Please dont change. I come to this channel to learn the "boring" stuff. You have open my eyes to a lot of things I haven't even thought about. Just an amazing place to learn.
My buddies and I used to "encrypt" our messages over radio when we were younger. We had matching dictionaries and would code individual words with page numbers and the word would be the second number going down the page, separated by a dash. Messages would just be jotted down on paper during xmit and rcv to keep translating easy, short and concise over the waves. We also had universal codes, like an emergency would be a string of ninety nines, an urgent message would be proceeded by a string of zeroes, and a routine transmission would just be five clicks of the ptt to get your attention. Sure, maybe not great for every situation, but it was just neighborhood fun back then.
@@TheMajorActual NSA's Echelon would beg to differ on the security of book codes. Still though, they are certainly better than nothing, and if things have gone so far to hell that the NSA is trying to wipe all comms, we probably won't be using electronic comms anyways. Carrier pigeons coming back in 2023?
Maybe I'm just weird, but at this point in the game, the "entertaining" tactical stuff around plate carriers, rifles, and other coolguy HSLD stuff just isn't all that interesting to me because its simple to understand. The more nuanced stuff like this fascinates me. Comms, camouflage, logistics, intel, opsec, landnav; this stuff gets the old juices flowing, and is way more useful than which trigger or cummerbund to buy. I am super glad that you guys, and others like you are putting this kind of info out there. Keep up the amazing work.
Also, what I've found, is that those bases are covered. Checklist items completed. I'll never understand people's constant obsession. If you're older than 25 you should be done with the quality rifle, pistol, EDC, and Armour.
Not weird, honestly those things will keep you alive longer unless you're main plan is to be a direct fighting force then the other stuff may be better first. But it's still wise to have at least a small group whose goals are stealth and surveillance to gather Intel and pass it along to the fighting groups. Having every person trained in everything, equipped with all the good stuff just doesn't make sense in the big picture.
For me, it's that those are already done. I know what makes a good rifle, what makes a good rig, what makes a good plate carrier, ect. And end of the day, those are also very individual, anyway. This stuff, I don't know and I don't know anyone else who knows. This is information underutilized
I second this. Everyone and their uncle has beat the "tacticool" horse to death, and while they're entertaining, not much info is really new. This info is the type that you don't really learn many places and it's not as intuitive,which is why you can train a retard to shoot well but you can't teach a retard to set up different cells and logistics/infrastructure
DSTAR on a bizarro freq works well for short DPRS (DSTAR APRS) bursts sending AES-256-encrypted text files and short unencrypted digital voice comms. DSTAR never really caught on here in the U.S. despite Icom and Kenwood trying to push it and the chip shortage has really exacerbated things to the point where Kenwood just killed off their entire DSTAR-capable HT line and Icom only has a single HT using it. And since DSTAR uses different encoding from every other digital radio spec like the ubiquitous DMR, C4FM, and now P25 the only thing that can really decode it are other DSTAR amateur radios or special-purpose-built USB decoder boards that no one builds because AMBE chips are hard to get now. And unless the eavesdropping DSTAR radio is modded to work on the same bizarro freq you're using, you're pretty much invisible to the atrocious sad hams that never mod their radios to do this. While DSTAR is an "open spec" it requires an AMBE chip to decode and thanks to the chip shortage, there's only a single expensive DSTAR HT you can buy now and it's a low quantity. And it takes know-how on how to configure a special USB AMBE breakout board to decode any captured transmissions, something the locals just won't put time or effort into. For quick-n-dirty use one can use any of the Yaesu System Fusion digital HTs on a bizarro freq using C4FM. The Yaesu FT-70DR is dual-band C4FM digital and only $175 right now and can be modded fairly easily. But to get really, really down-n-dirty, just use a Raspeberry Pi-powered digital hat powered by a 24000mAh battery pack tethered to a burner smartphone in your backpack or open wifi AP at any coffee shop and have the Pi running MMDVM to connect to an overseas VoIP server running Shark RF's open-sourced Connector Protocol Server via encrypted VPN. Set the HT to super-low-power (like .3 watts) and good luck being found when on the move...unless they know your burner smartphone IMEI and track you that way. Fairly secure world-wide voice comms that way. Or go full-bore paranoid and start using Icom's super-expensive Voice-over-Satellite HTs they just came out with - that's AES-256 encrypted from the HTs themselves all the way to the server you can set up and install pretty much anywhere on the planet. That takes a LOT of money. Eventually someone's going to roll their own AES-256 encryption board for digital ham radio HTs/mobiles and then the fun really begins. Right now on my desk sits an AMBE USB board and speaker/mic setup that allows me to talk through DSTAR, DMR, and System Fusion repeaters across the planet using MMDVM I cross-compiled for Windows and doesn't use "the airwaves" at all. And it can even connect to Shark RF's IP connector protocol server software via VPN. The company that made the hardware stopped making it many years ago so it's kind of security-via-obsolescence. Folks can talk to me via their internet-connected repeaters but they don't know *exactly* where I am thanks to the use of random VPN providers. So many rabbit holes, so little time.
Anytone makes a DMR radio with AES-256. Hytera will also sell you AES upgrades where Motorola will not for DMR. As far as obscurity with no encryption goes, if you know what you're doing, what you're looking for, and have the software you can buy old Harris radios with Aegis digital voice. DSD or any other software defined receiver cannot decode unencrypted Aegis. DSD can't even decode the newer (later 90's tech) conventional ProVoice, only trunked ProVoice.
I’m going to google every little thing you said, but if you have a moment, are there resources or links you can provide so I can deep dive and rabbit hole my life away to get a better understanding of this and try it out myself? I’d appreciate any info, thank you!
S2 barely touched on this, but there are other forms of encryption that don't rely on technology- One Time Pads (OTP) and coded language. An example, the North Korean Numbers Stations, which occasionally say things like "Homework update for our distant education students: Work problems 72, 86,97 and 51". The numbers correlate to values on an one time pad, containing explicit instructions (Ex, maybe 51 = " get updated intel package from dead drop"). Coded language is even easier and kids used to do it all the time, example lets say you and your crew agree that saying "We are going to Jimmys for Pizza" means actually that "x location is no longer secure, go to secondary site"; despite the communication being innocuous and even irrelevant to an outsider, those who know now can take action. None of these systems are perfect of course (no system is) but can be helpful if dealing with substandard equipment / limited training / etc.
Readily-available books make good one-time-pads. Bigger books make for better pads. And periodicals, like magazines and newspapers can be used as rotating pads.
We were taught how to make pin wheel alphanumeric codes in 4th grade, in the early 60s, they work easily and if the code is changed each use, there're unbreakable.
@@SuperCulverin Actually, literature based one time pads are less secure than you think. As a practical code system, it is effective, but it is not secure against NSA Echelon with fast literature search which can actively break it.
@@ohioelevation9871 if there is any governance, it needs to be in service to the people, not working against their freedoms. That's all I'm trying to say.
@@ohioelevation9871 in a Storm you want to find the People who help ans they who news help so staing undercover dies not help (only agianst Raiders) also the goverment is teaching it in the military you van Jo in dem Lesen it nur you cours her Killed for something you dont stand for
1. What you communicate 2. Who you communicate to 3. Who might be listening? What frequency do you use? * By operating on bands & frequencies less people use you increase your op-sec 1. VHF/UHF - Most common band 2. HF radio - less common with the general populace, very common with HAMS, very long range 3. 6m,8m, 1.25 bands - less common HAM bands 4. 700/800/900 MHz - far way from traditional VHF/UHF bands, but becoming more popular. 5. Oddbal frequencies - e.g hiding within bands Analog vs Digital * Analog signals - can not be encrypted & this relates to the vast majority of hobby & amateur use. Analog radios are the most common type of radios. * Digital signals - digital radios are more expensive, need a licence & are hard to build repeaters for Op-sec & Encryption 1. "Privacy tones" - do NOT use these (CTCSS codes, PL tones). You can still be heard by others even though you can't hear them! 2. Digital modes - digital modes can't be heard on analog radios, but analog radios can be heard by both analog & digital radios. Thus, the people who can listen to you on a digital radios is far less than those on analog radios. 3. Trunked - are not encrypted but use complex digital modes making it very hard for civilians to hear even if they are using a digital radio. Often favoured by police departments. 3. Proprietary encryption - Not easy to verify as it's usually closed source (e.g. 128 bit, 40 bit). 4. AES-256 - The Gold standard, not crackable. I'm starting my journey into amateur radio purely for SHTF purposes. As such I don't intend to outlay a lot of money (initially) into this endeavour. Also, no-one else in my family has any experience in comms so I need something easy to use. As such, I have decided upon a set of Bofeng UV-5R radios with Abree 24" antennas & the larger 3800 mA batteries. I think the only thing I can do during SHTF on my UV-5R is to use the minimum required power, use short transmission, stay away from "Privacy tones" & use more obscure frequencies. I don't want to invest in a digital radio.
I want to say this. People need to start paying attention to force multipliers. Communications is one primary form of a force multiplier. Most people think this stuff is rocket science, and it kind of is...but its not all that hard. You just have to study a bit. One important thing to note about DMR...functionally you MUST have a technicians license to use them because you need a radio ID to program your phone. In order to get a radio ID you need that license. no way around it that I am aware. Additionally, if you want to make it difficult to be radio "found" transmit with lower power on higher frequencies. Your power dictates how far you can transmit but you will be less likely to be found. Secondly, consider the frequencies you use with a certain type of antenna. NVIS provides the BEST ability to hide your location. This was the same type of protocol the military used in Vietnam and still uses today for non-direct line of sight short range comms.
@@nikanor8152 I hope its more common but I suppose not. I found S2U about 4 months ago and binge watched everything. Shared with all my trusted circles.
Being a radio op, my best advice is to first understand COMSEC and how it applies to OPSEC. Surveillance vans loaded with Mil gear exist and they are faster than triangulation. Nuff said.
@@mynameisinigomontoya8179 Yes, they used a small private plane to fly their receiving gear around. Back in those days it was the old AMPS system, which was all clear and analog, so it was not private at all.
Sounds like the best option if possible,is to somehow move into or on top of the same location as the authorities when sending transmissions.I knew a so and so who was doing something he wasn’t supposed to be doing by renting an apartment just above the location of the government authorities.
I'm 64 now and I'm more interested in Ham radio now than ever. I remember my dad telling me how helpful Ham radio can be in times of emergency. He was born in 1909, lived through the depression and served in the U.S.N.R., stationed at Dutch Harbor, Alaska during WW2. I also remember the strict requirements for a Ham from when I was a kid; you had to build your own radio set! We might as well get set for the new normal, because the good old days are really over for good.
Im 60 now. My dad would take me with him to old mining claims. No 4 wheelers or cell phones in the 70s. We had mules and cb radios and mobile ham stations. Of course I never paid attention to a lot ofthe stuff he tried to teach me. I'm very interested now in this current day. We went all over the western us and northern Mexico .
Wrong about no way to use a digital radio without a license. Motorola dtr operate in the ism band and are license by rule, no individual license required. They are even more secure than regular digital radio as they use fhss (frequency hopping spread spectrum), can send sms messages with them, talk to groups or individual radios.
You missed NVIS and how polarization can be used to mask RF. However, I applaud how you covered directional antennas. Directional antennas are hands down the best way to protect emissions. Even within that realm, there are ways to further hide RF emissions. Emission control is key...
NVIS is completely dependent on regional ionispheric conditions (so very limited range of frequencies). I park my ass on 80 meters, NVIS, day or night at my latitude, and I'm good to go. 👍
@@jacobcastro1885 can NVIS get a signal out of a creek valley, up and over a thousand foot ridge line, and into the neighboring valley 3mi away? What about 20mi, same mountainous terrain? Can an NVIS system be man, horse, or vehicle portable? Would this be considered a tactical solution, or more strategic within an AO, with individual teams running line of sight comms?
@@Flack55 yes. NVIS is signal straight up, and straight down. Might be the only thing that works in deep canyons as it is not impacted by terrain AT ALL. The only downside I've found so far is the antenna size. I can fit an 80 meter dipole with 24 guage wire in my cargo pocket, but unrolled, it's 130 ft long.
@@Flack55 portability? I have an elecraft kx3 (kx2 would be even smaller). I add a small lifepo4 battery, a little coax, solar panel and charge controller in a small little package (take it all with me on ultralight backpacking trips). I want to do my first RUclips video showcasing MY setup. Subscribe to me (along with the 3 others 🤣) and I'll try and get that out. In the meantime, check out Julian "OH8STN" on RUclips - who was my primary inspiration. 👍
i am a 1 year old amature radio operator and I have had quite a difficult time trying to understand why i need to know these other forms of communications ie. dstar ect.. ive always preferred using the old school analog radios., However given the current atmosphere of things I can see why knowing it is actually a good thing. Your method of explanation of the materials has been a TREMENDOUS help for me. So I will soldier on and get ready for my general exams. One other thing, ive always loved radio. since i was a child shortwave put me to sleep at night my parents were involved in military and commercial radio but i never got the bug. It wasnt until a couple of years ago and censorship on media that i decided to buy a cb radio- 11 meter. with ssb. OH MY GOD it was a come to jesus moment . since then ive advanced quickly with 1 of everything..LOL but i especially like the ability to travel the world and not go out of the house. loads of fun.. This topics you have been covering has been great food for thought. I am really enjoying them. Thank you for all the hard work involved in giving us better insights to the world around us..
Perhaps you can now *easily* imagine China and/or Russia, their proxies, singly or in the aggregate, or simply the already embedded military forces... a million operators, 10 million operators... of various cartels/corporations/nations who have mulit-multi billion dollar budgets for an endless supply of devastating toys, taking possession of the North American continent, and dispensing with a majority of the native population via organ harvesting, slave labor, forced breeding, or simple mass execution? Given the incompetency, corruption, vacuousness, moral bankruptcy, moral cowardice, and intellectual deficiency of federal, state and local governance and our devolution from a democratic republic, or a constitutional republic, if you'd prefer, into a fascistic state, as defined by Webster's or any other semi-competent dictionary (no individual or even collective offense meant to any organ of government or individual within any organ, I'm referring to the *systemic* *dysfunction* of the already collapsing system of governance here as evidenced, briefly, by just one of the many indicators and necessities of civilization: the rule of law, which has been in free fall within our territories for at least 22 years now... with a quick, specific example of the death of a canary in that coal mine being the loss of the right of habeas corpus, something so fundamental it is an absolutely bedrock principle upon which the rule of law established free western civilizations for many, many centuries), maybe, just maybe the competent, moral, responsible members of our society should prepare for the total collapse of said governance and military defense so that we can ourselves, out of the necessity to preserve our lives, and the lives of our loved ones, in the absence of our defeated or fallen government, effectively repel occupation by invading or already embedded, but un-activated, despotic enemy forces, whether military, corporate, facially civil, or religious... Jihad is a real thing, btw, not just a talking point for the sham media, a short review of history beginning at yesterday and going back 1,400 years should reveal all you need to know of this religious/totalitarian threat held by every devout muslim, every devout muslim nation, a group comprising over 1 billion people, who also happen to squat over most of the planet's actual free energy, petroleum, and thus have access to actual, real wealth (not just rapidly evaporating empty promises and and the equally evaporating faith upon those now fully empty promises) and resources beyond imagination. Can you make it through that paragraph? If not, try this sentence: If our nation is defeated militarily, or our currency and or system of government falls, or we are struck by a catastrophic natural event sufficient to render our military and or government incapable of functioning, maybe the responsible people of this nation should prepare to be capable of sustaining their lives, the lives of their loved ones, the lives of those in their communities until such a time that our governance and military can be re-constituted. A simple proposition to those aware enough to recognize the reality of the fragility of our systems. And specifically in response to your query, the ability to communicate locally, and at range, openly but also, at times, securely is absolutely essential to organize resources to a sufficient degree so as to achieve the above goals, that of preserving our lives, our property and the re-constitution our system of governance.
Home made dipole antennas, pretty easy.. 468 ÷ the freq you wanna talk/hear in.. Directional, horizontal/ flat side talking.. Placement.. Can be inverted.. V... alot of ways to use these.. In a vehicle, the vehicle is your GROUND plane, = antenna on the center of the roof = omni directional O.. now move the antenna to the back/trunk lid.. You now have a sort of beam = point your vehicle in the direction you want to broadcast.. There is ALOT to know about antenna's.. It has to be in frequency range for the radio your using.. Just a few things to keep in mind, our teams can drive folks crazy trying to find us, as in, your searching, has only made you a easy target.. Great show.. Good work.. The time has come for us to take our country back.. Comm folks are worth their weight in GOLD... Just to keep the others/opposition from GETTING SCHITT done.. My specialty... Life is good!!!.. Hee heee heee...
Your videos are so packed full of knowledge I feel truly fortunate I found your channel. I'm currently going to school to work on aircraft and have alot of classes on Radio communications and would like to get into it as a hobby. Especially with everything going on in this country. Communications are vital and I really appreciate all your videos. Keep it up. Thank you and God Bless you man!
I've been thinking about this a lot recently, and the reason us patriots/conservatives haven't been able to manage to accomplish much (or at least it feels like it), is because we don't have a way of communicating without being infiltrated. And I'm not just talking about things like militias, what have you. What I'm talking about is your God given right to fight for freedom without the fear of political harassment, your plans being sabotaged, etc. I really believe that communication or lack of communication in this case, is why it doesn't appear we're winning. That's why they call us the silent majority, not because most of us don't have the balls to say something (well most don't, but that's besides the point), but because when we do say something, they simply silence us. I think this might be one of the most important videos regarding how we win, so kudos to you guys for putting this out there, people really need to hear this. Keep up the good work boys. We will win.
The truth is that private platforms with secure comms do exist but you have to know the owner to trust it. Even then, guys like me can't get people to use our private systems developed precisely to combat censorship because most people are too lazy to migrate and prefer to sit in a leftist cesspool and be discriminated against. Also how do you know who to trust with everyone glowing.
@@ABPHistory should have put quotations around "conservatives". But yeah you're right, conservatives have been asleep while voting for the people who represent them
Wow incredibly educational video, here in Australia we to suffer from big brother & all our law enforcement & in some areas even fire and medical are all encrypted. Secure comms has always been front & center of my SHTF plan including using Encryption, keeping Tx's as short as possible & to a minimum, only tx'ing where possible at a predetermined time, not mentioning people or places by name but by an "Aliase" location known only by another or other group members, using split tx's & rx ( tx on 1 freq but rx on another, or tx on 1 band put rx on another band, changing tx & rx freq's anything from every day to every hr, as you mentioned keeping pwr to an absolute minimum & where appropriate & possible using very directional antennas, using data bursts where possible instead of voice & encrypting ( coding ) thoes data bursts so that they dont mran anything to anyone who may intercept these tx's as well astrying to use terrain as your friend. Some times as the old saying goes the best way to hide is to hide in plain sight where no onewould think to look for you & that might be in a portion of "another band" Im very lucky im both an amateur ( in Australia) as well as working full time in the comms industry & so have a view to & access to a lot of gear & information that very few others do. Look forward to further videos, keep up the great vids. Wayne.
I have been into radios since the 70's. I'm north of 60 now. My problem is that I will have to set it up because most, if not all that I want to communicate with would not know or have any interest in how it works, just that it does. So, I would provide the radios to them and teach them how to use them in time of need.
So I’m just gonna say this, I think that you describe the laws a little bit biased towards the prepper side, and of course, your channel aim at preppers and that’s totally awesome to give people this information! I wanna reiterate, I love your channel and I love all of the stuff you post, it’s super informational and helpful and it’s awesome that all of it is free as it should be. I do wanna say that it is illegal to use something like a baofeng on FRS frequencies but as long as you are doing it safely and not interfering with anybody, nobody will know so it really doesn’t matter. Most of the legalities to do with Ham Radio come down to interfering with legitimate transmissions. people who don’t understand radio communications on a technical level are more likely to interfere with law-enforcement, amateur communications, and other stuff. Another piece of information to add on is that the question that you asked “ will somebody be able to identify you using a different radio when you’re transmitting on a certain service? “ Just by hearing it probably not but if you use an SDR you will very quickly find you will identify what’s called spurious emissions coming out of baofengs due to them not being FCC regulated they don’t have a great quality control. They’re also is such thing as radio forensics. I personally use baofengs a lot for a lot of different reasons Because they are so inexpensive. A few more pieces of information, as I’m writing this I feel bad for being a critic, but it is misinformation, the 1.25 m band is VHF and the reason that people shouldn’t just experiment with other bands is because you probably wouldn’t want to interfere with something like the US military, which uses sections on pretty much a lot of different bands, including VHF, UHF, and a bunch of HF bands. Obviously the ones that are allocated to Ham Radio or for Ham Radio use, but if it’s not specified, it could be used for a completely different service that could be anything from commercial, military, business or first responder
there is a quasi legal way of using HF radio , its the CB band, an off the shelf one can be 8 wats, with a nice antenna can get pretty good range, some people even buy ham radio in line amplifiers and go up to double or triple digit wattage
@21:30 I get what you're saying with directional antennas but, after working on microwave communication systems for several years, I can tell you that these also have sidelobes. The sidelobes don't have the DB of the main lobe and depend on many other factors, free space loss. In any case I enjoy your videos and wish more people put the time into teaching others how fun radios can be. Thanks for all your hard work!
The name "Family factor" is such a great name for what you described. I'm a lot of the different "guys" in my family, so I get what you're talking about pretty well _and_ found the video really fun. Also, writing an open hardware standard for ecdsa radio communication might be useful
Ham here, thank you for bringing up legality and personal risk. The ham radio ban on encryption is a problem, with pros and cons in both directions. I’m not a fan of the reeeeeEEEE no encryption! hams, I think the FCC could easily make regulatory concessions in favor of technological innovation while ensuring ham radio spectrum doesn’t become invisibly commercialized by obscured/encrypted transmissions that breaks the ability for amateur spectrum to be self-policed and for non-commercial, personal use (its ***amateur*** for a reason). Idk what that looks like, but generally, most OPSEC minded radio users don’t care about regulations, nor does the FCC particularly care to police and enforce amateur/CB/FRS/GMRS/MURS/ISM spectrum unless there’s numerous complaints of interference or national security issues at play.
Thanks for all you do S2. I really like that you included your thoughts on the "boring stuff" at the end. I didn't find the content boring, but I do struggle with staying focused on learning new things that I don't have a good understanding of that are really important to know. Just having you discuss it is a good reminder to do better.
I used to love to listen to the police and fire radio but they've prevented us from hearing any of it in the past few years. It's a shame because I used listening to those radio calls as part of my training when I became an EMT. I ended up working with the fire department and with an ambulance company too so I was working with these people, but there's no way to listen at home anymore. It sucks because I did buy a fairly expensive radio, not even one to transmit but just to listen (I'm no pubic speaker so I'd rather not transmit anyway). Anyway, sometimes you don't get much of in emergency services training is handling the radios and it really does new people a disservice that they can't listen to the calls now. For anyone who is studying to work in emergency services and can still listen to their local police and fire radios, here's what I did during my training: I would listen to the call and pretend like I was going to be on the ambulance or fire engine responding to the call. First thing would be to think of any safety concerns involved with the call. Will you need to block traffic in the case of a traffic accident? Is there any potential for there to be dangers to you already on scene (like active shooters, potentially explosive fires, HAZMAT spills)? The cops will usually have to stage away from the scene in that case but it's still something you should be thinking about in case you end up there first or they don't end up staging you. What issues are you likely to be dealing with on scene? In my case, what are the sorts of injuries you might expect to be treating? Will you need to extricate someone? What is the nature of the fire you're going to if it's a fire? What sort of building is on fire or what sort of terrain has a wild fire on it? Where are the nearest hospitals to the scene, particularly the nearest trauma 1 hospital? These should all be things you think of when you hear the call and as you are going to the location to deal with it. Because I had practiced with the scanner, I was immediately one of the best people among my colleagues at showing up on scene with a potential game plan already in mind and, in emergency medicine, time is life so you are more effective if you already have some idea what you'll be dealing with BUT you also must keep in mind that actual incidents are their own beast so you have to think of a few potentiality before you get there and you have to be able to improvise quickly when something isn't what you had imagined on your way to the call.
I live in Phoenix and I had a police scanner when I was 13. I listen to that thing daily and loved it. Also listening to air traffic from sky harbor until I was about 30. That’s when Phoenix PD switched to digital. I bought a digital scanner and for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out how to program it, so I paid someone to program it. Then I could never understand the conversations you said, in this video that they’re clear it was yak exact opposite for me they were garbled communication. Also, with the analog, every precinct had a channel and then there was a specific channel for emergency traffic channel 1. Are they called it chase so when a Thon went out on the precinct channel, they would have everyone switch to channel 1 that was going to be on the emergency traffic call and I would switch to one and follow it from there. I could hear all sides of the conversation. All that ended with the digital scanner. I paid $700 for that thing never once was able to follow a conversation and ended up selling it for $400 on eBay later. I’m so disappointed I tried to find someone to help me with it. No one seems to know anything about it.
The LE agencies are all migrating to Project 25 with encryption. The quality of the radio traffic is terrible, even on department equipment. The only good thing about it is you don't hear as much background noise, but I almost always considered that useful information, so not necessarily an improvement.
Was waiting for this video S2U. My Grandfather was a "Ham" before there was an FCC. You should have heard him go on about how the people own the frequencies..not the damned government. He was the primary reason I became a ham and (later) an electrical engineer. I share the same sentiment. Most people that are walking the earth today have never known a time when Federalism was very small and didn't impact their lives. Today we have half our paychecks taken from us before we ever get our hands on our earned wages and we are told what, when, and where we can operate on the radio.
Man I could get so far into the weeds with all this, using speech to text for DMR text, using directional antennas mounted on servos for real time tracking with something like ATAK with multiple means of uploading positions, paired some of the cool stuff being done with SDRs. Cool projects for years, for science of course
Pumped for the hardware analysis, android devices with onboard vhf/uhf modules (mostly Chinese chipsets unfortunately) should be capable of a wide array of frequency coverage, given that it is also a GSM/ CDMA "phone". Rooted devices with custom firmware radios are potentionally very capable (for emergencies of course 😁)
My question is. 256bit encryption can be done by a symple circuit (no need to have a huge computer) and its rather fast. I'd wager its possible to build some sort or rasberry pi circuit that interfaces between your PTT and the radio, to turn your voice signal into an encrypted signal, and then the radio just emits that. The reverse function could be applied to the same circuit, making it so you can hear and receive encrypted, and a pass through mode can be applied easily (such as the signal having a "code at the begining" that tells the system "this is encoded, decode it") or otherwise pass it through. With a simple keyboard, you could input a salt "random key of characters" that gets added to the encryption. Sure, maybe its the size of a baofeng battery or a small baofeng, but it could be a viable way to turn "analog" radios into encrypted ones.
I’ll tell you. It’s none of the fcc business how or what I say on my radio. Never was. That’s called government overreach. If I want to use code words I will.
Mark you and your fcc bootlicker friends have the same energy of some kid saying hes a veteran call of duty player who should deserve the same respect as a navy seal 😂😂
As a licensed amateur (HAM) radio operator, I just want to add, I couldn't give a flying f*** at a rolling donut who uses these frequencies, license or no. For me, part of the licensing process was the learning enough about radio to be able to more fully use ham radio, so that was worth the effort. Ham can be complicated, but if someone is willing to put in the hours to learn how to use it, first, a license is kind of a no-brainer, but secondly, they would be good enough with radios to not be a pain in the ass on said radio. ** If I were unlicensed and wanted to use any ham radio for local, unsecure coms, I'd look into the 2 meter band. The equipment is relatively cheap, very available and quite simple to use. Of course, that would be illegal, and we wouldn't want to do that, would we ;)
This is one of those videos of his that you watch at first for the fascination. THEN you watch over and over again for the value of reference that he had put into this video.The "gospel" is right here 30:50 Thank you S2. 💯
As much as I love CB and use it personally for practical local LOS communications, the coming solar cycle is going to be hell on it for that purpose. 11 meters can go from being a great LOS band that can cut through trees and shoot long distances with little power, to being overwhelmed by skywave transmissions interfering with those you are trying to talk to. But I digress, it is unlicensed and certainly is HF.
Regarding encryption, can't you just use SDR? OR, you could use a small microprocessor (or an old phone) plugged into your baofengs mic/speaker and use _it_ to encrypt and decrypt your analog signal. You could even use obscure encryption methods like elliptical or DHKE. Not even to mention LoRa (basically spread spectrum digital mode, ridiculously high range but a very large bandwidth usage and small data rate). Since you can lower the output power and still get a good range, the transmission is gonna look like background noise and might be a bit harder to DF. Of course, it's gonna look hella sus on a waterfall but it might not even get detected if you use "illegal" bands which nobody monitors. For example: between airband and 2M ham (~136-144 MHz) which is mostly used for sattelites.
That's some good info! The moment I bought baofangs for my family, I realized I needed to upgrade. I'm not a coms guy but how else are we going to communicate when 💩 goes down? Anyway, I'm ready for the next step from you guys. Keep up the great work!
Frequency hopping is also doable as long as it’s pre arranged, especially using radios capable of multiple bands. Normally scanners scan in a linear fashion one band at a time, but if you hop bands and frequencies it becomes harder to follow. However, secure communications is always a crap shoot. Just ask anyone who has had to update code keys. Send a it via courier for true security. Hahaha 🤣
@4:32 "To HAMS, everything is illegal". That made me chuckle and is mostly true. HAM ops always chime in on sites selling these UHF/VHF Chinese knockoffs about how bad they are for the airwaves and how the FCC hasn't blessed them for use in the United States. But when questioned why they lobbied the FCC to drop the CW requirement for a license, they get all defensive. IMO, once the CW requirement was dropped, being a HAM operator just wasn't as cool as it used to be and just became a hobby if anything. Heck, most don't even use the phonetic alphabet anymore. DX'ng HF nowadays only gets you conversations about the size of their antennas.
LOL. Well, publicly, certainly, hams tend to be 'super legal' because if they don't their license might disappear. CW is a poor choice. The ONLY reason it was ever a requirment (once telephony and other modes were mature) is because the SOLAS (Safety Of Life At Sea) radio system was morse based and hams were expected to be a part of that network, and as such, were required to be able to read and send CW. SOLAS formally abandoned morse completely in favour of satellite based systems, so it was a hangover from when it was necessary. Many hams love it and use it, but it's no longer compulsory because there is no good reason for it to be compulsory. Many modes are at least as effective at transmitting intelligence at relatively low data rates with or without encryption in some form as CW. Consequently most nations no longer require the use of CW but still allow it. I've yet meet a ham that didn't know at least one of the phonetic alphabet systems. As ex ATC, I use the ICAO/NATO version, but others seem to be in use in the US for some reason. There are many digital modes that are somewhat obscure and in fact largely indistinguishable from noise and so have a significant degree of resistance to casual monitoring. They could also be used to send a message encrypted with any number of systems. For many people, digital modes themselves are basic encryption, for instance, someone listening to a Hellschreiber signal would sound like something random to most people. You would either need to be technical enough to analyse the signal and figure out what it is, or know what it is and where to find it and the software to decrypt it. That alone requires some technical knowledge, as Hell is either using a mechanical device like the original WW2 German system or these days, a way to feed audio from a radio to a computer for software decoding. But it's not 'encryption' per se - perfectly lawful to use digital modes (even far more subtle and computer specific ones) as a ham on ham frequencies. So there are ways....
@@ShermanAviation SDR is a cool chapter in communications that allows everyone to get a taste of what the airwaves offer w/o dropping a chunk of change on a radio trying to decide if they like it or not. Think of it as just listening in on your neighbors. DX'ng is a time consuming process but listening to people chat who are hundreds or thousands of miles away is kinda cool. I learned morse code in Coast Guard radioman school back in the early 80s. I still copy it today. Not a "ham" op but I still listen in using a couple of desktop receivers and an SDR receiver.
When it comes to legality and radio, I've found that literally no one cares so long as you don't step on anyone that is using a licensed service. Also, there are those HAMs that think they are the rf band police. These guys are insufferable. Don't be thay guy, HAMs. Also, poor man's HF is USB and LSB CB. I have some very nice P25 VHF/UHF/700/800MHz with high end AES-256 encryption that my buddies and I use for work and for chit chat. Would recommend if you can afford it. I work for that company you discussed. We don't care who has the radios, secondhand or not. It's the trunking operators, the state or local governments that don't want their used radios on the market so have been destroying them. At least, that's how it is in my area. YMMV for different areas. Nice work on this video.
Can't wait to find out what you recommend for handheld/portable use. Everybody in the tac gear community uses Baofengs and the like but I'd love to find something more secure if it can be acquired legally.
Nothing like this available to us. Com cards are the best thing right now. Meshtastic is looking promising but if you're in rural areas your rf emissions will give you away anyways
@@skm9420 That's why Meshtastic needs a Tor-like store-and-forward module that can obfuscate the origin of messages and provide plausible deniability. Sure, it might cost more airtime, but maybe it's worth it to confound an adversary doing traffic analysis.
One thing I would like to do is get a Second Yeasu VX-8, but sadly, Yeasu no longer makes that radio. I DO have a VX-6 but it is only capable of operating on One Band at a time. Everybody and their dog have Police Scanners and CAN listen in on Local Repeaters or Simplex Comms. Though I personally HATE Baofengs, I can see one VERY useful attribute they have. A Pair of them can be programmed with a VHF Simplex Frequency on 2 Meters, and another Simplex Frequency on 70 CM. One transmits on the Two Meter side and the other answers back on the 440 Side. Anyone listening on a scanner will thus hear only ONE side of the communication.The reason I want a SECOND VX-8, is in order to be able to do the Same thing, but using 220 MHz and Meters for the Split. Though ALSO not "perfect", there are far FEWER Scanners that can monitor the 220 Band, and where I live, even FEWER people with 220 capability. I won't get into specific detail, but there are several reason I absolutely LOVE the 220 Band!
This entire info-dump on "how to maximize radio security," will be insurmountably vital skills to know, when the shtf. As a retired Army 72E, 31L, 31R & most recently a 25U, I approve this video! "When your radio is caput, SSG Williams is afoot. Your commo ace in the hole, G.I. Joel!" (my old .mil email quote)
I operated a listening and location finding tower in Afghanistan next to the TOC. It only takes a few seconds of a radio transmitting to know the location of a transmission. In the military we use cypher and frequency hopping to secure our radio networks. Cypher will encrypt our communication. Frequency hopping keeps us from being jammed, located and also keeps prying ears from hearing. I am assuming Freq hopping is illigal for civilians, true? The concept is easy and I would be surprised if a decent hardware hacker hasn't done yet. You just need a lookup table with all the frequencies that the radios will hop to and the interval of time between hops. All the radios need a clock with the time synced so they jump to the same frequency together. If it is illegal I don't know what the governments reasoning would be other than control. You aren't going to be on any one frequency long enough to cause interference.
Your best way of using normal radio is to have agreement with your contact intended people. If you have four groups of people you normally want to contact separately, tell them to listen for you on your specific channel -- all pre arranged--on the hour to 10 minutes after the hour, every hour. Tell group 2 to listen for you 15 minutes after the hour and for 20 minutes after the hour. Give Group 3 and Group 4 their specific times for listening. That way each group can save their batteries by having their radios turned off until the coming of their specific hour window. Then you know where group 2 is and you can customize your comments for their location-- for example to get some red cans of gas and hold it for you. You can identify children in specific groups also to hold down excited chatter. If you tell the person receiving in each group the kind of code word or phrase you will use and that way speak more or less in your own personal hey prearranged words. For example, you and Group 4 know they have a brand new baby so you can say "tell the baby blah blah blah," everybody in Group 4 that by telling the baby information or directions you're really talking to the whole group== just reasonable thoughts like that can confuse listeners who don't know you and don't know what your plans are because you coded it under that kind of coding. If you were to say " tell Bob to put the tomatoes in the bag beside my mailbox" anyone who knows your voice and your mailbox can go steal those tomatoes before you can get there. If you use some kind of obvious but coded language to the other people you already know-- then you can keep secrecy without using elaborate phrases.
Your last comments about entertainment and information, spot on! It's easy to think you are ready for what ever bad times because you see how someone shoots beer cans or armour plate... but think of the US army: For every war fighter on a front line shooting at bad guys, there are 8 to 10 staff backing them up, communication, food, logistics, intelligence, mapping, payments, training... so all this knowledge is possibly more important than actually going to shoot an enemy - as without this knowledge to back you up... you won't be able to! Proficiency in shooting and close combat are good to know, but things like how to make shelter, where to find meds, how to possibly make meds from natural sources, understanding the weather, observation, and how to avoid getting into a fight in the first place if it can be avoided, and not getting found, all with keeping a link with your friends in the same situation are all skills that you need to master!
Two other possibilities.. use low power just enough to get your message to the person you are targeting and use a directional antenna so that you're not transmitting omnidirectional if you know the exact direction of the person you're trying to reach you can use a directional beam antenna and low power or just enough power.. another possibility is to take a portable ie walkie talkie .. and attach a simplex repeater put it in an area between you and the person you're trying to transmit to.. a simplex repeater is a small inexpensive device that records and retransmits.. you can hook this up to a portable or a base station radio..... This can be placed up high or in a strategic location between you and the person you want to communicate with.... Another way is to transmit on one frequency on one end of the band and receive on another frequency on a different side of the band.. someone hearing the transmission will only get one side of the conversation...
I love that you guys push the envelope with the 1st amendment. Too many people are scared to just say how things work because we've been conditioned to replace that with how to comply with tyranny. At the same time it's important to remember that just because the government says you shouldn't doesn't always mean it's more effective. Usually yes, it does mean exactly that but not always. For example AR15s. Military M4s are usually not even as good as a standard AR, the SBR restriction on barrels under 16" is not even a big deal because the 5.56 has optimal performance from a 20" barrel, cqb with a 20" really isn't a big deal, and collapsible buttstocks are neat for ergonomics but way less sturdy than a fixed stock (if it doesn't pass the "push up test" it's not a good stock and forget using the rifle as a melee weapon). Sometimes these restrictions are designed to unconstitutionally decrease your effectiveness, other times the restrictions are just nonsense to appease psychotic anti gunners.
S2 the boring stuff is where it’s at the ones who need this knowledge are watching quietly build our capabilities and fitness. Salute to you for leading forward ✊🏽
Yes, that is true but depending on the population with no power people might just get cranky or engage in full on rioting/looting/arson. Further. The government is much more dependent on electricity. If you deprive them of their infrastructure it becomes a numbers game.
Think about it: If SHTF I would not use radios of any kind to get help, there won't be any, just folks looking to take what you have. Rely only on those you already know in your circle, etc. Instead I'd use scanners to listen to what everyone else is doing and what's happening. I have all bands/channels in this area programmed. I also use the 'signal stalker' feature on one radio to pick up 'danger close' radios & personnel, ie, those that may encroach my ranch fence lines. Using Ham radio to talk to pple 200 miles away is pointless. To talk to family all over the ranch when SHTF, we're considering 49 Mhz band, no one uses it due to low power limits, so no one is listening either. We're looking at 49Mhz AM radios built for .5W to 2W ERP with off-channel freq's. CB, FRS or GMRS is like a white flag on your front door! Imho.... comments??
Great video. Folks in the comments... anyone messing with the TRI 152 clone? It seems like a promising radio that does some cool things but the firmware really needs some attention I'm finding. Really wanting to make it a more viable option.
Get yourself a HackRF and learn GNU Radio, study QPSK modulation and over the air rekeying with ECIES, you know the rest. Make sure if you use symmetric ciphers like AES-256 you also use something like CFB (maybe GFB or GCM) and not ECB and have a good ICV. Also, look into stream ciphers (you don't have to use block ciphers), steganographic techniques and study digital signatures for trust scenarios (something you have and something you know and something your friend knows). You can take the least significant bits of measurements of noise as a good source of informational entropy. If you absolutely have to, you can use your rpi as a transceiver too (you can bork the clock to generate modulated RF). If youre in a war zone then use a directional (ideally logarithmic) antenna to bounce off a reflector (can even be terrain) at low power. Digital modes actually work better at lower power anyway. Old routers can be reflashed and set up to be mesh networks, lookup OpenWRT and 6lowpan. The ground can also act as a medium in multiple ways.
Should do M17(digital radio), OpenRTX(3rd party HT firmware w/ M17) content, its got a lot of modes coming along nicely, and is in pistar/mmdvm, and more...great content :) keep it up
32:17 don't worry, the ones who suffer through that boredom to learn something for life and there are people out there who actually care about this subject. Also I'd like to add something more asymmetrical to comms. Naming. If you have a lot hills around you, don't reference them by their geographic names but make something up that is listed somewhere and only your boys will understand. Like "Hill Chupacabra". Unless the enemy has the list they wil be very cunfused. Anyways, that was a great video and I appreciate you taking your time to blast this content out there and there are actually many around who care. This is the internet, you can easily get together likeminded individuals instead of searching hard in real life.
This is an excellent channel with very useful information. Thank you for the time and effort in creating this content! I haven't been able to read all the previous 485 comments, but there seems to be a security issue not mentioned. If you are a licensed amateur radio operator and operating "legally" according to FCC rules, using your call sign immediately reveals your name and address in government and amateur radio databases. This is common knowledge to most licensed users, but may result in unexpected exposure to security leaks when getting tech savvy but ignoring the obvious basics. This goes out the window when poop hits the appliance. Keep learning!
If you are facing a legitimate situation where communication is important it may be worth taking some time to think about the value of transmission vs the risk of interception. I saw a really basic example of this when I was young on the soccer field. It was a little surprising to me to find that it was almost always better to call out a communication to a team member even though our adversary could easily understand what we were saying. I would have thought communicating would increase the effectiveness of the other team, but the game was usually moving too quick for them to do anything with any information they intercepted. I haven't thought through every scenario in a military context but I would guess that more tactical communications have a much higher value to transmit regardless of interception potential, whereas more strategic communication may start to tilt the other way. Anyway this is something worth considering; if your choices are unsecured coms or no coms, when does the value of the coms outweigh the security risk.
Yup spot on. If someone was trying to find your location, not talking on a radio is a good plan. You could use a low power radio to rebroadcast with elevated high power repeaters mind you. They would find the repeaters and your general location but not pinpoint the person transmitting. You could communicate long distances with a 2w radio.
CTCSS codes are great if you have radios for young children. They can hear me and I can hear everyone, but my kids don't hear strangers. Still not private really, just isolated from the wider world.
In your conclusion, I definitely know the difficulties of your point about the entertainment of a subject very well. Unfortunately, most of the people who talk about communications are really old people using obsolete setups, and there's also a giant crowd of really cringey people no one wants to hear the opinion of even if they're right. Your attention to your appearance is key to getting people to buy in to what you have to say. I am a big fan of Software Defined Radio as the future for what people are going to naturally do in radio communications. Hit me up if you have questions.
@@coolerking7427 Sometimes it is. Other times low tech is the more expensive, more complex, worse option. SDR vs older forms of MOD/DEMOD is like LED vs incandescent.
A note on direction finding in the HF band. The main benefit to HF is the absurd range you can get, because the signal can be reflected off the ionosphere. Line of sight is not a particularly good use of HF. VHF/UHF is going to be your better bet there. With HF, good luck accurately direction finding, since the incoming signal is probably coming from the sky. You can probably get a vague direction, but depending on the band, it could be hundreds or maybe thousands of miles away. Then there's this wonderful think called Near Vertical Incidence Skywave (NVIS). With this, you send the signal straight up, and it comes straight back down. You can use this to get communications inside of a few hundred miles, and it doesn't care about mountains, because it's going over them. But if you DF an NVIS signal, it's going to look like it's coming from space.
Clearly things are the exact opposite between the Netherlands and the US. Our National Police uses what is known as the P2000 network, a Motorola-based 256 bits AES encrypted communication network which they share with ambulance and fire services as well. In fact I'm surprised that apparently police in the US isn't allowed to use full encryption because of transparency reasons, and that's why they only rely on trunked radio. Here the police uses trunked radio too, but only as a means of separating the secondary timing channel from the primary encrypted carrier signal, and to make it more resilient and less sensitive to jamming or interference. Meanwhile we have no such thing as a ban on encryption, civilians are free to use AES-256 with their digital radio if they so desire, or any other type of digital encryption protocol. Most if not all other (Western) European countries also use highly encrypted trunked digital radio for their emergency services, off limits to civilians. I do know there are at least a few countries where civilian access to (digital) encryption is regulated, apparently the UK is one such country where civilians don't have legal access to full strength encryption but rather are legally forced to use weakened encryption vulnerable to the government.
Good stuff, I am HAM and recognize that there is many a** holes in the hobby. In fact, I almost did not get my license because them. However, there is a lot of great HAMs, you just don't know it because they are fighting in the shade. The good thing about DMR is many of the grumpy old-times don't like it. So you will be more likely to find more open-minded radio operators. Keep up the amazing work and keep it boring!
I had an old ham tell me that I wasn’t welcome in his hobby because he had spent over $65,000 on radio gear over the last 50 years and that my $100 handy-talky and SSB shortwave was cheating.
@@willytrouble88 Yeah, I only have a technician class license so no expensive HF equipment here. I have couple of HTs and mobile unit mounted in my vehicle. If I do upgrade my license, I could only see myself getting a small DXing HF rig. I like to keep my stuff portable not some giant antenna array and thousands of dollar equipment anchored to my house.
Seriously though, HF is covered by the guys who do it all the time. They are in about every town. Just get a CB, FRS, GMRS or 2 Meter or 440 radio and usually the guy with the HF equipment can do a local relay to update people. It will be mostly listening or relaying emergency information or maybe checking on family. Make some noise on the air to congregate to one listening and emergency frequency and to initiate a contact then move off frequency for your chat. Make your frequency known to the HF guys and anyone else from your area. Best to keep towns on different frequencies to stop as much congestion. Look into getting your antennas high for distance and for cheapness use wire antennas they work just fine.
I'd be interested in a video covering your concerns and complaints around the FCC rules around amateur radio. It seems like you would be well suited to make some reasonable and thoughtful content when it comes to the FCC and frequencies citizens are able to use and how. I do understand that securing radio communications is, as you stated, for the most part, against FCC rule on amateur frequencies. Maybe it is time for some group to buy some spectrum and freely allow anyone to use it for any reason.
The Russians built their secure comms to piggy back of the invaded nation’s 3G/4G networks, but didn’t give their conscripts that memo and they destroyed every cell tower they saw. So the Russian send troops into abandoned Ukrainian phone stores to loot local Simcards. Not very bright as said network can just highlight the Simcards that became live since the invasion and are near the fighting…
22:45 Yeah, terrain's effects on radio wave propagation are notoriously squirrely to figure out, in a real-world environment. Anyone who says otherwise does not have real-world experience.
Thank you for your presentation. Well done overview of the problem. Digital mode radios using packet protocols and using AES-256, or better: a fast encoding/decoding true one-time pad with billions of bits of depth (like a DVD or usb thumb drive) is uncrackable provided the one time pad is never reused, and it is secure (not captured.) A purpose built open source SDR (software defined radio) in the form factor of a Yaesu FT-817 can fit the bill of low power, long range, man portable radio, but this is a non-trivial task. But it is what is needed.
Our group is working on local mesh networks for off grid secure/reliable communication Should have some useful additions to the knowledge base by the end of the year, hopefully sooner but things need to be vetted
@@TyMoore95503 encryption in real time is difficult with the bit rates we can utilize from the equipment available off the shelf. Then the next big step is coding an encryption algorithm that is onetime pad based (modern enigma) would be sweet to just have a box that did the encryption that just plugged into your transmitter like enigma So far civil radio encryption is the difficult part but our phones can provide sufficient enough cover with out being overly pedantic about security because big brother has the hardware to Cypher pretty much anything that's from a stock form for commercial coms that I know of so far
We're focusing on real time, that's where my point is focused from. Latency is not Acceptable because we live off grid and we have to do our own policing
You know, I was just thinking about how radio networking would work earlier today, and lo and behold, this arrived. Thanks for the great info, as always.
So basically 99% of the problems using radios are hams that feel the need to police their hobby from outsiders who don't want to have their name and address be publicly accessible.
Keep up the good work! We need more videos like this! Also your videos are interesting and fun to me at least. So when you made that statement towards the end I was like "huh what?!" I had always figured all of us were watching to the end.
![BLACK BAG - Official Trailer [HD] - Only in Theaters March 14](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Du0Xp8WX_7I/mqdefault.jpg)
Please dont change. I come to this channel to learn the "boring" stuff. You have open my eyes to a lot of things I haven't even thought about. Just an amazing place to learn.
The little details are where everyone gets hung up. These videos are gold.
I second this and I'm 22! Thank you S2 Underground for all of the amazing info you have provided! God Bless in Christ's name.
I concur
Harrumph! Harrumph!
What he said
My buddies and I used to "encrypt" our messages over radio when we were younger. We had matching dictionaries and would code individual words with page numbers and the word would be the second number going down the page, separated by a dash. Messages would just be jotted down on paper during xmit and rcv to keep translating easy, short and concise over the waves. We also had universal codes, like an emergency would be a string of ninety nines, an urgent message would be proceeded by a string of zeroes, and a routine transmission would just be five clicks of the ptt to get your attention.
Sure, maybe not great for every situation, but it was just neighborhood fun back then.
That is the most secure encryption available. Good going.
@@billryland6199
I was thinking the very same thing...coded books, decoder rings ,etc..
@@TheMajorActual NSA's Echelon would beg to differ on the security of book codes. Still though, they are certainly better than nothing, and if things have gone so far to hell that the NSA is trying to wipe all comms, we probably won't be using electronic comms anyways. Carrier pigeons coming back in 2023?
Any kind of secret codes and encription is against the law!
Maybe I'm just weird, but at this point in the game, the "entertaining" tactical stuff around plate carriers, rifles, and other coolguy HSLD stuff just isn't all that interesting to me because its simple to understand. The more nuanced stuff like this fascinates me. Comms, camouflage, logistics, intel, opsec, landnav; this stuff gets the old juices flowing, and is way more useful than which trigger or cummerbund to buy. I am super glad that you guys, and others like you are putting this kind of info out there. Keep up the amazing work.
Also, what I've found, is that those bases are covered. Checklist items completed.
I'll never understand people's constant obsession. If you're older than 25 you should be done with the quality rifle, pistol, EDC, and Armour.
Not weird, honestly those things will keep you alive longer unless you're main plan is to be a direct fighting force then the other stuff may be better first.
But it's still wise to have at least a small group whose goals are stealth and surveillance to gather Intel and pass it along to the fighting groups. Having every person trained in everything, equipped with all the good stuff just doesn't make sense in the big picture.
Medical /off grid are my main interests. But I want to learn radio it's just a bit technically intimidating.
For me, it's that those are already done. I know what makes a good rifle, what makes a good rig, what makes a good plate carrier, ect.
And end of the day, those are also very individual, anyway.
This stuff, I don't know and I don't know anyone else who knows.
This is information underutilized
I second this. Everyone and their uncle has beat the "tacticool" horse to death, and while they're entertaining, not much info is really new. This info is the type that you don't really learn many places and it's not as intuitive,which is why you can train a retard to shoot well but you can't teach a retard to set up different cells and logistics/infrastructure
DSTAR on a bizarro freq works well for short DPRS (DSTAR APRS) bursts sending AES-256-encrypted text files and short unencrypted digital voice comms. DSTAR never really caught on here in the U.S. despite Icom and Kenwood trying to push it and the chip shortage has really exacerbated things to the point where Kenwood just killed off their entire DSTAR-capable HT line and Icom only has a single HT using it. And since DSTAR uses different encoding from every other digital radio spec like the ubiquitous DMR, C4FM, and now P25 the only thing that can really decode it are other DSTAR amateur radios or special-purpose-built USB decoder boards that no one builds because AMBE chips are hard to get now. And unless the eavesdropping DSTAR radio is modded to work on the same bizarro freq you're using, you're pretty much invisible to the atrocious sad hams that never mod their radios to do this.
While DSTAR is an "open spec" it requires an AMBE chip to decode and thanks to the chip shortage, there's only a single expensive DSTAR HT you can buy now and it's a low quantity. And it takes know-how on how to configure a special USB AMBE breakout board to decode any captured transmissions, something the locals just won't put time or effort into.
For quick-n-dirty use one can use any of the Yaesu System Fusion digital HTs on a bizarro freq using C4FM. The Yaesu FT-70DR is dual-band C4FM digital and only $175 right now and can be modded fairly easily.
But to get really, really down-n-dirty, just use a Raspeberry Pi-powered digital hat powered by a 24000mAh battery pack tethered to a burner smartphone in your backpack or open wifi AP at any coffee shop and have the Pi running MMDVM to connect to an overseas VoIP server running Shark RF's open-sourced Connector Protocol Server via encrypted VPN. Set the HT to super-low-power (like .3 watts) and good luck being found when on the move...unless they know your burner smartphone IMEI and track you that way. Fairly secure world-wide voice comms that way.
Or go full-bore paranoid and start using Icom's super-expensive Voice-over-Satellite HTs they just came out with - that's AES-256 encrypted from the HTs themselves all the way to the server you can set up and install pretty much anywhere on the planet. That takes a LOT of money.
Eventually someone's going to roll their own AES-256 encryption board for digital ham radio HTs/mobiles and then the fun really begins. Right now on my desk sits an AMBE USB board and speaker/mic setup that allows me to talk through DSTAR, DMR, and System Fusion repeaters across the planet using MMDVM I cross-compiled for Windows and doesn't use "the airwaves" at all.
And it can even connect to Shark RF's IP connector protocol server software via VPN. The company that made the hardware stopped making it many years ago so it's kind of security-via-obsolescence. Folks can talk to me via their internet-connected repeaters but they don't know *exactly* where I am thanks to the use of random VPN providers.
So many rabbit holes, so little time.
Lora mesh texts with preshared keys
Wut...
Anytone makes a DMR radio with AES-256. Hytera will also sell you AES upgrades where Motorola will not for DMR.
As far as obscurity with no encryption goes, if you know what you're doing, what you're looking for, and have the software you can buy old Harris radios with Aegis digital voice.
DSD or any other software defined receiver cannot decode unencrypted Aegis. DSD can't even decode the newer (later 90's tech) conventional ProVoice, only trunked ProVoice.
What about kenwood d74a and the newly released d75a!
I’m going to google every little thing you said, but if you have a moment, are there resources or links you can provide so I can deep dive and rabbit hole my life away to get a better understanding of this and try it out myself? I’d appreciate any info, thank you!
S2 barely touched on this, but there are other forms of encryption that don't rely on technology- One Time Pads (OTP) and coded language. An example, the North Korean Numbers Stations, which occasionally say things like "Homework update for our distant education students: Work problems 72, 86,97 and 51". The numbers correlate to values on an one time pad, containing explicit instructions (Ex, maybe 51 = " get updated intel package from dead drop"). Coded language is even easier and kids used to do it all the time, example lets say you and your crew agree that saying "We are going to Jimmys for Pizza" means actually that "x location is no longer secure, go to secondary site"; despite the communication being innocuous and even irrelevant to an outsider, those who know now can take action. None of these systems are perfect of course (no system is) but can be helpful if dealing with substandard equipment / limited training / etc.
Readily-available books make good one-time-pads. Bigger books make for better pads. And periodicals, like magazines and newspapers can be used as rotating pads.
We were taught how to make pin wheel alphanumeric codes in 4th grade, in the early 60s, they work easily and if the code is changed each use, there're unbreakable.
@@SuperCulverin Actually, literature based one time pads are less secure than you think. As a practical code system, it is effective, but it is not secure against NSA Echelon with fast literature search which can actively break it.
@Nate Higgers Agreed!
@@jacksnyder7318 The Caesar's cypher? If so, that's a simple substitution cypher and can be broke.
You guys are providing an international public service. Almost like something government's are supposed to do... Thank you.
Government isn’t supposed to do this. We just think they are. That’s why we are in this mess.
@@ohioelevation9871 if there is any governance, it needs to be in service to the people, not working against their freedoms. That's all I'm trying to say.
Sad hams. Lol
@@ohioelevation9871 in a Storm you want to find the People who help ans they who news help so staing undercover dies not help (only agianst Raiders) also the goverment is teaching it in the military you van Jo in dem Lesen it nur you cours her Killed for something you dont stand for
@@nursoweilja1487 are you drunk texting?🤣
1. What you communicate
2. Who you communicate to
3. Who might be listening?
What frequency do you use?
* By operating on bands & frequencies less people use you increase your op-sec
1. VHF/UHF - Most common band
2. HF radio - less common with the general populace, very common with HAMS, very long range
3. 6m,8m, 1.25 bands - less common HAM bands
4. 700/800/900 MHz - far way from traditional VHF/UHF bands, but becoming more popular.
5. Oddbal frequencies - e.g hiding within bands
Analog vs Digital
* Analog signals - can not be encrypted & this relates to the vast majority of hobby & amateur use. Analog radios are the most common type of radios.
* Digital signals - digital radios are more expensive, need a licence & are hard to build repeaters for
Op-sec & Encryption
1. "Privacy tones" - do NOT use these (CTCSS codes, PL tones). You can still be heard by others even though you can't hear them!
2. Digital modes - digital modes can't be heard on analog radios, but analog radios can be heard by both analog & digital radios. Thus, the people who can listen to you on a digital radios is far less than those on analog radios.
3. Trunked - are not encrypted but use complex digital modes making it very hard for civilians to hear even if they are using a digital radio. Often favoured by police departments.
3. Proprietary encryption - Not easy to verify as it's usually closed source (e.g. 128 bit, 40 bit).
4. AES-256 - The Gold standard, not crackable.
I'm starting my journey into amateur radio purely for SHTF purposes. As such I don't intend to outlay a lot of money (initially) into this endeavour. Also, no-one else in my family has any experience in comms so I need something easy to use. As such, I have decided upon a set of Bofeng UV-5R radios with Abree 24" antennas & the larger 3800 mA batteries.
I think the only thing I can do during SHTF on my UV-5R is to use the minimum required power, use short transmission, stay away from "Privacy tones" & use more obscure frequencies. I don't want to invest in a digital radio.
Hate to break it to you, but you won't find many "obscure frequencies" on a Baofeng radio...
This video is remarkably excellent in every way. Very well done.
Whoa!
I want to say this. People need to start paying attention to force multipliers. Communications is one primary form of a force multiplier. Most people think this stuff is rocket science, and it kind of is...but its not all that hard. You just have to study a bit.
One important thing to note about DMR...functionally you MUST have a technicians license to use them because you need a radio ID to program your phone. In order to get a radio ID you need that license. no way around it that I am aware.
Additionally, if you want to make it difficult to be radio "found" transmit with lower power on higher frequencies. Your power dictates how far you can transmit but you will be less likely to be found. Secondly, consider the frequencies you use with a certain type of antenna. NVIS provides the BEST ability to hide your location. This was the same type of protocol the military used in Vietnam and still uses today for non-direct line of sight short range comms.
I’m a girl who couldn’t hook up my stereo. But I hunkered down and got my tech license. If I can do it, anyone with determination can do it.
Congrats welcome to the club
Hmm.... A girl watching S2U? Kinda sus 👀
Jk, for all you nerds who couldn't tell I'm not being serious
@@nikanor8152 I hope its more common but I suppose not. I found S2U about 4 months ago and binge watched everything. Shared with all my trusted circles.
in the 21st century tradecraft cyber analog Infowar, there's no time to care that you're a woman.
You're cool with letting the FCC inspect your radio equipment anytime they feel like it? Usually with the Marshals in tow.
Being a radio op, my best advice is to first understand COMSEC and how it applies to OPSEC. Surveillance vans loaded with Mil gear exist and they are faster than triangulation. Nuff said.
That's how they triangulated our dearly departed Pablo Escobar, isn't it?
@@mynameisinigomontoya8179 Yes, they used a small private plane to fly their receiving gear around. Back in those days it was the old AMPS system, which was all clear and analog, so it was not private at all.
Phase shift
Sounds like the best option if possible,is to somehow move into or on top of the same location as the authorities when sending transmissions.I knew a so and so who was doing something he wasn’t supposed to be doing by renting an apartment just above the location of the government authorities.
TRANSEC
I'm 64 now and I'm more interested in Ham radio now than ever.
I remember my dad telling me how helpful Ham radio can be in times of emergency.
He was born in 1909, lived through the depression and served in the U.S.N.R., stationed at Dutch Harbor, Alaska during WW2.
I also remember the strict requirements for a Ham from when I was a kid; you had to build your own radio set!
We might as well get set for the new normal, because the good old days are really over for good.
Im 60 now. My dad would take me with him to old mining claims. No 4 wheelers or cell phones in the 70s. We had mules and cb radios and mobile ham stations. Of course I never paid attention to a lot ofthe stuff he tried to teach me. I'm very interested now in this current day. We went all over the western us and northern Mexico .
Back in the day you also had to know cw
@@apjbuilder AND Morse Code!
The idea brings me back to my Boy Scout days. There was a merit badge for Morse Code.
(LOL. I had to look 'cw' up!)
Wrong about no way to use a digital radio without a license. Motorola dtr operate in the ism band and are license by rule, no individual license required. They are even more secure than regular digital radio as they use fhss (frequency hopping spread spectrum), can send sms messages with them, talk to groups or individual radios.
You missed NVIS and how polarization can be used to mask RF. However, I applaud how you covered directional antennas. Directional antennas are hands down the best way to protect emissions. Even within that realm, there are ways to further hide RF emissions.
Emission control is key...
NVIS HF comms are pretty awesome if employed correctly.
NVIS is completely dependent on regional ionispheric conditions (so very limited range of frequencies). I park my ass on 80 meters, NVIS, day or night at my latitude, and I'm good to go. 👍
@@jacobcastro1885 can NVIS get a signal out of a creek valley, up and over a thousand foot ridge line, and into the neighboring valley 3mi away? What about 20mi, same mountainous terrain? Can an NVIS system be man, horse, or vehicle portable? Would this be considered a tactical solution, or more strategic within an AO, with individual teams running line of sight comms?
@@Flack55 yes. NVIS is signal straight up, and straight down. Might be the only thing that works in deep canyons as it is not impacted by terrain AT ALL.
The only downside I've found so far is the antenna size. I can fit an 80 meter dipole with 24 guage wire in my cargo pocket, but unrolled, it's 130 ft long.
@@Flack55 portability? I have an elecraft kx3 (kx2 would be even smaller). I add a small lifepo4 battery, a little coax, solar panel and charge controller in a small little package (take it all with me on ultralight backpacking trips).
I want to do my first RUclips video showcasing MY setup. Subscribe to me (along with the 3 others 🤣) and I'll try and get that out.
In the meantime, check out Julian "OH8STN" on RUclips - who was my primary inspiration.
👍
i am a 1 year old amature radio operator and I have had quite a difficult time trying to understand why i need to know these other forms of communications ie. dstar ect.. ive always preferred using the old school analog radios., However given the current atmosphere of things I can see why knowing it is actually a good thing. Your method of explanation of the materials has been a TREMENDOUS help for me. So I will soldier on and get ready for my general exams. One other thing, ive always loved radio. since i was a child shortwave put me to sleep at night my parents were involved in military and commercial radio but i never got the bug. It wasnt until a couple of years ago and censorship on media that i decided to buy a cb radio- 11 meter. with ssb. OH MY GOD it was a come to jesus moment . since then ive advanced quickly with 1 of everything..LOL but i especially like the ability to travel the world and not go out of the house. loads of fun.. This topics you have been covering has been great food for thought. I am really enjoying them. Thank you for all the hard work involved in giving us better insights to the world around us..
Perhaps you can now *easily* imagine China and/or Russia, their proxies, singly or in the aggregate, or simply the already embedded military forces... a million operators, 10 million operators... of various cartels/corporations/nations who have mulit-multi billion dollar budgets for an endless supply of devastating toys, taking possession of the North American continent, and dispensing with a majority of the native population via organ harvesting, slave labor, forced breeding, or simple mass execution?
Given the incompetency, corruption, vacuousness, moral bankruptcy, moral cowardice, and intellectual deficiency of federal, state and local governance and our devolution from a democratic republic, or a constitutional republic, if you'd prefer, into a fascistic state, as defined by Webster's or any other semi-competent dictionary (no individual or even collective offense meant to any organ of government or individual within any organ, I'm referring to the *systemic* *dysfunction* of the already collapsing system of governance here as evidenced, briefly, by just one of the many indicators and necessities of civilization: the rule of law, which has been in free fall within our territories for at least 22 years now... with a quick, specific example of the death of a canary in that coal mine being the loss of the right of habeas corpus, something so fundamental it is an absolutely bedrock principle upon which the rule of law established free western civilizations for many, many centuries), maybe, just maybe the competent, moral, responsible members of our society should prepare for the total collapse of said governance and military defense so that we can ourselves, out of the necessity to preserve our lives, and the lives of our loved ones, in the absence of our defeated or fallen government, effectively repel occupation by invading or already embedded, but un-activated, despotic enemy forces, whether military, corporate, facially civil, or religious... Jihad is a real thing, btw, not just a talking point for the sham media, a short review of history beginning at yesterday and going back 1,400 years should reveal all you need to know of this religious/totalitarian threat held by every devout muslim, every devout muslim nation, a group comprising over 1 billion people, who also happen to squat over most of the planet's actual free energy, petroleum, and thus have access to actual, real wealth (not just rapidly evaporating empty promises and and the equally evaporating faith upon those now fully empty promises) and resources beyond imagination.
Can you make it through that paragraph?
If not, try this sentence: If our nation is defeated militarily, or our currency and or system of government falls, or we are struck by a catastrophic natural event sufficient to render our military and or government incapable of functioning, maybe the responsible people of this nation should prepare to be capable of sustaining their lives, the lives of their loved ones, the lives of those in their communities until such a time that our governance and military can be re-constituted.
A simple proposition to those aware enough to recognize the reality of the fragility of our systems.
And specifically in response to your query, the ability to communicate locally, and at range, openly but also, at times, securely is absolutely essential to organize resources to a sufficient degree so as to achieve the above goals, that of preserving our lives, our property and the re-constitution our system of governance.
Now we are talking.
I see what you did there.
Home made dipole antennas, pretty easy.. 468 ÷ the freq you wanna talk/hear in.. Directional, horizontal/ flat side talking.. Placement.. Can be inverted.. V... alot of ways to use these..
In a vehicle, the vehicle is your GROUND plane, = antenna on the center of the roof = omni directional
O.. now move the antenna to the back/trunk lid.. You now have a sort of beam = point your vehicle in the direction you want to broadcast..
There is ALOT to know about antenna's.. It has to be in frequency range for the radio your using..
Just a few things to keep in mind, our teams can drive folks crazy trying to find us, as in, your searching, has only made you a easy target..
Great show.. Good work..
The time has come for us to take our country back.. Comm folks are worth their weight in GOLD...
Just to keep the others/opposition from GETTING SCHITT done..
My specialty...
Life is good!!!.. Hee heee heee...
Your videos are so packed full of knowledge I feel truly fortunate I found your channel. I'm currently going to school to work on aircraft and have alot of classes on Radio communications and would like to get into it as a hobby. Especially with everything going on in this country. Communications are vital and I really appreciate all your videos. Keep it up. Thank you and God Bless you man!
I've been thinking about this a lot recently, and the reason us patriots/conservatives haven't been able to manage to accomplish much (or at least it feels like it), is because we don't have a way of communicating without being infiltrated. And I'm not just talking about things like militias, what have you. What I'm talking about is your God given right to fight for freedom without the fear of political harassment, your plans being sabotaged, etc. I really believe that communication or lack of communication in this case, is why it doesn't appear we're winning. That's why they call us the silent majority, not because most of us don't have the balls to say something (well most don't, but that's besides the point), but because when we do say something, they simply silence us. I think this might be one of the most important videos regarding how we win, so kudos to you guys for putting this out there, people really need to hear this. Keep up the good work boys. We will win.
I find it highly disturbing that there is a group of an entire party that strikes down on people who are patriotic, as if its a deadly sin.
If you want security and secrecy, then get small and get local.
The truth is that private platforms with secure comms do exist but you have to know the owner to trust it. Even then, guys like me can't get people to use our private systems developed precisely to combat censorship because most people are too lazy to migrate and prefer to sit in a leftist cesspool and be discriminated against. Also how do you know who to trust with everyone glowing.
what have conservatives in the US conserved? nothing.
@@ABPHistory should have put quotations around "conservatives". But yeah you're right, conservatives have been asleep while voting for the people who represent them
Wow incredibly educational video, here in Australia we to suffer from big brother & all our law enforcement & in some areas even fire and medical are all encrypted.
Secure comms has always been front & center of my SHTF plan including using Encryption, keeping Tx's as short as possible & to a minimum, only tx'ing where possible at a predetermined time, not mentioning people or places by name but by an "Aliase" location known only by another or other group members, using split tx's & rx ( tx on 1 freq but rx on another, or tx on 1 band put rx on another band, changing tx & rx freq's anything from every day to every hr, as you mentioned keeping pwr to an absolute minimum & where appropriate & possible using very directional antennas, using data bursts where possible instead of voice & encrypting ( coding ) thoes data bursts so that they dont mran anything to anyone who may intercept these tx's as well astrying to use terrain as your friend.
Some times as the old saying goes the best way to hide is to hide in plain sight where no onewould think to look for you & that might be in a portion of "another band"
Im very lucky im both an amateur ( in Australia) as well as working full time in the comms industry & so have a view to & access to a lot of gear & information that very few others do.
Look forward to further videos, keep up the great vids.
Wayne.
I have been into radios since the 70's. I'm north of 60 now. My problem is that I will have to set it up because most, if not all that I want to communicate with would not know or have any interest in how it works, just that it does. So, I would provide the radios to them and teach them how to use them in time of need.
It's an uncommon man who plants trees knowing he won't live to see em
So I’m just gonna say this, I think that you describe the laws a little bit biased towards the prepper side, and of course, your channel aim at preppers and that’s totally awesome to give people this information! I wanna reiterate, I love your channel and I love all of the stuff you post, it’s super informational and helpful and it’s awesome that all of it is free as it should be. I do wanna say that it is illegal to use something like a baofeng on FRS frequencies but as long as you are doing it safely and not interfering with anybody, nobody will know so it really doesn’t matter. Most of the legalities to do with Ham Radio come down to interfering with legitimate transmissions. people who don’t understand radio communications on a technical level are more likely to interfere with law-enforcement, amateur communications, and other stuff. Another piece of information to add on is that the question that you asked “ will somebody be able to identify you using a different radio when you’re transmitting on a certain service? “ Just by hearing it probably not but if you use an SDR you will very quickly find you will identify what’s called spurious emissions coming out of baofengs due to them not being FCC regulated they don’t have a great quality control. They’re also is such thing as radio forensics. I personally use baofengs a lot for a lot of different reasons Because they are so inexpensive. A few more pieces of information, as I’m writing this I feel bad for being a critic, but it is misinformation, the 1.25 m band is VHF and the reason that people shouldn’t just experiment with other bands is because you probably wouldn’t want to interfere with something like the US military, which uses sections on pretty much a lot of different bands, including VHF, UHF, and a bunch of HF bands. Obviously the ones that are allocated to Ham Radio or for Ham Radio use, but if it’s not specified, it could be used for a completely different service that could be anything from commercial, military, business or first responder
Can't wait for the hardware review. Especially on the dm5r since 5k seems a little rough for me! Or the Alinco seems a decent price.
there is a quasi legal way of using HF radio , its the CB band, an off the shelf one can be 8 wats, with a nice antenna can get pretty good range, some people even buy ham radio in line amplifiers and go up to double or triple digit wattage
@21:30 I get what you're saying with directional antennas but, after working on microwave communication systems for several years, I can tell you that these also have sidelobes. The sidelobes don't have the DB of the main lobe and depend on many other factors, free space loss. In any case I enjoy your videos and wish more people put the time into teaching others how fun radios can be. Thanks for all your hard work!
The name "Family factor" is such a great name for what you described. I'm a lot of the different "guys" in my family, so I get what you're talking about pretty well _and_ found the video really fun. Also, writing an open hardware standard for ecdsa radio communication might be useful
Ham here, thank you for bringing up legality and personal risk. The ham radio ban on encryption is a problem, with pros and cons in both directions. I’m not a fan of the reeeeeEEEE no encryption! hams, I think the FCC could easily make regulatory concessions in favor of technological innovation while ensuring ham radio spectrum doesn’t become invisibly commercialized by obscured/encrypted transmissions that breaks the ability for amateur spectrum to be self-policed and for non-commercial, personal use (its ***amateur*** for a reason). Idk what that looks like, but generally, most OPSEC minded radio users don’t care about regulations, nor does the FCC particularly care to police and enforce amateur/CB/FRS/GMRS/MURS/ISM spectrum unless there’s numerous complaints of interference or national security issues at play.
Thanks for all you do S2. I really like that you included your thoughts on the "boring stuff" at the end. I didn't find the content boring, but I do struggle with staying focused on learning new things that I don't have a good understanding of that are really important to know. Just having you discuss it is a good reminder to do better.
Can they tell who you are on the radio
I used to love to listen to the police and fire radio but they've prevented us from hearing any of it in the past few years. It's a shame because I used listening to those radio calls as part of my training when I became an EMT. I ended up working with the fire department and with an ambulance company too so I was working with these people, but there's no way to listen at home anymore. It sucks because I did buy a fairly expensive radio, not even one to transmit but just to listen (I'm no pubic speaker so I'd rather not transmit anyway). Anyway, sometimes you don't get much of in emergency services training is handling the radios and it really does new people a disservice that they can't listen to the calls now.
For anyone who is studying to work in emergency services and can still listen to their local police and fire radios, here's what I did during my training: I would listen to the call and pretend like I was going to be on the ambulance or fire engine responding to the call. First thing would be to think of any safety concerns involved with the call. Will you need to block traffic in the case of a traffic accident? Is there any potential for there to be dangers to you already on scene (like active shooters, potentially explosive fires, HAZMAT spills)? The cops will usually have to stage away from the scene in that case but it's still something you should be thinking about in case you end up there first or they don't end up staging you. What issues are you likely to be dealing with on scene? In my case, what are the sorts of injuries you might expect to be treating? Will you need to extricate someone? What is the nature of the fire you're going to if it's a fire? What sort of building is on fire or what sort of terrain has a wild fire on it? Where are the nearest hospitals to the scene, particularly the nearest trauma 1 hospital? These should all be things you think of when you hear the call and as you are going to the location to deal with it. Because I had practiced with the scanner, I was immediately one of the best people among my colleagues at showing up on scene with a potential game plan already in mind and, in emergency medicine, time is life so you are more effective if you already have some idea what you'll be dealing with BUT you also must keep in mind that actual incidents are their own beast so you have to think of a few potentiality before you get there and you have to be able to improvise quickly when something isn't what you had imagined on your way to the call.
The Guerrilla's Guide To The Baofeng Radio by NC Scout is a great easy to use/learn book that goes into these practices using the Baefeng.
I live in Phoenix and I had a police scanner when I was 13. I listen to that thing daily and loved it. Also listening to air traffic from sky harbor until I was about 30. That’s when Phoenix PD switched to digital. I bought a digital scanner and for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out how to program it, so I paid someone to program it. Then I could never understand the conversations you said, in this video that they’re clear it was yak exact opposite for me they were garbled communication. Also, with the analog, every precinct had a channel and then there was a specific channel for emergency traffic channel 1. Are they called it chase so when a Thon went out on the precinct channel, they would have everyone switch to channel 1 that was going to be on the emergency traffic call and I would switch to one and follow it from there. I could hear all sides of the conversation. All that ended with the digital scanner. I paid $700 for that thing never once was able to follow a conversation and ended up selling it for $400 on eBay later. I’m so disappointed I tried to find someone to help me with it. No one seems to know anything about it.
The LE agencies are all migrating to Project 25 with encryption. The quality of the radio traffic is terrible, even on department equipment. The only good thing about it is you don't hear as much background noise, but I almost always considered that useful information, so not necessarily an improvement.
Was waiting for this video S2U. My Grandfather was a "Ham" before there was an FCC. You should have heard him go on about how the people own the frequencies..not the damned government. He was the primary reason I became a ham and (later) an electrical engineer. I share the same sentiment. Most people that are walking the earth today have never known a time when Federalism was very small and didn't impact their lives. Today we have half our paychecks taken from us before we ever get our hands on our earned wages and we are told what, when, and where we can operate on the radio.
Ok, but what if I whisper when I talk on the radio? Kidding aside, this is a fantastic video about the basics of secure radio communications.
We've established comms protocols early on in our area and our 'neighborhood'
it is not boring.
As you have stated it is vital.
Man I could get so far into the weeds with all this, using speech to text for DMR text, using directional antennas mounted on servos for real time tracking with something like ATAK with multiple means of uploading positions, paired some of the cool stuff being done with SDRs. Cool projects for years, for science of course
Pumped for the hardware analysis, android devices with onboard vhf/uhf modules (mostly Chinese chipsets unfortunately) should be capable of a wide array of frequency coverage, given that it is also a GSM/ CDMA "phone". Rooted devices with custom firmware radios are potentionally very capable (for emergencies of course 😁)
Are you talking about hack rf? The $1,000 Android walkie talkies
@@nicholasquintero1080 hackrf's look awesome, I was just stating options
android is owned by google since 2005.
My question is. 256bit encryption can be done by a symple circuit (no need to have a huge computer) and its rather fast. I'd wager its possible to build some sort or rasberry pi circuit that interfaces between your PTT and the radio, to turn your voice signal into an encrypted signal, and then the radio just emits that.
The reverse function could be applied to the same circuit, making it so you can hear and receive encrypted, and a pass through mode can be applied easily (such as the signal having a "code at the begining" that tells the system "this is encoded, decode it") or otherwise pass it through.
With a simple keyboard, you could input a salt "random key of characters" that gets added to the encryption.
Sure, maybe its the size of a baofeng battery or a small baofeng, but it could be a viable way to turn "analog" radios into encrypted ones.
As an licensed amateur radio operator (amateur extra class), you are spot on with all of this. Everything you've mentioned in this. Nicely done.
I’ll tell you. It’s none of the fcc business how or what I say on my radio. Never was. That’s called government overreach. If I want to use code words I will.
Mark you and your fcc bootlicker friends have the same energy of some kid saying hes a veteran call of duty player who should deserve the same respect as a navy seal 😂😂
@@terranostra7989 Illegal
@@DumbledoreMcCrackencope
@@solargeneral how is it in jail MF?
Please, please continue this topic.
As a licensed amateur (HAM) radio operator, I just want to add, I couldn't give a flying f*** at a rolling donut who uses these frequencies, license or no. For me, part of the licensing process was the learning enough about radio to be able to more fully use ham radio, so that was worth the effort. Ham can be complicated, but if someone is willing to put in the hours to learn how to use it, first, a license is kind of a no-brainer, but secondly, they would be good enough with radios to not be a pain in the ass on said radio. ** If I were unlicensed and wanted to use any ham radio for local, unsecure coms, I'd look into the 2 meter band. The equipment is relatively cheap, very available and quite simple to use. Of course, that would be illegal, and we wouldn't want to do that, would we ;)
Thanks for what you do brother
This is one of those videos of his that you watch at first for the fascination. THEN you watch over and over again for the value of reference that he had put into this video.The "gospel" is right here 30:50 Thank you S2. 💯
Citizens Band is in fact within HF btw
Sure is. And capable in ssb modes.
As much as I love CB and use it personally for practical local LOS communications, the coming solar cycle is going to be hell on it for that purpose. 11 meters can go from being a great LOS band that can cut through trees and shoot long distances with little power, to being overwhelmed by skywave transmissions interfering with those you are trying to talk to. But I digress, it is unlicensed and certainly is HF.
As are many Marine bands. A xiegu with a Mars mod can net you a lot of fun.
Regarding encryption, can't you just use SDR? OR, you could use a small microprocessor (or an old phone) plugged into your baofengs mic/speaker and use _it_ to encrypt and decrypt your analog signal. You could even use obscure encryption methods like elliptical or DHKE.
Not even to mention LoRa (basically spread spectrum digital mode, ridiculously high range but a very large bandwidth usage and small data rate). Since you can lower the output power and still get a good range, the transmission is gonna look like background noise and might be a bit harder to DF. Of course, it's gonna look hella sus on a waterfall but it might not even get detected if you use "illegal" bands which nobody monitors. For example: between airband and 2M ham (~136-144 MHz) which is mostly used for sattelites.
That's some good info! The moment I bought baofangs for my family, I realized I needed to upgrade. I'm not a coms guy but how else are we going to communicate when 💩 goes down? Anyway, I'm ready for the next step from you guys. Keep up the great work!
Logistics and comms beats tacticool. We need more of this.
Frequency hopping is also doable as long as it’s pre arranged, especially using radios capable of multiple bands.
Normally scanners scan in a linear fashion one band at a time, but if you hop bands and frequencies it becomes harder to follow.
However, secure communications is always a crap shoot. Just ask anyone who has had to update code keys.
Send a it via courier for true security. Hahaha 🤣
Doesn't the ubiquitous nature of SDR kind of negate the effectiveness of hopping when dealing with an at all serious adversary.
@@GrahamBartle I guess it would depend on how fast the SDR can scan across the bands
@@BillCoSmith you can see most of it all at once with 100 bucks. You can see it all in perfect detail with 3,000.
@4:32 "To HAMS, everything is illegal". That made me chuckle and is mostly true. HAM ops always chime in on sites selling these UHF/VHF Chinese knockoffs about how bad they are for the airwaves and how the FCC hasn't blessed them for use in the United States. But when questioned why they lobbied the FCC to drop the CW requirement for a license, they get all defensive. IMO, once the CW requirement was dropped, being a HAM operator just wasn't as cool as it used to be and just became a hobby if anything. Heck, most don't even use the phonetic alphabet anymore. DX'ng HF nowadays only gets you conversations about the size of their antennas.
LOL. Well, publicly, certainly, hams tend to be 'super legal' because if they don't their license might disappear. CW is a poor choice. The ONLY reason it was ever a requirment (once telephony and other modes were mature) is because the SOLAS (Safety Of Life At Sea) radio system was morse based and hams were expected to be a part of that network, and as such, were required to be able to read and send CW. SOLAS formally abandoned morse completely in favour of satellite based systems, so it was a hangover from when it was necessary. Many hams love it and use it, but it's no longer compulsory because there is no good reason for it to be compulsory. Many modes are at least as effective at transmitting intelligence at relatively low data rates with or without encryption in some form as CW. Consequently most nations no longer require the use of CW but still allow it. I've yet meet a ham that didn't know at least one of the phonetic alphabet systems. As ex ATC, I use the ICAO/NATO version, but others seem to be in use in the US for some reason. There are many digital modes that are somewhat obscure and in fact largely indistinguishable from noise and so have a significant degree of resistance to casual monitoring. They could also be used to send a message encrypted with any number of systems. For many people, digital modes themselves are basic encryption, for instance, someone listening to a Hellschreiber signal would sound like something random to most people. You would either need to be technical enough to analyse the signal and figure out what it is, or know what it is and where to find it and the software to decrypt it. That alone requires some technical knowledge, as Hell is either using a mechanical device like the original WW2 German system or these days, a way to feed audio from a radio to a computer for software decoding. But it's not 'encryption' per se - perfectly lawful to use digital modes (even far more subtle and computer specific ones) as a ham on ham frequencies. So there are ways....
Ham was never cool dude..........
@@ShermanAviation Perhaps in your country. I'm Australian.
@@ShermanAviation SDR is a cool chapter in communications that allows everyone to get a taste of what the airwaves offer w/o dropping a chunk of change on a radio trying to decide if they like it or not. Think of it as just listening in on your neighbors. DX'ng is a time consuming process but listening to people chat who are hundreds or thousands of miles away is kinda cool. I learned morse code in Coast Guard radioman school back in the early 80s. I still copy it today. Not a "ham" op but I still listen in using a couple of desktop receivers and an SDR receiver.
Perfect timing.
Really great overview here without any fluff. 👍
When it comes to legality and radio, I've found that literally no one cares so long as you don't step on anyone that is using a licensed service. Also, there are those HAMs that think they are the rf band police. These guys are insufferable. Don't be thay guy, HAMs. Also, poor man's HF is USB and LSB CB.
I have some very nice P25 VHF/UHF/700/800MHz with high end AES-256 encryption that my buddies and I use for work and for chit chat. Would recommend if you can afford it.
I work for that company you discussed. We don't care who has the radios, secondhand or not. It's the trunking operators, the state or local governments that don't want their used radios on the market so have been destroying them. At least, that's how it is in my area. YMMV for different areas.
Nice work on this video.
Can't wait to find out what you recommend for handheld/portable use. Everybody in the tac gear community uses Baofengs and the like but I'd love to find something more secure if it can be acquired legally.
Nothing like this available to us.
Com cards are the best thing right now.
Meshtastic is looking promising but if you're in rural areas your rf emissions will give you away anyways
If you have a license you can obtain Motorola XTS and XPR radios. The leaning curve is steep but can be done.
@@skm9420 That's why Meshtastic needs a Tor-like store-and-forward module that can obfuscate the origin of messages and provide plausible deniability. Sure, it might cost more airtime, but maybe it's worth it to confound an adversary doing traffic analysis.
One thing I would like to do is get a Second Yeasu VX-8, but sadly, Yeasu no longer makes that radio. I DO have a VX-6 but it is only capable of operating on One Band at a time. Everybody and their dog have Police Scanners and CAN listen in on Local Repeaters or Simplex Comms. Though I personally HATE Baofengs, I can see one VERY useful attribute they have.
A Pair of them can be programmed with a VHF Simplex Frequency on 2 Meters, and another Simplex Frequency on 70 CM. One transmits on the Two Meter side and the other answers back on the 440 Side. Anyone listening on a scanner will thus hear only ONE side of the communication.The reason I want a SECOND VX-8, is in order to be able to do the Same thing, but using 220 MHz and Meters for the Split. Though ALSO not "perfect", there are far FEWER Scanners that can monitor the 220 Band, and where I live, even FEWER people with 220 capability. I won't get into specific detail, but there are several reason I absolutely LOVE the 220 Band!
This entire info-dump on "how to maximize radio security," will be insurmountably vital skills to know, when the shtf.
As a retired Army 72E, 31L, 31R & most recently a 25U, I approve this video!
"When your radio is caput, SSG Williams is afoot. Your commo ace in the hole, G.I. Joel!" (my old .mil email quote)
I operated a listening and location finding tower in Afghanistan next to the TOC. It only takes a few seconds of a radio transmitting to know the location of a transmission. In the military we use cypher and frequency hopping to secure our radio networks. Cypher will encrypt our communication. Frequency hopping keeps us from being jammed, located and also keeps prying ears from hearing. I am assuming Freq hopping is illigal for civilians, true? The concept is easy and I would be surprised if a decent hardware hacker hasn't done yet. You just need a lookup table with all the frequencies that the radios will hop to and the interval of time between hops. All the radios need a clock with the time synced so they jump to the same frequency together. If it is illegal I don't know what the governments reasoning would be other than control. You aren't going to be on any one frequency long enough to cause interference.
Been looking for a channel like this for a long time. Thanks for the content.
When you teach it, it's not boring. At all. Thank you.
Your best way of using normal radio is to have agreement with your contact intended people. If you have four groups of people you normally want to contact separately, tell them to listen for you on your specific channel -- all pre arranged--on the hour to 10 minutes after the hour, every hour. Tell group 2 to listen for you 15 minutes after the hour and for 20 minutes after the hour. Give Group 3 and Group 4 their specific times for listening. That way each group can save their batteries by having their radios turned off until the coming of their specific hour window.
Then you know where group 2 is and you can customize your comments for their location-- for example to get some red cans of gas and hold it for you. You can identify children in specific groups also to hold down excited chatter.
If you tell the person receiving in each group the kind of code word or phrase you will use and that way speak more or less in your own personal hey prearranged words.
For example, you and Group 4 know they have a brand new baby so you can say "tell the baby blah blah blah," everybody in Group 4 that by telling the baby information or directions you're really talking to the whole group== just reasonable thoughts like that can confuse listeners who don't know you and don't know what your plans are because you coded it under that kind of coding. If you were to say " tell Bob to put the tomatoes in the bag beside my mailbox" anyone who knows your voice and your mailbox can go steal those tomatoes before you can get there. If you use some kind of obvious but coded language to the other people you already know-- then you can keep secrecy without using elaborate phrases.
As boring as foundational learning always tends to be... But necessary. Thanks for presenting these things to us! 👍👍
This was extremely entertaining.
Your last comments about entertainment and information, spot on!
It's easy to think you are ready for what ever bad times because you see how someone shoots beer cans or armour plate... but think of the US army: For every war fighter on a front line shooting at bad guys, there are 8 to 10 staff backing them up, communication, food, logistics, intelligence, mapping, payments, training... so all this knowledge is possibly more important than actually going to shoot an enemy - as without this knowledge to back you up... you won't be able to! Proficiency in shooting and close combat are good to know, but things like how to make shelter, where to find meds, how to possibly make meds from natural sources, understanding the weather, observation, and how to avoid getting into a fight in the first place if it can be avoided, and not getting found, all with keeping a link with your friends in the same situation are all skills that you need to master!
There's a million RUclips videos about cool guns. But this is the kind of information I find really interesting. Keep it up y'all!
3:10 in...and you got a new subscriber.
Appreciate the videos. You are true Patriots and I owe you my gratitude.
S6 Underground
Two other possibilities.. use low power just enough to get your message to the person you are targeting and use a directional antenna so that you're not transmitting omnidirectional if you know the exact direction of the person you're trying to reach you can use a directional beam antenna and low power or just enough power.. another possibility is to take a portable ie walkie talkie .. and attach a simplex repeater put it in an area between you and the person you're trying to transmit to.. a simplex repeater is a small inexpensive device that records and retransmits.. you can hook this up to a portable or a base station radio..... This can be placed up high or in a strategic location between you and the person you want to communicate with.... Another way is to transmit on one frequency on one end of the band and receive on another frequency on a different side of the band.. someone hearing the transmission will only get one side of the conversation...
I love that you guys push the envelope with the 1st amendment. Too many people are scared to just say how things work because we've been conditioned to replace that with how to comply with tyranny.
At the same time it's important to remember that just because the government says you shouldn't doesn't always mean it's more effective. Usually yes, it does mean exactly that but not always.
For example AR15s. Military M4s are usually not even as good as a standard AR, the SBR restriction on barrels under 16" is not even a big deal because the 5.56 has optimal performance from a 20" barrel, cqb with a 20" really isn't a big deal, and collapsible buttstocks are neat for ergonomics but way less sturdy than a fixed stock (if it doesn't pass the "push up test" it's not a good stock and forget using the rifle as a melee weapon).
Sometimes these restrictions are designed to unconstitutionally decrease your effectiveness, other times the restrictions are just nonsense to appease psychotic anti gunners.
S2 the boring stuff is where it’s at the ones who need this knowledge are watching quietly build our capabilities and fitness. Salute to you for leading forward ✊🏽
Excellent
Thank you.
Remember all communications discussed require electricity. That is something that can be shut off by the government.
And made in defend amounts even on the roof of a car
Yes, that is true but depending on the population with no power people might just get cranky or engage in full on rioting/looting/arson. Further. The government is much more dependent on electricity. If you deprive them of their infrastructure it becomes a numbers game.
Guess I’m going to smoke signals
Think about it: If SHTF I would not use radios of any kind to get help, there won't be any, just folks looking to take what you have. Rely only on those you already know in your circle, etc. Instead I'd use scanners to listen to what everyone else is doing and what's happening. I have all bands/channels in this area programmed. I also use the 'signal stalker' feature on one radio to pick up 'danger close' radios & personnel, ie, those that may encroach my ranch fence lines. Using Ham radio to talk to pple 200 miles away is pointless. To talk to family all over the ranch when SHTF, we're considering 49 Mhz band, no one uses it due to low power limits, so no one is listening either. We're looking at 49Mhz AM radios built for .5W to 2W ERP with off-channel freq's. CB, FRS or GMRS is like a white flag on your front door! Imho.... comments??
I am a 20 year vet and communication is one of the most important aspects of combat.
Definitely. I would also highly recommend regular channel changes with different encryption keys, 🔐 colour codes, vocoders, etc.
Great video. Folks in the comments... anyone messing with the TRI 152 clone? It seems like a promising radio that does some cool things but the firmware really needs some attention I'm finding. Really wanting to make it a more viable option.
Great information and I enjoyed the end as well.
Get yourself a HackRF and learn GNU Radio, study QPSK modulation and over the air rekeying with ECIES, you know the rest. Make sure if you use symmetric ciphers like AES-256 you also use something like CFB (maybe GFB or GCM) and not ECB and have a good ICV. Also, look into stream ciphers (you don't have to use block ciphers), steganographic techniques and study digital signatures for trust scenarios (something you have and something you know and something your friend knows). You can take the least significant bits of measurements of noise as a good source of informational entropy. If you absolutely have to, you can use your rpi as a transceiver too (you can bork the clock to generate modulated RF). If youre in a war zone then use a directional (ideally logarithmic) antenna to bounce off a reflector (can even be terrain) at low power. Digital modes actually work better at lower power anyway. Old routers can be reflashed and set up to be mesh networks, lookup OpenWRT and 6lowpan. The ground can also act as a medium in multiple ways.
'you are the resistance ' 33:00
I was like omg i have found my tribe 🤣👍✊
Should do M17(digital radio), OpenRTX(3rd party HT firmware w/ M17) content, its got a lot of modes coming along nicely, and is in pistar/mmdvm, and more...great content :) keep it up
What is this M17...I am interested.
32:17 don't worry, the ones who suffer through that boredom to learn something for life and there are people out there who actually care about this subject.
Also I'd like to add something more asymmetrical to comms. Naming. If you have a lot hills around you, don't reference them by their geographic names but make something up that is listed somewhere and only your boys will understand. Like "Hill Chupacabra". Unless the enemy has the list they wil be very cunfused.
Anyways, that was a great video and I appreciate you taking your time to blast this content out there and there are actually many around who care. This is the internet, you can easily get together likeminded individuals instead of searching hard in real life.
This is an excellent channel with very useful information. Thank you for the time and effort in creating this content! I haven't been able to read all the previous 485 comments, but there seems to be a security issue not mentioned. If you are a licensed amateur radio operator and operating "legally" according to FCC rules, using your call sign immediately reveals your name and address in government and amateur radio databases. This is common knowledge to most licensed users, but may result in unexpected exposure to security leaks when getting tech savvy but ignoring the obvious basics. This goes out the window when poop hits the appliance. Keep learning!
If you are facing a legitimate situation where communication is important it may be worth taking some time to think about the value of transmission vs the risk of interception. I saw a really basic example of this when I was young on the soccer field. It was a little surprising to me to find that it was almost always better to call out a communication to a team member even though our adversary could easily understand what we were saying. I would have thought communicating would increase the effectiveness of the other team, but the game was usually moving too quick for them to do anything with any information they intercepted. I haven't thought through every scenario in a military context but I would guess that more tactical communications have a much higher value to transmit regardless of interception potential, whereas more strategic communication may start to tilt the other way. Anyway this is something worth considering; if your choices are unsecured coms or no coms, when does the value of the coms outweigh the security risk.
Yup spot on. If someone was trying to find your location, not talking on a radio is a good plan. You could use a low power radio to rebroadcast with elevated high power repeaters mind you. They would find the repeaters and your general location but not pinpoint the person transmitting. You could communicate long distances with a 2w radio.
CTCSS codes are great if you have radios for young children. They can hear me and I can hear everyone, but my kids don't hear strangers. Still not private really, just isolated from the wider world.
In your conclusion, I definitely know the difficulties of your point about the entertainment of a subject very well. Unfortunately, most of the people who talk about communications are really old people using obsolete setups, and there's also a giant crowd of really cringey people no one wants to hear the opinion of even if they're right. Your attention to your appearance is key to getting people to buy in to what you have to say.
I am a big fan of Software Defined Radio as the future for what people are going to naturally do in radio communications. Hit me up if you have questions.
Sometimes going low tech is the best way
@@coolerking7427 Sometimes it is. Other times low tech is the more expensive, more complex, worse option. SDR vs older forms of MOD/DEMOD is like LED vs incandescent.
A note on direction finding in the HF band. The main benefit to HF is the absurd range you can get, because the signal can be reflected off the ionosphere. Line of sight is not a particularly good use of HF. VHF/UHF is going to be your better bet there. With HF, good luck accurately direction finding, since the incoming signal is probably coming from the sky. You can probably get a vague direction, but depending on the band, it could be hundreds or maybe thousands of miles away.
Then there's this wonderful think called Near Vertical Incidence Skywave (NVIS). With this, you send the signal straight up, and it comes straight back down. You can use this to get communications inside of a few hundred miles, and it doesn't care about mountains, because it's going over them. But if you DF an NVIS signal, it's going to look like it's coming from space.
Clearly things are the exact opposite between the Netherlands and the US. Our National Police uses what is known as the P2000 network, a Motorola-based 256 bits AES encrypted communication network which they share with ambulance and fire services as well. In fact I'm surprised that apparently police in the US isn't allowed to use full encryption because of transparency reasons, and that's why they only rely on trunked radio. Here the police uses trunked radio too, but only as a means of separating the secondary timing channel from the primary encrypted carrier signal, and to make it more resilient and less sensitive to jamming or interference. Meanwhile we have no such thing as a ban on encryption, civilians are free to use AES-256 with their digital radio if they so desire, or any other type of digital encryption protocol.
Most if not all other (Western) European countries also use highly encrypted trunked digital radio for their emergency services, off limits to civilians. I do know there are at least a few countries where civilian access to (digital) encryption is regulated, apparently the UK is one such country where civilians don't have legal access to full strength encryption but rather are legally forced to use weakened encryption vulnerable to the government.
Good stuff, I am HAM and recognize that there is many a** holes in the hobby. In fact, I almost did not get my license because them. However, there is a lot of great HAMs, you just don't know it because they are fighting in the shade. The good thing about DMR is many of the grumpy old-times don't like it. So you will be more likely to find more open-minded radio operators. Keep up the amazing work and keep it boring!
I had an old ham tell me that I wasn’t welcome in his hobby because he had spent over $65,000 on radio gear over the last 50 years and that my $100 handy-talky and SSB shortwave was cheating.
@@willytrouble88 Yeah, I only have a technician class license so no expensive HF equipment here. I have couple of HTs and mobile unit mounted in my vehicle. If I do upgrade my license, I could only see myself getting a small DXing HF rig. I like to keep my stuff portable not some giant antenna array and thousands of dollar equipment anchored to my house.
Seriously though, HF is covered by the guys who do it all the time. They are in about every town. Just get a CB, FRS, GMRS or 2 Meter or 440 radio and usually the guy with the HF equipment can do a local relay to update people. It will be mostly listening or relaying emergency information or maybe checking on family. Make some noise on the air to congregate to one listening and emergency frequency and to initiate a contact then move off frequency for your chat. Make your frequency known to the HF guys and anyone else from your area. Best to keep towns on different frequencies to stop as much congestion. Look into getting your antennas high for distance and for cheapness use wire antennas they work just fine.
I'd be interested in a video covering your concerns and complaints around the FCC rules around amateur radio. It seems like you would be well suited to make some reasonable and thoughtful content when it comes to the FCC and frequencies citizens are able to use and how. I do understand that securing radio communications is, as you stated, for the most part, against FCC rule on amateur frequencies. Maybe it is time for some group to buy some spectrum and freely allow anyone to use it for any reason.
THIS means THAT. The chair is against the wall. There, I encrypted it. And in full sentences, too.
DIY ENCRYPTION
Really important topic. I really appreciate all your efforts.
Apparently the Russians couldn't figure this out
The Russians built their secure comms to piggy back of the invaded nation’s 3G/4G networks, but didn’t give their conscripts that memo and they destroyed every cell tower they saw. So the Russian send troops into abandoned Ukrainian phone stores to loot local Simcards. Not very bright as said network can just highlight the Simcards that became live since the invasion and are near the fighting…
22:45 Yeah, terrain's effects on radio wave propagation are notoriously squirrely to figure out, in a real-world environment. Anyone who says otherwise does not have real-world experience.
Thank you for your presentation. Well done overview of the problem. Digital mode radios using packet protocols and using AES-256, or better: a fast encoding/decoding true one-time pad with billions of bits of depth (like a DVD or usb thumb drive) is uncrackable provided the one time pad is never reused, and it is secure (not captured.) A purpose built open source SDR (software defined radio) in the form factor of a Yaesu FT-817 can fit the bill of low power, long range, man portable radio, but this is a non-trivial task. But it is what is needed.
Yes, I've been saying this for a few years. Not in the same way but the same concept with onetime pad
Our group is working on local mesh networks for off grid secure/reliable communication
Should have some useful additions to the knowledge base by the end of the year, hopefully sooner but things need to be vetted
@@skm9420 Good. Are you implementing the encryption more as a data processing layer, or is it "hard wired" into the nodes themselves?
@@TyMoore95503 encryption in real time is difficult with the bit rates we can utilize from the equipment available off the shelf. Then the next big step is coding an encryption algorithm that is onetime pad based (modern enigma) would be sweet to just have a box that did the encryption that just plugged into your transmitter like enigma
So far civil radio encryption is the difficult part but our phones can provide sufficient enough cover with out being overly pedantic about security because big brother has the hardware to Cypher pretty much anything that's from a stock form for commercial coms that I know of so far
We're focusing on real time, that's where my point is focused from.
Latency is not Acceptable because we live off grid and we have to do our own policing
"Yes, I am prejudiced against radiomen. High strung, overwrought, and prone to malfunction - just like their radios." - George Smiley
The chair is against the wall. S2 Underground is my jam!
Brevity codes can add a layer of security I believe at the lower end of the scale as well.
Excellent option for groups to use thats basically meaningless to anyone listening in.
You know, I was just thinking about how radio networking would work earlier today, and lo and behold, this arrived. Thanks for the great info, as always.
👍👍👍
So basically 99% of the problems using radios are hams that feel the need to police their hobby from outsiders who don't want to have their name and address be publicly accessible.
Everyone wants tactical, but no one thinks strategy
just what i needed; also you need to be careful with 900MHz as LoRA devices are starting to use these freqs
Nothing wrong with adding memes throughout the video haha 🤣
32:29
Keep up the good work! We need more videos like this! Also your videos are interesting and fun to me at least. So when you made that statement towards the end I was like "huh what?!" I had always figured all of us were watching to the end.