HAMNET — A large scale high speed radio network [pdf] | Hacker News Reader

HAMNET — A large scale high speed radio network [pdf]

tapr.org

150 pointsGupie44 comments

The regulations surrounding amateur radio just seem antiquated.

It's a shame, because radio is really interesting, but a lot (yes, not all) of amateur stuff feels as though it's stuck in the past.

Before I get lectured, yes, I understand most of the reasoning. That doesn't mean I have to like it.

Exactly. For example using https (encryption) over such network would already be a breach of amateur radio rules.

That rule is there to prevent people from misusing the amateur radio frequencies for commercial reasons.

In practice, HTTPS and SSH are commonly used in the HAMNET for administrative purposes (many devices do not offer anything else, even).

Source: HAMNET operator. Ask me anything!

I was surprised to hear this -- my understanding was that encryption was illegal in all cases (at least in the US). A quick googling found this, which sheds a good bit of light on the matter: http://www.amateurradio.com/encryption-is-already-legal-its-...

Technically 97.113(a)(5) takes care of commercial use where if you can use another service (aircraft radio, maritime radio, broadcast, CB, land mobile, whatever) then you're required to use it, and not use ham radio. Its to maintain the hobby-ness of ham radio.

WRT to your "administrative purposes" 97.219(d)(1) not only permits HTTPS and SSH, but requires it, in order to authenticate, presumably so unidentified or unauthorized people can't reconfigure your transmitter on top of the local air traffic control or something. Under 97.309(b) as long as you don't obscure the meaning you're all good. Obviously accessing administrative URLs is not an obscure meaning. Likewise tunneling a VPN trying to mimic administrative traffic to do illegal file downloading or something would be obscuring meaning.

Some people like the tech more than the rules, but in HAM radio it seems that group is the minority.

I think the point is that with encryption it would be entirely impossible to enforce a number of the other rules, such as that one.

Agreed. It's infeasible to (legally) connect this type of system to the internet, at least in the US. FCC Part 97 also prohibits commercial transmissions, which would conceivably include advertisements, so you couldn't use this page to view any web page that contains ads. There goes most of the internet.

That said, I don't think this was ever intended to connect directly to the internet in this manner.

Part 97 prohibits communications in which the station licensee or control operator has a pecuniary interest.

As long as the control operator, or her employer are not making money on the advertisement displayed it would likely be A-OK.

It's perfectly legal or order pizza via autopatch over amateur radio, although impractical now that everyone owns a cell phone.

Interesting, using the autopatch to order food has been repeatedly cited to me as an example of barred commercial traffic.

Maybe I am getting some specific local or machine rules confused with the FCC's rules.

Here's what the ARRL has to say about it:

"...snip... Calls to place an order for a commercial product may be made such as the proverbial call to the pizza restaurant to order food, but not calls to one's office to receive or to leave business messages since communications on behalf of ones employer are not permitted..." http://www.arrl.org/phone-patch-guidelines

Then I might try it. If done at the right time, it might kick off a two hour ragchew about health problems associated with elderly people and unhealthy food.

What would be the number one example of something related to ham radio's use that would benefit from change and what would be better?

There is a bit of antiquated rules, but yeah most of them have their reasons. The whole point behind it amateur radio is to promote technology and communications, as well as provide an emergency backbone and fallback that the government doesn't have to fund, or really upkeep (since most of ham radio relies on self regulation and reporting).

Allowing encrypted comms would essentially destroy one of the primary tenets of amateur radio, inter-operability without massive coordination.

Now this doesn't mean you can't have security over the air. Just not really privacy. Nothing states you can't use modern crypto to generate signing keys and sign your message (not exactly feasible for voice, but digital yes) using asymmetric keys and common message authentication techniques.

There's some modern digital modes and messaging systems developing, but the lack of privacy and sometimes the nature of the common demographic within ham radio (non-pc savvy users, oddly) prevent the growth on new tech.

One reason much of radio is antiquated and old-fashioned is that the old technology is dead simple and just works. With a piece of wire and a simple radio, you can communicate regionally or globally without network infrastructure or mains power.

Still, it's really frustrating that we have to pay intermediaries for their centralized infrastructure in order to have general-purpose private conversations, even though we have the technology to do it on a peer-to-peer basis.

I understand private traffic isn't in the spirit of amateur radio, but it's frustrating that the only alternative is to go through the oligopoly of cell-phone networks.

I still have "cyberpunk" dreams of wide area mesh networks between peers, owned by no one, available to anyone who can cobble together the right equipment. Obviously we'd need some limitations to keep people from stomping on each other's traffic, but surely there's a middle ground.

As I see it, living in the past is the charm of amateur radio. When radio communication was still somewhat exotic, it was new and cool to, if you set everything up just right, be able to communicate over large distances. Now, it's _old_ and cool to be able to do it with those primitive means.

I know you said you understand the reasoning, but for those who don't...

On the surface, prohibiting encryption seems antiquated and annoying, but if it weren't there would be no way to enforce the other regulations, like prohibiting transmissions for commercial purposes, which I think most hams would agree is a good restriction.

That said, if you really wanted to you could encrypt data and hide it using steganography or stuff it in what you claim is an authentication signature or something. It would be illegal but entirely unenforceable.

I could see allowing encryption, at least for the higher class licenses (extra + general?), as long as you are still required to identify your callsign unencrypted.

I also think the restriction on commercial purposes could be loosely interpreted to allow loading webpages with ads or buying something on an ecommerce site, as long as the primary purpose of the transmissions aren't commercial. But again, that would be difficult to enforce if encryption were allowed.

Higher class licenses open up more experimental spectrum usage. Inventing your own communication protocol/mode will give you some privacy, insofar as getting your message above the lowest-hanging fruit of other digital transmissions.

I got my callsign a few years ago but never use it because of this. I wanted to use it more, but it felt like it was not a conductive place to research without supervision.

There is also a Hamnet in the United States that started in Austin. You can use old routers to connect to it. http://www.broadband-hamnet.org/

Don't forget Amateur Radio Field Day is in 11 days!

>Don't forget Amateur Radio Field Day is in 11 days!

Holy crap, already? I haven't been messing with radio stuff lately but man, it really does feel like field day 2015 was just yesterday.

That is incredible cool! When I was a teen in the 90s I was part of a 1200baud radio network using 27mc. It was pure anarchy. Yet we managed to setup such a distributed system that allowed people to send mails across Europe. My idealistic half dreamed a while of a modern version of that 27mc network, which appears to be exactly the OP: distributed and independent.

Cool, I didn't realize there were actually large scale HAMNETs in the wild. I assumed it was typically a toy thing people would occasionally setup at field days and such.

Are any licensed amateurs (or those interested in getting licensed) in San Francisc interested in trying to set up a mesh? I've got a node running (I think... I haven't checked on it in months...). I've never actually connected to another node...

I could possibly be interested. I'm on the west side of Bernal Heights. What purpose / use would you have in mind?

This is pretty cool. I remember doing packet radio in the '80s with my dad on a Commodore C64 that he got for that reason. I've had my ham license for over 30 years now but haven't done anything with it for over 10 now. Maybe it's time to get back into it.

I got back into the hobby a few years back... its quite enjoyable when you have a job and can afford more expensive toys ;)

"It is using the international coordinated IP-address space of the AMPRNet (44.0.0.0/8) and AS numbers out of the 16-bit and 32-bit private AS number space to interconnect active regions by external BGP routing."

Yet another brand new project that completely ignores the existence of IPv6.

I don't think 44/8 has an IPv6 equivalent. Anyone who creates one would need to pay an annual registration fee to one of the RIRs, whereas 44/8 is free because it came directly from IANA in 1992.

If it is not connected to the internet then you can just use ULAs without any problems. You can even set up a registry and use ULA-C space.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unique_local_address

Legally speaking, seems like every user & station would require a callsign, which would likely be a huge barrier to adoption, create massive privacy issues, etc.

While they are using the HAM portion of the bands this is basically just wifi gear. Granted they are probably using more power than is legal for unlicensed users.

Yes common commercial wifi gear with all its pros and cons which some would argue is (among other technical and legal downsides) not true to the spirit of amateur radio anymore.

In Slovenia we have this guy working on a new protocol, software and hardware stack purposely built for packet radio with the intention that anyone can solder their own radio station.

http://lea.hamradio.si/~s53mv/nbp/nbp.html

Right now it is deployed on the 430Mhz band in Slovenia and you need a call sign to use it. Works quite well, can watch youtube from mountains where even 3g does not reach ^^

Repurposing commercial gear seems within the "spirit" of ham radio to me.

I've often wondered why something better than AX.25 hasn't taken off yet(and wanted to build something better).

Will look into this for sure. Thanks for the link.

> the HAM portion

Just a quick note that "ham" is not an acronym and so isn't written in all-caps.

Yes each station would require a call sign. At least in the US, all call signs are publicly discoverable and the records include the physical address of the station.

There is, by law, no form of privacy about where the station is located, nor any of the communications by amateur radio.

Mine has a PO box. So do others I know. My street address is not listed by the FCC. Not that I'm trying to prevent that. Just wanted to state a few facts.

http://wireless2.fcc.gov/UlsApp/UlsSearch/license.jsp?licKey...

Per FCC part 97.23 last amended in '98 you need a US mailing address where you can get USPS mail delivered. In case they want to send a complaint mail, for example. If your postal address bounces they'll cancel your license. The FCC needs a way to contact you and USPS is the one method they demand, not email, not facebook, not phone number, postal mail.

99% of hams, if not more, use their home street address which is probably where their station is located. School clubs usually use the main school address and at a giant uni it never works. Some people use PO boxes, or work address. APO/FPO addresses work fine if you're stationed overseas.

With certain weird limitations related to the national radio quiet zone by the radio telescopes and the NSA monitoring posts, the FCC doesn't care where the transmitter is located under part 97. Consider mobile operation or portable operation. You're probably thinking of part 73 "regular ole AM/FM radio broadcasting" where the FCC wants all kinds of detailed latitude / longitude data and surveys or maybe part 11 for the emergency broadcast system.

Ah! You are correct.

I was licensed well before that, and missed that change.

Can someone ELI5 this?

This describes a network infrastructure of amateur radio stations linked by microwaves. The slides describes the equipment required and the procedures required to join this network.

Would be great to see this jump across the Atlantic.

For those interested see also http://www.aredn.org/

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