SuperPacket

New web page - A Brief Survey of Technological Innovation in Amateur Radio

This is a paper I wrote for the ARRL and TAPR Digital Communications Conference 2022.

A Brief Survey of Technological Innovation in Amateur Radio

By Steve Stroh N8GNJ¹
ARRL and TAPR 2022 Digital Communications Conference Charlotte, North Carolina, USA 2022-09-16 thru 18

Abstract

In recent decades, the perception of Amateur Radio within the general public has shifted from Amateur Radio being useful, innovative, and an interesting technical activity, to Amateur Radio being perceived as an anachronism and largely irrelevant (except in the direst of communications emergencies). Summarized: “Ham Radio – that’s still around?”

Amateur Radio’s service to the public for emergency communications is being supplanted by improved commercial and government communications capabilities such as improved Iridium² satellite phones, the FirstNET³ public safety cellular system, and most recently, the nomadic capability of the Starlink⁴ broadband satellite system.

Amateur Radio has continuously developed unique technological innovations in radio technology, and that has not only continued in the modern era but has accelerated. However, that ongoing, unique contribution to technological society is, increasingly, unrecognized. That is unfortunate. If regulators, lawmakers, industry, the general public... and the Amateur Radio community itself understood the unique contributions to technological innovations in radio technology that Amateur Radio continues to develop, perhaps such recognition might improve Amateur Radio’s perception that it remains a valuable part of society, worthy of continued access to portions of the electromagnetic spectrum.

Keywords

Amateur, Radio, Operator, Ham, Wireless, Technology, Innovation, Spectrum, Digital, VHF, UHF, SHF, Microwave, Communications, ARDC, Techies, Makers, Hackers, Zero Retries Newsletter, Experimentation, Research and Development, FlexRadio, Steve Stroh N8GNJ

Background

For decades, I have been an admirer of technological innovation in Amateur Radio. Not just new technologies like Packet Radio emerging in the 1980s, but new techniques for old problems such as digital techniques enabling reliable communications via unreliable mediums such as the High Frequency (HF)⁵ (aka Shortwave) portions of the electromagnetic spectrum.

Amateur Radio’s unique culture, the varying characteristics of various portions of spectrum allocated to (or shared with) Amateur Radio operations, and the many highly capable and skilled Amateur Radio Operators, have resulted in a fertile, and welcoming “experimental zone” for technological innovation in radio technologies. Until recent decades, that culture of technological innovation was widely recognized, and encouraged. In the last few decades, the recognition of

1 Email – [email protected]
2 https://www.iridium.com/network/
3 https://firstnet.gov/network
4 https://www.starlink.com/rv
5 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_frequency

A Brief Survey of Technological Innovation in Amateur Radio

Amateur Radio’s utility and contributions to technological innovation have been deprecated to near irrelevence... at least in popular perception... by ubiquitous Internet access, mobile phones, caricatures of Amateur Radio as “Grandpa sitting in the basement tapping on a Morse Code key”, and most notably, the removal of old barriers to individuals communicating across international borders.

A primary reason that this is a concern for society is that it has become irrevocably dependent on radio technology as the primary method of communications for mobile devices, most notably cellular technology, wireless local area networks (Wi-Fi), and most recently, direct-to-user satellite communications. For many people, their mobile phone is their only method of communications and media consumption. Much of that technology has been developed and manufactured in China. Dependence on China for such a critical infrastructure function is proving to be fraught with peril. To counter that peril, the US and other Western nations must quickly develop additional expertise, and personnel, “in nation” to better develop and support this now-critical wireless infrastructure. Amateur Radio can be a “training ground” for developing familiarity and expertise with radio technology, leading to careers in developing and supporting radio technology... but only if Amateur Radio is recognized as a useful and interesting.

The rise of technology specialists, especially those trained in Information Technology (IT), the “Maker culture”⁶, and the “Hacking Culture”⁷ have breathed new life into Amateur Radio. “Techies” have discovered Amateur Radio as an enabling technology for supporting experimentation with Information Technologies (such as building hobbyist / not-for-profit wide- area microwave networks). Makers have discovered that there are incredibly interesting things that they can add to their personal knowledge base and practical projects based on capabilities Amateur Radio has long taken for granted, such as long-range communications via VHF / UHF repeaters. Hackers have discovered Amateur Radio as a fertile “playground” for their experiments and expansion of knowledge about radio technology, such as Software Defined Receivers... and Transmitters (with an Amateur Radio license).

I started the Zero Retries Newsletter⁸ in July, 2021 out of frustration that the totality of technological innovation in Amateur Radio wasn’t being recognized by the Amateur Radio community, its regulators, and especially the public at large. Specifically, I was worried about the growing public perception that Amateur Radio is irrelevant, or worse, an anachronism. Such a perception, if it is to continue for much longer, may prove catastrophic to Amateur Radio, most notably in the loss of Amateur Radio access to various portions of spectrum. To date I’ve published more than fifty weekly issues of Zero Retries, and each issue highlights some aspect of technological innovation in Amateur Radio.

Literally, Amateur Radio is a license to experiment with radio technology and a welcoming “innovation zone” to develop new and exciting technological innovations in radio technology. I hope to make that point with the vignettes in this paper.

 

6 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maker_culture
7 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_culture
8 https://zeroretries.substack.com (will eventually migrate to https://zeroretries.org)

...

Read the rest of the paper at:

https://www.superpacket.org/n8gnj_dcc_2022_final_for_web.pdf

 

Amateur Radio and the Internet

This was an old draft from 2007, and in cleaning up this blog I almost deleted it. But it's actually relevant from a recent discussion, so I decided to dust it off and finish it.

The genesis of this article is a presentation by Scott Currie NS7C - Winlink, Digital Voice and Tech Based Comms - When Infrastructure Fails at the (online) Communications Academy 2021, which I reference in a previous article.

In the past, there was ample discussion about the merits of using Internet connectivity as part of Amateur Radio systems. In places, that discussion is still ongoing. I think that discussion is now moot. Internet connectivity is a requirement of modern life, and Amateur Radio is very much a facet of modern life, thus using Internet as part of Amateur Radio systems is usually a given.

One of the most prominent uses of Internet connectivity in the US is interconnecting Digital Mobile Radio (DMR) repeaters. Another such use is "personal hotspots" instead of connecting directly to a repeater via radio. There are many, many other uses of Internet connectivity in Amateur Radio.

While I think that Internet connectivity in Amateur Radio systems is a given, I also think it's a valid discussion about how dependent Amateur Radio systems should be on Internet connectivity. Specifically, thought should be given to the possibility of failure of Internet connectivity. One reason that not much thought is given to the possibility of failure of Internet connectivity is that Internet connectivity is a complex topic. Amateur Radio is all about the radio (not Internet access), and most people, including most Amateur Radio operators assume that Internet access is an omnipresent utility akin to commercial power. We as Amateur Radio operators give ample thought to the possibility of power failure, which backup battery systems and generators. We even do the annual Field Day exercise / contest which is built around the assumption that commercial power has failed and you must be able to communicate using alternate means of power. But we usually don't give the same level of thought to the possibility (eventuality, actually) of Internet access failure, which can cripple Amateur Radio systems that haven't planned for loss of Internet access.

Before I start discussing Internet robustness / reliability, permit me a small rant. It drives me nuts when I hear someone worry about planning for "The Internet Being Down". Whenever someone says that, it's obvious that they have no conception about what the Internet actually is. The Internet, literally, is a network of networks. While one network (such as your cable system) might go down, or especially individual access methods might go down, the Internet as a whole remains functional. What you have to plan for is any individual method of Internet access going down. 

The first decision point about the robustness / reliability of Internet access is should you care? How important is the service or system? For example, using a personal hotspot for chatting with your buddies where you used to live isn't an important service or system (except to you personally). Thus, if you lose Internet connectivity to your personal hotspot, it's no big deal, and thus the reliability of the Internet connection used for the personal hotspot also doesn't really matter.

But if the service or system you're providing is important, then you need to think about and plan for potential failure of the Internet access your system depends on. There are three things you can do:

• Use a form of Internet access that is (reasonably) robust, or
• Have backup or redundant methods of Internet access, or
• Ensure that the Amateur Radio system can continue to operate without Internet access

Or you can do all three (but that's hard, and expensive).

Reasonably Robust Internet Access
One form of reasonably robust Internet access is to use commercial or government Internet access that's engineered to be reliable, such as Internet at an Emergency Operations Center (EOC). Typically connectivity at such facilities that couldn't / shouldn't go down uses multiple methods of Internet access like microwave plus fiber from multiple providers, with the idea that any one failure doesn't result in a complete loss of connectivity. 

Another form of reasonably robust Internet Access is satellite. Satellite Internet Access such as Viasat and HughesNet that use geosynchronous satellites have gotten a (justifiably) bad reputation during the demands of COVID-19 working / schooling from home in 2020 and 2021. Those issues are real, mostly for realtime communications such as video conferences. But if your primary usage is non-realtime, such as sending email, providing Internet connectivity for, example, a Winlink gateway, geosynchronous satellite Internet access should work fine.

A better, newer form of satellite Internet access is Starlink. In contrast to geosynchronous orbit, Starlink uses many more satellites in low earth orbit, which solves the latency issues. The Starlink "ground terminal" (named Dishy McFlatface) uses a motor to orient itself to the optimum angle to track Starlink satellites at that location, and then phased array antenna technology to track the individual satellite. Starlink broadband speeds often exceed 100 Mbps downlink / 10 Mbps uplink, at latency good enough for seamless videoconferencing. At the time this article is written, Starlink is in "beta testing" but commercial service is scheduled for "late 2021" for anyone who wants Starlink service (in rural areas of the US, and eventually the entire Northern Hemisphere).

Geosynchronous satellites have a slight advantage over Starlink in that the earth station used for geosynchronous satellites can be some distance away from the user, so likely not affected by any local or regional disasters impacting the user terminal. In 2021, Starlink uses a "bent pipe" architecture where the earth station and the user terminal have to be within the same (smaller) footprint of the satellite the user terminal is connected to. Thus, Internet connectivity via Starlink could potentially be impacted by a regional disaster.

Another form of reasonably robust Internet access is microwave links. Amateur Radio uses three different "flavors" of microwave links:

• HamWAN - Engineered, static links and networks using modified Wireless Internet Service Provider (WISP) equipment to use Amateur Radio spectrum at 5.9 GHz and no encryption
• AREDN - Ad-hoc, dynamic links and networks using using modified Wireless Internet Service Provider (WISP) equipment to use Amateur Radio spectrum at 2.4 GHz and 5.9 GHz and no encryption
• "Part 15" devices - Engineered or ad-hoc, static or dynamic links and networks operating in license-exempt (Industrial, Scientific, and Medical - ISM) portions of spectrum and thus acceptable to use encryption. There are low-end devices that are essentially modified Wi-Fi access points, and high-end devices that don't use Wi-Fi protocols and are intended for use by Wireless Internet Service Providers (WISPs) and thus require some expertise to install and manage.

Backup or Redundant forms of Internet Access

Robust Internet access can be achieved by using commercial Internet (such as a cable modem) and a secondary form of Internet access (such as microwave or satellite, discussed above) and failing over to microwave or satellite when the primary Internet access fails.

Ensure that the Amateur Radio system can continue to operate without Internet access

I think this is the best approach; in my opinion Amateur Radio should be capable of providing robust communications without requiring Internet access within the zone of a disaster. This is called "The edge of the disaster" theory and posits that most disasters are localized. Within the zone of a disaster, normal communications will likely be disrupted. Outside the zone of a disaster, normal communications are available. Thus, the job for Amateur Radio (and any "emergency communications system) is to "bridge" communications to the edge of the disaster, and "hand off" communications to normal communications as soon as that's a viable option.

For example, a DMR repeater that's within a zone of disaster should function normally (RF access via radio) without Internet access.

Thanks for reading!

Steve Stroh N8GNJ
Bellingham, Washington, USA
2021-04-21
Copyright © 2021 by Steven K. Stroh

 

Updated Interesting and Advanced Projects / Products in Amateur Radio page

I made a number of additions to my web page Interesting and Advanced Projects / Products in Amateur Radio.

There is no change log or diff available - it's intended as a cumulative list of Interesting and Advanced Projects / Products in Amateur Radio.

Thanks for reading!

Steve Stroh N8GNJ
Bellingham, Washington, USA
2021-04-20
Copyright © 2021 by Steven K. Stroh