So… I found out a way to send encrypted messages using amateur radio.
There is an app called Rattlegram that lets you convert a string of text into soundwaves that plays though your phone’s speaker. If I just use an app like Secure Space Encryptor (SSE) to encrypt a text, then copy-paste it to the Rattlegram app, then transmit that over radio, then using the same app to record the sound and reverse the process on the other end. Voila! Encrypted long(ish) range communications without a centralized server!
But I looked it up and apparantly its illegal to encrypt communications over the amateur radio bands. What are the odds of actually getting in trouble? 🤔
(To the FCC agents reading this: this is just a hypothetical, a thought experiment, I’m totally not gonna do this 😉)
Hams are much more likely to use yagi antennas and physically rotate them, it’s simpler, for one thing.
I don’t think the FCC has many employees sitting around listening to the ham bands for violations, they rely on licensed amateurs to report issues, so at least the first folks who are gonna try to find you are going to do so with the kit they’ve got.
I agree, ham radio isn’t an FCC enforcement priority.
In would say that hams do have access to this level of technology via Software Defined Radio.