DIY Off-Grid Radio Text Messaging
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 1 ก.ค. 2024
- I decided that SMS and chat apps are far too convenient, so I made my own texting system with some old Pocket PCs and 2-way radios! This lets me send and receive messages and files wirelessly. No cell phone, Wifi, or network required! This wasn't exactly an easy project, as it took a few days and a few trips to the surplus store to get it all working. However, it was a lot cheaper than doing the same thing with a microcontroller or mesh network! The whole project cost about $50, including the old radios, old PDAs, and random junk that went into it.
The PDAs I'm using are Motorola MC55A PocketPCs running Windows CE. I found several NBT radio modems at Ax-Man surplus (www.ax-man.com/). I combined those with '90s-era color dot radios (Business Band / MURS). The Pocket PC connects to the modem with a serial port cradle and null modem adapter. The modem connects to the radio through the speaker and mic jacks.
Software I used was Terminal CE (www.venea.net/web/terminal_ce) and MobileVT (www.mobyware.org/windows-mobi...)
I found that one terminal app worked better for sending and one was better for receiving. I used 300 baud, N/8/1, and I have all the flow control (CTS / DTR) turned off.
Range with the business band radio is OK but not great (a block or two in the city, or about a mile in open country). The external antenna on the backpack version might have longer range.
The modems are a Bell 202 style, converting serial data into audio tones with AFSK encoding. They can theoretically handle up to 1200 baud speeds, but I've kept everything at 300 baud to make it simpler and more reliable.
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"I believe this is banned in the south part of the US" I nearly fell out of my chair laughing, thank you.
Yeah. Was not expecting a gender bender joke 😂
Came here to comment on this, loved that line. Thank you for your quick wit.
Same here 😂😂😂
Came here for this lol . Took me a sec and then I almost choked on my drink
Haha... I see what you did there.... take my updoot.
This guy is walking the razor thin line between being a collector and being a hoarder
he literally calls himself a "massive hoarder" so id lean more towards hoarder
That settles it, I'm dropping off a meshtastic node at your house.
Make sure is has some large round batteries and a lot of wires!
@@HSAC.WDTK.DTKT.LFO.and a timer!
I was just about to say building some Meshtastic devices would be much easier. Lol
bro trying to give you ants
@@DirtyPlumbusI mean it is, but that's not the point! :D
Having those old PDAs as a kid scored me the best username I'll ever have ❤
As a GMRS Operator myself, a little fix from the FCC website:
"In 2017, the FCC updated the GMRS by allotting additional interstitial channels in the 467 MHz band, increased the license term from 5 to 10 years, allowed transmission of limited data applications such as text messaging and GPS location information and made other updates to the GMRS rules to reflect modern application of the service."
So it is 100% legal to send Text and GPS data over GMRS Frequencies. Also FRS does overlap with every GMRS simplex channel, limited only to 2watts and no data I believe, and FRS is not allowed on repeater channels.
Love your videos!
The amended Part 95 rules extend data privileges that are currently limited only to handheld GMRS devices and does not include mobile radios. In mid 2021Midland did try to get it extended to mobile radio and the FCC put it out to consultation and comment in late 2023. The vast majority of comments have not been supportive of the proposal with a trend towards restricting data usage on the band to certain modes and channels - keeping it strictly to the wording of 'position data and text messaging' therefore indicating APRS like functionality. I can understand where this position is coming from as there only a very small number of channels available and after excluding FRS and repeater channels this leaves even fewer. For the uninitiated there are 22 channels of GMRS which are shared with FRS, 8 of those are repeater channels (these can also operate as a simplex channels but the parliferation of backyard repeaters has taken over the majority. With the number of repeaters that are internet linked data on these channels would cause interference not just locally but potentially across the entire country) and 7 are restricted to narrow FM at 500mW. This leaves just 7 channels, restricted to 5 watts on GMRS, for a general simplex communication including these data operations.
I am not opposed to the idea as long as it comes with some form regulation on which channel it can be used or even the allocation of a new channel specifically for data.
The thing is, in the situation where you're going to be using this, the laws and regulations will be null and void anyway. Pretty sure this is for a SHTF/TEOTWAWKI situation. When you start hearing encrypted P25 on the ham bands.
@@RT-qd8yl unfortunately SHTF and many of the other unrealistic and delusional scenarios put forward to sell radios have no basis in reality. Real geologic and weather events over the past few decades have shown us that the world is not going to be plunged into a dystopian post-apocalyptic society with a complete shutdown of power and communications as a result of an earthquake, a storm, a tornado, or anything else - and the Red Army is not going to parachute into Middle America early in the morning while the kids are sitting in school. Each event teaches the businesses and agencies involved in response, recovery, and rebuilding how and where parts of the system fail, how to make them more robust, and how much redundancy is required keep them functioning. This combined with both common sense and science-based analysis of potential future events has led to communication systems that are able to withstand hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, wildfires, and more.
Additionally, what constitutes an emergency under the regulations has been clearly defined and it does not include the majority of scenarios put forward by itself appointed experts. 'Protection of life and limb' is as close as you are going to get to a concise list of what is constituted to be an emergency.
There always have been people who will do whatever they want no matter the situation or the consequences so, yes, you are going to hear inappropriate traffic on all kinds of bands - I have had it coming through the radio in my ambulance and on military frequencies- but It does not mean that it is an example of what you should do.
In canada GMRS is the same as FRS. No licensing needed. I think its kind of stupid to have a license for something so low power and so local. Ham VHF and UHF with the power and distance you get makes sense to have licensed.
@@RT-qd8yl lmao that'll be the day
I love your channel dude. I was born in 1988, so I grew up right when tech became interesting, but we were poor so I could never afford any of it, or even have access to play with any of it. These days, I look to your channel for ideas of thiftstore finds and fun stuff to play with, now that it's all super cheap. Thanks, and keep it up!! My favorite videos are the satellite stuff, and anything about networks.
I'm poor and I manage to get stuff
I'm also poor, I just scrounge a lot. That's why all my tech is at least a decade or two out of date 😝
I love it when a plan comes together!
I'm sure some Gen-Z'rs would pay a years worth of provisions for those in the apocalypse.
As a Gen-Z in MN, I'm going straight to the U of MN Reuse program and snatching some up of these if they've got any left too.
You know there's also ribbit communication protocol also you could run latops and smartphones using zeronet. Also there's briar and telemesh aswell as secure scuttlebutt which are going to be useful in a no more internet scenario. Just letting you and other gen z'ers get the heads up so you can get the apps and the handy talkies so build these networks if ever needed....
Also there's nostr, reticulum sideband, voluntarynet, hyphanet, lokinet, lora meshtastic and commotion wireless, and many many more.
You could harvest the eNBs from abandoned cell cites and set your own ran up.
I once visited a small town (100-200 people) and it had one big shared Wi-Fi network. Across the whole town. One or two businesses had their own networks but that was it. It was slow but a big mesh of routers should work OK for apocalypse settlement purposes! With these radios for venturing out
Can even use that one offline browsing app to run a local server with a backup of the most useful websites that connected devices can access
I absolutely love this channel.
me too
I love that you make old stuff work together in ways it shouldn't. I love doing things that people think are impossible too. Keep it up!
OMG you are going to create the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. radio/PDA system in real life!!!
Axe Mans' seems like a place I would not want to leave. Giant bins of connectors oh my!
@7:07 - Brings back tons of memories. Back when computer order displays began popping up at fast food restaurants (think the old LED Everbright displays at McDs of the EARLY 2000's) and along with pulling the wires from a pedestal I set outside, I usually had to terminate DB9 connectors to interface with the POS systems of that time. Gender benders were something I always had on hand and these were also the days when you could hit a local Radio Shack for a solderable connector to help complete the job. Oy, the nostalgia.
I miss Radio Hack. The 17yo staff never knew what anything was, but they had neat stuff!
We actually used to use those old handheld scanner things at the red cross, at blood mobiles to scan the blood. We used them until very recently. They switched in 2020 to more smart phone looking things.
I had a scanner back in the day doesn't receive anything anymore everything digital in the UK
Great project! Well-timed given AT&T had a major outage today.
It’d be nice to see people getting more into data burst/text modes in ham radio. It’s a far more efficient use of the spectrum and far more practical than SSB voice.
I like Meshtastic a lot, and it’d be interesting to see if it’d be usable over business band/MURS like you did here.
He is one of the smartest of our generation.
I love that you show your failures. You learn more from failures than successes.
Love it! I was a big pocket PC user back in the day....lots of great memories. Tried lots of null modem stuff in my early amateur radio days too. I really really love your content. I wish there were surplus stores and junk bins in my area. Keep up the great work!
playing in the extremely strange world of radio is a blast, i love that you're able to do this.
Love your channel. Please keep dropping vids for us. It’s a niche field and there’s not as many people making quality straightforward project videos like yours.
Man i love this channel! Your enthusiasm in every video and the steps you went through even if it fails makes this very interesting to watch.
I knew as soon as you said you grabbed those PDAs from ReUse they would go to excellent use hahaha. Love it and so happy to see successful tests!! That's amazing and takes a special kind of talent/skill to pull off, so well done!
I remember watching a documentary on bbc 2 at school in the computer class in the early 90's The rural school students in the Shetland Islands used a CB radio modem with a home computer to send school and homework in back then I thought that was really cool.
As a Minnesotan who found your channel through the Monorail cabin series and the DIY railcars, hearing and seeing my childhood Fridley Ax-Man being dropped in a TH-cam video was not on my bucket list this year. I about lost it.
Mad respect for representing the Upper Midwest in your content, you are a regional treasure!
UDP over radio :D Also the clicks of the keys and stuff brought back memories! Thanks.
Fits in the palm of my hand lol! Love this whole video! Awesome way to reuse this stuff!
Absolutely awesome! This is exactly my kind of tinkering.
Oh i got a bunch of these a while ago from a freelancing company that went under in Liverpool! I never managed to track down a charger for them unfortunately, but if you want some more i'd be happy to post them over! They're UK models, all with 3G capability as far as I am aware :>
I always liked those old PDAs lol. Especially the ones with cellular radios in them.
Can I get one ?
Thanks for the offer, but I don't know if I need any more at the moment! I actually have some of another model that use a different charger (which I don't have). So I'm probably hoarding enough of them already 😅
@@saveitforparts I took a look on ebay last night hoping to find a couple of thoae suckers maybe nearly as cheap as you got yours, but wow, they're proud of those suckers! 😆
Dang man, I've wanted to do this for years. So cool to see it being done. And also, I still love physical qwerty keyboards and removable batteries.
When saving it for parts comes clutch ❤
I had pagers back in the day one for every member of my family members came in useful when I was working on a building site when we had emerged at home
Great device! I really like to create and operate off grid wireless systems to send messages, even when they are not so practical compared to everyday tech.
That was a lot of fun, I learned a ton! I will try something similiar using cheap 433mhz transmitters
This is both interesting and great inspiration for what I could have one of my current TTRPG characters get up to
The setting is fallout and they character is built around salvaging, building, and inventing things, then using those inventions.
That was fun, well done getting it functioning.
A very interesting project, sticking the price tag on the display, I love it. I could imagine that something like this could be interesting in case of a disaster, so you can distribute information to groups. The technology would even work with CB radio, which would be very suitable for emergencies. You could use the DTR to switch a PTT, then you could operate it as an automatic station, for example to transmit weather data. I could also imagine an alarm system that alerts via radio, there are many possibilities. And the price is unbeatable.
You may be interested in Meshtastic uses LoRa (Long Range) sytem low power.
Love your content an inspiration for my channel. Great Job!
I wont lie - you look sort of Amish, but your grasp of technology belies that thought. For some reason, TH-cam is trying to shove your content down my feed and - to be honest, they're fairly accurate. I dropped a sub. Well done. I suspect it's related tangentially to the mesh communications-style content that seems to have been triggered by my watching history along with the potential for STHTF in the near future.
This made my day.... great job. Br from Sweden
when you tested the distance " and now my neighbors wonder why I'm running down the street with a prop from counter strike" lol that was funny. Good job keep doing what you do. I love the vids bro
This looks super cool to setup, reminds me of Stalker a bit
very cool man and i really enjoy your content.
omg yes! what a cool project!
' A portable numbers station" is that a COD black ops 1 reperence!?!?! i love it!!!
Nice Dell Axim. I still have mine and it works, running PocketPc 2003.
Your awesome ! Love these videos !
I can see many uses for these old hand held computers running simple terminal software, or even some of the older packet/APRS software, with the likes of the tinyTrak 4 or other micro & Pico sized TNCs. There are also several options of radios with built in TNCs such as the Kenwood TH-d7 HT which can be controlled over serial.
You did get them to talk to one another, good one!
Meshtastic is the way to go
I love seeing Donnie in your videos
I rocked a Blackberry for a couple of years in the service business. I could operate that keyboard and trackball like a boss. When I first got an iPhone - it kinda hurt.
I don't think the world is ready for this sorcery yet.
Mesh networks only work if there are active nodes nearby for them to send and receive. What people need is a solution to use any computer, phone or tablet for a mesh network so there are always nodes available.
Pretty cool. Great job.
Excellent, thanks for sharing. Cheers.
My goodness, looking at that PDA on the dash displaying GPS mixed with a GM300, does that bring back memories
Anywhere where you cannot speak while observing something, this device is advantageous for information exchange....An example would be two birdwatchers who want to exchange information while observing, but cannot speak because they would otherwise scare away the birds.....thx for the vid.
Success! This video is rad!
that's so pretty! 😍
the fact my work still uses those scanners to this day.........
love what u do man keep it up
Keep in mind this is advice coming from a guy that only learned coding 3 years ago, but a possible solution to the finicky nature of the radio waves could be to code the radios to only be able to send a few characters, but each of those characters having a larger amount of corresponding frequencies. Instead of a certain frequency being taken up by like ß or į, you just limit it to the lowercase english alphabet plus a few punctuation and space characters. Then with only around 30 possible characters being transmitted, you could give each character a wide range of adjacent frequencies, allowing for a greater margin of error by the radios when they transmit a packet of data.
I have no idea how you would program that, but from my (admittedly limited) understanding of computers I think it'd work
Packet radio like the good old days
Keep the vids coming. You're a cool dude bro. Discovered you thru russian vids. Cheers pal
This is amazing, I subscribed 😂
This is awesome.
Ricochet was a mobile network that failed, but you can still use the modems in "Star" mode. Whereas every unit would receive your message. And they had a PC Card variant.
Those radios have the TX audio and PTT lines combined. From the modem, put a 2.2K resistor in the PTT line and a 0.1uF cap in the TX audio line. Tie them together and that goes to the tip of the 3/32" connector.
I think we should crowd fund the 30 Euros for the old Italian dude. Edit: Ok just saw the about screen. Never mind. (Just kidding. Let's do it!)
This is so incredibly cool! You should make a custom case for it.
I love it!
HAM radio is not about the equipment but how one can experiment with the stuff and come up with solutions, and your neighbor probably laughs at you until this type of home brew equipment saves their sorry bottoms. ;)
Hand held radios can be so much better than any phone, tablet etc I use them at vacations and road trips, call four or five cars via the phone is anything but convenient, but with a radio it's just a push of a button. =D
73'
Great video, i messed around with something similar using the app Rattlegram and a cheap Baofeng radio.
well done!
I wanted one of those so badly when they came out.
I’m surprised that you are concerned about using the ham bands for doing this sort of testing. I’ve just found a quiet spot, turned the power down and done what I needed to do.
I think you’re limited by the CE handhelds more than anything else. Your efforts in getting these working is very impressive.
Thank you!
Super cool!!!
Awesome video, and thingy you built lol. It's very similar to the Meshtastic things.
and btw, at 10:46, That's probably caused by the walkie talkie overloading the SDR, I do see the gain set to full on sdr++ LOL
Windows on these boxes was so much fun, I had a pocket PC e310 from Toshiba and it was so crashy.
Weight is less than a M1 Carbine. Perfect.
17:00 Love it!
I waiting the whole time for someone send you "stop it"🤣
Lol those are Motorola MC-55s. I used the only one in the store when I worked at my local Walmart in 2016. It was right before they got rid of S.M.A.R.T. on the handhelds when they were transitioning from the 960/MC9090s to the MC-40.
if your looking to do your own software, VB/C# 2008, you will need the drivers/SDK (software development kit) for the operating system on those handhelds. hopefully the charging docks also have a usb port to connect to the pc to do the file transfer. makes life easier.
Rubbing alcohol should work on that sticker without damaging the screen.
I've had poor luck with isopropyl on lots of those stickers. Usually my next escalation is lighter fluid (naptha I think).
I guess we should be glad they didn't use a hole punch style label huh? Might've needed to get the drill to price tag it...
@@Mile3500 yeah, it's not the best and it often takes time letting it soak, but it won't damage electronics or soft plastics.
Keep up the good work...
i love old pocket pcs
as a ham this experimentation does not annoy me, please feel free to use the bands as you please. use it or lose it
Always use a hair dryer to remove those pricing stickers! works like a charm, every time!
Ah, yes. PL2303. My personal favorite.
😎😎Love it
When you were saying the radio's output looked dirty with lots of harmonics, it was most likely caused directly in your RF analyser reciver. You're keying up a radio thats probably 1-4W's of power less than a meter away with no padding on the RX side at all. Backing away a good 20 meters and trying again you'll probably find its a bit more clean.
I'm not sure about the business band in the US, but I think its similar to the UK? You can, just use a retuned baofeng in the business band frequencies, as long as they still below the max bandwidth (which i believe is 12.5KHz?). Then you could at least have some better squelch or use a tone/code plug to do some better squelch control.
wow! that is a funny funny funntastic project 👍🤠😎🤠👍
i think the use of it is in the fun to make it . . .
"What? Why would that be ban...LOLOL" Love it when a joke takes a sec to come around 🤣
The benefit i see over meshtastic is range the 915 band used in the usa is very limited depending on terian yes they make repeaters but harder when your trying to over a bigger distance
14:19 - radio needs you as a ground plane / antenna counterpoise? Surely it feels good to be needed.
Thanks for this interesting radio adventure.
I remember packet radio that would allow you to send emails to people, I wonder if you can incorporate that as well. Also I tagged you in one of my videos, you should check it out, it's SUPER cool.
спасибо, хорошая работа.
I prefer the term Archivist as opposed to Hoarder
Thanks for the video, sir!