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HERMES radio enables voice and data communication over vast distances

187 points · 71 comments · SamuraiLion

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wmchen · 1790009921 · focus · HN ↗
Original project page: <a href="https://hermes.radio/" rel="nofollow">https://hermes.radio/ (Code: <a href="https://mercury.hermes.radio/" rel="nofollow">https://mercury.hermes.radio/)
Organization page: <a href="https://www.rhizomatica.org/about/" rel="nofollow">https://www.rhizomatica.org/about/
My initial thought is that this is a cool way to try and get more resilient communications technology in the hands of those who need it most in the Global South, and it's awesome it was successfully used for a Pan Pan.
This reminds me of WinLink (an analogue to email on amateur radio), which I've heard is used by some Mariners. [1]
I'm aware that HERMES is essentially a SDR bundle/communication terminal (for a lack of a better term for a Raspberry Pi, a screen and an SDR), so it's not really re-discovering a well known amateur radio concept, but the hardware setup sounds a bit brittle on first glance, for what is essentially an emergency/critical communication application.
[1]: <a href="https://winlink.org/" rel="nofollow">https://winlink.org/
1. ortusdux · 1790010509 · focus · HN ↗
  Sounds like something that might hybridize well with LoRa devices. They are low power but line of sight only, so a long range backbone would be very valuable.
mesh · 1790010932 · focus · HN ↗
This is a cool project, but fyi, in the US, this would require a license to broadcast (not receive), and I am pretty sure encryption, even with a license, is not legal (again, when broadcasting from US).
And then only on certain bands:
<a href="https://www.arrl.org/files/file/Regulatory/Band%20Chart/Hambands4_Color_17x11.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://www.arrl.org/files/file/Regulatory/Band%20Chart/Hamb...
1. bityard · 1790014013 · focus · HN ↗
  Correct. Encryption (or more specifically, obscuring the meaning of a message) is generally not allowed for amateur radio stations except in very narrow circumstances. So any hams using this would have to turn the encryption off.
  However, it looks like this stack has encryption available as an option for stations who are transmitting sensitive data and are NOT operating under an amateur license. (Probably government-sanctioned communications or emergency humanitarian efforts.)
  1. zikduruqe · 1790015916 · focus · HN ↗
    > except in very narrow circumstances
    Usually it is for the uplink control for satellites. That you'd like to keep encrypted, so that someone does not hack your bird.
    wiml · 1790026439 · focus · HN ↗
    You really only need authentication for that, not encryption. MACs and such are okay on ham bands as I understand it. You just can't obscure the message. If you want a private channel to the exclusion of other people, license a frequency and pay for it. Spectrum is a scarce resource.
    zikduruqe · 1790082285 · focus · HN ↗
    You have to encrypt it.
    NASA requires any of its propulsive spacecraft within 2 million kilometers of Earth to protect their command uplink with encryption that is compliant with Level 1 of the Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 140-3 (10). The FCC has also considered requiring encryption on the telemetry, tracking, and command communications as well as mission data for propulsive spacecraft, but decided not to incorporate a specific requirement at this time. A satellite with an amateur license cannot encrypt transmissions in any way and must consist of open information. The eligibility rules are listed in 47 CFR Part 97.
    <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/47/97.211" rel="nofollow">https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/47/97.211
    wolvoleo · 1790168759 · focus · HN ↗
    I heard encryption is also allowed for disaster assistance by hams, obviously you don't want to transmit personal details of victims in the clear, stuff like that.
  2. nowittyusername · 1790016853 · focus · HN ↗
    what would happen if you were to break that law? like im talking enforcement here not whats on the books.. for example torrenting and uploding copyrighted files is illegal but most people dont give a shit as enforecement is almost non existant. i know radio is taken more seriously then torrenting but this must also be very low on priority for the government unless you are jamming people or somehow stand out enough for anyone to care or notice....
    ErroneousBosh · 1790018117 · focus · HN ↗
    > what would happen if you were to break that law? like im talking enforcement here not whats on the books.
    In the UK, nothing. There are far more important laws to enforce.
    You will get some fat whiny old guy bitching about it to anyone who will listen, but you literally could not pay Ofcom to take an interest, and there are only about two people in the whole of the UK who have the skill to do anything about it.
    BoxOfRain · 1790034941 · focus · HN ↗
    Don't Ofcom still bust the odd shortwave pirate occasionally if they're broadcasting in one of the GMDSS bands? Fairly sure it happened to a station a few years ago but I could be misremembering.
    Then again, as you say, they probably have much better things to do. Would be nice to hear more stations popping up on MW too as all the legit stations leave the band.
    ErroneousBosh · 1790072702 · focus · HN ↗
    Yes, but then that's typical of the way laws are enforced in the UK.
    If you're not actively pissing someone off, it is unlikely anyone will bother you.
    No-one is going to give a shit about you running unattended digi modes on 80m except some guy who wants the exact same 3kHz out of 300kHz that you are using to moan about his sore feet to his pal across town.
    GMDSS is considered Pretty Fucking Important, and messing with it will attract the attention of the Coastguard, who have the legal right to make even the Diplomatic Corps miserable.
    Let me put it this way - when a defective navigation light ballast at a US-operated naval base on the Clyde was jamming 156.8MHz for about a ten mile radius, absolutely obliterating the distress and calling channel, Ofcom got involved, passed their findings onto the estuary radio control office, the RNLI, and the Coastguard, who had all been reporting an issue, and "gave advice" on further enforcement they could carry out. Within half an hour the nav light was shut down, after a phone call where the Coastguard explained that there were some very angry people on their way with a radio engineer who was about to put a Stihl saw through their fence and shut it off himself.
    They were on that thing within the hour, replacing the lamp assembly and phoned estuary control before firing it back up, and peace returned to Channel 16.
    wmchen · 1790018218 · focus · HN ↗
    You're right that most amateur radio regulations are self-policed by other amateur radio operators, and true enforcement is probably rarer than folks like to imagine.
    But depending on the environment (and noting that this project is specifically targeted towards communities seeking last-resort communication), there's definitely still risk, even if there isn't a spectrum authority with any real policing powers.
    For example (and I say this speculatively), if you're broadcasting encrypted radio traffic in a conflict zone, it could be hard to differentiate between civilian traffic and military traffic happening on civilian bands, so you might be wrongly targeted by a drone strike.
    If you already have a target on your back, radio laws can still be arbitrarily applied upon oneself, as in the case of Aung San Suu Kyi, who was once arrested on the pretense of illegally importing radio equipment. [1]
    [1]: <a href="https://apnews.com/article/aung-san-suu-kyi-myanmar-asia-ap-news-alert-government-and-politics-de86b98d2698ecdee1d17a84efa33808" rel="nofollow">https://apnews.com/article/aung-san-suu-kyi-myanmar-asia-ap-...
    bityard · 1790026837 · focus · HN ↗
    In the US, FCC investigations are complaint-driven. Meaning, if you interfere with someone else's frequency, and they complain about it hard enough, the FCC will take an interest in you. Especially if you interfere with public safety. (But they will still go after the more flagrant and persistent abusers on the ham bands.)
    aeturnum · 1790027014 · focus · HN ↗
    In practice very little. The FCC tends to focus on long-lived stationary stations ("pirate" radio) with their few enforcement actions. That said it's important to remember that radio transmissions can easily be tracked to their source (doubly so with drones) and you should plan for that eventuality.
    My sense is that at most you will be yelled at by HAMs - unless you are actually disrupting emergency communications. Ensuring radios can be used in emergencies is why licensing exists at all and people take ensuring it can be used for that pretty seriously (for good reason).
    bmgxyz · 1790038647 · focus · HN ↗
    If you're curious what's allowed on the ham bands, have a listen to 7.200 MHz LSB. (If you don't have a receiver, try one on the web[0], such as this one[1].) As of writing, someone is spamming the channel with racial slurs and KKK propaganda using a soundboard.
    In my experience, enforcement of the rules is unheard of.
    [0]: <a href="http://websdr.org/" rel="nofollow">http://websdr.org/ [1]: <a href="http://websdr.k3fef.com:8901/" rel="nofollow">http://websdr.k3fef.com:8901/
    driverdan · 1790045858 · focus · HN ↗
    It's not unheard of but is unfortunately rare. The FCC sent a nastygram to one of the 7.200 nuts recently.
    unethical_ban · 1790263812 · focus · HN ↗
    The other day, I tuned into webSDR around that ban and immediately heard a woman blaming <slur> for everything under the sun. I knew it wouldn't take me long to hear whackjobs on that band... 40m-80m seems to bring out the crazy.
    I did it after my friend tuned into AM radio for the first time and heard all the far-right radio and I said "hold my beer".
    asdff · 1790049260 · focus · HN ↗
    Effectively nothing. I dug into this and found this article (1) from earlier this month on the FCC targeting a couple pirate radio stations in and around NYC. It says they used field agents and FM directional finding equipment to locate the signals to specific property.
    However, the buck stops exactly there. It becomes the landlords issue, not the tenant who might be operating the radio, where the property owner is liable to be fined if they themselves don't shut the signal off. I would guess the FCC lacks the sensitivity to target the signal to a specific unit in a given building in order to issue the fine directly to the involved individual.
    I guess the lesson is you can do whatever you like as long as you have the actual radio mast on someone else's property as they will get the fire if the FCC bothers to show up.
    Makes me wonder about those old FM radio dongles we had for cars that lacked aux jacks or tape decks if those would technically be pirate radio. You'd have to set them to whatever open channel was locally available and they had actually pretty good range; I remember picking up my friends signal while I was driving behind them.
    1. <a href="https://www.insideradio.com/free/pirate-radio-crackdown-puts-new-york-property-owners-in-fcc-crosshairs/article_4afa04c2-d0b3-411d-b136-e0f5d3546ea8.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.insideradio.com/free/pirate-radio-crackdown-puts...
    mschuster91 · 1790082467 · focus · HN ↗
    > Makes me wonder about those old FM radio dongles we had for cars that lacked aux jacks or tape decks if those would technically be pirate radio.
    No. These generally are type-rated and carry a general license to transmit, their power is extremely low.
    jasonjayr · 1790091020 · focus · HN ↗
    They are a nuisance when you drive by a car using them while you're tuned to the local college stations, and suddenly you're hearing one side of someone's phone conversation, or some other music.
  3. edg5000 · 1790056845 · focus · HN ↗
    For drones, at least in the EU, encryption is mandatory.
2. _whiteCaps_ · 1790017469 · focus · HN ↗
  Going to be super pedantic here - in ham radio you don't broadcast, you transmit.
  1. mesh · 1790022955 · focus · HN ↗
    Yes! Broadcasting is prohibited!
    (and this all reminded I need to renew my license which I haven't used in about 8 years! Looks like I also need a refresher!)
  2. kanbankaren · 1790031996 · focus · HN ↗
    What is the difference between the two?
    A ham operator might put out 20W of ERP while a radio station operates at 100W though international broadcasters use upto 500 kW.
    mesh · 1790032471 · focus · HN ↗
    In the US with an amateur radio license you can have one to one communication (transmit) but not one to many (broadcast).
    lacunary · 1790042740 · focus · HN ↗
    hmm, been a minute since I got my ticket, but neither calling CQ nor working a net seem like one to one.
    scarecrowbob · 1790043540 · focus · HN ↗
    Isn't it the case that it's not a CQ unless someone responds?
    Like, the response is kind of important for either a CQ or a net... whereas if I broadcast a pirate radio I am doing what I am trying to do just by sending.
    lacunary · 1790047246 · focus · HN ↗
    yes I think two-way vs one-way communication is a good characterization
    sitzkrieg · 1790051504 · focus · HN ↗
    the intention is to make a contact, not disseminate one way information. that is broadcasting
    amatecha · 1790055647 · focus · HN ↗
    The difference is the intent - calling CQ is the protocol for seeking a contact to communicate with. It's not broadcasting because you're trying to establish comms with someone, and not disseminating information "one-to-many". Running a net inherently intends to engage in contact with numerous stations - by definition not "broadcasting".
    drivers99 · 1790035814 · focus · HN ↗
    Part 97 defines broadcasting as "Transmissions intended for reception by the general public, either direct or relayed."
    Then there's a section that says:
    > An amateur station shall not engage in any form of broadcasting, nor may an amateur station transmit one-way communications except as specifically provided in these rules
    <a href="https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-47/part-97#p-97.113(b)" rel="nofollow">https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-47/part-97#p-97.113(b)
    Since "broadcasting" is prohibited (except for the exceptions), there is a distinction. There actually are a lot of exceptions that allow different kinds of one-way transmissions though.
    subscribed · 1790064334 · focus · HN ↗
    > What is the difference
    Except the CQ you only transmit for the specific recipient.
    I believe broadcasting in one way only (there's no conversation part).
3. tarxvf · 1790017674 · focus · HN ↗
  <a href="https://n5dux.com/ham/files/pdf/Data%20Encryption%20is%20Legal.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://n5dux.com/ham/files/pdf/Data%20Encryption%20is%20Leg...
4. retrac · 1790019348 · focus · HN ↗
  The licence is not a hurdle. HF licencing in Canada is simple. You get the transmitter certified ($500) and then you rent the spectrum licence. Since there is actually not much demand for HF spectrum it's quite cheap. If you plan to use it domestically it's the same process as like licensing a single 25 kHz VHF channel for a walkie-talkie. And on licensed channel you can encrypt if you want.
  But putting a useful transmission on air is expensive. Commercial long-distance shortwave transmitters are megawatt-class. That seems to be the biggest barrier. It turns out to be much cheaper and easier to provide an unreliable 10 kHz channel between A and B through almost any other means.
  That said: it's clear there's an uptick in data transmission on shortwave over the last ~decade or so. Get a broadband SDR receiver and look at the spectrum waterfall. Here's a capture live from an SDR in New Zealand: <a href="https://i.imgur.com/NfFBO34.png" rel="nofollow">https://i.imgur.com/NfFBO34.png
  Between 8250 and 8300 kHz and slightly more faintly centred at 8200, and also at 8150 see the 50 kHz wide spectrum bands of /// rising diagonal lines?
  That is a 50 kHz wide channel. Which is broadband in the context of HF when voice band is 3 kHz. It's some kind of spread-spectrum chirp modulation. I've seen broadband OFDM on air as well at extremely low baud like 1 baud but presumably many channels and possible frequencies.
  Throughput depends entirely on the levels of error correction etc. but the Shannon limit for a 50 kHz channel at low noise is like ~200 kbps. Well beyond sending some weather reports and teletype data.
  Who? Probably military. Spread spectrum techniques are illegal in Canada and the US at least, on HF, for both amateur and commercial users.
5. jcrawfordor · 1790020911 · focus · HN ↗
  I would expect this system to ultimately be used under a commercial HF license rather than an amateur license, given the feature set and that it seems to have much more in common with military systems like ALE than amateur practice. That said, because of the scarce supply of HF bandwidth, commercial HF licenses are quite restrictive in the US. For the most part, you are only allowed to apply for one if you are an infrastructure operator that needs a contingency communications capability for disaster response. That said, the FCC has permitted experimental licenses for some commercial applications like high frequency trading, so perhaps the situation will become less restrictive over time.
  That said, commercial licenses are not per-operator like amateur licenses, so you would potentially only need one to cover the entire network. Some of this is ultimately negotiated.
6. Razengan · 1790065785 · focus · HN ↗
  > encryption is not legal (again, when broadcasting from US)
  What the fuck... How did you Freedom lovers let it get that way, god
7. rckoepke · 1790080587 · focus · HN ↗
  Just FYI, LoRa / LoRaWAN (Part 15) explicitly allow even unlicensed users to utilize encryption. WiFi and Bluetooth, similarly, of course.
  MURS (probably?) allows unlicensed users to utilize encryption for digital data transmission as long as it's not encrypting voice communications, though it disallows store-and-forward packet operation and repeaters which makes doing anything like Meshtastic rather difficult.
  For $400-800 nearly anyone can get a FCC Part 90 Nationwide Itinerant Data License which would allow them to do most of the "fun stuff" they might like to do for just $45-75/year, which is pretty darn affordable. Part 90 explicitly allows encryption, both of voice and data.
  Encryption is really only hard-banned for "amateur" radio, Part 97.
wmf · 1790011555 · focus · HN ↗
Coincidentally I looked into this the other day and the fastest mode is 3 kilobit/s. Great for email but it's not going to be an Internet connection.
1. BlackRabbit1 · 1790012159 · focus · HN ↗
  If you want to have internet everywhere there is Starlink. Competing against it as hobbyist is a waste of time.
  But having a small, low-power, lightweight messenger that uses an extremely robust (and thereby slow) mode to send and receive messages is an interesting niche. For VHF/UHF/SHF you can use LoRa.
  1. Mainan_Tagonist · 1790063022 · focus · HN ↗
    Technologically speaking, Starlink is the way to go.
    Economically, Starlink and its subscription model cannot compete with a hardware cost only mean of communication where all elements are modular in this particular context.
    On the other hand, even people in remote communities will also end up getting hold of a cheap smartphone that they would like to connect to the internet
2. kragen · 1790016396 · focus · HN ↗
  I haven't used this radio, but I have definitely used a 2.4-kilobit-per-second internet connection productively. Raw TCP/IP with SLIP or PPP will work, and with VJ header compression it works reasonably well. What won't work well is loading a web page with a bunch of images and a megabyte of JavaScript.
3. nowittyusername · 1790016708 · focus · HN ↗
  If you have local stt and tts voice stack on the phone, this would be very useful as the interface to talk to your agent back at home. All inference happens on your local machine while the actual information is sent via text. said text is then processed by your phone via tts as output, same for your voice as input (asr). this project is actually something ive considered doing myself as my voice agent is almost done and ive wanted to take a look and see if i could have acess to him from anywhere in the world..
4. sitzkrieg · 1790051536 · focus · HN ↗
  its a less compatible winlink at best
BlackRabbit1 · 1790012030 · focus · HN ↗
> Why did you build in encryption that amateur-radio regulations in many countries don’t allow?
Encryption (in terms of hiding messages) is forbidden mostly.
But everything else is allowed: hashes, signing, etc.
ck2 · 1790012228 · focus · HN ↗
doesn't HAM radio already have a digital packet system that works like fidonet store-and-forward system?
this just adds an encryption layer?
1. wmf · 1790012751 · focus · HN ↗
  AX.25 runs at 300 bps over HF while Mercury is 10x faster.
2. fragmede · 1790014109 · focus · HN ↗
  HAM radio isn't allowed to have encryption. (Someone can write a longer comment on why thats wrong.)
  1. _whiteCaps_ · 1790016606 · focus · HN ↗
    Depends on your jurisdiction. In Canada it's allowed if you publish your keys.
    <a href="https://www.rac.ca/encryption/" rel="nofollow">https://www.rac.ca/encryption/
  2. tarxvf · 1790017695 · focus · HN ↗
    <a href="https://n5dux.com/ham/files/pdf/Data%20Encryption%20is%20Legal.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://n5dux.com/ham/files/pdf/Data%20Encryption%20is%20Leg...
    fragmede · 1790129590 · focus · HN ↗
    Fascinating, thanks!
3. BlandDuck · 1790017204 · focus · HN ↗
  Ham radio also has the FT8 protocol which is optimized for a bad signal to noise environment, but has low bandwidth. However, using this protocol a 10Watt radio has global reach under the right conditions.
  About encryption, the US rules are that you can use digital protocols but you must publish the specs so anyone can, in principle, decode the signal
  1. cge · 1790018279 · focus · HN ↗
    >the US rules are that you can use digital protocols but you must publish the specs so anyone can, in principle, decode the signal.
    This restriction does not appear to actually be enforced, eg, if I recall correctly the VARA HF/FM modes do not have published specs anywhere near sufficient to decode them, to the point where there are projects trying to reverse engineer them.
4. iamnothere · 1790035960 · focus · HN ↗
  Ham is not an acronym, no need to capitalize it. It’s slang for an amateur radio user.
  1. transcriptase · 1790053519 · focus · HN ↗
    On the other hand it annoys some of the most insufferable humans on the planet. As a ham who’s not a boomer who would gladly die with the airwaves silent but compliant with rules and regulations established assuming usage of the spectrum would grown instead of dwindle I encourage it. Fuck ‘em.
Panda_ · 1790012413 · focus · HN ↗
Sounds a lot like something that could be used with <a href="https://reticulum.network" rel="nofollow">https://reticulum.network to create networks that support multiple mediums.
1. rambambram · 1790014457 · focus · HN ↗
  I did not yet watch the full video, but Data Slayer on Youtube made a video about this, I guess. It's at <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vbl5FL-nsI" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vbl5FL-nsI
2. nunobrito · 1790068046 · focus · HN ↗
  Reticulum creates networks but over radio the bandwidth is so limited that what you can realistically send are just messages.
  There are more efficient protocols like APRS and more recently XPRS.
rambambram · 1790014405 · focus · HN ↗
The Data Slayer channel on Youtube made an interesting video about this recently: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vbl5FL-nsI" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vbl5FL-nsI
j_not_j · 1790015971 · focus · HN ↗
If it's a matter of life and death, such as offshore fishing, you probably want a real commercial service.
Like Garmin (Iridium based texts back and forth) or Zoleo. These are physical units that may offer texts or just a simple "sos" button.
Or a recent iPhone will communicate with Starlink, or T-Mobile offers a similar system for Android phones and is also based on Starlink. These can exchange texts which is much more reassuring than a simple sos button.
Of course offerings outside the US may be limited or entirely absent.
1. markdown · 1790021323 · focus · HN ↗
  These are essential for remote solo hiking.
2. reaperducer · 1790030420 · focus · HN ↗
  If it's a matter of life and death, such as offshore fishing, you probably want a real commercial service.
  Like Garmin (Iridium based texts back and forth) or Zoleo. These are physical units that may offer texts or just a simple "sos" button.
  Prohibitively expensive, and also not available to 90% of the planet's commercial fishermen.
  For them, an iPhone can be an entire year's profit.
  The people in TFA aren't going to be featured on The Deadliest Crab.
throw0101c · 1790017012 · focus · HN ↗
On the etymology of the name of the project, see Greek mythology:
> Hermes (/ˈhɜːrmiːz/; Ancient Greek: Ἑρμῆς) is an Olympian deity in ancient Greek religion and mythology considered the herald of the gods. He is also widely considered the protector of human heralds, travelers, thieves,[2] merchants, and orators.[3][4] He is able to move quickly and freely between the worlds of the mortal and the divine aided by his winged sandals.
* <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermes" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermes
Rough Roman equivalent:
* <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_(mythology)" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_(mythology)
ajsnigrutin · 1790020910 · focus · HN ↗
Considering the state of the higher bands lately, i'd stick with commercial solutions like garmin inreach for any kind of emergency situations.
For playing with ham radio, you can just play with ham radio, it's been done for decades.
LennyHenrysNuts · 1790046831 · focus · HN ↗
Compatible with ham radio
encrypted
One of these things is not like the other.
1. SuperMouse · 1790059974 · focus · HN ↗
  Still can use all other fancy technologies as long you are not hiding data: Signing, Hashing, etc.
Ey7NFZ3P0nzAe · 1790050194 · focus · HN ↗
You can see it in action here:
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2_nYNLXh_w" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2_nYNLXh_w
1. Mainan_Tagonist · 1790061859 · focus · HN ↗
  Very interesting that the setup uses a mag loop for antenna.
Animats · 1790064145 · focus · HN ↗
There's an existing HF service called SailMail.[1] This is email for sailboats over HF. There are about 20 fixed stations around the world maintained by the organization. Cost is $275 per vessel per year. You can use 90 minutes of connect time per week. All it does is email over the HF links. There are now some satellite options which interoperate with it, but it predates those. There's very little infrastructure; the boat-side equipment is an SSB transceiver, and the shore stations are quite modest.
It was set up by Stan Honey, who invented car navigation systems (Etak) and the thing that puts the yellow line on TV views of football fields (Sportsvision). He's into long-distance sailing, and wanted some basic comms that would work on most of the world's oceans.
It's not that advanced technically. It just works.
[1] <a href="https://sailmail.com/" rel="nofollow">https://sailmail.com/
anonzzzies · 1790071571 · focus · HN ↗
Maybe i'm blind, the article starts with performance in bits/s for 'competitors', but then I cannot find the performance of this solution?
leguy · 1790084189 · focus · HN ↗
Could this realistically be bundled on a low powered IoT device to communicate small packets of information to a remote server?
SamBorick · 1790087701 · focus · HN ↗
Hi, I'm an actual licensed ham radio operator.
'Encryption' in the ham space is defined as intentionally obscuring a message. Encoding data in a format is an extremely common practice. As long as the intent isn't to actually obscure your message, pretty much any digital format you can dream up is fine. The main method of email over HF, WinLink, is proprietary so IMO they don't even comply, but the FCC hasn't done anything so apparently it's fine.
Enforcement in this space looks like hams reporting bad behavior to the FCC, and if the FCC decides to enforce they send a nasty letter, escalating until the offender's license gets revoked if they don't stop.
This specific project is very cool. There's a lot of amateur radio emergency communications groups (EmComm) who use WinLink heavily, and IMO it would be better to use something open source.
All the more reason to get my sBitx set up and play around with this.
peter_d_sherman · 1790140336 · focus · HN ↗
>How does HERMES connect remote locations?
Peter Bloom: We use the ionosphere as our satellite—or mirror—which helps us move information, voice, and data over really long distances. We’re using small radios that put out about 20 watts of power, and we can pretty reliably do 400 to 600 kilometer links between two radios."
That is some amazing distance for a very small amount of power!

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