My initial thought is that this is a cool way to try and get more resilient communications technology in the hands of those who need it most in the Global South, and it's awesome it was successfully used for a Pan Pan.
This reminds me of WinLink (an analogue to email on amateur radio), which I've heard is used by some Mariners. [1]
I'm aware that HERMES is essentially a SDR bundle/communication terminal (for a lack of a better term for a Raspberry Pi, a screen and an SDR), so it's not really re-discovering a well known amateur radio concept, but the hardware setup sounds a bit brittle on first glance, for what is essentially an emergency/critical communication application.
This is a cool project, but fyi, in the US, this would require a license to broadcast (not receive), and I am pretty sure encryption, even with a license, is not legal (again, when broadcasting from US).
If you want to have internet everywhere there is Starlink. Competing against it as hobbyist is a waste of time.
But having a small, low-power, lightweight messenger that uses an extremely robust (and thereby slow) mode to send and receive messages is an interesting niche. For VHF/UHF/SHF you can use LoRa.
Original project page: https://hermes.radio/ (Code: https://mercury.hermes.radio/)
Organization page: https://www.rhizomatica.org/about/
My initial thought is that this is a cool way to try and get more resilient communications technology in the hands of those who need it most in the Global South, and it's awesome it was successfully used for a Pan Pan.
This reminds me of WinLink (an analogue to email on amateur radio), which I've heard is used by some Mariners. [1]
I'm aware that HERMES is essentially a SDR bundle/communication terminal (for a lack of a better term for a Raspberry Pi, a screen and an SDR), so it's not really re-discovering a well known amateur radio concept, but the hardware setup sounds a bit brittle on first glance, for what is essentially an emergency/critical communication application.
[1]: https://winlink.org/
This is a cool project, but fyi, in the US, this would require a license to broadcast (not receive), and I am pretty sure encryption, even with a license, is not legal (again, when broadcasting from US).
And then only on certain bands:
https://www.arrl.org/files/file/Regulatory/Band%20Chart/Hamb...
Sounds a lot like something that could be used with https://reticulum.network to create networks that support multiple mediums.
> Why did you build in encryption that amateur-radio regulations in many countries don’t allow?
Encryption (in terms of hiding messages) is forbidden mostly.
But everything else is allowed: hashes, signing, etc.
Coincidentally I looked into this the other day and the fastest mode is 3 kilobit/s. Great for email but it's not going to be an Internet connection.
If you want to have internet everywhere there is Starlink. Competing against it as hobbyist is a waste of time.
But having a small, low-power, lightweight messenger that uses an extremely robust (and thereby slow) mode to send and receive messages is an interesting niche. For VHF/UHF/SHF you can use LoRa.
doesn't HAM radio already have a digital packet system that works like fidonet store-and-forward system?
this just adds an encryption layer?
AX.25 runs at 300 bps over HF while Mercury is 10x faster.