#JS8CALL has different speed modes depending on what the user selects depending on propagation and receiver reception. Are you building something in like this? This is a pretty cool idea! I see one person on a village or town having a big HF radio constantly receiving and then pushing out on VHF/UHF to locals on a smaller mesh network with less power.
Alright nostriches. I finally have enough done and feel comfortable to share my progress on HAMSTR.
You are about to witness perhaps the first ever(well outside of the 2,000 ones I have done testing, lol) nostr note retrieved exclusively over HF packet ham radio.
There is no Internet access on this browser at the moment at all.
It is a client - server setup. The client is fully off-grid. Only the server can connect to the internet. For this test, the server is was roughly 500 feet away using dummy loads on my radios putting out virtually zero watts. Yes, not far, but in theory it would similar at hundreds and even thousands of miles away as well.
This test pulls my most recent notes from my fake dev account following list. In this case 1 note. The number of notes is configurable, but keep in mind HF Packet Radio is SLOW. This one note takes quite a while for just tiny note from nostr:nprofile1qqsywt6ypu57lxtwj2scdwxnyrl3sry9typcstje65x7rw9a2e5nq8sprpmhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuumwdae8gtnnda3kjctvqydhwumn8ghj7un9d3shjtnzd96xxmmfdecxzunt9e3k7mgpp4mhxue69uhkummn9ekx7mq9hxafw. Future versions will have FM Data packets as well, but line of sight FM was not my goal. Global coverage was. HF radio is the only way for that.
Most functionality is now working, just ironing out some things and lots of bugs. Following, global, search, hash tags, npub search display names, are all basically working. Soon replies.
What started out as a project for me to use some social media and take camping and do some off-grid nostr stuff has now morphed into something that I believe will be able to help millions of people be able to bypass oppressive regimes, firewalls, tyranny, and allow them to interact with the nostr network using nothing but ham radios. This could be massive for learning, comms, and overall freedom. Could have a server running in France, and connect to it from Russia or Afghanistan for example. Easily within HF radio reach for half the world.
Much like the winlink email network, I hope people will be able to take my project and setup servers all around the world for people to access, read, write notes, send DM's, use various nostr kinds and even send Bitcoin(on chain offline transactions over HF radio and nostr coming soon).
Lots to come!
Note: pardon the phone screen cap, it isn't quite working fully android Firefox or chrome yet.
#hamstr
#Nostr
#development
#hamradio
https://video.nostr.build/1830960c328baad59ce74bfb23e7d3ea12bb26ea09f085e8a14762bb2cac88d4.mp4
Discussion
I currently have 3 speed modes, 300 baud, 600 baud, 1200 buad. 1200 is basically not possibly in anything but NVIS type HF conditions.
Interesting idea! Yes, JS8CALL has multiple modes. slow, slower, very slow and the worst. lol. Its a fantastic protocol. Very robust and can be used in terrible HF conditions. Currently it is all AX25 spec packets. 200kb chunks that get split then combined back together.
JS8 is amazing, and does have an undocumented API, but its bad. Its just not right for this project. However, future plans include:
Full KISS MODEM FL DIGI - Be able to use most if not all FL DIGI modes for very fast OR robust data transsfer, and eventually protocol switching
Reticulum Network KISS packet support. To be able to then use it on hf, fm, lora, and even just plain old encrypted internet node connections. Or better yet, a mix of all the above.
ie: Use LORA RN device to send from an offgrid channel a few miles away to an HF connected base station, which then sends it to the server.
I used speficifacally KISS packets because of the future operability with FLDIGI and Reticulum.
FM on VHF/UHF is currently working OK at 1200 baud, but currently that is the limit. In the future will add support for 2300 or even 9600 bps depending on band conditions. The biggest thing is the client and server currently have to stay on the same baud and frequencies/modes.
I plan on having a winlink style switching later on that will rotate through different HF bands possibly so you can try different bands conditions.
Very awesome. I understand most of it at a very high level. I'm no help on the software side. I am interested in the hardware side mostly and how simple it can get.
My test was done on a yaesu ft710 base station with dummy load connected to desktop, internet disabled
My remote side was done with a tr usdx wrap right connected to a laptop and wifi. Neither had an antenna for testing.
Simple $5 dipoles would work fine!