I mean, does anyone actually communicate on the ham bands? HF is for contesting and contesting only, 2 meters is for “checking in and out” on ragchew nets, 70cm is 2m again except half the range, 220 is hipster 2 meter, and I’ve never been given a reason to even think about 33cm and above. You’re more likely to find discussion about Icom vs Yaesu’s incompatible 2 meter digital things than high UHF.
Most actual communication is illegal on the ham bands one way or another so…I haven’t renewed my license.
Most actual communication is illegal on the ham bands one way or another
Except in case of emergency, natural disaster, etc. Before we carried cell phones, I had ham handhelds that we would talk directly to each other on 70cm for the usual “Hi honey, I’m on my way home” or… in the days before cell phone lots existed at airports, I’d call her on the handheld to let her know I was approaching the passenger drop-off/pickup area at the airport after a flight so she could start going there from whatever makeshift staging area she was in.
Anyway, when we would be out in the woods, we could reach each other roughly 1/2 mile like that from handheld to handheld, but if we ever had a serious problem we could switch to 2m and hit the local repeater which would get us more like 12 miles of range and coverage all the way into town where there was usually somebody who could make a 911 call if we needed it.
So, yeah, we have cell phones today, and they work when they work, but I find that when the cell phones don’t work (like during / after a hurricane) the ham bands generally are working - or at least are restored quicker, and nobody is going to press charges for emergency communications on the ham bands.
If you want to use the ham band for instacart dispatch coordination, yeah, you’re gonna get more than static about that.
I lost power and water for several days following a hurricane. No internet and no cell signal.
A dual band HT was our only way to learn what was happening across the city and in our neighborhood. It was a lifeline. I’ve got a bigger mobile unit set up now with a better antenna. Easy thing to keep on hand for the next zombie attack.
I live in Appalachia and people here regularly use ham for weather reports but that’s about it. If there was an actual emergency I assume that would be sent out as well.
If you intend to practice the hobby, get the license. I let mine lapse after 10 years because I don’t practice anymore, but I generally still remember the basic rules and how to operate the gear, so if I ever had an emergency need I’d use what I had access to - but I haven’t transmitted anything in years and years.
You don’t need one if there’s an emergency, civil unrest would probably qualify as an emergency so non-licensed people can legally transmit.
The FCC hasn’t really punished anyone for not having a license other than those that are really bothersome/disruptive or are doing jamming. But like, if there’s civil unrest, the laws probably don’t matter anymore so you can just ignore the law.
But if you don’t have a license, you don’t have a callsign, and thus others will refuse to talk to you during non-emergency peacetime.
1 the test teaches you major items you should know about how radio works
2 how to not fuck shit up for everyone else
For the bands allocated to HAM radio in the US, as long as you’re not fucking shit up for everyone else the FCC doesn’t really care. A good example of that and my personal favorite rule is the power transmission rule of “only enough power to complete the transmission”. Functionally it’s so vague that I doubt anyone would ever actually get their license suspended over it.
The group AFRL ARRL has a pretty restrictive “band plan” that I think is where the above comment’s salt is coming from. A perception I have and have heard others talk about is the HAM community has a tendency to be borderline hostile to newcomers and are very gate-keepy, which ARRL in my experience embodies.
I have a license purely to play by the rules from a legal standpoint when I’m out in the rocky mountains hiking and camping with friends, makes communicating with different groups way easier
I agree their bandplan is pretty restricty, but it’s also not law. It’s more for playing nice with each other. Keep high power up here so it doesn’t wipe out the people playing with low power, digital here so they don’t get overrun by voice, etc. You wouldn’t have any idea you’re stepping on someone sending Morse if you’re on FM. So there’s reason for it.
And yeah, with line of sight radios, nobody gives two shits 20 miles from civilization in the woods.
Lol whoops yeah, ARRL. I work in aerospace where we love our alphabet soup and I brainfarted AFRL.
I wasn’t trying to say that the band plan doesn’t exist for a reason, it absolutely does, some reasons which you pointed out exactly. I’ve definitely been around guys who treat the band plan like it is the law, and I imagine the original commenter had the misfortune of running into one of those guys and believed him at face value. Imho it’s one of the reasons ham radio has been dying as a hobby.
Nothing legally stops you from listening. To transmit, you are legally required to have a callsign (which you must broadcast during transmit) and your callsign must be licensed for that frequency.
If you break the law, it’s highly unlikely that the FCC themselves will hunt you down and fine you. If you’re using it to talk to others on the HAM bands, they’ll likely get pissed at you for not being licensed but actually tracking you down is difficult. Using it for your own personal projects, friend groups, etc, it’s unlikely anyone would notice you at all.
A license is like $15 for life (just need to occasionally tell the FCC you’re still alive), the test will teach you some stuff, I don’t see it as that onerous to play by the rules so I’d recommend following them.
This guy’s full of shit. You can talk all you want on the HF bands, they’re certainly not exclusively for contesting. You can do Morse code or digital modes too. The “most actual communication is illegal on ham bands” thing is wrong too, you can talk about pretty much anything you want as long as it’s not “obscene or profane,” according to the FCC.
It’s illegal to transmit music, it’s illegal to transmit anything encrypted unless you’re controlling a satellite, it’s illegal to transmit anything for commercial purposes, and it’s actually illegal to transmit anything on a regular basis that could reasonably be communicated some other way.
it’s illegal to transmit anything encrypted unless you’re controlling a satellite
True, it helps to ensure nothing illegal is going on and enforce keeping commercial interests out. It’s a self regulating space, one of the only cases I know of that tends to work due to there being no monetary interests allowed. The point is to communicate information, not hide it.
it’s illegal to transmit anything for commercial purposes.
True, the whole point is to keep commercial interests out. That’s what “amateur” means.
illegal to transmit anything on a regular basis that could reasonably be communicated some other way.
False. This is for something like a non-profit wanting to use radios for their operations, they should be steered toward another service like gmrs, FRS, murs, etc. instead of amateur radio.
There’s a difference between encryption and encoding, and that difference is intent.
Encoding is the process of imparting a digital message onto the radio carrier. A simple example is Morse code; transmitted by keying a continuous wave on and off in pre-determined patterns of long and short pulses with long and short gaps between. Frequency shift keying and bodot code are the encoding scheme behind RTTY, etc. Hams are permitted to experiment with novel encoding schemes, and have invented a few, PSK31 comes to mind, a phase shift keying standard designed to use commonly available PC sound cards as a modem.
Encryption is the process of obscuring the message for all but the intended recipient. There is one specific case the law calls out when this is permissible in Amateur radio service, and that’s control signals of Amateur radio satellites. A novel encoding scheme, like making up your own alphabet instead of the standard Morse one, or ciphers of any kind that are intended to make the message secret, is illegal.
It’s not uncommon to hear encrypted communiques on the ham bands; I’ve picked them up myself. You want a fun rabbit hole to fall down, look up numbers stations. Some serious cold war james bond bullshit.
I don’t believe it is legal to send a PGP encrypted message over the air (on ham radio, go ahead and send it over Wi-Fi, you can encrypt the shit out of that) even if you’ve posted your private key on your website. What would even be the point of that? tilts head It might be legal to send a PGP signed message over ham radio; if I understand correctly that’s basically a checksum that can guarantee the sender’s possession of a private key.
And intent is functionally impossible to prove, but endlessly arguable and a judge can make a finding based on their judgement - something very different from proof.
send a PGP signed message over ham radio; if I understand correctly that’s basically a checksum that can guarantee the sender’s possession of a private key.
Oh the legal system is pretty good at deciding intent, I mean what’s the difference between manslaughter and murder?
Thing is, it’s not like there’s radio police that are going to pull you over for encrypting. Other hams might turn you in if you’re being annoying. If you send an encrypted email over Hamlink once, or say something like “Beefy Burrito this is Enchilada, the tamales are in the basket” on 33cm once, probably nobody’s gonna notice.
There’s only ~3.7MHz worth of bandwith on the HF bands, another 4MHz on 6m. There’s a lot of attention on the bands that propagate. If you want to secretly communicate with people, use Reddit, or the Fediverse.
You know r/kitty? One of a trillion cat subreddits that had a gimmick that the only written word allowed was “kitty.” All post titles and comments had to consist only of “Kitty.” Arrange with the leaders of the other terrorist cells you’re working for that if u/chudmuffin posts a picture of an orange cat, we attack at dawn, and if he posts a picture of a grey cat, lay low they’re onto us.
Encryption is legal and standard on the internet, where there’s many orders of magnitude more traffic than on the ham bands. I can’t send an encrypted email over Hamlink with a license, but I can host a Tor site without one.
I mean, does anyone actually communicate on the ham bands? HF is for contesting and contesting only, 2 meters is for “checking in and out” on ragchew nets, 70cm is 2m again except half the range, 220 is hipster 2 meter, and I’ve never been given a reason to even think about 33cm and above. You’re more likely to find discussion about Icom vs Yaesu’s incompatible 2 meter digital things than high UHF.
Most actual communication is illegal on the ham bands one way or another so…I haven’t renewed my license.
Except in case of emergency, natural disaster, etc. Before we carried cell phones, I had ham handhelds that we would talk directly to each other on 70cm for the usual “Hi honey, I’m on my way home” or… in the days before cell phone lots existed at airports, I’d call her on the handheld to let her know I was approaching the passenger drop-off/pickup area at the airport after a flight so she could start going there from whatever makeshift staging area she was in.
Anyway, when we would be out in the woods, we could reach each other roughly 1/2 mile like that from handheld to handheld, but if we ever had a serious problem we could switch to 2m and hit the local repeater which would get us more like 12 miles of range and coverage all the way into town where there was usually somebody who could make a 911 call if we needed it.
So, yeah, we have cell phones today, and they work when they work, but I find that when the cell phones don’t work (like during / after a hurricane) the ham bands generally are working - or at least are restored quicker, and nobody is going to press charges for emergency communications on the ham bands.
If you want to use the ham band for instacart dispatch coordination, yeah, you’re gonna get more than static about that.
I lost power and water for several days following a hurricane. No internet and no cell signal.
A dual band HT was our only way to learn what was happening across the city and in our neighborhood. It was a lifeline. I’ve got a bigger mobile unit set up now with a better antenna. Easy thing to keep on hand for the next zombie attack.
I live in Appalachia and people here regularly use ham for weather reports but that’s about it. If there was an actual emergency I assume that would be sent out as well.
I thought about getting a ham license so are you telling me there is really no need?
If you intend to practice the hobby, get the license. I let mine lapse after 10 years because I don’t practice anymore, but I generally still remember the basic rules and how to operate the gear, so if I ever had an emergency need I’d use what I had access to - but I haven’t transmitted anything in years and years.
You don’t need one if there’s an emergency, civil unrest would probably qualify as an emergency so non-licensed people can legally transmit.
The FCC hasn’t really punished anyone for not having a license other than those that are really bothersome/disruptive or are doing jamming. But like, if there’s civil unrest, the laws probably don’t matter anymore so you can just ignore the law.
But if you don’t have a license, you don’t have a callsign, and thus others will refuse to talk to you during non-emergency peacetime.
Get into ham radio if you like radios, that’s pretty much the only topic you’ll find on the air.
A HAM license realistically is for two things:
1 the test teaches you major items you should know about how radio works 2 how to not fuck shit up for everyone else
For the bands allocated to HAM radio in the US, as long as you’re not fucking shit up for everyone else the FCC doesn’t really care. A good example of that and my personal favorite rule is the power transmission rule of “only enough power to complete the transmission”. Functionally it’s so vague that I doubt anyone would ever actually get their license suspended over it.
The group
AFRLARRL has a pretty restrictive “band plan” that I think is where the above comment’s salt is coming from. A perception I have and have heard others talk about is the HAM community has a tendency to be borderline hostile to newcomers and are very gate-keepy, which ARRL in my experience embodies.I have a license purely to play by the rules from a legal standpoint when I’m out in the rocky mountains hiking and camping with friends, makes communicating with different groups way easier
Edit: formatting, typoing ARRL
Do you mean ARRL?
I agree their bandplan is pretty restricty, but it’s also not law. It’s more for playing nice with each other. Keep high power up here so it doesn’t wipe out the people playing with low power, digital here so they don’t get overrun by voice, etc. You wouldn’t have any idea you’re stepping on someone sending Morse if you’re on FM. So there’s reason for it.
And yeah, with line of sight radios, nobody gives two shits 20 miles from civilization in the woods.
Lol whoops yeah, ARRL. I work in aerospace where we love our alphabet soup and I brainfarted AFRL.
I wasn’t trying to say that the band plan doesn’t exist for a reason, it absolutely does, some reasons which you pointed out exactly. I’ve definitely been around guys who treat the band plan like it is the law, and I imagine the original commenter had the misfortune of running into one of those guys and believed him at face value. Imho it’s one of the reasons ham radio has been dying as a hobby.
So am I able to goof around on the radio till I get my license or do I really need to have my license first?
Nothing legally stops you from listening. To transmit, you are legally required to have a callsign (which you must broadcast during transmit) and your callsign must be licensed for that frequency.
If you break the law, it’s highly unlikely that the FCC themselves will hunt you down and fine you. If you’re using it to talk to others on the HAM bands, they’ll likely get pissed at you for not being licensed but actually tracking you down is difficult. Using it for your own personal projects, friend groups, etc, it’s unlikely anyone would notice you at all.
A license is like $15 for life (just need to occasionally tell the FCC you’re still alive), the test will teach you some stuff, I don’t see it as that onerous to play by the rules so I’d recommend following them.
It’s illegal to push that button until you’re licensed.
(No one will search you out if you’re not being annoying)
This guy’s full of shit. You can talk all you want on the HF bands, they’re certainly not exclusively for contesting. You can do Morse code or digital modes too. The “most actual communication is illegal on ham bands” thing is wrong too, you can talk about pretty much anything you want as long as it’s not “obscene or profane,” according to the FCC.
It’s illegal to transmit music, it’s illegal to transmit anything encrypted unless you’re controlling a satellite, it’s illegal to transmit anything for commercial purposes, and it’s actually illegal to transmit anything on a regular basis that could reasonably be communicated some other way.
True, for obvious reasons
True, it helps to ensure nothing illegal is going on and enforce keeping commercial interests out. It’s a self regulating space, one of the only cases I know of that tends to work due to there being no monetary interests allowed. The point is to communicate information, not hide it.
True, the whole point is to keep commercial interests out. That’s what “amateur” means.
False. This is for something like a non-profit wanting to use radios for their operations, they should be steered toward another service like gmrs, FRS, murs, etc. instead of amateur radio.
I call bs on the encryption part too. You just need to publicly post the key for your encryption and say you’re not trying to hide what you’re saying.
I haven’t seen any regulations saying where you need to publicly post the key.
I say license up now and learn it how the shit works. Never know when some “pirate” stations may be needed.
There’s a difference between encryption and encoding, and that difference is intent.
Encoding is the process of imparting a digital message onto the radio carrier. A simple example is Morse code; transmitted by keying a continuous wave on and off in pre-determined patterns of long and short pulses with long and short gaps between. Frequency shift keying and bodot code are the encoding scheme behind RTTY, etc. Hams are permitted to experiment with novel encoding schemes, and have invented a few, PSK31 comes to mind, a phase shift keying standard designed to use commonly available PC sound cards as a modem.
Encryption is the process of obscuring the message for all but the intended recipient. There is one specific case the law calls out when this is permissible in Amateur radio service, and that’s control signals of Amateur radio satellites. A novel encoding scheme, like making up your own alphabet instead of the standard Morse one, or ciphers of any kind that are intended to make the message secret, is illegal.
It’s not uncommon to hear encrypted communiques on the ham bands; I’ve picked them up myself. You want a fun rabbit hole to fall down, look up numbers stations. Some serious cold war james bond bullshit.
I don’t believe it is legal to send a PGP encrypted message over the air (on ham radio, go ahead and send it over Wi-Fi, you can encrypt the shit out of that) even if you’ve posted your private key on your website. What would even be the point of that? tilts head It might be legal to send a PGP signed message over ham radio; if I understand correctly that’s basically a checksum that can guarantee the sender’s possession of a private key.
And intent is functionally impossible to prove, but endlessly arguable and a judge can make a finding based on their judgement - something very different from proof.
Correct.
Oh the legal system is pretty good at deciding intent, I mean what’s the difference between manslaughter and murder?
Thing is, it’s not like there’s radio police that are going to pull you over for encrypting. Other hams might turn you in if you’re being annoying. If you send an encrypted email over Hamlink once, or say something like “Beefy Burrito this is Enchilada, the tamales are in the basket” on 33cm once, probably nobody’s gonna notice.
There’s only ~3.7MHz worth of bandwith on the HF bands, another 4MHz on 6m. There’s a lot of attention on the bands that propagate. If you want to secretly communicate with people, use Reddit, or the Fediverse.
You know r/kitty? One of a trillion cat subreddits that had a gimmick that the only written word allowed was “kitty.” All post titles and comments had to consist only of “Kitty.” Arrange with the leaders of the other terrorist cells you’re working for that if u/chudmuffin posts a picture of an orange cat, we attack at dawn, and if he posts a picture of a grey cat, lay low they’re onto us.
Encryption is legal and standard on the internet, where there’s many orders of magnitude more traffic than on the ham bands. I can’t send an encrypted email over Hamlink with a license, but I can host a Tor site without one.
Over here in Germany encryption is most definitely illegal. This includes encoded messages only the intended recipient could decode.