[DaSHacka]

> In HAM circles some people do use WiFi in an arguably legal manner by making the SSID their callsign and either making the network open or putting the password somewhere public.

And presumably also no SSL when browsing?

Part of why I never really understood the appeal to getting a ham license. Things like no encrypted communications really limits the utility.

Anything outside of talking to randoms on the open air, and you'll better served by the computer networking infrastructure where encryption is allowed, you can speak to anyone in the world anyway, and the medium (IE physical device) you're using is irrelevant.

[holgerschurig]

Well, ham radio is an EXTREMELY diverse field. I mean, some people are using kilowatts and arrays of yagi antenna to transmit earth-moon-earth. Others are using minimal power (e.g. less than a typical bicycle lamp) to reach someone at the other side of the earth. Some are designing nice sound compression algorithms or algorithms for software designed radio in FPGAs on their self-designed board. Other try to build a full transceiver with less than 40 components total. Some are seeking contacts "rare" countries like other seek rare post stamps.

And most of this isn't really done to communicate. For that, most ham amateurs would use cell-phones, Facebook or whatnot. It's done for the sake of doing it. Or, in other words, to have an excuse to tinker with technical things.

That you can actually communicate is often just a consequence, a by-product. And the "communication" e.g. in contests to seek rare countries is actually really, really bland and boring. Translated to english: "Here is Mike, Calling Reunion, calling Reunion, calling Reunion, Mike here" - "Here is Jaques, Renunion, answering to Mike. I can your you very bad" - "Mike here, to Jaque. I can your you quite nice. And thanks for the talks ... calling Mongolia, calling Mongolia, here is Mike, calling Mongolia ..." --- and it's on PSK31 or CW even shorter.

You see, the ACTUAL communication is boring. The kick is probably to be able to manage and adjust your transceiver, wires, antenna, technical skills to actually be able to connect to these countries.

Or to be able to program and use in-real-life a sound compression algorithm with machine-learning and to test that with alike people on e.g. HF, Meteoscatter, via Satellite (which all produce very different channel characteristics).

Or to produce your own 6-layer PCP with an FPGA that actually does nice SDR algorithms.

It's a means to self-gratification.

[dmd]

The only two types of communications I have ever experienced in ham radio are (a) about ham radio or (b) extreme right-wing nutjobbery.

[8bitsrule]

There are several legal digital formats (e.g. PSK31, FT8, RTTY) that, while not encrypted, will render 'reading the mail' hard for anyone not aware of those formats and/or the right equipment and where to get it.

Most hams can enjoy the hobby without encryption. The limits discourage uses that endanger the hobby.

[fedpost]

I always find the anti-encryption arguments frustrating because all the digital modes are going to have data whitening anyway, and are therefore (if you are not aware of the exact protocol) indistinguishable from encrypted transmissions for all practical purposes. We already have a number of common systems that are basically encrypted because the codecs are proprietary.

The actual mechanism preventing abuse is the requirement to broadcast a callsign in a way that casual observers can interpret it.

[inigyou]

The difference between whitened data and encrypted data is that you can decode the whitened data if you have the correct receiver. Encryption uses a key so that you also need the correct key.

You may not have a receiver for say FT8 that I may be transmitting, but you're also transmitting in Morse code which I never learned. Nothing is stopping either of us from receiving the other's transmission if we want to.

I'm told there was been an explosion of digital modes and it is a real concern that if there are so many undocumented or hard to identify ones, it's effectively encryption. Perhaps a future rule change will address this.

Proprietary modes have never been illegal though. You can buy a receiver just like I can study morse code.

[inigyou]

The purpose of the ham license is to experiment with radio technology itself. If encryption was allowed, all channels would be occupied at all times by encrypted data coming from people with more powerful transmitters than you, and then how would you make any test transmissions?

[CobaltFire]

Thats the arguably legal part. Using a VPN or SSL over it violates the law, so...

I don't see the point personally. I'm just aware of the arguments. The "best" use case I saw was some hunting and lake cabins extending coverage.

[ErroneousBosh]

> Things like no encrypted communications really limits the utility.

How so?

[inigyou]

Well they want to abuse ham radio spectrum to extend their home internet an extra kilometer, but they've just found out they can't, and that's annoying.

Which is for good reason. If everyone did that, it would be so congested that nobody could do that.

[ErroneousBosh]

Why would you piss about using amateur radio for that when you can go 20-30km with cheap off-the-shelf microwave links?

[inigyou]

In which frequency band? 2.4GHz?

[ErroneousBosh]

2.4 or 5.8GHz - take a look at the NanoStation 5ACs. They cost pennies and have about 15km range.

If you want further you can spend about a ton and get a pair of LiteBeam 5ACs instead.

[tzs]

With a ham license you could use up to 1500W, which is around 200x what those have. If you were on top of a mountain and had a friend on top of a mountain 150 km away you could establish a reliable, stable point to point WiFi connection.

Over shorter range, but still more than what those low power devices can do, you could stream multiple 4K videos simultaneous where the low power devices would be crawling.

Not many people will need to do this, especially with the limits on encryption, but that's OK. Ham radio is not supposed to substitute for other radio services. It's supposed to be about learning about radio and providing a backup when other systems fail during disasters.