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Radio users reminded not to use radios in crimes

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Re: Radio users reminded not to use radios in crimes

#131

Post by poulsbohemian »

Lammy wrote: post #129
UI_at_80x24 wrote: post #35

Baofeng's, Baofengs everywhere. Of all the images I have seen of the attempted coup, I have only seen baofeng radios. These are very cheap ($20'ish) radios that work very poorly (they splatter all over the bands) even when equipped with decent antennas. They barely work when equipped with the stock rubber-duck antennas. It's easy to be a snob about the type of radios that they are using, but that's not even the point…

> These people are idiots. It makes me uneasy to see how much commentary on recent events seems to focus on insulting these people instead of hearing how society has failed them and why they're upset even if we tend to disagree with their suggested fixes. I think their presence in DC and that "colorful" person they elected are all symptoms of this behavior.

> focus on insulting these people instead of hearing how society has failed them

Look, I'm just a guy, with no fancy credentials or research to back this up, but the more I read, the more I try to understand this crowd, the more I talk with other people about this crowd, the more I believe these people are making choices. That is to say, there are plenty of educated and monied people running amok here. To believe that this is a crowd of impoverished, under/un-employed people with limited economic means that society has failed is in fact allowing them to behave recklessly and grow their audience. Nope. A lot of these folks know what they are doing or are allowing themselves to give in to their worst selves. That's not being failed, that's making choices.

Re: Radio users reminded not to use radios in crimes

#132

Post by dschuler »

vaduz wrote: post #93
dschuler wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think avmich is getting at the idea that some actions may or may not be legal until determined to be a crime, at which point there would be two: the original crime, and using radio to facilitate it. This reminds me of a question on the US immigration card for non-citizens - it asks if the traveler intends to rob a bank. If you want to be let in, you have to check "no" of course, but anyone who then robs a bank whil…

The goal of similar questions (also, my favourites: have you ever been training child soldiers, or have you been involved in a violent overthrow of a legal government) is to make any discrepancy a separate immigration offense - making it a jurisdiction of Immigration Court, with expedited process whilst you have limited rights and deportation at the end.

> making it a jurisdiction of Immigration Court, with expedited process whilst you have limited rights and deportation at the end

Aah got it, that makes sense now. So it's not just political posturing for the extra-tough- on crime stuff.

Re: Radio users reminded not to use radios in crimes

#133

Post by blhack »

nimbius wrote: post #126
blhack wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strong disagree, and wish this sort of gatekeeping wasn't present. Go get one of these things. They're $20, and ham radio is a fun and useful hobby. I have many baofeng radios which have been in many forms of being thrown into boxes, backpacks, filled with dust, rained on, abused by drunks, dropped, etc. and they ALL are still working fine, albeit some with dest behind the LCD cover.

Oh its not gatekeeping. You get what you pay for. My baofeng 5 died two hours into a 12 mile backpackign trip across catalina island. It couldn't do a quarter mile line of sight with an airport 2m amateur tower and when turning on the flashlight feature in my tent it died entirely and would not power back on. I was entirely reliant on it for ranger station as well as general comms and phone patch/weather. Packing thi…

How is it a "byzantine nightmare"? I plug it into my computer, put in the frequencies (and names I want for the channels.), and upload the configuration. That seems pretty straightforward to me.

Re: Radio users reminded not to use radios in crimes

#134

Post by rmason »

moftz wrote: post #66
rmason wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I became a ham back in the sixties the amateur bands were policed by the FCC themselves. They even had rolling vans with directional antennas. You even had to go to the local FCC office to sit for the license test of all but the novice license. I still can remember the sound Morse code made in the room with glass on all four sides. They looked in at you and for a kid it was like being in a fish bowl. But in a co…

I think its mostly people with Baofengs operating on MURS and GRMS bands. The prepper and tactical larper forums all talk about how to setup a Baofeng for unlicensed use at these bands. I hope all hams out there do their best to help monitor our airwaves and report any abuse.

If it's unlicensed use then why blame the hams? Restrict sales of radios to only licensed hams. There is a precedent here.

CB'ers used to buy ham radio amplifiers and use them illegally. The ham band of 10 meters was close enough to the CB 11 meter band it could be done with little change.

So manufacturers at the behest of the FCC started removing 10 meters from linear amplifiers. If you showed proof of licensing you could get a plugin to add back the 10 meter band.

Re: Radio users reminded not to use radios in crimes

#135

Post by moftz »

rmason wrote: post #134
moftz wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think its mostly people with Baofengs operating on MURS and GRMS bands. The prepper and tactical larper forums all talk about how to setup a Baofeng for unlicensed use at these bands. I hope all hams out there do their best to help monitor our airwaves and report any abuse.

If it's unlicensed use then why blame the hams? Restrict sales of radios to only licensed hams. There is a precedent here. CB'ers used to buy ham radio amplifiers and use them illegally. The ham band of 10 meters was close enough to the CB 11 meter band it could be done with little change. So manufacturers at the behest of the FCC started removing 10 meters from linear amplifiers. If you showed proof of licensing you…

I'd prefer if radios meant for ham usage just stuck to the ham bands. If you want to build your own to tx/rx across everything, go ahead. My Baofeng lets me tx on all kinds of frequencies that I'm not licensed for but my Yaesu properly locks me out from transmitting anywhere that isn't 2m ham or 70cm ham.

Re: Radio users reminded not to use radios in crimes

#136

Post by eindiran »

mindcrime wrote: post #94
killtheliterate wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

same. it's a perfectly fine shitty radio. i have 3 of them that i keep stashed in various places. they certainly aren't as nice as my yaesu, and they do splatter, but they do work just fine.

perfectly fine shitty radio Hah! What a great bit of word-smithing there. I love it. Yes, that's a good description of the Baofeng radios. They're crap, but they're fine crap. Cheap, but workable as a beginner radio. I bought mine right when I got my Technician license, and it's served well for dipping my toes in the water a little. But I'll be buying a higher quality radio soon, if all goes according to plan.

If you were to recommend a beginner radio, is a Baofeng what you'd recommend?

Re: Radio users reminded not to use radios in crimes

#138

Post by mhh__ »

Lammy wrote: post #129
UI_at_80x24 wrote: post #35

Baofeng's, Baofengs everywhere. Of all the images I have seen of the attempted coup, I have only seen baofeng radios. These are very cheap ($20'ish) radios that work very poorly (they splatter all over the bands) even when equipped with decent antennas. They barely work when equipped with the stock rubber-duck antennas. It's easy to be a snob about the type of radios that they are using, but that's not even the point…

> These people are idiots. It makes me uneasy to see how much commentary on recent events seems to focus on insulting these people instead of hearing how society has failed them and why they're upset even if we tend to disagree with their suggested fixes. I think their presence in DC and that "colorful" person they elected are all symptoms of this behavior.

No amount of "economic anxiety" justifies an explicitly undemocratic coup attempt where people were running around looking to scalp democratically elected leaders.

There are real ills in society, but - ignoring that republican voters are significantly uninformed about things like the party's support for healthcare, e.g. Efforts to scrap Obamacare largely hurt poor Trump voters - that doesn't excuse them from the fact that they've swallowed the Trump Koolaid and taken part in a coup.

And besides, if you want to talk about society failing them - were there any black people in the Capitol?

Re: Radio users reminded not to use radios in crimes

#139

Post by bryanrasmussen »

generalizations wrote: post #130
Blikkentrekker wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't believe in morality; it's an indefinable and unfalsifiable concept I simply said that the claim of believing in “freedom of speech, except where one not” is an empty, useless, and trivial statement. Everyone believes in “freedom of speech, except where he draw the line”.

Where freedom of speech falls in the hierarchy of rights is not my concern. What is my concern, is who gets to choose what that hierarchy is and where freedom of speech exists on it. I'm arguing that the government is not who gets to determine what that hierarchy is, and thereby determine what gets to superceed freedom of speech.

very well, who gets to determine that hierarchy and how will they enforce their determinations?

Re: Radio users reminded not to use radios in crimes

#140

Post by bob1029 »

some_random wrote: post #115

I'm sure I'll get a lot of hate for this, but honestly FCC regulation of ham radio is at best antiquated cold war bullshit (ie, crypto bans) and at worst gatekeeping for a bunch of old men who can dox themselves in order to get exclusive access to some bands. Every single person here uses high powered encrypted communication without a license, it's a cell phone.

Hypothetically, if I were to develop some DSSS technique that operates below the noise floor and utilizes a strong AES2 cipher, who the hell cares how I use it?
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