2024-11-08 — Disintermediation In Amateur Radio, 220 MHz Amp Suitable for Use with SD Transmitters, Amateur Television - in a 100 kHz Channel?, APRS Local Info Initiative, HuskySat Lab Update
The changes at the FCC are, unfortunately, likely to happen much more quickly than the community can respond, at least in the form of creating new organizations with muscle; such efforts take money and time. That doesn't mean we shouldn't try, especially since the organizations we *do* have, like the ARRL, are lumbering, disorganized, and focused on protecting legacy technologies and activities of interest to an ever smaller number of (potential) radio amateurs. This may be an effort that happens at the discord level, as a start, but it will need money and attention from a wide group of radio amateurs to be successful.
Bill - Organization at the "Discord level" is exactly what the Meshtastic folks did, and it got a large response in FCC Docket 24-240 about reconfiguration of the 902-928 MHz band, so that approach should not be minimized. One of the longer-term projects I plan to start... if someone else doesn't do it before me, or does it better... is to create an email distribution list for mobilizing Amateur Radio and other organizations (the vast majority of who did not file comments in Docket 24-240) with first, alerting them to the issue, with as much time as possible, and second, suggesting major points on which to compose their organization's comments. This is yet more disintermediation, which candidly, shouldn't be necessary (for me to do) because there are other, funded, staffed organizations in Amateur Radio that could be doing this... but they're not showing up to do so. Thus it's left to folks like me and others who CARE and SHOW UP on these issues.
The article on disintermediation was eye opening. So many ways that the common ham can learn and grow.
The comments on the new administration and ham radio are enlightening and disturbing. It goes to show that if there is money as motive, even long ignored (high frequency trading) could be reality.
Douglas - These days, when commercial interests get involved, it's ALWAYS about the money to be made. The worst of it is the cynical approach to "getting title" to exclusive portions of spectrum, or special rights within shared portions of spectrum. I predict that even if NextNet gets the changes it requests, it will not build out the LMS infrastructure it's imagining, and will simply "flip" its spectrum licenses to another entity... for an enormous profit given that it's not going to pay anything for its special rights in 902-928 MHz.
Douglas - Thanks for the input. For a time I followed the DSRC 5 GHz auto band, and at one time decades ago was part of a small informal group that some senior FCC asked, plaintively, "can YOU folks think of something useful that can be done relating to automobiles, in this allocated band". None of us could think of anything truly useful (at that time), and the auto industry remained a Tower of Babel about the issue, so I have no angst about how it turned out.
Could you drop me an email - steve.stroh@gmail.com so we can correspond? I could use your input on regulatory issues relating to Amateur Radio... and other radio technology areas, especially in the next couple of years as priorities at the FCC inevitably change.
Better justification, VHF / UHF bands: A bunch of Starlink Minis can do wide band much better than we can. Especially this is fully compatible Internet, not some AREDN etc. island. But we have other advantages we should use to our advantage.
We are many and we have knowledge. Remember the role hams have played in the US military for more than a century. For example after WW2 hams among the GIs were asked to contact the next signal corps in Germany or Korea for potential emergency communication. In Germany, the first ham radio legislation was introduced before the Federal Republic of Germany was founded - obviously to legalize ham radio in the military from the beginning of a German state. License tests for Germans were introduced much later.
It is very easy to get some batteries so you can operate your handheld for a week or two. Emergency power supplies of repeaters can be easy if you reduce the standby power consumption. When the grid goes down, shut down the the complete electronics of the repeater. Connect a handheld TRX to the antenna that feeds its audio to a Arduino system or so.
The Arduino can power up the relay from the emergency power supply. Use it creatively, perhaps together with a Meshtastic side channel. Or upload bulletins through the handheld to the Arduino that are then sent periodically through the handheld and the relay antenna. In standby such a system would have a power consumption of perhaps 2 W.
Alexander - Agree with your points. Amateur Radio has some very capable, unique technology that could be leveraged in emergencies / disasters... IF we can grow beyond the "traditional" roles that Amateur Radio has played in emergencies / disasters in the century of history until this decade. One of them is the extensive deployment of repeaters, but they're not generally networked independently of the Internet. There are exceptions such as microwave networks between major sites, such as the case with a number of sites here in Western Washington, USA which have TCP/IP connectivity via HamWAN. I think repeaters that can do data would be a fantastic capability. Another is ubiquitous APRS usage and infrastructure (digipeaters), especially if the local information capability discussed in this issue is realized. Another is new approaches such as FLAMP also discussed in this issue for data distribution that doesn't need Internet access. Think photos, maps, updated situational awareness bulletins. Amateur Radio can do amazing things... but no longer need to be in the business of providing last resort email forwarding over radio - Starlink now fills that role.
Though my understanding of amateur radio and the underlying tech is very limit still, I can't help but see the "literally having a license to experiment with radio technology" aspect of it as itself being a form of disintermediation.
Dewayne Hendricks does in fact mention amateur radio in the Q&A section of Eben Moglen's speech when he makes an appearance at 1:18:17. "With the license class I have, I can put a communications platform in orbit without asking the FCC for permission. That is powerful."
Also, Amateur Television sounds like an incredibly fascinating new territory!
Malcolm - Thanks for mentioning that. I really should have finished watching Moglen's talk and thus would have seen Dewayne's contribution. The communications capability that the average Amateur Radio Operator CAN do... just absolutely dwarfs the capabilities of "civilians" who are not... though technology that doesn't depend on Amateur Radio is certainly catching up - LoRa, Meshtastic, Ribbit Radio all come readily to mind that I'd be experimenting with if I chose not to avail myself of Amateur Radio.
I'm guessing the APRS local initiative could take advantage of the bulletin message type? KM4ACK has been experimenting (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RO4cY1FhYzw) with this concept by pushing weather warnings to our local area via APRS bulletins and I always appreciate seeing them pop up. Expanding this to community event notifications makes sense. To really succeed this needs to integrate with modern organizational tools. For example, a WordPress plugin could push these messages automatically when a club posts an event to their website. A Google Calendar plugin for recurring club meeting times, etc.
Cale - Agreed on your points and yes, an interactive web page to submit new information would be a great way to do this, and as long as the overhead is kept small enough, could easily be done over Amateur Radio VHF / UHF even with our existing narrow, comparatively slow channels (or perhaps not so slow - this would be a great application for New Packet Radio at (US restricted) 56 kbps.
One of the problems with having small companies develop amateur radios is the time honored tradition of radio companies killing them with patent battles. Today we call the guy with a patent a "troll" but that's mostly due to the story being presented by the big player who wants to exploit the patent instead of coming to a licensing agreement. Was Edwin Armstrong a patent troll? General Sarnoff certainly thought so, and drove him to suicide just to avoid paying him off. And not only that, but Sarnoff then got the (then new) FCC to rejigger the spectrum so that any Armstrong radio was obsolete overnight. Good news for hams, since we got the 6 meter band, but seriously delayed FM deployment for decades.
Musk allows anyone to use Tesla's EV patents without a royalty if they're operating "in good faith." That's encouraging since he has the ear of Trump. Musk probably understands the problems with the patent system, and how these days it's more for stifling innovation than enabling it. We might think that the pace of progress is happening so quickly that patents don't matter, but we're not sitting in the board room of whatever Motorola is calling themselves this year. I have a gen-1 Apple Watch Ultra. It has an oxygen sensor that's been declared illegal in the US because of a patent "troll" who claimed Apple poached his employees and copied his product. The courts agreed, although he'll likely lose (or reach a settlement since his board of directors ousted him) on appeal. But meanwhile I have to keep this watch if I want to continue to have the blood oxygen sensor because the new ones don't have it. Given the pace of technology, why are patents still 15 or 20 years? More importantly why does the law encourage massive corporations to build up defensive portfolios, which are full of over-broad and dubious grants that were never vetted?
People tend to pin their hopes on to regime change, one of the reasons why people get so personally involved in politics and candidates. I'm no different. I have no idea if Musk even thinks about the fatally flawed patent system, or would ever consider taking on the task of reforming it. Congress would need to amend existing legislation, much like they did for decades for Mickey Mouse. Someone said "Imagine what can be, unburdened by what has been," and for sure I can dream about a world with 5 year patents, no resets for playing with the gingerbread, and requiring simple licensing procedures. After all, you can become a millionaire by having one guy give you a million dollars, or a million people giving you a buck. Either way, you've got a million bucks.
Eric - Thanks for your thoughts, as always. You're a thoughtful, knowledgeable commenter.
I have fewer concerns and angst about patent claims where the claimant has actually built, and especially deployed a new patented technology, rather than the classic patent troll that gets an overly broad patent (or buys an old one), does nothing WITH it other than to use it as a cudgel against companies that are out there innovating. As much as I love Apple's devices and technologies, they're hardly blameless about subsuming a patented technology into their devices and technologies.
I think the jury is still very much "out" as to how Musk's presence in the new administration will influence its direction towards tech and innovation... or if the siren song of political influence will influence Musk. Way too soon to tell. Obviously we all hope for the best outcome - Musk is doing amazing things in creating fundamental new technologies and changing paradigms with SpaceX (especially Starlink) and Tesla (especially grid scale batteries). Yes, the patent system desperately needs fundamental reform, and if he's able to achieve some movement on that, that would be a huge win.
Now that you have disclosed your political beliefs this is just cause for me to move out and find somewhere else to enlighten myself. All alike from the same playbook - keep the politics out of ham radio then turn around and smear the other side with your creative whine. You have had some good points in the past but now you went too far. Goodby.
Proud American - I too count myself as a Proud American. I can simultaneously hold the belief of being a proud American, and not being proud of some of the things that America as a country DOES. I really believe in that old phrase that American democracy is the worst possible form of government... except for all the others. We just completed a decisive election, and that's done, and in a couple of months, we will continue with life in America, under a new administration and new policies.
One of the things I'm proud of in Zero Retries is that I put my name out there behind what I write in Zero Retries. I'm not hiding my identity, and there are times I get it wrong and I, as an individual, in name, end up taking my lumps when my errors of fact, or omission, or perspective are pointed out.
As a single author publication, by its nature, Zero Retries is a vessel of the Editor's (me) beliefs, preferences, and prejudices. I do the best I can to not inject "raw politics" into Zero Retries... but sometimes I fail at that. When I do put some politics into what I write here in Zero Retries, it's generally in service to the overall discussion and mission of Zero Retries, such as my projections about the situation at the FCC under the upcoming administration, and the implications for Amateur Radio.
You weren't, BY FAR, not the only one to have unsubscribed to Zero Retries this week... but even more have started new subscriptions... so there's that.
Steve, I've been thinking about ways to bring about this sort of change. Here's one: I have put myself up for the board of QRPARCI and my pitch explicitly includes my goal to have QRPARCI be a grassroots hub for issues like spectrum protection. What would happen if someone with the same aspiration brought it into the discord server they host or they started running for boards of organizations like QRPARCI or their local club?
Whatever the "official" representative organizations are supposed to be doing, they ain't, and energy invested into trying to goad them in to doing what we take to be their job is better spent in getting the work done. This is just one way to do that.
Bill - I think that's a great idea, with only a small "nitpick" that the name of the organization might work against it offering positions regarding things that don't directly relate to "QRP", such as finishing Docket 16-239 for VHF / UHF and Docket 24-240 about Amateur Radio's status on 902-928 MHz. Ditto clubs with a defined local focus.
That said, you're VERY correct in your statement:
the "official" representative organizations are supposed to be doing, they ain't...
So yeah, we gotta start SOMETHING, SOMEWHERE, with SOME organization and I don't have a better suggestion than engaging QRPARCI to do so.
And, to the "local club", a "local" organization like Dayton Amateur Radio Association (of Hamvention fame), with their enormous resources (for an Amateur Radio organization) might be a suitable organization for trying something like this, if their laser focus on Hamvention could be broadended a bit to advocacy such as we're imagining.
The changes at the FCC are, unfortunately, likely to happen much more quickly than the community can respond, at least in the form of creating new organizations with muscle; such efforts take money and time. That doesn't mean we shouldn't try, especially since the organizations we *do* have, like the ARRL, are lumbering, disorganized, and focused on protecting legacy technologies and activities of interest to an ever smaller number of (potential) radio amateurs. This may be an effort that happens at the discord level, as a start, but it will need money and attention from a wide group of radio amateurs to be successful.
Bill - Organization at the "Discord level" is exactly what the Meshtastic folks did, and it got a large response in FCC Docket 24-240 about reconfiguration of the 902-928 MHz band, so that approach should not be minimized. One of the longer-term projects I plan to start... if someone else doesn't do it before me, or does it better... is to create an email distribution list for mobilizing Amateur Radio and other organizations (the vast majority of who did not file comments in Docket 24-240) with first, alerting them to the issue, with as much time as possible, and second, suggesting major points on which to compose their organization's comments. This is yet more disintermediation, which candidly, shouldn't be necessary (for me to do) because there are other, funded, staffed organizations in Amateur Radio that could be doing this... but they're not showing up to do so. Thus it's left to folks like me and others who CARE and SHOW UP on these issues.
The article on disintermediation was eye opening. So many ways that the common ham can learn and grow.
The comments on the new administration and ham radio are enlightening and disturbing. It goes to show that if there is money as motive, even long ignored (high frequency trading) could be reality.
Douglas - These days, when commercial interests get involved, it's ALWAYS about the money to be made. The worst of it is the cynical approach to "getting title" to exclusive portions of spectrum, or special rights within shared portions of spectrum. I predict that even if NextNet gets the changes it requests, it will not build out the LMS infrastructure it's imagining, and will simply "flip" its spectrum licenses to another entity... for an enormous profit given that it's not going to pay anything for its special rights in 902-928 MHz.
I suspect NextNav will get it, and flip it.
- Similar to the DSRC (automotive use) in the 5 GHz band. Stripped for 5G cellular. Some was returned, but is still threatened.
- The HF traders were (are?) putting 20 kW RF next to several competing users, not just hams.
- Then the 3.4 GHz grab for 5G cellular that caused airliners issues in landing radars at several airports.
The FCC needs auction authority back. It will still happen wrong, but special considerations may drop to forced actions.
I follow a lot of the world in regulatory. In several countries, bands like 915 already have been partially stripped for cellular.
Douglas - Thanks for the input. For a time I followed the DSRC 5 GHz auto band, and at one time decades ago was part of a small informal group that some senior FCC asked, plaintively, "can YOU folks think of something useful that can be done relating to automobiles, in this allocated band". None of us could think of anything truly useful (at that time), and the auto industry remained a Tower of Babel about the issue, so I have no angst about how it turned out.
Could you drop me an email - steve.stroh@gmail.com so we can correspond? I could use your input on regulatory issues relating to Amateur Radio... and other radio technology areas, especially in the next couple of years as priorities at the FCC inevitably change.
Better justification, VHF / UHF bands: A bunch of Starlink Minis can do wide band much better than we can. Especially this is fully compatible Internet, not some AREDN etc. island. But we have other advantages we should use to our advantage.
We are many and we have knowledge. Remember the role hams have played in the US military for more than a century. For example after WW2 hams among the GIs were asked to contact the next signal corps in Germany or Korea for potential emergency communication. In Germany, the first ham radio legislation was introduced before the Federal Republic of Germany was founded - obviously to legalize ham radio in the military from the beginning of a German state. License tests for Germans were introduced much later.
It is very easy to get some batteries so you can operate your handheld for a week or two. Emergency power supplies of repeaters can be easy if you reduce the standby power consumption. When the grid goes down, shut down the the complete electronics of the repeater. Connect a handheld TRX to the antenna that feeds its audio to a Arduino system or so.
The Arduino can power up the relay from the emergency power supply. Use it creatively, perhaps together with a Meshtastic side channel. Or upload bulletins through the handheld to the Arduino that are then sent periodically through the handheld and the relay antenna. In standby such a system would have a power consumption of perhaps 2 W.
Alexander - Agree with your points. Amateur Radio has some very capable, unique technology that could be leveraged in emergencies / disasters... IF we can grow beyond the "traditional" roles that Amateur Radio has played in emergencies / disasters in the century of history until this decade. One of them is the extensive deployment of repeaters, but they're not generally networked independently of the Internet. There are exceptions such as microwave networks between major sites, such as the case with a number of sites here in Western Washington, USA which have TCP/IP connectivity via HamWAN. I think repeaters that can do data would be a fantastic capability. Another is ubiquitous APRS usage and infrastructure (digipeaters), especially if the local information capability discussed in this issue is realized. Another is new approaches such as FLAMP also discussed in this issue for data distribution that doesn't need Internet access. Think photos, maps, updated situational awareness bulletins. Amateur Radio can do amazing things... but no longer need to be in the business of providing last resort email forwarding over radio - Starlink now fills that role.
Though my understanding of amateur radio and the underlying tech is very limit still, I can't help but see the "literally having a license to experiment with radio technology" aspect of it as itself being a form of disintermediation.
Dewayne Hendricks does in fact mention amateur radio in the Q&A section of Eben Moglen's speech when he makes an appearance at 1:18:17. "With the license class I have, I can put a communications platform in orbit without asking the FCC for permission. That is powerful."
Also, Amateur Television sounds like an incredibly fascinating new territory!
Malcolm - Thanks for mentioning that. I really should have finished watching Moglen's talk and thus would have seen Dewayne's contribution. The communications capability that the average Amateur Radio Operator CAN do... just absolutely dwarfs the capabilities of "civilians" who are not... though technology that doesn't depend on Amateur Radio is certainly catching up - LoRa, Meshtastic, Ribbit Radio all come readily to mind that I'd be experimenting with if I chose not to avail myself of Amateur Radio.
I'm guessing the APRS local initiative could take advantage of the bulletin message type? KM4ACK has been experimenting (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RO4cY1FhYzw) with this concept by pushing weather warnings to our local area via APRS bulletins and I always appreciate seeing them pop up. Expanding this to community event notifications makes sense. To really succeed this needs to integrate with modern organizational tools. For example, a WordPress plugin could push these messages automatically when a club posts an event to their website. A Google Calendar plugin for recurring club meeting times, etc.
Cale - Agreed on your points and yes, an interactive web page to submit new information would be a great way to do this, and as long as the overhead is kept small enough, could easily be done over Amateur Radio VHF / UHF even with our existing narrow, comparatively slow channels (or perhaps not so slow - this would be a great application for New Packet Radio at (US restricted) 56 kbps.
One of the problems with having small companies develop amateur radios is the time honored tradition of radio companies killing them with patent battles. Today we call the guy with a patent a "troll" but that's mostly due to the story being presented by the big player who wants to exploit the patent instead of coming to a licensing agreement. Was Edwin Armstrong a patent troll? General Sarnoff certainly thought so, and drove him to suicide just to avoid paying him off. And not only that, but Sarnoff then got the (then new) FCC to rejigger the spectrum so that any Armstrong radio was obsolete overnight. Good news for hams, since we got the 6 meter band, but seriously delayed FM deployment for decades.
Musk allows anyone to use Tesla's EV patents without a royalty if they're operating "in good faith." That's encouraging since he has the ear of Trump. Musk probably understands the problems with the patent system, and how these days it's more for stifling innovation than enabling it. We might think that the pace of progress is happening so quickly that patents don't matter, but we're not sitting in the board room of whatever Motorola is calling themselves this year. I have a gen-1 Apple Watch Ultra. It has an oxygen sensor that's been declared illegal in the US because of a patent "troll" who claimed Apple poached his employees and copied his product. The courts agreed, although he'll likely lose (or reach a settlement since his board of directors ousted him) on appeal. But meanwhile I have to keep this watch if I want to continue to have the blood oxygen sensor because the new ones don't have it. Given the pace of technology, why are patents still 15 or 20 years? More importantly why does the law encourage massive corporations to build up defensive portfolios, which are full of over-broad and dubious grants that were never vetted?
People tend to pin their hopes on to regime change, one of the reasons why people get so personally involved in politics and candidates. I'm no different. I have no idea if Musk even thinks about the fatally flawed patent system, or would ever consider taking on the task of reforming it. Congress would need to amend existing legislation, much like they did for decades for Mickey Mouse. Someone said "Imagine what can be, unburdened by what has been," and for sure I can dream about a world with 5 year patents, no resets for playing with the gingerbread, and requiring simple licensing procedures. After all, you can become a millionaire by having one guy give you a million dollars, or a million people giving you a buck. Either way, you've got a million bucks.
Eric - Thanks for your thoughts, as always. You're a thoughtful, knowledgeable commenter.
I have fewer concerns and angst about patent claims where the claimant has actually built, and especially deployed a new patented technology, rather than the classic patent troll that gets an overly broad patent (or buys an old one), does nothing WITH it other than to use it as a cudgel against companies that are out there innovating. As much as I love Apple's devices and technologies, they're hardly blameless about subsuming a patented technology into their devices and technologies.
I think the jury is still very much "out" as to how Musk's presence in the new administration will influence its direction towards tech and innovation... or if the siren song of political influence will influence Musk. Way too soon to tell. Obviously we all hope for the best outcome - Musk is doing amazing things in creating fundamental new technologies and changing paradigms with SpaceX (especially Starlink) and Tesla (especially grid scale batteries). Yes, the patent system desperately needs fundamental reform, and if he's able to achieve some movement on that, that would be a huge win.
Now that you have disclosed your political beliefs this is just cause for me to move out and find somewhere else to enlighten myself. All alike from the same playbook - keep the politics out of ham radio then turn around and smear the other side with your creative whine. You have had some good points in the past but now you went too far. Goodby.
Proud American - I too count myself as a Proud American. I can simultaneously hold the belief of being a proud American, and not being proud of some of the things that America as a country DOES. I really believe in that old phrase that American democracy is the worst possible form of government... except for all the others. We just completed a decisive election, and that's done, and in a couple of months, we will continue with life in America, under a new administration and new policies.
One of the things I'm proud of in Zero Retries is that I put my name out there behind what I write in Zero Retries. I'm not hiding my identity, and there are times I get it wrong and I, as an individual, in name, end up taking my lumps when my errors of fact, or omission, or perspective are pointed out.
As a single author publication, by its nature, Zero Retries is a vessel of the Editor's (me) beliefs, preferences, and prejudices. I do the best I can to not inject "raw politics" into Zero Retries... but sometimes I fail at that. When I do put some politics into what I write here in Zero Retries, it's generally in service to the overall discussion and mission of Zero Retries, such as my projections about the situation at the FCC under the upcoming administration, and the implications for Amateur Radio.
You weren't, BY FAR, not the only one to have unsubscribed to Zero Retries this week... but even more have started new subscriptions... so there's that.
Steve, I've been thinking about ways to bring about this sort of change. Here's one: I have put myself up for the board of QRPARCI and my pitch explicitly includes my goal to have QRPARCI be a grassroots hub for issues like spectrum protection. What would happen if someone with the same aspiration brought it into the discord server they host or they started running for boards of organizations like QRPARCI or their local club?
Whatever the "official" representative organizations are supposed to be doing, they ain't, and energy invested into trying to goad them in to doing what we take to be their job is better spent in getting the work done. This is just one way to do that.
Bill - I think that's a great idea, with only a small "nitpick" that the name of the organization might work against it offering positions regarding things that don't directly relate to "QRP", such as finishing Docket 16-239 for VHF / UHF and Docket 24-240 about Amateur Radio's status on 902-928 MHz. Ditto clubs with a defined local focus.
That said, you're VERY correct in your statement:
the "official" representative organizations are supposed to be doing, they ain't...
So yeah, we gotta start SOMETHING, SOMEWHERE, with SOME organization and I don't have a better suggestion than engaging QRPARCI to do so.
And, to the "local club", a "local" organization like Dayton Amateur Radio Association (of Hamvention fame), with their enormous resources (for an Amateur Radio organization) might be a suitable organization for trying something like this, if their laser focus on Hamvention could be broadended a bit to advocacy such as we're imagining.