Local Frequencies and Communications Resources

 

 

According to the ARRL Operating Manual, 10th Edition: “In a nuclear attack scenario, wireless communications resources would be limited, and the only systems that might be usable include limited satellite communications (SATCOM), limited TV/radio broadcasting, Family Radio Service (FRS), General Mobile Radio Service (GMRS), Citizens Band (CB), Multi-Use Radio Service (MURS), HF Automatic Link Establishment (HF-ALE), and Amateur Radio.”

 

Download the complete guide from our Internet Archive:
https://archive.org/details/@radioreconnaissance

 

 

Amateur (Ham) Radio Repeaters (Local)  

Chehalis (Baw Faw Peak) 147.060 MHz (+0.6) (PL 110.9)
Crawford Mountain (Tenino) 147.380 (+0.6) (PL 103.5)
Crawford Mountain (Tenino) 441.40 MHz (+5.0) (PL 103.5)
Eatonville, Pack Forest 146.700 MHz (-0.6) (PL 103.5)
Enumclaw, Grass Mtn. 145.370 MHz (+0.6) (PL 136.5)
Mt. Rainier (Paradise) 146.780 MHz (-0.6) (PL 103.5)
Olympia, Capitol Peak 145.470 MHz (+ 0.6) (PL 100.0)
Radio Club of Tacoma 147.280 MHz (+ 0.6) (PL 103.5)
N. Tacoma / Pt. Defiance 145.210 MHz (-0.6) (PL 141.3)
Puget Sound Repeater Group 146.960 MHz (-0.6) (PL 103.5)
Shelton (Mason County ARC) 146.720 MHz (-0.6) (PL 103.5)
Three Sisters Summit 147.300 MHz (+0.6) (PL 88.5)
Tiger Mountain East 146.820 MHz (-0.6) (PL 103.5)
Yelm Amateur Radio Group 440.200 (+5) (PL 100.0)
Yelm Lawrence Lake Rd. 441.125 MHz (+5) (PL103.5)

Mike & Key Repeater List (https://mikeandkey.org/area_repeaters.php)
Western Washington Repeater List (https://www.wwara.org/WWARA-rptrlist.pdf)

 * Radio Nets in the Puget Sound Area (https://www.mikeandkey.org/nets.php)

Repeater Networks

AB7F Repeater System (http://ab7f.mooo.com/index.html)
Beach Net Repeater System (https://qsl.net/nm7r/index.htm)
Evergreen Intertie (http://wa7hjr.org/evergreenintertie/index.html)
Kamiak Butte Amateur Repeater Association (https://www.kbara.org/)
Peak Radio Association (https://www.w7pra.com/)   
PNW220 Network (http://pnw220.net/index.html)
Puget Sound Energy Repeater Group (http://pseares.com/repeaters.html)   
Western Intertie Network (WIN) (https://www.winsystem.org/)

 

GMRS Repeaters with Area Coverage (https://mygmrs.com/)

Oly-Comm3, East Tiger Mtn. 462.625 MHz (Ch.26) (PL 141.3)
Peacock Hill: Gig Harbor, WA   462.675 MHz (Ch.28) (PL 141.3)
SDR Olympic Forest: Mason County, WA 462.675 (Ch.28) (DSC 125)

 

APRS Commands 144.390 MHz (PNW 440.800 MHz)

TO: SMS / MSG: @Cell-Phone Number TEXT OF MSG (http://aprs.wiki/SMS/)  
TO: EMAIL / MSG: address@domain.com (67 total characters maximum)
TO: WXBOT / MSG: Zip Code, Today / Tomorrow / Day of Week
TO: WHO-IS / MSG: Call Sign (Returns QRZ Call Sign Record) 
TO: MPAD / (https://github.com/joergschultzelutter/mpad/blob/master/docs/EXAMPLES.md)

APRS Map (https://aprs.fi) 

 

Wilderness Protocol - The Wilderness protocol calls for hams in the wilderness to announce their presence on, and to monitor, the national calling frequencies for five minutes beginning at the top of the hour, every three hours from 7 AM to 7 PM while in the back country.

 

National Simplex Calling Frequencies

FM:  52.525 MHz, 146.520 MHz, 223.500 MHz, 446.000 MHz, 906.500 MHz
SSB: 50.125 MHz, 144.200 MHz, 222.100 MHz, 432.100 MHz, 902.100 MHz

GMRS Channel 20 (462.675MHz) with a PL of 141.3Hz is generally considered the GMRS 'travel/calling' frequency. However, this is not officially designated by the FCC, and may vary by area and group usage. If you carry a GMRS radio in the backcountry, consider following the Wilderness Protocol on GMRS Channel 20.

 

Adventure Radio Frequency (North America) 146.580 MHz

        Adventure Radio CTCSS Tones   
        * 67.0 Hz Emergency calling
        * 88.5 Hz SOTA/POTA and other operating events
        * 100.0 Hz General backcountry conversations.

 

Backcountry Radio Channels (Snoqualmie Pass)

GMRS Channels 2 (Snow Lake), 3 (Kendall) 6 (Hyak) all with PL 85.4
(https://nwac.us/backcountry-radio-channels/)

 

Weather Forecasts

National Weather Service (Seattle) 206-526-6087              Fairchild AFB Snow Line 509-247-5100
National Weather Service (Portland) 503-225-5555           JBLM Road Conditions 253-967-7133
Northwest Avalanche Forecast 503-808-2400

 

National Weather Radio (NWR) broadcasts are found in the VHF public service band at these seven frequencies: 162.400 MHz - 162.425 MHz - 162.450 MHz - 162.475 MHz - 162.500 MHz - 162.525 MHz - 162.550 MHz

 

WXRADAR – Send a Winlink message to WXRADAR with PNW in the subject line. This will return a weather radar image. Takes about 2 min to download via FM and 10 minutes via HF.

 

National Weather Service (NWS) FTPMAIL Server

The National Weather Service (NWS) FTPMAIL Server is intended to allow Internet access for users who do not have direct access to the World Wide Web but who are equipped with an e-mail system [such as someone using WinLink from a field location]. The service is free and no sign-up is required.

Using FTPMAIL, users can request files from NWS and have them automatically e-mailed back.  Turnaround is generally less than one hour; however, performance may vary widely and the NWS cannot guarantee receipt.

Go to your search engine of choice and search for NWS Weather Forecast Zones. It should take you here (https://www.weather.gov/pimar/PubZone). Choose your state and download a copy of the map(s) you want.

For example, if you are in Pierce County, WA and want the forecast for Western Washington, open the Washington map and you will see that the zone for Pierce/Lewis County is 569. Tacoma is zone 509, Seattle is zone 556, etc.  

This is where it gets a little confusing, but basically if you copy and paste the following script into an e-mail to NWS.FTPMail.OPS@noaa.gov you’ll get a return e-mail with the forecast.

open

cd data

cd forecasts

cd zone

cd wa

get waz569.txt

quit

To get a forecast for some other area, you just need to change "wa" to your state’s initials, and then for the get line (the requested file), it is just the state initials, z, for zone forecast, and then the number you chose off the map. If you want the weather for Albuquerque, after cd zone, change your request to:

open

cd data

cd forecasts

cd zone

cd nm

get nmz219.txt

quit

 

A detailed Help File is available by e-mailing the word "help" to NWS.FTPMail.OPS@noaa.gov. Just type help in the body of the e-mail, no capitalization or quotation marks. This system is case sensitive and wayward spaces will also throw things off. Keep everything is in lower case.

Note that this is an FTP Server, so e-mail must be in Text format (not HTLM); which is what we have with systems like Winlink, but you may have to adjust your Internet e-mail if you use it to access the NWS FTP mail server.

 

Alaska Weather Information Service will also return a weather forecast to you via SMS/Text if you text them at (907) 654-5793 with the state/zone in the body of the text message. For example, text waz569 to (907) 654-5793 and you will receive a response with the weather forecast for Pierce/Lewis County, WA, text waz509 and you will receive the forecast for Tacoma, etc.

 

Near Vertical Incidence Skywave, or NVIS, is a skywave radio-wave propagation path that provides usable signals in the medium distances range — usually 0–650 km. It is used for military and paramilitary communications, broadcasting, especially in the tropics, and by radio amateurs for nearby contacts circumventing line-of-sight barriers. The most reliable frequencies for NVIS communications are between 1.8 MHz and 8 MHz. Above 8 MHz, the probability of success begins to decrease, dropping to near zero at 30 MHz. “A Practical NVIS Antenna for Emergency or Temporary Communications” (https://static.dxengineering.com/pdf/wp-nvis-rev2.pdf) 

 

Radio Station WWV (Time Broadcasts)

WWV operates in the high frequency (HF) portion of the radio spectrum. The station radiates 10,000 watts on 5 MHz, 10 MHz, and 15 MHz; and 2,500 watts on 2.5 MHz and 20 MHz. Time data: (https://time.gov/)

 

LSB or USB? - Most HF amateur operation is single sideband. Your radio will use either the upper sideband (USB) or the lower sideband (LSB) for a particular contact. You can legally use either on any frequency / band. But by convention, some frequency bands use one; some use the other.

Lower sideband (LSB)--The common single-sideband operating mode on the 40, 60, 80 and 160-meter amateur bands.

Upper sideband (USB)--The common single-sideband operating mode on the 20, 17, 15, 12 and 10-meter HF amateur bands, and all the VHF and UHF bands, when running SSB.

 

Marine Channel 16 VHF (156.8 MHz) is a radio frequency designated as an international distress frequency. Primarily intended for distress, urgency and safety priority calls, the frequency may also carry routine calls used to establish communication before switching to another working channel. When using the channel to call up ships or shore stations, the call has to be switched to a working channel after the initial response in order to keep channel 16 available to others. The most important channels on your VHF radio are 13, 16, 19, 22, and 70. Channel 13 is used by commercial shipping to communicate their actions and confirm passage. Calls to other vessels are normally initiated on Channel 16 except for recreation vessels which may use (voluntarily) Channel 09 VHF-FM. The FCC has designated Channel 09 as a recreational calling channel in order to eliminate congestion on Channel 16 VHF-FM. However, it is important to take note that the United States Coast Guard does not monitor Channel 09 VHF-FM for distress calls. Any vessel in distress should use Channel 16 VHF-FM (which the Coast Guard does monitor). Channel 22 is the most common working channel for USCG in the event of an emergency.

 

Aviation Distress (Guard) The aircraft emergency frequency is a frequency used on the aircraft band reserved for emergency communications for aircraft in distress. The frequencies are 121.500 MHz for civilian, also known as International Air Distress (IAD) or VHF Guard, and 243.000 MHz for military use, also known as Military Air Distress (MAD) or UHF Guard.

 

Flight Radar 24 (https://www.flightradar24.com/46.97,-122.15/9) and ADSB Exchange (https://globe.adsbexchange.com/)  are global flight tracking services that provides you with real-time information about thousands of aircraft around the world.

McChord AFB Tower – 124.800 MHz
Gray Army Airfield Tower – 119.325 MHz
Olympia Airport Tower – 124.400 MHz

 

911 Alternative Numbers (https://mil.wa.gov/alternative911)

 

Text (SMS) Message to 911 (available in all WA counties)

A text (SMS) message may go through when a voice call will not. Open your phone’s text messaging program. Enter the numbers 9-1-1 in the 'To' field (no dashes). Type a message with the exact location of the emergency (including city) and the type of emergency help needed (police, fire, or medical). Push the 'Send' button. Stay with your phone, be prepared to answer questions by reply text message from the 911 call taker.

WA 211 is a free confidential community service program and your one-stop connection to the local services you need, from utility assistance, food, housing, health, child care, after school programs, elder care, crisis intervention and much more. 211 is always ready to assist you in finding the help you need. Dial the three-digit number 211 on your phone, or call 1-877-211-9274, or find help online - (https://search.wa211.org/)

 

Government Radio Frequencies (Thurston County) to Monitor (https://www.radioreference.com/db/browse/ctid/2991) 

 Sheriff Dispatch - 155.550 MHz                                            Olympia Police Dispatch - 158.860 MHz
Police Tac 2 Lacey/Tumwater PD - 156.150 MHz                 Fire Dispatch Countywide - 154.430 MHz

 

Poison Control Center 1-800-222-1222

Military Health System (MHS) Nurse Advice Line is available 24/7 to answer urgent care questions.
1-800-TRICARE 1-800-874-2273, Option 1.

Veterans Affairs Puget Sound 24/7 Nurse Advice Line: 1-800-329-8387

Amazon Clinic (https://clinic.amazon.com/) online from a doctor or nurse practitioner for many common conditions. Video visits are available in all 50 states, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. No appointment necessary.

Puget Sound Energy Power Outage Report Line 1-888-225-5773

Portland Mountain Rescue: 503-222-PMRU (7678)

Mountaineers Emergency Line 206-521-6030
Alpental Ski Patrol: 425-434-7669 x6552
Crystal Mountain Ski Patrol: 360-663-3064
Mt Baker Ski Patrol: 360-300-7070
Stevens Ski Patrol: 206-812-4510 x4339
Mt Baker Snoqualmie National Forest: 425-775-9702
Mt Rainer NPS: 360-569-2211
Mt Hood (Zig Zag) Ranger Station: 503-622-3191
Mt Hood (Hood River) Ranger Station: 541-352-6002

Oregon DOT Trip Check (https://tripcheck.com/)

WSDOT Real-Time Travel Data (https://wsdot.com/travel/real-time/)

Travel Alerts (https://public.govdelivery.com/accounts/WADOT/subscriber/new)

Alerts & Warnings (WA State) (https://mil.wa.gov/alerts)

 

E-mail to Text Message (SMS/MMS)

All the major wireless carriers in the United States offer a Short Message Service (SMS) gateway, which is a technology bridge that allows one form of communication (email) to conform to the technical requirements of a different form of communication (SMS). An email message going through an SMS gateway is limited to 160 characters, so it will likely be broken into several messages or truncated if it is longer than that limit. As a result, the recipient may receive your message in two or more text messages, and not necessarily in the order, you typed the content. If the email is longer than 160 characters or if it is an image, video, or recording, send it via Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS), which can handle longer messages, rather than SMS.

To send a text message by email, use the MMS or SMS gateway of your recipient's carrier with their cellphone number as the address. For example, if the recipient's phone number is (212) 555-5555 and the carrier is Verizon, address the email to 2125555555@vtext.com. * This will also work when sending a message through the APRS EMAIL gateway.

AT&T  number@txt.att.net (SMS)   /   number@mms.att.net (MMS)

Boost Mobile  number@smsmyboostmobile.com (SMS)   /   number@myboostmobile.com (MMS)

Cricket  number@sms.cricketwireless.net (SMS)    /   number@mms.cricketwireless.net (MMS)

Sprint  number@messaging.sprintpcs.com (SMS)  /  number@pm.sprint.com (MMS)

T-Mobile  number@tmomail.net (SMS and MMS)

U.S. Cellular  number@email.uscc.net (SMS)  /  number@mms.uscc.net( MMS)

Verizon  number@vtext.com (SMS)  /  number@vzwpix.com (MMS)

Virgin Mobile  number@vmobl.com (SMS)  /  number@vmpix.com (MMS)

 

FLDIGI (short for Fast light digital) is a free and open-source program which allows an ordinary computer's sound card to be used as a simple two-way data modem. FLDIGI allows operation using most of the digital modes used by radio amateurs today: CW, PSK, MFSK, RTTY, Hell, DominoEX, Olivia, Throb, and more are all supported.  (https://sourceforge.net/projects/fldigi/)

 

Western Washington Medical Services Communications (http://www.ww7mst.org/) is a group of Amateur Radio operators who assist healthcare providers when normal lines of communication are down – or perhaps overloaded during a disaster. These operators provide communications to hospitals, blood banks, medical suppliers, and public health offices, and also serve as field support during mass-casualty incidents. In addition, they provide critical communication links between various healthcare providers, as well as between those healthcare providers and the state’s emergency operations centers. The Washington group offers voice as well as digital/data communications.

 

WORN Washington Offroad Recovery Network (https://www.facebook.com/WORNPNW)

How to request a recovery:

If you need assistance recovering a vehicle from the backcountry of Washington State, we are here to help:

1) Contact us (the WORN page not individual administrators) by sending a message. We prefer messages via Facebook messenger, but you can call (888) 840-9676 or email info@washingtonoffroadrecovery.org.

2) Provide GPS coordinates; coordinates are the #1 way to get help fast.  Most phones have a built-in compass app that shows your current GPS location.

3) Provide a description of the situation: what are the roads like, is the vehicle damaged, why is the vehicle stuck, etc.

4) Provide photos if you can.

After contacting WORN, you can expect some follow up questions and then we will put a call out to our volunteer network to find someone available to help.

Just a reminder: WORN is not AAA, if you are on a paved road, it's likely a commercial service such as AAA is a better option for you.  We also will not support illegal vehicle operation; driving off-trail, drugs/alcohol, unauthorized private property, closed roads, etc.

 

Line of Sight and Radio Horizon Calculations - The RF Line-of-Sight tool (https://www.scadacore.com/tools/rf-path/rf-line-of-sight/)  allows users to easily drag-and-drop locations and obtain point-to-point line-of-sight information anywhere using Google Maps.

VHF/UHF Line of Sight Calculator (https://www.qsl.net/w4sat/horizon.htm)  

Elevation Finder (https://www.freemaptools.com/elevation-finder.htm)  Another tool for determining the elevation of places, using Google Maps, is at (https://www.calcmaps.com/map-elevation/).

Google Earth Pro will also produce an elevation profile for any line on a displayed map. 

 

Hamshack Hotline (https://hamshackhotline.com/) is a free dedicated VOIP telecom service for the Ham Radio community. Typically, phones are established in hamshacks, EOCs, Clubs & club members, ARES, and other Ham related areas and functions. It is not the intention of HH to replace traffic carried over radio in an emergency or other tactical operation, but rather to augment it, by offloading managerial tactical operations and providing a full duplex path for such communications when spectrum is occupied, conditions diminished, or otherwise unavailable.

 

DAPNET (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DAPNET) is a free global paging network created and maintained by amateur radio enthusiasts. Messages can be received on commercially available pagers that support the POCSAG protocol and tuned to the appropriate frequency.

 

Zello (https://zello.com/) is a live voice push-to-talk communication platform that turns any smart device into a digital two-way radio that works over Wi-Fi and cellular networks anywhere in the world. Zello requires an Internet connection. This can be cellular mobile data or WiFi. Zello cannot work without internet access, but if both you and your contact are within one network, the voice will be transferred using the shortest way - through the WiFi network, for example. Internet will be used only to log into the Zello network and do some service data exchange, it will be less than 1 kiB per second. Purpose-built to connect frontline teams and communities, the push-to-talk walkie-talkie app offers instant voice communication with one or many in unlimited secure, private channels, as well as message replay, emergency alerts, location tracking, dispatch capabilities, and Bluetooth device support.

 

Meshtastic (https://meshtastic.org/) An open source, off-grid, decentralized, mesh network built to run on affordable, low-power devices.

 

Encryption

PGP / GnuPG - One of the most popular PGP/GnuPG programs is Mailvelope (https://mailvelope.com/) a browser add-on that you can use in Chrome, Edge and Firefox to securely encrypt your emails with OpenPGP using webmail providers, such as Gmail, Yahoo, GMX, Outlook, Posteo, Zoho Mail, and others. Other popular programs include GNU Privacy Guard (https://gnupg.org/),  Gpg4win (https://www.gpg4win.org/), and Gpg4Usb (https://gpg4usb.org/).

 

JavaScrypt: Browser-Based Cryptography (https://www.fourmilab.ch/javascrypt/) A collection of Web pages and programs in the JavaScript language perform military-grade encryption (256 bit secret key AES) entirely within your Web browser—you needn't download nor install any software, and nothing is sent to any Web site when you encrypt or decrypt a message. You can download the page source and JavaScript programs to your own computer and use them even when not connected to the Internet. Companion pages provide a text-based steganography facility and key generator suitable for preparing one-time key lists. Please visit the JavaScrypt Home Page for details, or the JavaScrypt Tutorial for an overview of the available facilities.

 

Paranoia Works Encryption Tools (https://paranoiaworks.mobi/) Files and Texts can be encrypted using a strong encryption algorithm: AES (Rijndael) 256bit, RC6 256bit, Serpent 256bit, Blowfish 448bit, Twofish 256bit, and GOST 256bit.

 

VeraCrypt (https://veracrypt.fr/en/Home.html) is a free open-source disk encryption software for Windows, Mac OSX and Linux, based on TrueCrypt 7.1a. VeraCrypt provides the user with the option to create encrypted partitions on a drive or to encrypt an entire storage device (full-disk encryption) such as a USB flash drive or hard drive.

For on-line chats, consider using Ricochet Refresh (https://www.ricochetrefresh.net/) an open-source project that allows private and anonymous instant messaging by routing all communication through the TOR network.

 

Onion Share (https://onionshare.org/) is another open-source tool that lets you securely and anonymously share files, host websites, and chat with friends using the TOR network.

          

Ricochet Refresh, Onion Share, and many other programs work through the TOR network. Using the TOR Browser (https://www.torproject.org/) helps protect your identity while on-line.

It must be understood however that TOR does not protect the content of your e-mail from data breaches, or if the actual e-mail servers are compromised. A 2015 comment from the Reddit web-site serves as an example: “The first free .onion accessible email service that was widely used was tormail.net / tormail.org during 2011-2013. Tormail was taken down by the FBI because it happened to be hosted at FreedomHosting (a free. onion web host) whose server(s) the FBI seized because FH was allowing other things that were horrible (CP) to be hosted. The FBI now has full access to all the non-PGP encrypted information that was on the tormail server when they seized it, and they have used their access to that information in multiple investigations. Remember this when using such email services.” (https://www.reddit.com/r/emailprivacy/comments/3gf2ta/email_providers_with_onion_tor_hidden_service/)

 

Tails or The Amnesic Incognito Live System (https://tails.boum.org/) is a security-focused Debian-based Linux portable operating system that protects against surveillance and censorship. Tails includes a unique variety of software that handles the encryption of files and internet transmissions, cryptographic signing and hashing, and other functions important to security. It is pre-configured to use Tor with multiple connection options. Tails is safer than any regular operating system. But Tails, or any software or operating system, cannot protect you from everything.

 

Disroot (https://disroot.org/en) is a project that was born from the personal need to communicate, share and organize ourselves within our circles through tools that met a series of fundamental criteria for us: they had to be open, decentralized, federated and above all respectful towards freedom and privacy. The project is based in Amsterdam, is maintained by volunteers and relies on the support of its community.  

 

Briar (https://briarproject.org/) is an open-source, end-to-end encrypted messaging app that doesn’t rely on a central server, but instead syncs messages between users’ devices (so content lives on each user’s device). It can sync even when there is no internet using Bluetooth or WiFi (when there is internet, the app syncs devices over the Tor network). Briar also features private groups, public forums, and blogs. When using offline, your range is limited by your Bluetooth or WiFi range (maximum ~ 100 meters).

 

Psiphon (https://psiphon3.com/en/index.html) is a circumvention tool from Psiphon Inc. that utilizes VPN, SSH and HTTP Proxy technology to provide you with uncensored access to Internet content. Your Psiphon client will automatically learn about new access points to maximize your chances of bypassing censorship.

Encryption Wizard (EW) is simple, strong, Java-based file and folder encryption software for protection of sensitive information, such as FOUO, PII, CUI, and Privacy Act data. EW encrypts all file types for data-in-transit protection, and supplements data-at-rest protection. Without requiring a formal installation or elevated privileges, EW runs on Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, Solaris, and many other operating systems. Behind its simple drag-and-drop interface, EW offers 128- or 256-bit AES encryption, several secure hashing algorithms, searchable metadata, encrypted archives with compression, secure file deletion (often called "scrubbing" or "shredding"), and PKI/CAC/PIV support.

EW is GOTS: Government invented, owned, and supported software.

Encryption Wizard comes in multiple editions, all producing encrypted files which are fully interoperable and usable by other editions.

EW Government Edition is FIPS 140-2 validated. It uses a third-party cryptography module licensed for use by Federal employees and contractors only.

EW Public Edition may be downloaded and used by anybody at no charge. It uses the cryptography support already present in Java. It contains all the important features of EW and serves as a good introduction to the software. EW Public Edition doesn't provide its own implementation of AES, it just uses whatever is supplied by your Java Runtime Environment. The AES algorithms and their underlying Rijndael ciphers are well known, publicly available, and extensively analyzed. No feasible attacks against AES have yet been demonstrated.

EW Unified Edition is FIPS 140-2 validated, and may be downloaded and used by anybody at no charge. It uses a third-party (Bouncy Castle) cryptography module with no distribution restrictions. The Unified edition requires that your Java installation be permitted to use 256-bit keys, even if you never actually use anything stronger than normal 128-bit keys. The three editions (Public, Government, and Unified) are interoperable.

The Public and Unified versions of EW are archived at (https://web.archive.org/web/20210818100531/https://www.tens.af.mil/download.htm)

The most current Unified version of EW is available at (https://www.gettens.online/)

Is there a backdoor in EW? The software authors say no, explaining that a backdoor to a system needs a key. If the key to a backdoor were to get out (whether by accident, malfeasance, or disgruntled employees is irrelevant), then whatever is protected by that system becomes vulnerable. Given that the primary use of Encryption Wizard was to protect sensitive information relevant to the US DoD, inserting a master backdoor would be dangerously risky and profoundly shortsighted.

Can Encryption Wizard be trusted? Yes probably, as much as any government or commercial encryption software can be trusted. It provides strong encryption that is more than sufficient for most personal or business use.

Encryption Wizard is particularly useful for encrypted communication between US Government agencies and other agencies and organizations that don't have compatible PKI encryption.

 

Maps & Navigation

ATAK-CIV - The TAK Product Center released CivTAK/ ATAK-CIV (Android Team Awareness Kit – Civil Use) on the Google Play Store (https://www.civtak.org/download-atak/)  on the 1st of September, 2020 as a free download. This comes with the ATAK-CIV 4.1.1 as the TAK Product Center’s first publicly released version on the Google Play Store. ATAK-CIV is the least restricted version of TAK and is made available to support virtually any individual or organization with a requirement to display Position Location Information (PLI).

 

CalTopo (https://caltopo.com/) is a service for making custom maps to print at home. It enables you to research trails, cross country routes, topography, snow levels, and even track weather forecasts.

 

Google Earth Pro (https://www.google.com/earth/about/) lets you fly anywhere on Earth to view satellite imagery, maps, terrain, 3D buildings, from galaxies in outer space to the canyons of the ocean.

 

Maidenhead Grid Square Locator (https://dxcluster.ha8tks.hu/hamgeocoding/) is a geographic co-ordinate system used by amateur radio operators to succinctly describe their locations. Its purpose is to be concise, accurate and robust in the face of interference and adverse transmission conditions. The Maidenhead Locator System can describe locations anywhere in the world.

 

National Geographic Maps (https://www.natgeomaps.com/trail-maps/pdf-quads) is allowing everyone to easily download any USGS 7.5-minute topo map of the continental U.S. as a multi-page PDF that can be printed on letter size paper. These are the same topographic maps that were published by the U.S. Geological Survey for decades.

> Page 1 is an index map showing each of the printable quarter-quad maps in their broader context
> Pages 2-5 are the topo quarter-quads, sized and scaled to print on US-letter size paper
> They've added hill shading to help visualize the topography

 

OsmAnd (OSM Automated Navigation Directions) (https://osmand.net/) is an open-source mapping and navigation application which uses OpenStreetMap (OSM) data for both online and offline use. It also includes a routing and navigation feature, with visual and voice guidance. OsmAnd has particularly strong privacy policies — it doesn't collect user data, and lets you decide exactly what information the app may access.  It is available in both free and paid versions; the latter unlocks the download limit for offline maps and provides access to Wikipedia points of interest (POIs) and their descriptions from within the app. Map data can be stored on the device for offline use.

 

QGIS (https://qgis.org/en/site/) A Free and Open Source Geographic Information System.