
Amateur radio operators turn to analog tech to communicate during pandemic - wglb
https://www.citynews1130.com/2020/04/09/amateur-radio-operators-turn-to-analog-tech-to-communicate-during-pandemic/
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state_less
I really like ad-hoc networks like this. I hang out on the marine bands these
days.

Makes me think, maybe we could turn on unsecured WiFi (e.g. WiFi network named
‘community-wifi’), establish IPs and provide some simple services for free to
a local community. Something like a digital version of little free library.
Provide digital book library, DMs, email, voice chat option and so on? It’d be
nice to talk with local radios. Plus no need to pay to communicate. Curious if
there are projects like this out there? If not, this makes me want to run some
simple services (DNS, BootP/DHCP, HTTP server and homepage with a description
and links to additional services).

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wglb
Give this a look: [http://oemcomm.org/ham-mesh-network-
primer/](http://oemcomm.org/ham-mesh-network-primer/)

And this: [https://forums.qrz.com/index.php?threads/mesh-networking-
ove...](https://forums.qrz.com/index.php?threads/mesh-networking-over-ham-
radio-our-own-emergency-backbone-network.593869/)

And this: [https://www.arednmesh.org/](https://www.arednmesh.org/)

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state_less
Very cool, thanks!

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taborj
To be fair, we were gonna do this anyway.

73

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drmpeg
Yet a fairly large portion of ham radio activity is now digital (FT8).

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kawfey
That is still via ham radio, and it's still very analog. A digital signal is
created by a computer, which is converted into an [analog] audio signal, then
piped through the [analog] audio input (either mic or line-in) of a ham radio,
transmitted over [analog] RF, and decoded by the receiver's computer in
reverse.

The point of the article is that is the communication isn't relying on
standard communications infrastructure. The headline falls short.

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rhinoceraptor
In that case, everything is analog. When a transistor (digital) switches, it
does so via electricity (analog).

