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Walkie-Textie Wireless Communicator

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Re: Walkie-Textie Wireless Communicator

#101

Post by sevensor »

slug wrote: post #87
jvm___ wrote: post #53

I'm backwoods camping next week, and we have 25 people spread out over three sites. I was thinking it would be funny to bring some old rotary dial phones and some sort of way of hooking them up, and then just have that as the intercom between sites for when dinner is ready or whatever. It's next week, so unlikely to happen and I'm not sure what technology I would need to make it all work. Something like Lora plus a w…

Cheap FRS walkie-talkies, can find plenty of these on ebay if don't want to buy new (will need new batteries though). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_Radio_Service

Frs was everywhere for a minute, and it seems like it’s been completely forgotten. Perfect for the application, basically the intended purpose.

Re: Walkie-Textie Wireless Communicator

#102

Post by spicybright »

jvm___ wrote: post #53

I'm backwoods camping next week, and we have 25 people spread out over three sites. I was thinking it would be funny to bring some old rotary dial phones and some sort of way of hooking them up, and then just have that as the intercom between sites for when dinner is ready or whatever. It's next week, so unlikely to happen and I'm not sure what technology I would need to make it all work. Something like Lora plus a w…

That shouldn't be too hard actually if you know some soldering!

Hook the speaker and mic up to the phone part, wire the hang up switch or rotary pulser to the musical tone button.

The ring might be a little quiet but this would be real easy to setup quick.

Re: Walkie-Textie Wireless Communicator

#103

Post by windexh8er »

subscribed wrote: post #95
junon wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't there a ban on encrypted amateur signals? Or is this running on a band that allows for it?

Amateur, yes, but this is not amateur radio. This is unlicenced.

The Meshtastic firmware actually has an 'Is Licensed' [0] checkbox if you want to operate with both the privileges and restrictions of operating under that license.

The major upside is transmit power and the downside is not being able to use encryption.

[0] https://meshtastic.org/docs/configuration/radio/user/#is-lic...

Re: Walkie-Textie Wireless Communicator

#104

Post by junon »

magnat wrote: post #91
junon wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that the cap of the whole system or can multiple users use it with individual caps of 3.5kbps? That's somehow both faster and slower than I expected.

If one node kept transmitting non-stop, it could push data out at 3.5kbps and no one else in that range can transmit at the same time. However, in EU there is a legal limit of 1% duty cycle on 868MHz band and collision avoidance mechanism, meaning on average you can send a packet (up to 255 bytes) once a minute.

Thanks for the info, that's really interesting!

Re: Walkie-Textie Wireless Communicator

#105

Post by RankingMember »

password4321 wrote: post #47
lxgr wrote: post #33

It's a real shame phones don't have something like this built in. I mean, we literally have satellite communication in every iPhone – or, depending on how you count, every LTE phone, period! Technically, it seems like 90% of what's required is already there anyway, but due to commercial and political pressures, we'll probably never see it happen.

I would settle for push-to-talk over WiFi on my phone interoperable with dedicated devices with no monthly fees.

Not that I don't agree that push-to-talk is a cool tool, but good lord was it a scourge in public environments. People shouting into their phones, then the Nextel "boop-boop" followed by a loud static-y response while you sit on the bus wishing for an asteroid.

Re: Walkie-Textie Wireless Communicator

#106

Post by Xmd5a »

Infernal wrote: post #48
junon wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't there a ban on encrypted amateur signals? Or is this running on a band that allows for it?

Yes and yes. In the US, 900-930MHz (nominally the 915MHz band) is available for use with no license required so encryption is fine (similar to your 2.4GHz or 5GHz wifi access point). People interested in LoRa may also be interested in 802.11ah, or Wifi HaLOW

>802.11ah, or Wifi HaLOW

Thanks a lot I wasn't aware of this technology. Turns out you can already buy gateways and boards/modules, and it seems it wasn't the case last year.

Any tip on how I can power these things wirelessly ?

Re: Walkie-Textie Wireless Communicator

#107

Post by dragontamer »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #56

A question for folks who know things I don't: if I wanted my phones to work in an area without cell signal, for just me and my family, is it possible to build a "personal" cell tower that our phones would just connect to and work, and allow us to text each other? Or is there a whole layer of auth required for our various phones to actually be able to use a fake network?

Possible? Yes.

Legally? No. But it's totally possible.

There are micro-towers for cell phone testing you can buy and cell phones think it's a real tower. Law enforcement uses one of them to track criminals IIRC.

But it's very tightly regulated.

Re: Walkie-Textie Wireless Communicator

#108

Post by Bender »

slug wrote: post #87
jvm___ wrote: post #53

I'm backwoods camping next week, and we have 25 people spread out over three sites. I was thinking it would be funny to bring some old rotary dial phones and some sort of way of hooking them up, and then just have that as the intercom between sites for when dinner is ready or whatever. It's next week, so unlikely to happen and I'm not sure what technology I would need to make it all work. Something like Lora plus a w…

Cheap FRS walkie-talkies, can find plenty of these on ebay if don't want to buy new (will need new batteries though). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_Radio_Service

My entire community use it. We set channel and CTSS to our area code so people can remember it. I also have intercoms that use it.

Outside of the legal realm there are also ham radios that are either easy to frequency unlock or are pre-unlocked to do FRS+DMR for encryption though I would never do this outside of a dummy load.

Re: Walkie-Textie Wireless Communicator

#109

Post by Steltek »

jvm___ wrote: post #53

I'm backwoods camping next week, and we have 25 people spread out over three sites. I was thinking it would be funny to bring some old rotary dial phones and some sort of way of hooking them up, and then just have that as the intercom between sites for when dinner is ready or whatever. It's next week, so unlikely to happen and I'm not sure what technology I would need to make it all work. Something like Lora plus a w…

Regular walkie talkies + VOX + headset re-assembled into the phone handset ? Make the phone hook a switch to cut the mic (err, like it originally did, I guess). It's not elegant but it could be a quick evening's work.

Re: Walkie-Textie Wireless Communicator

#110

Post by sidewndr46 »

throwaway81523 wrote: post #97
phreeza wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess this would require a Ham license in most places? Apart from that i would really like a device like you describe (extremely low bps, high range).

JS9CALL on the ham bands requires a ham license but in principle you could use it on the unlicensed bands as well.

Do you mean JS8Call?
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