or national levels. APRS packet radio for data
forwarding and Digital Voice modes like DMR,
System Fusion, and D-Start have the same
limitation.
When it comes to long distance
communications, HF radio (aka shortwave,) is
the gold standard and can potentially circle the
globe without repeaters. Using these bands in
all but serious emergencies requires a General
or Extra class license.Local comms are still
possible on HF bands, but generally require
special antenna configurations (Figure
B
).
www.arrl.org/what-is-ham-radio
LoRa NETWORKS
While most devices that operate above 30MHz are
limited to line-of-sight comms, new technologies
like LoRaWAN are starting to interoperate with
satellites (Figure
C
).Experimenting with new
protocols like LoRa can offer makers some
exciting opportunities.Check these out!
• Peter Mišenko’s “Armachat” LoRa
Communicator makezine.com/projects/
armachat-lora-communicator
• Bruce MacKinnon’s LoRa mesh networking
birdhouses github.com/brucemack/WARS-
Birdhouse
• Meshtastic, an open source off-grid,
encrypted communication platform
meshtastic.org
CELLPHONE MESH NETWORKS
Cellphone-based mesh networking relays calls
through neighboring phones rather than the
tower-based cell network. This was hot after the
Arab Spring, but a lot of the apps on the market
disappeared not long after. GoTenna (an external
device for the phone) is currently the biggest
player (Figure
D
), but systems like the San
Francisco Wireless Emergency Mesh are starting
to pop up as well, using ham radio to connect
nodes. gotenna.com and sfwem.net
LEARN MORSE CODE!
Morse code (aka continuous wave or CW in the
ham community) punches farther, with less
power, under worse conditions, than any kind of
voice technology. But actually using it is a bear
if you don’t put in significant hours (months)
learning it.Get expert help from the CW
25
make.co
Gustavo Belemmi, CC BY-SA 4.0; Dsimic, CC BY-SA 4.0; Andromeda321 at en.wikipedia (Yvette Cendes), CC BY-SA 3.0; Musskopf, CC BY-SA 4.0; goTenna
A B
C D
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