Is Ham Radio a Hobby, a Utility or Both? A Battle over Spectrum Heats Up
spectrum.ieee.org
spectrum.ieee.org
Imagine the govt provides two transport services, a car road service, and a paved bike path service. They're deconflicted and regulated and licensed and taxed separately for various social engineering reasons, etc.
The car roads are congested and I want to drive my semi trailer to the next town, or I just don't feel like paying the tollbooths or whatever. I propose a "brilliant" solution of modifying the regulations for the bike path to allow semi trailers on the mostly empty paved bike path because bicycles are an ancient technology over 100 years old and they should get with the internal combustion times, I don't have a bike personally, I feel my semi trailer is more important than some spandex wearing bicycle hobbyist's amusement, and I don't care about bicycling as a hobby in general, so if I mow down bicyclists while driving my semi down the bike path thus completely destroying the utility of a bike path for bicyclists, I really don't mind. Hey I got mine, I got to drive my semi trailer on the bike path, so at least for me all is well, right?
Now just to make it clear I don't hate bicyclists any more than I think its a good idea to amend part 97 to perform stealthy part 90 operations on part 97 frequencies. I'm merely making a very accurate analogy.
And meanwhile, the people who fear semis using the bike lane (though the semis wouldn't fit anyway) are actually preventing pedal-assist e-bikes, which the younger spandex-wearing bicycle hobbyists would love to use.
I'm not saying your point is wrong, just that the analogy is bad.
I share a bike lane with e-bikes fairly frequently and I feel way, way, way safer than I feel when sharing a lane with a truck.
The faster “class 3” ebikes with 28mph top speeds are already banned from cycle paths pretty much everywhere.
I think we should just be happy more people are getting on bikes regardless. Pedal assist by definition is not a throttle - it’s not like the rider has a gas pedal they can leap on and accelerate like a sports car.
As others have said, I’d much rather share a lane with an ebike than a car or motorcycle! Huge speed differentials in the bike lane at times is already a fact of life given varying levels of rider fitness. Just do what most cyclists/ebikers do already - be a considerate rider.
Your argument that they have worse brakes is especially silly - almost all ebike systems only add 7-10kgs to total bike weight vs equivalent non ebike. There are far bigger variances just in rider weight alone. I’d argue ebikes typically have better brakes given most of them are sold with mid to high end hydraulic discs. Typical road bikes are often sold with significantly inferior rim brakes. Modern bicycle disc brakes are extremely good.
Additionally, that 20 pounds of extra weight is in an uncontrolled projectile. Person to person collisions are not as injurious as bike to person collisions even though bikes are just a fraction of the weight of the person, and that extra 20 pounds triples the weight of most bikes. Talking about rider weight misses the point.
Going faster than other riders is absolutely not the point of pedal assist. Most of them basically can’t thanks to the 20mph cut out. Of course many will find they can sustain a higher average speed below 20, but the point is travelling much the same kinds of speeds with much less effort.
Of course rider weight matters. One is rarely hit by a riderless bicycle. Rider weight is especially relevant in your claim that the brakes are worse too - whether the mass is in the rider or the bike frame is going to be largely inconsequential to stopping distances - the brakes still have to stop the combined weight of rider plus bike. Hence relevance of the small additional mass of small motor plus battery being dwarfed by variances in rider weight on normal bikes.
Same for trucks, which run over pedestrians and bicyclists with startling regularity.
Same for motorcycles, which kill their drivers with startling regularity.
I don't think "quite dangerous" is valid for banning outright. Maybe "dangerous all of the time no matter what," such as drunk driving, or driving the wrong way on a road, or cycling on the freeway.
Anyway, you can always add regulation. Requiring passengers in cars to wear seatbelts made cars less dangerous. Requiring motorcyclists to wear helmets made motorcycles less dangerous. Giving bicycles bicycle lanes and their own signals made bicycling safer. Etc. Put a speed limit on the bicycle lanes - no faster than 25mph, say. Maybe force e-bike companies to put limiters on the bikes, but that sucks for when they want to ride on the road at whatever speed they can pull off. Then, actually enforce the rules, which I don't know how to go about doing, because the cops in my jurisdiction for example don't give a fuck about neither cars parked in bike lanes (even in "no parking at any time" zones!) or bicyclists sprinting through reds/stop signs.
I say this as someone that owns only 2 wheeled vehicles, motorized or otherwise.
If an e-bike hitting 25 km/h is a safety issue, we should, likewise, ban fit people from bicycling.
It is possible for a semi-truck to drive on such a path, barely (they're usually 8 feet wide; these paths are driven on occasionally by service vehicles after all, to construct and repair the path), but they'd have to run over all the bollards, and any bridges wouldn't handle their weight. Otherwise, it's a fairly accurate analogy IMO. No, it's not a very good solution to the problem of traffic on the roads, but for a few jerks it might seem like a good shortcut. (This is similar to how amateur radio bands don't have very much spectral bandwidth.)
FTFY
So the bridge fails one day in a storm and the bicycle owners are all handed 200-lb loads and told “go.”
Are they compelled to go? What if they all refuse? Where is the utility now?
They are compelled by their own morals. As it's been proven time and again, whenever a bridge collapses, those bikers carrying 200lb loads are among the very first responders.
Let's extend the analogy. Say the bridge is going to be out for 2 years and the bicyclists need to carry loads 24/7. They'll need to quit their regular day jobs to do it.
Are they still compelled to go?
HAMs are not FEMA. They're a purely volunteer op. They do what they can, the best way they can, which turns out to be very good and very reliable in practice. Read up on HAM emergency communications; people participating in it treat it very seriously.
I wouldn't think this would be so hard to understand here, on this site. HAM emergency response works the same way the best of Open Source projects work - through people who do things out of passion and kindness for others, and not because of economic incentives.
My guess, or hope, for how it'll roll out is something like grandfathering in the closed source copyrighted codecs while banning all future closed codecs. Or sunset the closed source codecs in 2039 or similar.
Also note the non-voice digital modes will be AFAIK mostly unaffected. All the classic modes, the K1JT open source modes for meteor scatter, EME and general contesting, all OK.
id: UUID
from: user@CALLSIGN
to: user@CALLSIGN
content: XXX
At least then you can identify the callsign via open protocol? content would include additional headers and encoded body content.
In any case, it seems like a lot of the suggested use cases could easily be unencrypted digital messages with a crypto signature part for confirming the sender to control systems.
There are “unlicensed” (technically licensed-by-rule) bands that do. Typically the ISM bands, which is what WiFi uses. But they aren't as open for experimental use as the amateur bands.
(But yes, even on amateur bands a digital signature would be fine. You just can't obscure the meaning of the message.)
Also, it's worth noting that some cryptography is allowed, just nothing that obscures the message - say you have a device which can be remotely controlled via radio and want to send it a control message ("turn on relay 1" for example), you're allowed to cryptographically sign your message to authenticate that it came from you - just not encrypt the message body.
Also the semi vs bicycle thing isn't really valid. Pactor is around 2.4khz bandwidth while voice is 3khz. So it's more like a bicyle vs another bicycle.
I've posted a longer explanation of the core of the issue in another thread here. This has been going on since the 90s.
The whole reason that voice isn't allowed in the data bands is it's so wide.
FT-8 is only 50Hz wide, Morse code is ~100Hz. In the space of a single Pactor you can fit 48 FT-8 transmissions or 20+ morse code.
If we wanted progress we could look at repealing the symbol rate limits rather than just scaling up the bandwidth of a signal[1].
http://www.arrl.org/news/amateur-radio-volunteers-at-the-rea...
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/08/verizon-throttle...
I think you've got at least one of perfectly spherical, elastic and impenetrable.
Part 97 of the CFR[0] actually gives the reason/spirit:
> (a) Recognition and enhancement of the value of the amateur service to the public as a voluntary noncommercial communication service, particularly with respect to providing emergency communications.
> (b) Continuation and extension of the amateur's proven ability to contribute to the advancement of the radio art.
> (c) Encouragement and improvement of the amateur service through rules which provide for advancing skills in both the communication and technical phases of the art.
> (d) Expansion of the existing reservoir within the amateur radio service of trained operators, technicians, and electronics experts.
> (e) Continuation and extension of the amateur's unique ability to enhance international goodwill.
[0]: https://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-idx?SID=d4b3c60d2d60000a14...
And these days, an important skill is security, and security thinking, which requires modern encryption. The government currently demands to eavesdrop on all ham communications. Well, of course it does. It's a government. Standing up to such nonsense is a skill in itself, and one which should be cultivated.
While I agree with your overall sentiment of privacy, I think Ham radio shouldn’t be encrypted.
When we talk about national security and Ham radio “secure” communication is not what we mean as a risk factor.
Also you do transmit callsigns which anyone can look up and find out who you are + where you live. There's no expectation of privacy and never has been on the bands.
I'd argue that HN doesn't require encrypted data transfer at all, and encrypted data transfer is illegal on ham radio freqs anyway. The other three AAA words are what HN requires as a multi user BBS like service, and are legal under ham radio rules, or at most only need to be bent slightly into being legal.
I was motivated enough to look up the Apache webserver docs to force a https ciper; apparently "SSLCipherSuite" lets you force a specific openSSL cipher name; then I checked openSSL docs and for better or worse "cleartext" is not an allowable cipher for openSSL. Via some code changes in browser and server you could technically implement something like HTTPS that would work legally over ham radio.
Although this is a slight simplification, conceptually there's nothing wrong with the idea of accessing HN while using a cipher of cleartext. I really want to know that I'm not getting MITM'd when I read and post, and I want that CA proof that I'm talking to the genuine CA approved HN server. I really don't care if the general public can read the contents of this post so cleartext would be fine. Logging in by typing my password would be an obvious corner case to handle.
One of the reasons I think we should allow encryption over ham links is that you can't run normal internet protocols - you have to do significant code changes/hacking to make things work. The internet community has decided (for reasons of national security, even!) that it's just not worth having the option.
I guess you're okay with sending your passwords in plain, then.
Do you not see that you're literally arguing against privacy here? Why should amateur radio not get the same benefits? All I hear are arguments in defense of regulation and Kafkaesque government bureaucracy.
HN is a public board, viewable without logging in. There is no expectation of privacy in communications here.
There are privacy implications _outside_ of User communications to this website. Arguing that there is no expectation of privacy on HN is a complete non sequitur.
It's still a good default, because it sets up a social expectation of privacy, which is very important in this era of data mining.
People now aren't enticed by being able to talk to anyone anywhere. There are substantially easier and cheaper methods to do this with the internet and will connect you to more groups with more relevant interests.
As a guy in his late 20's I don't really care much to talk to people on ham. But what got me in was a satellite project during my undergrad (everyone my age or under that I know with a licence has it for similar reasons). Being able to control systems is enticing though. I can't do that with the internet. But playing with iot devices, controlling robots, etc, THAT IS COOL! You aren't going to be about to do this with the internet and you can't get the range (I've never done this, but it is interesting, I just don't have time since I'm in grad school). There's also plenty of ideas I'd like to try that would require encryption (like making a server accessible over HAM frequencies).
I talk to older HAMs and they are confused why the younger generation isn't interested. Well frankly times have changed. Hackers/Makers still exist (this site is proof!), we just aren't enticed just by being able to speak to others around the world. We've been doing that trivially since a young age.
So I think it's silly to say that we don't need encryption. Without users HAM bands will go away. So let's start asking why the younger generation don't want to get in instead of saying "business as usual" when it is clear the business is dying (and dying fast).
Edit: I also disagree with the premise that encrypted == closed. We access tons of https websites and we don't consider those closed.
That's what the ISM bands are for.
With amateur RF it is different - it is a shared, finite resource (in a given area/radius).
Not allowing enciphered communications is a fairly easy way to be able to audit what is taking up the spectrum. If it all goes enciphered, you have no idea what is occurring, for what purposes.
I haven't done the math but my hunch is you could fit the entire ham allocation from VHF down in a single 10mbit pipe. VHF is usually 1200bps per channel and gets slower as you get lower in bandwidth.
Not an old ham and very much like hacking on digital things, I don't think the lack of encryption is hampering anything.
This is simply not true. There are more hams now than there ever has been, and it's growing every year. [1]
[1]http://www.arrl.org/news/us-amateur-radio-numbers-reach-an-a...
Leave encryption to the ISM bands, where it belongs.
("Limited spectrum" is definitely a potential distinction. "National security," I think, makes no sense in either case—it was tried for Internet hobbyists and failed.)
- how would a viable white market develop? It would be patently obvious that the handy communications devices you're buying are using ham frequencies.
- on the grey/black market, why do we think that banning encryption is sufficient to dissuade illegal use but allowing it and banning commercial use would not be? It's already the case that FCC enforcement is very weak and there are a ton of newfangled digital modes. You could get by for a very long time sending encrypted transmissions on ham bands without anyone being able to stop you.
https://www.amazon.com/BaoFeng-BF-F8HP-Two-Way-136-174Mhz-40...
FCC enforcement is light-touch and they don't have infinite investigative capacity, but they are more than willing to throw down a hefty fine if you're a flagrant violator. The encryption ban is essential in allowing amateur radio operators to monitor their own service; a large proportion of FCC enforcement actions are initiated in response to a complaint from another service user.
May I ask why? Why would they care if some of the people that use ham radio are unlicensed?
It's really common to have split frequency inputs on repeaters(+/- 600Hz or so on VHF) so even if a channel sounds clear you could be stomping on everything in a 40 mile radius. PL tones mitigate this somewhat but given the sparse, shared aspect of frequency allocations you want people who are properly educated.
Some non-USA governments have or had draconian postal and radio regulation such that it would be very tempting to bypass them via encrypted radio, such that they have an entire postal budget's worth of justification to enforce the general ham radio theme of "brief messages of a personal, non-commercial nature"
The issue of "brief messages of a personal, non-commercial nature" is significant; take for example the message:
"Have a nice day, geofft"
1) I mean it (like, why not?)
2) There's no logical argument how or why that message transfer would be improved by encryption. There's no possible way that info transfer could be improved by being sent as FGSHR HKSVN OSJVS SDFWE SAFDS AFDJS using an Enigma machine or similar tech. I mean, it would be kinda cool one time, but a pointless drag in the long run.
3) There are plenty of existing FCC regulated services to handle safely sending your credit card number over radio, so you have the burden of explaining why you won't use those existing services if you insist on giving me your credit card number instead of something more appropriate like "you too have a nice day". Like... if you want to transfer credit card numbers instead of having a polite conversation, why are you here anyway?
A better analogy than SSH or HTTPS would be banning IRC vertical spam of encrypted text. If you want to pay your bills online, technically you could spam the heck out of a popular IRC channel by flooding with some kind of BASE64 encoded TLS stream connected to your bank and your web browser via two gateways, but if you try that you're going to get kicked from the IRC network and told to use HTTPS which ironically already exists and works perfectly and was designed for that specific task. Or even worse analogy, picture me flooding a HN article with posts containing TCPIP packets from me logging into my local electric company trying to pay my electric bill, while the rest of you are trying to have a perfectly normal English language conversation about radio regulation surrounded by my vertical spam.
In summary the main difference is radio bandwidth is finite and we often operate at the limits, while internet bandwidth (from a human perspective) is essentially infinite. Also public utility land lines obey map and country boundaries, but radio waves can not.
(Arguably, what I want is another amateur radio service that permits things that aren't brief, personal messages, which could be entirely different from the existing ham radio service.)
https://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-idx?SID=2ae3224dc711208e8b...
I was not directly involved in legal paperwork stuff but my understanding is a short term STA costs a varying amount depending on service code and all long term form 442 cost sixty bucks. I also recall the 442 is about a tenth the paperwork required, so I don't really see a point in requesting a STA for truly experimental work. Of course you can get a STA for literally any service the FCC regulates, whereas form 442 are only for legitimate blue sky experimental research.
To stay amateur radio, it has to be a “party line” chat room.
A few years ago I tried to convince my kids that it would be fun for all of us to get our license for amateur radio. They asked what we could do with it and I told them we could talk to people anywhere in the world! They looked at me like I was nuts because they do that all day everyday online.
It’s more like why you would want to learn to do any of a bunch of other things that technology or other people can do for you.
Why would you want to learn to cook, go camping, learn to fly a plane, or drive a car?
Its a lot like camping: understanding the basics of life and survival, and how our ancestors did it.
Regarding cell phones, just yesterday there was a countrywide cellular service outage[1] in Canada, where amateur radio would have continued working flawlessly. Further, if you are doing some backcountry camping or offroading, good luck getting on the cellular network.
[0] http://ariss-sstv.blogspot.com/
[1] https://globalnews.ca/news/5469880/rogers-wireless-outage/
What about learning about radio for the purposes other than talking to people? Are they interested in tinkering with electronics? maybe get an SDR like a hackrf and show they how you can use it to capture radio signals (try unlocking your car with a replay attack).
Lots of reasons besides talking to people to get your license. I am Extra Class and I never attempt to talk to people, i don't want to chat with random people unless its an emergency.
Interference is one thing and should be dealth with, but anyone is still able to broadcast QRLs if they want to even in a world of encrypted messages
The important things to realize are that amateur radio has a multitude of roles and those roles are not unique to the service. For example: amateur radio is not intended for emergency communications, you have things like aviation and nautical bands for that, yet emergency communications are central to amateur radio since the bands are available when all else fails. Likewise for experimentation, you can frequently work below a certain power levels or obtain a license to develop new technologies. An amateur license offers more leeway and less bureaucracy to hobbiests, arguably cutting down on interference to critical services. The list goes on.
The problem is creating a self-regulating environment. This is difficult to do when communications are "effectively encrypted", which I take to mean that the mode is not publicly documented, it is encrypted, or it is otherwise obfuscated. At best, this encourages use that violates radio regulations. A more cynical interpretation is that it's a prelude to taking over amateur bands.
Constellations of LEO communications satellites already exist, and they are becoming cheaper and more accessible. When a message can be sent from anywhere on Earth to anywhere else on Earth using antennas smaller than a thumbnail, with verification of receipt, independently of local weather, while a billion other people are doing exactly the same thing at exactly the same time, I will strongly wonder why people are still using a channel that could otherwise carry trillions of those messages to try to unreliably bounce Morse code along the terminator from Kansas to Kamchatka.
Opening up a free-for-all in the amateur bands might just produce outsider ideas for interference resolution and deconfliction that are not encumbered by telecoms patents.
I want the amateur bands to be a free-for-all. And also free, for all.
Then they aren't the amateur bands any more - they're ISM bands with really high power limits. Interference is a thing. Modern technology doesn't magic away the problem of interference, it just gives us some tools for mitigating it in some circumstances. The amateur bands give you the right to use high power levels on big blocks of spectrum, but those rights come with responsibilities. You might prefer anarchy, but the FCC doesn't and neither do the majority of spectrum users.
The people who are allowed to use the spectrum for the purposes they prefer, prefer that the bands be restricted to their preferred purposes.
ARRL and FCC make the rules because they have both existed since before I was born, and have always picked the next generation of rules-makers from within their own ranks. I never actually agreed that they should be the ones with power over the airwaves, and neither have given me many reasons to do so.
The FCC has done nothing to reverse, halt, or even slow broadcast media consolidation in the US. Why should I expect it to be penny wise when it is so pound foolish? They have lost their mandate, but kept their guns. It may be the right time for a little anarchy again now, and may the next RF allocation organization that arises out of the chaos remember that interference-free radio communication is a privilege, not a right.
FCC is what keeps all wireless communications in the US working. TV, satellite, HAM, ISM, nautical, aeronautical, you name it. What do you think would happen if FCC took to heart you not recognizing their legitimacy and disbanded? Do you think your Wi-Fi or cellphone would keep working reliably?
My cellphone already doesn't work reliably now, but my wi-fi would still work, as I blast my neighbors' routers out of my living room by increasing my transmitter power, and we might even have a grand war of RF attrition, which could spill over into previously reserved bands, including air, military, and emergency services. Or maybe the next version of router firmware handles it.
Wi-fi is in unlicensed spectrum. It already has to contend with cordless landline phones, microwave ovens, baby monitors, garage door openers, and home security cameras. And that has prompted the creation of new technology to make it work. So now I can enjoy an encrypted Mbps link from the wall to my workstation without running a wire, even as neighbors on all sides do the same thing.
I'd guess that the market for SDRs, highly-directional custom-geometry antennas, laser-optical data links, and wired network building retrofits would explode. Mobile phone service would backslide in quality. GPS would be frequently jammed or spoofed. Eventually, someone would mess with air or ship traffic and get arrested for terrorism. TV would have to come up with some way to sign its signal, so that no one can interrupt kids' programming with shock imagery, or inject pirate ads over the normal ads. Or maybe they just give up, and stream their feed over the Internet, in competition with everyone who wasn't protected by an FCC license.
The FCC keeps everything working by the FCC's system. Without the FCC, it would have to work by a different system, or it might not work for everyone, for all existing use cases. It is not guaranteed that any such future theoretical system would protect any given usage of RF broadcast. Nor is it guaranteed that any usage would be threatened. If you don't run a service that is an uncontroversially unmitigated good--or at the least unremarkably banal--someone will probably try to interfere with you or usurp your station squat, and that will be your problem to solve. In order to get back what was lost with the disappearance of the FCC, some work would be required. In my view, developing the frequency to be more usable, more beneficial, or more accessible to the public is what gives you the right to use it. Other people may have different criteria.
Its just weird to see calls to turn part 97 operations into pale imitations of 47CFR95J or part 90 or similar. Historically the FCC kinda laughs at that stuff.
An excellent local government analogy would be walking into city hall and demanding the building permit department operations be amended such that they used to issue building permits, but you hate the local marina operator, so why not amend the building permit office into stealthily becoming the new local marina operator office as a way to get around existing structure; they'll laugh you right out of city hall.
Likewise the FCC is modern and hip and if you want to do 47CFR95J or part 90 operations, they're super cooperative and into helping you get licensed into those services as cheaply and quickly as possible. I'm not being sarcastic; seriously they're generally nice people to work with, mostly. They are not amused at categorical errors where someone demands they won't fill out a part 90 application because they don't feel like it so everyone else should have to modify part 97 so they can perform part 90 operations using existing part 97 structure.
Really the paragraph above is the fundamental problem expressed in the article; people unwilling or too cheap or too confused to license and operate under 47CFR95B or 47CFR95D or 47CFR95G or whatever existing services mysteriously think it would be easier for the entire rest of the world to Frankenstein part 97 into a pale and inferior imitation of the existing services they somehow, for no obvious reason, refuse to use.
Some of the rants are bizzare; "The FCC hates STEM and technology because they won't let me operate 47CFR95J in a part 97 band because I'm too lazy to read and apply for 47CFR95J service and part 97 is cheap and easy to apply for" Well, uh, no, that hate really does not exist at all, I assure you.
There's nothing in the rules against excessively long transmissions. There are lots of wholly legitimate reasons for very long contacts, with the most obvious example being experimental exchanges using very low SNR modes. There is a rule against "communications, on a regular basis, which could reasonably be furnished alternatively through other radio services" - something which could only be ascertained based on the content of the communications. There are rules against broadcasting, commercial use of the service and a number of other factors relating to the content and purpose of the transmission.
What activity would people like to undertake that a) requires encryption and b) is compatible with the basis and purpose of amateur radio as stated in part 97? How could a simple rule on the duration of transmissions or the length of QSOs meaningfully distinguish between technical experimentation, communications that could not occur by any other medium and the commercial exploitation of the amateur service?
If you're going to be dramatic about it: yes, that's exactly what I'm proposing. We've learned in the last couple of decades on the Internet that communication needs to be encrypted and authenticated as a matter of course. We did not know that a century ago. (We didn't have modern cryptography a century ago.) I think it's perfectly fair to re-evaluate in light of that.
Specifically, you basically can't use any modern network protocol over packet radio any more, because no modern network protocol worth using has a non-encrypted mode.
> What activity would people like to undertake that a) requires encryption and b) is compatible with the basis and purpose of amateur radio as stated in part 97?
Personally, I'd like to tunnel E2E-encrypted text messages, a mosh session to my IRC box, etc., which ordinarily would go over cellular internet links, over ham radio to reach parts of my city with poor cellular coverage, for the purpose of casual conversations with friends and also getting experience with building/operating portable wireless communication systems. Casual conversations that inspire you to get better at building wireless communication systems is a completely normal, intentional, well-accepted use of the amateur service, perhaps the most normal and well-accepted use.
(I also suspect that being able to tunnel normal internet communication protocols over ham radio would be more reliable and valuable in an emergency than voice and ham-specific protocols, and I'd argue that building and gaining practical experience with such systems is also a reasonable use of the amateur service.)
> How could a simple rule on the duration of transmissions or the length of QSOs meaningfully distinguish between technical experimentation, communications that could not occur by any other medium and the commercial exploitation of the amateur service?
If your transmissions are long or regular, then they cannot be encrypted. This does not ban long transmissions, this rule bans long and regular encrypted transmissions - i.e., it is effectively a subset of the existing rule banning encrypted transmissions of any length. So, all existing uses are permitted.
(Are you envisioning a legitimate purpose for encrypted data over low-SNR links? Then you're probably being more ambitious than I am in your hopes for encrypted ham radio!)
A step up from consumer wifi gear, the specific term to google for would be U-NII as in the thingie that WISP wireless ISPs operate under. My understanding of U-NII gear (which might be wrong) is by definition its unlicensed. Its long distance performance crushes anything wifi can do (legally, anyway LOL). My understanding of U-NII is 47CFR15.407 which is a different subsection than consumer wifi.
If you feel really ambitious, FCC Part 101 service is the way to go if you want real distance. A license is a couple hundred bucks new or renewed. Your electric bill for the equipment for part 101 service will cost more than that, I think. Just because a Part 73 renewal costs about a new car per year, doesn't mean ALL the fees are draconian. You can certainly spend more on unlicensed 802.11 gear than on used Part 101 gear as a complete system; its not even remotely unrealistic for a private citizen to do part 101 stuff for fun.
If you're feeling really really really ambitious the cost of a form 442 experimental request was ridiculous like sixty bucks. But thats for really exotic experimentation like we're inventing new hardware and new protocols. And a 442 request is by definition not an existing service so they may well respond with an allocation and temporary license that doesn't work for you.
The point of all this is the FCC already has four services you can operate under, ranging from literally free up to a serious but realistic hobby expense, so changing the rules of an existing fifth service is going to be a very hard sell. Like, seriously, none of the four services they offer fit your needs, not even the $60 experimental request form?
Extensive historical part 97 operation indicates encryption has never been useful or required for the other goals mentioned such as casual conversation or operating portable communications systems, so the FCC is not going to take that subgoal very seriously at all.
This is a ridiculous premise. Things have changed a lot in the last century. We have the freaking internet now for one. It's my personal opinion that HAM is dying because it hasn't kept up with the times. How do you draw new people in? Being able to communicate with others isn't interesting. There are far easier and cheaper methods to do this that younger generation have had since they were children. So let's look at other things. What about making internet relays? Servers? Controlling things (HAM-OT?)
(Which is why spectrum is much more valuable and there aren't unlicensed bands.)
33cm ham band, up to 500kbps, tons of range, especially with yagi/directional antennas, even in a metro area the size of LA. The sad part of this project is that it never took off.
Ham radio is not dying. There are more licensed amateurs now than there ever has been, and it's growing every year [1]. The whole notion that ham radio is this old relic nobody uses anymore has no bearing in reality.
[1]http://www.arrl.org/news/us-amateur-radio-numbers-reach-an-a...
This comment is exactly why I say that.
> What you're proposing amounts to the total abandonment of all the principles that have governed amateur radio for over a century.
And this is a bad thing, somehow? In the past century, things have changed so much. For some reason, every HAM implies that encrypted communications means encrypted chatting. No one who wants encrypted comms (who I know) wants to use it for chatting, we want to use it for control mechanisms.
Quit being anti-hacker.
As VLM keeps saying time and again in this thread, there are other bands for that.
And even if you really, really wanted to run control mechanisms over HAM bands and didn't want anyone to inject telemetry and control signals, you don't need encryption of all traffic for that. Only authentication. Exchange keys and then just send signed but cleartext messages.
Why would you want to encrypt the control traffic so that no other HAM could listen to it and learn from it? Quit being anti-hacker.
And as others have mentioned elsewhere: control mechanisms just need authentication, not encryption. Plenty of ways to skin that cat.
There's not a compelling reason I can think of for the FCC doing anything more than regulating bandwidth, power, and duration of radio spectrum signals. On that premise, what couldn't they do with encrypted signals? It's not like abusers honestly identify themselves at the required intervals anyway. They could still triangulate abusers and issue fines. The only thing they wouldn't be able to do is tell users to watch their mouth.
As far as one of the stated purposes being emergency management, I can't help but wonder if reserved frequencies (ala CB channel 9) are sufficient.
Once you have authentication, you can send whatever control signals you want in the clear, as long as they are signed.
Message: set foo to baz Author: kortex Checksum: 0x1337ace5 Sig: 0xdeadbeef
The endpoint checks for message integrity and authentication, and executes or rejects.
The difference is cables are waveguides from A to B. Radio is a common bus.
> (wiki) encryption is the process of encoding a message or information in such a way that only authorized parties can access it and those who are not authorized cannot.
>> 97.113 (4) “…messages in codes or ciphers intended to obscure the meaning thereof..."
You are obscuring the message that is the password.
Cipher
>>> 2 a: a method of transforming a text in order to conceal its meaning
>>> 4 : a combination of symbolic letters
>>>> (wiki) Diffie–Hellman key exchange (DH)[nb 1] is a method of securely exchanging cryptographic keys over a public channel
You definitely want to obscure and hide your password for authentication. I guess it depends how you interpret the rules though. Is a cryptographic signature a message in codes or ciphers the more important part or is it about the content of the message? At a minimum I think this should be clarified more.
That being said, if I am using radio to control certain devices I may not want that content to be public (and where I can still abide by the part of not using radio for illegal activities).
Thank you for a challenging exchange. Those interested can inspect the full reg at https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/47/97.113 . The permitted exceptions aren't hard to search for from there.
I also don't understand the argument that encryption makes HAM closed. The internet is pretty open with encryption.
As I pointed out just a few days ago, probably most hams worldwide interpret the regs as discouraging any polemic discussion like politics or religion. Since so many hams are elderly, there is also some distrust of foreigners lingering from the Cold War era. So communications, especially international communications, are so often limited to merely exchanging signal reports, maybe some gear talk or weather info, and then it’s 73.
Besides that, amateur radio is a hobby that attracts a lot of socially-awkward anoraks, who are very self-conscious about entering into any conversation deeper than just talking about their gear.
Sure, there is a community of eager ragchewers, but it is not so big comparatively, and even most of those ragchewers probably limit their deep conversations to people from the same country (or even to people from their own local club scene).
(It’s been called the 4chan of ham radio)
Spectrum is allocated for specific purposes. We have spectrum allocations for aviation, for public safety, for business use, for broadcast and so on. Each of those services has specific regulations to ensure that it functions effectively and is not detrimental to users of other radio services. Amateur radio has a broad but specific range of purposes with some kind of social benefit - education, experimentation, public safety, international goodwill etc. The amateur radio service is regulated to ensure that it remains useful for those purposes.
Encryption removes the ability of the FCC and the amateur radio community as a whole to see whether you're using the service legitimately, or illegally encroaching on amateur frequencies.
Multiple engineer-months of field strength estimates and measurements and extensive deconfliction to provide reliable broadcast service mean the part 73 licensing process is very expensive, yet it results in broadcast services that generally work pretty well. Of course its extremely expensive to regulate that level of QoS.
On the other hand, the Ham Radio licensing process is like: try not to hurt yourself or others, take responsibility for your actions by attaching your callsign (aka legal contact, if it comes to that) to every transmission, and we guarantee absolutely nothing although you folks are historically pretty resourceful LOL. Naturally that costs about $5 to regulate that level of QoS.
Every other service is somewhere in between. Part 87 for aircraft comms is a bit on the expensive side and extensively monitored and interference complaints are very aggressively enforced at a financial loss to the FCC (but, hey, public safety, so its worth it), Part 95-D for CB is for all practical purposes unregulated and as you'd guess its both basically unusable for any purpose and is also free.
Over a very short period of time its tempting to be the first guy to pay Part 97 prices for a license then cheat the system and operate Part 90 services or even Part 73 services on that $5 Part 97 license. Over the long period of time, regulation existed for a reason, the reason has not gone away, and the price and paperwork burden of a Part 97 license would naturally rise up to the existing Part 73 system plus an extra $5 to fund the legacy ham radio service such that its now a net loss to merge parts 73 and 97 services.
The overall process is essentially a wealth transfer from those who are the last to give in and ruin the commons to those who are the first to ruin the commons, which is usually not seen as a regulatory win in a theoretical sense.
As a thought experiment, imagine a world of highly limited internet bandwidth and no net neutrality resulting in massive tiers of bandwidth and billing, and the government proposed regulation that if you set a "I'm a 911 call" bit in your packet, that would be not billed "free" service. You know if they allowed encryption of "911 voice call traffic", that the usual suspects would be trading blueray ISO files by the dozen per month using torrent clients with the "I'm a 911 call" bit set such that the BW was free. I'm not sure that works in the sense of everyone playing along in a system.
In the very old days of radio there was no regulation, as being proposed; it didn't work very well. The FCC wasn't invented just for fun. The FCC is kinda like the EPA, didn't need the EPA in 10000 BC, and the only rational way to get into a future scenario where the EPA is no longer needed seems to be to go back to the population and living conditions of 10000 BC... So I wouldn't bet on "lets just rm -Rf the entire FCC" being implemented any time soon.
For example, you can transmit video over amateur bands, even though the signal could be considered to be encrypted if you don't have the standard for decoding the signal.
But you can record the Hiatian speakers message and get it translated.
With sufficient encryption, recorded messages cannot ever be decoded unless the key was broadcast, which it never would be.
However, this exact form of encoding was used as a form of encryption while the US was at war; the Navajo Code Talkers.
Somewhat off topic, of course, but a great example of how encryption and encoding can have identical end results.
> Almost all digital modes in common amateur radio use are capable of being monitored by third parties, either through an integrated developer provided software package, or with a stand alone software decoder. Problems arise when protocols and devices used in commercial, government, and marine services are used in the amateur service with no adequate means to fully decode transmissions. Further complicating the situation are security and privacy features of the specific modulation and networking protocols which are not subject to rules governing amateur radio. Said features preclude the amateur radio community from attempting to monitor the Part 97 spectrum by denying them ability to eavesdrop
and the proposed solution is
> To rectify the current situation in the amateur radio service,digital mode developers must be required, by Part 97 rule, to provide the means to fully decode their product in amateur use to enable monitoring and self-policing. The amateur radio community, the FCC, and intruder monitoring groups should not be put in a position of having to develop decoders for any digital protocol destined for use in the amateur radio service. The protocol developers should be solely responsible for providing a decoding solution to ensure Part 97 rules compliance. Any necessary software provided by developers must be open source, unencumbered by patent, licensing fees,royalties or copyright, in keeping with the intent and spirit of the amateur radio service as exemplified in Part 97.1(b)(c).
https://ecfsapi.fcc.gov/file/100918881206/PETITION%20FOR%20R...
Modes have to evolve and the amateur radio community needs to do more to educate. The harrumphs of the old-timers can be discouraging, but amateur radio needs to push through that in order to stay current.
You can catch me on FT8 or bashing out CW with a straight key or on 2m FM. Depends on what mood I’m in.
If there’s an emergency I’ll use my phone though. I can’t see any utility in it. I just enjoy it.
The world got onboard with 802.11g (and even 802.11b but that sucked). That was a massive movement towards the proliferation of wireless devices. While the standard costs $178 from IEEE, you can find copies of it scattered all over the internet. I don't know why hams have adopted these closed standards, I'm guessing it's because at one point the hobby was dominated by elmers too old to figure out anything but the newest expensive shiny thing from Icom or Yaesu (too much money, not enough sense...) Nowadays you can pull up GNU Radio and start using any sort of open standard mode you want because of how accessible everything is.
From a brief Googling leading to Winlink's web site, it sounds like Winlink isn't even encrypted at all [1]:
> Q260 While monitoring transmissions from WL2K stations, I notice that the content appears as “gibberish”. Isn’t this illegal?
> A260 The content looks that way because it is a compressed binary format called "B2F." This format is available to anyone, so the compressed data is not considered encryption or illegal for radio amateurs.
Is the concern that people are encrypting Winlink payloads anyway? And wouldn't this already be illegal under current rules?
[1] https://www.winlink.org/sites/default/files/wl2k_faq_2015031...
(Edit: formatting)
1) It transmits without checking if the frequency is already in use, and is thus a source of interference to other users
2) It uses a proprietary protocol that requires purchasing expensive hardware froma single company (https://www.p4dragon.com/download/SCS_Pricelist_2019_REV-A.p...) to decode
The solutions proposed are
1) Limit "Automatically Controlled Data Stations" like Winlink to a specific range of frequencies 2) Limit the protocols they use to ones that "can be be monitored, in it’s entirety, by 3rd parties, with freely available open source software"
You can read the petition at https://ecfsapi.fcc.gov/file/100918881206/PETITION%20FOR%20R... for more details.
1) It uses proprietary PACTOR III and IV modems that only one company makes. This means to monitor Winlink you need to shell out thousands of dollars for a modem.
2) PACTOR transmissions don't send any ident in the clear, the ident is part of the PACTOR code.
3) There at least used to be an issue with PACTOR III modems both not detecting transmissions on the same frequency and falsely detecting transmissions on the same frequency, so Winlink stations were told to turn frequency-in-use detection off.
4) Theres a decent number of people who use Winlink as a substitute for Sailmail and thusly are in violation of 97.113(a)5.
In a genuine emergency where many lives were at stake, one might give them great leeway to break the law, just like fire trucks can speed and run red lights.
But when there's no emergency, should such rulebreaking be allowed for the billionaires' yachts?
Obviously, the e-mail-by-radio system at the heart of this argument isn't all about billionaires' yachts - but still, there's no reason loosened rules for emergencies should be extended to non-emergency use.
[1] http://www.groundcontrol.com/MCD-4800_BGAN_Terminal.htm [2] https://www.winlink.org/sites/default/files/download/wl2k_fa... (see A170)
I'm a licensed ham these days (WT1J) and use HF for my hobby. I use voice and open source digital protocols. All for fun and learning.
I think the reality here is that Sailmail and Winlink are used by folks to check their email and they treat it like regular email, which means they conduct business over it. The system has become popular with yachties around the world - many of whom are wealthy retirees or remote workers.
In the 90s, using a Pactor modem and SSB was pretty much your only cost effective option to have any kind of email access.
These days you can buy an Iridium Go for less than a Pactor4 modem and the rates are reasonable for text and email. In fact Sailmail integrates with Iridium Go now.
I think the arguments made for banning Pactor modems on the HF bands are legitimate. Other than Pactor 1 which is open source, Pactor 2, 3 and 4 are proprietary and you can't decode them if you're listening in.
You are also not supposed to use the amateur bands to conduct business, and yet that is exactly what is happening much of the time someone is downloading/uploading email via a Pactor modem on the amateur bands.
From the FCC: "The amateur and amateur-satellite services are for qualified persons of any age who are interested in radio technique solely with a personal aim and without pecuniary interest. These services present an opportunity for self-training, intercommunication, and technical investigations." Source: https://www.fcc.gov/wireless/bureau-divisions/mobility-divis...
So checking your stock portfolio from the Bahamas or communicating with your lawyer is not allowed. However this is near impossible to monitor because Pactor 2+ is proprietary and so no proof of this can be submitted.
What the hams are arguing for is in the spirit of the amateur bands: Make the protocols open source and unencrypted so that all communication on the amateur bands are essentially open source and we can all participate and help regulate each other - while learning from each other.
This feels reasonable to me. Kick the Pactors off and let them use Iridium or Inmarsat.
PS: I don't buy the 'interference' argument mentioned in the article. Pactor is low bandwidth and doesn't cause interference that I'm aware of. It's just occupying some bandwidth and can't be understood by others.
In addition to that most obvious annoyance, encumbered modes have restricted experimentation and exploration. Compare the vibrancy and progress in the open source HF low bandwidth modes implemented by WSJT to the level of technical development at the modem or codec level for dstar.
FWIW, my recollection is that the AMBE patents are soon due to expire, if they haven't already.
> §97.113(4) Music using a phone emission except as specifically provided elsewhere in this section; communications intended to facilitate a criminal act; messages encoded for the purpose of obscuring their meaning, except as otherwise provided herein; obscene or indecent words or language; or false or deceptive messages, signals or identification.
The "messages encoded for the purpose of obscuring their meaning, except as otherwise provided herein" being the key part and the "except as otherwise provided herein" basically boiling down to remote control (incl for satellites!)
It's also tricky because the FCC allows proprietary voice codecs on the mature bands. They are not considered as "obscuring" the meaning because even though they're not an "open" standard, anyone with the appropriate decoded, can decode the voice stream. I guess because it's a globally shared secret and not a shared secret only between the sender and receiver, they allow it under the rules.
Even experimental digital modes on the amateur bands don't fall afoul of this rule. You can experiment with a new digital mode that no one but you has the ability to decode. However, if push came to shove you'd need to release at least a functional description of your mode or forfeit your license.
It's not an encryption or cryptography ban -- signed messages are perfectly fine -- it's really an extension of the whole idea that these bands and your license exist for the purpose of shared, non-commercial communication of a personal nature in a public space.