
Ultraslow radio for decentralized global digital communication (2013) - Tomte
https://www.mail-archive.com/kragen-tol@canonical.org/msg00303.html
======
skykooler
> Getting a balloon to 90km altitude is straightforward

No, it is not. The altitude record for a high-altitude balloon is 53 km, set
in 2002. Most high-altitude balloons are limited to 37 km or so. 90km is
nearly at the Karman Line.

~~~
mrtnmcc
He was probably thinking 100K ft

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vvanders
FT-8 is the current "state of the art" in long range QRP[1].

Sadly it's pretty much only for exchanging a signal report + callsign for
contesting. You get 75 bits per 15 seconds.

The other tricky part is solar conditions change so different bands don't work
during the day/night and local RF pollution can make it really difficult to
receive anything in a dense metro area.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WSJT_(amateur_radio_software)#...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WSJT_\(amateur_radio_software\)#FT8)

~~~
owenversteeg
That's very interesting. I've gotten a bit into ham radio recently (just have
my technician's & two little radios, nothing fancy) and by far the most
interesting thing is long-distance communications.

Do you know anything about the reliability (e.x. 1000km transmissions between
two rural areas are possible 5% of the time/50% of the time/90% of the time),
as well as the kind of antenna you'd need for that? It'd be very cool if a
portable setup was possible.

~~~
vvanders
1000km may be stretching things but 200-300mi over say 40 meter band(that
stays active day/night) is possible with something called an NVIS antenna[1]
the downside is you probably still need ~100W to make it effective which makes
portable operation pretty tricky.

If the portable HF thing is something that interests you there's something
called Summits on the Air which involves hauling a radio up to nearby mountain
tops and try to make as many contacts as possible. Even with tech license VHF
and HF CW are still something you can do. Elecraft's KX line are really common
for these(I own a KX3[3]) and really incredible pieces of kit. With a radio,
~30ft wire and a tree/pole you can definitely make 800mi+ contacts.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near_Vertical_Incidence_Skywav...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near_Vertical_Incidence_Skywave)

[2] [http://www.sota.org.uk/](http://www.sota.org.uk/)

[3] [http://www.elecraft.com/KX3/kx3.htm](http://www.elecraft.com/KX3/kx3.htm)

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sizzzzlerz
WWVB, operating from Fort Collins transmits its time code signal at a rate of
1 bit/second at 60 kHz using carrier power modulation. This translates to a
wave length of 5 km yet your cheap "atomic clock" is able to detect and sync
to the signal with a short folded quarter wave antenna that fits inside the
clock or inside of your wrist watch. Coverage is over most of the continental
US

~~~
LeoPanthera
The iPhone app "Clock Wave" is able to generate and transmit this signal from
the speaker (!) in your iPhone, so you can accurately set radio-controlled
clocks and watches if you cannot receive the real thing. It can simulate the
five major time transmitters around the world.

I'm always amazed that it works at all.

~~~
jlgaddis
Is it actually receiving WWVB, et al., or jusy synchronizing with, for
example, an NTP server and then using that to generate an audio signal you can
"manually" sync with?

~~~
sizzzzlerz
I don't think the iPhone nor any Android phone have the necessary circuitry to
receive the WWVB signal directly. THey do, however, keep time sync with NTP or
some NTP-like service over the wireless network or wifi. That should keep it's
knowledge of time accurate to a second or two.

------
teraflop
> Shortwave radio (1.5MHz-30MHz) reflects off the ionosphere and can be
> received intercontinentally. This includes a couple of ISM bands in which
> unlicensed operation is permitted internationally: 13553–13567 kHz (22
> meters) and 26957–27283 kHz (11 meters) [...] QRPers consider anything below
> 1 watt as "extremely low power", or QRPp, and they consider a thousand miles
> per watt as a difficult benchmark to meet.

Unfortunately, the maximum legally allowed transmitter power is on the order
of milliwatts for the 22m ISM band, and tens of microwatts for the 11m band.
(At least in the US; see 47 CFR § 15.225, 15.227)

~~~
skykooler
Given the range of these signals, does the US government have a say if you
were to transmit at 1 watt from, say, South America?

~~~
vvanders
That's usually the role of the ITU[1].

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Telecommunicatio...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Telecommunication_Union)

------
rdtsc
Earth-mode is interesting.
[https://sites.google.com/site/sub9khz/earthmode](https://sites.google.com/site/sub9khz/earthmode)
with frequency being so low and the power needed it might not be practical.
Those people seems to have tried to use utilities as antennas. The French
around WWI apparently had some ground telegraph developed and produced about
10k units of it.

From the blog link:

> Foremost in sub-9kHz through the ground communications was John, G0AKN, who
> sadly is a silent key.

That's an endearing way of putting it. I like it.

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qubex
I’d be curious to know in what kind of context such an all-encompassing line
of reasoning occurred: is it in the context of prepping or somesuch? (Not that
I look down on it because of that, much the contrary.)

Thinking of this kind of scenario is part of the reason I am so fascinating by
SDRs capable of both reception and transmission: it seems to me that having
one or two such devices linked to a ham-radio-grade amplifier and antenna
every ten kilometers or so “makes sense just in case”.

~~~
jlgaddis
The title of the mailing list is "Kragen thinking out loud --- half-baked
ideas." It does seem to just be some guy's random thoughts on a variety of
subjects over a period of ~12 years. Check out the archives:
[https://www.mail-archive.com/kragen-
tol@canonical.org/mailli...](https://www.mail-archive.com/kragen-
tol@canonical.org/maillist.html)

------
owenversteeg
This whole article is very well written and explores a number of different
ways to get decentralized global communication. It's a topic I've thought
about myself for years, and I keep coming back to the conclusion that ham
radio has to be the answer.

Also, it'd be interesting to read more writing on the topic. Does anyone here
know of any other articles or anything?

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forkandwait
It would be nice if there were a visualization of this. Perhaps watts on the
x-axis, distance on the y-axis, and baud rate of specific technologies or
wavelengths as dots connected by contour lines? Probably on a log/ log scale.

(Sorry I don't care enough to make it, but I promise to look if someone else
does ;)

------
pc2g4d
Is there an "internet" out there based on these sorts of communications?

To me it makes sense to tie these things together into a global network
independent of the fiber/copper internet. But it never seems like anybody's
actually done it.

~~~
vvanders
Not really for a couple reasons:

1\. No encryption on any of the ham bands. They don't allow commercial traffic
so to enforce that all transmissions must be decodable.

2\. Bandwidth is scarce. 40 meters, which is one of the few bands open day and
night is only 300kHz wide(7Mhz-7.3Mhz). For a frame of reference 802.11 has
channels that are 22Mhz wide, almost 2 orders of magnitude larger.

3\. The internet is really good at being the internet. When you move to RF you
impose all sorts of constraints(see mobile/satellite vs fiber) so unless you
have a really strong use case(one:many, mobile or no infra) wires are going to
beat out airwaves every time.

That said there's things like FaradayRF[1] that are working on building
hardware/protocols that can solve the interesting use cases like delay
tolerant networks and last mile delivery.

[1] [https://faradayrf.com/](https://faradayrf.com/)

------
viach
Can it be used for decentralized global scale consensus ?

~~~
git_rancher
Can you share more about your interest in this? Eg just cryptocurrency or for
something larger?

~~~
viach
Just? Imagine a globally scalable cryptocurrency where consensus is not
affected by network topology and forks, in fact, just can't occur.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Somebody would put a layer allowing forks on top of that anyway, for one
reason or other. Physical layer has only so much impact on abstractions built
on top of it.

(Also, please don't. It's enough that crypto starts to show up in global
energy use statistics; we don't need for it to also crowd out the RF
spectrum.)

~~~
viach
With this kind of radio you don't need to rely on P2P peers only. It becomes
impossible to hide information (the best chain in case of cryptocurrency).
Also, crypto shouldn't be necessarily energy based, it can use proof of stake.

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _With this kind of radio you don 't need to rely on P2P peers only._

> _It becomes impossible to hide information (the best chain in case of
> cryptocurrency)._

That's only because of... the law (something crypto people usually want
nothing to do with). The reason amateur transmissions are not encrypted isn't
technical, it's that the laws regulating amateur radio service forbid it
explicitly.

> _Also, crypto shouldn 't be necessarily energy based, it can use proof of
> stake._

I'll believe it when I see it. To the best of my knowledge, there isn't any
working, at least minimally tested, and actually deployed implementation of
PoS anywhere. Moreover, from what I read around the block, there's a good
reason to suspect that you _have to_ waste energy _somewhere_ in the process
to ensure trust in, and integrity of, the blockchain. Some people actually
think it's a _feature_...

~~~
viach
> The reason amateur transmissions are not encrypted isn't technical, it's
> that the laws regulating amateur radio service forbid it explicitly.

It shouldn't be encrypted. The only (and the most important) thing which needs
to be transmitted globally is the hashes of the several last blocks. It is not
possible to "decrypt", so from my understanding, it's not "encrypted"
information.

> I'll believe it when I see it.

Bitshares, NXT, Reddcoin, to name a few.

------
ngvrnd
I've thought about this often enough you could almost call it an obsession.

~~~
owenversteeg
So have I! I'm glad that there's a handful of people also obsessed about this.
It just seems so important and surprising how few people talk about it.

What have you found? What do you think the most promising options are? If you
(or anyone else reading this) would like to send me an email about this, I'd
love to talk more about it, my email's in my profile.

------
DaniFong
good idea; nikki tesla says, high five!

