2024-08-09 - SunSpotWatch.com Imminent Server Failure - Donations Requested, Why M17 Is Significant - Part 2, Starlink Mini - Game, Set, Match for Emergency Communications
Dale - Yep - I saw a fair amount of what I guessed was HF whips on DDG 102. It's no panacea though - HF can be jammed fairly easily. Hmm... you just gave me an interesting idea for a Zero Retries article next week - Thanks! I'll credit you.
When I think back to Iridium, I'm reminded of Moore's law. The constellation they built was designed in the 1980s, launched in the 1990s and nearly useless by the 2000s. I'm purely a spectator to the whole company, but my Monday morning quarterbacking ability says Motorola had the right idea, but either was too soon or too conservative in their engineering (or both). That's OK, the concept was fantastic and they still found a semi-profitable niche in providing comms for the far-off places where a $1/minute phone calls are the only option (and the military contracts). I used a Garmin Inreach for a few years until upgrading to iPhone 15 pro last year, in part so I could drop the $14.95/month emergency beacon plan. The Inreach is still a superior solution if you need global texting, but I don't spend as much time in the backcountry these days and the iOS SOS service is "good enough," at least we'll see when I actually need it.*
Starlink Mini looks great in comparison to any/all of the old suitcase satellite systems (Inmarsat/Viasat, etc). If for no other reason, because they're going to get to the scale necessary to make the hardware cheap. And my guess is there's someone at the Pentagon who's very happy to see the hardware available for the general public to learn on -there will be a pretty good chance someone in the platoon will have experience deploying Starlink for use in Starshield, should it come to that.
About the 900MHz petition, I believe they wish to deploy a real-time kinematic (RTK) correction network. This consists of fixed base GNSS receivers that are surveyed and in precisely known locations. These receivers sample the GNSS signals and compare to their stored position, then transmit a correction signal to "rovers" that will use that data to adjust accordingly. There are already several systems in place that use cellular and satellite systems, including the NOAA Continuously Operating Reference Stations (CORS) Network, which, while it is mostly free if you can justify the hardware cost (Trimble total stations aren't cheap), you can use it figure out just how many millimeters your neighbor's fence is over your property line. But the system probably won't scale to what's necessary for bringing in autonomous automobiles and massive drone delivery systems. But it is mostly a solved problem. u-Blox has their PointPerfect L-band satellite service, and there are plenty of cellular-based solutions. The need for another subscription service seems redundant unless they're bringing something truly new to the table.
*One of the expensive, but necessary, parts of these satellite beacon systems is that there's people in loop monitoring and handling the interface between the responders and the people in peril. I imagine a good AI system might someday lower the operating cost of global emergency beacons enough that they'll be free. For years I carried my TH-D7 and later TH-D72 in a side pocket of my backpack, in part because I thought I might need to send an emergency message. But then I realized I don't know that any people would be able to read that emergency status beacon, and bought an Inreach. Might be an interesting use of AI to revisit the APRS status beacon and do a little processing to forward alerts to humans who can help.
Ready - Most folks know Iridium as the fiasco project that nearly killed Motorola... and lesser known that if had been up to Motorola, Iridium would have been killed and buried. There is a fascinating book about life and near-death of Iridium called Eccentric Orbits by John Bloom -
https://groveatlantic.com/book/eccentric-orbits/. But the Iridium of this era has been quietly entirely reinvented with 2020s technology and all the Iridium satellites now in orbit (and a few on standby for replacements) are vastly more capable than the original system.
As to the NextNav petition, their basic premise for the radical reconfiguration of 902-928 MHz is flawed. As you point out, we've eventually figured out how to do reasonable positioning without the NextNav (proprietary, paid) service. I'll be explaining that in Zero Retries for the next 1-2 months, so stay tuned to future issues of Zero Retries for that.
Ready - Do a web search for "Iridium Next" for the full story of just how different the current Iridium sats are from the originals which either used analog or first generation digital technology. The current Iridium sats host at least two other systems that aren't actually Iridium. One of the best new services on the new Iridium is Push To Talk, which I became aware of from Icom - https://www.icomamerica.com/lineup/products/IC-SAT100M/. What a cool concept - a PTT radio that works anywhere on the planet - just one talk group distributed all over the planet. I know Amateur Radio can do that with Internet linking, but for this "old radio guy", it's cool that they're doing that service entirely on RF, using Iridium's very mature (compared to Starlink) inter-satellite linking technology.
One thing that folks may not realize is that you can pause your Starlink plan, so it may not be necessary to pay the monthly service fee while not using it.
Aaron you CAN pause Starlink service, but only on some plans such as the Roaming service which has a higher monthly fee. You can STOP your Starlink service, but they won't guarantee that you can restart it later given that some regions are "over capacity". (That may not be an issue given that the Starlink constellation, and thus overall capacity, is constantly growing.) Not to mention that if one is in a real communications emergency... it would be the supreme irony if you couldn't access the Starlink website to reactivate your Starlink service.
The military put all theirs eggs in the satcom basket for a while and realized that wasn’t a good idea and reinvested in some hf radio.
Dale - Yep - I saw a fair amount of what I guessed was HF whips on DDG 102. It's no panacea though - HF can be jammed fairly easily. Hmm... you just gave me an interesting idea for a Zero Retries article next week - Thanks! I'll credit you.
When I think back to Iridium, I'm reminded of Moore's law. The constellation they built was designed in the 1980s, launched in the 1990s and nearly useless by the 2000s. I'm purely a spectator to the whole company, but my Monday morning quarterbacking ability says Motorola had the right idea, but either was too soon or too conservative in their engineering (or both). That's OK, the concept was fantastic and they still found a semi-profitable niche in providing comms for the far-off places where a $1/minute phone calls are the only option (and the military contracts). I used a Garmin Inreach for a few years until upgrading to iPhone 15 pro last year, in part so I could drop the $14.95/month emergency beacon plan. The Inreach is still a superior solution if you need global texting, but I don't spend as much time in the backcountry these days and the iOS SOS service is "good enough," at least we'll see when I actually need it.*
Starlink Mini looks great in comparison to any/all of the old suitcase satellite systems (Inmarsat/Viasat, etc). If for no other reason, because they're going to get to the scale necessary to make the hardware cheap. And my guess is there's someone at the Pentagon who's very happy to see the hardware available for the general public to learn on -there will be a pretty good chance someone in the platoon will have experience deploying Starlink for use in Starshield, should it come to that.
About the 900MHz petition, I believe they wish to deploy a real-time kinematic (RTK) correction network. This consists of fixed base GNSS receivers that are surveyed and in precisely known locations. These receivers sample the GNSS signals and compare to their stored position, then transmit a correction signal to "rovers" that will use that data to adjust accordingly. There are already several systems in place that use cellular and satellite systems, including the NOAA Continuously Operating Reference Stations (CORS) Network, which, while it is mostly free if you can justify the hardware cost (Trimble total stations aren't cheap), you can use it figure out just how many millimeters your neighbor's fence is over your property line. But the system probably won't scale to what's necessary for bringing in autonomous automobiles and massive drone delivery systems. But it is mostly a solved problem. u-Blox has their PointPerfect L-band satellite service, and there are plenty of cellular-based solutions. The need for another subscription service seems redundant unless they're bringing something truly new to the table.
*One of the expensive, but necessary, parts of these satellite beacon systems is that there's people in loop monitoring and handling the interface between the responders and the people in peril. I imagine a good AI system might someday lower the operating cost of global emergency beacons enough that they'll be free. For years I carried my TH-D7 and later TH-D72 in a side pocket of my backpack, in part because I thought I might need to send an emergency message. But then I realized I don't know that any people would be able to read that emergency status beacon, and bought an Inreach. Might be an interesting use of AI to revisit the APRS status beacon and do a little processing to forward alerts to humans who can help.
Ready - Most folks know Iridium as the fiasco project that nearly killed Motorola... and lesser known that if had been up to Motorola, Iridium would have been killed and buried. There is a fascinating book about life and near-death of Iridium called Eccentric Orbits by John Bloom -
https://groveatlantic.com/book/eccentric-orbits/. But the Iridium of this era has been quietly entirely reinvented with 2020s technology and all the Iridium satellites now in orbit (and a few on standby for replacements) are vastly more capable than the original system.
As to the NextNav petition, their basic premise for the radical reconfiguration of 902-928 MHz is flawed. As you point out, we've eventually figured out how to do reasonable positioning without the NextNav (proprietary, paid) service. I'll be explaining that in Zero Retries for the next 1-2 months, so stay tuned to future issues of Zero Retries for that.
Thanks for the book recommendation. I heard the constellation had been going though upgrades over the last few years, but still nothing like Starlink.
It's a big sky, plenty of room for everyone.
Ready - Do a web search for "Iridium Next" for the full story of just how different the current Iridium sats are from the originals which either used analog or first generation digital technology. The current Iridium sats host at least two other systems that aren't actually Iridium. One of the best new services on the new Iridium is Push To Talk, which I became aware of from Icom - https://www.icomamerica.com/lineup/products/IC-SAT100M/. What a cool concept - a PTT radio that works anywhere on the planet - just one talk group distributed all over the planet. I know Amateur Radio can do that with Internet linking, but for this "old radio guy", it's cool that they're doing that service entirely on RF, using Iridium's very mature (compared to Starlink) inter-satellite linking technology.
One thing that folks may not realize is that you can pause your Starlink plan, so it may not be necessary to pay the monthly service fee while not using it.
Aaron you CAN pause Starlink service, but only on some plans such as the Roaming service which has a higher monthly fee. You can STOP your Starlink service, but they won't guarantee that you can restart it later given that some regions are "over capacity". (That may not be an issue given that the Starlink constellation, and thus overall capacity, is constantly growing.) Not to mention that if one is in a real communications emergency... it would be the supreme irony if you couldn't access the Starlink website to reactivate your Starlink service.