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

[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keep the airwaves uncluttered by non-ham radio related personal/commercial traffic, or do you all grumble at the FCCs outdated restrictions?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

[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

[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: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

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.

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

[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: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...