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Comment by nunobrito | Hacker News Reader

My suggestion as someone preparing for this kind of stuff since quite a while:

+ Quangsheng UV-K5 + Android phone with 3.5 mm audio jack + APRSdroid installed

Forget about LoRa, that is basically a toy. It is far more useful to have a functioning walkie talkie capable of talking with satellites and other stations at 50 kilometers of range.

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The issue with satellite stuff, is that it’s pretty sensitive to active attack. It will be available for things like natural disasters, but not necessarily for war.

In either case, jamming is a possibility.

That is inaccurate. You will NOT be able to jam a satellite outside local areas, the amount of power to do is monstrous and likely to cause cancer for anyone around.

In a real scenario these things work. Please don't fall into "what if's" which are exotic and confused as things bigger than what they are.

Well, from the comments, here, this sounds like a passionate topic, for folks.

I've always been interested in helping folks that help folks.

I started looking at Meshtastic, some years ago, but found the ecosystem to be a bit overly-complex, as is often the case, with "Swiss Army Knife" approaches.

Yeah, indeed. If you are in the mood, dive a bit into APRS.

Best thing is the android app combo with the walkie-talkie. Tends to give a usable setup that works for voice and data.

> You will NOT be able to jam a satellite outside local areas

It is true that you will not be able to jam the _downlink_ frequency outside local areas.

But due to the FM capture effect, anyone else in the same hemisphere with a basic 100w transmitter (and appropriate antenna) on the _uplink_ frequency will be able to deny the satellite service to all the 5W Baofeng radios that preppers are stockpiling.

That level of argument is already at Reddit level where every little detail is a reason to be "right". This is tiresome.

Look: if someone is jamming something with a 100 watt transmitter which causes impact on the adversary, that location is quickly bombed because it is now a giant beacon that advertises its position.

I'll even throw a cheap appeal to authority and mention that I've done this stuff professionally in the military for a decade. I'll still trust more on the usability of my cheap walkie-talkie capable of +50km range and satellite texts than an exotic LoRa used on the ground by few internet warriors.

I think the Internet warriors are trying to build their own entirely self-sufficient network independent of the state or commercial worlds, which is, as you say, tricky to do only with resources legally available to the general public. Armed forces have had these things nailed down pretty much since the invention of radio.

> Forget about LoRa, that is basically a toy. It is far more useful to have a functioning walkie talkie capable of talking with satellites and other stations at 50 kilometers of range.

You’re not going to reliably get that without terrestrial infrastructure, unless both you and your correspondent are conveniently standing on mountaintops.

5km in the suburbs, maybe. Closer to 500m at street level in an urban environment.

You need a ham radio license to send data on APRS frequencies.

Except under emergency situations, which are the cases we are talking here.

Things like this really benefit from experience and practice though. If an emergency is the first time you try to really use your radio, it's probably not going all that well.

That is indeed true. Practicing is important. To remember: APRS is available on other frequencies and methods, one does not need a radio license to receive text messages.

APRS is friendly enough to permit sending messages using normal internet and receiving messages from friends while on the outdoors. However, all of this requires practice and know-how.

Depends. Various parts of Europe have bands that can be used licenseless and allow data, e.g. in Germany there was somewhat of a community doing APRS-over-CB (past tense because I haven't kept up if thats still a thing).

i always wondered if in case of natural disaster/war the state does really have the time and resources to chase unlicensed use of radio frequencies

it doesn't, but if you only start learning and using your equipment once disaster has hit you are a bit late (and possibly getting in the way of others trying to use radios properly).

Yes, that is the case. By the time you learn and get more equipment, you might as well get a proper radio license too. If you are interested on the topic, it is worth doing (in my opinion)

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