YHK - yet another hacker news clone

So they started selling them restricted to ham bands until the user pressed a key combo to factory reset them, which put them back to iirc 136-172.

I believe the FCC ban doesn't apply to used gear but seems like eBay is taking a harder stance.

Unlocking handhelds is less of a problem because it requires deliberate action to break the rules. There are fewer people willing and able to do that.

The sites are not at all "cutting edge" or even aesthetically pleasing. Like most of ham radio, it's functional and that's about it. Aesthetics are almost non-existent in the hobby.

eBay serves (served?) a wide, public audience. Hams don't need that wide of an audience, just a targeted audience. I'd venture to guess QRZ.com probably has the most buy/sell traffic, then older, has-been sites like eham.net and swap.qth.com catering to the old timers that don't want to follow the traffic trends that left for other sites.

The thing with ham radio is the population is quite small to begin with. The sheer number of hams is like 1% of any population no matter how you slice it. Country, state, city... and that's just those that are licensed. How many of THOSE are interested in buying gear online or shipping gear when selling online? Not really even the majority of the small community. THEN you further cut that down because hams are a stodgy crowd that resist change. So anything new often has a long run up for adoption. Even longer to become a known entity in the community.

Surely something else could replace QRZ.com eventually, but no time soon that I can imagine.

I don't think it's useful to point out inconsistencies; the bottom line is that lasers will be on the chopping block within our lifetime too.

https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-adopts-rules-strengthen-rul...

> Protecting Against National Security Threats to the Communications Supply Chain…

Yeah… a foreign adversary is totally going to be thwarted by FCC certification. The Russian's are probably just kicking themselves for buying at Walmart.

But my memory is hazy from time and limited direct interest.

https://tankandafvnews.com/tag/sherman-tank-for-sale/

Take this Hackaday article from the other day:

https://hackaday.com/2026/10/15/so-you-want-to-make-your-sdr...

The subject is mostly academic, but in 18 comments no less than 3 different people are warning about doing something against the rules. It's weird. I don't know of any other subject that provokes responses about "the rules" like this. I could understand if the article title was "How to Aim Laser Pointers at Airplanes", but attach a long enough wire to an oscillator and people start to get uppity.

On the other side of things, I don't know if you've turned on a shortwave radio recently, but the only thing I hear on mine is switch-mode power supply noise.

I work professionally in point to point licensed microwave radio and there is very little overlap in our community of ISP/telco/network engineering people with analog ham radio enthusiasts. I don't know a single person who submits FCC coordinations and does high capacity PTP microwave who is also a "licensed" ham.

There is a bit of a disdain in serious radio work for things that operate in purely analog methods (we really only care about things that have native gigabit ethernet or better interfaces on them and can carry IP data), and the concept of not being able to use basic crypto either at the radio level or as a data payload is also anathema to professional use.

There are slightly more professional nerds doing things with meshtastic/meshcore and similar as a hobby, because messing about with small esp32 based things and similar (and specifically in the 900 MHz USA/Canada bands) in purely digital modes is closer to what we do for work. And has practical uses for low data rate SCADA/monitoring and text messaging uses.

There is also a perception that many ham radio enthusiasts who try to position themselves as some special and ultimate resource in disaster response scenarios are not really doing much useful. At a small local scale, maybe? But the people who operate county sized professional emergency communication radio networks (with real budgets from government money) serving sheriff/police/fire/ambulance response and similar also do not overlap a lot with ham radio enthusiasts. If you have the budget to build a $400,000 project of a hilltop radio tower site serving mission critical communications in your county and your main interactions are with the local sheriff's office and the local 911 PSAP, your perspective is going to be very different than the people who want to do all-analog in the clear ham radio for "disaster response".

In many modern emergency scenarios people expect to be able to communicate and share data using whatever they have on their phone or laptop as a wifi client, which means implementing portable two way satellite IP data over something like traditional VSAT, starlink, o3b, Oneweb, soon Amazon LEO, etc. It's also standard for serious disaster response vehicles operated by well funded government agencies to have something like a docked handheld Iridium phone.

If you do something naughty on the internet, there's a reasonable chance you won't get caught.

If you do something naughty on the radio, you will get a large fine if not prison time.

The golden, underlying rule of Amateur Radio is to respect and protect the bands with which we have been trusted.

This is in my back yard: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZjInmHsWdM

The thing is hams shenanigans tend to impact other hams and not the general public. Every dive bar, and friend group has one asshole, but typically not two.

Even the scope of the terms differ. Hackers have to make or break something. Hams may do anything from rag chew to build orbital satellites. If you're more inclined to do legal stuff and aren't inclined to build something, things involving community service are going to be more appealing.

When I first came into the tech space, I found myself with quad copters buzzing around my workspace. I had the intention of hacking the signals around me to dissuade folks from flying around my head while sitting at my desk. After walking into a radio shop, looking for a few key items, I chatted for a few minutes with the clerk. He immediately put me into his “you’re a jammer” box and was uninterested in any further conversation. He wasn’t wrong, but it’s ironic given that I was effectively counter-jamming to get work done… and maybe have a little fun hacking at the same time. Point being: some communities have such rigid rules around what a “good citizen” encompasses that they get lost in their own world.

I find myself more on the altruistic side, despite being far closer to a “computer hacker” than a ham.

This was always a media caricature. If you go back to some of the cultural cornerstones especially when you're talking about technical work it's not that different, see Eric S. Raymond's What is a Hacker? http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html

"If you want to be a cracker, go read the alt.2600 newsgroup and get ready to do five to ten in the slammer after finding out you aren't as smart as you think you are"

I blame Mitnick or random script kiddies for this image, when in fact your average hacker is a guy named Bob with an .edu address submitting kernel patches and emacs fixes

When it comes to hacker culture it has to face different problems. I think a lot of its bad ral comes from psychological reactance and that people just hate unsolicited advice, even if it's excellent and free.

Firearms are capable of being used for legal purposes, as they are in the overwhelming number of cases. A radio that transmits on a restricted frequency is illegal. The ruling doesn't say legal frequency transmitters can't be sold, just that the broker (ebay) is responsible for ensuring it's not facilitating the sale of illegal radio equipment. Ebay is the one choosing not to sell most radio equipment (even if legal), because they don't want to deal with it.

Firearms used to be widely available at big-box stores, as they were legal (and still are), provided the store prevented illegal purchases. Most box stores/locations no longer sell firearms, because they don't want to deal with it.

It’s much free-r than it used to be, when the paper on a pole and paying for a newspaper ad was the only option.