This Digital Radio Gets Messages to the World’s Remotest Locations
Rhizomatica's open-source HERMES shortwave system sends files and SOS messages for remote communities.
IEEE Spectrum profiles Rhizomatica founder Peter Bloom and HERMES, an open-source high-frequency radio stack for remote communities. Radios of about 20 watts use the ionosphere for roughly 400- to 600-kilometer links and can transfer files such as email, photos, and GPS coordinates, with optional encryption. A Bangladesh pilot on 10 or 11 fishing boats helped a crew in the Bay of Bengal send an SOS and coordinate a rescue. The story is humanitarian communications technology, not a cybersecurity incident.
- HERMES sends files over HF shortwave using about 20 watts across hundreds of kilometers.
- Optional encryption supports partners in sensitive areas where amateur-radio rules differ.
- Bangladeshi fishers used it offshore to send GPS coordinates and an SOS.
- Products
- HERMES
- Organizations
- Rhizomatica
- Countries
- BangladeshBrazilEcuador
From the original article
3 min read at spectrum.ieee.org
Shortwave radios offer a way to connect one location on Earth to practically anywhere else with minimal infrastructure. But these radios come with some drawbacks—a significant one being that, unlike satellite communications , their transmission rates for digital data are typically measured in just hundreds of bits per second .
By SamuraiLion · spectrum.ieee.org
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