circuitfarmer

Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good

I love you. This is something so many people need to hear, and crucially, understand.

It’s a special kind of whataboutism to always claim that nothing is good enough. Nudges in the right direction matter. We’re so tied up in the perfect solution that the nudges fail, and here we are.

Comical at this point. Eventually people just stop following these “orders”.

Rome fell when most of its population no longer saw its government as legitimate.

Lapdog when invited onto lap: “should I go up there?”

But he always does.

AFAIK, the answer to this is yes: GPS is private because the device seeking a lock is not transmitting anything.

Satellites transmit continuous signals which are received by your device. These signals contain data about the position of the satellite and precise timekeeping metadata. Figuring out your location is a matter of comparing time of receipt to the time reported in the signal (and other similar stuff, still all reception based).

This is also why it doesn’t shut off for airplane mode. Nothing is being transmitted by your device to perform the lock; it must only receive enough data.

Surely all the MAGAs who are so worried about election fraud will be all over this!

Surely…

Crickets.

Never forget: Hitler was the only person to ever kill Hitler.

And as always, nothing will come of it.

You mean Trump going down that escalator and noticing that there were people stupid enough to vote for him changed things? All of a sudden, Trump’s skeletons in the closet meant more. He had no way forward if Epstein started talking.

It should have corrected itself with the file release, but Donnie already had too much power to force redactions.

Papers, Please

It’s a fantastic single-player game if you need a distraction while the world is destroyed around you and your friends and family are murdered.

This is part of the strategy.

Keep cranking things slowly up. Keep increasing the heat. Frog in a frying pan.

Note how a literal murder is useful as a fear tactic.

Before Charlie Kirk, there was Horst Wessel.

At this point he should be impeached again just for wasting everyone’s time

(Impeachment is useless, I know. It’s a joke)

It is a misconception that you cannot do encryption with ham radio.

Affordability – looks like a wash to me.

Ease of access – maybe. But it generally does less, so it’s a tradeoff.

The G90 is a much, much better radio.

I’m not trying to drag anything down. But I think it is important for many people to realize that the meshtastic is ultimately a ham device. It is using specific parts of the spectrum and reduced power to avoid needing the license. There’s nothing wrong with that, but by definition, it isn’t really adding anything that can’t also be done on ham. In a similar vein, the only direction to go in terms of enhancing its capabilities is further into ham.

And no, I didn’t spend a bunch of time doing anything. People vastly overestimate the complexity of the ham radio exams.

But by all means, use what you want to communicate. I’m not trying to dissuade anyone from it – I just think it’s important that they know the limitations of the device compared to the greater whole in which it exists.

It allows for worldwide comms, even in situations where entire infrastructures cease to exist. This is especially useful for emergency situations.

There are many, many digital modes on ham radio. The encryption question is one of legality – not capability. But the short answer is yes, you can do various things with data on ham radio.

I guess it’s a question of the level of disaster / political strife / etc which causes the internet to no longer be usable.

Edit: worth noting that mesh is effectively a kind of ham radio device, which uses some ham spectra and can be subject to the same rules about encryption (it is specifically illegal in the US to use “messages encoded for the purpose of obscuring their meaning”, FCC Title 47 Section 97.113). Digital signing, for example, does not violate this.

The only reason you don’t need a license for mesh is because it is using specific, reduced power transmissions and specific parts of the spectra. Adjusting these settings beyond the acceptable range (e.g. boosting output power) would mean you need a license just like any other ham device.

Here’s an example of intercepting and transmitting mesh content using an off-the-shelf ham radio SDR.

Radtel RT-880 comes to mind. Baofeng-level handheld capable of HF comms. I got one for ~$50.

Could be. I expect the commenter would clarify.

I expect they also used ham. It’s just a numbers game. Mesh doesn’t have them in comparison.

I’d love to know where a ham test is difficult.

Which “people”?