Hacker News Reader

Comment by AWildC182 | Hacker News Reader

We desperately need new blood. If you like outdoor activities in areas where cell phone coverage is poor (camping, hiking, skiing, dense urban gatherings) or enjoy the idea of having unique access to spectrum for learning and experimentation, you need to look into amateur radio.

Some choice projects:

https://www.winlink.org/ Long range email over HF bands

https://aprs.fi/ APRS real time position tracking map

https://aprsdroid.org/ APRS text messaging + tracking app

http://wsprnet.org/drupal/wsprnet/map WSPR HF propagation map

https://physics.princeton.edu/pulsar/K1JT/wsjtx.html Digital high performance HF mode application

I'm an extra working on developing classes for introducing modern radio to the next generation of hams. Feel free to ask about anything.

View on HN

Don't forget low-cost SDR dongles - great for introducing digital signal analysis, satellite communications (wxsat, etc), ADSB aircraft tracking, HAB, and other ham-adjacent topics. This sort of thing was unimaginably expensive when I was first getting interested in radio. The first WinRadios I saw advertised in hobbyist magazines were, what, $700 or more?

Absolutely! These are how I got started. Just buying an RDL-SDR [1] for $20-30 will open up an amazing world of possibilities and provide dozens of hours of entertainment scanning around the waterfall listening to various transmissions.

No license needed!

[1] https://www.amazon.com/RTL-SDR-Blog-RTL2832U-Software-Define...

We need new blood in Amateur Radio but we need more openness to those new people to be experimenting with and doing things the older HAMs don't care about. One really interesting aspect is that the amateur 2.4GHz band overlaps with WiFi, allowing for Part 97 use of WiFi to create mesh networks over very large areas and at higher power than ISM use allows.

This is definitely a problem. We're going on almost four years of FT8 and the forums are still dripping with contempt for most digital modes and FT8 specifically.

I think something that could draw in a LOT of people -- and be an awesome STEM tool -- would be non-cost-prohibitive VHF and UHF SDR radios that can be easily controlled wirelessly (Bluetooth, WiFi, or both) and allow for any number of modulations from standard FM as is used on 2m/70cm, analog slow-scan TV, digital TV, digital voice, data and more. Heck, the creation of a handshake protocol that starts as AX.25 and the stations identify a switch-to protocol would be great, and since it's digital and we're assuming SDR, that handshake could be "Oh, you don't have the ABC123XYZ codec? I'll send it to you now!" Yes... trusting a CODEC from an unverified source could be dangerous but that's part of the fun of experimentation!

I think such things are coming very soon. VHF in particular is really easy to design for as the direct sampling SDR components supporting that band can be had cheaply. You can go on digikey.com right now and spec out a pretty nice pipeline without too much difficulty.

Honestly, we can totally ignore the previous generation. This has been a sticking point for a lot of people but at the end of the day they are irrelevant and aren't going to be around much longer. There are also a lot of them that welcome the new systems and bemoan their peers for not wanting to build anything anymore but an angry minority tends to get the most attention.

At the end of the day, analog modes aren't going anywhere and the old curmudgeons have no administrative power to prevent people from using newer modes and otherwise enjoying the available bandwidth as defined by the regulations.

I think this attitude is wrong.

This is a hobby. There are a few constraints on what you can do with it due to licensing and that's about it. Whatever happens is fine be it cranking CW out on a one tube transmitter on 80m, pushing the envelope on digital modes on 134 GHz or talking about tomatoes on a local 2m repeater. That is choice.

What is important is we stop pissing on each other's interests and longevity and trying to restrict choice. It builds resentment and that resentment is loud and destructive.

At the time I did my full license, in 2018, there was a large interest in "old modes" because it's an escape from daily complexity in technical professions.

I think in a way we're saying the same thing...

No individual should be burdened by the interests of another, thought there is a very vocal group that wants to complain about the interests of others. As I see it, it's safe to disregard the views of this group if your views don't align with theirs.

If that's the case, I agree.

Recipe for success for me is staying away from clubs, 80m and QRZ.com :)

Yea, I do the same. I recently went to the trouble of enlarging my magloop diameter to hit 80m not knowing any better, then promptly regretted it.

There are some clubs in the CO front range that are pretty progressive though. I just don't have the time to go to meetings right now.

The contempt for FT8 is that it's more or less exclusively a contesting mode. Essentially all you can do with it is ping other users.

Many hams find contesting traffic to be a nuisance.

Heh, indeed. With minor tweaks (I've seen the patches floating around) making contacts can be fully automated.

It's much like the early days of the internet when people would tail -f /var/log/http/access.log and keep track of how many countries contacted their webserver.

At least there's not a js8call which gasp actually allows keyboard to keyboard chat. Even allows relaying through a 3rd party as well as async communications through a storage and forward process.

I'd also recommend checking out https://www.ke6mt.us/

This blog was my introduction to Summits on the Air (SOTA), in which operators broadcast from mountain summits.

I have the study manual, just need the time. I spend a lot of time off grid even if it is just out panning at my claim for a couple of hours.

What helped me the most was an app on my phone. I'd be sitting there waiting for something with a few minutes to spare, and I could fire up the app and run through sample questions. Huge huge help.

I can listen to the spectrum just fine without a license. Why would I want to talk on it?

More to the point, why would I want to have to get the government's permission in order to talk on it?

Also:

> If you like outdoor activities in areas where cell phone coverage is poor (camping, hiking, skiing, dense urban gatherings)

If you mention this as a possible use, mention that it is illegal to encrypt amateur radio communications, so you must broadcast your family's information and plans for the world to hear. That's quite the security risk.

If you used less regulated CB in the old days and heard what a garbage dump it could turn into, you might appreciate more regulated frequencies. Or maybe not, I don't know.

As far as your encryption concerns go, you have to go to extra effort for any of your ham transmissions to be heard by the whole world. Generally it's just a mile or two radius, line of site, only to those who are listening during the short interval while you are transmitting. Far, far different from posting something on the internet.

Sadly, you can get the same appreciation by listening to 7.200 for a few days right now.

Funny you should compare it to the Internet. I remember the days when you could post something online and not worry about it because 1) only a very tiny fraction of the world was online 2) even if you were online, good luck finding it unless someone told you where it was.

My main point being that amateur radio only has security through obscurity as it only takes one device locally listening/relaying your signal to invalidate the distance assumption in the same way people posting things online thought 'nobody's ever going to care about this post' all those years ago. A key difference being that you have no option to encrypt and the other party doesn't need to MITM you to get any potentially interesting information.

> As far as your encryption concerns go, you have to go to extra effort for any of your ham transmissions to be heard by the whole world.

Being heard by the whole region is even worse.

So, how can I prevent the people in my region from hearing my plans when I broadcast them unencrypted?

> Far, far different from posting something on the internet.

I don't use public Internet fora as a cell phone replacement.

You advocated using amateur radio in that capacity.

"More to the point, why would I want to have to get the government's permission in order to talk on it?"

Actually, I really appreciate this sentiment.

One thing that has always seemed odd to me (as a non-HAM with a marginal interest in RF comms) is how authoritarian and ... adherent the community is.

There is no deviation from the established regulations and a striking lack of interest in even discussing amendments or alternatives to the rules.

Whether it is the prohibition of encrypted comms or the radio typing categories (that cause me to respond to fire calls with, literally, three radios in my hand) you will find very little sympathy or enthusiasm for stepping outside the party line even a bit.

... which surprises me because you'd think HAM would be skew libertarian ... or something like that ...

Realistically the FCC has __very__ little enforcement capability/interest right now. The views you see on the internet are from a very vocal group that is worried about maintaining the status quo and not losing access to any bands because corporate interests decide they need the spectrum.

If you want to go off and be a pirate you can probably get away with it, given that the top selling walkie talkie on amazon is an incorrectly marketed ham handheld that can also broadcast on public safety/police frequencies, with or without being set to them. I wouldn't advise it though because if you do get caught they tend to make an example of you, and if you know enough to not get caught, you can easily pass the tech test and beyond so just get licensed for the cost of a happy meal and enjoy.

Personally, I actually support having encrypted sub bands like we have for everything else, with the exception that station ident should be in the clear and I would like to see the tech test be easier.

The ban on encryption has always seemed odd to me. I mean, WiFi is spread-spectrum radio, and it's encrypted. And it's not necessarily short-range. I've done well over several km with Ubiquiti radios driving parabolic dishes.

What I'd want would basically be tinc or another P2P VPN via radio. Like WiFi meshnet, but not limited to line of sight.

One option I've been looking at is the LoRa transceivers that have come out. A couple have bluetooth 5.0 baked in so you could realistically make a really low part count bridge for your phone to let you send encrypted mesh networked texts to other people running similar hardware. There's at least one person working on this I know of but they're not super forthcoming about source.

As for wifi, it's worth noting that while you can get a ton of gain, you do so by making the signal directional so long story short you always cover very roughly the same volume, be it a long super skinny wedge, medium donut or a small sphere.

Huh. Anything with GPS freaks me out. Even WiFi, now that Google etc have mapped so many damn APs. Or cellular, of course.

But then, here I am on a wired uplink. I guess it's just that I trust my understanding of nested VPN chains in Linux. And that I trust the hardware and software enough.

Android and iOS, though, I don't understand or trust.

You make a good point about WiFi. Not going transcontinental with that. Except adjacent continents, maybe.

If you don't like using your phone, theoretically anything with bluetooth would work with the bridge, or you could just add a microcontroller and a little keyboard and display to have something self contained. Something like the toy messenger everyone is hacking to open garage doors.

OK, thanks.

All of these points are valid to an extent, however they all exist on every other service that fills the same role.

FRS: unencrypted, type accepted radios only. Extremely low radiated power and sensitivity.

GMRS: Gotta pay $70 to the gubment every 10 years, type accepted only, unencrypted.

MURS: Unencrypted (mode restricted), and very few usable channels, type accepted.

CB: Unencrypted, unwieldy equipment, full of lunatics, type accepted.

At the end of the day, you live in a society that requests you follow some laws and get licenses for things that can effect others. The encryption issue is contentious and not entirely one-sided but realistically you're far more likely to be bothered over the public bands and the security risk you fear is rather non-existent. I don't exactly know of a hams being kidnapped or attacked in the streets. The US is far safer now that it ever has been on a crime level so having some trust in your fellow man is not unwarranted.

If you really want to be left alone, use Fusion or Dstar over simplex :)

I wouldn't use ham radio as a replacement for normal cell phone personal chatter, but more for updates "Hey dad, me and Judy are going to that cave we saw last year, will call you when we're back out. KG12345 signing off" or "Help, my father fell off a cliff on the John Doe trail about a mile from the trailhead"

It's a broadcast channel, not a private channel, so don't use it for personal chatter that you wouldn't want other people to overhear. Using some common sense eliminates the privacy risk of other people overhearing you

> More to the point, why would I want to have to get the government's permission in order to talk on it?

One of the key purposes of the amateur radio service is experimentation. This brings with it the risk that I might inadvertently disrupt other communication services, potentially endangering human lives. The tests/licensing guarantees a minimum level of competence to mitigate that risk, while the clear-text and station identification requirements makes it possible to tell me to stop it if I do end up disrupting other services.

I see it comparable to our driver license system. Yes it invades our freedom somewhat, but it reduces a lot of human suffering.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com