
Disaster.radio: a disaster-resilient communications network powered by the sun - tlrobinson
https://disaster.radio/
======
TimTheTinker
Ham radio (or amateur radio) operators have historically filled this role -
providing essential communications in the event of a disaster.

I wonder whether this project (if it's successful) would indicate that their
numbers have declined past an inflection point, where their presence and
availability is no longer assumed.

~~~
missosoup
This won't replace HAM radio in a disaster scenario. This might provide a
long-distance digital comms capability post-disaster. Even then, LoRa
throughput is so low that I don't see how it would be useful unless an entire
region goes full zombie apocalypse and this network replaces... I don't know,
messenger pigeons?

In a long range configuration, LoRa has a theoretical max throughput of about
140bps (bits) and that's assuming only one device is transmitting and no
packet loss.

LoRa is built for low power, long range, low throughput sensor networks. It's
not really suitable for a chatty mesh network. To get an idea of the intended
use for it, take a look at LoRaWAN limits:

* An average of 30 seconds uplink time on air, per day, per device.

* At most 10 downlink messages per day, including the ACKs for confirmed uplinks.

* A good goal is to keep the application payload under 12 bytes, and the interval between messages at least several minutes.

~~~
sitkack
A messenger pigeon could at least cary 1TB of micro sd card data. LoRa is like
less than the symbol rate of honey bees.

~~~
noonespecial
What is the symbol rate of an sd laden carrier pigeon?

African or European?

~~~
missosoup
Well, you have to know these things when you're a king, you know.

------
syedkarim
We don't have anything to do with disaster.radio (maybe that should change),
but we do have an existing single board computer that runs Linux, has a LoRa
radio, and wifi. A somewhat similar product, but we use this for reception of
a satellite data broadcast.

[https://othernet.is/products/dreamcatcher-v3-05](https://othernet.is/products/dreamcatcher-v3-05)

It has the 2.4 GHz LoRa radio, the SX1281. It also has a wideband mixer and
synthesizer, which allows transmission across 85 - 6000 MHz. You should be a
ham in order to play with the tx-side. The SX1281 is _not_ compatible with
sub-GHz LoRa.

~~~
syntaxing
Super interesting, how does it work in terms of pricing? Is the satellite data
broadcast free? It's really neat how most of the US is convered. This might be
a stupid question but do you need a license to use this and/or LoRa radio?

~~~
syedkarim
Yes, the broadcast is free to receive.

To use the transmit outside of ISM bands, you definitely need to be a ham (and
stay within ham bands).

------
paidforby
Hey there! I am the current maintainer of the disaster radio firmware
[https://github.com/sudomesh/disaster-
radio/](https://github.com/sudomesh/disaster-radio/) and the LoRaLayer2
routing protocol
[https://github.com/sudomesh/LoRaLayer2/](https://github.com/sudomesh/LoRaLayer2/)
that is intended to mesh disaster radio nodes. The website doesn't include
many of our latest developments, if you would like to stay in the loop, it's
best to join our mailing list
[https://sudoroom.org/lists/listinfo/disasterradio](https://sudoroom.org/lists/listinfo/disasterradio)
or follow our wiki where I am posting development updates
[https://github.com/sudomesh/disaster-
radio/wiki](https://github.com/sudomesh/disaster-radio/wiki)

Happy to answer questions as I am capable.

It's cool to see this up on the front page, thanks for all the interest!

------
bullen
I have also been thinking about a P2P radio mesh:
[http://radiomesh.org](http://radiomesh.org)

I'm a bit stuck at trying to manually change frequency of the LoRa radios. It
seems the standard does not allow it but the HopeRF chip I use have methods
for selecting frequency and bandwidth around that frequency.

If so, that would allow for a multi-frequency protocol over LoRa that could
scale!

------
epx
I was working on something vaguely similar to this and to LoRaHaM:
[https://github.com/elvis-
epx/sdr/tree/master/LoRaMaDoR](https://github.com/elvis-
epx/sdr/tree/master/LoRaMaDoR)

but most hams around are stuck in 2M analog, some even find configuring a
subtone too complicated, so it is difficult to work on something no one will
bother to use.

------
xupybd
I'd be really interested to see what impact this will have on the site they
link to [http://disasteradio.org/](http://disasteradio.org/) some tiny little
band.

It would be neat to see what sort of traffic spike they get after being linked
from a story that made it to the front page of HN.

~~~
disasteradio
in answer to your question: 1000 hits in ten minutes baby! that's showbiz!
(someone PMed me about it already haha)

~~~
juuul
Yay! I'm one of the devs on disaster.radio and we're big fans. We're actually
having our weekly meeting at our hackerspace sudo room
[https://sudoroom.org/](https://sudoroom.org/) in Oakland, CA right now and
listening to your track Drop The Bomb
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0S-HOOp_VY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0S-HOOp_VY)
which has been something of an unofficial theme song for us!

~~~
disasteradio
omg <3 <3!! I gotta play in Oakland one day, I've never been but I have met
way too many hilarious wonderful kooks living out there.. PS new disasteradio
album is less about post-apocalypse and more an equal mix of solarpunk and
SYNTHESIZER TRANSMISSIONS FROM THE TEMPORAL VOID

------
TaylorAlexander
Open source radio tech is great!

This is the radio chip used in their hardware:
[https://www.semtech.com/products/wireless-rf/lora-
transceive...](https://www.semtech.com/products/wireless-rf/lora-
transceivers/SX1276)

Very similar to the CC1200 I used in a radio I designed in 2013:
[https://www.ti.com/product/CC1200](https://www.ti.com/product/CC1200)

Low data rate networks are super interesting. The long range let’s you do
things you wouldn’t do with WiFi. But what i would really like is a high
bandwidth long range mesh. The issue you run in to is who owns the spectrum.
In the US it’s private communications companies that buy large chunks of
spectrum. I’d like to see more valuable spectrum allotted for public use. This
would pave the way for free or very low cost municipal cell phone service.
Unfortunately there is big money interested in making sure that doesn’t
happen. And with “business friendly” people in the FCC, the idea of free
communications doesn’t have much traction.

This radio project looks cool. Ideally we’d have a generic 915mhz radio in our
cell phones. I guess since this device also has WiFi, you could connect a
phone pretty easily. Let’s beg the Librem folks to add a sub-Gigabertz radio
(915/868/433MHz) to their next phone. :-D

------
jsilence
Maybe they should integrate it with disaster mapping software like Ushahidi
([https://www.ushahidi.com](https://www.ushahidi.com)) instead of programming
yet another chat silo.

~~~
paidforby
Never heard of ushahidi. It looks expensive. We developed a free, open source
mapping app that uses MapBox vector tiles on to which you can drop pins that
are then shared with neighboring nodes over the LoRa radio. Check out
development here, [https://github.com/sudomesh/disaster-radio-
map](https://github.com/sudomesh/disaster-radio-map) it hasn't been tested on
latest dev hardware and might need some work to improve the loading of map
tiles.

~~~
jsilence
AFAIR Ushahidi is open source

------
freakynit
This is nice :)

Two parts can be replaced I guess with better alternatives though:

1\. Risc-v chips for esp8266. Why? Because they are built on open source
standard, are cheaply available, and are generally very powerful.

2\. 802.11ah for LoRa. Why? Well, lora is highly optimized towards power
optimization at the expense of data transfer rate. Data rates offered by LoRa
might not be suitable for anything much demanding other that IoT. 802.11ah on
other hand is also optimized for power, but still can operate up to at
multiple 100mbps of data rates, with range in many KM's and supporting
thousands of connections per installment.

This might help: [https://www.electronicdesign.com/industrial-
automation/what-...](https://www.electronicdesign.com/industrial-
automation/what-s-difference-between-ieee-80211ah-and-80211af-iot)

~~~
Tepix
ESP8266 is cheaper than RISC-V and powerful enough. It's not open source but
that doesn't seem to be a deal breaker for this project.

802.11ah has only 1km range which is not enough for this purpose. LoRa is
rated at more than 10km range at 292bit/s up to 50kbit/s. Also the chip used
in this project costs only around $6.

------
nathancahill
Very cool. Reminds me of goTenna Mesh, which is already deployed globally
(albeit closed-source and without a power source):
[https://gotennamesh.com/products/mesh](https://gotennamesh.com/products/mesh)

------
ShinyCyril
Without meaning to hijack this thread: does anyone know of any volunteering
opportunities deploying / maintaining communication networks for disaster
relief? Ericsson Response ([https://www.ericsson.com/en/about-
us/sustainability-and-corp...](https://www.ericsson.com/en/about-
us/sustainability-and-corporate-responsibility/technology-for-
good/humanitarian-response/ericsson-response)) is a group doing exactly what
I'm after, but seems to be internal-only.

~~~
mattrp
Cisco TacOps comes to mind... is this what you’re thinking?

[https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/about/csr/stories/tactical-
ope...](https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/about/csr/stories/tactical-
operations.html)

~~~
ShinyCyril
Thanks for the suggestion. Yes, that's the kind of thing, but understandably
it also looks limited to Cisco employees.

~~~
mattrp
I get what your seeking now - I wish I knew of an org to suggest. I’ve long
felt that there should be some sort of comms focused volunteer org like this.
I guess you could say all of the major network operators already have things
like mobile lte towers so there may not be a need — but then you see things
like Irma and think how well did they do during that event and could ordinary
people have coordinated more quickly and effectively? I guess another
possibility might be the Red Cross? But again using the examples highlighted
in this thread where folks were literally scanning for new fire outbreaks and
sending alerts via ham... I don’t see that within red cross’s mandate... seems
like there there should be an existing org, I just don’t know what it is
called unfortunately.

------
Tepix
That's a cool use of LoRa. I think it makes a lot of sense to have
asynchronous super low-bandwidth text messages in such a scenario. You won't
have time to man the radio 24/7, instead you just check if there are new
messages of interest every now and then. For this use case, low power usage is
essential, you want to be able to receive messages 24/7 even if there is a
cloud cover for several days in a row.

For even longer range it would be nice to have a certain percentage of nodes
that can also communicate with HAM radio amateur satellites.

------
walrus01
If the people who created this are here in the thread, some questions on the
power system...

1\. What is your baseline calculation for Wh per day produced by the PV panel?

2\. More precise specifications on the PV panel?

3\. What is the calculated load in Wh per day? How much of this is dependent
on data traffic level? (eg. Does it go into a sleep mode?)

4\. Have you calculated this for sunlight levels in mid winter, off grid, at
latitudes 48 and above? The Wh produced in a day, week or month by that size
panel somewhere like North Vancouver, BC, will be really low from November to
February due to short day lengths and winter weather.

~~~
fyfy18
The hardware section mentions:

> disaster.radio nodes are capable of functioning in most moderately sunny
> locations

I live in Northern Europe (54N) and wanted to use an old phone as a time lapse
camera in a remote location without power or internet (hence the phone rather
than something like a Raspberry Pi). The battery when fully charged would last
~3 days, so I just needed a solar panel big enough to keep it topped up.

I figured a 20W solar panel would be sufficient, as most phones use way less
than that when charging. In my initial testing in direct sunlight this panel
was barely able to keep the battery % the same, let alone charge it. I'm not
sure whether I just needed or a bigger panel, or it was just the 20W solar
panel I got from eBay not really being 20W. If anyone has any experience with
this I'd still like to do the project :-)

~~~
adrianN
In Germany, the solar panels in commercial installations produce about 10% of
their peak wattage averaged over a year. I guess these are installed in
locations with good insolation. So at best you could assume some 2W on average
from your 20W panel. But if it didn't even work in direct sunlight, the panel
was probably broken.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
In theory, couldn't you boost the input light by using a couple of mirrors
(one capturing light below the panel, one above the solar-incident light
shining down at a Summertime angle?) or some carefully position Fresnel-style
lensing?

Is polarisation of the reflected light an issue?

------
ngngngng
Love this. I was just without internet for a few days last week, and as a bit
of a "prepper" I couldn't help but think if long term disaster situations and
what I would want to do for internet and communication in such an event.

I'm actually getting a ham radio for christmas (don't tell my wife I know) and
while that will fill almost every NEED for communication, it certainly leaves
room for improvements. Text chat is very convenient, maps are very convenient,
so I think this project is a great start.

~~~
themodelplumber
If you love ham radio, text messages, and maps, boy are you going to get your
money's worth out of APRS and digital modes. Haha. We have a digi-net here
locally and whenever I'm able to participate I often end up just holding my
phone (AndFlMsg) to my HT. Works great.

------
wilg
This is awesome! Super smart set of basic apps, and having it just be a normal
WiFi hotspot is great. I could see it actually being quite usable in a
disaster scenario.

Kickstarter the hardware for like $100 and I bet it would do really well. I'd
buy one right now. Or let me donate!

Looks like there's an "app store". Curious how that works. I assume that would
be a major bandwidth/tragedy of the commons issue, but perhaps there's some
way to have a higher QoS channel for the critical apps.

------
ed_blackburn
First thing I thought? If I can survive long enough we can still communicate
in a zombie apocalypse! (Yes, I'm still persevering with The Walking Dead
after 10 seasons)

~~~
dTal
I am often curious what mental itch people are scratching with "zombie
apocalypse" fantasies. It's clear at any rate that "zombies" are really
"people it's okay to kill". It's as if people are hungering for a simpler,
more brutal time where your problems are largely constrained to kill or be
killed - a kind of civilization wanderlust. I do not think it is healthy.

~~~
ed_blackburn
I'm petrified of such an event. It's why I fantasise how I may survive,
because I know I wouldn't!

------
rinchik
Disaster Radio. Does one need an FCC ham license to own/operate an endpoint?
What are the frequencies? After some light poking on the website I don't see
any info on that. Love the idea though.

there is also this: [https://www.nycmesh.net/](https://www.nycmesh.net/) ,
somewhat related and can be used as a back up information/communication source

~~~
myself248
The ESP8266 is a wifi chip, so almost certainly OK to operate without a
license unless you're doing something really bizarre with antenna gain to get
above the 36 dBm EIRP threshold.

LoRa can run in any band you want, but it's almost universally deployed in ISM
bands as well, 315/433 or 868/915 MHz. I don't think I've ever seen a LoRa
chipset that would push enough power to exceed part-15 regs.

HOWEVER, to be strictly legal, a part-15 device actually needs to be tested
and certified thereas. Otherwise the parts can only be sold as a kit and
stuff, which is how pretty much all lora stuff is sold right now. And you'd be
hard pressed to piss anyone off enough to care.

~~~
rinchik
> Otherwise the parts can only be sold as a kit and stuff

Yeah. Disaster Radio does not look like a "kit" at all. Not for "an average
user" at least. I'd be cautious building and operating hardware that can
potentially get me in trouble with authorities.

Still great general idea though, to build a solar-powered kit that's easy to
setup and operate, a kit that makes sure there is a "plug-and-play" solution
in case of a disaster (natural or not), kit that also delegates legal
responsibility to the "creator"/manufacturer.

~~~
myself248
Okay, I should've been clearer about my initial post, that it's breathtakingly
unlikely for anyone to get in trouble doing this.

Look at the unmitigated chaos on CB for a sense of how much the FCC feels like
enforcing anything on the unlicensed bands. Probably 95% of CBers are running
above-legal power, many of them by _several orders of magnitude_, and behold,
the field in which the FCC grows its fucks, it is barren.

------
smkellat
To an extent, I feel good that the Secure Scuttlebutt guys are behind this.

A good direction to develop would be to talk to FEMA and its global
counterparts. There is literature on what is needed in disaster. Instead of an
insular tech-world development of such a platform having disaster response
practitioner insights might be useful.

~~~
paidforby
For sure, SSB is a cool community. Cel wrote demo software that allowed a
disaster radio node to post messages to SSB. Check out the source on git-ssb,
[https://git.scuttlebot.io/%25SyAU1pa6g6yYcELjTrBG4JY41vjuP6H...](https://git.scuttlebot.io/%25SyAU1pa6g6yYcELjTrBG4JY41vjuP6HSvAo%2BmsrP0Sg%3D.sha256)

And agreed, once we have stable hardware and firmware, talking to local
disaster response practitioners would be a great way do test deployments and
get feedback on the software design and usability. I'm curious about the
disaster-related literature you referenced, would love to read it.

------
Sabrees
This software is available pre-flashed onto cheap LoRa boards now.

$40 for a pair
[https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000396836096.html](https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000396836096.html)

------
superkuh
Using 900 MHz means you only get line of sight which means you need height
above terrain. In a disaster maybe you can get this without paying anyone any
money so this might be feasible.

Using HF would be better in almost all ways except size though.

~~~
vvanders
900Mhz will punch through some stuff and the spread spectrum chrip Lora uses
will do non-LoS[1] under some conditions. The bigger issue is to get that
capability Lora is a really low bit-rate(on the order of bits-per-second) and
polled instead of ad-hoc.

[1] [https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/10/lostik-usb-lora-
radi...](https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/10/lostik-usb-lora-radios/)

~~~
superkuh
Yeah, I heard the same thing. So now I own a bunch of 900 MHz transceivers,
telemetry dongles, and equipment. I don't think it deserves the good rep it
gets. It may punch to the other side of the house or do okay through some pine
trees point-to-point but at the slightest hill or gentle dip it's done. It's
best to treat it like a microwave link. And for a microwave link it has a
pretty significant fresnel zone.

------
cozzyd
I was hoping this would use meteor scatter
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteor_burst_communications](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteor_burst_communications))

~~~
themodelplumber
Might as well throw in EME as well ;-)

------
cjdell
I wonder if SpaceX's StarLink (if it ever gets finished) will continue to
function independently in the event of global disaster. Having equipment
around that can communicate with that sounds like a good idea.

~~~
rtkwe
I don't think they will, at least not in their default configuration. They do
have the capability to communicate between the satellites but I'm not sure
that they are setup to deliver data going strictly between two Starlink'd
users without going through a ground station. There's also the problem of just
keeping them up, being low flying satellites they'll need periodic boosts
which are planned from the ground iirc.

Both of these could be turned over to an automated system though I suppose.

------
bulutzuku
Hey, nice project. Can you comment or point me what hardware do I need to buy
to get my own node?

If there are too many options maybe put a hardware matrix?

~~~
paidforby
Thanks! I am the current maintainer of the firmware, juul is correct. I am
actively developing with the LILYGO TTGO ESP32 dev board. If you are
interested in development then you can buy one from aliexpress, if you are
looking for a finished product, then you should wait for us to finish the next
iteration of our custom board. Here's board that is currently supported
t[https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32915894264.html?spm=a2g0o.p...](https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32915894264.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.0.0.671054bdhI1Hix&algo_pvid=aec249fc-c80a-4c81-8220-334dc9f635b1&algo_expid=aec249fc-c80a-4c81-8220-334dc9f635b1-0&btsid=6d976d5a-e661-47f6-b371-7f0bc42c5336&ws_ab_test=searchweb0_0,searchweb201602_7,searchweb201603_55)

------
VectorLock
What is the specific use case of the low bitrate long distance radio? Very
basic news dissemination? FidoNet like message relay?

------
nathancahill
What is the estimated range of the antennas? Several miles with line of sight?

------
s_m
"powered by the sun" buddy everything is powered by the sun

------
ummonk
How well would these hold up after a solar storm or EMP?

~~~
jonathankoren
EMPs aren't really a plausible weapon. Sure you can detonate a nuke, but by
that time, you've already launched an ICBM, so you're screwed because of
mutually assured destruction.

If you want disrupt an electrical grid, there's a lot of easier -- and less
likely to have an obvious calling card -- than setting off a nuke.

And if you're thinking about some other type of EMP weapon, forget it. They're
not practical. While a theoretical weapon, they're not a realistic one. It's
fantasy.

[https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/kwxq4v/we-asked-a-
militar...](https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/kwxq4v/we-asked-a-military-
expert-how-scared-the-us-should-be-of-an-emp-attack-508)

[https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/world-wont-end-
danger...](https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/world-wont-end-danger-emp-
attack-more-fantasy-fact-94681)

~~~
adrianN
Or you have your nuke already in place because you violated that treaty about
nuclear weapons in space and can set it off without launching a rocket first.

~~~
jonathankoren
There are better uses for that nuke.

