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Topic: Anyone interested in chatting about BTC RF transmissions / internetless bitcoin (Read 6861 times)

full member
Activity: 182
Merit: 100
Nice progress of ideas on this. I noticed you said that Mbps MBps and kbps kBps were confusing you. If you see a lower-case b it refers to bits, most bandwidth measures will be in bits, most modern broadband internet connections will range from 5-15 Megabits/s which would equate into 0.625 MBps-1.875 Megabytes per second, or 625 - 1875 kilobytes per second. Your browser will usually show your download speeds in terms of Megabytes, but it seems to be a marketing ploy by ISPs, to provide their bandwidth in terms of Mbps.

There's many useful unit converters, here's one so you may be better to grasp it: http://www.numion.com/calculators/units.html

And nice to see you so serious about this, I will keep following this.
sr. member
Activity: 406
Merit: 251
http://altoidnerd.com

So lets clarify this. The aim is for a Radio based hardware product, which can automatically find and sync. with other similar devices, also linking in chains to the Bitcoin network through 'main' nodes which are conected to the internet to enuse connectivity.


I'm still a little unsure, this is speculative rambling so far.

I think a great goal would be to conceptualize and deploy a fake bitcoin network in-house that is a small scale version of what is being discussed here.  That labwork can begin once the concept is solidified a bit more.
sr. member
Activity: 406
Merit: 251
http://altoidnerd.com
I need some sleep now but as i was experimenting with transmitters and i know some things about analoge electronics that would be interesting!

Have you got a set up and tried tx transmissions wirelessly?  I have some test equipment at home, and considerable analog skills.  I have access in principle to unlimited test equipment at work but cannot legally use it for this, AFAIK.
sr. member
Activity: 406
Merit: 251
http://altoidnerd.com

Well thanks for units in electromagnetism being a sloppy mess since the 1800's strong, I still have not been able to calculate a mean field in gauss working on that.  On the surface of the earth under 2 G is a common value. I regularly measure .5 G orthogonal to east-west, in north florida. Differences of parts in thousands are readily detectable in quadrupole spectra in this background. The sensitivity is amplified in smaller static fields.
sr. member
Activity: 406
Merit: 251
http://altoidnerd.com
If the magnetic field due to earth is small enough at the altitude of geo-synch. orbits, NMR could be the road to achieving a coherent state vector
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1swog1/on_what_order_of_magnitude_is_the_b_field_from/

Given that LEO satellites commonly use the earth's magnetic field for orientation control through magnetorquing (not so much in the case of geosynchronous satellites due to weak field strength), most of what you're after (in terms of calculating approximate field strength) can be found in technical discussions of magnetorquers.

http://microsat.sm.bmstu.ru/e-library/Algorithms/mss/mag.pdf

Perfect.  Printing this and probably need to hibernate again for a while.  My notion is that the fields transmitted can be used to synchronously adjust the static applied field at each node to some collection of inert solids.  Solid state NMR/NQR is an insanely sensitive magnetometer.

I'm only suggesting magnetic resonance because it is what I know.  That's not to say it is the only way to do this.
sr. member
Activity: 347
Merit: 250
If the magnetic field due to earth is small enough at the altitude of geo-synch. orbits, NMR could be the road to achieving a coherent state vector
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1swog1/on_what_order_of_magnitude_is_the_b_field_from/

Given that LEO satellites commonly use the earth's magnetic field for orientation control through magnetorquing (not so much in the case of geosynchronous satellites due to weak field strength), most of what you're after (in terms of calculating approximate field strength) can be found in technical discussions of magnetorquers.

http://microsat.sm.bmstu.ru/e-library/Algorithms/mss/mag.pdf


The average transponder lease rate on a geosynchronous bird is approximately $2 million/year.

BTC market cap of 11 billion, chump change isn't it.

Figure you need a minimum of 3 for full-earth coverage.  Also budget about $600K each to build 3 satellite uplink stations (teleports).  Note, transponder lease rates referenced above are for C-band transponders (figure minimum 6' to 8' dish size needed on the receiving end in most cases).  Ku-band transponders, which are higher-powered and use receive dishes more akin to what people are accustomed to for modern DTV satellite systems (Dish Network, DirecTV, Bell ExpressVu in Canada) with 18" to 24" dishes, run about double that per year.
sr. member
Activity: 406
Merit: 251
http://altoidnerd.com

HΨ = EΨ
...Could have geosynchronous satellites...


If the magnetic field due to earth is small enough at the altitude of geo-synch. orbits, NMR could be the road to achieving a coherent state vector

http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1swog1/on_what_order_of_magnitude_is_the_b_field_from/

Let's see what they say
sr. member
Activity: 406
Merit: 251
http://altoidnerd.com
Has anyone ever considered leasing satellite space instead? Launching your own would be highly cost prohibitive, but leasing an unused or obsolete transponder on an existing satellite might be reasonable.

The average transponder lease rate on a geosynchronous bird is approximately $2 million/year.

BTC market cap of 11 billion, chump change isn't it.

Well a more complicated analysis of costs is in order.  I don't mean to laugh away the problem, its a real one.  Only suggesting that for bitcoin it is "affordable."
sr. member
Activity: 347
Merit: 250
Has anyone ever considered leasing satellite space instead? Launching your own would be highly cost prohibitive, but leasing an unused or obsolete transponder on an existing satellite might be reasonable.

The average transponder lease rate on a geosynchronous bird is approximately $2 million/year.
sr. member
Activity: 406
Merit: 251
http://altoidnerd.com
But theres no actual encryption in the bitcoin network. All data over the network is readable by anyone, signing != encrypting.

Question about signing:  what does this require in an abstract picture - am I correct in saying it a result that is easily verified but not easily found?  Like the discrete log?

Leasing satellites is a good way to do it.  I have no knowledge in launching them (lol!)
legendary
Activity: 1260
Merit: 1000
Drunk Posts
Has anyone ever considered leasing satellite space instead? Launching your own would be highly cost prohibitive, but leasing an unused or obsolete transponder on an existing satellite might be reasonable.
sr. member
Activity: 406
Merit: 251
http://altoidnerd.com
Ordered by total amount of bandwidth required:

1. By far most traffic generated by Bitcoin is the initial blockchain download. Nodes connect to random other nodes and request all the current blocks. The amount of traffic has a lower bound of the size of the block chain, but can be more due to coordination.

2. Received blocks and transactions are relayed through the network.

3. Then there are miners that broadcast new blocks. Due to difficulty adjustment this aims for 1 block of 1MB every 10 minutes, but has a Poisson distribution and there can be variations due to changes in network hashrate.

4. Then there are nodes transmitting new transactions. The volume in newly transmitted transactions is very low. Estimate would also be max 1MB per 10 minutes in total (can be more in the case not all transactions make it into a block).

If you have an alternative way to get nodes up to speed (1), and ignore the P2P gossip network (2) and replace it by a broadcast model, that leaves only 3+4 which are pretty low bandwidth.


Question: when a balance query is made, is anything transmitted at all?    My immediate guess is "no."
sr. member
Activity: 406
Merit: 251
http://altoidnerd.com
 I think a lot of the conversation so far as been focused on long-range communications in the HF realm using ionospheric propogation rather than direct line-of-sight or ground-wave propogation (as the discussion seems to be more about a small number of transmitters transmitting blocks to many end-users), which is an area that high-speed data communications is significantly hampered and will never approach the peak theoretical throughput.

Well as I suggested earlier, only some information needs to travel great distances. Exactly how little is left to be determined, but after another night of pondering I'm thinking the transmission of the entire blockchain could be canned entirely.  All that is needed is a "state measurement".  If the long range broadcast is a state function that when queried by a wallet returns the balance, we have at least done that much.

This is an eigenvalue problem in the language of linear algebra.  A wallet is a linear operator H which operates on the state of the interconnected transmit nodes (represented state vector Ψ consisting of component frequencies) which returns the scalar balance E as an eigenvalue:

HΨ = EΨ

Anyway, this is blowing smoke up the quantum mechanical ass, however the point is mainly not to get bogged down with bandwidth concerns.  Looking way way back at the original concepts behind cryptocurrency (which lie beneath bitcoin's protocol), passing around copies of this massive blockchain file as we do is probably not the end result of cryptocurrency.

Could have geosynchronous satellites relaying a coherent signal.  Any changes are felt by all other transmit nodes.  Equation above represents balance query only.

Any tx transmission would need to be described by an interaction of the observer with the state, harder problem.
sr. member
Activity: 347
Merit: 250
Now's the time to seek venture cap.  This is more than possible.

...

I became suddenly optimistic but failed to correctly interpret the units kb, kB, Mb, MB, byte, bit...etc to draw exact conclusions (sorry, my background is RF and physics - not all that used to base 2)



I noticed you ended up with basically a chart of theoretical throughput vs. bandwidth vs. power, but this is really only applicable to very high frequencies (UHF and above) in a clear line-of-sight environment with no interference, atmospheric propogation phenomenon, with the carrier far above the noise floor on the receiving end, and even then it's a chart of the theoretical upper bound under absolute ideal conditions, not a real-world achievable figure.  I think a lot of the conversation so far as been focused on long-range communications in the HF realm using ionospheric propogation rather than direct line-of-sight or ground-wave propogation (as the discussion seems to be more about a small number of transmitters transmitting blocks to many end-users), which is an area that high-speed data communications is significantly hampered and will never approach the peak theoretical throughput.


2) FCC will gut you. The FCC regulates the air wave usage, they will only allow you to transmit more than a few watts on specific commercial bands. Beyond that you will need a ham license, which doesn't allow any encryption to be transmitted. Beyond that you will require a commercial license, $$$.

But theres no actual encryption in the bitcoin network. All data over the network is readable by anyone, signing != encrypting.

I'm going to agree that what's in the blockchain doesn't qualify as encryption under the ITU rules (we need to be thinking more globally, not just in FCC territory in the US).  However, the rules that are going to prevent this from happening in the ham bands in ITU countries are that transmissions can't be for commerce (and I'm going to say that a virtual currency definitely falls into this category), and broadcasting is prohibited.  Propogation beacons and APRS maybe stretch the broadcast rule slightly.  Additionally, there are maximum bandwidths allowed in most of the ham bands under the ITU rules, and that's going to limit throughput particularly in the HF realm.

I'll add in some additional challenges to the list, this would be extremely easy for anyone to jam, and equally easy for anyone to find the location of the transmitter(s).  Many hams make a game of tracking down anything they don't like or they perceive as causing interference in their limited slices of spectrum!  Or, read up on the history of the soviet OTH-B radar ("Russian woodpecker") and all the hijinx of hams jamming and spoofing the signals to screw with it.
legendary
Activity: 1260
Merit: 1000
Drunk Posts
It's a great idea to have the btc protocol over a secondary medium, but theres going to be a lot in your way.
1) Not practical/easy to get transmitting power required to reach countrywide, or even statewide. A 5 Watt handheld radio on around 140mhz gets you only 10 miles range, it costs atleast $100 to get a non-consumer handheld radio. Beyond that you will start to need large antennas and equipment that costs thousands of dollars

2) FCC will gut you. The FCC regulates the air wave usage, they will only allow you to transmit more than a few watts on specific commercial bands. Beyond that you will need a ham license, which doesn't allow any encryption to be transmitted. Beyond that you will require a commercial license, $$$.

3) Airwaves already extremely polluted, HAM amateurs barely get any space to broadcast. It is mostly dominated by military/cellular/tv/commercial frequencies which take up 99% of available bandwidth. Extreme lobbying is required to get lower frequencies, higher frequencies require a satellite relay to use effectively across the globe.

But theres no actual encryption in the bitcoin network. All data over the network is readable by anyone, signing != encrypting.
legendary
Activity: 2646
Merit: 1722
https://youtu.be/DsAVx0u9Cw4 ... Dr. WHO < KLF

Ordered by total amount of bandwidth required:

1. By far most traffic generated by Bitcoin is the initial blockchain download. Nodes connect to random other nodes and request all the current blocks. The amount of traffic has a lower bound of the size of the block chain, but can be more due to coordination.

2. Received blocks and transactions are relayed through the network.

3. Then there are miners that broadcast new blocks. Due to difficulty adjustment this aims for 1 block of 1MB every 10 minutes, but has a Poisson distribution and there can be variations due to changes in network hashrate.

4. Then there are nodes transmitting new transactions. The volume in newly transmitted transactions is very low. Estimate would also be max 1MB per 10 minutes in total (can be more in the case not all transactions make it into a block).

If you have an alternative way to get nodes up to speed (1), and ignore the P2P gossip network (2) and replace it by a broadcast model, that leaves only 3+4 which are pretty low bandwidth.


So lets clarify this. The aim is for a Radio based hardware product, which can automatically find and sync. with other similar devices, also linking in chains to the Bitcoin network through 'main' nodes which are conected to the internet to enuse connectivity.

Some installations could also be connected directly to the internet / Bitcoin network, as well as broadcasting both by Radio and WiFi for anyone to connect to send and receive transactions.

Pre-installed blockchain data on a radio hardware device will only require low bandwidth, as above posts.

2x radios (min.) in each device are probably required for this purpose i.e. one set to sync. and one set to broadcast, receive and relay transactions + optional LAN and WiFi connectivity.

'The Bitcoin Freedom Box'. Is this simply a layer technology ? or a new product entirely ?

Isaac Wilder - Free Network Foundation Technical Overview

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4vjD33TIco
sr. member
Activity: 406
Merit: 251
http://altoidnerd.com
This will definitely be integral to the future of BTC.

Unfortunately, I am too busy to get too involved.

But would be happy to help spread the word: http://bitcoinprbuzz.com/services

When you get to the point of seeking capital - we could even post up an article (supplied by you) for free - if you do not have the funds for a full Press Release.

Thanks.  Let's see what's happening in a week when more people are involved.  I'm a better scientist than a businessman, so I would certainly need some help in this regard. 
legendary
Activity: 1386
Merit: 1000
This will definitely be integral to the future of BTC.

Unfortunately, I am too busy to get too involved.

But would be happy to help spread the word: http://bitcoinprbuzz.com/services

When you get to the point of seeking capital - we could even post up an article (supplied by you) for free - if you do not have the funds for a full Press Release.
sr. member
Activity: 406
Merit: 251
http://altoidnerd.com
Interesting idea if you guys need fund raising please contact me

Could use tip bots on reddit to motivate engineers to tell us things on /r/ece. 
sr. member
Activity: 406
Merit: 251
http://altoidnerd.com

Ordered by total amount of bandwidth required:

1. By far most traffic generated by Bitcoin is the initial blockchain download. Nodes connect to random other nodes and request all the current blocks. The amount of traffic has a lower bound of the size of the block chain, but can be more due to coordination.

2. Received blocks and transactions are relayed through the network.

3. Then there are miners that broadcast new blocks. Due to difficulty adjustment this aims for 1 block of 1MB every 10 minutes, but has a Poisson distribution and there can be variations due to changes in network hashrate.

4. Then there are nodes transmitting new transactions. The volume in newly transmitted transactions is very low. Estimate would also be max 1MB per 10 minutes in total (can be more in the case not all transactions make it into a block).

If you have an alternative way to get nodes up to speed (1), and ignore the P2P gossip network (2) and replace it by a broadcast model, that leaves only 3+4 which are pretty low bandwidth.


Perfect, thank you very much, this was needed. In RF land miners could be constantly transmitting a signal to reach other miners, and also adibatically adjust their continuous signal to

A) match the changes they measure from the other miner's signals and

B) include new TX's they hear in their environments.

Gonna let this cook overnight.
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