Ham in Iran?

[hamstr]

I am not a radio amateur but I have a question regarding the current situation in Iran. There the government is right now taking down the internet and all other kinds of communication lines to prevent the citizens from reaching each other and the rest of the world. Regular radios are also jammed. But could a ham radio connection still be possible or is there ways to block that too?

There is a huge international interest in their fight and freedom of communication right now, and all possible channels of communication are important.

Thoughts??

For those that are interested -
Why We Protest - IRAN - Powered by vBulletin

Thank you,
Hamstr

[N_Jay]

ep

May not be current info.

[hamstr]

So.. if I understood anything from that, they do not have a lot of radio amateurs in Iran since they don't issue warrants?

Sorry for being a complete idiot in these things.. are these things easy to monitor or can you have one operating unnoticed?

[newsphotog]

I'm willing to bet that no anti-Ahmadinejad transmissions are getting out via radio, out of fear of licensed and NON-licensed amateurs being fox-hunted by the government or secret police. It sounds like there haven't been any Iranian licenses issued for a long time, which makes me wonder if the amateur bands are being utilized in the country, and if so, how.

[n3ckf]

I tried looking around and found that NO new station licenses have been issued in Iran since 1979.
Obviously its in the rulebook for running a dictatorship that you dont issue ham licenses...

I think communication would be possible with winlink style operation on 20meters. However, packet is extremely distinctive on the HF bands and it wouldnt be that difficult to find people doing this, if they did very much of it from a single location.

This is largely (I think) why the miltary does it.

HOWEVER, there is another alternative - Iridium phones. IRidium is a GSM system and includes SMS capability. And you only need to be able to see the sky. Whats more, it covers Iran, and a bit difficult to jam. Obviously, voice is also possible with Iridium but the data capability may be more useful for moving information out of Iran (or into it).

an amateur radio possibility is pacsats. Does anyone know if any of the store & forward amateur packet radio satellites are up? That might work well since you really only need a portable radio and 5 watts to hit them (which also makes it a lot harder to find YOU while you're doing it). Passes are by definition short, so you'd NEVER get more than about 10 minutes to locate a station.