Why create the Emergency Ham Network?
Well, like many similar ventures, I want to change the way things are. I am a seasoned professional engineer who has spent his adult life working for large corporations inventing and improving stuff. That all started because at the tender age of 14 y...
The term "Peoples Network" has been used by some new players in the emerging private network infrastructure termed low-power wide-area networks (LPWAN) or the older term low power wide Area (LPWA). These have re-emerged as a growth segment because of the development of the IoT and changes in incumbent cellular networks. LPWA is not new, in 2013 it ...
Winlink is a hard topic to discuss in part because of its complexity but also because it can be used and configured in many ways. It is available 24/7, 100% reliable, functions without the Internet and provides communications across the world, BUT there are complicated conditions and restrictions that place reasonable boundaries on its performance....
This was the headline in 2014 when a small group of engineers began communicating with a 36-year-old space probe. The Planetary Society details the fascinating story of how modern communications systems recreated the complex control systems needed to control the ISEE-3 as it returned to our planet Earth.Known as the ISEE-3 re-boot it beautifully il...
The magic of the cellular system is the division of a coverage area into small cells. This allows for low power and extensive frequency reuse across the cells, so that many users can use their cell phones simultaneously. Prior to cellular networks people used "car phones". Typically, these were high power VHF two-way radios that could cover about 3...
The planned launch of LightCube, a CubeSat, will be the latest man-made object in the sky that will flash on command. The command will be a coded radio transmission sent from something as simple as your handheld operating in the licensed Ham bands. The bright Xeon Strobe should be visible from the ground letting you know that your radio triggered i...
DAPNET is a mature once popular Paging system that has evolved into a resilient network suitable for short messages. It would be an ideal candidate for the Emergency Ham Network which could offer redundancy with the Internet for operation in times of local or national emergency. I believe this project grow out of Germany from FunkrufMaster or CallM...
APRS would be an ideal candidate to travel over a new digital network which has the potential to offer higher bandwidth and connectivity. Connection to the EHN would likely be through some form of IGate and supporting network so that local APRS data can be forwarded to other local clusters without needing the Internet. APRS now known as Automatic P...
63 years separate the first voice message from a satellite to the almost total world coverage of the Internet from Starlink. Such technology is born from men like Elon Musk who believed in an idea and helped others follow. They did not accept the status quo; they disrupted the traditional wisdom. Then The United States launched a unique communicati...
Buying used UHF and Microwave commercial base stations that are supported by groups like AREDN will provide point to point and multi-endpoint systems for as low as $100. This is possible because the firmware can be exchanged to make them compatible with our amateur regulations. This is the most cost effective way of getting started but the longer r...
For radio packet network the use of a mesh network topology can provide longer range and tolerance to interference. Such systems are not commonly used in Ham Radio, AREDN is the notable exception. Low-cost commercial mesh systems have become popular for WIFi and the IoT. This technology could migrate into future emergency ham networks. The DNA of m...
goTennaMESH offers a deployed network of mesh communities that would integrate into an Emergency Ham Network. This would allow the public to communicate between local networks. A win for the communities, the radio operators and a step closer to a viable national public emergency network. GoTenna has a company mission: "Decentralize connectivity, an...
The NPR system would allow a single master station connected to a high-speed backbone, to serve up to seven clients through TDMA and achieve data rates of 65Kb/s on 70cm, economically priced this might be the solution for local clusters to be interconnected. The NPR protocol was introduced in 2019 to send data via IPv4 up to 300 kilometers with eas...
LoRa is a system finding some uses in Amateur Radio, but this is limited to operation over poor links and lower bandwidths. It does seem a good fit for point-to-point links on the 920MHz. band where its spread spectrum potential can be used. LoRa (from "long range") is a proprietary low-power wide-area network modulation technique that is popular f...
The 33cm band offers unspecified bandwidth for unspecified digital transmissions using conventional modulation types as well as unspecified Spread Spectrum modulation although limited to 10W pep to the antenna. In my reading of Part 97 the 33cm or 900MHz band is the lowest frequency band that does not have a 100KHz transmission bandwidth limitation...
Despite the need for approval, the lower part of the 1.25M band could offer interesting possibilities for digital links particularly in urban areas as the frequency has good penetration and coverage although high gain antennas will be physically large. Back sometime in the 1990's the ARRL successfully defended amateurs keeping the lower part of the...
I have been doing my due diligence on the legality of operating the imagined Emergency Ham Network (EHN). The short answer is yes if there is an emergency and probably if there is not. Since all licensed radio operators have passed examinations, we all know we are governed by part 97 of the relevant FCC regulations. This document clearly sets out w...
As an atypical white male in my 60's I struggle to remain connected with young people, I read about Millennials and what our experts predict will result from the changes in society. The best I can conclude comes in the form of the following two quotes from an excellent 2012 study: Main findings: Teens, technology, and human potential in 2020 – Pew ...
Overview This document describes a possible peripheral for the imagined Emergency Ham Network. This could be the killer application for the network or just some ideas that is looking to find a problem. Only by writing this paper can that question be asked. Why might we want to do this? What problem are we trying to solve? How to communicate ...
We talked about the value in using the EHN 24/7 even without an emergency, primarily because of the "use it or loose it" theory on our licensed spectrum. But what would we use for traffic, how can we give some reward to all our contributors who would have spent their time and effort building out the network? Bluntly, what gratification and enjoymen...
Back in the day, more precisely the 1960's Amateur Radio Operators provided a valuable service during the Vietnam war. By coupling the local phone system to their transceivers Hams were able to allow American soldiers "free" phone calls home. Usually, you needed the help of an operator in your own state as interstate trunk calls were expensive, but...