[aiforecastthway]

The emergency response use-case feels SUPER contrived to me. I am not aware of any SAR teams in our area using HAM radios, and the only group I know of that does is... so old that they'd mostly be asking for help or needing to relay messages to people who (a) are physically fit enough to help but who also (b) don't listen on Ham spectrum.

I think from a technical perspective the emergency use case has faded a lot since the early 90s. Since then, two things have happened that make use of Ham in emergency communications more of an "excuse to use a cool toy" than an actual necessary component of a solution.

First, FRS / Part 95B.

Second, and maybe primarily, satellite communications have come a long way.

And even on the extreme off-chance that transmitting on Ham spectrum or using FRS outside of Part 95B is necessary... well... in an emergency situation... just fuckin' do it?

So Ham exists for fun and for education. But even there, it seems to be losing relevance. I think, at some point, the spectrum reserved for Ham should be bifurcated and a portion of it should allow for (non-commercial) encrypted packet radio. I think doing so would make Ham relevant again and significantly advance the "hobby/education/science/international goodwill" goals.

[bityard]

I'm not an emcomm whacker but I think that take is too dismissive. Ham radio was a much more viable for emergency communications before cell phones, Internet, and FRS/GMRS/MURS. But we still get news stories about hams who provide vital communications every time there's a major tornado outbreak or hurricane. E.g. https://www.wired.com/story/hurricane-helene-milton-north-ca...

Perhaps when all cell phones can reliably and routinely communicate with satellites, emcomm on ham radio won't have much purpose. But we're not there just yet.

> a portion of it should allow for (non-commercial) encrypted packet radio

If the message is encrypted, how can anyone tell whether it is commercial or not?

[aiforecastthway]

> I'm not an emcomm whacker but I think that take is too dismissive. Ham radio was a much more viable for emergency communications before cell phones, Internet, and FRS/GMRS/MURS.

Absolutely no disagreement! But I think that use-case is more-or-less dead. (The tool is perfectly good... it just doesn't have the network effects and usability of the other tools, and a combo of sats and FRS is good enough almost-always).

> Perhaps when all cell phones can reliably and routinely communicate with satellites, emcomm on ham radio won't have much purpose. But we're not there just yet.

True. But we are at the point where (a) satellite communication is extremely cheap, (b) authorities can be accessed via satellite as easily as 911 (or easier), and (c) people who can help but not official responders but in a place to help are WAY more likely to have satellite+FRS than Ham. (Eg most SAR teams either stick to FRS or deviate but don't even both licensing...)

> If the message is encrypted, how can anyone tell whether it is commercial or not?

I seriously don't think this will be a huge problem.

1. What's the point? There are cheaper and better solutions. Abuse will be minimal because infinitely simpler solutions just aren't that expensive these days. This was a very valid concern in the 80s, but it's not anymore.

2. Still require a call-sign unencrypted. Huge volumes from lots of different sources w/ the same call-sign such that it's ruining the amateur purpose of the use should be easy enough to investigate. If stations don't identify, well, that problem already exists and so do the solutions.

BUT, if it does become a problem, you can solve it in a variety of ways. If congestion really becomes an issue after the rule change, it can be rolled back. Or the rules could be written with "automatic triggers" based on congestion. Or you could pre-empt by putting a maximum number of minutes per callsign per day. Etc.

[ElevenLathe]

> 1. What's the point? There are cheaper and better solutions. Abuse will be minimal because infinitely simpler solutions just aren't that expensive these days. This was a very valid concern in the 80s, but it's not anymore.

I would like to point out that there has recently been an interest in HF spectrum for use shaving milliseconds off the ping of high-frequency trading firms, since skipping off the ionosphere on HF bands can be slightly faster than more reliable microwave or fiber links. There is licensing trouble (a good rundown of this is at https://computer.rip/2024-10-12-commercial-HF-radio.html) and I'm sure they would love to just use ham spectrum, even if it means paying a fine later after they've cleaned up in the markets. If this works, there will be more than enough demand for such connectivity to swamp the ham bands in encrypted digital junk.

[aiforecastthway]

> would like to point out that there has recently been an interest in HF spectrum for use shaving milliseconds off the ping of high-frequency trading firms, since skipping off the ionosphere on HF bands can be slightly faster than more reliable microwave or fiber links.

That's fascinating.

> and I'm sure they would love to just use ham spectrum, even if it means paying a fine later after they've cleaned up in the markets. If this works, there will be more than enough demand for such connectivity to swamp the ham bands in encrypted digital junk.

What stops them from doing this NOW?

[ElevenLathe]

Right now, encryption is illegal on the ham bands and hams with HFDF gear are all too eager to bust it out and CC the FCC on their findings. If encryption is legal, then one cannot distinguish legitimate noncommercial ham activity from commercial traffic.

[transcriptase]

With all due respect… you’re wrong in the case of the vast majority of regions in North America that don’t have large city/municipal budgets and are mainly staffed by volunteers.

In my area SAR and even fire departments actively communicate with various amateur radio groups. While quite a few public services such as paramedics, police, fire, etc are using newer trunked/digital technology, they’re keeping analog VHF/UHF systems adjacent to amateur bands as a fall back. In the case of rural volunteer services they have nowhere near the expertise or hardware capability of an even half serious ham, and many in the scene are former military comms guys who love to help out.

It’s very rare that you’ll call on the 60 year old ham with his $25,000 station capable of using a rotating directional beam antenna to put out 1000 watts to relay a message to a team of emergency services who aren’t responding, but when you do and it saves a life you tend to see it as an advantage and not some guy waiting for an excuse to use his cool toy.

Edit: and I’m not sure where the FRS mentions are relevant since it’s pretty far from being anything hams or emergency services would go near. Type certified radios with intentionally regulation-nerfed antennas and max 2 watt output are the definition of toys, and as a result only reach their advertised range under perfect conditions on the salt flats.

[wglb]

It is not dead. Ham Radio was vital to the recovery of Helene, particularly in North Carolina.

Major city marathons use Ham Radio where other services are overloaded. For an example, see https://www.hamradiochicago.org/about-us.

Ham Radio was essential to the Red Cross effort in recovery from the 9/11 attacks.

[eddythompson80]

Just to be clear, saying “Vital” is overselling it, but it’s a nice thing to do. Being a ham operator is unpaid volunteer work, so over praise and “thanks” and calling it “vital” is really just being nice to a service someone provided that probably took 10-20 hours of their time for no compensation.

It’s nice for an emergency response team to reach out to a local ham emergency group and just delegate to them “hey why don’t you operate this net on this repeater and let us know if anyone reaches out to you? hit us up on XYZ frequency when that happens? Ok thanks”.

That’s one less task for a busy group to worry about. And if it saves or helps 1 person, then “it was vital in the rescue effort”. Heck, even if it doesn’t do anything “well it saved us from having a dedicated resource to just man a UHF/VHF repeater and keep announcing a net every 10 minutes, so it was ‘vital’ by freeing up 1 team member”

In an emergency situation you can take any person off the street and give them a 5-minute primer on how to operate a radio. That’s really all it takes. They don’t need to know FCC rules, band plans, how radios are made, RF propagation properties, antenna theory, or any of that crap. “Tune to a frequency, push to talk, any questions?”

[amatecha]

"how to operate a radio", so when the station on the other end is like "change to 146.58" they'll definitely rememeber how to do that after a 5min primer during a regional disaster? Or when interference comes in (perhaps from a similarly-5min-trained rando), will they just toss the radio on the table and forget about it? Heck, how many vital comms will the person stomp over by not giving enough time for responses or urgent messages?

Ever listened to nets and comms during disasters? the experience and expertise of the station operators is immediately clear. it's not something the average person can get the hang of in a few minutes.

[eddythompson80]

Non of that really applies to running an emergency net. A remote station isn’t gonna ask an emergency net operator to change frequency. In interference you would just politely ask the interferer to piss off. Most complicated scenario you’ll have to deal with is an asshole jamming you and switching to a backup frequency.

Obviously experience helps, but you can also summarize 95% of what needs to be done in 5 or 10 minutes. And you don’t need 95% of what you usually study or learn for a ham license

[wglb]

> Just to be clear, saying “Vital” is overselling

One of the motivations for the Chicago Marathon group to reach out to the ham club was was that in a previous year a runner died due to inadequate communication. I would call the prevention of that or even less serious health consequences Vital.

> That’s really all it takes.

I would put a strong disagree about this as well.

You are leaving out a lot of the protocol for operation. This takes a bit of training and experience to be able to handle lots of situations, like when to talk, when to listen, and what to do if you are unsure if your communication has been received or not.

[eddythompson80]

That’s the difficulty of it right? We’re just talking about what qualifies as “vital”. Is saving 1 life “vital”? I’m sure you, I, and most people would say yes. What else could you say? But it’s not likely to “move the needle” per se in a broader rescue effort. Ham radio is “vital” in emergency situations in the sense that it “could” help some people. But if it was really a needle mover, why is it left to volunteers and community best-effort to do? Why are we not demanding publicly funded rescue services to hold these roles instead? Because the ROI in terms of moving the needle of a rescue effort is just not there.

An emergency net operated by amateur ham operators can last for hundreds of hours answer 800 questions, 780 of those are “how is it lookin’ out there?”, “any updates when this neighborhood is getting power back”, “this is Victor-Tango-7-Kilo-Kilo-India happy to help out folks if you need anything just holler”. Maybe 15 of someone actually reporting some useful update for a given value of usefulness and maybe 0-1 actual emergency stuff. It gives people with radios a place to vent without tying up actual rescue group resources answering and re-answering mundane questions.

[cdchn]

I've done Ham Radio operator stuff at a major metropolitan marathon multiple times and the Hams are really just there for data collection. Cell phones have no problems operating in ultra-dense environments any more. You could say "what if the phones go down" but in an emergency situation the professionals have their own trunked radios to use.

[eternityforest]

I very much agree we could do better than ham for emergencies... But I don't expect an emergency hotline operator to be able to actually help anyone, that's not their job.

I think we should go even further though, and make half of 70cm into ISM band with duty cycle limits, no license, commercial use allowed. Or maybe allow commercial use, but only with open protocols, so you can make an encrypted business radio, but only if you let others make a compatible one.

Then hams could talk to their non ham friends. Getting a license isn't trivial if you're not already an embedded dev, and it's even more of a hassle now that it costs money.

Being able to give someone a $20 radio that they could just use would be awesome. I don't think spectrum crowding is as much of an issue since people use wifi and 5g if possible for everything, aside from ultra slow long range stuff where everything uses lots of airtime.

[mholt]

We have a local SAR team that uses radios, and even emits APRS beacons. (I've received them several times.)