'Encryption' in the ham space is defined as intentionally obscuring a message. Encoding data in a format is an extremely common practice. As long as the intent isn't to actually obscure your message, pretty much any digital format you can dream up is fine. The main method of email over HF, WinLink, is proprietary so IMO they don't even comply, but the FCC hasn't done anything so apparently it's fine.
Enforcement in this space looks like hams reporting bad behavior to the FCC, and if the FCC decides to enforce they send a nasty letter, escalating until the offender's license gets revoked if they don't stop.
This specific project is very cool. There's a lot of amateur radio emergency communications groups (EmComm) who use WinLink heavily, and IMO it would be better to use something open source.
All the more reason to get my sBitx set up and play around with this.
'Encryption' in the ham space is defined as intentionally obscuring a message. Encoding data in a format is an extremely common practice. As long as the intent isn't to actually obscure your message, pretty much any digital format you can dream up is fine. The main method of email over HF, WinLink, is proprietary so IMO they don't even comply, but the FCC hasn't done anything so apparently it's fine.
Enforcement in this space looks like hams reporting bad behavior to the FCC, and if the FCC decides to enforce they send a nasty letter, escalating until the offender's license gets revoked if they don't stop.
This specific project is very cool. There's a lot of amateur radio emergency communications groups (EmComm) who use WinLink heavily, and IMO it would be better to use something open source.
All the more reason to get my sBitx set up and play around with this.