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You're missing the point. I would only bother to take the exam if I could use my radio for encrypted packet radio. I'd love to set up a long range meshnet, but it's only useful if it's encrypted.

There's a lot of fundamental infrastructure decentralization that can happen once some of the HAM frequencies allow encrypted use.

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They're only useful precisely because they aren't being used for that.

What you really want instead is something like the HAM license allowing the use of point to point equipment at higher power and on frequencies reserved for operators that respect the communications medium.

I was referring to the exam for the HAM license, which I don't want or find interesting because it doesn't allow encryption. Encryption is pretty basic at this point. I want to set up long-range, encrypted, decentralized, p2p mesh networks with my friends. Because I'm accustomed to private conversations, and HAM radio represents a huge step backwards in that regard.

I find it more believable that the government is scared of such technology than that encryption would be such a detriment to the HAM radio community.

You can absolutely do that, and there are several potential license and license-free options. None of them are amateur radio, however.

I'm curious what the license-free options are that you're referring to. I thought I'd done my research, but I missed that.

U-NII, mostly. The drawback from amateur radio or another licensed service is that you won't be able to use anything like the same power output. Whether that works for you depends on your definition of "long distance".

Yeah, that doesn't really fit the bill. I'm talking about HAM radio definitions of 'long distance', where one of the shorter hops is ~150 miles. I might as well stick with Part 15 as use U-NII.

That's the problem - hn regularly has threads talking about how decentralized infrastructure is so important. Having a (dialup speed) p2p network that is built on long range connections would be insanely reliable and would probably revolutionize what we think of as the Internet.

- ISPs would be optional

- access to the internet would be the one-time cost of the hardware

- a totalitarian government trying to shutdown the internet would have to hunt down portable repeaters over hundreds of square miles

- the infrastructure would be in the hands of the people, not megacorps like verizon and comcast.

But that requires encryption, and spectrum allocations that can cover the distance.

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