Please elaborate on your comment. What do you mean by "managed a 2G website"? The technology we advocate for, whose proper name is GSM but which is more commonly referred to as 2G because it is a "second generation" cellular tech, is a voice call technology that has nothing to do with websites or Internet.
Or are you asking how we put up a website for our non-profit company? If that is the question, then I don't see what is so mysterious: our website is currently just one HTML page, simple enough to be hand-coded in vi, and that method is indeed how I made it...
Or are you asking how we managed to create and run the actual company behind the website? Now here the answer is extreme devotion and dedication, my friend! I gave decades of my life to GSM technology, in my previous project going back to 2011 I sought to design and build my own GSM phone handset, hence I have just the right combination of qualifications and dedication to pursue my new/current idea of building a replacement network for the one that was wrongfully shut down. Just earlier this month the evil overlords of T-Mobile USA shut down their nationwide GSM/2G network; while everyone in r/vintagemobilephones on Reddit only cried and lamented, I gritted my teeth and kept working.
Would you be OK with shifting the location just a tiny bit eastward, from Bend OR to Prineville OR? Crook County (which hosts Prineville) has vacant/unclaimed PCS spectrum, so we can operate our own 1990s cellular phone network, while Deschutes County (which hosts Bend and Sisters) unfortunately lacks the same. And yes, I and my team did explore that area with actual boots on the ground in the fall of 2025, less than a year ago.
If someone is going to run with this idea, I very sincerely ask that you please do it in one of the locations marked on this map. Then my company will be able to operate a 1990s-technology cellular phone network in the proposed neo-Amish town, a network that will enable 1990s GSM cellphones to actually work! And I do mean it with full seriousness - the linked website is my actual company, with all attendant legal and contact info.
Out of the set of locations marked on the linked map, I strongly prefer the ones in Oregon. I and the rest of my founding team are based in California, and I am a trans woman - hence certain places are, quite sadly, simply unsafe for to me travel to, let alone the intricate tasks of building towers, installing equipment and then operating and maintaining it. There are no PCS spectrum vacancies in our home state of CA, but OR is close, has good spectrum available, and it is a lovely state with strong LGBTQ+ rights.
Since T-Mobile GSM network got shut down the next day after I made those test CSD calls, and since it appears that no one in the more dominant Vintage Mobile Phones community (Reddit and Discord) exercised the function of CSD to analog modem emulation, it is likely that those two successful CSD calls I made yesterday (one transparent and one NT) were the very last CSD calls ever made in USA-occupied Incalia.
It is now our duty as the Retro Mobile Phones community to recreate this CSD functionality in Osmocom-based GSM networks, and it is my firm goal to make our implementation no worse than the one which TMO just killed - see chapter 5 of Hera MSC architecture specification.
Unfortunately T-Mobile GSM service in my home town of Ramona, California got shut down today, 2026 August 4. I don't know the exact hour when it happened: it was still up when I went to bed shortly after PDT midnight, but when I got up this morning and looked at my spectrum analyzer, GSM signals in the guard bands of 1950.000 to 1950.750 and 1964.250 to 1965.000 MHz were gone. Then I got dressed, got into my car and drove around town with my little handheld SA - no GSM signals anywhere in town, from any of the towers.
So far the loss of T-Mobile GSM is confirmed only in Ramona and not the rest of San Diego County. However, since Ramona is nothing special, most likely all of SD County is gone now. In the next couple of days I am expecting a package to arrive at my Oceanside PMB, and I will need to drive there to pick it up - I will check for presence or absence of GSM signals in Escondido and Oceanside then.
I saw a comment on VMP Discord suggesting that those locations where T-Mobile 2G service is still up are "glitches", failures to shut down, and that they may be gone in another few days or weeks. Since it appears that I am the only active community member in San Diego, anyone who sees this post will likely wonder if the service is still up or not. In order to keep the greater community fully informed, I will add another comment here if and when this service disappears.
If you don't see any comments under this post that indicate otherwise, please know that T-Mobile 2G service is still up at least in the town of Ramona where I live.
Update: not only is T-Mobile GSM still up in my town (Ramona, San Diego County, California) as I add this comment, but I just connected to it from one of my FCDEV3B modem boards and exercised some CSD calls! I called NIST ACTS at 9600 baud, exercising both transparent and non-transparent modes of CSD. Here is the log from the non-transparent call - I am showing this one because transparent mode unavoidably incurs some garbage characters, while NT mode is clean:
The AT+CBST=7,0,1 command sets 9600 baud NT mode, then I called the number for NIST ACTS. I got BUSY the first two times because funding cuts to legacy technologies have reduced NIST ACTS to just one modem line, but on the third attempt I connected.
In my view, this CSD capability is one of the coolest features of VoiceStream GSM network, and I am very happy to report that it still works. I naturally hope that it stays working as long as possible, but if they do kill it, I am committed to replicating this feature in Themyscira Wireless MSC software and thus in the future network of A2GC.
Another update: today I finally received the large USB power bank from Amazon, and I rewired the BTS setup in my car to take 5V power from this unit, instead of the car starter battery via the "cigarette lighter" jack and a power converter. Preliminary result is that it works great! Further tests to see how long this power bank will last between recharges remain to be done.
Dear Mr/Ms/Mx Onomatopoeia - your comment above violates newly promulgated Rule 1 (see community rules update in the sidebar), and I am formally asking you to delete this offensive comment. If you do not delete it within 30 days, I will have to remove it via moderator powers and ban you from the community.
I realize that the rule which your comment violates did not officially exist at the time when you made the comment, hence it would be improper for me to enforce it retroactively without a grace period process to bring about compliance. Therefore, I am giving you a 30 day notice to either bring yourself into compliance with updated community rules or be banned.
Do you know how to operate your own GSM network with Osmocom? If not, I recommend that you get started on the learning curve now, so you can generate your own GSM signal. You will need an SDR of the right type; I am not an expert on SDRs myself as I use sysmoBTS, but MCDiamond9 on Reddit should know what type of SDR you should buy out of today's repertoire of low-cost models. Once you have the right SDR and a Raspberry Pi to drive it, you will be able to join A2GC as a member and connect your home cell to our Core Network (specifically, to our first real MSC) - this way your home cell will be connected to the real phone network and you'll be able to have SIM lines with real phone numbers that can make calls to and receive calls from the outside world.
Oh, and are you anywhere near San Diego perchance? I find teaching a million times easier if I can meet the student in person. :)
Update: yesterday I got the first version of this idea actually working. The hardware set laid out on the back seat of my car is exactly like I planned in my original post: a sysmoBTS 1002, a Raspberry Pi model 3B+, an LTE modem in USB stick form factor plugged into the RPi, and an Ethernet cable connecting the RPi to the sysmoBTS. The RPi needs 5V power and takes it in via a micro-USB power input connector; sysmoBTS 1002 needs the same 5V, but has a barrel-type power input connector. I got a cable that goes from USB-A plug to the right barrel connector for the sysmoBTS, plus a regular USB A to micro-B cable to power the RPi - so now I only need two USB-A power ports for the whole assembly. For my initial tests I used an adapter that provides USB-A 5V from the car's "cigarette lighter" power port - in my car this port remains powered even when the engine is off, so I could lock my car and walk away with the setup still powered. This method works, but is quite dangerous in that I could run down the car starter battery and leave myself stranded if I run it for too long.
In terms of software and logical functionality, the RPi connects to the Internet via LTE, establishes a WireGuard tunnel with one of my servers acting as the MSC, and then acts as the BSC between this distant MSC and the sysmoBTS next to it. The Linux distro I run on this RPi is Devuan - the moral principle of not using systemd is important to me! Devuan still comes with NetworkManager and ModemManager though, with nmcli and nmtui configuration tools, so I used those tools to configure automatic bring-up of LTE mobile Internet connection and a static IP assignment on the local Ethernet that connects to the sysmoBTS and also allows management access for me. My own custom rc.local script then configures WireGuard and starts osmo-bsc and osmo-mgw processes. Those Osmocom components were built from source: Osmocom provides prebuilt binaries for systemd-based distros, but not for more principled Devuan. OsmoBSC running on the car-resident RPi connects to OsmoSTP on my MSC server, with SCTP connection running inside the WireGuard tunnel over public Internet accessed via LTE. RTP streams for voice calls also run inside the same WireGuard tunnel.
Aside from the danger of running down the car starter battery if I leave this setup on for too long with the car engine off, system performance is mostly OK in the initial round of tests: I can walk a little bit away from my parked car and still have usable signal, and voice quality was mostly OK in my limited tests so far. Going forward, I plan to buy a high-capacity USB power bank (60 Ah is the biggest I found) and use it as the power source for this back seat BTS instead of the car starter battery - then I will be able to exercise this system a little more thoroughly without risk of stranding myself. To be continued...
I donât know where your pent up anger and frustration has come from, whether youâve met hostility in other forums, or if it it catalysed by some other event, but it is entirely unnecessary.
You are right - I am lashing out at the wrong people, and I am sorry for it. The root cause is a completely unjust ban from Reddit site-wide, and the rest is downstream effects. As a result of that Reddit ban, I went from posting in a generally appreciative community where each of my posts would typically get double-digit upvotes against a handful to downvotes, to getting 0 or negative overall scores, which was unheard of in the original r/vintagemobilephones community. And yes, comments like those by Onomatopoeia would have been heavily booed in r/VMP, by far more people than just me.
On the other hand, have you considered some form of picocell like system that could connect to a more recent network and rebroadcast a 2G signal at very low power? Youâd still need to arrange an appropriate SIM, but that way you could effectively take your coverage with you as you moved around.
I live in USA, and I am alive - therefore, 2G in USA is not dead. It may very well become dead when I am dead, whether it happens by natural or unnatural causes, but no sooner.
nonsensical take of trying to keep 2G alive.
It may be nonsensical to you, but not to any of the people who support our work and want it to succeed. Yes, it's a Reddit link - the people in that community loved and supported my work (and the work of my non-profit org) by an overwhelming margin, it is not their fault that Reddit site-wide admins inserted themselves as an insurmountable barrier between me and the good old community.
Thankfully the rules of the Federal Communications Commission are not as evil and cruel as you, Mr or Ms or Mx Onomatopoeia - FCC rules section 22.949 allows anyone to apply for a new license in an unserved area (which practically means an area so remote and low-population that it would be called "boondocks", "god-forsaken place" or "BFE"), even us 2G people - and our non-profit company will build a new 2G system in one of those "BFE" unserved areas, whether you like it or not. Or scratch that - we know you don't like it a single bit, but we'll do it anyway. 2G lovers are donating money to us to make it happen, and we will.
I looked into it some more, and it appears harder than I originally thought when I made this post. How do you ban someone (as a community mod, not an instance admin) if they have only drive-by downvoted and not commented? If someone posts or comments, I can clink the the 3 dots icon next to their post or comment, and there is an option to ban them from the community. But if they only downvoted, I don't see any place to enter a ban against them. Am I overlooking something? Where should I look?
(I am posting this part as a follow-up comment, rather than a "proper" post of its own, to make it clear that the "drama" part is strictly subordinate to, and holds a lower importance than the technical project part.)
I became aware of this post on Reddit, where some hapless member of r/vintagemobilephones community (someone named u/smartiphone7_) was looking for me (or more precisely, looking for updates on the work of American 2G Cooperative) and discovered that I am wrongfully banned from Reddit for reasons that had nothing to do with my participation in the VMP community or any other technical subs. I made an earlier post here on Lemmy in which I explained what happened, and this u/smartiphone7_ person also links (in the referenced Reddit post) to a version of my "What happened on Reddit" Lemmy post, linked via some search app that picked up my post via another instance.
I am making the present comment because some of the comments under the linked Reddit post contain some misconceptions that need to be rebutted. Since I am obviously unable to comment on Reddit, and since platform-neutral people who care about the actual topic of Retro (or vintage) Mobile Phones may come across that Reddit post and its tree of comments, I am making my rebuttal here.
u/smartiphone7_ wrote that I was banned from Reddit for inappropriate comments regarding my "anti vaxx views". That statement is inaccurate: while I do indeed hold views that can be described as anti-vaxx (more precisely, I believe that there is nothing more horrible than remaining alive in a body that has been irreparably defiled by injections of something you did not want), I am also very strongly pro-choice on the thorny question of suicide. In some instances my pro-suicide views are directly linked to my anti-vaxx views: in particular, I highly honor and revere those beautiful souls who ended their Earthly lives in order to avoid forced vaccination, and whenever I encounter a vaxxed person who wishes to Exit because they are vaxxed and do not wish to go on living in such defiled body, my duty as a Goddess priestess compels me to give them the necessary spiritual support - and sometimes also technical support with the means of CTB, if they ask for such. However, the comment that got me banned had absolutely nothing to do with vaccines or my stance on them: instead it was a fellow trans woman posting in r/honesttransgender, a sub mostly populated by those living on the darker side of the rainbow, and she was posting about her sincere desire to die. Why did she wish to die? Just read it in her own words, please. She asked some very specific questions, and I replied with specific, on-point answers - nothing more and nothing less. Yet as soon as I clicked Post on that comment, Reddit's site-wide AI perma-banned my account.
Also note that the fateful comment that got me banned is now visible, as opposed to the usual reading of â[ Removed by Reddit ]â - why do you think it is? Answer: because I appealed that ban as soon as it was issued, and after some time got this response:
Hi MotherMychaela,
Thanks for submitting an appeal. We reviewed your request and gave the following a second look:
Content shared from MotherMychaela on 05/30/2026 UTC
After reviewing, the Reddit admin team found that the content wasnât in violation of Redditâs rules. As a result, the content has been restored and your ban or warning has been lifted.
Reddit and its communities are only what we make of them together, and while trying to keep redditors and communities safe, we donât always get it right. We apologize for our mistake and appreciate your understanding.
Thanks again for your appeal, and for bringing the mistake to our attention. Weâll use this feedback to improve the systems and processes we use to keep redditors and communities safe.
We hope you continue enjoying Reddit and have a great rest of your day.
â Reddit Admin Team
Note: This decision was made without the assistance of automation.
Given the above development, why is my account still banned? I wonder if it has something to do with this "notification", which I received about 10 hours after the initial ban:
Your account has been permanently banned for breaking the rules.
This account has been permanently banned due to multiple, repeated violations of Reddit's Content Policy on your other account(s). For more information about what rules you broke and how to appeal, check your account inboxes.
If you feel like this account was banned in error, visit our Help Center to learn more how to file an appeal.
This is an automated message; responses will not be received by Reddit admins.
Note the reference to "your other account(s)". I did some web searches, and it looks like when someone has multiple accounts which Reddit's zealous fingerprinting system has concluded are controlled by the same human, the one account that made the transgression gets the "regular" ban message, while all other accounts also receive bans - and those alt-account bans receive ban messages just like the second one I got. The problem in my case, however, is that I never had a second account! I only had that one MotherMychaela account, I never created an alt prior to the ban, and I made no attempts to create any new account(s) after the ban either. Yet Reddit must have applied a "double" ban to my MotherMychaela account, first as primary and then as a hallucinated alt. Then the "primary" cause for the ban has been successfully appealed, but my account is still blocked due to their AI hallucinating about me having an alt - and they don't provide any mechanism anywhere to appeal this vector!
Back to the Reddit VMP post I am replying to, u/yaky-dev made this comment:
They did not separate their "project" and "opinion" accounts, clearly.
This person's "helpful suggestion" that I should have used separate Reddit accounts to post "project" vs "opinion" content would not have helped in the slightest. Reddit employs extremely zealous fingerprinting to detect multiple accounts controlled by the same human, and if any one of those accounts draws the ire of their soulless, AI-driven corporate admins, all accounts traced to the same human get banned!
Dear user - it looks like you created a Lemmy account just to participate in this little community! If so, here is my warmest welcome, my fellow human!
Your chosen username: is your dislike of AT&T based on them shutting down their GSM network in 2017, or their ongoing push to kill all traditional copper land lines? Or something else altogether? Also, are you someone whom I might know from either Reddit or Discord vintagemobilephones communities?
Are you aware that TMO are now saying that they plan to shut down what is left of their GSM/2G network on August 3? As a short-term (immediate) fix for my own personal use, I am about to start working on the interim solutuon described in this other post - but longer term, the original mission of A2GC continues unchanged. Once I finish the little detour that is the subject of the other linked post, I will get back to working on the new MSC for A2GC, and then get back to some further improvements in OsmoBSC for driving large macrocell BTS - both of which are needed for new above-ground [*] GSM network deployment.
[*] Here I use the term "above ground" to mean the opposite of the non-literal, figurative meaning of "underground".
Please elaborate on your comment. What do you mean by "managed a 2G website"? The technology we advocate for, whose proper name is GSM but which is more commonly referred to as 2G because it is a "second generation" cellular tech, is a voice call technology that has nothing to do with websites or Internet.
Or are you asking how we put up a website for our non-profit company? If that is the question, then I don't see what is so mysterious: our website is currently just one HTML page, simple enough to be hand-coded in vi, and that method is indeed how I made it...
Or are you asking how we managed to create and run the actual company behind the website? Now here the answer is extreme devotion and dedication, my friend! I gave decades of my life to GSM technology, in my previous project going back to 2011 I sought to design and build my own GSM phone handset, hence I have just the right combination of qualifications and dedication to pursue my new/current idea of building a replacement network for the one that was wrongfully shut down. Just earlier this month the evil overlords of T-Mobile USA shut down their nationwide GSM/2G network; while everyone in r/vintagemobilephones on Reddit only cried and lamented, I gritted my teeth and kept working.
Would you be OK with shifting the location just a tiny bit eastward, from Bend OR to Prineville OR? Crook County (which hosts Prineville) has vacant/unclaimed PCS spectrum, so we can operate our own 1990s cellular phone network, while Deschutes County (which hosts Bend and Sisters) unfortunately lacks the same. And yes, I and my team did explore that area with actual boots on the ground in the fall of 2025, less than a year ago.
If someone is going to run with this idea, I very sincerely ask that you please do it in one of the locations marked on this map. Then my company will be able to operate a 1990s-technology cellular phone network in the proposed neo-Amish town, a network that will enable 1990s GSM cellphones to actually work! And I do mean it with full seriousness - the linked website is my actual company, with all attendant legal and contact info.
Out of the set of locations marked on the linked map, I strongly prefer the ones in Oregon. I and the rest of my founding team are based in California, and I am a trans woman - hence certain places are, quite sadly, simply unsafe for to me travel to, let alone the intricate tasks of building towers, installing equipment and then operating and maintaining it. There are no PCS spectrum vacancies in our home state of CA, but OR is close, has good spectrum available, and it is a lovely state with strong LGBTQ+ rights.
Since T-Mobile GSM network got shut down the next day after I made those test CSD calls, and since it appears that no one in the more dominant Vintage Mobile Phones community (Reddit and Discord) exercised the function of CSD to analog modem emulation, it is likely that those two successful CSD calls I made yesterday (one transparent and one NT) were the very last CSD calls ever made in USA-occupied Incalia.
It is now our duty as the Retro Mobile Phones community to recreate this CSD functionality in Osmocom-based GSM networks, and it is my firm goal to make our implementation no worse than the one which TMO just killed - see chapter 5 of Hera MSC architecture specification.
Unfortunately T-Mobile GSM service in my home town of Ramona, California got shut down today, 2026 August 4. I don't know the exact hour when it happened: it was still up when I went to bed shortly after PDT midnight, but when I got up this morning and looked at my spectrum analyzer, GSM signals in the guard bands of 1950.000 to 1950.750 and 1964.250 to 1965.000 MHz were gone. Then I got dressed, got into my car and drove around town with my little handheld SA - no GSM signals anywhere in town, from any of the towers.
So far the loss of T-Mobile GSM is confirmed only in Ramona and not the rest of San Diego County. However, since Ramona is nothing special, most likely all of SD County is gone now. In the next couple of days I am expecting a package to arrive at my Oceanside PMB, and I will need to drive there to pick it up - I will check for presence or absence of GSM signals in Escondido and Oceanside then.
I saw a comment on VMP Discord suggesting that those locations where T-Mobile 2G service is still up are "glitches", failures to shut down, and that they may be gone in another few days or weeks. Since it appears that I am the only active community member in San Diego, anyone who sees this post will likely wonder if the service is still up or not. In order to keep the greater community fully informed, I will add another comment here if and when this service disappears.
If you don't see any comments under this post that indicate otherwise, please know that T-Mobile 2G service is still up at least in the town of Ramona where I live.
Update: not only is T-Mobile GSM still up in my town (Ramona, San Diego County, California) as I add this comment, but I just connected to it from one of my FCDEV3B modem boards and exercised some CSD calls! I called NIST ACTS at 9600 baud, exercising both transparent and non-transparent modes of CSD. Here is the log from the non-transparent call - I am showing this one because transparent mode unavoidably incurs some garbage characters, while NT mode is clean:
The
AT+CBST=7,0,1command sets 9600 baud NT mode, then I called the number for NIST ACTS. I got BUSY the first two times because funding cuts to legacy technologies have reduced NIST ACTS to just one modem line, but on the third attempt I connected.In my view, this CSD capability is one of the coolest features of VoiceStream GSM network, and I am very happy to report that it still works. I naturally hope that it stays working as long as possible, but if they do kill it, I am committed to replicating this feature in Themyscira Wireless MSC software and thus in the future network of A2GC.
Another update: today I finally received the large USB power bank from Amazon, and I rewired the BTS setup in my car to take 5V power from this unit, instead of the car starter battery via the "cigarette lighter" jack and a power converter. Preliminary result is that it works great! Further tests to see how long this power bank will last between recharges remain to be done.
Hell no, I would never reverse it even if it were possible - I love being a woman!
Welcome to the post-op side of the rainbow, sister! I got mine back in 2021 in Mexico. đ
Dear Mr/Ms/Mx Onomatopoeia - your comment above violates newly promulgated Rule 1 (see community rules update in the sidebar), and I am formally asking you to delete this offensive comment. If you do not delete it within 30 days, I will have to remove it via moderator powers and ban you from the community.
I realize that the rule which your comment violates did not officially exist at the time when you made the comment, hence it would be improper for me to enforce it retroactively without a grace period process to bring about compliance. Therefore, I am giving you a 30 day notice to either bring yourself into compliance with updated community rules or be banned.
Do you know how to operate your own GSM network with Osmocom? If not, I recommend that you get started on the learning curve now, so you can generate your own GSM signal. You will need an SDR of the right type; I am not an expert on SDRs myself as I use sysmoBTS, but MCDiamond9 on Reddit should know what type of SDR you should buy out of today's repertoire of low-cost models. Once you have the right SDR and a Raspberry Pi to drive it, you will be able to join A2GC as a member and connect your home cell to our Core Network (specifically, to our first real MSC) - this way your home cell will be connected to the real phone network and you'll be able to have SIM lines with real phone numbers that can make calls to and receive calls from the outside world.
Oh, and are you anywhere near San Diego perchance? I find teaching a million times easier if I can meet the student in person. :)
Update: yesterday I got the first version of this idea actually working. The hardware set laid out on the back seat of my car is exactly like I planned in my original post: a sysmoBTS 1002, a Raspberry Pi model 3B+, an LTE modem in USB stick form factor plugged into the RPi, and an Ethernet cable connecting the RPi to the sysmoBTS. The RPi needs 5V power and takes it in via a micro-USB power input connector; sysmoBTS 1002 needs the same 5V, but has a barrel-type power input connector. I got a cable that goes from USB-A plug to the right barrel connector for the sysmoBTS, plus a regular USB A to micro-B cable to power the RPi - so now I only need two USB-A power ports for the whole assembly. For my initial tests I used an adapter that provides USB-A 5V from the car's "cigarette lighter" power port - in my car this port remains powered even when the engine is off, so I could lock my car and walk away with the setup still powered. This method works, but is quite dangerous in that I could run down the car starter battery and leave myself stranded if I run it for too long.
In terms of software and logical functionality, the RPi connects to the Internet via LTE, establishes a WireGuard tunnel with one of my servers acting as the MSC, and then acts as the BSC between this distant MSC and the sysmoBTS next to it. The Linux distro I run on this RPi is Devuan - the moral principle of not using systemd is important to me! Devuan still comes with NetworkManager and ModemManager though, with
nmcliandnmtuiconfiguration tools, so I used those tools to configure automatic bring-up of LTE mobile Internet connection and a static IP assignment on the local Ethernet that connects to the sysmoBTS and also allows management access for me. My own customrc.localscript then configures WireGuard and startsosmo-bscandosmo-mgwprocesses. Those Osmocom components were built from source: Osmocom provides prebuilt binaries for systemd-based distros, but not for more principled Devuan. OsmoBSC running on the car-resident RPi connects to OsmoSTP on my MSC server, with SCTP connection running inside the WireGuard tunnel over public Internet accessed via LTE. RTP streams for voice calls also run inside the same WireGuard tunnel.Aside from the danger of running down the car starter battery if I leave this setup on for too long with the car engine off, system performance is mostly OK in the initial round of tests: I can walk a little bit away from my parked car and still have usable signal, and voice quality was mostly OK in my limited tests so far. Going forward, I plan to buy a high-capacity USB power bank (60 Ah is the biggest I found) and use it as the power source for this back seat BTS instead of the car starter battery - then I will be able to exercise this system a little more thoroughly without risk of stranding myself. To be continued...
You are right - I am lashing out at the wrong people, and I am sorry for it. The root cause is a completely unjust ban from Reddit site-wide, and the rest is downstream effects. As a result of that Reddit ban, I went from posting in a generally appreciative community where each of my posts would typically get double-digit upvotes against a handful to downvotes, to getting 0 or negative overall scores, which was unheard of in the original r/vintagemobilephones community. And yes, comments like those by Onomatopoeia would have been heavily booed in r/VMP, by far more people than just me.
See this post.
I live in USA, and I am alive - therefore, 2G in USA is not dead. It may very well become dead when I am dead, whether it happens by natural or unnatural causes, but no sooner.
It may be nonsensical to you, but not to any of the people who support our work and want it to succeed. Yes, it's a Reddit link - the people in that community loved and supported my work (and the work of my non-profit org) by an overwhelming margin, it is not their fault that Reddit site-wide admins inserted themselves as an insurmountable barrier between me and the good old community.
Thankfully the rules of the Federal Communications Commission are not as evil and cruel as you, Mr or Ms or Mx Onomatopoeia - FCC rules section 22.949 allows anyone to apply for a new license in an unserved area (which practically means an area so remote and low-population that it would be called "boondocks", "god-forsaken place" or "BFE"), even us 2G people - and our non-profit company will build a new 2G system in one of those "BFE" unserved areas, whether you like it or not. Or scratch that - we know you don't like it a single bit, but we'll do it anyway. 2G lovers are donating money to us to make it happen, and we will.
I looked into it some more, and it appears harder than I originally thought when I made this post. How do you ban someone (as a community mod, not an instance admin) if they have only drive-by downvoted and not commented? If someone posts or comments, I can clink the the 3 dots icon next to their post or comment, and there is an option to ban them from the community. But if they only downvoted, I don't see any place to enter a ban against them. Am I overlooking something? Where should I look?
Yes, yes, a million times yes!
(I am posting this part as a follow-up comment, rather than a "proper" post of its own, to make it clear that the "drama" part is strictly subordinate to, and holds a lower importance than the technical project part.)
I became aware of this post on Reddit, where some hapless member of r/vintagemobilephones community (someone named
u/smartiphone7_) was looking for me (or more precisely, looking for updates on the work of American 2G Cooperative) and discovered that I am wrongfully banned from Reddit for reasons that had nothing to do with my participation in the VMP community or any other technical subs. I made an earlier post here on Lemmy in which I explained what happened, and thisu/smartiphone7_person also links (in the referenced Reddit post) to a version of my "What happened on Reddit" Lemmy post, linked via some search app that picked up my post via another instance.I am making the present comment because some of the comments under the linked Reddit post contain some misconceptions that need to be rebutted. Since I am obviously unable to comment on Reddit, and since platform-neutral people who care about the actual topic of Retro (or vintage) Mobile Phones may come across that Reddit post and its tree of comments, I am making my rebuttal here.
u/smartiphone7_wrote that I was banned from Reddit for inappropriate comments regarding my "anti vaxx views". That statement is inaccurate: while I do indeed hold views that can be described as anti-vaxx (more precisely, I believe that there is nothing more horrible than remaining alive in a body that has been irreparably defiled by injections of something you did not want), I am also very strongly pro-choice on the thorny question of suicide. In some instances my pro-suicide views are directly linked to my anti-vaxx views: in particular, I highly honor and revere those beautiful souls who ended their Earthly lives in order to avoid forced vaccination, and whenever I encounter a vaxxed person who wishes to Exit because they are vaxxed and do not wish to go on living in such defiled body, my duty as a Goddess priestess compels me to give them the necessary spiritual support - and sometimes also technical support with the means of CTB, if they ask for such. However, the comment that got me banned had absolutely nothing to do with vaccines or my stance on them: instead it was a fellow trans woman posting in r/honesttransgender, a sub mostly populated by those living on the darker side of the rainbow, and she was posting about her sincere desire to die. Why did she wish to die? Just read it in her own words, please. She asked some very specific questions, and I replied with specific, on-point answers - nothing more and nothing less. Yet as soon as I clicked Post on that comment, Reddit's site-wide AI perma-banned my account.Also note that the fateful comment that got me banned is now visible, as opposed to the usual reading of â[ Removed by Reddit ]â - why do you think it is? Answer: because I appealed that ban as soon as it was issued, and after some time got this response:
Given the above development, why is my account still banned? I wonder if it has something to do with this "notification", which I received about 10 hours after the initial ban:
Note the reference to "your other account(s)". I did some web searches, and it looks like when someone has multiple accounts which Reddit's zealous fingerprinting system has concluded are controlled by the same human, the one account that made the transgression gets the "regular" ban message, while all other accounts also receive bans - and those alt-account bans receive ban messages just like the second one I got. The problem in my case, however, is that I never had a second account! I only had that one MotherMychaela account, I never created an alt prior to the ban, and I made no attempts to create any new account(s) after the ban either. Yet Reddit must have applied a "double" ban to my MotherMychaela account, first as primary and then as a hallucinated alt. Then the "primary" cause for the ban has been successfully appealed, but my account is still blocked due to their AI hallucinating about me having an alt - and they don't provide any mechanism anywhere to appeal this vector!
Back to the Reddit VMP post I am replying to,
u/yaky-devmade this comment:This person's "helpful suggestion" that I should have used separate Reddit accounts to post "project" vs "opinion" content would not have helped in the slightest. Reddit employs extremely zealous fingerprinting to detect multiple accounts controlled by the same human, and if any one of those accounts draws the ire of their soulless, AI-driven corporate admins, all accounts traced to the same human get banned!
Dear user - it looks like you created a Lemmy account just to participate in this little community! If so, here is my warmest welcome, my fellow human!
Your chosen username: is your dislike of AT&T based on them shutting down their GSM network in 2017, or their ongoing push to kill all traditional copper land lines? Or something else altogether? Also, are you someone whom I might know from either Reddit or Discord vintagemobilephones communities?
Are you aware that TMO are now saying that they plan to shut down what is left of their GSM/2G network on August 3? As a short-term (immediate) fix for my own personal use, I am about to start working on the interim solutuon described in this other post - but longer term, the original mission of A2GC continues unchanged. Once I finish the little detour that is the subject of the other linked post, I will get back to working on the new MSC for A2GC, and then get back to some further improvements in OsmoBSC for driving large macrocell BTS - both of which are needed for new above-ground
[*]GSM network deployment.[*]Here I use the term "above ground" to mean the opposite of the non-literal, figurative meaning of "underground".I absolutely, wholeheartedly support this idea!