How hard would it be to set up a base station that allows me to send a file another user far away, by bouncing the connection off of the ionosphere?
Also is it possible to track down such signals?
please don't laugh at me, am genuinely interested
Ionospheric Transmission
Joshua Green
David Bennett
You need this on both sides
Henry Perry
aw fuck
does that mean i can't use a satellite dish
Jeremiah Bennett
en.wikipedia.org
I think you are wrong
"Among amateur radio operators and shortwave listeners, most traditional DX communication occurs on the HF bands, where the ionosphere is used to refract the transmitted radio beam. The beam returns to the Earth's surface, and may then be reflected back into the ionosphere for a second bounce. Ionospheric refraction is generally only feasible for frequencies below about 50 MHz, and is highly dependent upon atmospheric conditions, the time of day, and the eleven-year sunspot cycle. It is also affected by solar storms and some other solar events, which can alter the Earth's ionosphere by ejecting a shower of charged particles."
Liam Lewis
>VLF
no user
Connor Ward
This article says that the ionosphere is used by amateur radio operators. So it should be possible. en.wikipedia.org
Dominic Lee
HAM radio guys have been doing that stuff for ages but the problem with trying to send data that way is you wind up having to use low noisy frequencies that make any sort of complex data transmission more difficult. Also atmospheric bounce is very unreliable. People use moon bounce at higher frequencies which would work better for data but of course it;s more complicated and you have to build a pretty nice antenna and calculate everything more carefuly.
Yes it's pretty easy to track down the signal and especially if you aren't operating with a HAM license on a proper brand and announcing your station code regularly, the FCC may track you down as an unlicensed station regardless of what ever you are sending.
Eli Clark
North American FM stations have been received in Western Europe three times, though no reports exist of European FM signals being received in Canada or the US
Cool! But it seems its not very reliable. But possible anyway.
Anyway, longwave or dxing seems to be ops best bet.
Elijah Hughes
Yes I read the article, but there is nothing that tells me...
1. What software can I use to control the hardware (satellite dish?)
2. Can I use a satellite dish? (if not why not)
Possibly want to make some sort of file sharing program that allows you to utilize household technology like an old satellite dish
Justin Hughes
it's a pain in the fucking ass, but possible. don't even think about doing it without a license, the FCC does not like people broadcasting without a license in general and doing anything beyond using a walkie talkie to talk to your friends when you're out camping will result in a literal army of 70 year old men hunting you down and reporting you to the feds
>VLF
why the fuck are you trying to send messages to submarines, user?
>At their full input power of 2.6 MW, both US ELF transmitters working together only generated about 8 watts of ELF radiation. This weak signal was able to reach submarines over half the globe only because of the extremely low attenuation of ELF waves of 1–2 dB per 1000 kilometers.
OP doesn't need a fucking power plant to talk to some idiot 200 km away
check out the skyking threads on Sup Forums, and consider going for an amateur radio license.
Lucas Taylor
>check out the skyking threads on Sup Forums, and consider going for an amateur radio license.
Yeah I am looking into a license
Thanks user! I don't really want to look at Sup Forums, but i'll do it anyways
Alexander Bennett
A satellite dish serves frequencies in the GHz range. Skywave propogation (as in bouncing from the ionosphere) is around 3-30MHz, nowhere near GHz range. Satellite dish is not suitable.
Mason Torres
>the FCC may track you down as an unlicensed station regardless of what ever you are sending.
Does the FCC really knock on peoples doors for using HAM radios?
Logan Mitchell
He only said "far away"? So 200km is to close. I figured he wanted to send data accross the pasific or atlantic
William Foster
transition.fcc.gov
its pretty bad
Jack Rivera
Can I use a satellite dish to propagate off of the ionosphere over just 80km?
Jason Parker
>
GHz does not propagate skywave. What defines propogation is the frequency (e.g. MHz), not the equipment.
Ryan Reed
Is there some way to send low frequency waves using a satellite dish? Like underclocking?
sorry if that sounds stupid, i am stupid in this subject
Easton Cruz
No, and I very much doubt any consumer equipment would allow such a combination of satellite dish+hf transmitter.
Pic related is a satellite dish next to a HF transmitter. Bear in mind that the dish is only a receiver, _not_ a transmitter, so even if you were to magically find some equipment which allowed you to connect the dish to it, you wouldn't send anything.
Mason Roberts
Maybe you can use this?
ti.com
I only googled it quick so i dont know if you are able to buy it.
Kayden Moore
if you're being a dick with it, yes. the FCC does not dick around in general, and if you're fucking with anything important they will hunt you down.
>I figured he wanted to send data accross the pasific or atlantic
you can do that with HF, you don't need to transmit on VLF.
you don't need a satellite dish. satellite dishes work by basically being opaque and very reflective to the radiation presented to them, that way they can concentrate and bounce the radiation into a receiver. small satellite dishes like the ones you see on roofs are only for use at GHz frequencies, as the frequency gets lower the wavelength gets higher and it becomes harder to construct satellite dishes.
see pic related? that's a radio telescope (actually a collection of them but that's not too important), basically a really big satellite dish, that observes down to 50 MHz. the wavelength for that frequency is about 6 meters. the satellite dish looks like a bunch of thin metal bars, and it's like that because anything below about ~1-2 meters in size is basically ignored by 50 MHz energy. we only have dishes like this because the extremely weak radiation from different stars is impossible to detect without a satellite dish. if you go lower, you stop getting dishes and you simply get 100 or so meter wide receivers placed next to each other.
shortwave is 1.6 to 30 MHz. those wavelengths are so large that things like buildings and small hills are invisible, so you don't need anything like a satellite dish to work with them. a simple antenna is literally just a length of copper wire strung between your garage and your bedroom window.
Jaxon Roberts
The horizon is only 20km away though which makes line of sight communication impossible.
Justin Reed
yes, but there's no point. just run your transmission through some wire and you'll be fine.
Lucas Brown
>those wavelengths are so large that things like buildings and small hills are invisible
I didn't know that, that's pretty cool.
Owen Scott
OP I suggest you start with this. Start with a short piece of wire, then move up to short distance infrared communication and move your way up from there.
Noah Anderson
Op I need to ask, why do you want to send data 80km without using internet connection?
Jaxson Roberts
yeah, a more impressive example is the history of ELF transmissions, basically 3 Hz to 30 Hz. nobody saw a reason to transmit on those frequencies since a wavelength sized antenna would be multiple times the diameter of the earth, but the topic came up during the cold war because people wanted to communicate with submarines (300 ft of seawater stops basically everything), and it turned out that ELF transmissions were the only things that could punch through that much seawater. in the end they had to use the earth itself as an antenna because it was the only thing they could feasibly use, and that had terrible efficiency.
en.wikipedia.org
>The system transmitted at a frequency of 76 Hz.
>The US Navy system "Sanguine" would have transmitted messages of three-letter groups and would have required 15 minutes to transmit each code group. Such a system is not used to transmit detailed orders, but instead serve the function of a "bell ringer", ordering a specific vessel to surface and receive further orders by ordinary radio or satellite communication.
>The lines, made of 1.5-centimeter (0.59 in) aluminum cable supported on insulators on 40-foot (12 m) wooden utility poles, resembled ordinary power transmission lines. The ends of the transmission lines were grounded by 1 to 3 miles (1.6 to 4.8 km) of buried copper cable and ground rods, later replaced by arrays of electrodes in deep 300-foot (91 m) boreholes The transmitters sent alternating currents of 300 amperes through the lines, which passed through the buried electrodes deep into the Earth.
>At their full input power of 2.6 MW, both US ELF transmitters working together only generated about 8 watts of ELF radiation. This weak signal was able to reach submarines over half the globe only because of the extremely low attenuation of ELF waves of 1–2 dB per 1000 kilometers.
Brody Evans
It's entirely possible but you're likely to get transfer rates of 400b/s. That's bits.
Anthony Powell
This is really impressive tech!
Joshua Howard
If you tought looking at porn with a 33khz modem was bad, think again
Grayson Kelly
never underestimate the power of an extreme hatred for communism. if you want more things like that, look up numbers stations. HFGCS is fun to listen to as well, it's a global HF radio network that the USAF runs, they use it to communicate with naval assets, nuclear bombers, military outposts, surveillance planes, etc. you can listen as much as you want, but you can't understand most of the communications since they use one time pads. occasionally you get jets requesting phone patches, so you can listen to phone calls between cargo aircraft and air force bases. the skyking threads on Sup Forums talk all about it, there are a bunch of knowledgeable people there that teach newbies about radio.
James Howard
Unlicensed? Yes. And other HAMs seem to take a lot of pleasure in triangulating your position and reporting your ass. They're a massive bunch of autists that will rat out anyone not in their sekrit club.
Xavier Green
People have to much spare time