Ham Radio Enthusiasts vs. High-Frequency Traders: A Battle for the Airwaves

The Wall Street Journal ^ | 05 Aug, 2023 | Alexander Osipovich

[Theoria]

Looks like alot of clustered structure around the financial locations.

[usconservative]

No,it’s not. No challenge in that. I put up a 60 ft self-supporting tower with Big antennas and a big radio to put RF into the air. If it’s not your signal coming from your equipment and your antenna it doesn’t count. There’s no challenge in communicating over the internet anybody can do it. You try doing what I do on a daily basis and see how far you get.

It takes a lot of knowledge to be a ham. Any dumbass can get on the Internet and make a jackass out of themselves, see Facebook, Twitter and TikTok for examples.

[usconservative]

Well, I’m in the Chicago area, I’m 902’ elevation with a 60’ tower, the Mosley is at 65’, my 13B2 at 75’ and the top of my dual band 2m/70cm is above that.

Home brew Fan dipole covering 6/10/15/20/40/75/160 is at 65’ in an inverted V.

I can see the city skyline from 31 miles away from the second floor of my home.

I also know at least 50 other hams in my general area. Piss us off and see how fast they won’t be able to hear anything.

One well placed mobile operator under their antenna is really all it would take. They really need to rethink this. Seriously.

[Theoria]

Would be a interesting plot line of attack against a bunch of wall street trading firms in the heat of a market sell off.

Camera shot of a older, white male in a van drinking a beer or coffee and smiling. Perhaps, even the dreaded lawn chair is used.

[DYngbld]

I have 100W and an OCFD in my trees, I can’t do much on a good day. de KE4HTS

[z3n]

Routers create too much latency.

~~~

How much latency is too much?

I can get as low as 50ms ping to some servers with as many as 16 hops where not the entire route is fiber using a residential ISP. So I don’t know what I’m talking about because I don’t work in the fiber optic field, but I’d imagine a direct fiber route with less than a half dozen hops would be well under 10ms. Am I wrong?

[Disambiguator]

I was referring to Wall street, not the hams.

[Vaduz]

Trading firms are asking FCC to open shortwave frequencies.

And they lease them out to?.

Xi chuckles

[ViLaLuz]

The internet can also be shut down, blocking communication. Amateur radio is more than just a hobby, it’s emergency communications. The world powers want to shut down the citizens ability to communicate.

[usconservative]

I believe you are 100% correct.

As a Ham Radio guy, I also have my "go bag" which I've used on Field Days that contains a Kenwood TS-480, external antenna tuner, two 25a switching power supplies, wire antenna, ground mounted vertical portable antenna, antenna launcher, coax and off to the side is a small gas powered generator to power it when needed.

Emergency preparedness for us is real. We practice it.

[usconservative]

Nobody is going to suffer the pain of keeping HF data circuits up instead of modern digital over fiber.

Especially when HF radio wave propagation isn't consistent and it doesn't really matter how much power you throw at it when conditions just aren't there...

[House Atreides]

“ One well placed mobile operator under their antenna is really all it would take. They really need to rethink this. Seriously.”
***************************************************

Glad to see someone is thinking ahead. Props!

[ViLaLuz]

I was a novice back in the day with my old Hammarlund transceiver. I wish I could get back into it for emergency purposes.

[usconservative]

I've never owned a Hammarlund. My first ham radio receiver was a Hallicrafters that I had to take the tubes out of, take to a TV shop with a tube tester, test all the tubes and replace the bad ones in order to get it to work. I was in high school at the time and I 'inherited' it from a family friend who was a ham and saw I had an interest in electronics.

That thing weighed a ton!

It was an old Hallicrafters SX-42 and I was really proud of myself that I got it working again and cleaned up to where it looked respectable again.

[ViLaLuz]

Wow! That Hallicrafters is an antique. I love the old tube radios.

[dfwgator]

Hello one and all
Was it you I used to know
Can’t you hear me call
On this old ham radio

All I got to say
I’m alive and feeling fine
If you come my way
You can share my poison wine

-Steely Dan (King Of The World)

[usconservative]

I used to acquire and refurbish old tube radio's of almost any kind, and then sell them to fund my Ham Radio addiction hobby. I've been clearing radio's out of here the last few years after thinking "I have too many radio's" to myself. LOL!

That's what happens when we get older I guess.

[ViLaLuz]

LOL!!!

[ViLaLuz]

GREAT song!!!