HF Digital Modes, What are they? And why are they important?
Since the 1800’s, agencies and individuals alike have been communicating on digital modes. Starting with Samuel Morse’s telegraph & Nikola Tesla’s discovery of the ionosphere and its capabilities, humans began sending signals via dots and dashes over the lines for others to decode and derive meaning from. So, what does that have to do with us now? You see, at one point in time our communicative ability was completely de-centralized. No one could turn you off, nothing could prevent you from saying anything you wanted to, to whomever you wanted to, whenever you wanted to. As of late, that freedom is seemingly being diminished and our freedom of speech has been systematically eroded over the last decade. We’ve also begun to see that tech companies (ahem, twitter) can at-will “turn you off” if they don’t like an opinion or a viewpoint that you have.
Beyond the freedom of speech aspect, infrastructure has been collapsing around us in many ways. Electrical substations have been attacked; rail lines have given way. It is my relative opinion that our once great nation is in the early stages of a severe collapse. So, if logic follows, our communication pathways could then soon be compromised as well. Even our own government is preparing for this as a possibility, as many senators & congressional members were just given SAT phones (not suspicious at all). If they have the ability, why shouldn’t we?
For those reasons and more, it is my belief that as a prepared individual in these trying times, one must fully decentralize themselves into being completely autonomous. Hell, the elite know this. For they buy islands, and yachts, and jets, and farms, and stocks of oil. Farmers have always done this. But, at some point in time we, either by force, or by will, we allowed our autonomy to be franchised to the lowest bidder. ATT & Viacom became our crutch. Uber eats & fast-food chains became our fields & hen houses. Expensive cars became our horses.
Be it by design, or complacency; We have slowly given up our independence in the name of convenience. But there is a large & quiet movement of those who refuse to let go of the old way. Now, maybe you’re not buying into the whole “end times" philosophy. That’s fine. Hobbies are good too! Not everything has to be about survival, in fact, now is the best time to engage in luxurious activities (for it may be the last time you’ll ever get to). Whatever your motivation is, radio can be a valuable skillset. For off-roading, camping, hiking, & just for the sake of absolutely nerding out on something. Nothing compares to the feeling of being given a walkie-talkie as a kid and running around with your friends feeling like “secret agent man.”
As an adult, I have found that the only way to replicate such nostalgia was by rushing out into my front yard at 3am, setting up an antenna, deploying my Base Station, and sending messages back and forth with a guy 1000 miles away from me in Phoenix, AZ. You see, with an antenna you can make using supplies in your garage, free software on a computer you already have, and a CB radio, or a $160 (tr)uSDX radio, you too can send long distance (or short distance) messages using nothing but science. The science behind it is simply that we are bouncing radio frequencies off the Ionosphere, to skip the message across the world. That is what HF Digital Modes are all about. Of course, that’s a simple way of putting it. Another simple way of putting it is this: We used to use our brains to compute the “dots” & “dashes” coming from a telegraph on Morse code. People were fluent in it. Now, not so much.
Thankfully we don’t have to be. Because that’s all these computer programs are doing. They are encoding your text into a series of boops and beeps that can then be decoded by someone else’s computer into a discernable message. If you’d like to learn more about HF Digital Modes, you’re in luck. I just put out a 5-video mini-series on the subject over at my YouTube channel. It’s “HF Digital Modes” for dummies. And will save you years of research to point you in the right direction for getting started.
Enjoy, and don’t hesitate to reach out with questions!
Jake
@gridbasedotnet
