This Digital Radio Gets Messages to the World’s Remotest Locations

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. Peter BloomPeter Bloom is the founder of Rhizomatica, a nonprofit that works with remote, indigenous, and off-grid communities around the world to build shortwave and cellular-communication infrastructure. Peter Bloom is the founder of Rhizomatica, a Philadelphia-based nonprofit that has open-sourced a digital shortwave-radio set called the High-frequency Emergency and Rural Multimedia Exchange System, or HERMES. The set operates in the high-frequency (HF) band from 3 to 30 megahertz, as does Mercury, its digital modem. Rhizomatica staff travel around the globe to remote locations in countries like Bangladesh, Brazil, and Ecuador. Wherever they go, they use HERMES to help connect locals to the rest of the world.Bloom spoke with IEEE Spectrum about how HERMES brings better data rates and encryption to shortwave radios.How does HERMES connect remote locations?Pe…

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