Shortwave HF Station: Filling in the gaps

I hadn’t heard of the Cothen system, sounds interesting.
It might also be beneficial to have hams setup UHF/VHF nodes in their towns that transmit data pulled from the outernet satellites or the HF modes.

So for example I could have a receive station in my town with a VHF rig about 200’ up on a tower that could then transmit this data over AX25 (much faster mode) where the range could be increased to cover several counties or in the case of using the 6 meter band possible the whole state.

Yes. Exactly. These set ups could be leased too (similar to leasing solar panels and wind generators to power agencies). Rent would cover maintenance and such by the amateur radio operator. I would think these stations would be great for being primary nodes to/from satellite based data. I like the AX25 idea.

I know of the COTHEN system because of my experience with using Ham ALE (http://hflink.com/). If you have the proper antenna configuration, a quick tuning apparatus, and a radio, establishing links can be done. This allows for optimal conditions depending on which band propagation is favoring. Using the data modes like packet is great because the system will tell you if conditions are getting worse, data will stop, the software will QSY the radio to a better band, and data will pick up where it left off. I assume COTHEN works in the same fashion.

What is the total cost of a cheap, long-range and autonomous node?

Are we talking HF shortwave or long wave UHF/VHF stuff?

For a local town node I’d say under $300 if you have somewhere high up to mount it.

Another U.S. amateur checking in here (KU7PDX)!

I love the idea of supplementing Outernet by utilizing HF (aka shortwave) frequencies. Yep, data is fairly slow with typical technologies (packet radio, PSK31, RTTY, etc), however there is always room for experimentation!

One item that us amateurs should keep in mind though is that the FCC requires that our transmissions be directed toward other amateurs (the “no broadcasting” rule). There wouldn’t be anything wrong though with something like a licensed amateur receiving the satellite signal, then sending a digital “QST” of sorts to other amateurs on HF that would receive the data and then make it available on a wireless access point.

I’ll definitely keep following this thread, thanks!

Sure, as long as you’re making a good faith effort to speak to other licensed amateurs, I don’t see any issues. And if a few Lanterns happen to be listening in at the same time, well, there’s not much that can be done about that.

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Does this include power and leasing for the space? I’m sure there are a lot of repeater owners who could provide cost for renting a tower and shelter for equipment.

What is everyone’s thoughts on solar or wind power?

Welcome @DarkStar!

Thanks for your input. I think Outernet is looking for suggestions on strategy. The Ham community could offer up a lot of advice on what modes and technologies are available for Outernet to use in supplementing satellite data. I wouldn’t worry so much about FCC regulations on broadcasting as I’m sure Outernet will worry about the licensing needed to broadcast data over HF. I certainly don’t think this community would expect Hams to break the law.

On that note, what steps has the Outernet community taken to ensure that there is band allocated for this network?

Correct. Neither Outernet nor any volunteers will be breaking any American laws in the countries where we operate.

We will begin HF transmissions in January. The modulation schedule will be MFSK, though we’ll be experimenting with others. Basically, this will be a similar demonstration of the work of Dr. Kim Elliot of Voice of America’s Radiogram service.

We should cover most of African and all of the US. The bitrate will be 60 bps to start out, but we’ll be experimenting with different waveforms to increase the speed.

Great Discussion Syed,

But it does point out one inevitable fact of efficiently distributing data in a heterogeneous low bit rate environment. Band width is band width. Success lies in how efficiently your users can receive the data they need and heterogeneously redistribute it via another mode! Geo / Meo / Leo Satellite,Meshed WiFi, Cellular, Internet, HF, SD card or smoke signals;)

Ultimately all the data we depend on is meshed via heterogeneous connections and storage at every level of it’s distribution and use. It is thus very important to build efficient meshed delivery and storage mechanism upon which an unthinkable number distribution channels can be efficiently exploited.

Efficiently meshed storage can thus overcome many of the problems your posters have focused on such as the timeliness of large software distributions by incorporating automatic meshed data de-duplication which not only reduces storage requirements but also automatically limits meshed transmissions to only the changed parts of the new distributions to be transmitted.

Yes you “eventually” need to transmit the “whole” distribution for “new” users but that could take place by pre-loading all your library receivers with the big stuff users will need to first get up and running and then subsequently stay up to date.

But that’s the point, once you have real meshed and de-duplicated storage at the core of your service you also have the flexibility to address the very wide range of challenges faced by an even wider range of potential users in uniquely challenged environments that you can not yet predict.

Luckily for you most of these meshed de-duplicated storage capabilities are already available via opensource projects.

Syed,

It should also be understood that different modes might carry information unique to that modes priorities and or legal limitations.

Thus a great deal of weather information might be obtained via HF weather fax with the right SDR (software defined radio) demodulators. While the demodulators themselves might be distributed via Satellite along with the equivalent of a reception guide that would allow SDR receivers to tune the right data at the right time.

At last check their is already >1GB/day of data being one way transmitted on various LW, MW, HF, VHF, UHF and GHz satellite frequencies around the world. A lot of that is redundant, regional or language inaccessible to those who can receive it.

The problem unconnected users have is knowing when and where to “Tune” them in even if they are not digital! That programming guide information would of course take space until it could be optimized for the region, language and or topics of interest.

Great engineers and entrepreneurs, always stand on the shoulders of those who precede them!

Delivering information is no different. New services need to first exploit as many of the existing services as possible so that we do not end up duplicating effort and cost in an effort to deliver data to the financially and communication challenged people who need it most.

Think Broadly,
Then Implement specific solutions with the greatest impact!