Learn to Be a Ham Radio Operator

I see the bottom line as the only reliable route that guarantees access to emergency services during prolonged power outages is the hard wired CO powered telephone. In the rural (thin suburban) country side , like I live in, I may and indeed did , face the situation where there was NO emergency communications during long area power outages (note -- there is a tendency of power companies to service the denser areas first before areas like mine. Also since it is hard to guarantee the hard CO line, the only option I see is a sat phone. ~ Dave Farber 2011

2016 Why Modern Makers Are Bringing Back Ham Radio

2015 STATE'S CYBER SECURITY READINESS FINDS "GRIM PICTURE"
A vast majority of states though are unprepared, says Francesca. “Most states don't even mention the need to secure their IT systems or to address cyber threats,” she said. Some acknowledge the problem but appear to have done little to address it.
Just eight states of 50 fared decently in a Pell study on their preparedness to deal with current and emerging cyberthreats. California, Texas, Maryland and Washington were among eight states that were identified by the study as being relatively more prepared to deal with current and emerging cyber threats than counterparts. The others are New York, New Jersey, Washington and Virginia. As with state governments, barely half of all federal agencies have taken specific steps to secure end points while some 20 percent of endpoint security audits do not include all network-connected devices.

April 13th - 19th
National Public Safety
Telecommunications Week

Explanation of wireless communication

"You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat." -- Albert Einstein

This is dedicated to all the kids in 1938 who first built and used Ham Radios then later grew up to be the generation who fought and won World War 2.

Get your school involved with ham radio operation. We need them in an emergency because the Cell Phones Don't Work!

RADIO REFERENCE DATA BASE

AMATEUR HAM RADIO DATABASE

11/23/14 Ham radio will be the only functional communication network available to ordinary citizens. No cellphones, no television, no GPS (no air travel), no utility electricity, no ATMs and no internet.

HamRadioCoin

a made-for-radio blockchain

HamRadioCoin:
Crypto via Radio
Alternative Blockchain Channel

The only civilian communications network in this scenario will be the mesh of Ham radio operators, who - with electricity supplied by generators or solar energy converters - can continue hosting their global communications network. Their low-tech radio emulations of internet services will become the new high-tech: email, image transmission and… thanks to HamRadioCoin, a made-for-radio blockchain.
Three designs currently exist. Jyri Hovila of Vertaisvaluutta.fi has designed CBRadioCoin with the objective of creating a P2P network over half-duplex “citizen band” radio. In the digital radio (DVB) domain, Kryptoradio, allows for one-way broadcast of the Bitcoin blockchain via both television and commercial RF bands. In the amateur radio domain, BitcoinTalk user hamhrc designed HamRadioCoin, which was pushed into prototype phase by fellow BitcoinTalk user, garmin, who suggested that HamRadioCoin addresses could be transmitted via SSTV (more below).
HamRadioCoin utilizes the traditional Ham radio mesh to serve modern blockchain technology. This provides the blockchain and cryptocurrency with the first real alternative channel - a communications network that is both standardized and global. Ham radio has been in existence for over 80 years and who could have thought that its global array of operators would emerge as the perfect candidate for providing a P2P alternative to the internet. As we'll explore below, the invaluable role of Ham radio extends its utility into science fiction as the “old” radio combines with the “new” blockchain.
The cosmos is alive with radio energy and radio waves emanate from the depths of space as well as from our planet itself. Studying and harnessing this electromagnetic energy has long been the province of both scientists and radio amateurs (or ham radio operators). Few of us think that this simple technology can be worth much attention in the Information Age with its quantum computing, cryptography, and blockchains. Think again.
Ham radio may seem like an irrelevant and forgotten proto-technology, yet, the truth is that ham radio is internationally standardized and acknowledged as a service. Major players such as Motorola and Kenwood cater to this market, and Ham radio equipment is a part of most space missions and scientific field bases. For this reason, not just anyone is given free range in the Ham radio airwaves and operators are required to pass competency examinations before they are allocated an international call sign and allowed to transmit.
Data Channel Similar to the Internet
Despite the association of services such as social networking and email with the internet, Ham radio enthusiasts have, for decades, enjoyed the benefits of their very own social network. They have, for example, created a network of radio-based mail servers that allow the sending and receiving of ordinary email using only radio transmission. Ham radio also has, for some time, been able to transmit still images and video, in real-time, on dedicated frequencies adjacent to the frequencies used by wifi, cellphones, and GPS.
“Big deal,” one might think, “I'll just stick to my zippy 40MB internet connection,” and fair enough - most people find cabled internet sufficient. The thing is - what happens to our internet lives (and blockchains) should the centrally controlled internet be unavailable due to physical or political known unknowns? The circumstances under which the internet and 3G networks could buckle are many, and we'll get to those in a minute. http://hamradiocoin.com/

The Army's cancelled GMR Ground Mobile Radio which cost over $6 billion to fail! How to blow $6 billion on a tech project. Military's 15 year quest for the perfect radio is a blueprint for how to fail. 2012

June 14, 2010 Mr. Witherspoon is a ham. His call is KF4TZK.
“This is the sound of renewable education!” says Thomas Witherspoon, 37, founder of Ears to Our World, as he picks up a small portable radio and quickly cranks its handle, producing a high-pitched, wobbly whine. Inside, a dynamo charges the radio's battery. Witherspoon has taken his love of shortwave radio and filtered it through his experience in the corporate world, devising a strategy to help the most people for the least money. ETOW distributes wind-up radios to isolated villages across Africa and into Belize and Romania, providing listeners with vital information. His radios are also proving to be disaster-relief heroes in earthquake-devastated Haiti. “The telephone did not work, even the cell phone. But with their radios, they could go on shortwave, and be informed.” A week later, when a 5.9 aftershock rocked the village and rumors of an impending tsunami stirred panic, the teachers were able to turn to their radios again. Fred Osterman, owner of Universal Radio, a retailer in Ohio, who sent him several wind-up radios to test. He settled on the Etón Grundig FR200 for its durability, reception and LED light (about $50 each). Osterman then introduced Witherspoon to Esmail Amid-Hozour, the head of Etón Corporation. “The next thing I know,” Witherspoon says, “a tractor-trailer is arriving where we live and we're offloading two pallets of radios. Etón donated all the inventory we needed to get started—500 radios.” In March, Witherspoon drove to Kulpsville, Pa., to set up a booth at the 24th annual Winter Shortwave Listener's Festival. “That family of radio enthusiasts has really powered a lot of what we've done.” Witherspoon says. A silent auction raised $700, but networking with the radio community is the real point for Witherspoon: It leads to partnerships and new ideas, like the new portable solar panel ETOW is working with. http://magazine.wsj.com/hunter/donate/tuning-in/

Andy Hardy (1939) and Ham Radio

Kids are ham radio operators and doing it all over the world. Love Finds Andy Hardy (1938) elected to the Library of Congress Film Registry in 2000 for the Ham Radio Scene that shows how it worked.
Andy Hardy (1939) and Ham Radio
Clip is from the classic film titled "Love Finds Andy Hardy" (1939). Andy Hardy (Mickey Rooney) uses a local Ham Operator to send an urgent message to Canada. Andy suggests a message be sent to their mother via ham radio in lieu of sending her a telegram. Andy brings Judge Hardy to the home of 12 year-old ham radio operator James McMann Jr (Gene Reynolds) and he sends a message to Mrs. Hardy. Judge Hardy is so impressed with James' help and his son's ingenuity that he pays the last $8 for Andy's car.

For all the Ham Radio WannaBee's
And for those who'd like to understand what to study to take the test And for those who understand how important it is to keep the airwaves free ALL of us - THE PUBLIC - so that we are able to communicate with each other and really save someone's life in an emergency when All Communication has been destroyed (like in a hurricane) then this is your chance to . . . . Join the fight to keep our airwaves free! Big business wants to buy everything and leave nothing for us.

White space radios provided long distance services to WiFi radios. 802.11AF Long distance WiFi - Imagine. Easily networked hotspots, with omnidirectional antennas that can find fiber, not just the pitiful excuse for broadband your phone or cable monopoly sells. White spaces solved with a geolocation database then only the political problems need to be solved. The radios themselves weren't fancy — just converted AirSpan WiMax gear — and no attempt was made to encode for maximum throughput. That will be the work of a new IEEE committee dubbed 802.11AF, Srivaspaba said. And once the FCC gives the go-ahead, both that committee and the equipment market can go into overdrive. 2010

Internet Society Statement on Egypt's Internet Shutdown

Egypt shut down all internet access in the country.

How did they do it? Gigaom has figured out the basics, but essentially you have to shut down all routers that filter incoming traffic into the country. This will take the country off the grid from the global internet. If that's not enough, shutting down routers at ISPs will insure no one can access the web. That's pretty easy for countries that have complete control over their telecom industries. Egypt seems to have chosen a different method. The government ordered ISPs to stop resolving addresses ending in .eg, Egypt's domain name system, in addition to sealing off outside access. Vodafone, one of the ISPs in Egypt, released this frightening statement: "All mobile operators in Egypt have been instructed to suspend services in selected areas. Under Egyptian legislation the authorities have the right to issue such an order and we are obliged to comply with it. The Egyptian authorities will be clarifying the situation in due course." It boils down to this: Unless a government has direct control over ISPs, there is no "kill switch." It takes a government order to individual ISPs under the proper legal authority.
http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-shut-down-a-countrys-internet-access-2011-1

Did US Companies Help Egypt Internet Crackdown?
Free Press, the non-partisan lobbying organization, reports that US companies are involved in providing technology that helps the Egyptian government monitor protestors on the Internet and mobile phones. Free Press issued a statement that claims:
Boeing-owned, California-based company Narus sold Telecom Egypt, the state-run Internet service provider, "real-time traffic intelligence" equipment, more commonly known as Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) technology. DPI is content-filtering technology that allows network managers to inspect, track and target content from Internet users and mobile phones as it passes through routers on the Web.
Narus Vice President of Marketing Steve Bannerman said to Wired in 2006: "Anything that comes through (an internet protocol network), we can record. We can reconstruct all of their e-mails along with attachments, see what web pages they clicked on, we can reconstruct their [voice over internet protocol] calls."