Ham Radio / Off-grid communication

I've just got to the point in the Archive of the 15/08/25 stream, so I now know this exists and wanted some feedback for a radio protocol to replace mobile networks I've been working on in my free time as a hobby.
So far i'm using a 900mhz (33cm) signal to avoid the need for a license in the US, since that falls into the ISM band. it takes advantage of QAM-64 with a 5mhz bandwidth with 25 subcarriers, with a theoretical, optimal 30mbps (3.75 MB/S).

I'm currently using a 3d printed Sierpinski triangle with copper wire embedded into it to have a minimal footprint for using the 33cm band, and to allow for using other bands with reduced efficiency. using the allotted 4 watts in the ISM band you can achieve a theorical and optimal 80mi (130km) of range, in practice it's closer to 60mi with optimal conditions and minimal attenuating materials, though I'm in the mountains so it's not the best testing area.

I'm also taking advantage of mesh networking and am trying to figuring out how to implement Improved layer 2 protocol to give better network traffic, this is where I stuggle the most, math is one of my strongest suits, good at designing and implmenting the hardware ( as I want to make the cheapest possible hardware for this project, so anyone can use it ) the software is the real hard part for me.

I'm also looking into ways to get encryption without calling it encryption since the FCC Title 47 § 97.113(a)(4) prohibits the use of it, and since I want widespread use I need to find a workaround or some some rule that makes it exempt from the FCC regulations.

For my Testing using a RTL-SDR, and a Raspberry PI 5 I've shoved into a 3d printed frame with some web-book parts I ripped out of my childhood acer aspire one. It's primary usecase is data transfer, my big goal is to host a game of Halo Combat Evolved ( the 2001 release, not MCC ) or over the network as a good test, If you got some suggestions let me know, yes there are better ways to do this, but I want to learn more about building radio protocols and telecommunication engineering, and purposely making this obtusely challengeing as I can because it's fun for me.
That project sounds sick. Do you have any of the source code available for the modem side of this? It reminds me a lot of the "New Packet Radio Modem" project by F4HDK.

I've never heard of a Sierpinksi antenna being used on the TX end before outside of >5GHz inline PCB antennas. That is definitely an interesting approach, if it works though.

There are so many things in modern telecom processing that haven't been brought to the Ham world yet that could be very lucrative for people with a DSP background. Unfortunately, all that stuff eclipses me.
 
We have some activity on 7200 this morning, Joe has been bitching about everybody's behavior on the ham radio this morning, he seemed specifically upset about someone threatening to shoot him at his house. Someone had used a text to speech to call Joe a NAMBLA member which lead to a full minute of silence before Joe responded with "nobody is going to believe that". Unfortunately I didn't get that part recorded but I did record the argument that followed.

7200 is officially a No Joe Zone, they bring up him being a wife beating pedophile and threatening to sue Joe lol. The second and third clips are the more eventful ones but the first clip is the lead up. It's so fucking wild that they are doing this shit at 8am on a Tuesday, and they are still arguing as I make this post :story:



 
they will REFUSE to play around with something like M17, but will drop 5 billion gorrilion dollars on some fkin retarded DMR radio. DMR, d-star, c4m, et al is the gayest shit ever. I will never understand the appeal. it's autism but not the good kind. why even do radio stuff if it's just going to be routed over a capital-I-Internet gateway. literally the same as jerking off in a discord channel
Remembered M17 was mentioned in this thread. For those interested, the guys behind it have apparently been making their own open-source HT, LinHT, which they've got a prototype of up and running. It's an SDR handheld on Linux and has some interesting features including built-in SSB and M17 support along with the ability to ssh into it and of course, run whatever you wish. Some info's here (a), but they also took to Reddit to reveal more stuff. They also have a collection of links there.

Ever wanted to play Doom on your HT?
linht-a-next-generation-software-defined-transceiver-v0-ar0otusaitjf1.webp
 
Greetings, I come with humble request for knowledge. I am not experienced in RF homebrew, and I'd like to install a receiver in my car to listen to a few different bands: VHF aeronautical navigation, mobile, and military mobile (108.0-150.775 MHz) + UHF military aeronautical mobile (225-400MHz). As you can imagine, I live near some airfields, both civilian and military, and I like to listen to chatter sometimes. LiveATC.net works pretty well, but I'm interested in setting up my own receiver. Can anyone point me towards resources on getting started in that pretty unusual band for a vehicle/handheld receiver?
 
Greetings, I come with humble request for knowledge. I am not experienced in RF homebrew, and I'd like to install a receiver in my car to listen to a few different bands: VHF aeronautical navigation, mobile, and military mobile (108.0-150.775 MHz) + UHF military aeronautical mobile (225-400MHz). As you can imagine, I live near some airfields, both civilian and military, and I like to listen to chatter sometimes. LiveATC.net works pretty well, but I'm interested in setting up my own receiver. Can anyone point me towards resources on getting started in that pretty unusual band for a vehicle/handheld receiver?
A magnet mount dual-band antenna that covers VHF and UHF, something like this would work great for that application. It should be able to pick up on all of those bands.

Do you have a laptop computer? A RTL-SDR stick + laptop and software like gqrx or Airspy's SDR software is all you need for reception.

Or are you looking for a more permanent / dedicated setup?
 
A magnet mount dual-band antenna that covers VHF and UHF, something like this would work great for that application. It should be able to pick up on all of those bands.

Do you have a laptop computer? A RTL-SDR stick + laptop and software like gqrx or Airspy's SDR software is all you need for reception.

Or are you looking for a more permanent / dedicated setup?
I'm looking to semi-permanently install it in my car, wired up to the car's accessory power and an exterior antenna. It could end up being a Raspberry Pi or similar running a SDR, but I wanted to see if anyone here knew of a pre-built receiver that would work for this.
 
I'm looking to semi-permanently install it in my car, wired up to the car's accessory power and an exterior antenna. It could end up being a Raspberry Pi or similar running a SDR, but I wanted to see if anyone here knew of a pre-built receiver that would work for this.
A Pi would be cool, but really any "scanner" should do what you want. RadioShack is gone now but used to be the place. For a handheld(that you can attach to an antenna) something like the Icom R-6. Something like the Uniden BCT15X looks like their lowest end mobile(car) model that does Mil-airband.
 
A Pi would be cool, but really any "scanner" should do what you want. RadioShack is gone now but used to be the place. For a handheld(that you can attach to an antenna) something like the Icom R-6. Something like the Uniden BCT15X looks like their lowest end mobile(car) model that does Mil-airband.
Thanks! Scanner was the keyword I was forgetting here. I'm a total scrub when it comes to this! I'll post an update once I have one
 
Has anyone ever used one of these?

I keep seeing these and their variants touted on various HAM channels on YT and everyone seems to be fairly positive about them. The only problem is that the people singing their praises are usually the ones with affiliate links and/or discount codes in the description. So its always a little sussy.

This seems like a great bit of kit to have in your bag if you're going mobile if it does what its supposed to.
 
Has anyone ever used one of these?

I keep seeing these and their variants touted on various HAM channels on YT and everyone seems to be fairly positive about them. The only problem is that the people singing their praises are usually the ones with affiliate links and/or discount codes in the description. So its always a little sussy.

This seems like a great bit of kit to have in your bag if you're going mobile if it does what its supposed to.
Yes. These are all downstream clones of the original design, but they are a useful piece of kit for measuring antenna characteristics like SWR and for antenna construction.

(PreserveTube)

I'd also recommend getting a PL-259 to SMA adapter like this and a case to store the NanoVNA in. The three connectors used for calibrating it can be easy to lose.
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What's the easiest way to get into Reticulum for midwits? Is anyone making ready to go boxes like with Meshtastic?
Easiest way to get started is with a client like NomadNet (terminal based) or MeshChat (GUI) and adding one of the TCP testnet interfaces. This will get you familiar with the basic concepts and also let you interact with some of the other nodes hosted by the community. You will find lots of cool pages and stuff.

Kod:
# TCP/IP interface to the Dublin Hub
  [[RNS Testnet Dublin]]
    type = TCPClientInterface
    enabled = yes
    target_host = dublin.connect.reticulum.network
    target_port = 4965

# TCP/IP interface to the BetweenTheBorders Hub (community-provided)
  [[RNS Testnet BetweenTheBorders]]
    type = TCPClientInterface
    enabled = yes
    target_host = reticulum.betweentheborders.com
    target_port = 4242

# Interface to I2P Hub A
  [[RNS Testnet I2P Hub A]]
    type = I2PInterface
    enabled = yes
    peers = g3br23bvx3lq5uddcsjii74xgmn6y5q325ovrkq2zw2wbzbqgbuq.b32.i2p

From there, if you want to get setup with a LoRa interface you can buy mostly any off the shelf device. My recommendation is the LilyGO T-Beam.
(PreserveTube)

Flashing can be done with the web flasher, or with the built-in rnodeconf tool. It's very easy to do and only takes a few minutes.

For using HF radio as an interface, I made a codec2 wrapper that operates as a software modem. You can find the link to that here The instructions are contained in the README but if you need any help feel free to ask.
 
# TCP/IP interface to the Dublin Hub [[RNS Testnet Dublin]] type = TCPClientInterface enabled = yes target_host = dublin.connect.reticulum.network target_port = 4965 # TCP/IP interface to the BetweenTheBorders Hub (community-provided) [[RNS Testnet BetweenTheBorders]] type = TCPClientInterface enabled = yes target_host = reticulum.betweentheborders.com target_port = 4242
A permanent KiwiNode is now online at address 7f1beae503ddf165f3df51a639848f96

Quick word of caution regarding the nodes hosted on the testnets:
Anyone can host anything, so be cautious when downloading anything and obviously don't enter any information anywhere.
 
Okay, which frequency should I get if I only want to use it for Reticulum? I'm assuming I want soldered as well?
If you are in the US, 915 MHz.

Soldered means whether the display comes presoldered to the device. You will probably want the display already pre-soldered so yes select that option
 
Honestly, you might be better served getting a harbor freight thread/tap kit. You'd be limited to pretty small diameter pipes, but still it's something.
Why is it you want it threaded? Just to keep the wires looking nice on the wrap?
I plan on using the threads as a spacer for some bare stainless-steel wire that'll wrap around the pipe. This will allow me to place a jumper cable anywhere on the coil to mechanically load the antenna on the fly without having to make multiple coils and being able to get a perfect or near 1:1 swr
 
Version 1.0 of the KiwiNode has been published https://gitgud.io/xerox/kiwinode/

Additionally you can find the HF codec2 data interface for Reticulum here: https://gitgud.io/xerox/freedvinterface


Do you have access to a 3D printer? Something like that could be modeled with OpenSCAD, I have a file for doing inductance coils
I have a friend who's college offers that stuff for free.
my only concer though is its ability to stand up in heat, I had some 3d printed boxes ordered when I was making some experimental EFHW it held up for a couple of days until the heat and tension ripped it in two.
Im pretty sure it'll hold up better on this set up since there wont be any strain on it but im concerned that it'll eventually start to sag do to the outside heat and heat directly from the coil (600W PEP)
 
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