2025-11-21 — Plug and Play New Packet Radio Units, Including 2m!, The Piling On and Misinformation About ARDC Continues, The 44Net Story Interview, LinHT – a Complete M17 Transceiver, futureGEO
Loïc - Thanks for mentioning that repository. I read the one you linked to and you're right, it's enlightening. I'll have more to say on GEO next week.
As usual it is rich and thick like good blackberry juice.
I think I can see quick uptake on the NPR devices locally. Now to get the FCC to clear out those stupid limitations. I also would like to see some sort of work around to use so many of the network apps and tools on our digital IP (AREDN in my area) networks. It is all encrypted now, so if you want to do such as video conferences and other such things you have to deal with the encryption rules. I understand the reason back when encrypting on amateur radio indicated you were up to something not right, but now all of the common tools are encrypted.
William - There's some hope that the Part 97 rules don't use the word encryption: "Prohibited - messages encoded for the purpose of obscuring their meaning". There's some "room" to make the case that we as individual Amateur Radio Operators are not attempting to obscure the meaning. My basic test for the real world impact is that we as Amateur Radio Operators cannot query the FCC's databases for Amateur Radio license information without the use of encryption (HTTPS). Thus how can we, from an Amateur Radio system, be expected to validate whether someone using Amateur Radio spectrum is actually licensed? Thus, I think there's a case to be made, but it will have to be done carefully. Radio Amateurs of Canada have settled on encryption key escrow with RAC as a solution, and that seems to have satisfied their regulator.
Steve (by the way most folks call me Chuck) and yes the statement "Prohibited - messages encoded for the purpose of obscuring their meaning" when taken from the aspect that we are not using the application for obscuring the meaning just to transmit data, and as you pointed out we cannot even query the db for license data without it, really shows that the present day status of network tools and apps is that they all use encryption. If I am trying to present AREDN as a high speed data solution to the Emcomms folks, I cannot then turn around and expect them to use the same tools that they use day in and day out on their networks on the amateur based one. Indeed that is one of the selling points for AREDN, "it looks and works like the internet".
Where can I find out about the Canadian solution?
On another note, I was trying to recall which TAPR networking conferences we both were at. Do recall several back in the late 70's into the early 2K's.
It'd be objectively cool to have an amateur radio transponder in geosynchronous orbit. Because why wouldn't you want one?
But I've got to wonder -- for what purpose? What is the problem you'd want to solve with this? I think if it's experimentation and ham/ham communication, than a QO-100 style solution would be a great fit.
But if you think that you'd like a SERVICE or SOLUTION for the problem of trunking together local-scoped ham radio RF networks, then maybe just think about buying that trunking as a service. Surely there must be some hams at SpaceX that could help cook-up an interesting private network solution using Starlink. Maybe point-to-point links, or a bunch of MPLS LSP "circuits" connecting a bunch of sites together? I'm sure there's lots of capabilities for building private networks using that constellation that might be a fit for an amateur radio trunking use-case. I mean, some hams likely pay a nominal amount of $$$ for power and tower rent for their repeaters.. this is sort of a 21st century version of that.
Of course, infrastructure funding in amateur radio has always been a problem, how would the starlink service get paid for? Perhaps a framework where the operator club or organization for a regional ham network would pay the cost for adding their additional ground station. This might be a reasonable funding model if there's a critical mass to get anything going at all.
When I used to be "in charge" of things before I retired, I encouraged the people working for me to consider both "build" and "buy" alternatives to the problems that we had. If you don't have the right combination of people/expertise, resources/$$$ or time, then the right choice can vary.
I'm using T-Mobile's Starlink SMS service today. It replaced my Garmin InReach terminal and is better than Apple's Globalstar-based satellite messaging service. It uses a portion of TMO's 600MHz spectrum, right now to deliver low speed (SMS/MMS) data, but there's plans afoot for higher speed, wider bandwidth modulation that will allow a mostly normal cellular phone experience. I'm pretty sure the Gen 2 satellites are SDR based, so depending on their bandpass filtering it might be technically feasible to include a chunk of amateur spectrum, for a fee of course.
Where it gets troublesome is when it goes into service. If intended as a backhaul service there will be those hams who insist on using satellite backhaul just because they can. Back in the repeater analog linking days I knew many hams who would intentionally use the 70cm link radios just to show off. I myself use ASL 3 as the primary way I reach the club repeater system. Now imagine a bunch of uncoordinated hams just jumping in, doing whatever, just because their license says they can operate on those frequencies. And if encryption is proposed they'll be the first ones to howl about it. The Europeans seem to be a lot more willing to go with the plan, which is another big reason why HAMNET exists there and not here. I'm not saying that every ham is going to ignore the plan, but enough probably will that it will become problematic.
I'm pretty close to dropping the SIM card for my router and going with Starlink mobile. I'm waiting to see the pricing for certified refurbished mini terminals. If it's not too prohibitive I'll probably jump in. At least until the TMO-Starlink partnership can do just as well speed and feature wise as my current 5G service.
If I’m reading the ham radio jargon correctly, NPR is essentially a plug and play network device along the lines of a USB WiFi dongle? If that’s the case, that’s what I’ve been looking for since joining the hobby 10+ years ago. A local, standards based RF network without the need of the internet backbone. Gives the hacker the ability to focus on what can be done with the network rather than focusing on the hardware that runs the network.
From a North-America perspective, note that Radio Amateur du Québec Incorporated (RAQI) has participed with Amsat-F to provide an answer: https://gitlab.com/amsat-dl/futuregeo/-/blob/71881968ccc85801053afb15a69cefa9b68b6fc7/task1/proposals/2024-05-AMSAT-F_RAQI_proposal_en_v1x0.pdf
You will also find other answers in the same repository. They are very insightfull to read...
Loïc - Thanks for mentioning that repository. I read the one you linked to and you're right, it's enlightening. I'll have more to say on GEO next week.
As usual it is rich and thick like good blackberry juice.
I think I can see quick uptake on the NPR devices locally. Now to get the FCC to clear out those stupid limitations. I also would like to see some sort of work around to use so many of the network apps and tools on our digital IP (AREDN in my area) networks. It is all encrypted now, so if you want to do such as video conferences and other such things you have to deal with the encryption rules. I understand the reason back when encrypting on amateur radio indicated you were up to something not right, but now all of the common tools are encrypted.
William - There's some hope that the Part 97 rules don't use the word encryption: "Prohibited - messages encoded for the purpose of obscuring their meaning". There's some "room" to make the case that we as individual Amateur Radio Operators are not attempting to obscure the meaning. My basic test for the real world impact is that we as Amateur Radio Operators cannot query the FCC's databases for Amateur Radio license information without the use of encryption (HTTPS). Thus how can we, from an Amateur Radio system, be expected to validate whether someone using Amateur Radio spectrum is actually licensed? Thus, I think there's a case to be made, but it will have to be done carefully. Radio Amateurs of Canada have settled on encryption key escrow with RAC as a solution, and that seems to have satisfied their regulator.
Steve (by the way most folks call me Chuck) and yes the statement "Prohibited - messages encoded for the purpose of obscuring their meaning" when taken from the aspect that we are not using the application for obscuring the meaning just to transmit data, and as you pointed out we cannot even query the db for license data without it, really shows that the present day status of network tools and apps is that they all use encryption. If I am trying to present AREDN as a high speed data solution to the Emcomms folks, I cannot then turn around and expect them to use the same tools that they use day in and day out on their networks on the amateur based one. Indeed that is one of the selling points for AREDN, "it looks and works like the internet".
Where can I find out about the Canadian solution?
On another note, I was trying to recall which TAPR networking conferences we both were at. Do recall several back in the late 70's into the early 2K's.
Again keep up the great work.
It'd be objectively cool to have an amateur radio transponder in geosynchronous orbit. Because why wouldn't you want one?
But I've got to wonder -- for what purpose? What is the problem you'd want to solve with this? I think if it's experimentation and ham/ham communication, than a QO-100 style solution would be a great fit.
But if you think that you'd like a SERVICE or SOLUTION for the problem of trunking together local-scoped ham radio RF networks, then maybe just think about buying that trunking as a service. Surely there must be some hams at SpaceX that could help cook-up an interesting private network solution using Starlink. Maybe point-to-point links, or a bunch of MPLS LSP "circuits" connecting a bunch of sites together? I'm sure there's lots of capabilities for building private networks using that constellation that might be a fit for an amateur radio trunking use-case. I mean, some hams likely pay a nominal amount of $$$ for power and tower rent for their repeaters.. this is sort of a 21st century version of that.
Of course, infrastructure funding in amateur radio has always been a problem, how would the starlink service get paid for? Perhaps a framework where the operator club or organization for a regional ham network would pay the cost for adding their additional ground station. This might be a reasonable funding model if there's a critical mass to get anything going at all.
When I used to be "in charge" of things before I retired, I encouraged the people working for me to consider both "build" and "buy" alternatives to the problems that we had. If you don't have the right combination of people/expertise, resources/$$$ or time, then the right choice can vary.
I'm using T-Mobile's Starlink SMS service today. It replaced my Garmin InReach terminal and is better than Apple's Globalstar-based satellite messaging service. It uses a portion of TMO's 600MHz spectrum, right now to deliver low speed (SMS/MMS) data, but there's plans afoot for higher speed, wider bandwidth modulation that will allow a mostly normal cellular phone experience. I'm pretty sure the Gen 2 satellites are SDR based, so depending on their bandpass filtering it might be technically feasible to include a chunk of amateur spectrum, for a fee of course.
Where it gets troublesome is when it goes into service. If intended as a backhaul service there will be those hams who insist on using satellite backhaul just because they can. Back in the repeater analog linking days I knew many hams who would intentionally use the 70cm link radios just to show off. I myself use ASL 3 as the primary way I reach the club repeater system. Now imagine a bunch of uncoordinated hams just jumping in, doing whatever, just because their license says they can operate on those frequencies. And if encryption is proposed they'll be the first ones to howl about it. The Europeans seem to be a lot more willing to go with the plan, which is another big reason why HAMNET exists there and not here. I'm not saying that every ham is going to ignore the plan, but enough probably will that it will become problematic.
I'm pretty close to dropping the SIM card for my router and going with Starlink mobile. I'm waiting to see the pricing for certified refurbished mini terminals. If it's not too prohibitive I'll probably jump in. At least until the TMO-Starlink partnership can do just as well speed and feature wise as my current 5G service.
If I’m reading the ham radio jargon correctly, NPR is essentially a plug and play network device along the lines of a USB WiFi dongle? If that’s the case, that’s what I’ve been looking for since joining the hobby 10+ years ago. A local, standards based RF network without the need of the internet backbone. Gives the hacker the ability to focus on what can be done with the network rather than focusing on the hardware that runs the network.