ARRL hails FCC action to remove symbol rate restrictions
arrl.org
arrl.org
https://www.arrl.org/news/deadline-extended-to-november-28-2...
I support less limitiatons for ham radio operators, but 15W eirp is really not that useless.
I semi-routinely spoke to Japan with SSB using improvised antennas in the field with 10W.
Elecraft KX3 + Buddipole Deluxe. Doubt I was very efficient, though I did try to get a couple good counterpoise wires going.
The TX power limits were primarily driven by builder/operator safety - higher power requires higher amplifier voltages. If there is a lower requirement for a band to avoid interference with shared uses, why not just specify a lower power level? Why add a requirement that involves antenna and near-field environment modeling?
Also to remember what I was told: it's a privilege not a right. Limitations are to be expected.
Or perhaps your thinking is "I wish it was open, and everyone just mutually respected it".
Which is great. Everyone agrees. But most people realize that their mass mutual collaboration ideas will never work by the end of high school. "If we all stopped stealing we wouldn't need locks!"
The point I was trying to make is that these are practically the same thing just shifted around in wavelength. That it's somehow reasonable for the FCC to regulate some wavelengths of EM, but "reducto ad absurd" to propose that they could regulate others.
I agree, it would be absurd for the FCC to regulate visible light. I just think it's also absurd for them to plant their flag in another wavelength. I don't think anyone can "own" a wavelength anymore than they can own a particular level of gravity or voltage.
1: https://digitalcommons.wcl.american.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?...
Of course, the 2.8 kHz bandwidth rule prohibits that in the ham bands. The FCC had originally declined to set a maximum bandwidth in their first ruling, but that caused everyone's head to explode (and that's one of the reasons this ruling has taken so long).
I'm ignorant of what the ramifications would be of this - can you explain why people would have responded like that?
The reason the FCC didn't want to set a limit is because it's arbitrary. For example, MIL-STD-188-110D (which is an open standard) has a 2400 baud 3.24 kHz mode. But now it's illegal.
I'd still call this a win. The 300baud limit in USA was keeping the whole field behind by preventimg world wide adoption of more efficient modems.
But I agree. Even with the 2.8 kHz limit, it's still a big step forward.
The bandwidth of a single carrier signal is symbol rate * (1 + RRC excess bandwidth). A typical excess bandwidth is 0.35, so 2000 syms/s * 1.35 = 2700 Hz.
You can use a tighter roll-off, like 0.2. 2400 syms/s * 1.2 = 2880 Hz. Unfortunately, the tighter roll-off increases the PAPR (Peak to Average Power Ratio) of the transmitted signal.
If you have more than 2 possible symbols, you can do much more than that; 256QAM could be getting 8 bits/second/Hz under very strong signal conditions.
This theorem states that the theoretical maximum channel capacity ("bandwidth" as measured by bits per second) is dependent on analog bandwidth (the other "bandwidth" lol) and signal to noise ratio.
Now that's the information theoretical maximum, but stuff like QAM as people mentioned, and other more advanced techniques like OFDM and "next layer" stuff like FEC can get you very close to the theoretical maximum.
(Not a ham. In microwave point to point space, you can usually get two customers on a direction by exploring the space around the 360 clock for angle/phase of the signal being sent, horizontal vs vertical is not uncommon)
Edit: fixed bits per symbol
Me, personally, I would like to see the bands filled to capacity and it be common/everyday that ordinary people use 2m/70cm data modes for things besides DX’ing.
In fact, the most reliable traffic is the one narrow APRS frequency full of generally indecipherable digital packets from all the proprietary over-landing rigs.
I think something like that coupled with something like https://hamwan.org/ to route high-bandwidth traffic could be a great combo, almost like an adaptive bandwidth.
One place that extra space would be useful is for digital walkie-talkies, as an expansion of FRS.
Or use of existing internet protocols, yes.
Here's an example: I was in an amateur rocketry group. One of our primary telemetry connections was wifi; 802.11b channel 1 is in an amateur band. We used directional antennas on the ground, cylindrical patch antennas on the rocket, and 1W of power (which is why we needed amateur licenses, to exceed the standard 100mW for wifi) and we could reliably communicate via standard IP while the rocket was a long distance away and breaking the sound barrier. The ESSID was one of our callsigns.
Our standard telemetry protocol was unencrypted packets, because ham radio. But a common need while debugging the rocket on the launchpad was to SSH in (it ran Linux). So our options were:
- Use something obsolete with much worse UX, like telnet.
- Use SSH and try to convince it to run without encryption, an option which is a bad idea for every other use case and which modern SSH rightfully refuses to contemplate.
- Use SSH with published keys, and hope that suffices to meet the spirit of the regulation.
- Add some complexity to the system to reduce power level while on the pad so that we weren't actually using a ham license.
- Safe the engines, go out to the pad a mile away, and hook up to the wired umbilical for debugging.
Removing the encryption restriction would allow using standard SSH and similar systems.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/47/97.215
It seems to me encrypted ssh is totally within the rules in this case.
Those statutes might provide the necessary exception but that's not unambiguous.
I can't say I understand the rest of the first paragraph - Part 97 doesn't actually ban encryption, just "codes or ciphers intended to obscure the meaning of the communication", from which "telecommand of model craft" is specifically exempted.
I'm not as familiar with the Part 15 rules - do they allow high gain antennas? Since this case is about stationary command and control, I wonder if lower power + high gain wifi antennas at both ends would close the link.
> Since this case is about stationary command and control
It's not; this was the same system used while the rocket was in motion, and part of the point of using the same system was to make sure it's working before launching.
> I wonder if lower power + high gain wifi antennas at both ends would close the link
We were using high-gain antennas already, and IIRC that didn't suffice within the 100mW power limit.
thinking about it, presharing keys and then using gpg to authenticate the message should work. just need client and server programs to make it convenient.
Failing that, would a repeater or two have helped?
If you need to privately communicate, use the ISM bands, don't consume the amateur experimentation bands.
If people want encryption, they are welcome to use the ISM bands where it is allowed, or get licenses for the commercial areas of the spectrum.
But amateur radio is a public commons for those who have the interest in getting licensed, and encrypted comms being normalised damages that, making it less accessible to others and discouraging interaction between enthusiasts.
I fear that with encryption allowed, amateur radio will become a collection of competing 1-to-1 links and hidden commercial activity taking advantage of the cheap spectrum at everyone else's expense.
Even if there is hidden commercial activity going on, is that really so bad? Imagine if the internet banned commerce on it, there wouldn't be so much investment into it.
As for commercial activity, the whole point of the amateur spectrum is specifically to carve out portions of the spectrum protected from commercial interests! I agree that commercial, and also unlicensed use of radio is important, but leave commerce out of the tiny portion (and it really is small) part of the spectrum that's specifically regulated to be free of commercial interference.
I’d rather not have the ham bands reduced to more of the same.
Nothing stops spammers from spamming on HAM right now and it's 1 to many which makes it more effective.
Except the existing regulations, which is why spamming is relatively rare on Amateur radio.
Occasional infringement does occur, but it is relatively easy to track down and deal with.
And of course this is is the whole point of this thread.
In my view, of course many hams would use encryption in reasonable ways but quite likely other uses of the spectrum would proliferate that are explicitly forbidden by the rules that carve out the amateur service as distinct from all the other ones.
Typically even without encryption there are laws banning monitoring of such communications. For example, tapping into someone's analog phone line or listening to unencrypted mobile phone conversations, etc.
Conversely, even system we view as private are routinely monitored by governments, etc.
Amateur radio rules seem to derive both from the idea of preventing public nuisance and also the idea of public resources (like national parks, etc.). The amateur spectrum is like a park -- visitors are not allowed to open businesses on the land, nor are they allowed to be a nuisance to others.
If you want private communication, use a private frequency. If you want to use a shared spectrum, do it in a way, where everyone can tell you to buzz off.
Which the HAM bands could be which is the point of my comment.
This is like having an open public square, and then someone decides to "privatize" an area, cordon it off, put temporary walls around and not-let anyone else look at (well.. listen) to what's happening there.
You want to take a bit of the spectrum away from everyone else and not let them neither listen nor join the conversation.
You can get a private frequency, pay a bit of money for that, and be private as much as you want.
And maybe each part of the bands are allocated to encrypted traffic, just like we do for Morse Code, Voice, Data, etc.
The basic case: Alice wants to talk to Bob and would rather not have their crazy neighbor listen in and threaten violence because psychosis (Don't believe me? Hang out on the fun parts of the HF spectrum).
The public service use case: a disaster occurred, I need to send medical information to a known recipient. Other countries have allowances for this but the US does not.
The because it's literally unenforceable anyway case: yeah, go after noise sources that don't have an ID but prove to me my shitty CW transmitter with a trillion ppm of phase noise isn't actually broadcasting encrypted PSK within pulses.
In the case of emergency, the restrictions on your license no longer apply. You can use whatever means necessary to establish the desired communications.
There are lots of people who think the rules are suspended during disaster. That is only true if actively saving a life during a disaster.
The common case: this is vague and probably falls under the above. What's an example?
The basic case: use phones. All of us that have spent time on HF are well aware of the antisocial behavior sometimes found there. I don't think you'll run into any ham that's against stricter enforcement in this area.
Public service: SHARES is probably the move here. I think I would support waivers similar to how they were previously allowing PACTOR 4 though. Despite what the ARRL says I'm a little dubious of our utility in disasters these days in any case.
I mean sure you can come up with any number of ways to get away with it but that doesn't mean we should endorse that behavior.
Re basic case, I should refine my statement a bit, HF is currently populated enough that having more traffic there is probably not advisable yet. If I was given a magic pen, I'd probably allow encryption on the lesser used HF bands and 6m on up.
As far as public service/phones/other services, I don't really buy into the disaster prepper stuff that's been popular as of late, but there's an opportunity for amateur radio to remain relevant. Rather than trying to prevent encryption and keep all that stuff on other ISM type bands, putting some of it under the ham umbrella could be very positive development.
So, what's stopping you from using _those_, then?
The temptation to use up the limited spectrum for reasons outside the spirit of the license will undoubtedly be taken by some, we know how bad it can be already when you can clearly identify it.
DMR is used without encryption as are other commercial modes.
The point if the experimental nature is that it is open.
I would advocate strongly for additional spectrum becoming available for public use as it is evacuated as an alternative to the fcc reselling it. I have zero problems with /new bands/ being made available on potentially /new services/ that would allow for what you want.
I'm rather jealous of the ease of it for standing up a proper private 5G network for experimentation and learning.
Unlike GSM almost none of the modern cellular standards can be configured to run without encryption, so hambands are out of the queation sadly.
For a long time, the US government genuinely feared that ham radio would be used for espionage. It had listening stations across the nation to monitor all communications. It flat out shut down the entire service (!) during WWII. And it came up with the idea that you have to communicate in the open, and that no form of obfuscation or encryption is permissible.
And then hams came up with this roundabout explanation that actually, it's good that you can't have privacy. No matter that it holds back a hobby that is by all usage metrics dying, and that there are many countries where encryption is allowed and doesn't lead to any terrible outcomes.
Privacy is useful in hobby uses. Maybe you want to talk to your spouse without a nosy neighbor listening. Maybe you want to periodically beacon your GPS location without the whole world knowing. There are so many cool things you can do, and there is spectrum that is... quite frankly, largely dead right now, and if you don't encourage new uses, it will be reclaimed by the government.
But as soon as some company sets up an encrypted node in a location that will attract users, there will be much interest in what it's purpose is.
The whole point of the regulation is to make defying the regulations on a commercial scale a risky operation.
AB0CDE--*UI93.8u[3u9,8husoa...
I would go so far as to say encryption is not needed in the amateur radio domain, outside of limiting access to the control and configuration of remote devices. The established goals of the amateur radio service can be achieved without encrypted communications.
Privacy is a human right, and that applies over radio.
If I need to register my public keys like a license plate, fine, but the content is only the business of the recipient.
If you want something more akin to private email, that is possible you just need a difference license. https://www.fcc.gov/wireless/bureau-divisions/mobility-divis...
I have frequency allocations (well technically a radio shop manages them for us) and use AES128 encryption with no issues.
Forming a corporate entity and paying the frequency coordination fees are going to be minimal in comparison to the hardware costs to communicate at a distance (encrypted or clear) reliably.
The first words on that pages are "Individuals or entities desiring to […]".
You, as an individual, can get a license. It's probably just more common for legal persons [1] to go through the effort rather than natural persons [2].
Still, will explore this.
If anyone has any tips for encrypted voice comms using this path I would welcome it
You do not have a right to use common space (e.g., radio spectrum) without regard to the rest of society. If are given permission to use a common space, you have to use it with the stated conditions.
If it's a tiny commerce, no-one would notice. Probably. Neither ham community.
But no one seriously would invest time and money in a business that's, well, illegal.
I ... what? That really doesn't jibe with my observations of the world.
Think of it this way - hypothetically if I'm on an English only band, and it's illegal to speak Spanish because English speakers can't understand Spanish, and I get caught transmitting anything other than English it doesn't matter what the content is.
Encryption doesn't magically make the RF you are using invisible. It makes it unreadable. It's still broadcasting and can be picked up by sniffers that flag it as data it can't interpret. It is NOT a no-risk choice.
Obviously if the FCC opens up ham for encryption, it would be legal and totally fine. Currently it is not (the whole point of our conversation), and starting a business like that would be risky. You implied that the FCC can't fine you if they can't prove that you were sending encrypted traffic, and I argued that they'll still see the broadcasts and be able to tell they are encrypted.
So this is kind of a strange question for you to ask now lol
Can you show where I implied that?
It sure doesn't seem to match my reading of the comment chain.
>Which they can only do for unencrypted traffic, encrypted traffic by definition would not be examinable by the FCC for determining whether to assign fines.
If they can only fine unencrypted traffic, as you say in this comment, you posit that it is because they can't examine the contents of the encrypted transmission to know who to fine.
If you intended a different message, feel free to revise what you began our conversation with.
> You implied that the FCC can't fine you if they can't prove that you were sending encrypted traffic...
The quoted comment clearly does not imply that, if anything the opposite.
If you believe your comment implies anything else, you're going to have to explain your argument in more words than "it clearly does not imply that" because if it clearly implied what you claim, we wouldn't be arguing about what it "actually" means.
No? The FCC can implement a blanket fine on all encrypted traffic on ham radio bands, if authorized by congress, without doing any 'determining' at all.
It seems as if your reading your own opinions and thoughts into my comments.
1(1) The Licensee shall ensure that the Radio Equipment is only used:
a) for the purpose of self-training in radio communications, including conducting technical investigations; and
b) as a leisure activity and not for commercial purposes of any kind
As for it being "good" not to have privacy, it's really not about having privacy or not, but respecting the situation that there are different tools for different needs. If you need to speak to your spouse, there are tools to speak to them privately! Amateur radio isn't the only option, and it isn't the best.
The problem is that encrypted comms tie up spectrum space without giving anything back. Now, I don't ragchew, I think it's incredibly boring and unnecessarily toxic chat given most of the personalities and topics involved, but at least anyone can choose to drop in/out of that as needed.
What I'm more interested in is radio as a sport, where I can climb mountains and operate from them, pushing myself and engaging in that competitive activity with others. It's hard to do that if everyone has decided to start using the 2m band as their private internet link because it goes further than WiFi.
Apart from amateur radio, what tool exist, that does not require the assistance of private corporations, ISPs, service fees, patents etc? I go camping way outside of cell phone tower ranges and it would be should be legal to communicate with my group privately.
Radio is the only form of totally citizen controlled real time distance communication we have, if we do not count smoke signals. Snail mail encryption is already allowed. Encryption must be allowed on radio as well.
Perhaps some kind of compromise is possible, where all encrypted ham must broadcast their callsign in the clear every few seconds.
You must already broadcast your call sign at a regular interval when transmitting.
My thought is that it would always include that part. Maybe not every few seconds, but the same as the current rule - end of every broadcast or every 10 minutes, which ever is shorter.
The idea/premise of a private frequency band is to move data (voice, binary,..) from one point to another (or many).
The idea/premise of ham radio is to learn and experiment, to test your devices, compare with others, see how far your signal reaches, etc. It was never meant to be a means for private 1-on-1 conversations.
How will i test my receiver if your transmission is encrypted? What will I learn from that? How do I know that you're not abusing the bands for commercial use? And what do other ham radio operators gain from you transmitting encrypted data?
"The hobby is dying" has been a trope longer than nearly everyone in this thread has been alive - give it a rest.
We've always had allocations because there wasn't a commercial use for it. As soon as there is, we lose it. See the loss of part of 220mhz and all the higher frequencies we're in the process of losing to 5G/other commercial use. I recommend embracing this reality
Nobody said it has to be commercial (but I also disagree with that part), but allowing encryption actually will get people using the radio waves.
Because right now, they are dead. 24/7, nobody transmitting.
I don't think that's true. I assume you mean on the ham bands.
Well this is all somewhat ahistorical. The people monitoring ham radio for abuses were, and are, ham radio operators.
A task which would, you know, be more difficult if everything was encrypted.
The original reasons not being such a big concern anymore don't mean that we've not spotted that these restrictions have a lot of useful features.
There are some great use cases that encryption would allow... and also, if it became commonplace on ham bands, turn them into an opaque, uninviting mess, too.
And your point about unused spectrum is spot on. Outsides of a couple repeaters on VHF and UHF, there is near zero radio transmissions in those bands 24/7.
See (PDF) https://www.qsl.net/kb9mwr/projects/wireless/Data%20Encrypti...
I guess you could transmit the contents of messages in plain text but cryptographically sign the contents to authenticate. This would probably be useful to remotely administer infrastructure: e.g. have an "net operator only" mode for a repeater when pileups occur or somebody is not abiding by rules.
Troll comment, mostly, but reading the text of the regulations it might be viable.
Encryption really isn’t in the spirit of ham radio, and the other licenses are honestly probably easier to get anyway.
Methods like spread-spectrum communication are allowed. It's not the same as encryption, but it it similar in that people without knowledge of the frequency hopping pattern are not capable of receiving the transmission [2].
Ultimately I'm not particularly invested in permitting encryption in amateur radio - my personal involvement is mostly homebrewing simple equipment - but I'd consider it a plus. I doubt it'd displace public participation around local repeaters and the existing radio activity.
1. https://www.arrl.org/about-arrl
2. Well, if they have an SDR with a wide enough bandwidth they can receive spread spectrum communications. And with modern SDR's that probably not that rare.
FHSS is pretty trivial to “decrypt” these days with an SDR.
While you’re not wrong about experimentation, I feel like ham radio should be focused more on the radio side of things rather than encryption implementations. Implementing the hardware and software encoding/decoding is the hard/fun part (at least to me). Encryption should come as a piece of cake after than if you can achieve a given bitrate.
And again - there already are bands that allow encryption. A couple hundred bucks and a few applications, and you’re free to go nuts.
And I completely forgot, but ISM bands do allow encryption, are free, and there is plenty of hardware out there readily available.
Thanks.
The M17 project found some low cost transceivers that operate on a pretty low level, and I think those would be relevant for future development on ISM for people wanting to use encryption.
Of course encryption is not impossible on HF, just a bit more difficult.
Whatever, both commercial and military uses are using encryption on HF.
https://www.wired.com/story/tetra-radio-encryption-backdoor/
This is why proprietary solutions are non-starters.
Civilians deserve real encryption they can control with provable privacy.
What’s more interesting to me is that the M17 project has found some chips on aliexpress that are lower level and work on a multitude of bands. I’m trying to find this and will update when I do.
Isn't the point of the Ham community supposed to be about low-tech solutions? I wouldn't quite say they are "preppers", but maybe "prepper-adjacent" ?
Leaving some radio frequencies for unencrypted communications or Morse code or whatever hams are doing was the point of the ham frequencies, right? For encryption, we've got like everything else (cell phones, WiFi, etc. etc.)
That can be low tech or something more modern. Good modern examples are M17, freeDV, NPR-70 and FT8.
If encryption were allowed, it should be frequency constrained so the majority of the bands were in the open, and non-encryption citizens can still listen to the open airwaves.
It seems this antiquated law is enforced only by chilling effect.
Maybe this issue just needs some good old civil disobedience, like back when crypto export regulations were skirted by printing PGP code in a book.
Also sending of physical mail with privacy has established case law for 4th amendment protections. Somehow this does not apply when the message does not touch paper?
Given the rule seems rarely, if ever, enforced, and similar laws from the same historical justification are already repealed, I say just collectively ignore it.
Use encryption openly over radio (otherwise following all rules, have callsigns in the clear, etc), and let the FCC decide try to justify fining people for exercising their right to private corporate-free distance communications to the press.
And because the justification for using an alternative to commercial services would be to avoid paying licenses fees, they world be correct.
One complaint from a large phone company to the FCC, would have the unlicensed station shut down very smartly.