruqe 6d ago
> except in very narrow circumstances Usually it is for the uplink control for satellites. That you'd like to keep encrypted, so that someone does not hack your bird.
nowittyusername 6d ago
what would happen if you were to break that law? like im talking enforcement here not whats on the books.. for example torrenting and uploding copyrighted files is illegal but most people dont give a shit as enforecement is almost non existant. i know radio is taken more seriously then torrenting but this must also be very low on priority for the government unless you are jamming people or somehow stand out enough for anyone to care or notice....
- ErroneousBosh 6d ago
  > what would happen if you were to break that law? like im talking enforcement here not whats on the books. In the UK, nothing. There are far more important laws to enforce. You will get some fat whiny old guy bitching about it to anyone who will listen, but you literally could not pay Ofcom to take an interest, and there are only about two people in the whole of the UK who have the skill to do anything about it.
- wmchen 6d ago
  You're right that most amateur radio regulations are self-policed by other amateur radio operators, and true enforcement is probably rarer than folks like to imagine. But depending on the environment (and noting that this project is specifically targeted towards communities seeking last-resort communication), there's definitely still risk, even if there isn't a spectrum authority with any real policing powers. For example (and I say this speculatively), if you're broadcasting encrypted radio traffic in a conflict zone, it could be hard to differentiate between civilian traffic and military traffic happening on civilian bands, so you might be wrongly targeted by a drone strike. If you already have a target on your back, radio laws can still be arbitrarily applied upon oneself, as in the case of Aung San Suu Kyi, who was once detained on the pretense of illegally importing handheld radios. [1] [1]: https://apnews.com/article/aung-san-suu-kyi-myanmar-asia-ap-news-alert-government-and-politics-de86b98d2698ecdee1d17a84efa33808 https://apnews.com/article/aung-san-suu-kyi-myanmar-asia-ap-...

_whiteCaps_ 6d ago

Going to be super pedantic here - in ham radio you don't broadcast, you transmit.

tarxvf 6d ago

https://n5dux.com/ham/files/pdf/Data%20Encryption%20is%20Legal.pdf https://n5dux.com/ham/files/pdf/Data%20Encryption%20is%20Leg...

retrac 6d ago

The licence is not a hurdle. HF licencing in Canada is simple. You get the transmitter certified ($500) and then you rent the spectrum licence. Since there is actually not much demand for HF spectrum it's quite cheap. If you plan to use it domestically it's the same process as like licensing a single 25 kHz VHF channel for a walkie-talkie. And on licensed channel you can encrypt if you want. But putting a useful transmission on air is expensive. Commercial long-distance shortwave transmitters are megawatt-class. That seems to be the biggest barrier. It turns out to be much cheaper and easier to provide an unreliable 10 kHz channel between A and B through almost any other means. That said: it's clear there's an uptick in data transmission on shortwave over the last ~decade or so. Get a broadband SDR receiver and look at the spectrum waterfall. Here's a capture live from an SDR in New Zealand: https://i.imgur.com/NfFBO34.png https://i.imgur.com/NfFBO34.png Between 8250 and 8300 kHz and slightly more faintly centred at 8200, and also at 8150 see the 50 kHz wide spectrum bands of /// rising diagonal lines? That is a 50 kHz wide channel. Which is broadband in the context of HF when voice band is 3 kHz. It's some kind of spread-spectrum chirp modulation. I've seen broadband OFDM on air as well at extremely low baud like 1 baud but presumably many channels and possible frequencies. Throughput depends entirely on the levels of error correction etc. but the Shannon limit for a 50 kHz channel at low noise is like ~200 kbps. Well beyond sending some weather reports and teletype data. Who? Probably military. Spread spectrum techniques are illegal in Canada and the US at least, on HF, for both amateur and commercial users.