hckrnws
HERMES radio enables voice and data communication over vast distances
(spectrum.ieee.org)
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by SamuraiLion
by SamuraiLion
Organization page: https://www.rhizomatica.org/about/
My initial thought is that this is a cool way to try and get more resilient communications technology in the hands of those who need it most in the Global South, and it's awesome it was successfully used for a Pan Pan.
This reminds me of WinLink (an analogue to email on amateur radio), which I've heard is used by some Mariners. [1]
I'm aware that HERMES is essentially a SDR bundle/communication terminal (for a lack of a better term for a Raspberry Pi, a screen and an SDR), so it's not really re-discovering a well known amateur radio concept, but the hardware setup sounds a bit brittle on first glance, for what is essentially an emergency/critical communication application.
[1]: https://winlink.org/
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And then only on certain bands:
https://www.arrl.org/files/file/Regulatory/Band%20Chart/Hamb...
MURS (Part 95J) allows unlicensed operators to utilize encryption for digital data transmission as long as it's not encrypting voice communications, though it disallows store-and-forward packet operation and repeaters which makes doing anything similar to Reticulum/Meshtastic rather difficult.
For $400-800 nearly anyone can get a FCC Part 90 Nationwide Itinerant Data License which would allow them to do most of the "fun stuff" they might like to do for just $45-75/year, which is pretty darn affordable. Part 90 explicitly allows encryption, both of voice and data.
FCC Part 96 (CBRS) allows "unlicensed" (licensed-by-rule) operators to run their own private LTE/5G cell sites, if you have a WAN connection like Starlink or whatever. Obviously encryption is allowed.
Encryption is really only hard-banned for "amateur" radio (Part 97), and voice rules of Part 95 (i.e. CB / FRS / GMRS).
Like Garmin (Iridium based texts back and forth) or Zoleo. These are physical units that may offer texts or just a simple "sos" button.
Or a recent iPhone will communicate with Starlink, or T-Mobile offers a similar system for Android phones and is also based on Starlink. These can exchange texts which is much more reassuring than a simple sos button.
Of course offerings outside the US may be limited or entirely absent.
'Encryption' in the ham space is defined as intentionally obscuring a message. Encoding data in a format is an extremely common practice. As long as the intent isn't to actually obscure your message, pretty much any digital format you can dream up is fine. The main method of email over HF, WinLink, is proprietary so IMO they don't even comply, but the FCC hasn't done anything so apparently it's fine.
Enforcement in this space looks like hams reporting bad behavior to the FCC, and if the FCC decides to enforce they send a nasty letter, escalating until the offender's license gets revoked if they don't stop.
This specific project is very cool. There's a lot of amateur radio emergency communications groups (EmComm) who use WinLink heavily, and IMO it would be better to use something open source.
All the more reason to get my sBitx set up and play around with this.
Encryption (in terms of hiding messages) is forbidden mostly.
But everything else is allowed: hashes, signing, etc.
Even the legislators really understand it. They are allowing encryption for remote controlling ham satellites. With proper signing even that would not be necessary (with only exception of key rotations maybe).
It was set up by Stan Honey, who invented car navigation systems (Etak) and the thing that puts the yellow line on TV views of football fields (Sportsvision). He's into long-distance sailing, and wanted some basic comms that would work on most of the world's oceans.
It's not that advanced technically. It just works.
> Hermes (/ˈhɜːrmiːz/; Ancient Greek: Ἑρμῆς) is an Olympian deity in ancient Greek religion and mythology considered the herald of the gods. He is also widely considered the protector of human heralds, travelers, thieves,[2] merchants, and orators.[3][4] He is able to move quickly and freely between the worlds of the mortal and the divine aided by his winged sandals.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermes
Rough Roman equivalent:
Peter Bloom: We use the ionosphere as our satellite—or mirror—which helps us move information, voice, and data over really long distances. We’re using small radios that put out about 20 watts of power, and we can pretty reliably do 400 to 600 kilometer links between two radios."
That is some amazing distance for a very small amount of power!
encrypted
One of these things is not like the other.
For playing with ham radio, you can just play with ham radio, it's been done for decades. No encryption on ham bands anyway.
this just adds an encryption layer?
That said, commercial licenses are not per-operator like amateur licenses, so you would potentially only need one to cover the entire network. Some of this is ultimately negotiated.
However, it looks like this stack has encryption available as an option for stations who are transmitting sensitive data and are NOT operating under an amateur license. (Probably government-sanctioned communications or emergency humanitarian efforts.)
But depending on the environment (and noting that this project is specifically targeted towards communities seeking last-resort communication), there's definitely still risk, even if there isn't a spectrum authority with any real policing powers.
For example (and I say this speculatively), if you're broadcasting encrypted radio traffic in a conflict zone, it could be hard to differentiate between civilian traffic and military traffic happening on civilian bands, so you might be wrongly targeted by a drone strike.
If you already have a target on your back, radio laws can still be arbitrarily applied upon oneself, as in the case of Aung San Suu Kyi, who was once detained on the pretense of illegally importing handheld radios. [1]
[1]: https://apnews.com/article/aung-san-suu-kyi-myanmar-asia-ap-...
Usually it is for the uplink control for satellites. That you'd like to keep encrypted, so that someone does not hack your bird.
A ham operator might put out 20W of ERP while a radio station operates at 100W though international broadcasters use upto 500 kW.
Then there's a section that says:
> An amateur station shall not engage in any form of broadcasting, nor may an amateur station transmit one-way communications except as specifically provided in these rules
https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-47/part-97#p-97.113(b)
Since "broadcasting" is prohibited (except for the exceptions), there is a distinction. There actually are a number of exceptions that allow different kinds of one-way transmissions though.
(and this all reminded I need to renew my license which I haven't used in about 8 years! Looks like I also need a refresher!)
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What the fuck... How did you Freedom snorters let it get that way, god
Like Garmin (Iridium based texts back and forth) or Zoleo. These are physical units that may offer texts or just a simple "sos" button.
Prohibitively expensive, and also not available to 90% of the planet's commercial fishermen.
For them, an iPhone can be an entire year's profit.
The people in TFA aren't going to be featured on The Deadliest Crab.
But having a small, low-power, lightweight messenger that uses an extremely robust (and thereby slow) mode to send and receive messages is an interesting niche. For VHF/UHF/SHF you can use LoRa.
Economically, Starlink and its subscription model cannot compete with a hardware cost only mean of communication where all elements are modular in this particular context.
On the other hand, even people in remote communities will also end up getting hold of a cheap smartphone that they would like to connect to the internet
There are more efficient protocols like APRS and more recently XPRS.
About encryption, the US rules are that you can use digital protocols but you must publish the specs so anyone can, in principle, decode the signal.
This restriction does not appear to actually be enforced, eg, if I recall correctly the VARA HF/FM modes do not have published specs anywhere near sufficient to decode them, to the point where there are projects trying to reverse engineer them.
However, the buck stops exactly there. It becomes the landlords issue, not the tenant who might be operating the radio, where the property owner is liable to be fined if they themselves don't shut the signal off after a certain amount of time. I would guess the FCC lacks the sensitivity to target the signal to a specific unit in a given building in order to issue the fine directly to the involved individual.
I guess the lesson is you can do whatever you like as long as you have the actual radio mast on someone else's property as they will get the fire if the FCC bothers to show up.
Makes me wonder about those old FM radio dongles we had for cars that lacked aux jacks or tape decks if those would technically be pirate radio. You'd have to set them to whatever open channel was locally available and they had actually pretty good range; I remember picking up my friends signal while I was driving behind them.
1. https://www.insideradio.com/free/pirate-radio-crackdown-puts...
No. These generally are type-rated and carry a general license to transmit, their power is extremely low and unlikely to be a nuisance to others for that reason.
In my experience, enforcement of the rules is unheard of.
I did it after my friend tuned into AM radio for the first time and heard all the far-right radio and I said "hold my beer".
In the UK, nothing. There are far more important laws to enforce.
You will get some fat whiny old guy bitching about it to anyone who will listen, but you literally could not pay Ofcom to take an interest, and there are only about two people in the whole of the UK who have the skill to do anything about it.
Then again, as you say, they probably have much better things to do. Would be nice to hear more stations popping up on MW too as all the legit stations leave the band.
If you're not actively pissing someone off, it is unlikely anyone will bother you.
No-one is going to give a shit about you running unattended digi modes on 80m except some guy who wants the exact same 3kHz out of 300kHz that you are using to moan about his sore feet to his pal across town.
GMDSS is considered Pretty Fucking Important, and messing with it will attract the attention of the Coastguard, who have the legal right to make even the Diplomatic Corps miserable.
Let me put it this way - when a defective navigation light ballast at a US-operated naval base on the Clyde was jamming 156.8MHz for about a ten mile radius, absolutely obliterating the distress and calling channel, Ofcom got involved, passed their findings onto the estuary radio control office, the RNLI, and the Coastguard, who had all been reporting an issue, and "gave advice" on further enforcement they could carry out. Within half an hour the nav light was shut down, after a phone call where the Coastguard explained that there were some very angry people on their way with a radio engineer who was about to put a Stihl saw through their fence and shut it off himself.
They were on that thing within the hour, replacing the lamp assembly and phoned estuary control before firing it back up, and peace returned to Channel 16.
My sense is that at most you will be yelled at by HAMs - unless you are actually disrupting emergency communications. Ensuring radios can be used in emergencies is why licensing exists at all and people take ensuring it can be used for that pretty seriously (for good reason).
NASA requires any of its propulsive spacecraft within 2 million kilometers of Earth to protect their command uplink with encryption that is compliant with Level 1 of the Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 140-3 (10). The FCC has also considered requiring encryption on the telemetry, tracking, and command communications as well as mission data for propulsive spacecraft, but decided not to incorporate a specific requirement at this time. A satellite with an amateur license cannot encrypt transmissions in any way and must consist of open information. The eligibility rules are listed in 47 CFR Part 97.
Like, the response is kind of important for either a CQ or a net... whereas if I broadcast a pirate radio I am doing what I am trying to do just by sending.
Except the CQ you only transmit for the specific recipient.
I believe broadcasting in one way only (there's no conversation part).