2025-01-31 — Roadmap for the IP400 Network Project, Techsplaining About Innovating Mostly In Software, Trends I Hope to See in 2025 (and Beyond) - Part 1, DigiPi Compatibility with the AIOC
Posted on behalf of Martin Rothfield W6MRR who is having an issue posting a comment:
Power/modulation/data rate/processor are all mentioned but not the media access layer (MAC) method. The popular ham ad-hoc/mesh networks - Meshtastic and AREDN share CSMA (slotted Aloha or CSMA RTS/CTS) and pay the penalty. There is no reason to max out with just a fraction of channel bandwidth. TDMA allows (almost) full channel capacity with very little jitter. TDMA ad-hoc/mesh networks are possible but take more work. What is on the roadmap?
Replying to Martin W6MRR from my (N8GNJ) perspective. I hope Martin VE6VH replies with his perspective.
"CSMA / CD" is what IP400 will initially use... with some considerable enhancements. For one, every IP400 station will beacon about itself, and beacons will be aggregated and repeated by adjacent station. Thus each IP400 station will have a pretty reasonable, and reasonably dynamic "map" of the network. For example, if an adjacent station's "aggregation" includes a station that isn't heard directly, traffic for that station will automatically be relayed rather than being attempted to connect directly.
Some other differentiating features of IP400:
* With ample spectrum in 420-450 MHz (and eventually, other bands) it won't be unusual for an IP400 station to consist of multiple radios on different frequencies, and eventually, different bands.
* I think that it will be possible to monitor much of an entire band simultaneously (ka9q-radio technology). Thus it might be feasible to implement something like "slow frequency hopping" - monitor a number of local "IP400 channels" and transmit on one of those randomly because any IP400 transmission will be received (by the ka9q-radio receiver).
* Eventually IP400 will involve VHF / UHF repeaters
* Or even more interesting, a hybrid TDMA approach, if a IP400 repeater is operating in your area, the repeater can listen to the local "IP400 channels" and transmit a continuous status of which IP400 channels it sees in use, and not in use, which will minimize collisions.
With fast data speeds, lots of spectrum on VHF / UHF, and the potential involvement of repeaters, there's a lot of new things we can do, and especially that we can experiment with. I can easily imagine "It's Saturday - download the test mode of the week; run the automated test suite for 6 hours and upload your testing log".
Douglas - Such changes to VHF / UHF bands were not within the scope in the ARRL's petition that the FCC made into Docket 16-239. The ARRL only requested changes in the HF bands. (The "16" indicates that this action was begun in 2016... thus the minor embarrassment by the FCC that 16-239 was in "FCC limbo" for so long.) In implementing the changes to HF from Docket 16-239, the >FCC< asked for comments about whether the same philosophy should be applied to the VHF / UHF bands - should symbol rate limits and bandwidth limits be similarly removed? The vast majority of those who filed comments said Yes - remove symbol rates and bandwidth limits. Commendably, the ARRL was one of the commenters in that majority. So now you know... the rest of the story.
Another FCC question: why can someone go high power in the HF bands by the “high speed trading” people in RM-11953? So far, thank goodness, nothing has come of this one.
Douglas - there are a number of different services within the FCC that have allocations in the HF spectrum. The HST "experiments" are applying for licenses in a commercial service that do not (directly) affect Amateur Radio operating in the Amateur Radio HF bands. But they're close, and would impact Amateur Radio, so there is some justifiable objection to these proposed services by Amateur Radio. Check out the Experimental Radio News newsletter for much more in-depth treatment of this issue.
The issue here is “physics”, not so much the licenses.
The proposal also ramped power to above 10 kW, and filter roll off at power may not be sufficient enough to not interfere with adjoining services. Ham radio is only one of those services.
I appreciate the mention of hardware backwards compatibility in the IP400 roadmap. I've seen projects experience serious setbacks when major hardware changes result in early adopters suddenly being pushed out due to cost of new hardware requirements. I know it's not always unavoidable, but the fact that this is being considered this early gives me increased hope for this exciting project.
And notably all these happened after the lifting of the Morse code test requirements. The gatekeepers of the last century all bewailed the death of amateur radio then. They felt CW skills were even more important than wielding a hot soldering iron.
How many PhD-level electrical engineers were prevented from making vital contributions all for the lack of ability in being a “meat modem?”
Christopher - I've offered no defense of the former Morse Code requirement. Or the requirement that an FCC staff member administer an Amateur Radio examination at an FCC facility. I think the system we have now is working well with no Morse Code examination, and being able to conduct VE test sessions at technical (and Amateur Radio) conferences to get folks with an interest licensed with a minimum of hassle. I'm especially in awe of the streamlined approach of Laurel VE, and not charging a fee for the VE tests that they sponsor.
I wish it were possible for some organization to "work in the middle" to pay the $35 license fee to minimize the hassle even further, but there be dragons for such things as it has to be official between the FCC and the new Amateur Radio Operator, and there are privacy issues.
Have you seen the "HackRF Portapack" device? Imagine a HackRF SDR radio, with a board piggybacked on it with an STM32Fxxx microcontroller, small color LCD display with touch screen, speaker, microphone and battery powered. There is an open-source software called "Havoc" which has all sorts of really interesting tools - spectrum analyzer, AM/NBFM/WBFM receiver and other highly specialized modules for decoding TPMS tire pressure measurements, ADS-B transmissions, unlicensed 433MHz weather stations, Bluetooth Low Energy radio beacons and a bunch of other things.
Oh, and it can transmit too. You can even sort of use it as an HT.
There's a whole community of RF hackers without any specific Amateur Radio connection. Could be a gateway for that community into more advanced networking.
Seems like there'd be enough horsepower in there to do M17. Maybe even IP400? I dunno. This is another adjacent community puttering around the edges of RF communications, but more for the fun and hacking, not quite like the Meshtastic community.
It seems like there could be something here -- could be an interesting platform for Amateurs; I've used it as test equipment to debug some stuff using its spectrum analyzer. Could be a community that might be interested in hacking on high speed, ad-hoc wireless networking, for higher bandwidth applications that Meshtastic isn't a fit for. Maybe there's some parallel development of IP400 on ISM frequencies for a different community using different hardware?
This struck me as an interesting hardware platform, and even if the existing hacking firmware isn't your thing, you still have a HackRF SDR to play with :-)
Louis - Yes, I have heard of HackRF Portapack, and there's no reason that I haven't mentioned it in Zero Retries other than perhaps when I encountered it there was just too much going on that week and new stuff being encountered just pushed it further down the queue of things to mention.
I respect the perspective of folks that want to "hack around" with RF technology and not be too encumbered with the regulations pertaining to Amateur Radio. One very understandable issue is Amateur Radio discourages encryption with two very narrow exceptions. If one gets an Amateur Radio license, then there's a certain expectation that you "know better" than to violate certain regulations, however minor.
I try to feature interesting stuff that is going on within Amateur Radio in part to showcase such interesting stuff to non Amateur Radio operators. I haven't figured out how to reach out to such communities, and I guess I hope that word of mouth of particularly interesting Zero Retries articles on Amateur Radio activities would get circulated.
But Amateur Radio is a bit insular... and it shouldn't be.
Steve wrote, "zBitx will be so popular, that we may see a zBitx 2 designed for fixed operation with a bit more transmit power".
HFSignals also offers the sBitx, which is a 25 watt radio that offers similar capabilities as the zBitx in a larger and more expensive package. In many ways the zBitx is a miniaturized version of the sBitx. https://www.hfsignals.com/index.php/sbitx-v3/
I am also someone that is interested in picking up a zBitx when they become available! :-)
Dj - D'oh! I guess I overlooked the sBitx because HF Signals didn't emphasize the Software Defined Radio aspects of the sBitx the way that they did with the zBitx. One of the things that really grabbed me about the zBitx to showcase how capable it was that they had ported FreeDV to it as just one of the available modes, and there's no equivalent mention of FreeDV on the sBitx page.
But they do say that the sBitx can be operated remotely, same as zBitx so, you're right.
Thanks for that reality check that the "more powerful zBitx" already exists.
That software was becoming a key component of communications occurred to me back in the late 1980s whe were playing with old packet radio networks. Soon we had TCP/IP over packet through our TNCs. In the '90s we began talking about software defined radios - which are now mainstream. And now we have "radios" that aren't exactly radios either! As I write this, I'm on 7.074 Mhz FT8 - where to a large extent, much of the the "radio" is my PC! There is much innovation yet to come - and we will see it across the board, in analog and digital radio - and much more.
Edward - In my mind, there have been three distinct phases up through present day. The first was software defined networking, such as the TCP/IP operations we both enjoyed back in the 1990s and early 2000s, but the radios and the modems were fixed function.
Then came the software defined modems which got progressively more capable as we got better, fast sampling audio interfaces (once upon a time, actual "sound cards"), but the radios were still fixed function.
Then the first wave of Software Defined Radios where radio manufacturers substituted software on processors / DSPs / FPGAs for discrete components and custom ICs. But in those radios, the software was proprietary and only did what the manufacturer intended. And what they intended was to offer the same old, same old functionality with better performance such as more sensitivity and selectivity, and a few nice features like fully remote operation. But most telling to me that those weren't much of an advancement, THOSE SDRs did not incorporate any modems - that was left to outboard audio interfaces and host computers - like FreeDV, FT8, VARA, etc.
In the mid 2020s now, we have USER Software Defined Radios - like the zBitx. The user can alter the function of the radio solely through software that they choose (or develop themselves). I'm truly more impressed with the technology of the zBitx by including modes like FT8 and FreeDV in the radio, than I am with the "powerful" Software Defined Radios made by Flex, Yaesu, Kenwood, Icom, etc.
This era is finally where Amateur Radio can make a difference in advancing radio technology once again.
Posted on behalf of Martin Rothfield W6MRR who is having an issue posting a comment:
Power/modulation/data rate/processor are all mentioned but not the media access layer (MAC) method. The popular ham ad-hoc/mesh networks - Meshtastic and AREDN share CSMA (slotted Aloha or CSMA RTS/CTS) and pay the penalty. There is no reason to max out with just a fraction of channel bandwidth. TDMA allows (almost) full channel capacity with very little jitter. TDMA ad-hoc/mesh networks are possible but take more work. What is on the roadmap?
Replying to Martin W6MRR from my (N8GNJ) perspective. I hope Martin VE6VH replies with his perspective.
"CSMA / CD" is what IP400 will initially use... with some considerable enhancements. For one, every IP400 station will beacon about itself, and beacons will be aggregated and repeated by adjacent station. Thus each IP400 station will have a pretty reasonable, and reasonably dynamic "map" of the network. For example, if an adjacent station's "aggregation" includes a station that isn't heard directly, traffic for that station will automatically be relayed rather than being attempted to connect directly.
Some other differentiating features of IP400:
* With ample spectrum in 420-450 MHz (and eventually, other bands) it won't be unusual for an IP400 station to consist of multiple radios on different frequencies, and eventually, different bands.
* I think that it will be possible to monitor much of an entire band simultaneously (ka9q-radio technology). Thus it might be feasible to implement something like "slow frequency hopping" - monitor a number of local "IP400 channels" and transmit on one of those randomly because any IP400 transmission will be received (by the ka9q-radio receiver).
* Eventually IP400 will involve VHF / UHF repeaters
* Or even more interesting, a hybrid TDMA approach, if a IP400 repeater is operating in your area, the repeater can listen to the local "IP400 channels" and transmit a continuous status of which IP400 channels it sees in use, and not in use, which will minimize collisions.
With fast data speeds, lots of spectrum on VHF / UHF, and the potential involvement of repeaters, there's a lot of new things we can do, and especially that we can experiment with. I can easily imagine "It's Saturday - download the test mode of the week; run the automated test suite for 6 hours and upload your testing log".
Discussion moved to the IP400 email list - https://groups.io/g/ip400
I checked FCC 16-239 because I had thought the symbol/bit rate had changed.
I remember now, after checking, that the rule changed for HF only to fit in a 2.8 kHz bandwidth, like voice.
UHF/VHF were not touched. And, so with others, I too raise questions as to why wasn’t symbol rate changed across all USA ham bands.
Douglas - Such changes to VHF / UHF bands were not within the scope in the ARRL's petition that the FCC made into Docket 16-239. The ARRL only requested changes in the HF bands. (The "16" indicates that this action was begun in 2016... thus the minor embarrassment by the FCC that 16-239 was in "FCC limbo" for so long.) In implementing the changes to HF from Docket 16-239, the >FCC< asked for comments about whether the same philosophy should be applied to the VHF / UHF bands - should symbol rate limits and bandwidth limits be similarly removed? The vast majority of those who filed comments said Yes - remove symbol rates and bandwidth limits. Commendably, the ARRL was one of the commenters in that majority. So now you know... the rest of the story.
Another FCC question: why can someone go high power in the HF bands by the “high speed trading” people in RM-11953? So far, thank goodness, nothing has come of this one.
Douglas - there are a number of different services within the FCC that have allocations in the HF spectrum. The HST "experiments" are applying for licenses in a commercial service that do not (directly) affect Amateur Radio operating in the Amateur Radio HF bands. But they're close, and would impact Amateur Radio, so there is some justifiable objection to these proposed services by Amateur Radio. Check out the Experimental Radio News newsletter for much more in-depth treatment of this issue.
The issue here is “physics”, not so much the licenses.
The proposal also ramped power to above 10 kW, and filter roll off at power may not be sufficient enough to not interfere with adjoining services. Ham radio is only one of those services.
I appreciate the mention of hardware backwards compatibility in the IP400 roadmap. I've seen projects experience serious setbacks when major hardware changes result in early adopters suddenly being pushed out due to cost of new hardware requirements. I know it's not always unavoidable, but the fact that this is being considered this early gives me increased hope for this exciting project.
And notably all these happened after the lifting of the Morse code test requirements. The gatekeepers of the last century all bewailed the death of amateur radio then. They felt CW skills were even more important than wielding a hot soldering iron.
How many PhD-level electrical engineers were prevented from making vital contributions all for the lack of ability in being a “meat modem?”
Alas, it was ever thus.
Christopher - I've offered no defense of the former Morse Code requirement. Or the requirement that an FCC staff member administer an Amateur Radio examination at an FCC facility. I think the system we have now is working well with no Morse Code examination, and being able to conduct VE test sessions at technical (and Amateur Radio) conferences to get folks with an interest licensed with a minimum of hassle. I'm especially in awe of the streamlined approach of Laurel VE, and not charging a fee for the VE tests that they sponsor.
I wish it were possible for some organization to "work in the middle" to pay the $35 license fee to minimize the hassle even further, but there be dragons for such things as it has to be official between the FCC and the new Amateur Radio Operator, and there are privacy issues.
Have you seen the "HackRF Portapack" device? Imagine a HackRF SDR radio, with a board piggybacked on it with an STM32Fxxx microcontroller, small color LCD display with touch screen, speaker, microphone and battery powered. There is an open-source software called "Havoc" which has all sorts of really interesting tools - spectrum analyzer, AM/NBFM/WBFM receiver and other highly specialized modules for decoding TPMS tire pressure measurements, ADS-B transmissions, unlicensed 433MHz weather stations, Bluetooth Low Energy radio beacons and a bunch of other things.
Oh, and it can transmit too. You can even sort of use it as an HT.
See https://www.rtl-sdr.com/a-review-of-the-hackrf-portapack-with-havok-firmware/ for some description, and all the software is on GitHub.
There's a whole community of RF hackers without any specific Amateur Radio connection. Could be a gateway for that community into more advanced networking.
Seems like there'd be enough horsepower in there to do M17. Maybe even IP400? I dunno. This is another adjacent community puttering around the edges of RF communications, but more for the fun and hacking, not quite like the Meshtastic community.
It seems like there could be something here -- could be an interesting platform for Amateurs; I've used it as test equipment to debug some stuff using its spectrum analyzer. Could be a community that might be interested in hacking on high speed, ad-hoc wireless networking, for higher bandwidth applications that Meshtastic isn't a fit for. Maybe there's some parallel development of IP400 on ISM frequencies for a different community using different hardware?
This struck me as an interesting hardware platform, and even if the existing hacking firmware isn't your thing, you still have a HackRF SDR to play with :-)
Louis - Yes, I have heard of HackRF Portapack, and there's no reason that I haven't mentioned it in Zero Retries other than perhaps when I encountered it there was just too much going on that week and new stuff being encountered just pushed it further down the queue of things to mention.
I respect the perspective of folks that want to "hack around" with RF technology and not be too encumbered with the regulations pertaining to Amateur Radio. One very understandable issue is Amateur Radio discourages encryption with two very narrow exceptions. If one gets an Amateur Radio license, then there's a certain expectation that you "know better" than to violate certain regulations, however minor.
I try to feature interesting stuff that is going on within Amateur Radio in part to showcase such interesting stuff to non Amateur Radio operators. I haven't figured out how to reach out to such communities, and I guess I hope that word of mouth of particularly interesting Zero Retries articles on Amateur Radio activities would get circulated.
But Amateur Radio is a bit insular... and it shouldn't be.
Steve wrote, "zBitx will be so popular, that we may see a zBitx 2 designed for fixed operation with a bit more transmit power".
HFSignals also offers the sBitx, which is a 25 watt radio that offers similar capabilities as the zBitx in a larger and more expensive package. In many ways the zBitx is a miniaturized version of the sBitx. https://www.hfsignals.com/index.php/sbitx-v3/
I am also someone that is interested in picking up a zBitx when they become available! :-)
Dj - D'oh! I guess I overlooked the sBitx because HF Signals didn't emphasize the Software Defined Radio aspects of the sBitx the way that they did with the zBitx. One of the things that really grabbed me about the zBitx to showcase how capable it was that they had ported FreeDV to it as just one of the available modes, and there's no equivalent mention of FreeDV on the sBitx page.
But they do say that the sBitx can be operated remotely, same as zBitx so, you're right.
Thanks for that reality check that the "more powerful zBitx" already exists.
That software was becoming a key component of communications occurred to me back in the late 1980s whe were playing with old packet radio networks. Soon we had TCP/IP over packet through our TNCs. In the '90s we began talking about software defined radios - which are now mainstream. And now we have "radios" that aren't exactly radios either! As I write this, I'm on 7.074 Mhz FT8 - where to a large extent, much of the the "radio" is my PC! There is much innovation yet to come - and we will see it across the board, in analog and digital radio - and much more.
Edward - In my mind, there have been three distinct phases up through present day. The first was software defined networking, such as the TCP/IP operations we both enjoyed back in the 1990s and early 2000s, but the radios and the modems were fixed function.
Then came the software defined modems which got progressively more capable as we got better, fast sampling audio interfaces (once upon a time, actual "sound cards"), but the radios were still fixed function.
Then the first wave of Software Defined Radios where radio manufacturers substituted software on processors / DSPs / FPGAs for discrete components and custom ICs. But in those radios, the software was proprietary and only did what the manufacturer intended. And what they intended was to offer the same old, same old functionality with better performance such as more sensitivity and selectivity, and a few nice features like fully remote operation. But most telling to me that those weren't much of an advancement, THOSE SDRs did not incorporate any modems - that was left to outboard audio interfaces and host computers - like FreeDV, FT8, VARA, etc.
In the mid 2020s now, we have USER Software Defined Radios - like the zBitx. The user can alter the function of the radio solely through software that they choose (or develop themselves). I'm truly more impressed with the technology of the zBitx by including modes like FT8 and FreeDV in the radio, than I am with the "powerful" Software Defined Radios made by Flex, Yaesu, Kenwood, Icom, etc.
This era is finally where Amateur Radio can make a difference in advancing radio technology once again.