The location in the petition is approx. 41.82907908782928, -88.4940281199101, which is about 16 miles (27 km) from the center coordinate of the TDOA map (41.60, -88.60). Not bad given the caveat of "the above location is likely accurate to only a few 10s of km at best."
The e-mail address in the petition has the domain tower-research.com, which is a high-frequency trading firm.
The only thing I'm confused about is that the zoning petition was discussed at the meeting on Dec 8th 2020. If it was approved, it seems remarkably fast to build a tower given that the article was from Dec 15th.
For HFT purposes, it's hard to hide an intercontinental range HF antenna, particularly a directional one. I know at least 3 locations not far from the illinois CME datacenter, out in some fields, with huge yagi-uda antennas aimed at London and tokyo.
I'm curious as to UK end of the link now. I would guess somewhere on the hills around London to get line of sight for a microwave link down to the city.
Having just checked the Ofcom Spectrum Information System [0], it does not appear that they could have a transmitter for the opposite direction due to the frequency allocation to MoD and Amateur. Maybe they have a contract with the shortwave broadcasters to embed trading data into their broadcasts.
You will not usually have nor do you need line of sight for HF radio. The radio waves are reflected by the ionosphere at various angles and heights, allowing the signal to be received at many different distances at once. Radio waves at the correct frequency hit the ionosphere like stones skipping along the surface of water.
Assuming the same tower height at both ends, and ignoring refraction due to the atmosphere, I get that you would need 1500 mile tall towers for Chicago to Tokyo. (I did miles rather than meters because my Google for the distance between them came back in miles and I was too lazy to convert).
> For HFT purposes, it's hard to hide an intercontinental range HF antenna, particularly a directional one. I know at least 3 locations not far from the illinois CME datacenter, out in some fields, with huge yagi-uda antennas aimed at London and tokyo.
ARRL mentioned this stuff in June 2018, then crickets.
The second link on ka7oei's page, a 2018 discussion among hams, names a few of the perps' ID's. It said 'WJ2XGD' was the only one licensed on 20m.[0] Quote: 'Emission bandwidth shall not extend beyond the bandlimits' = 14-14.99.
They're -not- required to ID themselves [Section 5.115] (an eyebrow-raiser).[1]
Chicago to London one way is around 35ms over fibre but that could be down to 21ms over the air like this.
That signal is only about 10-15khz wide[1] from that diagram. That’s not a whole lot of data transfer ability, measured in the low kbps range rather than mbps. Very low kbps when you add in error correction.
We are moving out of / have left the solar minimum so the MUF is usually well above the 20 metre band each day now so going forward, it might be a good capability to have while it lasts for the next 8 years or so.
[1] I don’t know what scale division the ticks at the top represent but the SSB signals to the left would be up to around 3khz wide.
One does not need a lot of bandwidth to trade successfully. In fact, a limited number of signals agreed upon ahead of time is enough. E.g. signal “A” could mean “buy 10 contracts”, signal “B” - “sell 100 contracts”, etc. And you can of course wrap 256 such signals into one byte. So transmitting a single byte at an opportune time let’s you control your trading on the other continent in a quite precise fashion. If you make such transmission, say, 10 times per day your bandwidth utilization is technically 10 bytes per day or about 0.001 bps - yet you can make a ton of money.
All you really need to do is to beat the trade you just saw enter the system so you can buy the trade out from under them and mark it up while their bits are still stuck in glass. You know, "provide liquidity".
Something similar was used for landing the original Mars Rovers - not actual full data telemetry channel but just a very simple very low bandwidth signal that can be translated to symbols, each signifying an important phase of the landing being reached.
I have no real opinion on HFT, but I think its outrageous the FCC allows people to interfere with other services like this. Let them use point-to-point microwave relays or fiber cables
Readit News
Using the update from the bottom of the page:
> … and M-Wave is authorized the 14-14.99 MHz at 16 kW.
I found this petition from M-Wave Networks, LLC for permission to build 4 towers in Kane County, Illinois: https://www.countyofkane.org/FDER/Zoning%20Petitions%20Docum...
The location in the petition is approx. 41.82907908782928, -88.4940281199101, which is about 16 miles (27 km) from the center coordinate of the TDOA map (41.60, -88.60). Not bad given the caveat of "the above location is likely accurate to only a few 10s of km at best."
The e-mail address in the petition has the domain tower-research.com, which is a high-frequency trading firm.
The only thing I'm confused about is that the zoning petition was discussed at the meeting on Dec 8th 2020. If it was approved, it seems remarkably fast to build a tower given that the article was from Dec 15th.
It makes sense they moved quickly, since there's a limited time period where they'd have this advantage over other firms which set up similar systems.
- Delmarva Broadband is authorized 14.35-14.99 MHz at 186 kW. Contact is a law office in DC. See https://apps.fcc.gov/els/GetAtt.htm
- … and M-Wave is authorized the 14-14.99 MHz at 16 kW. See https://apps.fcc.gov/els/GetAtt.htm
https://goo.gl/maps/boqMG4aCrShatHtq8
So much for that hobby.
Where were those links supposed to go anyhow?
ref: https://www.google.com/maps/place/41°36'00.0"N+88°36'00.0"W/
ref: https://splinternews.com/how-an-internet-mapping-glitch-turn...
Having just checked the Ofcom Spectrum Information System [0], it does not appear that they could have a transmitter for the opposite direction due to the frequency allocation to MoD and Amateur. Maybe they have a contract with the shortwave broadcasters to embed trading data into their broadcasts.
[0] https://www.ofcom.org.uk/spectrum/information/spectrum-infor...
They're probably aimed somewhere above and in between https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skywave
For Chicago to London I get 560 mile tall towers.
Edit: actually it might not be possible at all from a single point anywhere in the universe.
Got any pictures?
With more traditional microwave for the last hop.
The second link on ka7oei's page, a 2018 discussion among hams, names a few of the perps' ID's. It said 'WJ2XGD' was the only one licensed on 20m.[0] Quote: 'Emission bandwidth shall not extend beyond the bandlimits' = 14-14.99.
They're -not- required to ID themselves [Section 5.115] (an eyebrow-raiser).[1]
[0] https://apps.fcc.gov/els/GetAtt.html?id=204018&x=. [License to M-Wave Networks LLC, Illinois]
[1] https://forums.qrz.com/index.php?threads/ham-radio-mentioned...
This long, archived page about HFT tech briefly considers the HF option considerations (search for 'HAM radio')
[2] [https://web.archive.org/web/20171012010437/https://meanderfu...]
That signal is only about 10-15khz wide[1] from that diagram. That’s not a whole lot of data transfer ability, measured in the low kbps range rather than mbps. Very low kbps when you add in error correction.
We are moving out of / have left the solar minimum so the MUF is usually well above the 20 metre band each day now so going forward, it might be a good capability to have while it lasts for the next 8 years or so.
[1] I don’t know what scale division the ticks at the top represent but the SSB signals to the left would be up to around 3khz wide.
Deleted Comment
I wonder if Dumas was inspired by Blanc brothers.