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Turkey earthquake: please keep 28.540 clear for communications

196 points| RijilV | 3 years ago |forums.qrz.com

125 comments

order

leot|3 years ago

Feel as though it's worth mentioning here that using LTE Direct (https://www.qualcomm.com/news/onq/2014/11/true-or-false-gett...) every phone could become a node in a long-range mesh network in an emergency. This approach takes advantage of both the strong radios in smartphones and the available node density provided by smartphone ubiquity.

The tech has already been proven—carriers just need to be mandated to add it because there's no business reason to do so.

arcticbull|3 years ago

> The tech has already been proven—carriers just need to be mandated to add it because there's no business reason to do so.

People say that but in the decades since it was thought up mesh networks have never actually managed to work, not at any scale. Routing efficiently is extremely complex especially when all the nodes keep moving around. I concede it may be better than nothing in an emergency but I strongly suspect it's just not very useful in general, which is probably why carriers haven't mandated it. After all if it worked you wouldn't need carriers at all, yet here they are...

RF_Savage|3 years ago

Does any handset anywhere actually implement LTE Direct? My understanding has been that it was specified for Public Safety LTE to have feature parity with TETRA.

Especially the infrastructure-less TETRA DMO Direct Mode Operation for ad-hoc communications with the trunking infrastructure down, out of range or over capacity.

And everybody in the Public Safety radio space seems to always laugh when LTE Direct is brought up. Apparently poorly specified and adopted by no vendors.

ISL|3 years ago

How does LTE Direct impact battery-life? Seems like something that could obliterate a handset's battery in the space of an hour or so?

mzerod|3 years ago

Digital Data Comms if needed:

Dial frequency 14.1023 USB

- at 1000Hz and 2000Hz for AFSK.300 (two channels for multiple access) - at 1500Hz for VARA or ARDOP OFDM

EMCOM Services available: Winlink RMS gateways, APRS HF Relays.

Manned Stations prepared on this frequency

IW2OHX - Italy Winlink EI2GYB-5 - Ireland - Winlink PE1RRR-8 - Netherlands - Winlink

It’s not much but it’s a network nexus with an insane number of backbone links for redundancy.

Software and setup tutorial:

https://eindhoven.space/radio-experiments/packet-radio/qtter...

mzerod|3 years ago

I’ve created a portal in bash to allow HF access to emergency web content, here’s a demo of it going 900km loading HN.

https://youtu.be/5CN1nD_xciU

genewitch|3 years ago

my pactor modem doesn't do vara or ardop, are those more common around there? I do know that winlink does that in software modems (and iirc Vara costs money), but without a dedicated and maintained laptop or computer digital modes are fairly awful. Having/using hardware makes stuff like emcom less painful and require less attention.

diebeforei485|3 years ago

Honestly very disappointed that phone makers haven't implemented radio in phones.

irjustin|3 years ago

Am I too old? We did, but no one wants it (normally). It would require gov intervention to widespread require it.

NovaPenguin|3 years ago

I hadn't realized this was something that was happening. My Oppo A53 (?) still has FM radio via head phones. Same with the Nokia 2710 flip.

Being someone that usually lives in the low end, I have never had a phone without FM.

jhoechtl|3 years ago

radio in englisch is quite overloaded, what do you mean? an fm receiver? a shortwave transceiver (as is the case in the 10m band)? a vhf/uhf transceiver to participate in lpd/pmr/fmrs, 2m/70cm ham?

shultays|3 years ago

My bet is countries having all kind of taxes, stamp fees etc when it comes to adding such features and phone makers not wanting to pay the fee. Or maybe it is a patent fee. Your device can support FM or can play radio? You need to pay 20 cents per device!

djbusby|3 years ago

HTC Evo on Sprint 4G had an FM radio. Used the plug-in headphones for antenna.

bogomipz|3 years ago

They are implemented in the existing chips just not enabled in software. Qualcomm's ubiquitous LTE modem chip has FM radio baked in. There was a whole push by the FCC in the US as well as some FM broadcasters to mandate it be enabled. See:

"Your Phone Has An FM Chip. So Why can't you listen to the radio?":

https://archive.is/YMLsM#selection-1393.0-1393.64

and

"Dinosaur Broadcasters Turn to Congress to Mandate Their Relevance":

https://www.forbes.com/sites/garyshapiro/2012/06/06/dinosaur...

and

"Trump’s FCC chief wants it to be easier to listen to free FM radio on your smartphone":

https://www.vox.com/2017/2/16/14638304/trump-fcc-free-fm-rad...

Tao3300|3 years ago

Implemented? Or enabled?

riskneutral|3 years ago

I think it's because the antennas are different.

numpad0|3 years ago

Mesh is a bit like fusion research so

est|3 years ago

> phone makers haven't implemented radio in phones

It's a ragulation thing.

RF_Savage|3 years ago

Interesting that they are using such a high frequency, I hope it serves them well. Should be reasonably free of long range interference.

But surprised that there are no 3.5MHz/7MHz/14MHz band frequencies in use for regional communications. Or they have not been declared yet for emcom use like with Nepal and Puerto Rico.

genewitch|3 years ago

They will use separate bands for regional "nets", the net controllers will forward any necessary information to whoever is the regional emcom person, and that person will get the message out over the 28.540 (or whatever winlink frequencies.)

28.540 has the benefit that you can push it rather far on a modest antenna -at any hour - much like CB, and with digital modes you don't need to be able to "hear" it to copy and send copyable text. Most regional nets will be on VHF, UHF, or NVIS HF (the 3.5, 7, etc) depending on the conditions and time of day.

lormayna|3 years ago

At the moment, I am not getting any traffic on this channel. I am in central Italy, not far away, from a radio perspective, to Turkey.

daveslash|3 years ago

I've made this comment here on HN before, but this reminds me of a tweet that I saw last year in which someone said:

"In breaking news moments like this, there should be a type of podcast you can listen to in real time, easily accessible for free."

To which someone replied: "Radio. You're thinking of radio."

https://twitter.com/jodyavirgan/status/1234998790139940865

It's always nice to see this technology (and the community) lean in to support disasters like this.

mertd|3 years ago

In case it didn't come through, the original tweet was sarcastic.

csomar|3 years ago

I thought governments had stuff like that? During the pandemic, when I got into my car, I got a Radio message delivered by the police. Not sure if phones support stuff like that but the government can collaborate with network providers to send SMSes.

diebeforei485|3 years ago

Radio does have the downside of being limited in range. I suppose it's alright because most breaking news is localized.

ditn|3 years ago

During the outbreak of the Ukraine war, this role was taken up by Twitter Spaces.

unknown|3 years ago

[deleted]

aaron695|3 years ago

How can I stream this?

Is it 28540KH?

From this site in Washington there's nothing - http://na5b.com:8901/

A site in France seemed to have nothing.

How close does it have to be?

[edit] I will say WebSDR is fucking cool. Closest I can see is http://94.137.189.166:8901/ Tbilisi - Georgia 500 miles away but doesn't have anything, unless I'm using this wrong.

genewitch|3 years ago

there's a good chance you won't be able to hear it. If you're seeing a kiwisdr "web radio" it will have a waterfall. Zoom in so you can only see about 500kc on either side of 28.540, and fiddle with the settings. winlink radio sessions are bursty and quick.

here's a complete session to check my winlink mail: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DA6JRB560eM the actual transmission starts about a minute in, the first minute is my station waiting its turn

jhoechtl|3 years ago

the 10m band typically has a reach like line of sight. it is also very likely that many rescuers will broadcast simultaneously so a wide reach (like > 20 kms/miles) is actually not good

TaylorAlexander|3 years ago

The radio thing is interesting but this is the first I am hearing of this quake, so here is a Reuters article with basic facts. Thousands of lives lost. A serious tragedy.

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/major-earthquake-s...

mtmail|3 years ago

Breaking news is rarely on HN (guidelines: "If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic."). So users don't submit it. It doesn't mean it's ignored by users. It's just assumed that people also read mainstream news websites besides HN already.

irq|3 years ago

Please, and I do not mean this offensively - I wish I could be as disengaged from world events as you are - can you tell me how you manage it? It used to be useful for me to be on top of everything, but I've been questioning that lately.

i_am_proteus|3 years ago

Thanks for this. I'm also hearing about it for the first time here and now.

I read the newspaper once a day in the morning, HN a couple of times during the day, that's it.

No other news or social media at all. I get a lot done. I recognize this lifestyle isn't for everyone.

malandrew|3 years ago

I’ve been commenting to my partner all day that it’s crazy how little this has shown up in social media without me actively looking for it by searching on Twitter. I think I saw maybe on post on FB all day and maybe 2 in my main Twitter feed. No company wide email from the thoughts and prayers crowd either. It’s been eerily silent for such a major disaster.

genewitch|3 years ago

on fediverse you can search @earthquake@social.yl.ms which is a bot that posts every earthquake that is reported. I saw a 4.5 magnitude sometime this weekend in that country. When i first saw the articles, i was a bit taken aback, both at the delay in reporting and that such a small earthquake had done so much destruction.

It is possible i am misremembering, but it could have been a fore-shock, as well.

Note: i don't watch fediverse or any social network enough to have seen any other reporting or whatever on this. My phone spammed me about it, the first such notification i've received this year, and i live in a Gulf state in the US.

eddsh1994|3 years ago

It’s front page news globally, I’m amazed you weren’t aware! Also trending Twitter etc…

lostlogin|3 years ago

It’s been headline news on most major sites for some time.