Hacker News Reader

Comment by Octokiddie | Hacker News Reader

From another thread, the actual application appears to be something called a "hike and fly race":

> The Global Rescue XRedRocks is a premiere hike and fly race in North America, organized in a similar way to the Eigertour, Vercofly and DolomitiSuperfly- multi-day hike and fly events that take participants into magnificent mountains to see what they’re made of when we pair back free-flight to it’s most raw and exciting form. Travel is only allowed by wing or on foot. There are no supporters. ...

https://xredrocks.com

The devices appear to be internet hotspots, possibly powered by the Helium network:

https://gristleking.com/helium-deployed-the-network-in-actio...

This could explain why you'd want to put a hotspot at the top of a mountain: to provide real-time tracking of paragliders during the competition.

The hotspots in the local news clip could be put there either for real-time telemetry during the competition or for training.

View on HN

I was at that race. It's hours away, in a different part of Utah, for 3 days in the fall. The trackers they used for the competition were rented from a completely separate company, and, I believe, use cell based technology. The link you posted is about one guy who used a novel technology in an unofficial capacity. The race organizer wasn't using it at all. I know the organizer.

They have nothing to do with this.

Paragliders already have a solution for tracking outside of competitions, and most carry it in the form of an inReach or Spot device. Ground station based location reporting is not reliable because we can travel 100s of kms in a day over wilderness. In fact, you were required to have satellite tracking as part of the competition, or to participate in the other flying events in Central Utah that week. The cell based trackers provide uniform location tracking for race scoring as a primary purpose, and real time updates as a secondary purpose when cell connections exist. The satellite trackers give you the '911' button.

As far as I can tell your link from these devices placed in Salt Lake to the XRedRocks race is that someone at the race played with similar technology on top of a mountain?

This is one thing I love about HN - hearing from people who are directly involved or familiar with something. Nothing burns brain cycles like an unsolved mystery!

There are some Helium nodes along the SLC foothills [1], though I'm not seeing many so remote or far from a road. Unclear if this displays history or only active nodes.

[1] https://explorer.helium.com/iot/hex/882696b829fffff

I was confused until I realised they meant "pare back". I thought they were trying to pair "back free-flight" to "it's most raw and exciting form", until I reparsed.

"take participants into magnificent mountains to see what they’re made of when"

I was confused because I expected everybody past elementary school would know mountains are made of rocks ...

Looking at the rules, the race you linked appears to be much further south around Sevier, UT.

For people unfamiliar with the area, this is the Avenues Twin Peak, not very far above the fairly busy shoreline trail.

Why would an internet hotspot use what looks like a 2m half-wave antenna? Is there also some built-in 2m repeater functionality?

It's LoraWAN at ~900 mhz.

and here the specs: https://github.com/3s1d/fanet-stm32

You can send digital packets over radio. 2 meter band can handle internet equivalent to dial-up speeds if reception is good enough.

Interesting, thanks. I'd always been under the impression (maybe old folklore) that encryption wasn't allowed over some bands.

.. Now that I type it out, this is probably a band that has no rule for this.

Even if so, I can't imagine that anyone anonymously bolting radio equipment onto public property cares about usage rules.

If they don't want the fcc or ham operators confiscating their gear they do.

Looks like they don't care that much. If they did they probably would have put contact info on it.

Also, theft of one of these things is probably a criminal charge regardless of what rule someone was breaking with it. I'm a licensed motorcycle operator. If I see someone irresponsibly biking in a national park, I can't just take it when they're not looking.

Do ham operators have some special privilege enabling them to take private property without being charged theft?

I think ham radio is super neat and good enforcement of the rules makes the space better overall. I've also got lots of friends who are passionate and dedicated hams who've shown me the thrill of chatting with someone continents away over the open airwaves.

... but I get huge hall monitor vibes from a disproportionate percentage of folks in that crowd. For some it seems like it's not about using rules to protect the airwaves– the rules become an end themselves.

You would be amazed at what ham operators feel like they can do.

It disappoints me that americans are seemingly so ambivalent to this particular government overreach. The same thing appears to be playing out with drones now as well.

You can easily do it legally easily, ham test is slightly harder than a written driving test. Basically just learning what emergency bands not to stomp on.

That’s not what ambivalent means.

Using spectrum irresponsibly harms usage by others.

Installing equipment for everyone to use is the opposite. No one is harmed by such installations.

This assumes that whoever set these up made sure there is no interference and hikes up there to remove the device when it breaks instead of just leaving it up there to rot.

It would seem that hogging up spectrum so you can surf the internet is probably a selfish usage? I mean most ham operators don't go 24/7 while talking and using channels.

Bandwidth is a finite resource. An installation that is open for everyone to use still harms other people who would like to use that bandwidth for other purposes.

That's assuming any traffic is being sent. Installing the hardware doesn't automatically cause any harm.

Installing hardware that isn't doing anything is just littering.

I didn't say they were harming anyone. They might be. Frankly I have no idea.

The ISM bands allow encryption. The HAM radio bands don't (except for satellite command uplinks).

Transmissions to any remote controlled craft - RC planes, cars, etc. in addition to satellites - can be encrypted.

Amateur radio bands do not permit encryption, but they do permit digital modes to varying extents.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com