I was at a super market lately and noticed a set of walkie-talkie, 8 km range. Was absurdly tempted to buy them. My phone usage patterns are:
1. I call wife from the shop
2. Wife calls me while I'm at the shop
3. Marketing calls waking me up and wasting my time
with a walkie-talkie I could do 1, 2 and 3 would just not happen... 🤔
@Wolf480pl you could get ones that encrypt the audio.
@mulander is encryption allowed on the unlicensed frequencies?
@mulander nvm it's allowed for WiFi so it's also probably allowed for walkie-talkie
@Wolf480pl don't know, if they are then the law is outdated (though I am aware it still needs to be followed). There are other encrypted comms that are not regulated.
@mulander IIRC there is an "only non-commercial, unencrypted stuff" rule concering ham radio frequencies, not the ISM band tho. But I'm not sure. It was random stuff I found somewhere on wikipedia.
@Wolf480pl well, tbh at most they would get my shopping list from an open channel.
@mulander yeah, I guess 1 person's shopping list is too little to do any meaningful machine learning...
@mulander although anyone with some hardware could tune in on the conversations?
@hiway true, unless you buy ones that encrypt between each other.
@mulander right.
@mulander Thanks for the startup idea!
@mulander If they're the equivalent of US FRS/GMRS radios you can generally only use type-certified, unmodified radios, and data transmission is typically prohibited. A lot of countries do have a slice of UHF frequencies that is pretty open, though. It's 900MHz in the US. That's the band the GoTenna and competitors operate on.
Those radios nearly always exaggerate their range, BTW. The 8km is probably with line of sight over water. Obstructions severely shorten the range.
@mulander Oh I see @Wolf480pl already mentioned the ISM bands. You could get a GoTenna if it's legal where you are and use it from an Android or iOS tablet with no SIM card. Just text and no voice IIRC.
@Wolf480pl @mulander The GoTenna Mesh lets you chain them if it's too far.
@seanl @Wolf480pl I would prefer a dumb radio. Why carry a vulnerable phone with a baseband I can't control reporting to each tower. I also bet you could make a walkie with a much longer battery life.
@seanl sign me up for beta testing ;)
@mulander Ok when I start sending ads over FM walkie talkie frequencies you'll be the first to hear them!
@seanl ARGH!
s/Sarah Connor/Sean R. Lynch/g terminator-src/
@mulander I was born in Silicon Valley you know.
@seanl good, a naked T-1000 appearing in the middle of the city won't raise any unwanted attention.
@seanl or you know what, I'm cancelling that T-1000. Go ahead with ad over the FM I have a cool startup idea based on yours (uBlockFM).
@mulander AND you would look cool whil doing 1/2
@mulander kssshhh you copy? Rise and cheese, over
@mulander
You might like getting involved with amateur radio, then.
@mulander
Sounds like a winner to me :)
@mulander that could be a good idea, depending if your threat model includes random people with walkie-talkie in 8km radius trolling you, or accidentally talking on the same channel