RE: [DSTAR_DIGITAL] Tactical Call indication
On Tue, 19 May 2009 08:30:36 -0600, Barry A. Wilson ka0...@worldnet.att.net said: (NOTE: I know how we identify MYCALL has been left open to local interpretation because there are a few operators here in Denver that like to play with erroneous MYCALL callsigns like RG8U or COAX because they think it is cute and as long as they ID in voice they feel using unassigned calls in digital is OK. ItÂ’s not their concern what gets routed and retransmitted by someone else remotely if on the Gateway. BAD PRACTICE? Some would say yes. I personally will always interpret the rules along with good amateur practice to operate with the intent of the law and not necessarily how to get around the rules so as to be cute.) [Sorry folks, going to go into a couple of local-only topics for a minute here, but Barry is always complaining about RG8U incessantly on the NATIONAL list, and he doesn't talk about it at all on the LOCAL list or even ask me or any of the other leadership team members who is doing it... so...] Barry, Watching you get all riled up about that fake callsign over and over again is quite entertaining. I know EXACTLY who set up a rig with RG8U back during system testing, and it's still floating around in the memory of that rig, and I think I know EXACTLY why they keep doing it... Hint: By now, it's just to annoy you. No one else cares. Get a clue. They happen to have donated over $2000 worth of gear and were instrumental in getting a repeater site -- without them, Colorado D-STAR wouldn't have won the RFP process from HRO or even been viable. You MIGHT want to ask locally before you rant for months about someone on the national list. Just seems like a good idea to me... but do what you like. To your point where you think they don't care about where they route to... you're forgetting that callsign can't route ANYWHERE because it's NOT REGISTERED. The dstarusers.org folks publicize non-registered transmissions without vetting them as even being valid Gateway users -- but that isn't my problem. I've already been shouted down by the mob here for wanting a way to ensure privacy at the Gateway (feed) end of that data, but the anti-privacy mob says that the whole world needs to know when we all key up, here in the U.S. Thus, a very strange U.S. Only requirement... I don't see any dstarusersjapan.org publication of all of their transmissions? Whatever. Publicizing every key-up without stripping the non-registered users is silly if the point is to foster activity -- since no one can call that callsign, and that callsign can't callsign route, command the Gateway D-Plus, etc. (I don't allow non-registered callsigns to command the links, ever since Robin added that feature... for example.) The only three places RG8U shows up: 1) On your rig locally. If you see it, you'll recognize the voice. 2) In the Gateway logs. I see those, and know who it is already. 3) Dstarusers.org because they insist on publishing it, even though it's not registered and couldn't route anywhere. You might want to stop attacking one of the group's benefactors on a national mailing list before you've even asked about it on the local list. (And at this point, it's so funny that you don't know who it is, we'll probably keep you in suspense! Hahaha!) Now back to something actually useful, hopefully... since this particular issue is a non-issue, other than it very CLEARLY proves that the so-called callsign field in D-STAR... isn't. It's just a network address, set by the user and utterly changeable. Only an operator's good-will keeps it set to a callsign, really. Relying on having a CALLSIGN in that field is silly in the extreme. It's nice if everyone does it, but the field itself and the technology really don't care what's in the rigs at all. It's just an alphanumeric field. No amount of wishful thinking will stop someone from copy-catting a callsign to gain access to routing... eventually. Nate WY0X -- Nate Duehr n...@natetech.com
Re: [DSTAR_DIGITAL] Tactical Call indication - U.S. ONLY
Yes, its legal (in the US): FCC Part 97.119c One or more indicators may be included with the call sign. Each indicator must be separated from the call sign by the slant mark (/) or by any suitable word that denotes the slant mark. If an indicator is self-assigned, it must be included before, after, or both before and after, the call sign. No self-assigned indicator may conflict with any other indicator specified by the FCC Rules or with any prefix assigned to another country. From a protocol point of view, it is not part of the address/callsign - it is a separate field. Actually the 8th position designator (module, etc.) is more problematic from a very strict reading of the above rule, but I think most regulators would permit some leeway here. There is no intent to mislead and there is usually a space separating the callsign from the designator. One must also be cognizant of 97.113a4 which prohibits false or decptive messages, signals or identification On May 19, 2009, at 7:30 AM, Barry A. Wilson wrote: Ray John, It was originally stated to use the MYCALL short message field which is only 4 characters and I think it has merit but is it legal? John Hays Amateur Radio: K7VE j...@hays.org [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
RE: [DSTAR_DIGITAL] Tactical Call indication
It is definitely not silly, because it legally viable solution to station identification. Your statement is silly because it's just as easy for me to do the same thing on voice. Callsigns are hijacked on voice all the time. Just because it can be done some other way doesn't mean that standard and practices shouldn't be developed to support a feature. For D-STAR, the standard, as specified in the protocol is for the field to contain your callsign. If you stick to the specifics of the protocol, then if you put something besides your callsign in the field, then it wouldn't be in accordance with the protocol. If it isn't in accordance with the protocol, then you will need to follow the requirements of utilization of a non-published protocol. This would require, among other things, that the station identification be done in a standard protocol such as FM or CW. (For US rules) So I guess if you want to get down to nitpicking, if the callsign is not in the field then you need to make sure to switch your radio to FM and identify appropriately. Ed WA4YIH From: dstar_digital@yahoogroups.com [mailto:dstar_digi...@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Nate Duehr Sent: Tuesday, May 19, 2009 12:17 PM To: dstar_digital@yahoogroups.com Subject: RE: [DSTAR_DIGITAL] Tactical Call indication Relying on having a CALLSIGN in that field is silly in the extreme. It's nice if everyone does it, but the field itself and the technology really don't care what's in the rigs at all. It's just an alphanumeric field. No amount of wishful thinking will stop someone from copy-catting a callsign to gain access to routing... eventually. Nate WY0X -- Nate Duehr n...@natetech.commailto:nate%40natetech.com [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
RE: [DSTAR_DIGITAL] Tactical Call indication
On Tue, 19 May 2009 18:45:53 -0400, Woodrick, Ed So I guess if you want to get down to nitpicking, if the callsign is not in the field then you need to make sure to switch your radio to FM and identify appropriately. Actually the opposite is true... Recent FCC cases have affirmed that, for example, digital HF voice needs to remain in the VOICE portion of the band... they consider it voice, even though it's clearly a digital mode. They've been slowly making this move for a while now. I found it kinda funny... if I were to say take an mp3 file with musical content, and send that over to a friend via Packet, D-STAR, whatever... what's heard on the air isn't music by any means, but if you go by their view on HF digital voice, you would have to say that was an illegal music transmission. Then you go look at HF digital data, and see Pactor III an unpublished, non-reproducible format, but loved by Emergency Services volunteers for its ability to jam a frequency without listening for other modes/traffic... er, I mean... get the messages through... (sorry, my brainwashing isn't quite finished yet)... But that's okay to the FCC. The ONLY way to copy it is to own a $1000 product, that's not based on a published, reproducible specification... unlike D-STAR, I might add. I only share the above to point out that you *might* be wrong about what the FCC here in the States thinks about legal ID's on D-STAR. No one's asked them yet, and gotten anything in writing. The regs are so far behind technology at this point, they'll probably never be fixed. The last time someone asked a D-STAR question of an FCC representative, it turned into California going off and doing their own thing and the FCC making the relatively recent announcement that yes, a D-STAR repaeter *is* a repeater, and must therefore remain in the defined repeater sub-band in Part 97... that's only taken what... four years to sort out? Good luck getting an answer on legal digital/D-STAR ID's before the turn of the next decade. Everyone's OPINION is that both the callsign field and the packetized voice are legal. If you take the first away, the repeater's aren't legally ID'ing. If you take the second away, anyone with anything OTHER than their callsign in the field including those suffix characters someone else mentioned -- is hosed. It's a can't win situation for all. Meanwhile, I could put NATE both in my rigs and in my Gateway, and who'd stop me? And I could put KAREN in my wife's rig and in the Gateway too. If I were using it FIRST and another Nate came along... that'd be a bummer for me, but I could be NATE1 and he could be NATE2. Seriously -- you can keep arguing this from the perspective of standards all day. My POINT is and always has been, there's NOTHING to ENFORCE those policies other than peer pressure and probably some folks who'd take it upon themselves to police things with no charter or right to do so. I buy a rig, I can put whatever I want in that field. If I buy a Gateway, I didn't sign anything that said I couldn't put it in the database, either. Am I really going to DO any of it? NO. It's a hypothetical example. But a strong one. As a Gateway operator I might say no to some guy who wants to register JOE, but you know out of hundreds of Gateways, some misfit group would eventually allow it. Think that one out to its logical conclusion... some guy now PAYS for his Gateway software, since it's a pay to play product, doesn't have to sign anything saying he'll follow ANY rules... and sues the snot out of Icom if the Trust Server team says You can't register 'JOE'... it *could* happen. And that again has been and will continue to be my point... in a source-routed system, using the callsign field as anything other than a routing address, will eventually be broken by someone, who'll gain followers, and then there will eventually be chaos... If we're taking vanity orders, I want C182 for the plane I'm going to go fly this summer and forget all about ham radio and our utterly backward networks... that can't even encrypt real command and control functions so you can fix/maintain your infrastructure system from over-the-air. Even that's been broken though really... I don't think the DD module setup by default blocks port 443 or does any inspection to see if a payload is encrypted. I bet I can SSH from a laptop on an ID-1 to a machine halfway around the globe, making both my transmissions and the transmissions of the DD module, illegal here in the States. Just one more example of the regs being so far behind modern times, it's not even funny. The sidebar I was asked to write for the ARRL VHF/UHF Digital Communications Handbook about the use of encryption in Ham Radio, was just the regulatory tip of the iceberg. Callsigns in the right place in a packet, isn't even important enough to be on my radar. That's how much I don't care. Send me BOB for all I care... just sign in voice... doesn't bother me a bit.
RE: [DSTAR_DIGITAL] Tactical Call indication
On Tue, 19 May 2009 21:36:36 -0400, Woodrick, Ed ewoodr...@ed-com.com said: Interesting, I see that Pactor III protocol is published at http://www.arrl.org/FandES/field/regulations/techchar/PACTOR-III.html Ahh they finally gave in and realized it was illegal to keep it proprietary, I see. Sorry, I became disinterested late last year or before. I guess they finally did the right thing. I believe that as with D-STAR, portions of the signal might be proprietary, but the envelope protocol is published and specifically the station identification is documented. The encoding portion of Pactor III could be considered similar to that of the AMBE vocoder. Is there any practical difference between a vocoder and a proprietary encryption algorithm to the receiving station? As to SSL encryption, I believe that the response may be similar to that of the High Speed Data Committee on the 802.11abc protocols. The word encryption does not appear in Part 97, but the word obscure does. Part 97.309(b) specifies what is permitted and it can be indeed interpreted in a number of ways. Probably the most interesting is 97.309(b)(3) that indicates that if asked, the original information must be provided. This would indicate to some that encryption is actually expected. That was my conclusion in the sidebar also. If you could provide anyone listening with a way to decrypt the data -- you stood a fighting chance, but it's not black and white in the U.S. regulations. Now apply that tidbit to the above CODEC. We can't decrypt D-STAR signals without a proprietary chip from a manufacturer. While I'm the first to defend the manufacturer in this regard (PhD's in math aren't cheap, and the people who earned them also have to feed their families), it's just an interesting corrolary when you look at it this way, isn't it? Go the other direction -- someone bent on encrypting something could call it their proprietary encoding and sell a chip to do it marketed as a CODEC and get away with obscuring their transmissions... they could have order delays, problems with upstream vendors, out of stock and all sorts of made-up problems for ... who knows? I think at least a year or two, where they and their buddies could be the only folks who could copy what they were transmitting. (Well, NSA and other uber-smart folks might listen in and figure out a simple scheme, but we'll leave them out of this discussion. Someone's ALWAYS listening... no doubt about that.) So... then they come out with a beta test of Version 2... start shipping Version 1 to everyone, and limit the beta test to the original group... and that lasts a year, or they announce setbacks and it becomes two... then they release it again with delays, problems. If the first one really wasn't all that useful to anyone, by now they've fallen off of all but the zealouts radar... so to speak. Anyway, it's a completely fictitious story made up to show how encryption of Amateur transmissions could be done. Frankly, so few people monitor odd-ball simplex channels, or even less listened to... UHF or higher SSB... that it's really not that hard to have a semi-private conversation on the ham bands... heck, if you can get between or behind me and the guys across town I'm talking on 10 GHz to (yes, I do that for contests, but it's generally a pain any other time)... we'd probably be happy to hear you and have you join in. (And yes, I've had round-table ragchews on 10 GHz... if everyone's in the right place and the dishes are pointed right!) The discussion, of course, is all in good fun. But I ask: What's the EFFECTIVE difference between something we call a CODEC, and something that does encryption of a data stream. I contend: Not much. And the regulations are WAY behind on this one... maybe rightly so... how would they ever define it. How would you prove the intent was to obscure? (Unless they're dumb enough to talk about their intent on-air or off, I suppose.) It's interesting, isn't it? Pretty deep topic for a hobby to deal with. In my professional work, we see trade secrets for CODEC operation all the time. As it spills over into the Amateur airwaves, it's quite entertaining to see how we're going to deal with all of it. Nate WY0X p.s. I'm NOT saying the Pactor III folks were trying to encrypt, by the way. But it's highly convenient that it took quite a while for a fully-developed specification to hit the web/public eye when the original modems were over $1000. Quite a lot of motivation as this technology gets more complex for the manufacturer to hold on to secrets about the operation of any said particular digital system until their development costs and a little profit can be gained. Again, not accusing them of doing that... just saying it'd be real easy to make that logical jump mentally. p.p.s. I'm also NOT saying D-STAR is encrypted. There are examples of decoding the audio from any radio already... but none that don't require the AMBE chipset
RE: [DSTAR_DIGITAL] Tactical Call indication
There's a little bit of reality that's being left out of this discussion that definitely needs to be interjected. When the conversation is using voice, there is absolutely no issues with the tactical callsigns being used on voice. Actually D-STAR makes it much more effective as you don't have to use voice to make the legal identification, you can stay completely in the tactical callsign realm. When sending data, remember that you usually have to program a callsign in the software. This is because that the protocol level callsigns are not presented to the software, the software has to create it's own identification. So, in the software you can set a tactical call and again the radios themselves can stay with the legal callsign and the application handles the tactical callsigns. Now, if you use the space after the / or the short message field to hold a tactical identification, then the information will be seen in most places where the callsign is displayed, such as a radio or repeater log. So I think that this is LOT less of an issue that we seem to be making it. On a personal observation note, with many years of packets use and some D-STAR use behind me, I find that if people have to switch fields such as the MYCALL or ALIAS during either a practice or an actual event, they often don't Ed WA4YIH From: dstar_digital@yahoogroups.com [mailto:dstar_digi...@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of John D. Hays Sent: Sunday, May 17, 2009 1:44 AM To: dstar_digital@yahoogroups.com Subject: Re: [DSTAR_DIGITAL] Tactical Call indication The 20 character message works very well and would be a good place to do Tactical if you need more than 4 chars.
Re: [DSTAR_DIGITAL] Tactical Call indication
Why not simply put the tactical call in the short message. Then it will scroll by every time you transmit. 73, Tom n4zpt Dennis Griffin wrote: I have worked many public service events disaster preparedness exercises. One would have to be very creative to get meaningful tactical calls with only 4 characters available. I'm often Lead, so that's fine, but how about all the numbered Aid Station, Event, Mobile, Safety, Bicycle, County, Field Team, Hospital, Siren, Support, Shadow, etc. tactical calls? When using APRS, we will use the Tactical call in the regular call field and put the FCC call in the status text, which is beaconed every 10 minutes. I haven't tried it, but checking my ID-92AD manual, it seems that a user defined 20 character message can be sent with every PTT activation, so maybe that method could be employed when needed. 73 de Dennis KD7CAC On May 16, 2009, at 4:33 PM, Tony Langdon wrote: At 01:16 AM 5/17/2009, you wrote: John is right on the money here. - Tactical Call Sign SOP: A tactical call sign is entered in the 4 digit comment field after a station's legal call sign: This would seem to be the most sensible way. 73 de VK3JED / VK3IRL http://vkradio.com [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Re: [DSTAR_DIGITAL] Tactical Call indication
The 20 character message works very well and would be a good place to do Tactical if you need more than 4 chars. The issue for the callsign is that in D-STAR the callsign field is more than identification, it is part of the addressing scheme. Whereas in APRS you often are just reporting position and status, it is fundamental to D-STAR network routing to have universally unique addresses (e.g. your legal callsign) in the various callsign fields - it is global in nature. If you are *not connected* to the gateway network then it really doesn't matter. Dennis Griffin wrote: I haven't tried it, but checking my ID-92AD manual, it seems that a user defined 20 character message can be sent with every PTT activation, so maybe that method could be employed when needed. 73 de Dennis KD7CAC -- John D. Hays Amateur Radio Station K7VE http://k7ve.org PO Box 1223 Edmonds, WA 98020-1223 VOIP/SIP: j...@hays.org sip:j...@hays.org Email: j...@hays.org mailto:j...@hays.org [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
