Field Day 2004

pa3gvr writes "This weekend many Amateur Radio operators (HAMs) throughout the US and Canada will take their equipment to public parks, campgrounds and Emergency Operation Centers. With all the coverage that BPL has gotten lately it might be interesting to see what this Amateur Radio thing actually is. Field Day is setup as an exercise for HAMs to test their readiness and ability to operate under less than ideal (emergency) conditions. Besides the training and exercise aspect, this is also a social event. Visitors are welcome to have a look and maybe even operate some of the equipment. K4FAU, Florida Atlantic University ARC and Boca Raton ARC will be setting up their Field Day station on the Boca Raton, FL FAU campus."

Comments

Going the way of the dinosaurs

[L0C0loco]

I'm an extra class ham, but I believe amateur radio is a dying art/hobby. The thanks go mostly to the internet and cell phones. While I'm a bit sad to see very few of the younger folk comming into the hobby, I'm not surprised.

Re:Going the way of the dinosaurs

[bugmenot]

HAM operators are like cockroaches.
If the event of a thermonuclear war, they may provide us with our only mean of communication.

Re:Going the way of the dinosaurs

[j1m 5n0w]

Coincidentally, I'm actually planning to take my technician's license test this weekend.

As an outsider, it seems to me that there's a connection between the lack of popularity of ham radio and the severe restrictions placed on what can be done with it.

For instance: sure, I can check my email over ham radio, but I'm not allowed to use encryption. So, to check my email I have to either a)broadcast my IMAP password to everyone within hundreds of miles, or b)disable passwords altogether and leave my mail account wide open.

Neither of these options seem very appealling, In the networking community, cryptography is seen as a great thing.

What do most ham operators think of these kinds of restrictions (no crypto, no music, no commercial traffic)? Do you like having the openness that a no-crypto policy implies, or do you prefer to keep the airwaves uncluttered by non-ham radio related personal/commercial traffic, or do you all grumble at the FCCs outdated restrictions?

-jim

Re:Going the way of the dinosaurs

[josecanuc]

I think it's been shown in an official comment or ruling by the FCC that encryption is not wholly illegal on ham radio. The wording of the rules states that amateurs aren't supposed to obscure the meaning of their communications.

The specific ruling that I am too lazy to look up ;-) states that it's okay to use an encoding for authorization. So you could check your IMAP email over ham packet if you used the CRAM-MD5 method of authentication. You wouldn't currently be allowed to use SSL for the whole session, but CRAM-MD5 allows you to authenticate with a shared secret without exposing the secret over the air.

Re:Going the way of the dinosaurs

[SYFer]

Cheer up. I believe at least some of the spirit of HAM radio lives in the heart of every Linksys WiFi router hacker who is trying to tweak maximum performance out of a wireless mesh network or clambering around on the roof to aim a yaggi antenna at an AP across town.

Voices talking or packets flying, it's still magical to pull stuff out of the thin air and today's WiFi geek gazing at his Kismet data is like yesterday's HAM operator putting push-pins in a map on the wall.

Re:Going the way of the dinosaurs

[nwf]

Coincidentally, I'm actually planning to take my technician's license test this weekend.

Good luck!

Some of the restrictions have annoyed me as well, but much of this is only due to current FCC policies. These can be changed, and there are ways of changing the policies. In fact, some HAMs have proposed elimination of the morse code test (CW) since it is now no longer required by international law. FCC is taking comments on the proposals now. I'm just too lazy to learn it. :-)

However, if they allowed encryption, it would close the hobby and people would use it for commercial purposes. Bandwidth is very scarce. (Well, that's a topic for another post!)

Re:Going the way of the dinosaurs

[j1m 5n0w]

However, if they allowed encryption, it would close the hobby and people would use it for commercial purposes. Bandwidth is very scarce. (Well, that's a topic for another post!)

Maybe an acceptable compromise would be to allow encryption and/or commercial use, but only for digital communication methods that don't use much bandwidth (such as PSK31). That way, the people who want encrypted email or ssh from the boonies, and want it bad enough that they'll get a license and live with low speeds, can have it without clogging the spectrum.

-jim

Re:Going the way of the dinosaurs

[Rorschach1]

Sec. 97.113, paragrah (4):
(4) Music using a phone emission except as specifically provided elsewhere in this section; communications intended to facilitate a
criminal act; messages in codes or ciphers intended to obscure the meaning thereof, except as otherwise provided herein; obscene or indecent words or language; or false or deceptive messages, signals or identification

One-time passwords and challenge/response authentication are indeed used in some ham applications. Many hams have a knee-jerk reaction to any mention of cryptography, though, so be prepared to quote chapter and verse. The key phrase there is 'intended to obscure the meaning'. You're not obscuring any information, just proving who you are.

Re:Going the way of the dinosaurs

[scoove]

I believe amateur radio is a dying art/hobby.

This gets kicked around a lot on ham forums. Mostly, the most accurate answer is that ham radio is changing. The era of becoming a ham because you want to talk to people around the world has changed. At the same time, there are many young hams who want to learn not because of the hobby aspect as much as the challenge of the radiofrequency theory, science and technical challenge. Quite honestly, there are enough "passengers" in the world and not enough "drivers" (802.11/wifi of today and CB radio of yesteryear is a perfect example of this).

Compare it to the era of the "home computer programmer" of the late 70s and early 80s. Where are they today? People typing in BASIC codes in the latest Byte magazine. A hobby, yes, but not much more. Today's open source developer is a different breed, just as today's new ham operator is. It's a serious professional interest. I know weather spotter hams who have self-educated to levels beyond the local TV weatherman, for instance. While the number of "hobby hams" has declined, today's new hams take the practice to a new level and are pioneering new applications. At some point, we'll discover a hobby application that will probably attract the masses again, but mass interest validate the practice? As long as amateurs are professionally operating disaster control networks, providing trained weather spotting services, and quietly operating other important services, the lack of countless hobbyist users is visible but not critical.

Slashdot readers should know this dynamic by now. The model rocketeer of the 1960s is no longer sufficient; private commercial rocketry is today's "hobby." Typing in 300 lines of BASIC does not make one a developer; learning and contributing to the F/OSS world does. In light of cell networks, packet switching and other technologies, should amateur radio be exempt from this dynamic?

The thanks go mostly to the internet and cell phones. As long as you are content with riding on someone elses network. Care to know what really is going on within the RF? An amateur license will teach you a great foundation necessary for learning all those things you've taken for granted (while one of us is running things).

*scoove*

Re:Going the way of the dinosaurs

[w9wi]

(good luck!)

As the other post says, encryption is acceptable for authentication, but not for the message contents. Whether that addresses your concern is a good question(grin)...

The prohibitions on music and commercial traffic date back to the 1920s, and commercial stations' fear of competitions. Many of the earliest broadcast stations were hams transmitting music - once it became obvious broadcasting would be popular there was a fear that the ham bands would be filled with low-power broadcasters.

Commercial point-to-point radio using Morse Code existed at the time. In many foreign countries the commercial stations were operated by the government. (remember what they say about governments & competition(grin)!)

I think most hams haven't even thought about what the regulations do to the usability of ham radio for data communications. Removing the limits on commercial traffic altogether runs the risk of overwhelming experimental traffic with businesses looking for a cheap comms system. (I'd bet the common carriers wouldn't stand for it) You could safely come partway though.

Re:Going the way of the dinosaurs

[KC7GR]

"For instance: sure, I can check my email over ham radio, but I'm not allowed to use encryption. So, to check my email I have to either a)broadcast my IMAP password to everyone within hundreds of miles, or b)disable passwords altogether and leave my mail account wide open..."

I have to speak up in response to this. I'm proud to have been active in amateur radio for 27 years.

The Amateur Radio SERVICE was never intended (nor needed, IMO) as a path for checking one's E-mail. If you want to do that via radio link, you need only invest in a wireless network card for your laptop, and hook up with any WiFi hotspot in your part of the country.

Permit me to quote from a few of the sections of FCC Part 97, in response to your specific queries regarding the "outdated restrictions" you refer to.

More specifically, let's start by looking at Section 97.1, Paragraphs a through e. Pay particular attention to Paragraph 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."

While it is possible to extend the term 'Emergency communications' to include E-mail, keep in mind that this is amateur RADIO, not amateur E-mail. We already have a perfectly usable infrastructure in place for E-mail, and I don't see why amateur RADIO needs to supplement it.

As to encryption, yes, it is prohibited for use on amateur frequencies. That point has been debated many times in many places, and the reasoning is simple enough. Given the service's strong emphasis on support of volunteer communications assistance, in times of disaster or other emergencies, the FCC believes (rightly so, IMO) that the use of encryption in amateur radio is contrary to fulfilling that basic purpose.

In short: Encryption is simply not necessary for any part of amateur radio, with the single exception of satellite command and control signals transmitted from an earth station. The FCC allows encryption for that signal type alone for reasons which should be obvious.

If I may be so bold: You appear to be trying to fit amateur radio into the mold of something that it is not (wireless data networking, specifically Internet connectivity), and was never intended to be.

Also remember that another of the primary purposes for the existence of the service is to foster experimentation and ongoing learning in the realm of radio and communications theory (in short: a whole lot of tinkering with electronic goodies -- yes, that means learning how to solder), as spelled out in 97.1 paragraphs b, c, and d.

If you're going up for your Technician license exam, you should already be fairly familiar with Part 97, and have (hopefully) taken at least section 97.1 to heart. Based on your statements in your post, I get the distinct impression that you have not.

My questions to you are: Why did you decide to get your ham license? What do you expect to get out of the hobby? What are you planning to contribute to it?

Amateur radio, like any other hobby -- for that matter, like Life itself -- is a near-perfect mirror. You get out exactly what you put into it.

Re:Going the way of the dinosaurs

[Mister Transistor]

There is some recent salvation of Ham radio through the internet itself, believe it or not!

There are 2 new (relatively) systems called IRLP and another called EchoLink. These use the internet to link Ham repeater sites all over the world, using streaming audio (like "RealAudio") between stations.

There are nearly 1000 nodes in IRLP, my repeater uses that protocol, and I'm not sure but EchoLink probably has a similar number of nodes as well.

This is helping to unite Ham radio interests with those related to the internet. This is also providing new Hams, most of which are Technician class and have no "HF" or long-distance communications privileges, a means to talk outside of their local repeater area for a change.

Previously, operating on Field Day or going over to an "Elmer's" house and having him let you work the low bands was the only DX (long distance) exposure most new Hams would ever get. These new internet linking systems are helping to make that experince more readily available. Before the internet became popular, talking to someone in a strange and foreign land was a rare and exciting experience.

Re:Going the way of the dinosaurs

[Foxxz]

I'm a young ham and its crap like this that keeps us out. Because you are too stubborn and DON'T want NEW uses for ham radio. Let it die then I say. Then when the FCC takes away your frequencies so someone can check their Email from their blackberry device I don't want to hear you bitching!

How about this... Phone lines are used for talking with voice! Why the hell would we ever want fax machines?! Theres another well setup infrastructure for sending documents, its called THE POSTAL SERVICE! Or why would we want to use a modem over the phone line to watch video? We have TVs, can't you be happy?!

I doubt Alexander Bell ever INTENDED the telephone system to be used for this purpose.

So lets spread out guys! Use ham radio for new things or we're gonna die! Fortune favors the bold and I for one don't mind bending the rules or going in grey areas. If I get in trouble, so be it. But, I'll at least have tried soemthing new. Maybe it will catch on and breath new life into this old horse.

-Foxxz

Re:Going the way of the dinosaurs

[Zonekeeper]

Well, I've been a ham for 12 years, and I can tell you that the hobby must expand or it WILL die. I totally understand that it is a hobby, and keeping it non-commercial is very important, but stifling the innovation and different ways it can be used WILL kill the hobby. Especially when the hobby was born out of the pioneering aspects of people who said, "Hmm, I wonder if this would work?" Placing ten tons of rules on the hobby has both helped it and hurt it. The morse code requirement kept the hobby relatively clean and pure, but also kept a lot of new blood out of the hobby, blood that wasn't CB trash, but were unable to wrap their minds around morse code. I was one of those. I was licensed at 15, and was immediately very active in the local clubs and was a key volunteer with the local Office of Emergency Management, often being one of the only ones that would help in an emergency such as weather. Ham radio gave me the incentive to help others and become active in the community. The thing that started my interest was that on my 13th b-day, I was given a TS440S and a PK232. I spent many nights listening to packet and RTTY chirps, watching a BBS in Guatemala, TG9AXB I think it was. It was the coolest thing I'd ever seen. I'm sure at some point, someone could have said that doing that wasn't right, that we already had postal mail and voice, etc.

Don't handicap the hobby by placing restrictions on reasonable technologies. Encrypting a password is not unreasonable. The Amateur Radio service is still free and anyone who wants to put forth the effort can get into. These days though, 2 meters is dead around here, and there's not much activity due to the internet and cell phones, as someone else said. We sure don't want to be hurting the hobby further by stifling its uses and ability to draw new blood in, and as a result, innovation and continunace of the hobby.

(BTW, we used to have big Field Day events around here. Harldy anything is done anymore, and that saddens the hell out of me.)

(PPS. Amateur Radio was never 'designed' to be anything. It evolved through human innovation. And it must continue to be allowed to, or the layer of dust on many radios will get thicker, save for the occasional large-scale emergency.)

Re:Going the way of the dinosaurs

[Anonymous Coward]

I got my license in 1965 and have been pretty much continuously active since then. I've heard these same forecasts of doom & demise for the past almost 40 years! Somehow ham radio lives on, morphing itself into a hobby that either invents new technologies, or incorporates other modes into new forms.

The one thing people need to keep in mind is that, when all other forms of communications fail (e.g., the Internet, cellphones, public service radios -- remember 9/11) ham radio gets through.

73,
GJ
(at the N2RE Field Day Site in Princeton, NJ -- google n2re.org for directions)

Re:Going the way of the dinosaurs

[scoove]

I'm a young ham...when the FCC takes away your frequencies so someone can check their Email from their blackberry device I don't want to hear you bitching!

Did you ever imagine that there might be a reason for not letting you run commercial services over your amateur frequency?

RF is a scarcity model universe (and concepts such as UWB only 'help themselves' to those frequencies with an alleged 'limited' impact to other frequencies and services). Licensees such as AT&T have paid heavily for PCS, cellular, etc. and hope to recover their investment over time. Having amateurs offering free commercial service would cause real issues for the political longevity of amateur bands. Instead, consider amateur frequencies to be your laboratory, as well as a community for interaction with other amateurs from a non-commercial perspective (just pretend there's a big GPL license (apologies to GPL for my analogy!) and anything you do using it is commercially prohibited, but doesn't prevent you from putting your development to work later on in a commercial band if authorized).

RF also has territorial challenges as well, namely that a radio wave does not like to stay in a politically defined boundry. That's why Technician class licenses aren't allowed to operate on HF, for instance. There is a lot you can goof up internationally if you aren't trained, aware and responsible.

Use ham radio for new things or we're gonna die!

I wish folks would quit pretending they're the only ones to discover that innovation is important, and instead go find those who are innovating (or invent something yourself) and contribute. It's about as absurd as me saying "We have to quit exclusively relying upon Microsoft for all of the world's operating systems! Quick, someone's gotta innovate!" Hmmm... open source much?

Hams are innovating. Applications such as PSK-31 (and other weak signal, high-efficiency digital modes over HF), extreme gigahertz microwave, software-based repeaters, VoIP trunking of repeaters, etc. are all examples of this. There's plenty of room to contribute as well, as the application of open source approaches to amateur radio are really wide open. From what I've seen, there's a new class of software-aware (and open source inclined) hams emerging as the application-centric hams of yesteryear decline. It's pretty clear this is "pioneering" stage (similar to hams of the 1920s-30s) and will open up to tomorrow's early adopters and the mass user appeal further down the road.

*scoove*

Re:Going the way of the dinosaurs

[scoove]

Open source can change some of those things, but as far as hardware goes you still need someone willing to put up considerable amounts of money for manufacturing.

Let me provide some suggestions. I work with F/OSS development for network security and wireless applications, and have spent a few years working with low-cost embedded systems that support Linux. With a Linux kernel and OS in a small box, there's not much you can't do per amateur/wireless development.

My current favorite foundation is:

o RouterBoard from Mikrotik of Latvia. Pentium 233/266 performance, very low cost ($300ish), dual PCMCIA slots, dual Ethernet (in one of the two models), microPCI slot (wonderful!), and compactflash slot. Hardware watchdog and other goodies built in are things normally found on much more expensive embedded system boards.

o IBM/Hitachi Microdrive: My base development systems runs with a 1 GB Microdrive with Debian on it, though I've got a 4 GB setup with Gentoo and use the 370 MB version for production loads. Routerboard has a Debian developers kit available for download on the site, including watchdog control. Avoid compactflash/CF (Microdrive fits the CF profile but is an actual spinning device) unless you're certain you're going to have minimal writes over time, as they will eventually cease to write and become somewhat worthless (in my experience, low-write use lasts about one year).

o Debian or Gentoo for development environment: there are some embedded distributions out there but they're intended for when you're ready to reduce to your final low-profile image. Both these distros give you a good amount of control over what is going into your system. Embedded Gentoo will be nice eventually (with cross-compile support) but isn't there yet.

o Python: Not to start any language wars (or distro wars per above), but Python is a great place for amateur developers to work in. Frameworks like Twisted allow you to focus on your code and build upon the networking smarts of others. I haven't tried yet, but I keep eyeballing Shtoom for an amateur project as well.

*scoove*

Re:Going the way of the dinosaurs

[KC7GR]

"I'm a young ham and its crap like this that keeps us out. Because you are too stubborn and DON'T want NEW uses for ham radio. Let it die then I say. Then when the FCC takes away your frequencies so someone can check their Email from their blackberry device I don't want to hear you bitching!"

Essence Above! I believe I've set a record for myself. NEVER before, in the entire time I've been posting to /., can I recall when one of my posts has been more grossly misinterpreted.

To start with: If "crap like this is what keeps us out," I'd be curious to know which "us" you're speaking for. If you've already gotten your license, then I was very obviously unable to stop you (not that I would have wanted to in the first place).

Also, I would point out that you don't know me from Adam, and you know less than NOTHING about how "stubborn" you think I am, or what you think I want or don't want for the amateur service.

Think about it! If I were truly against "new uses" for amateur radio, I would have already been up on my metaphorical soapbox, railing against things like PSK-31, UWB, APRS, and all the other NEW USES for the service that have come along in recent times.

Blackberries already work very nicely on the Nextel network, BTW. ;-)

In any case: I'm not now, nor have I ever been, AGAINST using amateur radio for E-mail. I'm merely trying to point out that it is not the most efficient medium for the transmission of such.

Consider this if you still don't believe me. I'm sure you're aware of how badly spam has already polluted E-mail on the Internet itself.

Do you REALLY want the same thing to happen to amateur radio?

73 de KC7GR

Re:Going the way of the dinosaurs

[NateTech]

Radio doesn't die, radio just is. Experimenters (hackers) for radio will always exist.

http://www.usbwifi.orcon.net.nz/

Case in point, above.

Ham radio's not dying, it's just constantly evolving. It all just depends on your definition of radio and whether or not you continue to experiment with it. Most newer Hams aren't experimenting, and if the "I buy my radios off the shelf and talk on them" aspect of the hobby dies off, I won't shed a tear. I'll still be experimenting with radio, with or without a license.

73 de WY0X

Re:YAAA

[LostCluster]

BPL= Broadband over Power Lines...

Which all users of RF technology of any kind consider a boogyman unknown because power lines weren't meant to carry any sort of signaling at all and therefore are completely unshielded. It's just plain a theoretical nightmare if this technology were to be widely deployed... nobody's quite sure how bad the problems for other applications would be.

This may be a nothingness, or it may be the death of ham radio depending on who you listen to.

Pretty cool

[Grant29]

HAM radios are not as popular as they once were. I think events like this have the ability to bring the hobby to a new generation. With email being so easy to communicate with others around the world, it makes HAM radios look cumbersome.

I think the real attention grabber would be to show how these HAM radios have been around for so long and still continue to get the job done. After all, you can communicate around the world with technology developed before the Internet!

--
11 Gmail invitations availiable

Re:Pretty cool

[LostCluster]

It makes me wonder who would be connected first in a real disaster these days... HAM or an ad hoc WiFi net...

Maybe we should hold a race in some remote area to see who can deploy and communicate fastest in an unknown environment.

Re:Pretty cool

[Grant29]

I think I remember seeing articles about how people used HAM radio's during the 9/11 attacks to call for help, report situations, and communicate with others. Of course wi-fi wasn't as popular then, but I believe HAM radios would have the edge on distance. Some wi-fi access points don't have coverage more than a few hundred feet.

--
11 Gmail invitations availiable

Re:Pretty cool

[josecanuc]

The question I would ask is: Connected to what?

Sure both Ham radio operators and wireless networking enthusiasts (note that those two groups aren't mutually exclusive!) could get connected to each other pretty darn quickly if a catastrophe were to occur.

WiFi operators are pretty much restricted to the low power transmitters and short wavelenth that the off-the-shelf equipment provides. Good antennas, amplifiers, and path design can make for links that extend dozens of kilometers, but the HF Ham rig in my truck can reach other Hams in the US and almost all other countries in the world with just a short whip antenna (1.5 meters and a coil).

It does draw more power and it's not digital. I could do digital data transfer on Ham HF bands, but not near as fast as WiFi. Both have infinite usefulness in emergencies and it's a shame that one is decreasing in use while the other is growing, rather than both growing. If both were growing, I think we would see more people interested in making the two fields interoperate better. The current group of Ham WiFi enthusiasts is small relative to the general "old codgers" of Ham radio.

Re:Pretty cool

[scoove]

HAM or an ad hoc WiFi net...

Actually... in our small town ham field day setup, there's both (why not?) Regarding first to be connected, there's much about ad hoc wifi that doesn't play in the real world of disasters. Running a fixed wireless company, I can tell you there's a niche certainly for gigahertz services, but nothing can replace the value of true slow NLOS services.

So while speed might be impressive at times, reliability trumps all in a disaster.

*scoove*

Re:Pretty cool

[ipb]

How about ad-hoc 802.11 lan's linked via ham radio?

I've been preaching the benefits of this for several years now and the local ham community is starting to come around. More and more local Amateur Radio Emergency Service / Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service (ARES/RACES) groups are becoming involved. 802.11 networks linked via packet radio TCP/IP based networks, with gateways to the internet as well as radio links amongst themselves.

See http://wetnet.net for details about our local Field Day plans.

N7IPB

BPL Info

[nwf]

A good line from ARRL is at:

http://www.arrl.org/tis/info/HTML/plc/

Seems wireless internet would be far cheaper and more effective. Plus, some BPL solutions rely on 802.11 for the last 25 feet or so.

CQ FD CQ FD CQ FD

[macman552]

Hope to work you-- listen for K2CT on the air! Albany (ny) Amatuer Radio Association!
73 de KC2KVY

Re:CQ FD CQ FD CQ FD

[k2dbk]

My club, the 10-70 Repeater Association will be operating 12A (yes, twelve stations) as N2SE if all goes well tomorrow morning from Mahwah, New Jersey. Hope to work you!

Re:YAAA

[fatboy]

BPL= Broadband over Power Lines... Which all users of RF technology of any kind consider a boogyman unknown because power lines weren't meant to carry any sort of signaling at all and therefore are completely unshielded. It's just plain a theoretical nightmare if this technology were to be widely deployed... nobody's quite sure how bad the problems for other applications would be. This may be a nothingness, or it may be the death of ham radio depending on who you listen to.

According to the laws of physics, it will cause problems for all users of the HF spectrum. KE4PJW

Field Day in Ann Arbor, Michigan

[wb8wsf]

If anyone is interested in seeing ham radio in operation, come to Domino's Farms Saturday, and look for the antennas by the Petting Farm. We'll have HF ("shortwave" radio), and VHF/UHF radios and hopefully an Oscar station. We'll be trying to listen to some of the stronger stations that do Moonbounce, too.

Ham Radio isn't dying exactly--the numbers have stayed fairly static for the last several years, and in fact have risen in the last 10 or so, with the 'no code' Technician license. But it needs more people, thats certain.

Yeah..

[Hangin10]

I'm not that into HAM stuff, but my
father was. I went to plenty of HAMFests
and Field Days with him. Field Day is quite
fun, especially when you camp as well.

Before he died I managed his site with the
equipment he (mostly) used.
http://k2pts.home.comcast.net/

Field Day is fun, even if you're not into
HAM/radios, check it out!

its not an acronym

[macman552]

hey, uh, guys? its not HAM radio, its Ham radio. no acronym... and I am 17, and i have several good freinds that have their tickets(ham liscences) that got them before i met them... and i didn't meet them on the radio. So obviously, the interest is out there... and anyone who is interested in some of the stuff here on /. might enjoy amatuer radio. 73 de KC2KVY

Re:why ham radio isn't popular

[RealBeanDip]

I realize you're a troll, but...

The reason Ham radio has it ALL OVER any internet technology is that it requires exactly TWO pieces of equipment to communicate effectively across great distances.

When the 'net goes out, Ham radio will still work.

Re:Blackout 2003

[macman552]

during the blackout, no, we weren't used to a great extent, however, we were used a little. I was in a spot where i could hear at least 3 counties where, although power was out in the cities, the repeaters were up and running using emergency power, and many hams were running using emergency power. All of them were on their radios ready to provide information if they needed to... however, we weren't needed except in a select few areas. We were ready to help in any way possible though.

Re:why ham radio isn't popular

[nwf]

Not to mention when the phone system and satellite phone goes down. Impossible you say? Recall the LA fires of last year: no cell (towers burned town), regular phone didn't work (switching stations burned, and overloaded) and overloaded satellites. What was left? Ah, the obsolete HAM radio.

Ham Radio is Cool

[ihgwb]

Field Day is great. Hams are volunteers serving their country in a time of uncertainty. We owe hams a great deal of gratitude for their work. Numerous incidents have shown how fragile our infrastructure has become (blackouts, hurricanes, tornados). Our country is ill prepared to handle disaster. This is why ham radio needs to be protected. Most people do not understand ham (or amateur) radio. They believe it's all about talking. It's not. Aside from the emergency service aspects, ham radio is about science. It's about engineering and design. It's about physics theory. A large number of professional engineers are also hams, such as electrical engineers, computer scientists, and pilots. The Internet has tremendous value. But long distance ham radio is much more challenging. The challenge is to build your own station, to understand Earth's ionosphere, and to make far away contacts with modest power. You hold the infrastructure. Hams have even put numerous satellites in orbit. I'll be operating at field day this year. If you want to find out what ham radio is all about, show up at your nearest club and take a look. It's fun! And what you do with the hobby is up to you!

Re:YAAA

[DAldredge]

No, that isn't cool. People saying crap like that will be used by those in power to remove your radios from you.

Hams are playing this like it is some game, and it isn't. You are fighting people with lots of money and power and making snide little comments will not buy you ANY friends.

I used to be on the hams side, till I realized they where acting like a bunch of spoiled kids and spining every piece of info to make their side look perfect and the other side look like the devil.

You are also overlooking the large push to move all those emergency services over to different systems that are much more resistant to interference (digital and encrypted links, look at the ads in mags targeting those useres)

Re:YAAA

[fatboy]

You are also overlooking the large push to move all those emergency services over to different systems that are much more resistant to interference (digital and encrypted links, look at the ads in mags targeting those useres)

The reason these frequencies are used is because of ionospheric propagation. (Over the horizon propagation.) You can use digital and encrypted links via ionosphere, but to use another part of the spectrum requires infrastructure that can fail.

The HF spectrum is a natural resource. We should not pollute it simply because it can be used to deliver broadband internet access.

Palo Alto Field Day and Ham Instant Messaging

[leighklotz]

I will be helping out at the "Get On The Air" station
at the Palo Alto Amateur Radio Association field day. Non-hams are welcome to come to the GOTA station in Saturday after 11AM and get on the air.

I will be helping demonstrate something called "PSK-31" which is
kind of amateur radio Instant Messaging. With your laptop
computer and a small radio running on AA batteries and a piece of wire,
you can talk halfway around the world, instantly.

Read all about it at my PSK presentation for non-hams. And if you are in the Bay Area, come check us out, or
one of the other area Field Day sites such as

• Foothill Amateur Radio Society
• Sunnyvale
• Milpitas, CA
• Fremont, CA

Re:YAAA

[fatboy]

And according to the video that was posted to /. about a week or two ago, BPL on harms communication when you are very near overhead powerlines.

Don't forget the ones located in your walls and feed power to your radio equipment :)

Re:why ham radio isn't popular

[w9wi]

That's long been a tension within the hobby. Are we about the medium, or about the message?

A large part of the hobby is about the medium. We really don't care what information is sent - we're interested in the method used to send that information.

Isn't that essentially the same motivation that drives kernel hackers? Who don't really care about what computing gets done, just that it can be done on a kernel they built themselves...

Re:I'm interested but...

[hendersj]

You can use it for data - I have used it that way off and on for over 10 years.

Packet radio has been around a long time, in fact, that was my first connectivity to the Internet.

I am a little sad to see this post as number 1..

[the_rajah]

I'm an Extra class ham too and have been licensed since 1958 at age 11. While there is clearly truth in what he said, as others have pointed the number of licensees has been increasing over the past few years and we're finding a number of new challenges and that's what ham radio is really about, technical challenges. I've operated with full legal power to a beam on a 125 foot tower and it's not nearly as much fun as the station that I have now which maxes out at 20 watts with a dipole antenna at 30 feet. It's a lot more of a challenge. The MOST fun is my 4 watt rig on 20 meters in the car using a 4 foot antenna. I've made solid contact with all continents using that setup. Now that's really a challenge.

There are lots of other ham radio areas that offer geek challenges, too. You can still "homebrew" your own gear. It doesn't take thousands of dollars to have fun. Microwave distance records fall regularly as do records at the opposite LF end of the radio spectrum. Data communications using packet techniques on VHF/UHF and other digital modes, such as packtor, on the HF (shortwave) bands predate the Internet as we know it we know today. In 1962 I had a teletype machine and a "terminal unit" AKA modem tied to my shortwave setup and was routinely communicating with friends around the world digitally. Now we hook our computers to our radios

Ham radio has been VERY good to me. In 1969 and 70, I got to travel to parts of the world I'd never have seen without ham radio. I was with Project Hope and I used ham radio so that the doctors, nurses and volunteers talk to their family and friends back in the states via phone-patch without it costing $13 for the first 3 minutes via landline.

Being involved with ham radio also encouraged me to go to college and get a degree in Electrical Engineering which has provided me with a very interesting and satisfying career that has consistantly paid me well on top of being fun.

I've watched ham radio evolve over the course of almost 50 years and it's still evolving. I'm not ready to declare it a dinosaur just yet.

73 & CUL

"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain

Re:YAAA

[mercuryresearch]

Amplifying on why some emergency services are staying with HF and are NOT moving to the newer UHF/Microwave stuff, and why high-frequency/shortwave communications are important:

A number of services use a technique known as NVIS (Near-Vertical-Incidence-Skywave.) NVIS is basically sending your signals nearly straight up, with a well-chosen frequency that gets reflected almost straight back down by the ionosphere. These frequencies are nearly always in the HF bands (~3-30 MHz).

This particular mode of communications is really helpful in situations where there is no infrastructure and no line of sight. A classic example is forest fires -- the fire often knocks out communications repeaters, and often mountains/hills isolate pockets of firefighters with no line of site communications; NVIS overcomes this as the signals are usually coming in from directly above. It also works well for islands or really any regional communications with limited support infrastructure.

As mentioned elsewhere, you can run pretty much any modulation scheme (digital data, voice, whatever) using NVIS. But both sides need to hear the signals, and the concern is that BPL could prevent one side (likely the home base/communications center side rather than those in the field) from being able to hear, thus preventing any useful communications.

Ham in Search and Rescue

[kavachameleon]

The SAR (Search and Rescue) team my college runs uses Ham for most of our communications needs. It's actually a pretty sweet setup, and a joy of a thing to see. We set up a mobile communication station with very little notice that runs off marine batteries in the middle of nowhere and talks to half the state. We're thinking of connecting the search teams' GPS units to a small packet radio transmitter, which would broadcast back to the Strike Team Leader's laptop, instantly plotting their locations. The STL laptop would rebroadcast the packets back to the Operations Center at the campus.

At least in New Mexico, Ham radio has saved countless lives.

73 de KD5ZPL

Independence Day anyone??

[kc8jhs]

That scene towards the end of the movie wasn't unrealistic at all. Think about it some time...amateurs maintain a world network, pretty much primitive, and low tech, yet powerful enough to not worry any government, yet be able to communicate how they want when they want, without government interference (Licensing of course...).

My personal ham site where I have a few pictures of the first and second field day I participated in. The first one, I was 17, organized the whole event in about 3 days. The second one was planned over about a month, and included more of my peers, and one mentor. Whole setup ran off of a generator, and was pretty much 100% self sufficient.

-Mikey P

Why Ham should Matter to /.ers

[Anonymous Coward]

The last couple of years, I've done Field Day w/ one of my best buds. I don't ham...likely never will, just don't have the desire, but my buddy is pretty heavily into it, and has developed some popular PSK31 s/w (sorry, no URLs, I'd hate to /. his site).

Its both fun and very educational. For those of you stuck in the digital realm, events like Field Day expose (yet again) how flexible/adaptable analog comm can be compared to internet or any other digital environment.

Downside: many operators now seem hung up on contests on Field Day, sticking around their shack to see how many contacts they can make.

Upside: the vision of my buddy, with safety goggles, and a Zebco reel duct-taped to a Wrist-Rocket, shooting a dipole up into some lodgepole pine near Mt. Adams, WA. Then pulling in contacts worldwide under the stars next to a campfire using a little mobile unit from his car.

My Pet Peeve

[ChuckleBug]

Dammit, Ham is NOT AN ACRONYM!!!

PLEASE stop writing HAM as if it were. There is more than one etymology for the word, but none of them are acronyms.

Oh, yeah, by the way...

[Mister Transistor]

Pardon me replying to myself, but I just thought of a good P.S. to the parent post - I forgot the best part, that IRLP is a Linux-based application!! It runs under a stripped down version of Red Hat Linux. EchoLink is Windows-based freeware, AFAIK.

Reagan Funeral

[hypertex]

Lots of Ventura county's Disaster Communications hams helped out the Secret Service and others keep track of the goings on in the past weeks. You'll never read about it in the press. For instance, they actually "ploughed the road" in front of the motorcade.