Category Archives: Comms

Inspiring aspirations – preamble of the founding charter of the United Nationa

We – me, certainly – think of myself as relatively immune to surprise, by evil or good. People say that it’s in the New York City Charter, right next to the rule about not being nice to tourists, lest we lose our municipal reputation for poor manners and indifference. But the right words still can, and should, have the power to move us – and founding documents often contain evidence of the best and worst of society. The United States Constitution, for example, was structured around giving slave-holding states a disproportionate amount of power (because of the Three-Fifths Compromise, and the undemocratic Senate, in which representation is distinctly undemocratic. Within the slave states, of course, individual slave-owners were free to treat their slaves as they wished, extracting as much economic value as was possible. And so among slave owners the economic incentive was a “race to the bottom.” ((We had thought that the phrase originated with Adam Smith, but further research suggests that first use may have been by Justice Louis Brandeis in Ligget Co. v. Lee (288 U.S. 517, 558–559) (1933). )) Yet, other parts of the body of the Constitution and Bill of rights bespeak noble and compassionate aims. And the absence of even a single use of the words “slave” or “slavery” are testimony that at least some of the Framers were opposed to, ashamed of, slavery.

And so with the United Nations: we can all bring to mind easily events in which the United Nations’ conduct – and even more often, cowardly inaction and silence doesn’t mean its existence hasn’t affirmatively led to good outcomes, and by creating channels for communication and temp0rizing – the latter being essential if the casus belli is in some part a politician with a bruised ego.

It is in this context that we present to you the Preamble of the founding Charter of the United Nations. It’s notable for many reasons but we think it worth pointing out that you can read this entire block of text from top to bottom, including the headings, or, you can read all the body copy as one statement, and read all of the headings, without reference to the text beneath each heading, as a separate complementary statement. Here it is:

PREAMBLE

WE THE PEOPLES OF THE UNITED NATIONS DETERMINED

to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and

to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and

to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and

to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,

AND FOR THESE ENDS

to practice tolerance and live together in peace with one another as good neighbours, and

to unite our strength to maintain international peace and security, and

to ensure, by the acceptance of principles and the institution of methods, that armed force shall not be used, save in the common interest, and

to employ international machinery for the promotion of the economic and social advancement of all peoples,

HAVE RESOLVED TO COMBINE OUR EFFORTS TO ACCOMPLISH THESE AIMS

Accordingly, our respective Governments, through representatives assembled in the city of San Francisco, who have exhibited their full powers found to be in good and due form, have agreed to the present Charter of the United Nations and do hereby establish an international organization to be known as the United Nations.

You can read the Preamble – and the nineteen chapters of the Charter – here on the site of the United Nations. And, if you think that world peace, social justice and economic fairness are worth discussing ((No sarcasm intended; thanere are people who believe, for instance, that we should let markets sort things for us, that collective efforts to improve things will only make things worse; those aren’t unreasonable positions, even if we don’t share them. The latter proposition is merely an application of Murphy’s Law to global matters. )), consider the proposition that a global language would be an affirmative step. We think it’s worth considering, even if it’s a limited language, and we don’t think the discussion begins or ends with Esperanto, and in fact even a limited vocabulary in a signed language, spoken by even a small number – say 2% – of each country’s population.

Brett Zamir, the brilliant creator of, among other things, at least 11 Firefox extensions – is owed our thanks for inspiring this post, is an advocate of the universal-language premise and an advocate of Gestuno, also known as International Sign. Brett, with permission “from the World Federation of the Deaf, [has] put online an early book on Gestuno,”

And if you’ve now got an appetite for founding documents, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a must-read.

AT&T Seeks to Phase Out Landlines: “Relics of a Bygone Era”

POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) lines proved an extraordinarily rugged communications system, highly energy efficient, and easy to keep going in the event of power failure (because while the local nodes, known in the trade as “switches” or “central offices” may need emergency generators, they’re not power hungry).

Another critical point is that while the central offices (C.O.’s) get their power from the local utility or emergency generators, the phones get their power from the central office. Thus, telephone service stays up in a power failure.

Piezo-electric phones are another rugged and extraordinary technology. These are sound powered-telephones. Sound waves of a person’s voice can power a clear and audible signal for up to five miles. (If you’ve seen them in action in the field or in movies, the cranking which precedes the call is for the bell on the other end.) These phones are required in underground mining, on naval ships, and are in use in prisons and jails to provide communications between the two sides of transparent barriers in visiting rooms. (Hence the absence of wires leading from the handsets).

That’s why the copper-wire based POTS system – a network which can survive a power network failure – is so critical. Here’s what James Grahame of Retro Thing reported back in 2009:

AT&T recently informed the FCC that they consider traditional landline telephones to be “relics of a by-gone era.” It’s a sad moment, because it comes as official acknowledgment that Alexander Graham Bell’s quaint analog system is now outdated enough to be a corporate nuisance.

However, the truth is that the plain old telephone service (POTS) has been mostly digital for years. The only analog part of the system is the final run to your house. So, while internet-based Voice Over IP (VoIP) service would be easier to deploy and maintain, those who insist on having a fixed home line won’t see a dramatic difference.

I’m mildly concerned by AT&T’s assertion that, “It makes no sense to require service providers to operate and maintain two distinct networks when technology and consumer preferences have made one of them increasingly obsolete.” Surely they’re intimately aware that the mobile phone network is considerably more profitable than the landline side of the business. Cellular service requires personal handsets, each with its own (often steep) fees and data surcharges. After all, few people replace their landline handsets every 18 months, and texting is out of the question on a rotary phone.

AT&T Seeks to Phase Out Landlines

Grahame is on the money here; we think there’s a strong argument to be made for local sound-powered phone networks, say between police stations, hospitals, places of worship and schools (both often used in emergencies for organization and shelter). See also our earlier post, Military leaders conclude simpler technology less failure-prone, more reliable.

Wikipedia Entry: Sound-powered telephone

Apple & Blackberry – Yesterday, Today, & Tomorrow

Back in 1999, I was walking down a hall to the data center of a US Navy base in Virginia, when I noticed a sign that said “Cell Phones Prohibited. Deadly Force Is Authorized in this Area.” Fortunately my cellphone didn’t ring.

One of my colleagues had an Apple Newton. Just as the Osborne and Kaypro led to the Compaq and the laptops, PDAs running the Newton operating system and PDAs from Go Computers led to the Palm Pilot, and ultimately to the iPod, iPhone, and iPad, but that’s another story.

Research In Motion had just introduced the Blackberry 850 handheld. My colleagues in the financial industry had them. I understood the potential and wanted one. That too is another story.

Continue reading →

What do these two technologies have in common?

What is/are the relationship(s) between the technologies pictured here? We’re not trying to be unfair, so we’ll explain that one image is of a pilot climbing into an F-16, and the other is of a whistle.

[nggallery id=103]

They differences, of course, are intuitive: The F-16, while still being manufactured for export to selected countries, is no longer being purchased by the United States military, but those still in service are intended to remain in service until 2025, which speaks volumes about the complexity of military aircraft design and the consequent length of the design cycle. The F-16 is unquestionably a weapons system or platform: there are many cofigurations of armament, electronic countermeasure, complex IFF systems (“Identify Friend or Foe,” an automated means of reducing friendly fire incidents on the one hand, and thereby permitting faster action by pilots who are, by using IFF, at less risk of accidentally attacking an ally, a colleague, perhaps even a friend and comrade); training is complex and demanding; because of its complexity and maneuvering ability, the F-16 is unforgiving of error.

The whistle, the WW-3 Res-Q™ Whistle, has a single function: to call for help and direct help towards the signaler (so perhaps two related functions), and its characteristics include:

Loud, shrill, dual tone audible from great distance

Unique flat design prevents holding water

Required by SOLAS 83

Meets USCG/SOLAS requirements

Aids in land or sea rescues

Use on life jackets, vests, foul weather gear, ring buoys, rafts, keychains, etc.

Developed for the U.S. Navy; used by NASA, major airlines and shipping companies

Complete with 18-inch (45.5 cm) lanyard

Its only safety defect is its greatest virtue: users and persons near them may experience discomfort or transient hearing loss because it is so loud. It’s simple to operate; as Lauren Bacall said in the film Key Largo,

“If you want me just whistle. You know how to whistle don’t you? Just put your lips together and blow.”

Lauren Bacall, The Complete Films of Humphrey Bogart; found at Lauren Bacall Quotes Page, via GoodReads.com

So what do they have in common?

The same parent company, Cobham plc, makes both components and subsystems for the F-16 and other very complicated pieces of tech costing millions of dollars, as well as the Res-Q-Whistle, which often retails for under $3 USD. It’s hard to imagine that there’s much of an economic motive for Cobham in selling these whistles, but we’re glad they have them on the market.
The pilot stepping into the F-16 probably has the Res-Q-Whistle in his survival gear which, because its most likely use is after ejection and parachuting and consequently has carefully rationed space, says something about the perceived value of the whistle. Insofar as we know, the $2 whistle must be purchased separately, and is not included in the price of the more expensive F-16 subsystems and accessories.

Thanks to RFCafe.com for providing the link which led to this piece.

Homebrew software analyzer for digital radio signals (OP25)

Under the headings of democratizing and demystifying technology, here’s a group of open-source folks making ways of receiving the digital signals with which, under what’s called “P25” (Project 2025), public safety agencies will be conducting their radio communications by the year 2025. Those handy with soldering irons and reading circuit diagrams will find this especially interesting. Those of us with a less sophisticated understanding will, for the moment, stand in awe and admiration:

OP25 is a not-for-profit project to bring together folks that are interested in implementing APCO P25 using a software-defined radio. Our goal is to build a software-defined analyzer for APCO P25 signals that is available under the GNU Public License (GPL).

APCO Project 25 is the digital communications standard used by many police and emergency services throughout the world. Most notably the US, Canada and Australia deploy systems based on P25. Compared to existing analogue systems P25 offers improved spectrum use, coverage and flexibility. Provision is made to ensure the confidentiality of traffic, to allow the use of trunking and the provision of data in addition to voice services.

Hardware scanners such as the Uniden BCD996T offer APCO P25 functionality but software-defined radio (SDR) offers significantly improved flexibility. For example, software radio approaches can receive many channels at once, handle both voice and data (including the trunking control channel), decrypt encrypted traffic when the key is known and log traffic to disk for later analysis. With the right software an SDR is a powerful analysis tool for debugging and monitoring of P25 networks.

That’s the sales message. The reality is software-defined radio isn’t yet as simple as the plug-and-play of hardware radios. You will need a lot of patience and a fair amount of software skills to get working. To get an idea of the work involved you can check out Hardware for Your Software Radio By Stephen Cass. In that sense this really is an amateur radio project and requires the same kind of skill and dedication but we’ve a few people who will help out if you run into trouble. A project like this needs many different skills so even if you’re not technical you maybe able to help in other ways.

A short video that demonstrates OP25 transmitting audio from a PC’s microphone input, then to a USRP being received by a GRE scanner is available on Youtube.

via OP25.

Thanks to Dangerous Prototypes for the link.

Cassidian Communications has a helpful explanation of P25 in .pdf (Acrobat) form; see also their P25 Land Mobile radio page. If this subject is of interest but daunting, start with Wikipedia’s excellent Project 25 entry.

OP25 itself notes that there are other projects exploring these issues: “OP25 is only one of a number of projects in this area and you should check out Project54, OpenP25 and Unitrunker for related work. “

North Korean GPS jamming shows vulnerability of Army radios – Nextgov.com

While this is alarming, please bear in mind that this is a discussion of a military technology which, with respect to one feature (GPS), used a civilian-grade component. That the entire system can be easily jammed would, we think, be an unreasonable inference based on the data at hand. By Bob Brewin, writing on NextGov.com:

Korea’s jamming of Global Positioning System signals on the Korean Peninsula this week illustrates a “life-threatening” vulnerability of the Army’s Rifleman Radio, which is equipped with a nonmilitary GPS chip, a former top Defense Department official told Nextgov. The Army plans to test the hand-held radio this month at its semiannual Network Integration Evaluation exercise at White Sands Missile Range, N.M., which began Tuesday.

GPS satellites broadcast jam-resistant military signals as well as civil signals susceptible to blocking. Jules McNeff, who spent 20 years in the Air Force working on GPS, said the Army evidently decided to use a chip that receives only civil GPS signals as a “cheap and expedient” way to incorporate location information into the Rifleman Radio.

McNeff, now vice president for strategies and programs at Overlook Systems Technologies Inc., a GPS engineering firm in Vienna, Va., said any time a jamming incident occurs, “it calls into question why we are using [civil chips] in the Rifleman Radio.”

The Army plans to field 5,900 short range Rifleman Radios to infantry squads in seven brigade combat teams over the next year.

Army Lt. Gen. Ronald Burgess Jr., director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, told lawmakers on the Senate Armed Services Committee in February that North Korea has mounted high-powered Russian-made jamming devices on vehicles near the border — 40 miles north of Seoul, the South Korean capital — which can disrupt GPS signals within a 30-to-60 mile range. He added North Korea has started to develop its own GPS jammer with a greater range.

John Merrill, position, navigation and timing program manager for the Homeland Security Department, said small, inexpensive GPS jammers widely sold on the Web have proved difficult to locate. In a presentation to attendees at a National Institute of Standards conference in March, Merrill said it took DHS, the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Aviation Administration from November 2009 to April 2011 to locate one GPS jammer in a truck traveling the New Jersey Turnpike and knocking out GPS signals at the Newark, N.J., airport. [emphasis added]

The Army has billed the Network Integration Evaluation, which runs through June, as a “real-world” exercise and McNeff said the service should include “navigation warfare” maneuvers to test the vulnerability of the Rifleman Radio and other systems to jamming.

via North Korean GPS jamming shows vulnerability of Army radios – Defense – Nextgov – Nextgov.com.

MetaFilter | Community Weblog – Simple Comms (sound announcing presence)

“It is startlingly loud,” he warns, “and it’s loud enough that you can actually feel the sound wave going through your torso.” On East Brother Island in California, lightstation keeper Peter Berkhout is caretaker to one of the last working vintage foghorns in the United States.

posted by Laminda at 8:48 AM – 28 comments

via MetaFilter | Community Weblog.

Why you need a "POTS" phone, and where to get them

“POTS” is phone-geek and industry slang for “Plain Old Telephone Service.” A P.O.T.S. pone is a telephone, rotary (that’s a “dial,” a big wheel on the front of the phone, for our younger readers) or touch-tone, which doesn’t have a whole bunch of extra features requiring, usually, direct current (DC), which in the United States, usually means an unwieldy black “power brick,” which is plugged into a wall socket or extension cord, converts the alternating current to direct current, powers the extra features (speakers, lights, answering machine) but not the voice connection itself – which is powered by the telephone system at the nearest phone company facility, usually referred to as the “central office,” although, unlike regular offices, they’re often unattended. One can’t walk in and pay a bill, or request service; in that sense, it’s not an office at all. Think of it as network hub. Better-run telephone companies, certainly including the company we now refer to as “Verizon,” but which others of us grew up thinking of as “New York Telephone,” have their own emergency generators.

So – when the power grid fails, assuming the copper wires which connect you to your central office haven’t been cut (more likely in suburban or rural areas where the cost of laying underground cable for a relatively sparse population is prohibited your “POTS” phone will still work in a power outage. You can still call 911, for instance.

However, if you have a “POTS” phone but no one you care about does – not so good.

So – what we at Popular Logistics would like you to do is this: buy yourself a POTS phone, better yet, buy several of them, and then use your powers of persuasion to make sure that the people you care about and who care about you have them, too.

If you’re only going to have one, we suggest a touch-tone phone, because there are systems which will want you to enter data via the keypad.

Reasons for ignoring this advice, and why they don’t stand up to scrutiny

“They don’t make them anymore.” That’s not true, and we’re going to show you here to get them.

“They must be really expensive.” Also not true – we’ve found reliable reconditioned touch-tone desk telephones for as low as $10 with shipping, and if you buy a few at once, the shipping costs get lower. And if we can get enough readers to do this, we might be able to work out a bulk purchase.

“They’re ugly.” We don’t think so. Neither do the Museum of Modern Art, which has telephone by the industrial designer Henry Dreyfuss in its Design Collection, as does the Cooper-Hewitt design museum, which is part of the Smithsonian Institution.

“I’ve already got a mobile phone, and ‘regular’ service is an extra expense.” (1) If the power goes out your smart phone i s going to be hard to recharge; (2) depending on your plan, using a landline for outbound calls from home can actually reduce your mobile bill.

One last point – of the many elegant features of telephone design, it’s worth noting two which make them exceptionally “green” devices. First, the older (and recent, but better-made) telephones use so little power that they can be powered from the central office. They use much more power, in fact, to ring the bell than to carry two-way voice conversations. Second, telephones designed in the 1950’s with a planned lifespan of 25 years are still in service. How many electrical or electronic devices do you own that have worked for that long and not ended up in a landfill? And when they do break, telephone enthusiasts both amateur and professional often scavenge the parts or fix broken parts, further extending their life. I have on my desk a green model 2500 ITT desk telephone which is nearly as old as I am, much older than my children both recently graduated from college with all sorts of honors, thank you very much – not that either has a POTS line. But if the test of good advice were whether one’s own children took it, we’d be living in an entirely different society.

So – in the hopes that we’ve persuaded you that this small purchase will reduce the risk of your being incommunicado in an emergency, and might also save you some money and reduce your carbon footprint – we will, in sort order, tell you about some individual phones and source.

My green desk phone, BTW, came from the excellent Jonathan Finder of OldPhones.com

"Cantenna" – improvised antenna

A “Cantenna”: improvised antenna, reused materials, can extend transmission and reception of a variety of radio devices – a paint or other metal can, plus copper wire or brass rod, brass tubing – can extend the range of radios, cell phones, wireless networks. Here’s one example from Wikipedia’s entry Cantenna:

Bob Hennelly/WNYC's "Stucknation: 911 Off the Hook"

In Stucknation: 911 Off the Hook, WNYC’s Bob Hennelly outlines the current problems – basic problems – with the nation’s 911 emergency telephone reporting/dispatch systems in coping with the proliferation of mobile phones:

Almost a decade after the attacks of September 11th the nation’s most essential emergency local lifeline — 911 — remains a local patchwork of antiquated technology vulnerable to failure when people need it most.

In 2010 the Congressional Research Service, CSR, reported the nation’s underlying 911 local call systems “operate exclusively on an analog technology using an architecture of circuits and switches” that date back to when ATT was the “regulated monopoly providing most of the nation’s phone service.”

That monopoly was broken up in 1984, 27 years ago. As we know, digital technology and cell phones have been dominant for years.

Yet even now, CSR finds 911 systems across the country are “unable to accommodate the latest advances in telecommunications technology and are increasingly out-dated, costly to maintain, and in danger of failure.”

Consider the tragic case of the Virginia Tech students in 2007 caught up in that grisly mass shooting. Many thought they could text 911. They could not. And yet even today the overwhelming number of Americans cannot text 911. The college kids must have thought that surely, by 2007, the grown-ups would have figured out how to make that possible and made it happen. Continue reading →

Oyster Creek To Close in 2019

Oyster Creek, courtesy of Nukeworker.com

Chicago, Illinois based Exelon Corporation recently announced that it will close the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant in 2019. (NY Times, NJ.com AP). Oyster Creek, in Lacey, New Jersey, is the nation’s oldest operating nuclear power plant. It’s roughly 75 miles south of New York City and 60 miles east of Philadelphia. Exelon was recently granted a 20-year extension on its operating license by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission despite the wishes of local environmentalists, environmental groups, and people concerned about evacuations in the event of an emergency, and public concerns from the NJ Department of Environmental Protection.

The plant uses a single pass cooling system which sucks in 500 Billion gallons of cool water each year (click here) from Barnegat Bay, heats it 20 to 30 degrees, and returns the heated water to the bay. This kills billions of adult and juvenile fish, clams, crabs, and shrimp, and hundreds of billions, if not trillions of hatchlings, less than a centimeter in length. This has had a negative effect – possibly a disastrous effect – on the fish and wildlife populations of Barnegat Bay during the 40 year operating life of the plant to date. The NJ DEP demanded that Exelon retrofit the plant with cooling towers.

Exelon claims the cooling towers would cost $600 million, roughly $1.00 per watt for the 610 megawatt reactor. Other estimates for the cooling towers range from $200 million to $800 million. Exelon decided to close the plant rather than spend the money on the cooling towers and other maintenance. This is a gain for current Exelon shareholders as they defer a hundreds of millions on capital improvments, and corresponding hundreds of millions of liabilities, while they collect revenues and realize profits from the sale of electricity for the next nine years.

Continue reading →

BBC – h2g2 – The Rendezvous Problem

The Rendezvous Problem

via BBC – h2g2 – The Rendezvous Problem.

13 Alerting Sites | OpenJason

Open Jason lists sites which read the Web, with various emphases (with respect to sourcing), and let you know.

13 Alerting Sites | OpenJason.

The brilliant David Stephenson has, as some readers may know, done some serious thinking and writing about new media/social media and disaster response. (Put “Stephenson” in our search box and you’ll get some of our earlier pieces. Better yet, go to his site and read his work).

Apart from Google Alerts, which I use, for instance, to track public developments in the Robert Levinson case, I haven’t used these. But I think they generally need to be tweaked a bit, depending on the search terms involved, to get the signal-to-noise ration under control. In some cases, duplication and republication may be a problem.

There’s a good opportunity here to do some objective testing with a common set of search terms. Does this sound like a decent crowd-source project?

Brad Horn: Alexander Kendrick invents low-frequency antenna which works in caves

We’re tempted to follow the editorial lead of others who’ve covered this story – emphasizing that Alexander Kendrick is 16 years old and won a science fair prize for his new low-frequency radio system. We agree that it’s more remarkable that he’s only 16 – but think this would be a remarkable achievement if he were 61.

where to download no strings attached

It’s our impression, based on Brad Horn’s excellent coverage, that this system is lightweight, portable, easily assembled, and relies on relatively inexpensive components. Check out Brad Horn’s piece on NPR, Texting Underground Can Save Lives And Caves.

Caves are some of the last places on the planet left to explore. Though caving is relatively safe, if something goes wrong deep inside the Earth, a rescue can take days — in part because cell phones and walkie-talkies don’t work underground. But a remarkable teenager in New Mexico has invented a device that may significantly speed that process with the ability to text from underground caves. The young man’s invention may have other applications, as well.

We hope to have an update with images and more information in the near future.

See also:

down the lost future

Brad Horn multimedia (some of his other work) and the Veterans’ Listening Project.

Popular Logistics

Systems thinking on the biohumanosphere.