2024-06-21 — Just In Time for Meadow Day Anniversary - Starlink Mini, Preview - Building Back Better Amateur Radio Networks, ARDC is Hiring: Technology Department Manager
Chain Home was incredibly important, but airborne radar had a massive effect, especially when the magnetron allowed powerful airborne radars which meant the night fighters could track bombers in the dark or cloud, which stopped the night bombing raids that followed the Blitz. The whole development was remarkably tenuous, documented in Radar Days by Bowen. It's is a great read.
The radar was an important part, but the command and control was what defeated the Germans. The Germans had better VHF radars, and even IFF, but what they didn't have was a room full of people plotting targets on a grid, and a staff making decisions on what to defend first. Yojo Ito also invented a magnetron before Pearl Harbor, but did not achieve the same power levels. Japan relied on human spotters and got wacked. Ito was famous for commercial ship magnetron radars post-war.
The Skydio Dock (https://www.skydio.com/skydio-dock) plus a Starlink mini on a commercial data plan would be an ideal solution for remote monitoring and inspection for infrastructure that doesn't have backhaul. While there are many different commercial ISPs that will pull fiber to pretty much anywhere you want, you might end up with several different ISPs, billing schedules and pricing plans. Accounting doesn't like that and would rather just deal with one bulk account. This will be how Starlink makes their money.
Municipal police departments are getting blanket beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) waivers from the FAA for multiple drone docks around the city. Typically the waiver will cover the footprint of the police department's service area up to 400' AGL with some cutouts for heliports such as at hospitals. The way they're used is to place them in prime areas that get a lot of 911 calls. Dispatch will launch the drone to have a look at what's going on while the beat cop is in-route (you literally fly it in a web browser -I told them they need to add support for an Xbox controller). That way the officer has some idea of what he's getting into. Some drones also have speakers and mics so that the pilot can interact with the people in the situation. All this stuff is live-streamed and available to ATAK and other applications. Interesting stuff, although not sure how I feel about drones finding ancillary issues while on the way to the crime scene. Again, just come up with a standard kit based on Starlink terminals and deploy anywhere, although for municipal coverage it's much easier to get a single cellular or fiber ISP to cover the whole area.
Ready - Wow, that Skydio Dock is pretty cool! Yeah, there are going to be countless uses for a lower cost hardware and service plan version of Starlink. I'm confident that Starlink, having designed the system in this era (no excuses about legacy design choices of cellular) to be able to enforce prioritization of the Starlink terminals used by certain organizations in a declared emergency.
Starlink Mini and future for Amateur Radio emergency communications: Here in EU emergency traffic has traditionally been considered support of official emergency services. As long as analog FM technology separated every branch of any service from one another, ham radio had a place. In the digital communication world this place has mostly disappeared. But many groups militantly defend their traditional position. Starlink Mini will further diminish such possibilities for ham radio.
For a long time I have preferred to concentrate on welfare traffic as emergency services have more important things to do than to bother about every single citizen. But we can do things that Starlink cannot: Create emergency communication systems in communities and support specific aspects of resilience on the communal level.
The backbone of such systems could be FM repeaters with 3 weeks of off-grid standby capabilities. Or we show our surroundings how to use license-free handytalkies. We could also discuss how to provide ill or disabled with means to request help from their neighborhood.
Alexander - I think one of the most useful things we as "knowledgeable about the technology of communications" folks will be able to do in a communications emergency (cellular and landline Internet systems offline) will be to help neighbors use their cell phones on Wi-Fi. One of the things I'm going to figure out is an outdoor Wi-Fi AP that I can set up in a isolated LAN to/from the Internet (no household access) via my Starlink, which I'll be able to keep powered up. Starlink mini will be even easier to keep powered with the 12 volt input.
Radio network capabilities: Her in Central Europe we have a vast RF network using 44.x.x.x IP addresses. See https://hamnetdb.net/map.cgi.
For years I tried to do something useful with this network. At a time I could access servers 600 km away without ever using a Internet "wormhole". Then a cyber attack destroyed "hambook", "hamradio wiki" etc. with only very few search engines remaining. Recently my 2.3 GHz/10 Mbps link went down when the Olympic Tower from 1972 went into basic renovation.
One piece of infrastructure would be extremely helpful: Every AS (lowest organization level in TCP/IP systems) should set up a server that is available through a standardized TCP/IP address in every AS of 44net, that scans all user IP addresses within this AS for open ports in the public range (up to port 2047 or so plus the 80xx range). This server could announce any public services that hams provide within this AS within minutes after the service got QRV.
For example the server could have the IP address http://<basic AS address range>.99. Here you would find a list of calls and http://<DHCP-controlled address>:8073 for a VHF/UHF SDR. :8072 could be a HF SDR etc.
For a ham it would be easy to query those servers of the local AS's to see who has running his SDR or other service. You could set up a SDR during a contest or a VoIP server during a fieldday. You turn it on and within minutes the first hams could use your server.
If the functionality is available, why not provide it to the normal ham in a standardized way? I am simply searching for a mechanism to discover services that users of 44net make available. Search engines do not help here as those user-provided services might be available for hours or days and most often would use dynamic IP addresses.
I also consider it to be a mostly regional solution. My view is to use this mechanism over the air with a few intermediate nodes and link speeds in the 10 Mbit/s range. If you want to use a SDR RX on another continent, Internet is clearly the easier and faster solution.
RE: data-modes-only ARRL Field Day. I ran the club's digital tent last night. So much QRM! I was seeing wall-to-wall stations on the waterfall, but WSJT-X was only able to decode one or two at a time. I'm not really a contester so I wasn't sure what to do, other than play with RF/AF gain settings, but after the Sun went down pretty much every band was saturated (also shows what's possible when you get out of the suburbs and noisy switching PSUs).
A data mode contest should have a variety of operating modes, not just the du jour hot item, and maybe spread out a little beyond the default frequency for the JT modes at least. But I like the idea and I think it could prove popular.
This will also be an achilles heel for any comms channel in an emergency, including Starlink. There's only so much bandwidth available, even over fiber, and it all has to coalesse somewhere. In the case of Starlink they only have the spectrum they're assigned. In an emergency situation there's a very high likelihood of misaligned or poorly deployed terminals, such as under tree cover or other situations where they don't have a full view of the sky. That would cause more bad packets/frames and retires making it even worse. Note that this often happens when a disaster takes down key cell towers. The other towers are able to pick up the slack, but the bandwidth becomes saturated and subscribers with marginal handsets end up retrying.
The proper EMCOM response is to be flexible and have several redundant options. And hams should be ready to help, not only with our toys, but also be able to set up a Starlink terminal, fix solar power issues and make up an Ethernet cable if necessary. Do what you can to help.
Chain Home was incredibly important, but airborne radar had a massive effect, especially when the magnetron allowed powerful airborne radars which meant the night fighters could track bombers in the dark or cloud, which stopped the night bombing raids that followed the Blitz. The whole development was remarkably tenuous, documented in Radar Days by Bowen. It's is a great read.
The radar was an important part, but the command and control was what defeated the Germans. The Germans had better VHF radars, and even IFF, but what they didn't have was a room full of people plotting targets on a grid, and a staff making decisions on what to defend first. Yojo Ito also invented a magnetron before Pearl Harbor, but did not achieve the same power levels. Japan relied on human spotters and got wacked. Ito was famous for commercial ship magnetron radars post-war.
Battle of Britain - Radar: See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcDT6wqDnO8
I will have to watch that one also.
Thanks! I had no idea. I'll be checking this video out!
The Skydio Dock (https://www.skydio.com/skydio-dock) plus a Starlink mini on a commercial data plan would be an ideal solution for remote monitoring and inspection for infrastructure that doesn't have backhaul. While there are many different commercial ISPs that will pull fiber to pretty much anywhere you want, you might end up with several different ISPs, billing schedules and pricing plans. Accounting doesn't like that and would rather just deal with one bulk account. This will be how Starlink makes their money.
Municipal police departments are getting blanket beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) waivers from the FAA for multiple drone docks around the city. Typically the waiver will cover the footprint of the police department's service area up to 400' AGL with some cutouts for heliports such as at hospitals. The way they're used is to place them in prime areas that get a lot of 911 calls. Dispatch will launch the drone to have a look at what's going on while the beat cop is in-route (you literally fly it in a web browser -I told them they need to add support for an Xbox controller). That way the officer has some idea of what he's getting into. Some drones also have speakers and mics so that the pilot can interact with the people in the situation. All this stuff is live-streamed and available to ATAK and other applications. Interesting stuff, although not sure how I feel about drones finding ancillary issues while on the way to the crime scene. Again, just come up with a standard kit based on Starlink terminals and deploy anywhere, although for municipal coverage it's much easier to get a single cellular or fiber ISP to cover the whole area.
Ready - Wow, that Skydio Dock is pretty cool! Yeah, there are going to be countless uses for a lower cost hardware and service plan version of Starlink. I'm confident that Starlink, having designed the system in this era (no excuses about legacy design choices of cellular) to be able to enforce prioritization of the Starlink terminals used by certain organizations in a declared emergency.
Starlink Mini and future for Amateur Radio emergency communications: Here in EU emergency traffic has traditionally been considered support of official emergency services. As long as analog FM technology separated every branch of any service from one another, ham radio had a place. In the digital communication world this place has mostly disappeared. But many groups militantly defend their traditional position. Starlink Mini will further diminish such possibilities for ham radio.
For a long time I have preferred to concentrate on welfare traffic as emergency services have more important things to do than to bother about every single citizen. But we can do things that Starlink cannot: Create emergency communication systems in communities and support specific aspects of resilience on the communal level.
The backbone of such systems could be FM repeaters with 3 weeks of off-grid standby capabilities. Or we show our surroundings how to use license-free handytalkies. We could also discuss how to provide ill or disabled with means to request help from their neighborhood.
Alexander - I think one of the most useful things we as "knowledgeable about the technology of communications" folks will be able to do in a communications emergency (cellular and landline Internet systems offline) will be to help neighbors use their cell phones on Wi-Fi. One of the things I'm going to figure out is an outdoor Wi-Fi AP that I can set up in a isolated LAN to/from the Internet (no household access) via my Starlink, which I'll be able to keep powered up. Starlink mini will be even easier to keep powered with the 12 volt input.
Radio network capabilities: Her in Central Europe we have a vast RF network using 44.x.x.x IP addresses. See https://hamnetdb.net/map.cgi.
For years I tried to do something useful with this network. At a time I could access servers 600 km away without ever using a Internet "wormhole". Then a cyber attack destroyed "hambook", "hamradio wiki" etc. with only very few search engines remaining. Recently my 2.3 GHz/10 Mbps link went down when the Olympic Tower from 1972 went into basic renovation.
One piece of infrastructure would be extremely helpful: Every AS (lowest organization level in TCP/IP systems) should set up a server that is available through a standardized TCP/IP address in every AS of 44net, that scans all user IP addresses within this AS for open ports in the public range (up to port 2047 or so plus the 80xx range). This server could announce any public services that hams provide within this AS within minutes after the service got QRV.
For example the server could have the IP address http://<basic AS address range>.99. Here you would find a list of calls and http://<DHCP-controlled address>:8073 for a VHF/UHF SDR. :8072 could be a HF SDR etc.
For a ham it would be easy to query those servers of the local AS's to see who has running his SDR or other service. You could set up a SDR during a contest or a VoIP server during a fieldday. You turn it on and within minutes the first hams could use your server.
This feature seems to be covered by service discovery (dns-sd) from zeroconf. Probably better than scan...
If the functionality is available, why not provide it to the normal ham in a standardized way? I am simply searching for a mechanism to discover services that users of 44net make available. Search engines do not help here as those user-provided services might be available for hours or days and most often would use dynamic IP addresses.
I also consider it to be a mostly regional solution. My view is to use this mechanism over the air with a few intermediate nodes and link speeds in the 10 Mbit/s range. If you want to use a SDR RX on another continent, Internet is clearly the easier and faster solution.
I mean this is now standard IT solution that could be used in such context. KA9Q SDR is leveraging it in another contexte for instance.
As to answer to why not provide it ...we need more hams that have expertise in network and programming (esp. OenSource)?
RE: data-modes-only ARRL Field Day. I ran the club's digital tent last night. So much QRM! I was seeing wall-to-wall stations on the waterfall, but WSJT-X was only able to decode one or two at a time. I'm not really a contester so I wasn't sure what to do, other than play with RF/AF gain settings, but after the Sun went down pretty much every band was saturated (also shows what's possible when you get out of the suburbs and noisy switching PSUs).
A data mode contest should have a variety of operating modes, not just the du jour hot item, and maybe spread out a little beyond the default frequency for the JT modes at least. But I like the idea and I think it could prove popular.
This will also be an achilles heel for any comms channel in an emergency, including Starlink. There's only so much bandwidth available, even over fiber, and it all has to coalesse somewhere. In the case of Starlink they only have the spectrum they're assigned. In an emergency situation there's a very high likelihood of misaligned or poorly deployed terminals, such as under tree cover or other situations where they don't have a full view of the sky. That would cause more bad packets/frames and retires making it even worse. Note that this often happens when a disaster takes down key cell towers. The other towers are able to pick up the slack, but the bandwidth becomes saturated and subscribers with marginal handsets end up retrying.
The proper EMCOM response is to be flexible and have several redundant options. And hams should be ready to help, not only with our toys, but also be able to set up a Starlink terminal, fix solar power issues and make up an Ethernet cable if necessary. Do what you can to help.
It was effective because of its simplicity!
ARNET - good name!
Has the updated version of this article been published?
Bill - Not yet, but it's in work. Thanks for your interest!