Zero Retries is an independent newsletter promoting technological innovation that is occurring in Amateur Radio, and Amateur Radio as (literally) a license to experiment with and learn about radio technology. Now in its third year of publication, with 1800+ subscribers. Radios are computers - with antennas!
My thanks to Rick Gilmore W3TM for becoming an Annual Paid Subscriber to Zero Retries this past week! He included this nice message:
I learn something new in every post. And learning is what this grand hobby is about, IMHO.
My thanks to Eric Stammers M0REQ for becoming an Annual Paid Subscriber to Zero Retries this past week!
My thanks to Prefers to Remain Anonymous 34 for becoming an Annual Paid Subscriber to Zero Retries this past week!
Financial support is a real vote of confidence for continuing to publish Zero Retries!
Major Conference Countdowns
HAM RADIO 2024 in Friedrichshafen, Germany on 2024-06-28 thru 30 - this weekend. I’ve received some hints that there will be some interesting projects shown there. Zero Retries readers that will be attending HAM RADIO 2024, please provide some reports of Zero Retries Interesting projects and products.
Zero Retries Correspondents Wanted - Australia, Brazil, Germany, India, Japan, Mexico, etc.
Of necessity, most of what I report as Zero Retries Interesting here in Zero Retries is US-centric, with occasional contributions from Zero Retries readers, and occasional stories about ZRI developments in Europe (such as QO-100) and Japan. I’d really like to cover more frequently the Zero Retries Interesting developments occurring in countries with active Amateur Radio technical activities - data communications, satellite / space, creation of interesting, specialized Amateur Radio hardware, etc.
I’m not asking for folks to write an article. While I feature co-authors whenever I’m offered articles, I understand that writing an article is daunting to most folks in this era. The more usual circumstance these days is for folks to get in touch with me and point out something that’s Zero Retries Interesting. I take it from there, with credit to the correspondent (if they want). To keep Zero Retries interesting and relevant, I need folks like you Zero Retries readers to tell me what’s going on - point me to local clubs doing Zero Retries Interesting things, data networks, technical activities, etc.
Please don’t take offense if I don’t feature your info (there are times when there are just too many items to include), or that I’ve previously mentioned your info in a previous issue of Zero Retries. It’s better to be over-informed than under-informed. If I really miss something significant, please remind me.
The countries listed in the headline are my biggest “mystery countries” at the moment, with practically no visibility about Zero Retries Interesting Amateur Radio activities there.
I hope Zero Retries readers can help. If I get at least a few volunteers, I’ll set up an email list for “Zero Retries Contributors” where we can be in touch with each other instead of purely private correspondence with me (though that is, of course, an option if you’d prefer).
Google NotebookLM
Speaking of “previously mentioned your info in a previous issue of Zero Retries”, there are times that I forget what I’ve covered. It’s also painful at times to find when I’ve mentioned something in a previous issue of Zero Retries. Substack’s search tool has become ineffective because it now defaults to also searching other Substack publications… and items in Zero Retries are already obscure and hard to search for.
But citing previous articles is a significant part of Zero Retries and with three years of weekly issues, it’s getting ponderous to do manual searches. To help with that I’ve experimented with pouring a subset of text versions of Zero Retries into a single file so I can do faster searches. That didn’t go well.
But a fellow writer, of much longer standing and much greater stature than I experienced the same frustrations, and his public plaints on the matter were heard. A few years ago Steven Johnson was invited to join the team that created Google’s new NotebookLM. That sounds like that’s exactly the tool that I’ve been hoping for. My “Zero Retries Notebook” in Notebook LM will be restricted entirely to the content I put into each notebook. All I have to do is to finish exporting all three years of Zero Retries into PDF versions, which unfortunately is a semi-manual process because of the odd ways Substack creates its web pages, I usually have to fuss with the creation of the PDF to get it to turn our right. If I “respected” Substack’s warnings about “too large for email” then I could have shortcut this process by exporting just the email versions of Zero Retries, but oh well.
I’ve become wary of investing my efforts in Google projects… because Google has, in my opinion (and others) become actively predatory, and because Google has become infamous for its many Killed by Google projects. But I haven’t seen a better alternative than NotebookLM for my specific requirements for Zero Retries, and Johnson is a trusted name in non-fiction writing and he’s putting his name behind NotebookLM. Plus, having created the PDF library, my data will be secure and under my control, and it’s all public anyway, in the likely event that Google decides to “overshare” my Zero Retries Notebook in .
With those factors, a Zero Retries NotebookLM seems worth a try. A bonus will be that I can do limited sharing of the Zero Retries NotebookLM, and since the sharing is limited, that may end up being a perk of Zero Retries paid subscribers.
Just to stretch your imagination a bit, NotebookLM can be used with any collection of PDFs. Given that 73 Magazine is already in PDF form, that might be my next NotebookLM project.
Guilty of Optimism
As I put the finishing touches on this issue Friday morning, I had an email exchange about politics with an old friend, and they accused me of optimism (as in the opposite of realism)… and I replied that I wear the epithet of “Optimist” with pride.
It’s easy to be pessimistic about the future of Amateur Radio. It’s an activity that was begun in the early years of the previous century and in this modern society of wristwatches having their own cellular radios, light bulbs having a TCP/IP stack and a Wi-Fi radio, and mobile phones now having direct-to-satellite connectivity… it’s easy to think of Amateur Radio as an anachronism. The “realistic” point of view about Amateur Radio is that it is inevitably declining - in licensees, in relevance to society, in innovation, etc.
But from my “optimism” perspective, I believe that Amateur Radio has a role to play in the 21st century as our society has transitioned wholly to radio technology for the last miles, last few feet, and last few inches our electronic communications. Just as the previous century required vast numbers of those skilled in working with internal combustion engines, this century will require vast numbers of those who understand radio technology beyond the simple act of plugging in a Wi-Fi access point or using a mobile phone.
Amateur Radio is a perfect vehicle for developing such knowledge and skills and Zero Retries is a testament to that perspective and my optimism about Amateur Radio.
Happy Independence Day
To Zero Retries readers in the US, Happy Independence Day this coming Thursday. Despite our vast shortcomings as a nation and as a people, we continue to struggle to continually create a “more perfect union” for 248 years now. Despite sometimes vastly different perspectives between us, we collectively continue to try to make ourselves better as a nation and as a people. For my part, I consider myself blessed beyond all reason to have been born in the US and thus a US citizen with no effort on my part. Many wonderful friends of mine were not similarly blessed. That they chose to work very hard and sacrifice much to become citizens of this incredibly imperfect nation tells me that the US is at least doing some things right.
Two Projects for Making Amateur Radio Open Source Software Easier to Find and Use
By Steve Stroh N8GNJ
One of the most significant issues in Open Source development in Amateur Radio is the creation of multiple, sometimes incompatible implementations of various applications or functions that are made available as open source software (or hardware) … somewhere… (often somewhere obscure, such as a personal blog or website). Various implementations of the AX.25 stack for use with Linux comes readily to mind as an example of this issue. Two recent projects should start helping to make various Open Source Software much more visible so that there is less “reinvention” needed, and thus more (defacto) standardization and interoperability.
Radio Catalog: Ham Radio Software Preservation and Restoration
Ham software is becoming increasingly hard to find. Decades worth of development person-years are at risk of being lost.
I've noticed a lack of best practices for managing the open source software projects that many hams have built and rely on over the past couple decades. It's understandable given that these were often hobby projects, but it would be a shame to lose some of the great contributions to our community. As many of these hams are getting older or become silent keys it becomes increasingly difficult to locate many of the original source files for these projects. This is often due to these sources no longer being hosted on their original sites, entire domains being taken offline, link rot, or for a number of other reasons.
I propose building a software catalog to aggregate many of these long-standing, open source ham software projects into history preserving code repositories using git, a modern source control management system and the Digital Library of Amateur Radio & Communications (DLARC) archive. These code repositories would also serve as a place for continuous future development and iteration. I'm a software engineer in my day job and it's something I would be very interested in helping put in place. I believe it would go a long way to making these projects remain accessible and relevant across our ham community going forward.
List of 10 software projects for preservation:
ardopc - mode for HF Winlink
QtSoundModem - multi-platform port of UZ7HO's SoundModem
arim - Amateur Radio Instant Messaging
rmsgw - Linux RMS Gateway for Winlink
ax25mail - Utilities for packet radio mail exchange with the BBS
4NEC2 - Antenna Simulation and modeling software
LinFBB - F6FBB BBS software for bulletins and messages distribution via Packet Radio and wired networks
OpenBCM - packet radio mailbox system by DL8MBT
Linpac - A modular console-oriented amateur radio AX.25 keyboard to keyboard chat and PBBS program
Paclink-unix - A UNIX/Linux client for the Winlink 2000 ham radio email
(Excerpts of the grant proposal used with permission of Rob Hernandez KM6BLU.)
While ARDC has not made this (approved) grant public, I received permission from the principal of this grant, Rob Hernandez KM6BLU to mention this project in Zero Retries.
At present, there is not yet an online presence for this work as their grant was only recently approved and KM6BLU and his collaborators are just getting the work organized.
Update 2024-06-30 - At present, there is not yet an online presence for this work as their grant was only recently approved and KM6BLU and his collaborators - Paul Harvey M0SET and Matthew Croughan are just getting the work organized with their fiscal sponsor - National Upcycled Computing Collective (https://www.nuccinc.org).
Although this team’s initial software projects to preserve is a good start1, there are many such open source projects that are equally critical and influential within Amateur Radio, and thus the methodology, standards, display format, etc. that KM6BLU and team will develop for this work will be probably more foundational for Amateur Radio in the long term.
I’ll be watching this work and am looking forward to reporting on this project in future issues of Zero Retries.
[OpenSource.radio] is a wiki, which in the first step categorises and lists all open source software and hardware projects for amateur radio that I/we know of. Later, more detailed pages on the individual projects will be added. I also envisage adding setup descriptions for open source based amateur radio stations or collections for GNU Radio blocks/flowcharts or Node Red flows, functions and scripts.
Welcome to the Open Source in Amateur Radio wiki! This resource is dedicated to providing information about open-source software and hardware as well as free home-brew projects for amateur radio enthusiasts. The idea of this website or wiki is to give a (future) radio amateur an overview of all available open source projects. The aim is to promote the use of open source software and hardware in amateur radio. Depending on personal requirements, it is now possible to set up an amateur radio station whose main components are open source.
The OpenSource.radio Wiki (clever domain name!) is also a recent project which has a similar goal (at least in my mind) of creating a directory of Amateur Radio Open Source projects (notably, not just software) and thus would also serve the goal of reducing the creation of multiple, sometimes incompatible implementations of various applications or functions that are made available as open source. In short, why reinvent something if someone has already done it? The trick, prior to this project, is knowing that a specific open source project even exists; it’s tough to search for an open source implementation if you don’t know if such a project exists, and especially its name.
OpenSource.radio is off to a good start, and I plan to get involved in adding to it with some of my favorite open source projects such as adding to the Packet Radio section.
The current nine contributors could use some additional help:
Help!
This wiki cannot be filled and maintained by one person alone, which is why I call on people to register on the wiki in order to correct errors, add information, translate articles and/or create new content.
Lastly, this Wikipedia article seems to be a poorly maintained or abandoned list of some software used in Amateur Radio. While there are a few mentions of proprietary software, most items seem to be open source software.
While this article is within the semi-authoritative easy to find Wikipedia… the OpenSource.radio Wiki seems to be the better project for contributing one’s efforts to document the many open source projects within Amateur Radio that have been developed over the decades. We’re just going to have to figure out how to insure its survival as an information database - at a minimum, regularly “snapshotted” by Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine and perhaps regular mirroring to other sites.
A member of the inaugural [Grants Evaluation Team - GET], Darryl has enjoyed analyzing the results of the work that ARDC has funded, stating “I feel privileged to be a part of the team.” Licensed in Sydney, Australia more than 30 years ago, Darryl became a ham to experiment with packet radio and has “loved every minute of it.” After many years of focusing on VHF, Darryl got his first HF radio early last year. When he’s not volunteering at ARDC or on the air, Daryl is a consultant electrical engineer, where he had the amazing opportunity to work as a microwave and satellite engineer & RF technician on the set of Furiosa - A Mad Max Saga, work he cites as the work he’s most proud of. In his spare time, Darryl also enjoys recreational running, where he averages running about one marathon a year.
I’m looking forward to seeing Furiosa when it’s available on one of my streaming services, especially now knowing that VK2TDS was working on the complicated communications required for that movie.
David Saylors WK4DS on his WK4DS Amateur Radio Blog:
So today was a good day for radio. I had a block of time and wanted to see how hard it would be to get the activation only on FT8. I know it is possible to do this, but I also wanted to do it on 15 meters too and that is where the problems come in. You see the last couple of weeks have been tough for 15 meters operations what with the solar flares and CMEs and all. So to secure the activation on the higher bands will be… interesting…
…
Image courtesy of David Saylors WK4DS
One of the things that I like most about this radio is the clean layout of the FT8 mode. It is not cluttered with an endless array of different information and on screen settings. The other programs, while very versatile and powerful, are rife with buttons and information that really is not needed for simple QSO contacts. The sBitx could be a little easier though so it is not perfect either. One thing that has come up a couple of times is that it needs the ability to be able to sort the information display to just stations calling CQ so you can pick one easier. I agree with this as it can be tough to grab a calling station in that 2.5 second window of time. So being able to sort by CQ would be a big help there. One other thing that is mildly frustrating is that there is no way to scroll the display so if there is a lot of stations on the band then you will not be able to see them all. It pushes them off the top of the screen and then they are just gone.
What WK4DS did as a Parks On The Air (POTA) activation with a data-only radio (in his case, the sBitx v3), is pretty much what I was imagining for a data-only Field Day activity. Based on a Raspberry Pi, the sBitx v3 seems so elegantly designed for data use. I didn’t know what exactly I was looking for until I saw it with the sBitx v3, which is now on my wish list… unless perhaps the zBitx becomes a reality.
The Community Collegiate Affiliate Support & Expansion (CCASE) is designed to encourage more women in community colleges, particularly those facing exceptional financial challenges and from underrepresented backgrounds, to pursue a STEM degree. In its first program year, CCASE helped establish seven new community college affiliates/sections and added 81 SWE members.
Pull quote of the study that ARDC supported:
Research indicates that women pursuing bachelor’s degrees in STEM switch to non-STEM fields at higher rates than men, with 32% of women major switching compared to 26% of men. Overall, less than half of women persist in their bachelor’s degree programs in STEM.
…
The impact of a SWE scholarship is remarkable! Almost 88% of undergraduate scholarship recipients have either earned or are still pursuing a STEM degree, with 97% of these STEM students majoring in engineering or computer science.
That result is fantastic! Note that Amateur Radio isn’t mentioned, and there’s no Amateur Radio involvement in the SWE scholarships (you don’t have to be an Amateur Radio Operator)… but I cannot imagine that those scholarship recipients didn’t take note that an organization called Amateur Radio Digital Communications helped to fund their STEM degree.
Followup on Fixing the Linux Kernel AX.25 ARDC Grant
Changes to the Linux kernel over the years have improved and modernized the kernel, but have also made existing AX.25 implementations incompatible and turned preexisting issues into bugs. This can make systems unpredictable or even unusable. Linux kernel development is complex, requiring deep specialized knowledge, and bugs are hard to trace. This may be one of the reasons, why the Linux kernel AX.25 stack is currently in such a bad state.
This ARDC grant funds will allow the Deutscher Amateur Radio Club to hire software developers who can create a stable Linux AX.25 implementation and prevent Linux distributions from dropping pre-compiled AX.25 support. The fixed and functional Kernel-AX.25 stack will improve global amateur radio infrastructure. Professional kernel development can bring Linux AX.25 back to life.
It’s a shame that ARDC rarely issues status reports on how grants like this turned out. ARDC formed a Grants Evaluation Team (GET) in 2024, but to date, there have been no results from that team publicly disclosed.
The AX.25 team ran into some challenging circumstances and they were unable to carry out the grant. In these situations we work with the grantee to return funds to us. If you'd like to know more about the project I suggest reaching out directly to those working on it!
Of course, the above description is all that ARDC has publicly released about this grant, and thus there is no contact information for “those working on it” provided by ARDC for us to to actually be able “reach out directly”. Since there was no progress on this grant, there seems little point in further followup. But given that unless ARDC chooses to feature a grant in one of their stories, which usually includes names of those involved with the grant, ARDC doesn’t otherwise disclose details about their grants such as the names and contact info associated with the grant… so that it actually is possible to “reach out directly”.
Such lack of detail when ARDC does report a grant being made, and lack of followup (publicly reported) on most of the ARDC grants, even years later, has been a continuing frustration to those of us following ARDC’s grantmaking.
This is the TC²-BBS system integrated with Meshtastic devices. The system allows for message handling, bulletin boards, mail systems, and a channel directory.
YouTube video - BBS and Mail for Meshtastic! (queued for future watching), unfortunately no transcript available to excerpt.
As an active participant in the rise of Packet Radio systems in Amateur Radio, it’s fascinating to me to see the rapid evolution of Meshtastic and seemingly exponential interest in building out Meshtastic networks as a hobby activity. Now Meshtastic users will be able to discover the fun and utility of Bulletin Board Systems.
While Meshtastic does feature better physical layer technology (Semtech’s proprietary LoRa, an implementation of Chirp Spread Spectrum) versus Amateur Radio’s 1200 bps Audio Frequency Shift Keying, Meshtastic users will soon discover the limits of simple radio physics - crowded channels, low throughput, and the limitations of ad-hoc mesh networks when they become popular and over-used.
We experienced Amateur Radio Operators could, and I would argue should get involved with our local Meshtastic activities and offer our perspective of what has worked in the past, at least to the limits of what the LoRa technology is capable of.
And perhaps, as we “tap into” the energy and excitement of these new Meshtastic users and networks, we can rediscover some energy and excitement that we can apply to recreating what we know now to work in Amateur Radio networking. Things such as leveraging the vastly better technology we now have available - higher speed modems, forward error correction, more robust modulation techniques, etc. And… rediscovering the fun of building something collaboratively with our fellow Amateur Radio Operators.
If you’re not yet licensed as an Amateur Radio Operator, and would like to join the fun by literally having a license to experiment with radio technology, check out Join the Fun on Amateur Radio for some pointers.
In its mission to highlight technological innovation in Amateur Radio, promote Amateur Radio to techies as a literal license to experiment with radio technology, and make Amateur Radio more relevant to society in the 2020s and beyond, Zero Retries is published via email and web, and is available to everyone at no cost. Zero Retries is proud not to participate in the Amateur Radio Publishing Industrial Complex, which hides Amateur Radio content behind paywalls.
My ongoing Thanks to:
Tina Stroh KD7WSF for, well, everything!
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These blogs and newsletters regularly feature Zero Retries Interesting content:
Dan Romanchik KB6NU mentions “Zero Retries Interesting” topics so regularly on his blog (that I otherwise wouldn’t know about) that I’ve bestowed on him the honorific of Pseudostaffer.
Jeff Davis KE9V also mentions “Zero Retries Interesting” topics so regularly on his blog (that I otherwise wouldn’t know about) that I’ve bestowed on him the honorific of Pseudostaffer.
Amateur Radio Weekly by Cale Mooth K4HCK is a weekly anthology of links to interesting Amateur Radio stories that often feature “Zero Retires Interesting” topics.
Experimental Radio News by Bennet Z. Kobb AK4AV discusses (in detail) Experimental (Part 5) licenses issued by the US FCC. It’s a must-read-now for me!
RTL-SDR Blog - Excellent coverage of Software Defined Radio units.
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More bits from Steve Stroh N8GNJ:
SuperPacket blog — Discussing new generations of Amateur Radio Data Communications — beyond Packet Radio (a precursor to Zero Retries)
N8GNJ blog — Amateur Radio Station N8GNJ and the mad science experiments at N8GNJ Labs — Bellingham, Washington, USA
Thanks for reading! Steve Stroh N8GNJ / WRPS598 (He / Him / His) These bits were handcrafted (by a mere human, not an Artificial Intelligence bot) in beautiful Bellingham (The City of Subdued Excitement), Washington, USA, and linked to the Internet via Starlink Satellite Internet Access.
2024-06-28
Blanket permission is granted for TAPR to use any Steve Stroh content in Zero Retries for the TAPR Packet Status Register (PSR) newsletter (I owe them from way back).
Blanket permission is granted for Amateur Radio use of any Steve Stroh content in Zero Retries for Amateur Radio newsletters and distribution via Amateur Radio such as (but not limited to) Packet Radio Networks, Packet Radio Bulletin Board Systems, Repeater Nets, etc.
In such usage, please provide appropriate authorship credit for the content.
If you’d like to republish an article in this issue for other uses, just ask.
All excerpts from other authors or organizations, including images, are intended to be fair use. Unless otherwise noted in the article, there are no paid promotional items in any Zero Retries articles.
To that list, I would have included KA9Q NET, KA9Q NOS, ka9q-radio, Dire Wolf Software TNC, G8BPQ BBS and other G8BPQ utilities, Xastir, D-RATS, FreeDV, FreeDATA, and JNOS.
Zero Retries is an independent newsletter promoting technological innovation that is occurring in Amateur Radio, and Amateur Radio as (literally) a license to experiment with and learn about radio technology. Now in its third year of publication, with 1800+ subscribers.
My thanks to Scott Honaker N7SS for becoming an Annual Paid Subscriber to Zero Retries this past week!
Financial support is a real vote of confidence for continuing to publish Zero Retries.
Major Conference Countdowns
HAM RADIO 2024 in Friedrichshafen, Germany on 2024-06-28 thru 30 - next weekend. I’ve received some hints that there will be some interesting projects shown there. Zero Retries readers that will be attending HAM RADIO 2024, please provide some reports of Zero Retries Interesting projects and products.
Attendees at HAM RADIO 2024 might also be interested in attending the 10th Software Defined Radio Academy on 2024-06-29:
The programme for the 10th Software Defined Radio Academy (June 29) in Friedrichshafen is ready. Because of possible short notice changes please check the following website:
We have assembled an attractive programme again for this anniversary year and we are looking forward to see you all either on site in Friedrichshafen or in the live stream. The SDRA starts at 10:00 in the room “Berlin” in the Conference Zone East. For HAMRADIO visitors there is no entrance fee, and visiting individual talks is just perfectly fine. You can find the stream at: https://youtube.sdra.io
BR / VY73 Markus DL8RDS
My thanks to Alexander von Obert DL4NO for forwarding this notice.
This week I had a minor case of the summer doldrums where I didn’t get a lot done (that’s of measurable progress), either on Zero Retries and its associated projects, or in N8GNJ Labs. Thus the bulk of the content of this issue will be ZR > BEACON short mentions.
I guess I just “soaked in” the first full week of mostly sun and no rain and only brief cloudy overcast, and it took this week for my psyche to switch fully over to “enjoy the summer” mode. Up here in the Pacific Northwest corner of North America, we’ve been spared (thus far) the punishing “heat dome” that is enveloping much of the US, and for that, we’re grateful.
ARRL Field Day This Weekend
This weekend is ARRL Field Day in the US. I have no plans to attend any of the festivities in my area, mostly from lack of enthusiasm for the overall experience.
At the last ARRL Field Day event I attended, a friend had an Icom IC-705 and it seemed an idea rig for (my idea of) a casual Field Day experience. I had hoped by now to have procured an IC-705, and if I did have one, that would probably motivate me to get on the HF bands for Field Day.
Instead I think I’ll treat this weekend as an Amateur Radio holiday and work solely on some long-deferred Amateur Radio projects in N8GNJ Labs.
ARDC 44Net VPN Beta Testing - I’m In!
After a few “nudges” regarding my request to participate in the 44Net VPN Beta Test, I finally received acknowledgement that my request had been accepted and some basic instructions on how to get started. I haven’t done anything quite yet, but I will do the requested actions this coming week and start actively learning about how to use 44Net IPv4 addresses. One of the first things I’m going to do is to set up an “air gapped” LAN within N8GNJ Labs with a dedicated computer. I’ll report on my progress here in Zero Retries.
Battle of Britain: The Race for Radar - Highly Recommended!
I’m a very casual history fan, and lately my interests have been focused on the World War II era.
I was aware that the only way that the UK was able to effectively defend themselves against the German Luftwaffe bombing campaign (The Battle of Britain) in 1940 was to build “The Dowding System” - a RADAR and Command and Control network that directed the limited UK fighter groups towards the highest concentration / greatest threats of Luftwaffe bombers. But I knew nothing of the technical details of the RADAR system, which was named Chain Home. This documentary explained the technical details including that Chain Home barely worked at first, and was, by design, “third rate” - not the best technical solution, but a system that would be at least minimally effective and most importantly could be constructed in time to be ready when it would be needed most.
One of the most interesting technical details to me was that all of the transmitters in the system transmitted continuously and in phase with each other, transmitting 25 pulses per second. The synchronization system chosen was the simple expedient of using the national power grid’s synchronized 50 Hz (cycles, then) AC line frequency to synchronize the RADAR transmitters, and it worked!
Another detail that was interesting to me was that the Germans were aware of the very powerful transmissions from the Chain Home, but never understood how it functioned. The Germans eventually concluded that the transmissions were spurious leakage from the UK national power grid, and thus discounted the idea that the UK had a terrestrial RADAR system.
The documentary makes a compelling case that the creation of Chain Home and The Dowding System was a primary influence in the outcome of World War II. If the UK had not been able to repel the majority of Luftwaffe bombers, German bombing may have reduced the UK’s defensive capabilities and made Germany’s “Operation Sea Lion”, the seaborne invasion of the UK, viable. If the UK was successfully invaded by Germany, the US would not have been able to use the UK as a staging base for Operation Overlord, the Allies invasion of France and into Europe.
I’m certainly not positing that my ancestral fellow radio techies “won World War II”… but after viewing this documentary, we radio techies were very active participants in contributing to the Allies victory in World War II… and we’re present in current battles, and will be present in future battles.
Just In Time for Meadow Day Anniversary - Starlink Mini
By Steve Stroh N8GNJ
One year ago, on the same weekend as ARRL Field Day, I conducted my “Meadow Day” test of using Starlink as (simulated) emergency communications, similar to the premise of ARRL Field Day. One year later, we’ll soon have a better alternative to “fixed Starlink” for real emergency communications - Starlink Mini.
Meadow Day 2023 was conducted with a bulky “Gen 2” Starlink antenna and router. Those units are intended for permanent fixed installation to provide service to a typical household, but somewhat usable for “luggable” use with a suitable (mains-equivalent) power supply. I made it work, and Starlink now offers units intended for mobile use such as affixing it horizontally to the roof of a boat or a recreational vehicle or a semi tractor.
But now there is another variant of Starlink that’s far more conducive to my “Meadow Day” scenario - Starlink Mini.
All this information about Starlink Mini comes from a great (new to me) Zero Retries Interesting website and YouTube channel - StarlinkHardware.
StarlinkHardware.com is an unofficial resource for SpaceX Starlink satellite internet users. We are not affiliated with Starlink or SpaceX in any way.
Founded in 2021, our goal is to provide helpful information, tutorials, and advice for Starlink users. We are Starlink fans and users, and aim to help others get the most out of the system.
Image courtesy of StarlinkHardware.com
The most obvious aspect of the Starlink Mini is that it’s smaller - roughly the size of a laptop, as shown above.
Beyond the smaller size, Starlink Mini is optimized for portable use, including:
Lightweight - under 3 pounds,
Integrated Wi-Fi (Wi-Fi 5 standard) (no separate Wi-Fi router / power supply),
DC power input, 12-48 volts DC. There will be apparently be an optional “USB-C to Barrel Jack Cable Accessory”, thus you apparently can use battery units provide a USB-C power outlet.
Lower power consumption; 25 - 40 watts.
Starlink Mini also seems usable for fixed (or mobile) use by including a number of features that could have been omitted for “cost optimization”, including ability to mount on a pipe (pipe mount is included), an Ethernet port, and most surprisingly, the heating element to be able to melt snow or ice buildup.
Like the current (Gen 3) Starlink Standard unit, optimum performance of the Starlink Mini will depend on the user orienting it optimally per the Starlink app on a mobile phone.
One of the most notable features of Starlink Mini is (as “reportably” as an Elon Musk “tweet” can be) that Starlink Mini will sell at “half” the price as a Starlink Standard unit - $300 versus $600, though there was a recent price drop of the latter to $499, so perhaps Starlink Mini might be priced at $250.
This week, Starlink has done a “dribbling release” of details about Starlink Mini, as well-documented by StarlinkHardware:
In the US, some existing Starlink customers are receiving invitations to purchase the Starlink Mini hardware for $599 (yes, that’s $100 more than the “full size, full service unit), with a service plan of $30 / month for up to 100 Mbps download speeds and 50 GB of transfer. That service plan is in addition to an existing Starlink service contract.
Currently, the purchase of Starlink Mini is limited to a small group of customers in the US and is invitation only. We are unable to accommodate order requests from customers who did not receive an invitation.
Starlink Mini will expand to other markets over time. However, we do not have estimated dates to provide at this time. Stay tuned for updates on the wider release of Starlink Mini!
Our goal is to reduce the price of Starlink, especially for those around the world where connectivity has been unaffordable or completely unavailable. But in regions with high usage, where Starlink Mini places additional demand on the satellite network, we are offering a limited number of the Starlink Mini Kits to start for $599.
This makes sense… those who accept this offer can get a more portable Starlink unit when they are traveling, and Starlink gets to “beta test” the unit with customers who are willing to pay full price, without sacrificing profit margins from existing service plans. The selective invitations won’t add to Starlink service being already at (or past) capacity in certain parts of the US, such as the major metro areas of California.
There was also a mention that the latency of Starlink can be lower than than cable Internet, which I can easily believe given the vagaries I experienced with Comcast on our neighborhood’s 20-30 year old coaxial infrastructure. Glancing at my Starlink status panel as I compose this article…
LATENCY: Min: 20 ms * Max 115 ms * Last 27 ms
It’s pure speculation on my part, but Starlink Mini will open up entirely new use cases for Starlink such as remote monitoring. Imagine monitoring a power substation, including live video (and even live infrared video to see hotspots developing in the equipment).
It’s also speculation that Starlink Mini is optimized so well that organizations involved with emergency communications (in the US, such as Red Cross and Salvation Army) will be able to hand over a backpack or rugged (“Pelican”) case to volunteers to deploy to a remote area that has lost communications. Or a search and rescue operation in a remote area. The package will include a Starlink Mini, perhaps a mag mount for temporary installation on a vehicle roof, lots of various cables, a battery unit good for several days of operation, perhaps even a ruggedized solar panel, and a phone or two that has apps preinstalled for voice comms, telephony-over-Wi-Fi, video, assessment survey apps, email, etc.
The most disruptive aspect of Starlink that many observers simply don’t understand, because we’ve never had such a communications system previously, is that each square mile, per hertz, per second, per satellite that isn’t fully utilized is additional potential for revenue for Starlink. Each Starlink satellite in the constellation is “paid up” by each satellite’s time providing service to customers (US, Canada, Western Europe, etc.) who can pay higher prices for Starlink service. Thus if there are places that cannot afford that price point in the orbital path of each satellite, Starlink can sell a lower-cost, but still-attractive service package and capture additional revenue from each satellite.
I’ll further speculate that Starlink Mini will eventually become a full product in the US for a price point of $300, with a service plan of no more than $50 / month for up to 100 Mbps download and 50 GB of transfer, and probably allow mobile and marine use as it’s simply easier to accommodate a smaller antenna on a vehicle. I’ll guess that long term, Starlink will add other service tiers and allow Starlink Mini to be turned on and off for camping season, skiing season, beach season, etc.
As for Amateur Radio… once Starlink Mini is a full product, I’ll leave it to readers to imagine a future for Amateur Radio emergency communications versus such a capability.
Preview - Building Back Better Amateur Radio Networks
By Steve Stroh N8GNJ
I didn’t make as much progress on this article this week as I’d hoped, but I did write enough to justify a “preview” of the full article that I hope to complete in the next couple of weeks.
…
I’m seeing increasing numbers of Amateur Radio radio networks. We’ve never had better radio network building blocks for groups of Amateur Radio Operators to experiment with, learn on, and have fun with.
My inspiration for this article was that apparently I hit some mental threshold of seeing yet another casual mention of yet another Amateur Radio radio network, and realized with a startle that such activity has become so ubiquitous, and perhaps so subtle, that most of us “don’t see the forest for the trees”.
For Amateur Radio Operators from my generation of Amateur Radio - first active in the 1980s when extended packet radio (and Packet Radio Bulletin Board System forwarding), active and growing Amateur Radio radio networks were the norm, and constantly growing and improving.
Then… the general public was able to use the Internet through dialup connections, and Packet Radio and Packet Radio BBS use looked primitive by comparison.
Despite many / most packet radio and BBS networks falling into disuse, many Amateur Radio radio networks never went away. And, many new Amateur Radio networks have quietly come into being, but not widely recognized outside their area.
What has changed between “the Internet happened” and now is that TCP/IP became the for networking, and it has become the defacto method to bridge disparate Amateur Radio networks. In the packet radio era, it was a heavy lift for the typical devices such as TNCs to be able to interoperate with TCP/IP - convert the TNC to a KISS TNC, set up KA9Q NOS on a DOS PC, etc.
But in this era, we have $35 computers with ample memory, compute power, and especially ample Input / Output to function as a router. For example, JNOS can route between AX.25 packet radio connections (which know nothing of TCP/IP) and an “advanced” TCP/IP network such as New Packet Radio.
Amateur Radio now has a plethora of networking tools… and networks, many that are operating entirely independently. Thus what remains is to highlight and recognize those local and regional networks and perhaps bridge them into an integrated whole of networking to be usable as “ARNet”. I use this name to differentiate from AMPRNet which is a registered domain name (.org) that is used by Amateur Radio Digital Communications (ARDC).
In the full version of this article, I’ll discuss various Amateur Radio radio networking technologies and a few networks that I know of, so Zero Retries readers can begin to see the same individual “trees” in the “forest” of Amateur Radio network capabilities, that I have been seeing for a while now.
Amateur Radio Newsline Report 2434 for 2024-06-21:
PAUL/ANCHOR: For our final story we visit the international Ham Radio exhibition in Friedrichshafen [Freed-Ricks-Harf-Ven], Germany, which will have its doors open between the 28th and 30th of June. This year's event has found a way to combine the amateur with the professional - and Jeremy Boot G4NJH tells us how.
JEREMY: Employers in technical fields and prospective job candidates will have a chance to meet up for the first time this year in Friedrichshafen to see who is hiring and who is hunting. According to the organisers' website, the job marketplace recognises that hams are ideal candidates for employment in technical fields and their amateur skills fit well in a professional environment. Career days will be held for two days - the 28th and 29th of June.
Visitors can now have a lot more to look forward to than a fancy new state-of-the art rig: They will perhaps find a new way to afford it.
This is Jeremy Boot G4NJH.
Hmmm… glad to see that phonetic explanation of Friedrichshafen - I’d always heard it pronounced Freed-Rick-Stoff-Ven - Thanks Amateur Radio Newsline!
Waxing nostalgic a bit, I remember when US employers looking for technical personnel to hire would have “we’re looking for help” booths at Hamvention. I haven’t seen that in the last several Hamventions that I’ve been able to attend. Kudos for HAM RADIO 2024 for arranging this, and those employers that are recruiting will find a plethora of good candidates that are self-motivated to educate themselves about current and future radio technology.
[Digirig Lite is] a minimalistic version of Digirig with the same audio [codec] as regular model of the interface but without serial port.
Combines audio codec and PTT switch
Supports PTT by GPIO3 of CM108 audio codec
Supports VOX PTT by the tone on the unused right channel (experimental)
Works with all major OS flavors: Windows, MacOS and Linux
Uses a single TRRS connector compatible with existing Digirig audio cables
Growing collection of pre-made cables including popular Icom, Yaesu, Elecraft, Baofeng, Xiegu transceivers
Isolation can be easily added using inexpensive USB isolator dongle
The new revision of Digirig Lite got its enclosure, cable form factor with USB-C tail and USB-A adapter included. Other changes include added indicators for power and PTT, significantly improved PTT by tone/VOX. Solder pads for individually disabling PTT by GPIO3 and VOX. Pad easy access to codec’s GPIO lines used for COS and CTCSS.
Digirig, and especially Digirig Lite Rev. 1.2 is just an elegant, well-integrated piece of hardware!
Status of the Connect Systems M17 Project - 2024-06-19
Connect Systems email list:
The two production radios have shipped to the developers as promised late last month. The status of those radios are shown below. The production radios are now ready to be modified and shipped to the customers who have already bought the radios. I will generate another email blast when I have a more definite date on shipping to the customers who have already bought the radio.
If you are in Europe and going to the Ham Convention, you should see the production radios in operation.
[2024-06-14]
RX works, TX needs some more adjustment because the transmitted signal is distorted. I need to investigate further where the problem is.
[2024-06-18]
Hardware modifications are good to go, both TX and RX work and the transmitted audio is loud.
I just want to see if changing a resistor on the baseband path improves a bit the modulation quality, but is not a mandatory change.
Sounds like we’re very close to having portable radios with native M17 capability!
ARDC seeks an experienced Technology Department Manager to join our team and lead all technology efforts. These include, but are not limited to, overseeing the following department initiatives and personnel management:
Activities of 44Net, and IPv4 address space allocated to amateur radio;
Open-source software development projects; and
General internal IT system administration, including streamlining existing systems and helpdesk.
In addition to having solid management experience in a technical field, this person must also be an excellent communicator – able to write policy, wrangle volunteers, and manage open-source technology development that includes staff, volunteers, and contractors. The ideal candidate will have demonstrated the ability to effectively communicate with executive-level management on a regular basis. It is expected you will prepare management reports and complex technical documents that are well written, appropriately and effectively organized, accurate, and comprehensive, meeting all professional standards.
Direct reports to this position include technical contractors and staff; the department is also supported by communications and operational staff, and 60-70 volunteers are working in association with our technical activities. This position reports to the Executive Director.
Some important notes about this role:
Experience and history with amateur radio and the Internet is required. Many of the people we work with, projects we take on, and communities we make grants to are rooted in amateur radio, and our particular realm of focus intersects heavily with the information technology and hacker communities. Applicants without an active amateur radio license will not be considered.
Experience working with nonprofits and/or open-source technology projects is required. There are nuances of working in nonprofit and community-driven environments, including participation in open-source technology projects, that can only be learned through experience – such as collaborative decision-making and best practices in engaging with open-source development. Experience in one or both of these areas is required for this role; applicants without such experience will not be considered.
This is a challenging position, requiring equal parts managerial, networking, and general software / technical skill. From my time volunteering on the ARDC Grants Advisory Committee, I witnessed that ARDC’s “technology stack” is… let’s just say varied… and in need of improvement. And, the position entails considerable cat-herding, judging from the discussions on the various ARDC mailing lists.
Zero Retries readers, please pass the word about this position. With the numerous specialized requirements for this position, ARDC will have to cast a very wide net to find the right person. ARDC is critical to the future of Amateur Radio, and this position is critical to the future of ARDC.
From the VarAC mailing list. These are the two most salient features (to me).
Chat Recall
Have you ever found yourself reconnecting with someone only to ask the same questions again? You know you've chatted before; you see their basic details on screen, but the specifics escape you. That's where Chat Recall steps in.
Upon connection, your data stream seamlessly incorporates previous correspondences with this contact. Just like in WhatsApp, where even after a year, you can effortlessly revisit past chats to refresh your memory.
DCD Bypass
By default, VarAC respects the busy indicator and prevents you from transmitting in any way while the BUSY indicator is lit. This means no CQs, beacons, broadcasts, or connections.
However, sometimes constant noise, such as an OTH radar or deliberate QRM, can block the frequency.
Version 9.2.3 allows you to temporarily override the DCD detector and ignore the BUSY indicator. You can enable this by checking the box on the right side of the VarAC console. VarAC will automatically turn it off after 2 hours.
Starting with VarAC V9.2.3, the send broadcast form includes a checkbox to request an SNR report in your broadcast. This signals the recipient to send you a report back automatically.
Please note that this feature is only available when sending a broadcast to a specific station. You can't request a report from "ALL".
I get quite a few emails from readers of my blog asking how my QO-100 satellite station is put together and so, I thought perhaps now is a good time to put together an article detailing the complete build.
My QO-100 satellite ground station is built around my little Icom IC-705 QRP transceiver, it’s a great little rig and is ideal for the purpose of driving a 2.4Ghz transverter/up-converter.
Of course all the software used for the project is Opensource and freely available on the internet.
The station comprises of the following building blocks:
QO-100 Ground Station Dashboard developed using Node-RED
LMR400-UF/RG58 Coax Cable
This is a great article with ample detail, but if you’re a US reader, like me, it’ll make you itch to have a similar capability to QO-100 in the Western Hemisphere.
Bob G0FGX demonstrates the Groundstation 2 from DX Patrol in the first of a two-part feature on operating via the QO-100 geostationary satellite. He looks at the hardware and software needed to achieve your first QSO at home or out mobile.
Today in Amateur Radio is no different from yesterday, last year, last decade or longer. The hobby today is filled with people who are here to have fun, learn stuff and experiment. This hasn't changed since our hobby came into being.
You can argue that the hobby has seen a great many changes. We have seen spark-gap transmitters, valves, transistors, miniaturisation, chips and now software defined radios. The experimental nature of our pursuit has not changed.
We still spend time looking for cool stuff to do and people to do it with.
And that's the single point I'd like to make.
Finding people “to do it with”.
If you're a new amateur you might look to a club or your fellow classmates to combine your efforts. This can be a great way to forge life-long friendships and it's a sure fire way to find exposure to other ideas and activities.
There might come a time when you find yourself at a loss what to do next, or who to do it with. You might lament that the group you're hanging out with are not doing fun stuff anymore, or that activities never quite happen or any number of observations that make it less fun to be part of amateur radio.
I've now been here for a little while and I've noticed that some of my fellow amateurs have fallen by the way-side. Of course family and changing interests will account for some of that, but often it's a lack of something to do that makes people fade away.
There is nothing stopping you from organising your own event. You can plan a camp-out, or an antenna testing day, or a DX activity, a contest, an activation, some software hacking, or hardware building, soldering training, learning how to log, how to do a QSO, or any number of other things.
If you tell the community about it, you're likely to be surprised by some other amateur who was just thinking to do the same thing.
So, don't wait for someone else to do your fun activity. If you focus on doing things that you enjoy, you might find a few like-minded friends who will participate.
I'm keen to hear your ideas and activities, so drop me a line.
I'm Onno VK6FLAB
Good advice, which has direct bearing my (lack of) enthusiasm for participating in (conventional) ARRL Field Day activities. Perhaps for Field Day 2025 I can find some kindred Zero Retries Interesting folks in Western Washington (or the Pacific Northwest region) that would also be interested in a data-modes-only ARRL Field Day.
I’ve been meaning to mention the excellent Foundations of Amateur Radio podcast by Onno Benschop VK6FLAB in Zero Retries for some time now. To date, VK6FLAB has created 470 weekly (?) episodes. I enjoy FoAR because a number of episode topics are Zero Retries Interesting, but also because FoAR is a “solo” podcast with an accompanying transcription / script. That’s a podcast model that is very similar to what I plan to do for Zero Retries. FoAR’s model of discussing a single, distilled topic is far more workable than attempting to discuss the variety of topics that I mention in a typical issue of Zero Retries.
… the transcript of the weekly 'Foundations of Amateur Radio' podcast, produced by Onno Benschop, VK6FLAB who was licensed as radio amateur in Perth, Western Australia in 2010. For other episodes, visit http://vk6flab.com/. Feel free to get in touch directly via email: cq@vk6flab.com.
Each week / episode, VK6FLAB publishes the script / transcript via an email list, and thus it’s easy, and time-efficient to determine if a FoAR episode is “Zero Retries Interesting” and thus worth queuing up for my limited “audio time”. (I’m a far faster reader than a listener, so I now read the text each week.) Yes, in reading the text, I get the basic information, but as listeners pointed out in my podcast experiments, audio adds more depth than what mere text can convey.
I wish more Amateur Radio podcasts could do the same thing as FoAR; many Amateur Radio podcasts that are potentially Zero Retries Interesting don’t bother to publish show notes (and apparently aren’t popular enough to have Apple Podcast apps create an automatic transcript), so I tend to not queue those up unless the title hints of a Zero Retries Interesting topic.
If you’re not yet licensed as an Amateur Radio Operator, and would like to join the fun by literally having a license to experiment with radio technology, check out Join the Fun on Amateur Radio for some pointers.
In its mission to highlight technological innovation in Amateur Radio, promote Amateur Radio to techies as a literal license to experiment with radio technology, and make Amateur Radio more relevant to society in the 2020s and beyond, Zero Retries is published via email and web, and is available to everyone at no cost. Zero Retries is proud not to participate in the Amateur Radio Publishing Industrial Complex, which hides Amateur Radio content behind paywalls.
My ongoing Thanks to:
Tina Stroh KD7WSF for, well, everything!
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These blogs and newsletters regularly feature Zero Retries Interesting content:
Dan Romanchik KB6NU mentions “Zero Retries Interesting” topics so regularly on his blog (that I otherwise wouldn’t know about) that I’ve bestowed on him the honorific of Pseudostaffer.
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Amateur Radio Weekly by Cale Mooth K4HCK is a weekly anthology of links to interesting Amateur Radio stories that often feature “Zero Retires Interesting” topics.
Experimental Radio News by Bennet Z. Kobb AK4AV discusses (in detail) Experimental (Part 5) licenses issued by the US FCC. It’s a must-read-now for me!
RTL-SDR Blog - Excellent coverage of Software Defined Radio units.
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More bits from Steve Stroh N8GNJ:
SuperPacket blog — Discussing new generations of Amateur Radio Data Communications — beyond Packet Radio (a precursor to Zero Retries)
N8GNJ blog — Amateur Radio Station N8GNJ and the mad science experiments at N8GNJ Labs — Bellingham, Washington, USA
Thanks for reading! Steve Stroh N8GNJ / WRPS598 (He / Him / His) These bits were handcrafted (by a mere human, not an Artificial Intelligence bot) in beautiful Bellingham (The City of Subdued Excitement), Washington, USA, and linked to the Internet via Starlink Satellite Internet Access.
2024-06-21
Blanket permission is granted for TAPR to use any Steve Stroh content in Zero Retries for the TAPR Packet Status Register (PSR) newsletter (I owe them from way back).
Blanket permission is granted for Amateur Radio use of any Steve Stroh content in Zero Retries for Amateur Radio newsletters and distribution via Amateur Radio such as (but not limited to) Packet Radio Networks, Packet Radio Bulletin Board Systems, Repeater Nets, etc.
In such usage, please provide appropriate authorship credit for the content.
If you’d like to republish an article in this issue for other uses, just ask.
All excerpts from other authors or organizations, including images, are intended to be fair use. Unless otherwise noted in the article, there are no paid promotional items in any Zero Retries articles.
Zero Retries is an independent newsletter promoting technological innovation that is occurring in Amateur Radio, and Amateur Radio as (literally) a license to experiment with and learn about radio technology. Now in its third year of publication, with 1800+ subscribers.
Zero Retries readers in the Portland, Oregon USA area might be interested in attending theTeardown 2024 conference which will be 2024-06-21 through 23 at the Lloyd Center (Mall). Teardown 2024 is sponsored by Crowd Supply, which has crowdfunded a number of Zero Retries Interesting radio technology projects. There are a few Zero Retries Interesting talks on the schedule such as:
My wonderful wife Tina Stroh KD7WSF created a new logo for Zero Retries to replace the generic satellite dish icon I had been using. Thanks Honey! There will be more “logo” news in the next issue of Zero Retries.
Thought Experiment - A Zero Retries Semi-Official Gathering (ZR SOG)
It’s been a favorite thought experiment of mine since beginning Zero Retries to have an in-person meetup of Zero Retries readers… somehow. But considering how thinly we are dispersed around the world, I haven’t thought of any good ideas other than choosing a restaurant and evening to do an information meetup in conjunction with a major event like Hamvention. I got this idea from the TAPR informal meetup that was formerly held at a restaurant called (I think…) McNasty’s (BBQ) where the talk was “all packet radio” (which, of course, I loved being part of). It looks like McNasty’s restaurant has tranmongrified into a food truck. Hmmm, perhaps lure the McNasty’s food truck to a convenient spot near Hamvention?
The other inspiration for the ZR SOG was the originator (at least, the first time I heard the phrase) was that the SOG was a “conference” (though that crowd would cringe to hear such a formalized description) held for the readers of Micro Cornucopia magazine, such as SOG III described in the October 1984 issue of Micro-C. I miss Micro-C just from wonderful writing by Micro-C’s Editor / Publisher David Thompson, such as this:
New Blood
As for attracting new people to Bend [Oregon, USA] (my secret motive, remember?) it looks like I may have succeeded beyond my wildest dreams. Several individuals and one good size company have either said they are definitely coming (and are presently pouring over multiple-listing books) or are definitely interested in locating here and are exploring ways to do it.
Interestingly enough, it appears that the wives are often the prime motivation in the moving decision. There is something about Bend with its open fields, horse ranches, forests, wilderness areas, and skiing that makes family raising a reasonable (if not genuinely fun) preoccupation. You could think of it as taking on a long-term application project in a really good systems environment.
…
Financial Hard Times
Some folks tried to get their companies to reimburse their expenses but when they passed around our flyer with Semi-Official Get-together on it, their managers didn't feel the event was serious enough. These poor souls suggested we change the name to Super Official Gathering (not to be confused with Superficial Gathering). Maybe next year we'll have two brochures — an official one (for expense accounts) and an unofficial one (for fun).
“Superficial Gathering” had me chuckling. Apparently Thompson’s “New Blood” plan worked. Per this web page, Bend’s population in 1984 was ~70k, and currently it’s ~210k. In comparison, Bellingham, Washington where I now live was likely < 50k in 1984 and is currently ~92k - a bit less cosmopolitan than Bend… and attracting more techies all the time - just sayin’.
But, I digress…
Independent of an in-person SOG, in Fall 2024 (let’s not waste too much Summer sitting indoors in front of a computer), I’ll start conducting regular videoconferencing meetings at least monthly. Since they may well be too popular to be conducive to useful discussion, I’ll be capping ZR videoconferences at a “not to exceed” number, and early invitations will go out to the paid subscribers and selected folks like guest authors and Zero Retries Interesting folks that are working on Zero Retries Interesting projects.
On both the ZR SOG and the videoconferences, I welcome ideas from Zero Retries subscribers.
Full-to-Burstin’, This Issue Is!
I have two systems to bookmark items I want to include in Zero Retries. There was so much content this week that I included a handful from one bookmark system, and deferred another article. It’s a nice problem to have, but there’s only so much room in a weekly issue of Zero Retries. I’m imagining ways to incorporate a “Just the Links” with a very terse description, similar to Amateur Radio Weekly, perhaps even a separate issue of Zero Retries that would be available to paid subscribers a week earlier. Nothing has been decided yet, but I welcome ideas from Zero Retries subscribers.
Amateur Radio is Dying… Right?
At least that’s what the Gloom & Doom faction in Amateur Radio is telling us. The total number of US Amateur Radio Operators is decreasing. We’ve recently lost CQ and MFJ. Lots of folks have said they’re not going to renew their ARRL membership because of the dues increase or Logbook of the World having been hacked. Many… most VHF / UHF Amateur Radio repeaters are deathly quiet for 99% of the day. Most HF activity now seems to be FT8, not “real” contacts. New Amateur Radio Operators pass the Tech test, buy an inexpensive portable radio and say “Now what? Where’s all the excitement?”. The most interesting Amateur Radio content is on YouTube. Some “served agencies” are saying to Amateur Radio operators who try to offer emergency communications “Thanks, but we’re good with Starlink, satphones, and FirstNET”. Etc. Ad nauseam.
The Amateur Radio Publishing Industrial Complex posits that the solution is to join them (for a small annual fee) and then you get instantly into the mainstream of Amateur Radio. Their flagship publication devotes an entire section to reprinting content from the middle of the previous century (including ads)… half a century before the current generation was born. Long time Amateur Radio Operators would have you think that the solution is learn how to solder and build your own rig (using tubes) and put up a massive tower and HF beam antenna for the “Real Amateur Radio” experience. Etc. Ad nauseam.
But, what if that’s not the whole story about Amateur Radio in the 21st century?
Amateur Radio is changing - no question about that. But my observation is that such changes are a normal shift resulting from the priorities of a new generation along with better (and cheaper) technology as Amateur Radio is redefined by this generation and new technologies. Half a century ago, this was one of the generational challenges confronting Amateur Radio (per 73 Magazine’s Wayne Green W2NSD in the 1974-01 issue):
NEW BAND AVAILABLE
As the last few holdouts on two meter AM move on up to the FM end of the band the lower two MHz is developing into a wasteland. Experience has shown us that as soon as anything like this has remained unused for a short while there are vultures just waiting to swoop down ... a la the CB proposal for amputation of the 220 MHz ham band, starting first with the top MHz.
Unless some way is found to get Walker to back down on his firm resolve to limit repeaters to the top two MHz and no more, the repeater channels will inexorably grow more and more crowded and the rest of the band more and more deserted.
Obviously something will have to be done about this.
In this generation of Amateur Radio, a lot of new radios are mostly software, with minimal hardware, built around a powerful processor. (I’ve encapsulated this profound change in a phrase: Radios are computers - with antennas!) The current generation of Amateur Radio Operators are Internet natives, which means (among other things) that they grew up with ubiquitous text messaging and social media, so data modes “via radio” (like FT8) and one-to-many text communications are the norm for them. A lot of Amateur Radio now involves Internet connectivity, which is no more a problem for the current generation than “depending on grid power” was for previous generations.
I created Zero Retries in 2021 because the perspective of the Gloom & Doom faction’s perspective isn’t the whole story of Amateur Radio in the 21st century. Each week in Zero Retries I try to present a variety of stories about the technological innovation that is happening in Amateur Radio… that you’ll likely never hear about (at least, substantively) in the “mainstream” Amateur Radio media… or from the Gloom & Doom faction.
I’m glad to have you 1800+ Zero Retries subscribers along for this wild ride of Amateur Radio in the 21st century.
The Innovator’s Dilemma Applied to Amateur Radio Industry
By Steve Stroh N8GNJ
Some thoughts on how the lessons of “The Innovator’s Dilemma” apply to the Amateur Radio industry. ReadyKilowatt’s comment below initiated this article.
At this point I think it might be time to fork radio. Instead of continuing to adapt commercial band equipment to amateur use, maybe it's time to come up with reference designs that are specific to amateur use. Radios that run Linux or Android under the hood. That can be configured and controlled through a web browser (if my $20 light switch can do it, why can't my $800 radio?), and can run 25KHz bandwidth (or 6MHz, or whatever I dial up). DMR et al are interesting, but there's no shortage of bandwidth in the amateur bands, so why are we acting like there is (spare me the “no open repeater pairs” argument, how many inactive repeaters still hang on to “their” frequency)? DMR solved a problem we didn't have, and required bodging a fix that doesn't fit into the amateur ethos of VFO and direct operator control. But at least the radios are cheap and can be programmed to police repeaters!
Sorry to be such a downer. Maybe I'm the one who's wrong. But I think we've refined enough. Time to add a few modern features.
I replied at length with a counter-comment. See the link above for my response there, some of which became the basis for this article.
The book The Innovator’s Dilemma had a profound influence on me when I read it within the first year or so after it was published in 1997. It helped me make sense of seeing successful companies with seemingly unassailable, successful products, go down to ruin. Two examples that are front-of-mind to me were Research In Motion (RIM) the creator of the Blackberry personal messager / mobile phone, and Sun Microsystems. In hindsight of their failures, you could see their corporate hubris, and The Innovator’s Dilemma finally explained (at least, to my satisfaction), the thought processes that were behind such failures.
Wikipedia offers a reasonable capsule description:
The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail, first published in 1997, is the best-known work of the Harvard professor and businessman Clayton Christensen. It expands on the concept of disruptive technologies, a term he coined in a 1995 article "Disruptive Technologies: Catching the Wave".1 It describes how large incumbent companies lose market share by listening to their customers and providing what appears to be the highest-value products, but new companies that serve low-value customers with poorly developed technology can improve that technology incrementally until it is good enough to quickly take market share from established business. Christensen recommends that large companies maintain small, nimble divisions that attempt to replicate this phenomenon internally to avoid being blindsided and overtaken by startup competitors.
I think those seminal lessons also apply to the Amateur Radio industry, and we will see disruptive technology have a profound effect on most of the currently successful companies and organizations in Amateur Radio by the end of this decade.
With the understanding of “The Innovator’s Dilemma”, I am seeing disruptive technology subtly undermining the foundations of successful companies in Amateur Radio such as Icom, Kenwood, Yaesu, and Elecraft2, all of who make expensive HF radios with lots of knobs, but allow little or no customization by users. Companies and organizations within, or adjacent to Amateur Radio are also being disrupted such as:
DVSI (CODEC voice chips used in DMR, D-Star, System Fusion, P25) is being disrupted by Codec 2.
AMSAT’s satellite construction activity is being disrupted by companies that can provide turnkey “from design to orbit” microsats to any organization (even as small as a local Amateur Radio club who can do an adequate fundraiser) who can pay their reasonable fees. AMSAT is also being disrupted of their requirement of paying a membership fee to view their publication AMSAT Journal by those who are generating enthusiasm for satellite operations without a membership fee such as YouTube creators, SatNOGS, and TinyGS.
ARRL is especially poised to be disrupted as its primary income from publishing books on paper, a paywalled magazine, and increasingly high membership dues render it uncompetitive with YouTube channels and free, publicly accessible digital publications such as the Surrey Amateur Radio Communications (club)’s Communicator Newsletterzine (usually more than 100 pages).
Some of the “disruptive technology” that is affecting Amateur Radio:
Changing demographic of new Amateur Radio Operators who trend to be more technically oriented, “space constrained” (apartments and condos, rather than suburban houses), interest in VHF / UHF rather than HF, interest in data modes rather than voice modes, less budget and time for hobbies, etc.
Software Defined Radio technology. We’re now firmly in the era of “radios are computers - with antennas” such as the LimeSDR Mini 2.0 and CaribouLite RPi HAT.
Electronic manufacturers in China who are increasingly willing to do small production lots of custom hardware.
Increasing use of data communications modes such as FT8 and JS8Call in lieu of voice and CW (Morse Code) modes on the HF bands.
Rising radio noise on the HF bands primarily from cheap switching power supplies of which there are dozens in every household are increasingly rending analog modes on HF less usable.
Lack of usage of VHF / UHF repeaters except for scheduled nets and linked repeaters that create artificial activity. New Amateur Radio repeaters are put on the air every month, and are briefly popular, but then tend to lapse into silence as they realize that “build it and they will come” increasingly doesn’t work.
New Amateur Radio Operators are almost always Internet natives versus long time Amateur Radio Operators who spout “well, that’s not real Amateur Radio”.
New funding models for small, medium, and large scale Amateur Radio projects (don’t need to form a company, or sometimes even an organization if fiscal sponsors are used):
Costs of electronic production can be so low, such as inexpensive circuit boards, which allow individual micro businesses such as Halibut Electronics, digirig, and Mobilinkd to offer products directly to Amateur Radio Operators.
Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning / Pattern Recognition on local hardware (not using data center / Internet resources) will inevitably play a profound role in Amateur Radio within a few years. Raspberry Pi now offers a Raspberry Pi AI kit for $85.
Cheap compute power such as the Raspberry Pi products of embedded microcontrollers and computers, all of which are incredibly well-supported with tailored Linux distributions, great documentation, and (now, resuming) ample distributon:
Raspberry Pi 5 (arguably “desktop class” processing for $80).
The breadth of web-based information distribution, versus “exclusivity”. Basically, those who recognize that if your content or product isn’t easily, publicly accessible, it’s essentially irrelevant.
Constantly shifting social media; “old and tired” is Facebook, X, LinkedIn; “new, hip, and happening is TikTok, Reddit, and Discord.
Non Amateur Radio “radio” activity such as Meshtastic (messaging via mesh network), SatNOGS (receiving micro research satellite telemetry), Ribbit / Rattlegram (messaging over any radio using acoustic coupling), rising popularity of GMRS repeaters for casual chat and emergency communications.
Just as RIM and Sun Microsystems couldn’t / wouldn’t change their products, business models, and organizations to meet the oncoming disruptive technology (until it was too late), I don’t think the current successful Amateur Radio companies have the corporate courage to change their products, business models, and organizations to meet the above disruptive technology (and societal) trends occurring in Amateur Radio outlined above.
One prime example is one Japanese Amateur Radio manufacturer’s Only Invented In Japan focus on developing Amateur Radio products in Japan, by Japanese marketers and engineers, largely for the Japan market, and then lightly adapting them for other markets such as the US and Europe. An example of this… “Japan focus”… is that this Amateur Radio manufacturer hasn’t included the US 222-225 MHz band in any of their products developed over the last two decades.
There’s just nothing that can be done. No amount of external warnings, suggestions, recommendations, user feedback, etc. will budge them. Like RIM and Sun, they’re going to stay focused on what they think their current market is, and the largest profits are at this moment. If they do see the disruptive technology trends as discussed above coming at them, that’s a problem that can be deferred for “maybe next year”. The problem with that approach is, of course, there’s always going to be a higher priority next year.
Overall, I think that Amateur Radio will be OK, even if we lose major manufacturers from the Amateur Radio market. Amateur Radio has survived the loss of venerable and beloved manufacturers such as Hallicrafters, R. L. Drake, . E. F. Johnson, and mighty Collins. There will always be demand for innovative Amateur Radio products, and sophisticated Amateur Radio units, and increasingly those can be accomplished on a small scale with adapting to the new realities and capabilities of this era of Amateur Radio. FlexRadio was deliberately not included in the above examples of “likely to be disrupted” companies because in my opinion, FlexRadio is successfully adapting to the distruptive technology (and societal trends) such as being a truly software-defined radio, offering extensibility and customization by users, and a reasonable and sustainable product lineup. Another example of a “new generation” Amateur Radio unit and manufacturer is the Charly 25 HF radio by Smart Radio Concepts3, based around a family of very powerful software defined transceiver boards (originally intended as a lab instrument) called the Red Pitaya.
Now we just need for a new manufacturer to become the “FlexRadio” of VHF / UHF radios. I keep hoping to see that soon.
In his open letter, SP5WWP highlights some very real issues within Amateur Radio when we attempt to advance Amateur Radio technology. Such work can be taxing to the point where such work can grow the point where it isn’t sustainable solely with volunteer labor:
There is a big problem behind it though - volunteers can rarely be bound with any obligations or time constraints. This also means no one can have any expectations against volunteers. They can be distracted, their reliability and commitment can span from anything between extremely enthusiastic to hardly interested. It is understandable that people prioritize tasks in their lives - family and daily job is by far more important for most of us than hobby-related projects.
Just within Amateur Radio, this issue has been known for decades now. Some examples of ambitious Amateur Radio projects that ultimately weren’t successful because (in my opinion), volunteer labor wasn’t sufficient to complete such ambitious projects:
TAPR announced the TAPR packetRADIO in 1989… and that project went nowhere because Radio Frequency (RF) design is hard, and RF design expertise (especially for VHF / UHF) is a rare skillset, especially for volunteer projects. My memory is that TAPR simply could not find enough volunteer RF design expertise to create a stable, reproducible, reasonably priced radio. It’s notable that in the same era, with the same project scope (a data radio for the Amateur Radio market), using professional labor, Kantronics created the D4-10 Data Radio for 420-450 MHz and the low power dvr 2-2 for 144-148 MHz. Similarly, MFJ was able to create low power data radios for 144-148 MHz and 220-225 MHz. Even more impressive was the Symek TRX2S and TRX4S radios which were synthesized, with 20 watts output power, and could do data speeds of 150 kbps+.
Hubmasterwas a project in the 1990s to develop an Amateur Radio networking system that would operate at 256 kbps at 10 watts in the 902-928 MHz band. It was promising, and (if memory serves, there was some limited deployment, but ultimately it didn’t become a widely adopted system.
In Zero Retries 0000 - Story 3: The Radios That Weren’t; Part 1 I discussed the TAPR Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum Radio. Volunteer labor was sufficient to complete this project, but not on a fast-enough timeline; critical parts became obsolete over the course of the project. This happened twice before the project was canceled.
Also in Zero Retries 0000 - Story 4: The Radios That Weren’t; Part 2 I discussed UDRX-440 by Northwest Digital Radio (NWDR). There were prototypes of this radio developed, but for many reasons, the volunteer labor on the project just wasn’t able to complete the critical integration of software and hardware required for that project.
FaradayRF was an ambitious project / company to develop Faraday, a data radio that would operate in 902-928 MHz. For reasons unstated, FaradayRF just faded out, likely because of career pressures of the two founders.
The RPX-100 was yet another very promising, but ambitious project to create a Software Defined Transceiver for 50 / 144 / 440 MHz, and it also just faded out without creating a viable design (though they did leave behind some great technology, including an RF power amplifier for 50 / 144 / 440 MHz). Interestingly, this project was unique from the above projects in having received a significant grant from ARDC.
What has changed, and what SP5WWP doesn’t quite acknowledge in his open letter, is the existence of grants from ARDC now make it much more possible to create new radio technology and systems for Amateur Radio.
Disclaimer - What follows is mostly personal opinion and based on my (often flawed) memory and a bit of “insider knowledge” from my tenure (2021-2022) on the ARDC Grants Advisory Committee (GAC). I have not been formally involved with ARDC since ending my tenure on the GAC at the end of 2022. ARDC does not speak for me, and I don’t speak for ARDC. To the best of my knowledge, these points are not confidential, and as you’ll read, certainly not “secrets” given that paying for professional labor has been prominent in a number of ARDC grants.
Early in my tenure on the GAC, the issue of paying for professional engineering labor, such as developing new software and hardware, came up and was discussed. Some on the GAC felt that “this is Amateur Radio” and Amateur Radio projects should be done almost entirely on a volunteer basis, and ARDC grants should be used to pay for unusual “commercial” expenses such as fabrication of prototypes, test equipment, etc. Ultimately the GAC decided that it was acceptable for an ARDC grant to include payment for professional labor needed to successfully complete a project. Our reasoning was that building radio systems, especially for systems operating above 50 MHz, was a very specialized skillset and anyone with such a skillset was in high demand, with little “volunteer time” available for Amateur Radio projects. Similarly, software engineering for embedded processors and components such as Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) was a skillset that was similarly in demand, with little “volunteer time” available for Amateur Radio projects.
I believe that I explained my observations about the TAPR FHSS Radio, and the NWDR UDRX-440, and my conclusion that in this era… creating VHF / UHF radios, and other projects that required specialized skillsets, simply weren’t possible to accomplish without paying for professional labor.
The GAC, and ultimately the ARDC Board (during my tenure, the board approved, or vetoed, every grant request that the GAC approved) agreed with that perspective. Here are a few selected ARDC grants where paying for professional labor was an explicit part of the grant:
What SP5WWP wasn’t entirely transparent about is that he is a beneficiary of ARDC’s willingness for its grants to pay for professional labor. For some period, SP5WWP has been working almost entirely on M17 and related projects such as the OpenHT and Remote Radio Unit) as part of the M17 Project Popularization, Research and Development grant.
Thus, I think that ARDC has already answered (in the affirmative) a least part of SP5WWP’s issue. Someone who wants to develop an Amateur Radio project / system / organization (conceivably) can receive payment to do such work. But, the caveat of doing so via an ARDC grant is that such work:
Must be done under the auspices of a qualifying fiscal sponsor such as a not-for-profit organization (in the US, a 501(c)(3) organization or an educational institution), and
The resulting work must be made publicly available (essentially, released as open source).
As I read SP5WWP’s open letter, what I perceive from it as the larger context, is that SP5WWP sees a need for a new kind of organization within Amateur Radio beyond fiscal sponsors - a “Research and Development” organization. If someone interested in Amateur Radio has a unique project in mind that could benefit Amateur Radio, they could apply to work on that project and be paid for that work. The R&D organization would handle the “administrivia” overhead of managing all the other aspects of the project such as working with vendors, managing the “community” that grows up around such a project, and conceivably continuing the project into availability, perhaps even commercial availability. This would allow the “project originator” to focus on the tasks that they are most capable of working on (and have the needed critical skills).
With that context in mind, here are some at least partial answers / opinions:
At least in name, Amateur Radio actually has such an organization - Amateur Radio Research and Development (AMRAD). AMRAD’s About page: The purpose of AMRAD is to develop skills and knowledge in radio and electronic technology, advocate design of experimental equipment and techniques, promote basic and applied research, organize technical forums and symposiums, collect and disseminate technical information and provide repeaters. I’ve been told that AMRAD is now largely inactive as several key members such have become Silent Keyboards. But, wouldn’t it be cool if AMRAD could be resurrected and reimagined to live up to its name? If any Zero Retries readers are members of AMRAD, please get in touch - I’m curious about the fate of AMRAD.
I think that what SP5WWP would like to have is an Amateur Radio equivalent of Y Combinator, a highly specialized venture capital company that helps potential entrepreneurs build a company with unique forms of assistance and investments. In my opinion, such an organization wouldn’t be feasible in Amateur Radio as what makes Y Combinator’s model possible is a vastly larger potential market than the potential market of Amateur Radio… and vast potential profits. That said… perhaps there’s a role for quiet, personal Angel Investmenting. I’ve heard rumors of some Angel Investing in Amateur Radio projects; there are a lot of Amateur Radio Operators with significant wealth out there… but I can’t offer any specifics.
ARDC is not, and cannot (per its legal structure, or perhaps just because of its chosen policies) be such an organization. ARDC can only provide funding via individual grants, and perhaps grant extensions.
Perhaps ARDC grants could be used creatively to make projects that receive ARDC grants made commercially available. The ARDC grants for A Low-Cost Open-Source Universal Radio Test Instrument and ZUM Radio: Multimode Digital Voice Modem (MMDVM) Project both involved commercial companies, but it wasn’t explained exactly how the “technology transfer” with those companies will ultimately work. My guess is that as long as the work that is paid for by the ARDC grant is made publicly available… the associated commercial company (or any commercial company, or individual, or organization) can make use of that work.
In previous decades, TAPR used to provide such a role. For example, TAPR would arrange for writing documentation, providing website support, mailing list support, development of kits, stockpiling parts, sales, after-sales support, etc. TAPR now seems to function mostly as a “sales” organization for smaller projects that are self-developed and self-managed. My impression is that you can no longer come to TAPR with an idea, get funding for the idea, and have support functions provided. Perhaps TAPR could be a fiscal sponsor for an ARDC grant, and TAPR could, through its fiscal sponsorship, arrange for “support functions”.
Perhaps… the Radio Society of Great Britain (RSGB) might be at least a partial answer, per this article - Amateur radio research and development: The RSGB, through its Legacy Fund, has provided funding for projects aimed at supporting innovation. Funding was provided for the ground-breaking work that Dr Martin Sach, G8KDF did on understanding the detailed characteristics of VDSL2, which must surely be the first step in building a method of digitally mitigating its impact on received signals. In the autumn, the RSGB Legacy Fund also subsidised a course organised by John Worsnop, G4BAO designed to encourage radio amateurs to experiment with GNU Radio Companion, and to teach others to do likewise. The Legacy Fund is always looking for proposals for innovative ideas that will advance amateur radio – if you have an idea, please email legacy.chairman@rsgb.org.uk
In Zero Retries 0079 (2022-12-30), the entire issue was a mostly fictional story about how Amateur Radio organizations might evolve in the near future - A Vision for Zero Retries Interesting Amateur Radio in 2029. Though I didn’t imagine a specific Research and Development organization for Amateur Radio, the (again, fictional) organization Amateur Radio Standards Organization (ARSO) would at least partially fulfill the role of Research and Development in Amateur Radio.
In conclusion, perhaps the most viable path that I think comes the closest to SP5WWP’s vision is to create a very small company and crowdfund a project. The example that comes to mind that is the closest to such an ideal is the very successful KrakenSDR project, which was crowdfunded (more than $1.5M to date) through Crowd Supply, by KrakenRF, Inc. I have no specific knowledge about the principals of KrakenRF, Inc. but in following the project from its announcement, my impression is that the KrakenSDR was developed by a small group of talented folks with an idea for a unique, compelling, and realistic product. KrakenRF, Inc. “put out their vision” via Crowd Supply, and the idea was well-received by enough folks to fund the project to the point of paying for development and production of the KrakenSDR. Unlike an ARDC grant, with crowdfunding there are no restrictions on how the funds could be used, only some due diligence (one would hope…) by Crowd Supply to verify that KrakenRF, Inc. was likely capable of creating this product per the crowdfunding proposal. The funds raised can then be used, in part, to pay for “administrivia” help so the developer(s) can focus on development.
Ultimately, in Amateur Radio, there’s currently no complete solution for developing technology, systems, or products for Amateur Radio and being paid to do so (without contributing one’s own funds, having investors (including bank loans), or obtaining grants. But, as explained in this article, it is possible to be paid to work on Amateur Radio projects.
The team at ARDC is pleased to announce that on March 26, 2024, Ashhar Farhan (VU2ESE), joined our Board of Directors.
Licensed initially at the age of 15 as VU2FAX and “fascinated with electronics as a child,” Farhan became interested in amateur radio after being “hooked” following a local club coming to his school to perform a ham radio demo. Following a hiatus, he returned to the hobby in 2002 and obtained his general grade license as VU2ESE. Active in the amateur radio community, Farhan is the founding Vice President of the Lamakaan Amateur Radio Club (LARC), which he and his friends established in 2012; for the past seven years, the club has hosted an annual convention each December. Through LARC’s collaboration with the Digital Empowerment Foundation, Farhan actively promotes both ham radio and electronics in the inner cities.
Farhan’s technical contributions to amateur radio have earned him inductions into both the QRP Amateur Radio Club International (QRPARCI) Hall of Fame (2016), and the CQ Ham Radio Hall of Fame (2018). An avid radio and test equipment builder and designer, he is well-known for the BITX, a beginner friendly buildable QRP transceiver that is ideal for operating on 20m and modifiable for operating on other ham bands. The BITX, along with additional buildable transceivers, are available through HF Signals, a company Farhan co-founded with the goal of inspiring people to be active in ham radio around the globe.
Throughout his career, Farhan has worked in the fields of Internet telephony, free software, and voice codecs. An entrepreneur, not only has Farhan founded HF Signals, he has also co-founded Lamakaan, a cultural center in Hyderabad, as well as Exseed Space (now Satellize), which specializes in building satellites: to date, they have launched two amateur radio-carrying satellites into space. In addition to founding the above companies, Farhan is an angel investor in various technology startups.
“I am excited that Farhan agreed to join our Board of Directors,” says ARDC President Bdale Garbee KB0G. “Well-known for his open ham radio transceiver and test equipment designs that enable and encourage learning and experimentation, he also brings a wealth of career experience, and expands our understanding of opportunities and needs to a new geographic region. I am confident that his contributions will be invaluable as we work to achieve our long-term goals.”
“One of the first radios I built early in my ham radio career was Farhan’s BITX 20,” says ARDC Board Member Ria Jairam, N2RJ. “It was from that moment onward that I realized that he was dedicated to making homebrew and open source radios accessible. Farhan’s ideals of experimentation, open source hardware and software align very well with ARDC’s mission. I’m proud that he has decided to join ARDC’s board and look forward to working with him as one of our colleagues to shape the future of open source ham radio.”
“I really and truly am delighted to have him on board,” says ARDC Executive Director Rosy Schechter KJ7RYV. “He’s already bringing a lot to the table, and I can see him playing a key and positive role in ARDC’s continual evolution.”
From my perspective, the addition of VU2ESE to the ARDC Board is not just Zero Retries Interesting, but also a very welcome development within ARDC! In my opinion, VU2ESE will add some (needed) technical depth to the ARDC board about radio hardware technology. He will also add some international perspective as the only ARDC board member not based in the US.
As I mentioned in Zero Retries 0155 - FDIM 2024 - zBitx - Bringing CW into the 21st Century by Asher Farhan VU2ESE, I am mightily impressed with VU2ESE’s grasp of what’s important in future Amateur Radio, including his choice to use a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W in the zBitx (future?) radio he discussed, and matter-of-fact inclusion of some data modes in a “QRP CW” radio. He also has a pragmatic perspective of what it takes to drive a project to successful completion via his company, HF Signals and I hope VU2ESE is able to imbue ARDC with that understanding in guiding ARDC’s future grantmaking.
Rosy Schechter KJ7RYV on the ARDC 44Net email list:
It’s been just over two months since we launched the new Portal. It came with, as you have seen, some major bumps. Today, ARDC is resolving, at least temporarily, one of those hurdles: administrative access to subdomains.
As of today, anyone who had a subdomain with ampr.org before the launch of the new Portal on April 3, 2024, will, for now, have full access to their DNS records. This includes subdomains that fall outside of our preferred format of callsign.ampr.org.
This administrative access still depends on call sign verification, which requires confirming given name, family name, email, and valid amateur radio license. This step helps us ensure that the network is being used by valid amateur radio operators. During our recent work, we’ve found several bad actors, which is both unfair to the community and a security risk.
We’ve also made a functional change to the portal: once a call sign is verified, you are now automatically able to create a subdomain with the format of callsign.ampr.org. All other new requests for subdomains that fall outside of that format (e.g., foo.ampr.org, which I’ll refer to as nonstandard subdomains for brevity) will require review and approval.
Please note that we will be limiting the number of nonstandard subdomains going forward. Thus, if you have one (or, in some cases, many more), please consider it temporary. You can currently create as many second-level subdomains as you want—e.g., foo.callsign.ampr.org, bar.callsign.ampr.org, etc.
We are working on a more official policy around subdomains using ampr.org. As promised at the recent regional coordinators' meeting, we will ensure you can see this policy before officially implementing it. We will also provide a transition period, likely many months, for users to edit their entries before official deprecation. This is, ultimately, what we should have done initially, and we take responsibility for not following a better process and, instead, rolling out this change without taking proper preparatory steps.
Some of you may be wondering why we are making this change in the first place. It is because, without doing so, we end up in our current and very unwieldy situation: a database of over 51,000 DNS entries, most without knowledge of who they belong to, accumulated over at least a decade, with very few entries currently in use. If we aim to increase the usage of 44Net, then we need a system where we understand ownership and are able to provide an efficient service where we can address problems as they arise.
For now, we hope that this helps to unblock anyone that currently feels blocked, while also providing an ample notice for changes that are coming down the pipeline at a later, though likely not-so-distant date.
Some long time 44Net users are upset with this policy “modernization”, but in my opinion, seeing it from the perspective of ARDC trying to manage 44Net for the future, and cleaning up some of the non-allowed usage that has crept in, these new policies seem reasonable. If you want a “cute” name for your 44Net address block, the cutename.callsign.ampr.org naming convention seems a reasonable compromise, and in other email discussions, apparently a cname can also be used.
Another issue that came up is when a 44Net address block is used by a club, and administered by someone who isn’t the trustee of the club callsign. Undoubtedly that corner case will be worked out in a reasonable fashion.
A minor issue is the legacy IP address assignments of individual Amateur Radio Operators (some of whom are now Silent Keyboards). For example, the Puget Sound Amateur Radio TCP/IP group had a number of IP address blocks assigned to our various data repeaters in the Seattle area. Those IP address assignments were never cleaned up when that network was shut down. I’m going to try to do my part and go onto the portal and release all my legacy IP address assignments from that era.
Kudos to the ARDC staff, contractors, and the Technical Advisory Committee (TAG) volunteers for apparently working their butts off to sort out all the issues resulting from modernizing 44Net (ticketing system, new policies, real documentation, the eventual 44Net VPN, etc.). With the role of Technical Director vacant, and the recent death of John Hays K7VE (who was highly involved and knowledgeable of 44Net), getting 44Net’s issues sorted seems to be an “all hands on deck” priority with ARDC - for the benefit of us Amateur Radio users of 44Net worldwide.
The Technical Aid Group is a group of hams who have indicated a willingness to share their knowledge and skills with others. They have volunteered to be of service to fellow hams and do so without compensation. If you have a technical question, look over the list to see who has competency in the area of your question. For many of the TAG members, descriptions of all areas of expertise would be lengthy, so an abbreviated description is given. When stating your problem, give as much information as possible and clearly state the difficulty. Enclose a SASE for reply.
For those hams who have a desire to share, the TAG is the thing for you. Send a brief note requesting the membership form, fill it in and send it back. It asks a few questions about your qualifications, and there is a check-list to indicate your fields of competence. These cover all modes currently used by hams, antenna design and theory, transmitter and receiver design for HF, VHF, and UHF, logic, ICs, general help, and other areas. As more members are added, their names and addresses will be published.
I stumbled onto this in researching one of the articles in this issue. Wow… what an idea… and how doable this could be, in this era, via a website!
We’ve kind of done this with email lists for various broad topics (like the various email lists mentioned in this issue), but there’s a lot of value in knowing unique (and searchable) knowledge and potential mentorship.
And, once again, this is an example of how invaluable the Digital Library of Amateur Radio & Communications (DLARC) is proving to be for Amateur Radio. Thank you Kay Savetz K6KJN, Internet Archive, and ARDC (for the grant that made DLARC possible).
Jonathan Bruno W2JON on the digitalvoice email list:
… I picked up an sBitx from HFSignals.com and fell in love with its open-source nature.
If you aren't familiar the sBitx is one of Ashhar Farhan, VU2ESE creations. Big brother to the uBitx, BITX20, BITX40, Antuino, and zBitx.
The sBitx is a hybrid SDR that runs on a Raspberry Pi4 its a hoot to work and play on.
Now, you can buy just the board and experiment but I went all in and picked up the completely assembled unit which comes in an aluminum case with the Raspi 7" capacitive touch screen.
The sBitx software has fldigi in the backend handling some heavy digital lifting and the wsjtx libs are baked into the control surface so the rig can even decode and log FT8 QSOs all in one small box with no additional hardware.
Well, with all that being said, the one thing I wanted to run on it, it couldn't run.. why? the screen is too darn small for the FreeDV GUI.. even with the GUI heavily crunched down it just wasn't useable.
I sat down and thought I wasn't willing to give up the idea of running FreeDV on the sBitx so I set out to write a control companion for the FreeDV codecs.
I'm not a developer by any stretch of the word I'm an infrastructure engineer, but I know enough to be a problem but somehow I got it pretty much working and fairly capable.
But one gotcha. This will only run on the 64bit upgraded OS. (no 32bit).
So now FreeDV has been implemented on a sBitx… but that can’t be done on a FlexRadio 6000 series? I guess the moral of this story is never overlook the capabilities of a motivated amateur (as in non-professional) software developer to make something work the way they want it to… and the power of user-extensible radio hardware. Kudos to both HF Signals for the extensible architecture of the sBitx and W2JON for this achievement.
And… yet another example that Radios are computers - with antennas!
Stephen Smith WA8LMF on the VARA-MODEM email list:
In the late 1970s, I worked at Collins Radio in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. At the time, repeaters were not ubiquitous as they are today. People routinely used 100-150-watt-plus amplifiers on 2M mobiles to work simplex 50-100 miles (80-160 Km) across the gently-rolling terrain of Iowa to fixed stations with 8-element or more beam antennas. One normally expected mobile flutter and rapid fade-outs/fade-ins as mobiles moved down Interstate-80 at 70 MPH / 110 KMh. I used two 8-element KLM beams vertically side-by-side fed in phase with a divider harness to produce vertical polarization.
I then tried mounting the two antennas one leaning 45 degrees to the left and the other 45 degs to the right (i.e. 90 degs apart) and fed them with a phasing harness with an extra 1/4-wave of coax on one leg. This creates circular polarization instead of planar vertical-only. The effects were spectacular - the mobile flutter and fading on long simplex paths totally disappeared! Note that you DON'T need to have CP antennas at both ends of the path - the normal vertical-only mobile whip at one end of the path will work as long as the other end of the path has a CP antenna.
I had the same experience with a two-meter repeater covering a narrow canyon road in Los Angeles. The narrow winding rocky-walled canyon road was a nightmare of multi-path phase distortion and rapid-fire fluttering when the repeater at the summit used the usual vertical gain antenna. I switched the repeater to a circular-polarized crossed-yagis antenna intended for satellite tracking pointed down into the canyon. Again, the results were night-and-day - the flutter and spattery audio phase distortion on mobiles in the canyon completely went away.
Imagine combining this technique with a “voting” receiver system now that highly capable, sensitive, and inexpensive Software Defined Receivers are available, not to mention the possibilities of Digital Voice (DV) techniques that incorporate Forward Error Correction (FEC). An interesting subtext is that WA8LMF made this discovery while working for a radio communications company… as an Amateur Radio Operator in his personal time. One can only imagine what cool innovations WA8LMF must have contributed within Collins Radio because of his hands-on experiences in Amateur Radio like this.
Joanne Dow W6MKU (I think…) on the SDR-Radio email list:
There is no “one book.” They all have different slants and designed audiences.
"SDR4Engineers" is not as deep as it sounds but deeper than you might like. It is heavily coupled to the [Analog Devices ADALM] Pluto. This is very much how it is done with the math.
"Software Defined Radio Handbook" by Roger Hosking is pretty much a Pentek ad with lots of diagrams. It shows you how the blocks are put together.
Another Great “All Zero Retries Interesting” Issue of The Random Wire!
The Random Wire Newsletter issue 94 is so packed with Zero Retries Interesting items that I’ll have to re-read it several times to absorb it all. Recommended!
If you provide feedback via email, I may excerpt your feedback or include it in full. Unless you specifically grant me permission to include your name, I won’t do so. Feedback may be lightly edited for clarity.
Join the Fun on Amateur Radio
If you’re not yet licensed as an Amateur Radio Operator, and would like to join the fun by literally having a license to experiment with radio technology, check out Join the Fun on Amateur Radio for some pointers.
In its mission to highlight technological innovation in Amateur Radio, promote Amateur Radio to techies as a literal license to experiment with radio technology, and make Amateur Radio more relevant to society in the 2020s and beyond, Zero Retries is published via email and web, and is available to everyone at no cost. Zero Retries is proud not to participate in the Amateur Radio Publishing Industrial Complex, which hides Amateur Radio content behind paywalls.
My ongoing Thanks to:
Tina Stroh KD7WSF for, well, everything!
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Dan Romanchik KB6NU mentions “Zero Retries Interesting” topics so regularly on his blog (that I otherwise wouldn’t know about) that I’ve bestowed on him the honorific of Pseudostaffer.
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Experimental Radio News by Bennet Z. Kobb AK4AV discusses (in detail) Experimental (Part 5) licenses issued by the US FCC. It’s a must-read-now for me!
RTL-SDR Blog - Excellent coverage of Software Defined Radio units.
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More bits from Steve Stroh N8GNJ:
SuperPacket blog — Discussing new generations of Amateur Radio Data Communications — beyond Packet Radio (a precursor to Zero Retries)
N8GNJ blog — Amateur Radio Station N8GNJ and the mad science experiments at N8GNJ Labs — Bellingham, Washington, USA
Thanks for reading! Steve Stroh N8GNJ / WRPS598 (He / Him / His) These bits were handcrafted (by a mere human, not an Artificial Intelligence bot) in beautiful Bellingham (The City of Subdued Excitement), Washington, USA, and linked to the Internet via Starlink Satellite Internet Access.
2024-06-14
Blanket permission is granted for TAPR to use any Steve Stroh content in Zero Retries for the TAPR Packet Status Register (PSR) newsletter (I owe them from way back).
Blanket permission is granted for Amateur Radio use of any Steve Stroh content in Zero Retries for Amateur Radio newsletters and distribution via Amateur Radio such as (but not limited to) Packet Radio Networks, Packet Radio Bulletin Board Systems, Repeater Nets, etc.
In such usage, please provide appropriate authorship credit for the content.
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[Footnote from Wikipedia] Bower, Joseph L. & Christensen, Clayton M. (1995). However the concept of new technologies leading to wholesale economic change is not a new idea since Joseph Schumpeter adapted the idea of creative destruction from Karl Marx. Schumpeter (1949) in one of his examples used "the railroadization of the Middle West as it was initiated by the Illinois Central". He wrote, "The Illinois Central not only meant very good business whilst it was built and whilst new cities were built around it and land was cultivated, but it spelled the death sentence for the [old] agriculture of the West. "Disruptive Technologies: Catching the Wave" Harvard Business Review, January–February 1995.
The exclusion of FlexRadio from this list is deliberate, as FlexRadio’s products are largely software-based, and allow significant user customization through the use of their TCP/IP API and their Waveform API and their update of the product line to the 8000 series with significantly more compute capability as the basis for future capabilities.
Zero Retries is an independent newsletter promoting technological innovation that is occurring in Amateur Radio, and Amateur Radio as (literally) a license to experiment with and learn about radio technology. Now in its third year of publication, with 1700+ 1800+ subscribers.
In Zero Retries 0153, a mere two issues / weeks ago, Zero Retries achieved 1700+ subscribers. Now Zero Retries has 1800+ subscribers!
Welcome, new subscribers, to Zero Retries!
Nice Mention of Zero Retries on Amateur Radio Workbench
This rush of subscriptions was due in part to Zero Retries receiving a mention from George Zafiropoulos KJ6VU on his popular podcast - Amateur Radio Workbench, Episode 209:
The other one I want to mention is a blog called Zero Retries by Steve Stroh, N8GNJ. And Steve is really a super accomplished digital VHF UHF expert. And he's participated in various organizations like [TAPR] and made publications and delivered papers and is just a real authority around digital radio stuff.
And he's got a fantastic blog called Zero Retries. So go to zeroretries.org.
My thanks to Dave Cherkus, N1AI in the Zero Retries 0153 comments for mentioning KJ6VU’s shout out.
(Zero Retries didn’t make it into the show notes of HRWB 209 which is why I wasn’t initially aware of it.) Zero Retries is now mentioned in the HRWB 209 show notes.
That prompted me to do a bit of long-neglected housekeeping to the Closing the Channel section at the end of every Zero Retries. In addition to:
These blogs and newsletters regularly feature Zero Retries Interesting content: and These YouTube channels regularly feature Zero Retries Interesting content:
I’ve now added:
These podcasts regularly feature Zero Retries Interesting content:
- #140: Pwr Amp suitable for Software Defined Transmitters, AI in electronic warfare
- #152: Teensy SDR project, Photon Radio (!)
- #151: The Modern Ham, Raspberry Pi, Stuff You Should Know
- #150: MJF wind down, more
- #149: Jam-resistant Ukranian drones, new designs, IPv6
- #148: Meshtastic, Meshmail, more
- Look at the archived issues for much more
This issue of Hot Iron (The Journal of the Constructor’s Club) was largely references to websites and other publications, etc. and the majority are Zero Retries Interesting. Hot Iron is free, delightful to read every quarter, and recommended!
That mention reminded me to do another bit of long-neglected housekeeping to add Hot Iron to the Closing the Channel section at the end of each Zero Retries:
These blogs and newsletters regularly feature Zero Retries Interesting content:
By Wojciech Kaczmarski SP5WWP w.kaczmarski@teletra.pl
An open letter exposing the current state of the amateur radio world, and roadblocks on the way to making it technologically up-to-date.
Warsaw, June 2024
Background
I’ve been a licensed amateur radio operator since 2016. In 2019, I started the M17 Project (1), a highly successful and widely acclaimed international endeavor. A few years later, in 2021, I was honored with the ARRL Technical Innovation Award for my contribution to the technical development of our hobby (2). M17 has become a large, overarching ecosystem, offering both software and hardware, open-source solutions (3). Through this time, I have worked with many people from all around the world. Most of them were exceptionally brilliant, but since M17 is based on volunteers’ work, our team members rotated constantly.
The current status of Amateur Radio
It’s not a secret that most of the amateur radio community depends on large companies (Icom, Yaesu, Kenwood) and solutions they provide. The status quo is all about keeping hardware and software proprietary, minimizing users’ chances to modify it. While there are new models of radios being advertised all the time, they do not offer anything new. This keeps the amateur radio world in a state of artificially sustained technological stagnation, short-sightedly throttling down the progress in order to maximize someone’s profit. It’s been already shown that community-driven projects can lead to technological advancements - the advent of MMDVM (4), M17, OpenRTX (5), WPSD (6), OpenWebRX (7), and many others. The purpose of this open letter is to show that cutting-edge, open-source solutions can only be successfully proliferated by a group of skilled amateur radio developers.
Stock, commercial firmware mostly lacks functionalities amateur radio operators seek. The reason behind that is simple - large corporations often don’t have a clue what amateur radio operators want. A solution to this seems very simple - let skilled users write their own replacement firmware, then release it under an appropriate open license, for the rest to use. Sounds easy, but as always, there’s a catch. The firmware flashing process is not always easy (binary files are almost always obfuscated) and requires a fair amount of reverse engineering effort.
The most popular digital voice mode is DMR (8) (looking at the users count and radio infrastructure size). It had to be adapted for ham radio use cases, as it was originally designed for professional use. DMR is based on an open standard released by ETSI. The standard by itself does not mention what voice coder should be used, but the de facto protocol seen “in the wild”, enforced by manufacturers, uses AMBE.
Linking radio access networks (RAN) using IPv6 and geostationary satellites and utilizing remote radio units (RRU) with powerful I/Q modems is without a doubt a technological advancement. Wouldn’t it be amazing to see Daniel Estevez’s (EA4GPZ) 32APSK modem (9) “move out” from the shacks of a few and be used in real hardware and by hams worldwide? Or at least in the QO-100’s footprint? This is just the tip of an iceberg of ideas to implement in the real world. We can’t just passively wait and expect major manufacturers to pick up on it. It is something we can do on our own.
The pitfalls of volunteer-based work
Volunteering is a wonderful work model - you get excellent, qualified workforce for free. It allowed many amazing projects to appear - MMDVM, OpenRTX, WPSD, M17, to name a few in the amateur radio community. There is a big problem behind it though - volunteers can rarely be bound with any obligations or time constraints. This also means no one can have any expectations against volunteers. They can be distracted, their reliability and commitment can span from anything between extremely enthusiastic to hardly interested. It is understandable that people prioritize tasks in their lives - family and daily job is by far more important for most of us than hobby-related projects (10).
This reveals the first issue of volunteer-based work: the difficulty of scheduling work when there aren't reliable resources available (11). Moreover, one’s good will is not enough to maintain focus on the less fun and more administrative sides of the project. Lifespan of a project can be short regardless of the level of technological advancement offered, due to lack of workforce.
Second issue relates to long term commitment required for sophisticated projects. Many complex functions require more than one person to be involved (12). This implies project management, reporting, planning and documentation, tasks seldom attractive for volunteers. People come and go, leaving unfinished tasks behind. The turnover rate varies mostly between days and, more rarely, months.
A volunteer-powered project works well when each task can be handled by a single person and when there are not too many interconnections with other functional blocks or submodules. This, of course, only applies with the assumption that there are no deadlines or other expected time constraints. The project basically has to “live its own life”, at its own pace, dictated by its contributors.
Third issue is maintainer burnout (13), widespread in the open-source community. Volunteering contributors come and go, but maintainers bear the long-term responsibility for the project's health and sustainability. This burden grows quickly with the project's popularity, leading to a form of burnout that leaves maintainers with emotional exhaustion and a decreased sense of accomplishment. One of the major contributors to maintainer burnout is loneliness (14).
As mentioned by Artem Sapegin (15):
“Open source became a synonym of free labor, not just free code, and it’s not only harmful for the whole community, but mostly for the maintainers of open source projects.”
The seemingly free labor suddenly turns expensive in terms of management and commitment sustenance.
In conclusion, this reasoning shows the difficulty of foreseeing a project's future in terms of development, funds management and allocation. That also makes any granting request process extremely hard or even unfeasible, leaving the following questions open:
Why are there so few developers paid for their work?
Is there an entity out there having enough funds and willing to change this?
“They all want, but do not commit”
Project’s followers usually have brilliant ideas and provide valuable feedback, but when it gets to implementation, suddenly everyone turns impotent. There are also those affected with severe non-committal disorder, who still keep repeating that they "would love to help", but for some reason nothing ever fits their specializations. Frequently, empty promises appear. Sooner or later, ideas are written off as “not having enough developers to implement” - there’s simply no one to perform the required task - an inherent developer shortage. Most projects just don’t have enough staff (are under-resourced) (16). This causes frustration and breaks down existing developers’ morale - they are overwhelmed by the number of pending tasks to do.
Another example is the shortage of educational and explanatory materials created by the community, despite the fact that the community has enough knowledge to create it.
For this exact reason, most subprojects are run by a single person, or mostly by a single person [vide: M17 specification document (17), WPSD (18), the Remote Radio Unit (19), OpenRTX (20)]. This burden causes significant emotional stress, easily deteriorating the lone developer's psyche. The effect is further amplified by the pressure coming from the user base, with its never-ending requests and expectations (21).
A possible solution
To be a real threat to the aforementioned status quo and bring amateur radio back to its open-source tinkering roots, it is not enough to rely on volunteers, as this model is too inefficient for large, high-impact projects. There is a significant, consistent effort required to provide the critical mass needed to bring products to market.
Justification
There are some good examples of companies that are the owners of open-source products (22). They all have paid staff to drive the vision and schedule for products, while maintaining good relationships with volunteers contributing to the projects. There must be a clear vision of the for-profit company to help align the volunteers who wish to remain incidental contributors.
Monetary profit is a human motivator that can be used to push the state-of-art forward faster than it would otherwise move. There seems to be a wide assumption that technology will continue to improve, however, that is not a certainty. Hiring an engineer who believes in the goals and vision of the organization relieves the pressure for the individual to have to work elsewhere to earn a living. The engineer’s priorities will naturally align with the priorities of the organization. This will help the organization to consistently drive to keep striving.
To sum it up, financial support:
allows contributors to stay focused on tasks (strong monetary incentive)
allows the team to make necessary purchases - equipment, licenses, etc.
makes management easier, as the workforce allocation can be adjusted
fixes timeframes for tasks
makes work efficient by making human resources engaged over extended periods of time.
Potential pitfalls
There should be no apologies for making a profit as this allows the organization to increase R&D efforts and add individuals to the engineering workforce. It can be a difficult transition from a non-profit volunteer based organization, as misunderstandings and hurt feelings can occur. However, by ensuring the vision is communicated clearly to the entire organization, both paid and volunteers, many of the issues are avoided.
An update on the ability of FlexRadio units to run non-FlexRadio software in the radio - putting the (User) “Software Defined” into FlexRadio units. And a few impressions of the updated FlexRadio Maestro Control Console.
No matter what the “advanced features” of the FlexRadio 8000 series, the lack of FreeDV as a native feature in SmartOS, is (in my mind) a significant failing on the part of FlexRadio. That FlexRadio can’t, or won’t, implement such a fundamental (in the mid 2020s) new mode says to me that FlexRadio is focused on the past of Amateur Radio:
RTTY isn’t quite a century old; but the rest of those modes are more than a century old.
At SEA-PAC 2024, I spoke to a person knowledgeable about FlexRadio who clarified a major point in my understanding of user customization of current FlexRadio units and current versions of FlexRadio’s SmartSDR software (the operating system of the radio units).
I did know that FlexRadio provides an Application Programming Interface (API) that allows external devices (and software running on external devices) to integrate with a FlexRadio, allowing those external devices / software to “appear native” on a FlexRadio. This capability is apparently implemented via the SmartSDR TCP/IP API. This is how the EZDV external unit is currently able to integrate with FlexRadios to operate FreeDV on a FlexRadio unit, such as shown in the illustration below:
FreeDV mode enabled on a current FlexRadio unit. Image courtesy of FreeDV Project.
Waveform API
When I explained my perspective that FreeDV should be able to run on the (sophisticated, powerful, Software Defined) FlexRadio units, the person knowledgeable about FlexRadio explained that FlexRadio offers another API, that allows software to run on the radio - the Waveform API:
For those wishing to experiment by creating their own digital mode or waveform, FlexRadio Systems offers the SmartSDR Waveform API. The Waveform API allows developers to create their own digital modes and integrate directly into SmartSDR. When a waveform module is loaded, the module registers with SmartSDR and delineates the modes it supports. These modes are then available in the standard mode selection interface inside SmartSDR. The operator simply selects the mode and beings operating. The Waveform API exchanges commands and status with the developer written waveform module as well as streaming samples. Completed modes may be run both outside and inside the radio with virtually no changes!
OK, now we’re talking! That sounds like exactly what was needed to implement FreeDV as a “native” mode on the radio. But, the person knowledgeable about FlexRadio disclaimed that because FreeDV is constantly being iterated, FreeDV is a “moving target”, and thus a low priority for FlexRadio to implement as a native mode in SmartSDR.
But, again, the Waveform API is there for anyone to use, such as FreeDV’s developers.
Thus, my understanding of this issue settled out into good news / bad news points:
Good News - The FlexRadio Waveform API exists, and could, in theory, makes my “ask” of adding FreeDV as a “native” mode on a FlexRadio unit / Smart SDR, running on the radio actually possible.
Bad News - The person knowledgeable about FlexRadio said that basically there isn’t enough (remaining) computing power on the current FlexRadio 6000 series units to actually add FreeDV (or other modes) as native modes via the Waveform API. (Almost all of the computing power of the FlexRadio 6000 series is now used to run the native SmartSDR functions.) Thus, adding FreeDV to FlexRadio 6000 units can only be implemented externally via the EZDV or equivalent unit (where the FreeDV processing happens outside the FlexRadio unit).
Good News - The newly announced FlexRadio 8000 units1 with …
4x the CPU power of the 6000 series and twice the performance in the FPGA over the FLEX-6000 series…
Will easily accommodate (again, per the person knowledgeable about FlexRadio) incorporation of FreeDV (and more) to run on the 8000 series radios.
Bad News - With the introduction of the FlexRadio 8000 series, the FlexRadio 6000 series is now obsoleted (but still highly functional, and very good HF radios).
Good News - The FlexRadio 8000 series is now the standard (only) product line available from FlexRadio, and it looks like FlexRadio maintained (at least, approximately) the same price points as the FlexRadio 6000 series.
So… apparently, my initial plaint about the FlexRadio 8000 series - that they wouldn’t / couldn’t run FreeDV (and other data modes) on that new radio product line… will be possible after the FlexRadio 8000 series begins shipping in August, 2024.
It probably won’t be FlexRadio that will implement FreeDV (and other modes) natively on the FlexRadio 8000 series, but apparently it’s doable by others via the FlexRadio Waveform API.
…
The New FlexRadio Maestro Control Console is Gorgeous!
At SEA-PAC, FlexRadio was showing off pre-production units of the FlexRadio 8000 series, along with the current (second generation?) version of the FlexRadio Maestro (Remote) Control Console. I… liked… the original Maestro Control Console… but I love the (new) current version of the Maestro Control Console. Apparently I was so infatuated with it I didn’t take a photo of it - argh! (The photos of the new Maestro on the FlexRadio website don’t do it justice.) The newer Maestro was just so… bright… and high resolution, and seemingly larger. It was just… compelling! When I (likely) purchase a FlexRadio unit, I will definitely purchase the Maestro Control Console.
The Allied invasion of continental Europe 80 years ago was a logistical tour de force. Its success hinged on an operative communications network unifying the invading armies and their support systems.
The U.S. Army Signal Corps, or “SigC,” was tasked with establishing massive, reliable, multi-channel high-speed voice and “data” networks. These networks would support a mission buildup of more than a million troops in a hostile environment.
That meant two-way voice circuits to keep decision-makers in touch and high-speed channels to exchange reconnaissance photos and situation maps evaluating the impact of aerial and ship-launched ordnance.
SigC’s design baselines were high capacity and agility, with low latency. Communications with the beach had to be established speedily using whatever gear made it to shore in the contested landings. The system had to be mobile: radio supplemented by ad-hoc wire telephony. Contact within operating units had to survive when troops mistakenly landed in one another’s sectors.
SigC had estimated it would need some 90,000 transmitters for the job. This mandated frequency coordination. The radios were largely short-range “hand-helds” but also included short- and medium-distance radio links to naval and air elements and Allied headquarters.
This is an excellent Zero Retries Interesting article by Mark Durenberger in RADIOWORLD, appropriate for the 80th anniversary of D-Day yesterday.
Mark (Smitty) Smith N6MTS of Halibut Electronics is developing an easy kit (see the link for photos) for constructing an inexpensive, receive-only (at present) Eggbeater antenna. Eggbeaters are omnidirectional antennas where the energy (or receive focus) is focused “up” instead of “out” to better receive signals from satellites whizzing by overhead. The basic EggNOGS design has been proven out, but improvements are being made to the instructions, and correcting a few minor issues. EggNOGS kits will likely be available for sale in the next few months. The purpose of EggNOGS is to help construct SatNOGS stations for receiving telemetry from research satellites such as cubesats built and launched by university students or other small, not-for-profit project entities that don’t have global infrastructure to receive telemetry from their satellite.
Apparently the tricky bit about building your own eggbeater antenna is getting the phasing harness correct for developing the desired directivity of the antenna. N6MTS figured out that a printed circuit board would help with the most demanding parts of an eggbeater antenna, with only some small coax, and some wire (such as solid copper household interior electrical wire) to build your own low-cost eggbeater antenna. There will apparently be several versions of EggNOGS for specific frequencies depending on your desired satellite reception.
As a software developer I have had my share of building networking applications. Even ones that made use of WiFi or cellular networks. But I have never really understood how those radios worked at the level where software met the electromagnetic field.
I have looked into some of the lower frequency, DIY amateur stuff. Everyone seemed to be building “Manhattan-style” analog boards. That was putting me off, because I am rather clumsy with my hands, lack the patience to carefully “dead-bug” solder the parts and most importantly, I don’t really find circuits without a programmable controller attractive enough.
On the transmitting side, it ends up being fundamentally pretty simple. Just toggle a GPIO pin at the correct frequency, connect piece of wire as an antenna and get on the air. Besides the desired signal, you will pollute the spectrum with a lot of unwanted harmonics and mixing products, so add a filter or use more pins to shape your signal to more closely resemble sine wave. There is a lot more to it, but most of the complexity lies at the receiving end.
Receivers are hard.
How would one even go about building a digital receiver? And I am not talking about buying a ready-made module and connecting it to an Arduino. How would one even begin building a receiver using general purpose microcontroller from scratch?
Surprisingly, it has been done and documentedmultipletimes before. Some super smart people who have actually made radio receivers using FPGA and some passives have left the breadcrumbs for us to follow.
The only issue is that their FPGA always had a high speed comparator to use as a 1-bit ADC. And the chip I currently enjoy messing around with does not have one. So how would one build a digital radio receiver using RP2040, heart of the Raspberry Pi Pico?
This is a different approach to building a software defined radio, and the author explains their learning progression very well.
My thanks to Jenny List and Hackaday for mentioning this article.
If anyone's interested, N3MEL and I have added the ARDOP mode to our HF backbone setup. It's a good mode for anyone who doesn't want to use VARA, plus it is Linux-native (as well as Windows). I'm using the latest ARDOPCF version which was released a few days ago. Glenn N3MEL is using the oriogional ARDOP. They're compatible with each other.
They're stand-alone binaries, so no installation is required. Just put in in any folder and run it from there. The Linux version needs to be made executable in permissions before running it. Also, renaming the download to just "ardopcf" makes things easier. It's command line in Linux and Windows, so in my case I use for Linux:
ardopcf -G 8514 8515 plughw:1,0 plughw:1,0
and for Windows, I use:
ardopcf -G 8514 8515 USB USB
The -G 8514 switch enables a web browser interface (127.0.0.1:8514) that shows a nice waterfall and some settings. 8515 is the default ARDOP port for BPQ, Winlink, etc. to link to.
The command-line will be different for others, depending on your setup. USB USB works fine in WIndows if you're using only one USB sound device for digi-modes. In Linux, the plughw:1,0 plughw:1,0 is my USB sound device. The plughw:1,0 plughw:1,0 forces 12000hz sampling since ARDOP works better with that rate.
Make sure your radio's filter passband audio is at least as wide as ARDOP's bandwidth, otherwise ARDOP will show "BUSY". ARDOP can use four bandwidths: 200, 500, 1000, and 2000. We're using 1000 since it allows decent BPS speed but still without being very wide. 200 is way too slow for forwarding BBS mail.
The only ARDOP-interfacing I'm familiar with is BPQ and Winlink, no idea what's possible with interfacing it with, say, JNOS or others.
…
Oops, I left out KN4LQN in Virginia. He's also running the new ARDOPCF on his node, backbone-linked the N3MEL. It's not strictly Eastnet, but we're using HF to link some Eastnet to some BPQ and JNOS nodes and vis-versa.
The developer is looking for users to give feedback.
VARA works great, but some folks don't want to use closed-source, proprietary or non-Linux modes, so ARDOP is a good alternative to use for HF backbones.
Wow… sounds like ARDOP is now evolving quickly to be an open source alternative to VARA HF for reasonably fast data communications on Amateur Radio HF.
Image courtesy of Open Headset Interconnect Standard - ohis.org
Open: Any individual or company may make devices compliant with this standard, with no obligation.
Headset: Describes the signaling commonly found between a user and a radio: Microphone, Headphones, and Push To Talk.
Interconnect: Describes both the physical and electrical connection of those signals between the user and radio.
Standard: Devices built to this standard will work with other devices built to the same standard.
Introduction, The Elevator Pitch
The Amateur Radio community has standards for DC power (13.8v +/- 15%, Anderson Powerpole connectors, etc) and RF (50 ohm coax, PL-259/BNC/SMA connectors, etc). But we have no such standards for the interface between the user and the radio. Is the microphone a dynamic, or electret? Is it balanced, "pseudo" balanced, or unbalanced? Is the audio out from the radio at speaker level, headphone level, or line level? Is it push-pull, or ground referenced single ended? Is push-to-talk (PTT) triggered by a contact closure to ground, completing the Mic loop, or by a serial digital command?
There are so many different standards for microphone, headphone, and PTT that it is improbable that one could take their preferred headset and connect it to any radio without an adapter. In a multi-user environment, such as a club shack, Field Day type event, or an EOC, they would need a full-mesh of adapters to ensure any user can connect their own headset to any radio: O(N^2) adapters.
With the Open Headset Interconnect Standard, or OHIS, the club/EOC can build/buy one adapter for every radio which stays with that radio, and the user only needs to build/buy one adapter for their specific headset which stays with their headset, and now they can achieve full interoperability with only O(N) adapters.
This standard builds on the work done by Tom Tengdin WB9VXY, with his Proposed ARES Standard Headset. This standard is different than his proposal in a few places to make it more generalized, and provides more detail and clarity around several points.
Mention of OHIS is one of way too many “deferred too long” topics to I intended to mention in Zero Retries. (I gotta clear out that backlog, somehow.) I met Mark (Smitty) Smith N6MTS of Halibut Electronics at SEA-PAC 2024, and seeing the HE products on display reminded me of the excellent work (and energy) N6MTS has put into OHIS including offering OHIS products based on the Open Source OHIS standard.
A group that accounts for only 1/10,000 of the country's population – Amateur Radio enthusiasts.
We (at least in the US) just don’t hear much about Chinese hams. We know they exist and this answers a few questions. There have been a number of interesting Chinese Amateur Radio systems put into space in the last few years.
HaLow or IEEE 802.11ah protocol are starting to edge into the realm of affordability.
Amateur Radio data communications in the 902-928 MHz band is “a fertile area for development”.2 I hope to feature an interesting article on this subject by a highly qualified guest author in Zero Retries soon. The link is to a (typically good, conversational) Hackaday article, which links to a great YouTube video by Andreas Speiss (HB9BLA, though this is his “non Amateur Radio” YouTube channel).
A detailed history of Amateur Radio satellites from 1961-2003.
This is really good, and as ARW says, detailed! A bit sad that it doesn’t continue through the present day. Kudos to Steve Bible N7HPR for compiling this.
…
Kudos to Cale Mooth K4HCK - he’s doing a great job of sourcing Zero Retries Interesting mentions in Amateur Radio Weekly and Amateur Radio Daily! Both recommended!
I’ve only watched this video in spurts and skipping around; I haven’t watched it all the way through (though I will).
VU2ESE has a refreshing approach to his (proposed? prototype? future product? - not sure) zBitx radio (of which there is no other mention on the web, that I can find), which despite the prominent mention of CW, will actually support SSB and some data modes. He makes an interesting (and, highly relevant, in my opinion) case for a “CW” radio to include FT8 as a fast, automated way to “sound” the bands to insure that the radio and antenna are working. I think that’s the best argument for an automated method of making contacts, similar to WSPR / WSPRnet, to be able to rapidly and iteratively test antennas, radios, modifications, changing antenna orientations, etc.
This is yet another Zero Retries Interesting development coming out of (adjacent to) Hamvention 2024 that hasn’t been widely mentioned.
My thanks to Garth Kidd VK2TTY on Mastodon for mentioning this video.
kissutil can be used interactively for troubleshooting a KISS TNC. It is usable with direwolf and other generic KISS TNCs connected to a serial port. It can also be used as an application interface where each side places files in a directory for the other to process. See User Guide for more details.
Given the very wide usage of KISS in Amateur Radio applications, this utility might be very handy for troubleshooting when KISS… isn’t quite so simple.
Apologies, I didn’t record the source of this mention.
Of late, limited editing time for Zero Retries hasn’t permitted me to provide excerpts of comments in previous issues. That said, comments have been very (and delightfully) active and informative in recent issues of Zero Retries! Comments in these issues are still open:
Comments in earlier issues of Zero Retries are now closed.
If you provide feedback via email, I may excerpt your feedback or include it in full. Unless you specifically grant me permission to include your name, I won’t do so. Feedback may be lightly edited for clarity.
Join the Fun on Amateur Radio
If you’re not yet licensed as an Amateur Radio Operator, and would like to join the fun by literally having a license to experiment with radio technology, check out Join the Fun on Amateur Radio for some pointers.
In its mission to highlight technological innovation in Amateur Radio, promote Amateur Radio to techies as a literal license to experiment with radio technology, and make Amateur Radio more relevant to society in the 2020s and beyond, Zero Retries is published via email and web, and is available to everyone at no cost. Zero Retries is proud not to participate in the Amateur Radio Publishing Industrial Complex, which hides Amateur Radio content behind paywalls.
My ongoing Thanks to:
Tina Stroh KD7WSF for, well, everything!
Founding Members who generously support Zero Retries financially: Founding Member 0000 - Steven Davidson K3FZT Founding Member 0001 - Prefers to Remain Anonymous 01
Founding Member 0002 - Chris Osburn KD7DVD Founding Member 0003 - Don Rotolo N2IRZ Founding Member 0004 - William Arcand W1WRA Founding Member 0005 - Ben Kuhn KU0HN Founding Member 0006 - Todd Willey KQ4FID Founding Member 0007 - Merik Karman VK2MKZ Founding Member 0008 - Prefers to Remain Anonymous 14 Founding Member 0009 - Prefers to Remain Anonymous 19
Numerous Annual and Monthly subscribers who also generously support Zero Retries financially!
Want to Support Zero Retries?
The most effective way to support Zero Retries is to simply mention Zero Retries to your co-conspirators that are also interested in knowing more about technological innovation that is occurring in Amateur Radio and encourage them to become a fellow subscriber.
One particularly effective method of promoting Zero Retries is to add a mention of Zero Retries to your QRZ page (or other web presence) and include a link:
If you’d like to financially support Zero Retries, becoming a paid subscriber is greatly appreciated and helps offset expenses incurred in publishing Zero Retries. Paid subscriptions for Zero Retries are entirely optional, as explained in this special issue of ZR: Zero Retries Administrivia - Activating Payment Options.
These blogs and newsletters regularly feature Zero Retries Interesting content:
Dan Romanchik KB6NU mentions “Zero Retries Interesting” topics so regularly on his blog (that I otherwise wouldn’t know about) that I’ve bestowed on him the honorific of Pseudostaffer.
Jeff Davis KE9V also mentions “Zero Retries Interesting” topics so regularly on his blog (that I otherwise wouldn’t know about) that I’ve bestowed on him the honorific of Pseudostaffer. (As of 2024-06-01, KE9V’s blog seems to be on hiatus.)
Amateur Radio Weekly by Cale Mooth K4HCK is a weekly anthology of links to interesting Amateur Radio stories.
Experimental Radio News by Bennet Z. Kobb AK4AV discusses (in detail) Experimental (Part 5) licenses issued by the US FCC. It’s a must-read-now for me!
RTL-SDR Blog - Excellent coverage of Software Defined Radio units.
Zero Retries is currently using the Substack email publishing platform to publish Zero Retries. It’s particularly suitable for small newsletters as you can get started for no cost.
If you’re reading this issue on the web and you’d like to see Zero Retries in your email Inbox every Friday afternoon, just click below to join 1800+ other subscribers:
Email issues of Zero Retries are “instrumented” by Substack to gather basic statistics about opens, clicking links, etc.
More bits from Steve Stroh N8GNJ:
SuperPacket blog — Discussing new generations of Amateur Radio Data Communications — beyond Packet Radio (a precursor to Zero Retries)
N8GNJ blog — Amateur Radio Station N8GNJ and the mad science experiments at N8GNJ Labs — Bellingham, Washington, USA
Thanks for reading! Steve Stroh N8GNJ / WRPS598 (He / Him / His) These bits were handcrafted (by a mere human, not an Artificial Intelligence bot) in beautiful Bellingham (The City of Subdued Excitement), Washington, USA, and linked to the Internet via Starlink Satellite Internet Access.
2024-06-07
Blanket permission is granted for TAPR to use any Steve Stroh content in Zero Retries for the TAPR Packet Status Register (PSR) newsletter (I owe them from way back).
Blanket permission is granted for Amateur Radio use of any Steve Stroh content in Zero Retries for Amateur Radio newsletters and distribution via Amateur Radio such as (but not limited to) Packet Radio Networks, Packet Radio Bulletin Board Systems, Repeater Nets, etc.
In such usage, please provide appropriate authorship credit for the content.
If you’d like to reuse an article in this issue for other uses, just ask.
All excerpts from other authors or organizations, including images, are intended to be fair use. Unless otherwise noted in the article, there are no paid promotional items in any Zero Retries articles.
Oddly, there is still no press release by FlexRadio in their News section with the specifics of the improvements of the 8000 series over the current 6000 series. But apparently there was a press release - PileupDX mentioned it - The Next Generation of SDR Solutions to the Amateur Community.
Zero Retries is an independent newsletter promoting technological innovation that is occurring in Amateur Radio, and Amateur Radio as (literally) a license to experiment with and learn about radio technology. Now in its third year of publication, with 1700+ subscribers.
HAM RADIO 2024 in Friedrichshafen, Germany on 2024-06-28 thru 30, in 04 weeks! (Previous mentions of HAM RADIO 2024 have been off by two weeks - please help me keep these correct, folks.)
I’m in (sunny!) Seaside this weekend to soak in some Amateur Radio ambiance and do a little bit of evangelism for Zero Retries at SEA-PAC 2024, which is
The Northwest's Largest Ham Convention and the ARRL Northwestern Division Convention
As explanation to those outside the Pacific Northwest, despite our major cities of Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver, there is no other all-weekend Amateur Radio conference in the Northwest. Thus, SEA-PAC is the “Hamvention” of the Northwest.
SEA-PAC is held in a small convention center in the middle of Seaside, which is a vacation destination on the beautiful Oregon coast, so there are ample distractions besides Amateur Radio to justify a family vacation for non-techie Dad and the kids while Mom indulges in some total immersion of Amateur Radio for a few hours at a time. It’s common for SEA-PAC attendees to drift in and out of SEA-PAC to attend a seminar, check back with an exhibitor that was previously too crowded, and then go for a walk or extended lunch, etc. SEA-PAC has an active flea market, all indoors, with a large number of tables on Saturday, and about 25% of the flea market tables remaining on Sunday.
In summary, SEA-PAC is a smaller, relaxed Amateur Radio conference that draws attendees from the extended Northwest region, including other western states and a fair number of Canadians.
Zero Retries will have its first-ever exhibit table at SEA-PAC 2024, where I will be talking about Zero Retries and hoping to speak with a lot of Zero Retries Interesting Amateur Radio Operators! (Photos in next issue of Zero Retries.)
Separately, Tina KD7WSF will staff the Zero Retries’ flea market table with a fair amount of ephemera from N8GNJ Labs as a fundraiser for Zero Retries. All items will be “priced for sale”.
We hope to see you at both tables!
Nice Mention of Zero Retries in Ria’s Ham Shack Newsletter
But this isn’t the end for ham radio. Over the years I’ve seen a number of small businesses pop up and make ham radio accessories. As has been noted in Zero Retries - another SubStack that you should definitely subscribe to - many of the smaller guys are stepping up and making stuff. And ham radio has always been more of a boutique niche anyway. In particular I have seen Scott Robbins, W4PA, take on the ownership of Vibroplex and add many more product lines. Ironically they are even selling microphones.
N2RJ’s mention caused another burst of new subscribers to Zero Retries, so Thank You N2RJ!
A funny thing happened in the years-long development process to create a new digital voice system called M17 Project, based on open source principles, for Amateur Radio…
It worked! All the pieces are now available for M17 to be a usable system.
Footnote from Zero Retries 0153 that, in retrospect, should have been more prominent:
It’s a longer term discussion, worthy of an (eventual) dedicated issue of Zero Retries, but I’ve recently come to the conclusion that M17 is complete (enough) and “ready to go” to be a capable digital voice… and messaging / data… system for Amateur Radio. There are some issues, including establishing recognition that M17 is usable now, getting it adequately documented, and of course, having at least a few ready-to-use radios with M17 built-in available. But the largest issue with M17 is the momentum, and the sunk costs, of existing single-mode DMR, D-Star, SF repeaters, radios owned by individuals, and Internet interconnection networks. It will take some serious evangelism to get folks to understand the advantages of M17.
My thanks to Zero Retries Pseudostaffer Dan Romanchik KB6NU for a conversation that touched on M17 for sparking this “dawning awareness” on my part that all of the pieces are now in place for M17 to be used for communicating via digital voice (and probably, text messaging and data transfer, though I haven’t fully confirmed that). Those that have been following M17 closely, or involved in its development, have undoubtedly understood this point, but (many? most?) of us merely trying to follow the progress on M17 haven’t quite caught up to this development.
In answer to a likely question (thanks again KB6NU!) in advance:
Why haven’t I been hearing about this progress with M17?
… I can’t really answer why the official M17 team hasn’t been better evangelizing that M17 really is “ready to go”. I only recently came to this realization from trying to follow, and explain, M17 for discussion here in Zero Retries.
Another obvious question in advance:
Do we really need more splintering of digital voice modes in Amateur Radio?
In a word, Yes.
Yet another Digital Voice mode is justified given the significant technical (and philosophical) differentiation of M17. There is a significant user base in Amateur Radio that does not like using proprietary technology such as proprietary CODECs in Amateur Radio, and M17 is an answer to that issue.
The primary differentiation of M17 versus all the other VHF / UHF (repeater operation) digital voice modes used in Amateur Radio is that M17 is fully Open Source. All of the details - hardware, software, protocols, etc., especially the critical voice CODEC are publicly documented. That documentation is sometimes not easily found, but it’s all out there. Part of my “M17 mini project” is to track down all of that for easy reference. And, with technologies such as Software Defined Transceivers and Multi Mode Digital Voice Modem (MMDVM), it’s “easy” to incorporate, or switch to a new mode such as M17.
As I say above, to fully explain all of this requires a dedicated issue of Zero Retries (which I intend to do within the next month), and perhaps even a small book, as well as other support resources, such as…
Another resource that I think has been needed for M17 to become more mainstream in Amateur Radio is an email discussion list, which I’ve now created:
M17-Users page on Groups.io (if you have a groups.io account)
Send a blank email to m17-users+subscribe@groups.io.
Note - I started M17-Users as a free account on groups.io, which has a maximum of 100 users. If you try to subscribe and are told the list is “full”, please be patient. I’ll deal with expanding M17-Users into a paid Groups.io option (hopefully with some financial assistance) in due course.
Admittedly, it’s… inadvisable… to create such an email list on a weekend when I won’t be able to actively monitor it, but this article was the optimal opportunity to mention such a group. Thus, initially, I chose to require approval of new subscribers. I’ll approve new subscribers as fast as I’m able - please be patient.
If you’re interested in being a co-moderator of M17-Users, please let me know.
One last note is that in doing the aforementioned dedicated issue of Zero Retries on M17, (potentially) a small book, and the M17-Users email list, I’m not trying to usurp or bypass or exclude the existing M17 Project web page or resources, or “steal any of the credit” for all those who’ve created or supported M17. These items are my individual assessment of additional “exposure” that M17 needs to “rise to the next level” of wider usage and understanding, and what I’m capable of doing to support M17 as an individual, in conjunction with my work in Zero Retries. If there’s interest on the part of the existing M17 team, I’m happy to work with them to integrate these resources into the larger M17 ecosystem.
And… to answer two last questions, given the nature of M17 as an Open Source system:
Yes, I will make the contents of my (potential) M17 book publicly available (though I plan to also sell it as a hardcopy book).
Yes, the choice of Groups.io (a proprietary system) was deliberate. I have no desire, or ability, to self-host an email list using open source email list systems.
The "QMX+" (QRP Labs Mulitmode Xcvr): a feature-packed, high performance, 11-band (160-6m) 5W multi-mode transceiver kit, including embedded SDR receiver, 24-bit 48 ksps USB sound card, RTC, CAT control, synthesized VFO with TCXO reference. QMX+ transmits a SINGLE SIGNAL, it is not an SSB modulator with associated unwanted sideband and residual carrier, or intermodulation due to amplifier non-linearity. QMX+ outputs a pure single signal. QMX is currently only suitable for single tone FSK modes, which covers the majority of digital modes in use today (if it later supports SSB, multi-tone and phase shift digi modes will be possible). This includes everything in WSJT-X, JS8Call, some fldigi modes e.g. RTTY, Olivia and more. QMX+ is also suitable for on/off keyed modes such as CW because it has click-reducing RF envelope shaping; it is not suitable (until and if SSB is implemented) for phase shift keyed modes such as PSK31 or modes involving multiple concurrent tones such as WinLink.
The above is very short shrift for this radio that’s been more than a year in development, has a wide range of relevant (not “fluffy”) features, and is the product of one person - Hans Summers G0UPL. Please go to the link above for the full description of the QMX+.
What’s amazing is that the price, if you buy it assembled, with options such as a case, is less than $250! Granted, this is a low transmit power HF radio, but wow… for that price… it’s pretty Zero Retries Interesting! What was particularly Zero Retries Interesting was this mention:
QMX+ is not yet suitable for phase shift keyed modes such as PSK31 or modes involving multiple concurrent tones such as WinLink (a later SSB firmware release will enable this).
I’m particularly interested in the QMX+ because of its 6 meter (50 - 54 MHz in the US) capability. The 6 meter band is called the “Magic Band” for its ability to act like a VHF band (short range), or an HF band (long range) depending on the whims of the ionosphere, and that sounds like fun, especially given that antennas for 6 meters can be made to a reasonable size.
To me, it’s impressive that QRP Labs will (potentially; apparently it’s not promised) enable such a significant new feature (mode), solely in a future firmware release.
Apologies that I can’t find a reference to who first brought the debut of the QMX+ to my attention… but it was probably Zero Retries Pseudostaffer Jeff Davis KE9V.
From WESA 90.5 - Pittsburgh’s National Public Radio News Station:
Carnegie Mellon University first offered the Introduction to Amateur Radio course to aspiring student radio operators in spring 2022. Students learn not only the technical skills necessary for basic construction and use of amateur radio, or ham radio, but also the history and culture, dating back to the early 20th century, when the U.S. Radio Act of 1912 guaranteed the use of the electromagnetic spectrum to the public.
“I think it's one of the very unique things about ham radio: It's a people thing,” said former course student and Carnegie Tech Radio Club president Anish Singhani. “At its core, it's about the people.”
Amateur radio in the advanced technological age
In the 21st century — years past the advent of smartphones and the internet — ham radio may seem like an obsolete form of communication, but assistant teaching professor Tom Zajdel explained that amateur radio is still evolving and improving. While new technologies have asserted themselves in the sphere of wireless communication, Zajdel believes amateur radio is around for the long haul.
“Ham radio’s death has been predicted many times, but it changed a lot and evolved,” Zajdel said. “[It] used to just be Morse code, like that was your only option. Then, vacuum tubes were a thing, so you could modulate your voice … The technology keeps changing.”
“Now you can do digital communication modes using encoding schemes and compression schemes that were unheard of 20 years ago,” Singhani said.
The technological developments in amateur radio aren’t the only thing keeping it alive. Behind the science of soldering an FM transmitter and bouncing radio waves off the atmosphere lies a technical art that never gets old to the operators.
“Amateurs like building their own equipment, and there's just a lot of pride in kind of making your own thing — can I make the antenna super-small, super-lightweight, really efficient?” Zajdel posed. “It's just really neat to see the art coming in that way.”
The amateur radio course gives CMU students the chance to connect with operators across Pittsburgh on the air; Singhani says it also strengthens personal connections across the CMU community.
“One of my favorite parts of being the president of this club has been collaborating with all of these other groups on campus that we provide radio communications for,” Singhani said. “I've worked with all of these different groups that do all these different things, but in some way or another, I've been able to help them out with [their] radio services.”
CMU is a major technological educational institution in the US, and that it finds merit in offering a course dedicated to Amateur Radio is to me, highly significant.
It puzzles me why significant developments and mentions like this are not widely reported in Amateur Radio media, but lack of mentions like this are why I saw the need to start Zero Retries.
The ARRL Digital contest is this weekend (2024-06-01 and 02 (first full weekend of June). In my opinion, the contest should include all of the VHF / UHF bands to be more inclusive to (US) Technician Amateur Radio Operators. Although the intent of the ARRL Digital Contest seems to be data modes, it’s ambiguous as Digital Voice would seem to be within the category of this contest, but I’m not a contester. The evolution of this contest will be interesting in future years as perhaps FreeDV (Digital Voice) and FreeDATA (data using the FreeDV waveform) converge become integrated (or at least, easily interoperable), allowing interleaved voice and data communications. I hope to participate in this contest in future years with a portable system.
Unfortunately, many of the links in the description of the ARRL Digital Contest don’t work due to the ARRL’s ongoing challenges and recovery from its recent Systems Service Disruption.
Apologies for not mentioning this event sooner. I think it was mentioned to me in advance, but I don’t think such a mention made it into previous issues of Zero Retries.
Electromagnetic Field is a non-profit camping festival [in Eastnor, UK, May 30th – June 2nd 2024] for those with an inquisitive mind or an interest in making things: hackers, artists, geeks, crafters, scientists, and engineers.
A temporary town of nearly three thousand like-minded people enjoying a long weekend of talks, performances, and workshops on everything from blacksmithing to biometrics, chiptunes to computer security, high altitude ballooning to lockpicking, origami to democracy, and online privacy to knitting.
To help matters along, we provide fast internet, power to the tent, good beer, and amazing installations, entirely organised by a dedicated team of volunteers.
The above description doesn’t mention radio, but I think that the mentions to me (again, apologies…) stated that radio is a significant part of Electromagnetic Field.
Thank you to Viol for writing in and letting us know that his uSDR software has recently been updated to V1.7.0. The uSDR software (not to be confused with the unrelated uSDR hardware) is a lightweight general-purpose multimode program for Windows that supports the RTL-SDR, Airspy, BladeRF, HackRF, LimeSDR, and other SDR radios.
Viol highlights the latest features added in the 1.7.0 update below:
Fobos SDR frontend native support, the very new SDR from RigExpert
bladeRF API v2.5.0 support, oversampling mode up to 122.88 MHz sample rate (do not forget to update FX3 firmware)
advanced IQ playback mode, precise timing and streaming
improved DSP routines and memory management, minimized CPU load
excellent ruler tool for spectrum frequency and amplitude measurements
Despite support of Software Defined Transceiver units (BladeRF, HackRF, LimeSDR), uSDR is a receiver application.
Interesting mention of Amateur Radio, and a different way to think about Software Defined Radio, in this article from RF Globalnet:
More Than “Voodoo Magic”
SDR is popular with amateur radio enthusiasts who use the technology for radio communication, satellite tracking, and signal decoding. Ham radio operators, especially the younger generation with ECE/CS degrees love the technology but parts of the older generation frown upon SDR as “voodoo magic” with too many computer/network dependencies.
Ham radio operator and professional technologist Onno Benschop (VK6FLAB) says on his podcast Foundations of Amateur Radio (April 28, 2019)that describing SDR as “traditional radio where all the components are implemented in software” is similar to “explaining how a radio works by waiving your hands and saying: here is magic.” Benschop says that how SDR works is altogether more interesting and thought-provoking than that.
“You may have heard that a Software Defined Radio hears all frequencies at the same time,” Benschop says. “Essentially, it's a voltmeter connected to your antenna, spitting out measurements as fast as it can for processing by a computer. The waveform that comes from those antenna voltage measurements represents all of the RF spectrum and it's just the beginning of what you can do next.
“In the same way that my voice is made up of lots of different parts, all played together, the RF spectrum is made up of the local broadcast stations, the local TV stations, mobile phones, garage remotes, Roy on the 7130 DX net, this podcast on your local repeater, all at the same time, all played together, to make the waveform that represents the measurements you make at the base of an antenna. Unlike a traditional radio, which has to work hard to filter out undesirable information, a software defined radio can filter out information by just deleting those measurements you're not interested in.”
While Benschop is interested in SDR because of his love of amateur radio, defense agencies worldwide seeking advanced communication solutions are utilizing it as well to the point is emerging as a vital component in modernizing military communication systems.
A sidebar on this article pointed to an RF Globalnet article from 2023-06 that I missed:
The Federal Communications Commission’s Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau (PSHSB or Bureau) seeks comment on any observed impacts to communications that resulted from the May 2024 severe geomagnetic storm. On Thursday, May 9, 2024, the National Weather Service Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) issued a severe (G4) Geomagnetic Storm Watch, forecasting a series of coronal mass ejections (CMEs) that merged with the Earth’s electromagnetic fields between May 7-11, 2024. On May 11, 2024, the storm reached extreme (G5) conditions, the first time this severity has been observed since 2003. According to the SWPC, CMEs are large expulsions of plasma and magnetic field from the Sun’s corona. Electromagnetic currents generated by CMEs, when merged with the Earth’s electromagnetic fields, may distort the propagation of radio frequency waves.
From brr.fyi (blog of an IT specialist who spent a year in Antarctica):
It’s a bit of a departure from the normal content you’d find on brr.fyi, but it reflects my software / IT engineering background.
I hope folks find this to be an interesting glimpse into the on-the-ground reality of using the Internet in bandwidth-constrained environments.
…
It’s a non-trivial feat of engineering to get any Internet at the South Pole! If you’re bored, check out the South Pole Satellite Communications page on the public USAP.gov website, for an overview of the limited selection of satellites available for Polar use.
…
Until very recently, at McMurdo, nearly a thousand people, plus numerous scientific projects and operational workloads, all relied on a series of links that provided max, aggregate speeds of a few dozen megabits per second to the entire station. For comparison, that’s less bandwidth shared by everyone combined than what everyone individually can get on a typical 4g cellular network in an American suburb.
I found a mention of this blog early during his tenure in Antarctica and I was fascinated by their techie perspective of the amazing adaptations that are required (by humans) to live in Antarctica.
This particular post is Zero Retries Interesting because it explains, in contemporary terms, that TCP/IP does work at v… e… r… y… slow data rates… if reasonable assumptions and engineering (which they explain) are applied to Internet applications. Like “higher” speeds possible with Amateur Radio data communications on VHF / UHF such as VARA FM, New Packet Radio, etc. (think kilobits per second, not necessarily megabits per second).
TinyCircuits has nothing to do with Amateur Radio (at least yet…), but they have an amusing… actually, kind of amazing, product line, including the TINYTV 2 shown above. TinyCircuits products would be an ideal gift for techies.
I decided that TinyCircuits was worth a mention here in Zero Retries given the recent discussions of new generations of portable Amateur Radio units (hopefully Software Defined Transceivers), and the challenges of small, power efficient displays, etc. In addition to the “cute” products, TinyCircuits offers the TinyDuino Platform:
… a miniature open-source electronics platform based on the easy-to-use hardware and software Arduino platform. The platform is comprised of a TinyDuino processor board and multiple TinyShields which add special functions, like sensors, communications, and display options that stack together like LEGO blocks. The TinyDuino Platform is also open-source, we have released all of the design files for all of our products. If you have a great idea you are free to design your own board derived from our design files which can be found here.
If you’re not yet licensed as an Amateur Radio Operator, and would like to join the fun by literally having a license to experiment with radio technology, check out Join the Fun on Amateur Radio for some pointers.
In its mission to highlight technological innovation in Amateur Radio, promote Amateur Radio to techies as a literal license to experiment with radio technology, and make Amateur Radio more relevant to society in the 2020s and beyond, Zero Retries is published via email and web, and is available to everyone at no cost. Zero Retries is proud not to participate in the Amateur Radio Publishing Industrial Complex, which hides Amateur Radio content behind paywalls.
My ongoing Thanks to:
Tina Stroh KD7WSF for, well, everything!
Founding Members who generously support Zero Retries financially: Founding Member 0000 - Steven Davidson K3FZT Founding Member 0001 - Prefers to Remain Anonymous 01
Founding Member 0002 - Chris Osburn KD7DVD Founding Member 0003 - Don Rotolo N2IRZ Founding Member 0004 - William Arcand W1WRA Founding Member 0005 - Ben Kuhn KU0HN Founding Member 0006 - Todd Willey KQ4FID Founding Member 0007 - Merik Karman VK2MKZ Founding Member 0008 - Prefers to Remain Anonymous 14 Founding Member 0009 - Prefers to Remain Anonymous 19
Numerous Annual and Monthly subscribers who also generously support Zero Retries financially!
Want to Support Zero Retries?
The most effective way to support Zero Retries is to simply mention Zero Retries to your co-conspirators that are also interested in knowing more about technological innovation that is occurring in Amateur Radio and encourage them to become a fellow subscriber.
One particularly effective method of promoting Zero Retries is to add a mention of Zero Retries to your QRZ page (or other web presence) and include a link:
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These blogs and newsletters regularly feature Zero Retries Interesting content:
Dan Romanchik KB6NU mentions “Zero Retries Interesting” topics so regularly on his blog (that I otherwise wouldn’t know about) that I’ve bestowed on him the honorific of Pseudostaffer.
Jeff Davis KE9V also mentions “Zero Retries Interesting” topics so regularly on his blog (that I otherwise wouldn’t know about) that I’ve bestowed on him the honorific of Pseudostaffer.
Amateur Radio Weekly by Cale Mooth K4HCK is a weekly anthology of links to interesting Amateur Radio stories.
Experimental Radio News by Bennet Z. Kobb AK4AV discusses (in detail) Experimental (Part 5) licenses issued by the US FCC. It’s a must-read-now for me!
RTL-SDR Blog - Excellent coverage of Software Defined Radio units.
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More bits from Steve Stroh N8GNJ:
SuperPacket blog — Discussing new generations of Amateur Radio Data Communications — beyond Packet Radio (a precursor to Zero Retries)
N8GNJ blog — Amateur Radio Station N8GNJ and the mad science experiments at N8GNJ Labs — Bellingham, Washington, USA
Thanks for reading! Steve Stroh N8GNJ / WRPS598 (He / Him / His) These bits were handcrafted (by a mere human, not an Artificial Intelligence bot) in beautiful Bellingham (The City of Subdued Excitement), Washington, USA, and linked to the Internet via Starlink Satellite Internet Access.
2024-05-31
Blanket permission is granted for TAPR to use any Steve Stroh content in Zero Retries for the TAPR Packet Status Register (PSR) newsletter (I owe them from way back).
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Zero Retries is an independent newsletter promoting technological innovation that is occurring in Amateur Radio, and Amateur Radio as (literally) a license to experiment with and learn about radio technology. Now in its third year of publication, with 1600+ 1700+ subscribers.
In Zero Retries 0150, a mere three issues / weeks ago, Zero Retries achieved 1600+ subscribers. It’s rare that new subscribers tell me where they heard about Zero Retries, and Substack only parses out a small number that came from other Amateur Radio newsletters on Substack. Thus I don’t really know where this wave of new subscribers came from.
Welcome, new subscribers, to Zero Retries!
Paid Subscribers Update
My thanks to Joe Hamelin W7COM for becoming a Paid Subscriber to Zero Retries this past week! W7COM shared this message with his paid subscription:
Good Geekness
Financial support is a real vote of confidence for continuing to publish Zero Retries.
SEA-PAC 2024 pin designed by Adam Lea KC7NKP. Image courtesy of SEA-PAC.
Zero Retries will be attending SEA-PAC 2024 in Seaside, Oregon, USA on Saturday June 1st and Sunday June 2nd, 2024. There will be a Zero Retries booth, as well as having a table in the flea market to cleanout some of the excess ephemera from N8GNJ Labs. We will also have a bit of Zero Retries collectible items, so if you are a Zero Retries fan, come early. We’ll also have lots of DLARC stickers! (Zero Retries stickers are still in development.)
Update on Let’s Get Some More Manuals Scanned
In Zero Retries 0152, I asked Zero Retries readers to contribute to a project to get more electronics manuals scanned for Internet Archive. I’m happy to report that more than $600 was raised after that appeal.
Hamvention 2024 - Not Much Zero Retries Interesting
I don’t have anything substantive to add to the mentions in Zero Retries 0152 about some Zero Retries Interesting-ish announcements at Hamvention 2024. If you Zero Retries readers saw something I missed, please let us all know in the comments.
The most Zero Retries Interesting item I learned of was the ComJoT CJ-1 “Android portable radio”. See the article below for more detail.
Kudos to Cale Mooth K4HCK of Amateur Radio Daily for capturing some brief audio interviews with Zero Retries Interesting exhibitors at Hamvention 2024, including HamSCI, Photon Radio, Libre Space Foundation SatNOGS, AMSAT CubeSatSim, and AREDN. I really liked K4HCK’s technique - quick, audio-only interviews, made available within a few days of being recorded (a few were posted the same day). Noted for future events that I attend!
FlexRadio 8000 Series HF Radios - Even More Capable… Except for FreeDV
By Steve Stroh N8GNJ
Kudos to the FreeDV team for implementing FreeDV via their clever ezDV dongle… and raspberries to FlexRadio for requiring that method for FreeDV to be available on these “more powerful” FlexRadio products.
Since the announcement of a new line of highest-end HF radios on Friday 2024-05-17, FlexRadio has posted some information about this new product line. The highest-end unit is the FLEX-8600M. Obviously this product line is newer and more powerful, with more potential for future upgrades with a more powerful processor and larger Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA). But… (not being a contester or DXer), the improvements offered in the 8000 product line are lost on me. If you’re curious, YouTubers Kyle Krieg AA0Z of Kyle - AA0Z and Jason Johnston KC5HWB of Ham Radio 2.0 scored 1:1 interviews with FlexRadio’s Mike Walker VA3MW, and both of them sounded impressed.
But one lack of a feature in the FlexRadio 8000 product line really stood out to me… no inclusion of the FreeDV digital voice mode as a standard feature.
To be fair… all of the other “big” Amateur Radio HF radio manufacturers - Alinco, Elecraft, Icom, Kenwood, and Yaesu join FlexRadio in not supporting FreeDV without an outboard dongle. But those others didn’t boast of doubling processing power and quadrupling the size of the FPGA in a new “SDR” HF radio design in 2024.
I think the dichotomy of the potential of Software Defined Radio… and the reality of what manufacturers choose to do with the potential capabilities of Software Defined Radio technology was illustrated perfectly in these two developments at Hamvention 2024:
Announcement of the FlexRadio 8000 series by FlexRadio
Announcement of the ezDV Adapter by TAPR and the FreeDV team
ezDV is a handheld hardware device that allows easy use of FreeDV, whether on the go or at home. Powered by an ESP32-S3 microcontroller, its built-in Wi-Fi support allows completely wireless setup (with supported radios) along with enabling more modern functionality such as FreeDV Reporter reporting and wireless firmware updates.
So… on the one hand, FlexRadio debuts a much more capable line of HF radios, with even more processor power and an even larger FPGA. But, despite all that “power”, the one thing that these radios apparently can’t do… is to operate the FreeDV digital voice mode.
Enter the ezDV which is the FreeDV mode implemented in a small dongle (with the not very powerful ESP32-S3 processor). The ezDV can connect to current FlexRadio units via Wi-Fi, which then allows a FlexRadio unit, apparently including the 8000 series, to then operate FreeDV.
Keep in mind that there’s nothing in FreeDV that’s dependent on specific hardware. FreeDV is open source software and there’s ample support available for implementing it into any software defined radio platform that has sufficient processing power.
Candidly… if I worked for FlexRadio… I would treat the requirement of an ezDV to operate FreeDV on current generation FlexRadio units as an embarrassment. A team of part-time developers were able to implement FreeDV… but FlexRadio (with native access to vastly more capable processing power of the current generation FlexRadio units) couldn’t… or perhaps more damning… wouldn’t implement FreeDV as a native mode.
I say wouldn’t, because a previous version of FlexRadio’s SmartSDR software could install FreeDV, to be able to run it on the radio.
No matter what the “advanced features” of the FlexRadio 8000 series, the lack of FreeDV as a native feature in SmartOS, is (in my mind) a significant failing on the part of FlexRadio. That FlexRadio can’t, or won’t, implement such a fundamental (in the mid 2020s) new mode says to me that FlexRadio is focused on the past of Amateur Radio:
RTTY isn’t quite a century old; but the rest of those modes are more than a century old.
Instead of adding a new mode that was created within the 21st century and is “native digital” (could only be implemented in a digital radio), FlexRadio has chosen to add “dancing on the head of a pin” features, rather than a feature that reflects advanced capabilities of Amateur Radio, such as FreeDV’s amazing robustness in the presence of noise and interference. In my opinion, such decisions by FlexRadio pretty much negate the potential of Software Defined Radio in the FlexRadio product line.
Unfortunately, the Connect Systems newsletter(s) are only available via email - there’s no web version. Thus this recent newsletter is “reprinted” here in its entirety for the Zero Retries readership, and perpetuity of the Zero Retries web version.
This particular CS newsletter is Zero Retries Interesting because it illustrates the challenges of Amateur Radio manufacturers in the era of a dominant technology vendor who can exert overpowering influence on radio systems. Or can they? See commentary after the CS article.
Connect Systems - Blog of the M17 Project - 2024-05-18
To the furtherance of the M17 project, I want to add D-STAR to the CS7000 M17 PLUS radio. The basic work has already been done in the MMDVM. The only real issue is the Vocoder. While there are some D-STAR vocoders, none of them is as good as what DVSI sells.
The D-STAR vocoder was first used in the ICOM D-STAR radios over 20 years ago. That means that the underlying patents are now expired. However, that does not mean the Copyright has expired because Copyrights are now good for about 99 years thanks the Micky Mouse and Disney.
To get around Copyrights with a Vocoder, you take the patents and write from scratch the code to make the D-STAR vocoder. As long as you did not copy the vocoder made by DVSI, you are clear. However, by writing the new code, you might now be infringing on some new patent of DVSI or some other company.
The get around the potential patent and copyright issue, I made an offer to DVSI. For every CS7000 M17 and CS7000 M17 PLUS radio we sold, I would give them a $2.00 royalty against them making a claim that the D-STAR vocoder in the radio infringed against their patents or copyrights. This is in addition to the royalty they already get for the AMBE II Vocoder we use to support the DMR features. We were not asking them for the firmware of their D-STAR vocoder.
The royalty concept was [completely] rejected. If I want to use the D-STAR vocoder, I need to pay them an up-front fee of about $350,000 plus royalty for every radio I sell. My alternative was to buy their AMBE 3000 series chip for $22.
For a company that is going to sell between a hundred thousand radios and a million radios like Motorola and ICOM, that up-front fee is no big deal. For a smaller company, that up-front fee is outrageous.
While that $22 fee for the AMBE 3000 chip is acceptable, it puts us at a significant technical disadvantage compared to the larger companies. The first problem is the AMBE 3000 chip takes a significant amount of power which means the battery life will be significantly less compared to the larger companies. The second issue is the AMBE chip takes room on the PCB which means my radio will now be larger compared to the larger companies.
In my opinion DVSI is in violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust laws. Because of their policies, it is not possible for a smaller company to compete against the larger companies as described above. However, to fight them, would cost more in legal fees than their outrageous up-front fees.
My suggestion for the Amateur community is to make the best vocoder you can and if DVSI then says you are breaking their patents, ask which one so you can then fix the problem. If they complain about copyright infringement, ask how they can be in violation of their copyrights if they have not released their code to copy. If you reverse engineered their code, go out of your way so you are not infringing.
Here is an interesting question. If I bought a AMBE 3000 series chip and put it in the radio but did not hook it up and then I duplicated their code and ran it in the radio, would I be infringing on DVSI intellectual property?
My thanks to friend of Zero Retries Steve Lampereur KB9MWR for an extended email and phone discussion about this topic, which greatly helped me frame what follows.
I understand Connect Systems wanting to make the best possible, “most features” radio that it can. Clearly a portable radio that can do FM, DMR, M17, and D-Star would be more interesting and offer more value than a radio that couldn’t do D-Star.
But the above situation illustrates perfectly why M17 (and its underlying CODEC - Codec 2) was developed as an open source technology in the first place. It’s open source, thus no patent fees, no royalty fees, no intellectual property, copyright, or other such encumbrances.
That is the point of open source technology!
That’s not to say that using open source technology is cheap to implement, or easy to implement, or mature, or robust, or any other guarantees.
But when you use open source technology, you’re a lot less likely to have a company quietly suggest “Nice little digital voice radio business you have there… would be a shame if all your profits, and more, had to be used for a legal defense against a patent lawsuit.”
Unfortunately, given the size of the Amateur Radio market, I don’t see any reason why DVSI would have any incentive to “play nice” with Connect Systems and offer a reasonable deal such as what Connect Systems proposes. In fact, there’s a disadvantage to do. If DVSI gave Connect Systems a reasonable (for Amateur Radio) deal, then Motorola and other big radio manufacturers could demand (with some clout) that DVSI offer them the same good deal that Connect Systems got.
If DVSI is ever challenged about their stance towards a small Amateur Radio manufacturer, they can point out that “it only costs $22 per radio / chip to incorporate our superior, proven, industry-standard digital voice technology”.
The failing in Amateur Radio digital voice isn’t that we don’t have a free or cheap version of DVSI / AMBE digital voice CODEC chips… it’s that Amateur Radio manufacturers haven’t offered… and Amateur Radio Operators haven’d demanded the use of Codec 2 digital voice.
Amateur Radio has an elegant way to simply work around “the DVSI / AMBE issue” - use M17 (and within M17, Codec 2). It’s not widely recognized yet1, but M17 is now (finally) a viable digital voice system for Amateur Radio that’s truly an alternative to DMR, SF, SF, P25, etc. There’s even “data” in there (I’m told, but I’m still teasing that out).
BUT, and it’s a huge, enormous, perhaps insurmountable BUT… The big Amateur Radio manufacturers want to ignore the existence of Codec 2, M17, and FreeDV because they feel they’ll make more money (and less cost in overhead, engineering, customer support hassle) by continuing the previous paradigm of using DVSI’s AMBE CODEC chips, for which they can “peanut butter” the costs into their (more profitable) commercial radio product lines.
Hedging Bets by Including D-Star?
I understand why Connect Systems wants to “hedge its bets” on their upcoming M17 radio by trying to include D-Star, but I think that’s a bad choice beyond the issues CS has encountered in dealing with DVSI. Some issues I see2 in attempting to incorporate D-Star in Connect Systems M17 radios:
The primary (most enthusiastic) market for D-Star radios is in Japan, and my impression is that Connect Systems (Amateur Radio) markets mostly into the US Amateur Radio market.
From my (admittedly imperfect / incomplete) observations, I don’t see any momentum in D-Star in this era. I’m not hearing about enthusiastic new D-Star users (D-Star radios remain “Hmm… really gotta think about this” expensive), nor any new D-Star repeaters going on the air. Yes, there are a lot of D-Star repeaters, and D-Star radios out there, but that was (again, from my impressions) mostly from the initial wave of excitement two decades ago now for D-Star the first digital voice system that was designed for Amateur Radio. From my observations, the majority of the energy and momentum for Amateur Radio digital voice has shifted to DMR3.
D-Star capability isn’t needed for this radio to sell; D-Star capability won’t be a differentiating factor like M17 capability will be. If one wants to buy a radio with M17 built-in, Connect Systems is currently the only vendor (that will be) offering such a product. If one wants D-Star capability in a portable radio, Icom and Kenwood offer that capability now, in more mature, supported products.
Despite Icom being an early advocate of the open source D-RATS software for D-Star radios, D-RATS has essentially been deprecated (if I understand the situation correctly) because of its use of Python 2 and that being deprecated in favor of Python 3. If Icom was really interested in promoting D-Star, it would have allocated some funding for professional developers to update D-RATS to be usable with more modern computer operating systems (port it to Python 3). That Icom has not, to date, done so, speaks to its waning support for D-Star.
Trying to add D-Star to the Connect Systems M17 radios adds complexity to the radio, beyond the DVSI / AMBE chipset issues that Connect Systems has encountered. Can the radio support easy, mixed-mode FM / DMR / M17 and D-Star?Connect Systems’ M17 radios already include backwards compatibility with DMR and FM - I think that can be considered “good enough” backwards compatility.
Impressions of the ComJoT CJ-1 Android Portable Radio
By Steve Stroh N8GNJ
Last moment update - I reached out to ComJoT to perhaps arrange a post-article interview and “Joe” of ComJoT Sales was very responsive, and quickly updated the CJ-1 web page to include a prominent mention of the “audio passthrough” capability of the CJ-1. I hope to do an interview with ComJoT about the CJ-1 in a future issue of Zero Retries. Unfortunately, time didn’t permit a rewrite of the article, and I didn’t want to postpone it given that the CJ-1 was the most Zero Retries Interesting development from Hamvention 2024.
…
A few observations about this new portable “Amateur Radio” unit solely from information provided by the manufacturer. TL:DR - I’m intrigued.
The world’s first Open Source Dual Band Android Amateur Radio!
No need to have an Android Radio with Old, Legacy Operating System
CJ-1 is running Android 14 and has AES256 Encryption
DMR Tier 1 and 2 + FM Analog (136-174MHz, 400-480MHz)
It quickly becomes apparent that while Amateur Radio is a market for the CJ-1, it’s not ComJoT’s primary market. The primary clue is the price - $999. Another is mentions of this radio appealing to “amateur radio aficionados” and “amateur radio enthusiasts”. Yet another is prominent mention of its AES 256 encryption capability, which of course is not allowed on Amateur Radio.
But there’s a lot to like on this unit. Like previous “Android phone with a radio grafted on” units, the CJ-1 is primarily an Android mobile phone so there’s an always-on (as long as you’re within cellular range with the bill paid up) Internet connection. With always-on Internet, there is live access to RepeaterBook and RFinder repeater lookup.
In looking at the RFinder page… their implementation of “Android phone with radio grafted on” looks very similar to the CJ-1 with a few cosmetic differences. It seems likely that both units are made by the same radio manufacturer.
The radio side is similarly conventional:
DMR Tier 1 and 2 + FM Analog (136-174MHz, 400-480MHz)
Power Output VHF: 5W/1W, UHF: 4W/1W
Though it’s not mentioned on the CJ-1 product page or the CJ-1 brochure (mentioned in passing on a Hamvention 2024 walkthrough video on YouTube), a key differentiation of the CJ-1 from other “Android phone with a radio grafted on” units is that the audio path is two-way between the Android subsystem and the radio subsystem.
Previous implementations of “Android phone with a radio grafted on” units were limited to an Android app for controlling the radio, and the lookup features. (You couldn’t really run Android software on the radio subsystem.) The two-way audio path means that data modes such as packet radio and APRS could “easily” be implemented in an Android app on the CJ-1 and used on Amateur Radio.
ComJot seems to equate Android with “Open Source” with statements like:
The ComJoT CJ-1, dubbed as the first Open Source Android Amateur Radio, is a feature-packed device that marries traditional communication methods with modern technology.
Open Source Advantage Being open source, the ComJoT CJ-1 encourages innovation and customization, allowing users to adapt the device to their specific needs and preferences.
At least there’s no mention of a ComJot Android store, so it seems likely that user-developed Android apps can be loaded onto the unit via Internet, micro SD card, or USB-C.
The $999 price of the CJ-1 can quickly be rationalized by an extensive set of additional features that, with clever software, could be taken advantage of in a portable Amateur Radio unit:
“Octa-core” 2 GHz CPU
MicroSD card slot (though they use the older terminology of “TF” card.
4” color display with touch screen.
Camera (Front and Rear).
Wi-Fi (both 2.4 GHz and 5.8 GHz).
Bluetooth (Low Energy 5.0 - reasonably current).
Overall, pretty rugged.
3 Ah battery.
USB-C charging and data.
Despite some overzealous marketing phraseology such as
The Android interface makes it familiar to younger, tech-savvy generations, while its amateur radio features appeal to traditional radio enthusiasts, fostering cross-generational communication, learning and excitement about Amateur Radio.
And a few unexplained issues (there’s a “flat contact” external Speaker / Microphone connector on the right side of the radio, but no mention of such an accessory being available)…
As I looked into this unit more and more, it kind of grew on me. Granted, I’ve never seen one, let alone actually used one so I have no idea if this radio is well-developed, or not. But the CJ-1 seems to have more potential for Zero Retries Interesting applications than the $749 Kenwood TH-D75A. Just one example (imaginary) application could be a smart APRS digipeater (implemented in an Android app) that could be remotely controlled and powered indefinitely via the USB-C port and a big USB-C power bank.
One appealing factor of the CJ-1 for me is that it’s big and rugged instead of small and petite. There are only a few physical buttons, and the rest of the controls are via touch screen, thus all functions could be reasonably discoverable in the graphical user interface, a welcome change from inscrutable multifunction keys requiring carrying a mini manual (or a PDF on another device). It also has a large capacity (and swappable) battery.
I wish ComJoT well with the CJ-1 and I plan to reach out to them and ask to be notified about Amateur Radio applications as they are developed.
Todd Carney K7TFC announced a number of new proudly “Hardware for Hardware-Defined Amateur Radio” products in his Spring 2024 newsletter, including:
Bidirectional PG-TIA IF Amplifier
GPAA-1 General-Purpose Audio Amp
Dual-Gate J310 JFET
and a number of others. I highlight DIY RF here in Zero Retries because I’m in awe of K7TFC and other “solo” Amateur Radio hardware vendors who keep Amateur Radio interesting and exciting by offering unique products, no matter how mundane.
What is Mostly DIY RF, Anyway?
That really should be a “who” and not a “what” question. Mostly DIY RF is just a trade name for me, Todd Carney, K7TFC. I'm a garden-variety amateur-radio enthusiast, and I don't mind admitting I'm also an amateur at manufacturing and business as well. Naturally, I try to do my best at all three, but nevertheless as a true amateur (from the Latin amare: to love; doing something for the love of it).
As a business, MDRF is the smallest possible: it's just me, K7TFC. There's no other workers or employees, and there's certainly no other investors or sources of capital. The good side of this is that I don't have to answer to anyone else, nor do I need to meet their expectations of profit or capital gains. I can offer products to fellow amateurs that no properly-capitalized company would ever bother with, and I can do so at prices that are lower than what a high-overhead firm could get away with. In fact, my business overhead is the same one I live under, and though I do have some dedicated space for MDRF work, my kitchen table has been pressed into service more than once.
The B.B. Link adapter solves one problem: exposing the built-in TNC packet modem from the Kenwood TH-D74/5 radios to devices that can not use the Bluetooth Classic serial profile to access it. It does this by bridging Bluetooth Classic protocol to the Bluetooth Low Energy protocol and exposes it following the BLE KISS TNC specification.
I’m continually impressed that Amateur Radio generates bits of hard-won wisdom such as Specification for KISS over BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy), documented reasonably, that others can build upon. And that Amateur Radio generates small, focused, but critical devices such as the B. B. Link.
I’ll guess that Mike Chepponis K3MC and Phil Karn KA9Q would not have imagined that their KISS Protocol (which I remember being described at the time of its creation as a “quick hack” to use existing AX.25 TNCs for TCP/IP) would become so integral to Amateur Radio data communications. Not only is KISS in regular use in all manner of Amateur Radio systems, it’s continually being expanded into new systems and devices such as the Kenwood TH-D75A portable radio and the B. B. Link nearly four decades later. Not bad for a “quick hack”.
Andrew Barron ZL3DW mentioned his new book on the IC-905 mailing list (must be a subscriber to view):
hi everyone, I am pleased to announce that my new book, The Radio Today guide to the Icom IC-905 is now available from the RSGB bookshop and Amazon in print and Kindle versions. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D1N6H5J5
I extended the first few chapters to discuss the benefits and challenges of the radio. So, if you are still deciding about buying an IC-905, they may help you make the decision. If you already have the radio, there are plenty of tips about using it. I didn't buy the 10 GHz transverter, find out why!
Here is a note from the website.
The IC-905 is a great radio and definitely worth considering if you are interested in the microwave bands. The longer I used it the more I liked it. Some say that it is expensive, but there are many things to consider, such as the price of buying a different radio, plus transverters, plus a GPS disciplined reference oscillator. The IC-905 covers the complete band not just the single frequency of some transverters, and it is far easier to configure. You even get D-Star, cross-band operation, and video (to another IC-905).
The book has a longer introduction than usual to help you decide if the radio is a good option for you. I have discussed how you can use the rig, and the positives and negatives for using it for the QO-100 satellite, or DX.
73 and GD microwave DX, Andrew ZL3DW
A new paradigm radio such as the Icom IC-905 “microwave” radio really deserves a book-length treatment from an independent perspective - kudos to ZL3DW for doing so. Even if you have no interest in buying an IC-905 (it’s too expensive, you’re already all set up for microwave), I think this book would still be an interesting read just to understand Icom’s choices and tradeoffs in creating such a radio.
Given the encouraging results with RADAE, we’ve pivoted our ARDC project plan to focus on RADAE, and have paused development of Codec 2 and FreeDV modes. RADAE appears to be our strongest candidate for satisfying the top three goals we set for ourselves when applying for the ARDC grant:
Improve speech quality to a level comparable to commercial codecs.
Develop a “rag chew” FreeDV mode with subjective speech quality comparable to SSB at high SNRs.
Improve low SNR operation such that FreeDV is superior to SSB over poor HF channels.
We are on track to meet (and indeed exceed) the first two goals, but I think the final goal has yet to be demonstrated (e.g. SSB and the current incarnation of RADAE fall over at roughly the same SNR). There are a few bugs and many practical issues to work through before we have a real world version of RADAE that anyone can use. Plus there will be a few “gotchas” we haven’t thought of yet. Plenty for me to do in the coming months!
What blows me away about this work is that it’s mentioned in passing like it’s “business as usual technical development”. But unlike a lot of machine learning, this development (seems to be) done at “Amateur Radio scale” - with conventional desktop computers and embedded computers, not some desktop supercomputer or online server farm.
Read the whole article (and a previous mention from 2024-03) to get an idea of just how cool this is, including sample audio clips. This is yet another example of unique technological innovation in Amateur Radio!
The AIOC is a small adapter with a USB-C connector that enumerates itself as a sound-card (e.g. for APRS purposes), a virtual tty ("COM Port") for programming and asserting the PTT (Push-To-Talk) as well as a CM108 compatible HID endpoint for CM108-style PTT (new in firmware version 1.2.0).
The above description “buries the lede” a bit about how cool this idea really is, but the concept is quickly explained in the photos. An AIOC is a “dongle” that plugs into many portable radios instead of requiring a dedicated programming cable, and a (different) dedicated audio interface. In short, it’s an elegant solution for using portable radios for data communications, and (more easily than programming from the front panel) getting them programmed for use with multiple repeaters, etc. It’s also refreshing that AIOC uses USB-C which is now the standard USB connection in 2024 and beyond.
Now AIOC is available as a very reasonably priced product available from the NA6D web store:
NA6D AIOC - Image courtesy of NA6D.com
NA6D also offers a nice for its AIOC printed circuit board, which makes for a nice, complete-looking unit. Kudos to Nigel Armstrong NA6D for this “nice bit of kit”. I’m going to have to verify that the AIOC supports a couple of my favorite portable radios, and if that’s the case, get one or two on order.
On May 26, at 1300 GMT AMSAT-LU plans (weather permitting) to launch a balloon carrying a linear multimode transponder V➤U, CW, SSB, FM, APRS LU7AA-11 and VIDEO.
It could last 9 hours if it reaches 82,000 feet height landing in Uruguay, or 6 hours landing at Gualeguaychú. The flight has been approved by ANAC/EANA.
An attempt will also be made to launch LU8YY PicoBalloon emitting WSPR at 20m, if the winds help it could go around the world.
In Merlo, from May 24 to 26, presentations will be made to schools and universities. Depending on the weather it could be launched on May 25.
This experience will provide 4 FM channels + 3 CW + 3 SSB + 1 digital channel and 1 SSTV, all simultaneous. It will allow field testing on a balloon the future satellite platforms planned by AMSAT Argentina.
Kudos to AMSAT Argentina for this project! A transponder payload on a balloon is seriously Zero Retries Interesting! I just haven’t seen any explanations of how to build such a transponder; it would seem like this should be something that’s doable in software within a Software Defined Radio system. Amateur Radio hasn’t done nearly enough experimentation with terrestrial transponders like this great experiment, and I think we should be doing a lot more of that now that software defined transceivers are becoming more accessible to Amateur Radio Operators.
Tom Salzer KJ7T put out a blockbuster issue of his Randon Wire Review newsletter in Issue 91. Every bit of it was Zero Retries Interesting, and merited at least a 3x re-read to really grok all the cool stuff he discussed. I particularly enjoyed the discussion of the (new to me) FreedomLINK radios. KJ7T also said:
Personal note: As I review some past issues of the Random Wire, I am recognizing something I had not really verbalized before: if it has to do with radio, I’m all in! Amateur radio is my hobby of choice but I like radio in all of its manifestations. It doesn’t have to be something within my amateur radio license to be interesting.
QSL, KJ7T… QSL! I too like radio in all its manifestations, and that’s an elegant “elevator pitch” to explain our common curiosity about all kinds of radio technology.
Maiko Langelaar VE4KLM on the NOS-BBS mailing list:
Good day,
In case anyone missed it, there is a new official version - JNOS 2.0p.
Don't feel you need to switch over, I can just see (not) the miles of cars lined up.
BUT there is an important fix to an 'AT' loop issue that can lockup JNOS really good.
The issue has actually been around since the early JNOS 1.11f days (or before), so you might want to take a look at, the new code is in the development repository.
For anyone asking for 'features' or 'fixes', I am not ignoring you, really I'm not.
It's all on my todo list, but 'life' is just in the way right now - called priorities :|
My thanks for Bill Vodall W7NWP for mentioning this on another email list that we’re both on. I’d completely forgotten about the NOS-BBS mailing list, and have now (attempted to) resubscribed.
If you’re not yet licensed as an Amateur Radio Operator, and would like to join the fun by literally having a license to experiment with radio technology, check out Join the Fun on Amateur Radio for some pointers.
In its mission to highlight technological innovation in Amateur Radio, promote Amateur Radio to techies as a literal license to experiment with radio technology, and make Amateur Radio more relevant to society in the 2020s and beyond, Zero Retries is published via email and web, and is available to everyone at no cost. Zero Retries is proud not to participate in the Amateur Radio Publishing Industrial Complex, which hides Amateur Radio content behind paywalls.
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Dan Romanchik KB6NU mentions “Zero Retries Interesting” topics so regularly on his blog (that I otherwise wouldn’t know about) that I’ve bestowed on him the honorific of Pseudostaffer.
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Amateur Radio Weekly by Cale Mooth K4HCK is a weekly anthology of links to interesting Amateur Radio stories.
Experimental Radio News by Bennet Z. Kobb AK4AV discusses (in detail) Experimental (Part 5) licenses issued by the US FCC. It’s a must-read-now for me!
RTL-SDR Blog - Excellent coverage of Software Defined Radio units.
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More bits from Steve Stroh N8GNJ:
SuperPacket blog — Discussing new generations of Amateur Radio Data Communications — beyond Packet Radio (a precursor to Zero Retries)
N8GNJ blog — Amateur Radio Station N8GNJ and the mad science experiments at N8GNJ Labs — Bellingham, Washington, USA
Thanks for reading! Steve Stroh N8GNJ / WRPS598 (He / Him / His) These bits were handcrafted (by a mere human, not an Artificial Intelligence bot) in beautiful Bellingham (The City of Subdued Excitement), Washington, USA, and linked to the Internet via Starlink Satellite Internet Access.
2024-05-24
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It’s a longer term discussion, worthy of an (eventual) dedicated issue of Zero Retries, but I’ve recently come to the conclusion that M17 is complete (enough) and “ready to go” to be a capable digital voice… and messaging / data… system for Amateur Radio. There are some issues, including establishing recognition that M17 is usable now, getting it adequately documented, and of course, having at least a few ready-to-use radios with M17 built-in available. But the largest issue with M17 is the momentum, and the sunk costs, of existing single-mode DMR, D-Star, SF repeaters, radios owned by individuals, and Internet interconnection networks. It will take some serious evangelism to get folks to understand the advantages of M17.
In “prognosticating” about D-Star, I miss John Hays K7VE more than ever. John had an invaluable, independent, in-depth perspective on D-Star, which didn’t interfere with his advocacy of D-Star. If he were still with us, I would have solicited and incorporated his thoughts on this issue. You are too soon gone, John - Rest in Peace.
Zero Retries is an independent newsletter promoting technological innovation that is occurring in Amateur Radio, and Amateur Radio as (literally) a license to experiment with and learn about radio technology. Now in its third year of publication, with 1600+ subscribers.
Hamvention 2024 in Xenia, Ohio, USA - Today through Sunday. I look forward to highlighting any Zero Retries Interesting product reveals in next week’s Zero Retries.
HAM RADIO 2024 in Friedrichshafen, Germany on 2024-06-28 thru 30, in 03 weeks!
The Zero Retries readership is nearly 1700 subscribers, and well over 2000 when various “followers” are counted. I’d like to think that we’re a progressive bunch.
Do you want more manuals like these to be scanned? We can make it happen, with your help. Internet Archive has many more pallets of unsorted manuals just waiting to be scanned. You can help get them to the scanning center. We’ve negotiated a situation where, if money is donated, the remaining manuals can be sent for scanning without us having to pre-sort them like we did for the first four pallets. DLARC will fund the scanning of manuals that overlap with our mission, and plenty of non-radio manuals will be scanned too. If you want to help, here is a special donation link. If you’re in the U.S., donations are tax deductible.
But there’s a lot of those rescued manuals left to be digitized and made available online, and I think they should be, and can be. Per K6KJN’s article, there is some “special deal” worked out that can expedite those remaining rescued manuals getting digitized and made available online from “approximately before the end of time” to “much sooner than that”… if some additional, dedicated funds can be raised.
I would like to ask the Zero Retries readership to donate to this effort, and if you’ve thought about becoming a paid subscriber to Zero Retries in 2024, including renewing your paid subscription, please consider donating to this project instead. Again, here is the
Bonus - unlike paid subscriptions to Zero Retries, a donation to Internet Archive is (US) tax deductible!
My reasoning for this request is that (from what I understand - this wasn’t stated in the article or to me personally) these rescued manuals are in limbo at the moment as no one is sure if they’ll be digitized “soonish” or not. If “not”, I’ll guess that they’re going to go into a very long term queue (deep storage) and they may not get digitized and online in this, or perhaps the next, decade. That’s just the reality of the way the Internet Archive has to do things given the constant influx of physical media that has been rescued from oblivion. Getting these manuals digitized and online is unglamorous, but I can easily imagine that some of them may become important at some point. Imagine some obscure piece of equipment at some vital, but pitifully funded system that Amateur Radio cares about, like WWWB, or National Weather Service, an Antarctic base, or ??? that has a piece of equipment needed repair and no one can find the old paper manual to service that equipment.
Again, while Zero Retries happily accepts donations in the form of paid subscriptions, I think this particular project, at this particular moment, is “the greater good” and I’ll happily forego paid subscriptions to Zero Retries for a while. I chipped in for $100,and hope I’ll have a lot of company in that.
One last time, here is the special donation link to help get the remainder of the “Manuals Plus” manuals digitized and made available online.
Zero Retries Interesting developments at Hamvention 2024 this weekend in Xenia, Ohio, USA.
Photon Radio
Logo courtesy of Photon Radio
The “sleeper” development of Hamvention 2024, for me, was a subtle reference in the vendor directory to “Photon Radio” (looks inserted at the last moment, out of sequence at the end of the directory) in booth 4307:
Photon Radio - Tools for photon communication
Welcome to the wave particle duality of radio! We are showing off our 1Mbit per second non-wave making digital transmitter for the 160M to 30M HF bands. Work with us online or come to our radio resort in Japan to build out a new generation of high speed digital communication devices. We can supply circuit boards, kits, training and sabbatical opportunities at our beachside location.
Oh my, this was quite the “though the looking glass, down the rabbit hole” experience…
Summary
AK4VO discovered how to generate pulses of photons instead of continuous waves via direct current activation of non-resonant antennas. This allows mbit/second digital communications over the HF bands.
We can transmit bits at 800k bit/second in the 80 meter band at very low bandwidth. Our technology also can improve the clarity and speed of CW.
We can provide circuit boards and kits for HF ham bands and are looking for collaborators. Our 20-watt transmitter board transmits a programmable 128 bit message at 5, 10, 50 or 100 sine cycles per bit.
Please join our user’s group and fill out a questionnaire letting us know what kind of digital transmitter and receiver that you would like to see developed. Let`s interface a little bit with your computer!
Take a look at our publications, in hard copies here and also available at photonradio.com. Introduce yourself and tell us your arguments and objections.
I would absolutely seek out this booth for some extended conversation with Marvin Motsenbocker AK4VO. All this… sounds… wild… to me and I would have thought that such a technology would have been known by now.
But, we keep getting surprised1 with completely new approaches to radio technology, thus I’m more than willing to have an extended conversation. That Photon Radio seems to welcome questions, provides extended technical descriptions, and has some hardware (reportedly) available lends credence to their claims.
Zero Retries Interesting(ish) Announcements
Gleaned from the first day of Hamvention 2024 (still underway as I finish the last edits of this issue of Zero Retries)… these announcements / debuts were the most Zero Retries Interesting:
FlexRadio 8400/M/8600/M - The big announcement from FlexRadio is a more capable high high-end family of HF radios to be available in August. This is the sort of development that rates a press release, but noting found about this new radio family at FlexRadio’s press page. Without a careful A / B parsing of older products versus these new products, I can’t really explain the substantive improvements being made in this new family. YouTube channel Kyle - AAOZ interviewed Mike VA3MW of FlexRadio, and who showed a slide that claimed the new radios had “4x increase in CPU”, and “2x increase in FPGA” and a built-in GNSS (GPS) receiver feeding a GPS Disciplined Oscillator (GPSDO) for improved frequency stability.
EZDV Adapter for FreeDV - Units are for sale at the TAPR booth, and apparently for sale online.
Beta of CubeSatSim Kits - AMSAT will be selling kits of the CubeSatSim at Hamvention. Apparently this is the first lot of kits, thus the “Beta” descriptor. This is the first time this unit has been available as a full kit of all parts. Previously, you bought the (unpopulated) printed circuit boards from AMSAT and then sourced all parts yourself, including 3D printing the structural pieces. This kit will exponentially expand the number of CubeSatSims out in the world to help evangelize Amateur Radio satellites.
Hamvention Full YouTube streaming for Hamvention seminars - I was impressed that Hamvention will be streaming all four Forum rooms at Hamvention, simultaneously, on Friday and Saturday. In previous years, not all of the Forum rooms / all of the presentations, were streamed, so some of the Forums that I was interested in weren’t recorded.
Icom “X60” Box of Boards - Barely Zero Retries interesting, but Icom debuted a plexiglas box of boards and modules (yes, literally) with no information about what those pieces are intended for. There are some labels on the units, but I didn’t see a close up photo to even hazard a guess. A bit later I saw some close-up video and it looks like boards for an HF radio.
Kenwood Tri-band Mobile Radio in Development - I skimmed through the first 25 minutes or so of Ham Radio Crash Course’s Hamvention Booth Tour - Day One! video and approximately 23:30 a rep in the Kenwood booth claimed that Kenwood is working on a “tri-band mobile”.
The first contact through the QO-100 geostationary satellite made from North America took place on May 11th from Newfoundland, Canada. VO1/M0XUU (VU3HPF) made a trans-atlantic FT8 contact with G0MRF in London. The contact is significant considering the QO-100 footprint falls beyond Newfoundland at -0.9° below the horizon.
This is pretty Zero Retries Interesting! Below the horizon isn’t supposed to be “possible”, but it’s… radio…, in all its weirdnesses and exceptions to the rule!
I was thinking that it would be a good thing to have a public wiki where (in the first step) all the ham radio related open source hardware and software projects are listed. As a second step it could contain articles that describe how to build an open source station. It further more could get more content with howtos etc.
The Amateur Radio Software Award (ARSA) committee is pleased to announce that OpenWebRX, a project led by Jakob Ketterl DD5JFK, and OpenWebRX+, a project led by Marat Fayzullin KC1TXE, have been selected as the winners of the 5th annual Amateur Radio Software Award. The award recognizes software projects that enhance amateur radio and promote innovation, freedom, and openness in amateur radio software development.
…
The history of these projects showcase the benefit of open source software. OpenWebRX was originally created by András Retzler but due to the demands of his career he decided to discontinue its development. Jakob Ketterl took over the OpenWebRX project and continues to maintain and improve OpenWebRX. Marat Fayzullin’s OpenWebRX+ builds on top of Jakob Ketterl’s OpenWebRX adding support for additional communication modes and advanced features. Both projects are currently separate allowing implementers of hosting sites to choose between the simple core version or the enhanced version without difficulties while allowing the developers to focus on their projects goals.
OpenWebRX was barely on my Zero Retries Interesting RADAR, but OpenWebRX+ was not. I’m in awe of KC1TXE’s vision for OpenWebRX+:
In a way, I view OpenWebRX+ as a real-life ‘tricorder’ for the radio spectrum.
MicroLink V3 - Image courtesy of Bruce MacKinnon KC1FSZ
Is it possible to build a full EchoLink® node using a $6 microcontroller? I'm not completely sure, but let's find out. The goal of this project is to create the smallest, cheapest way to put a radio onto the EchoLink network. If you are new to the world of EchoLink please see the official website for complete information. EchoLink is a peer-to-peer VoIP (voice over IP) network used to link amateur radio stations across the Internet.
There are much easier ways to get onto EchoLink. The MicroLink project will only be interesting to someone who wants to get deep into the nuts-and-bolts of EchoLink/VoIP technology. In fact, you should start to question the sanity of anyone who spends this much time building their own EchoLink station. I am a homebrew enthusiast and I try to avoid off-the-shelf software/components where possible. This has been a huge learning opportunity.
The system currently runs on a Pi Pico W (RP204, ARM Cortex M0) board. I'm pretty sure it could also run on an ESP-32, or possibly an Arduino of sufficient caliber. More experimentation is needed here.
The software is fully open source. Now that EchoLink is “open”, others can experiment with this important amateur radio technology. I am currently working on adding support for AllStarLink. More to follow ...
This is a cool Zero Retries Interesting project by Bruce MacKinnon KC1FSZ. I’m in awe of his ability to write software “for bare metal” (note - microcontroller, so no operating system) including Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP) and a TCP/IP stack for Internet. I said during my email correspondence:
Cool that you’re peeling back the onion of EchoLink and making it more accessible. Every time there is [an open source] project like this, it provides more “fodder” for newcomers interested in radio technology to see themselves helping create new radio things through software.
KC1FSZ noted that the GSM-0610 full rate CODEC used in EchoLink is extremely well documented and it took him “about two weeks” to implement it for MicroLink.
KC1FSZ is also working on a VHF FM transmitter - see his QRZ page. Regarding that I said:
I’ve been saying for a while now that capable receivers are now a solved problem - RTL-SDRs. Reasonable transmitters are the bottleneck.
My thanks to KC1FSZ for bringing this to my attention.
I have installed and successfully run the linux modem https://github.com/aicodix/modem/ in a Raspberry version 1. I have left it up and working for several days. The script records sound clips from a 2 meter radio, demodulates the data, shows the message in an http server: http://ea4gmz.hopto.org/OFDM.txt and repeats the same message a few seconds later. Fellow hams around Madrid have been able to exchange messages using Rattlegram in their smartphones and a fixed or handheld radio. It works through voice repeaters too. The modem software was modified for making the algorithm faster, maybe at the expense of some sensitivity. I have not noticed a significant loss of sensitivity, and now it takes less than 100 ms to process an audio clip and decode the message, even in a Rpi 1.
This is a temporary and experimental system. I wish to engage more people into Rattlegram as an introduction to Ribbit.
Pierre W4CKX on the Ribbit-Users mailing list::
Know that Ahmet contributed Ribbit codec as an evolution of Rattlegram and that all characteristics were improved across the board. Alex has been working on a PWA for almost 2 months and we are now working on the App UX. Ribbit 1.0 beta is getting closer to release. (We are not committed to any date, it will be released when it's ready).
When released, we will direct you to our ORI GitHub where you will find Ribbit codec and can update your build.
Ribbit will support message metadata, user profiles, geolocation and r/channels.
Ribbit is one of the Zero Retries Interesting projects I try to cite as Amateur Radio adjacent, along with software defined receivers (RTL-SDR, SDR Play RSP1B, and KiwiSDR to name three favorites), SatNOGS, and Meshtastic, that don’t require an Amateur Radio license to experiment, learn, and generally have fun with radio technology.
Winter 2020-2021 I decided to build my own Arduino SDR and after looking around I found the Keith'sSDR group at keithsdr@groups.io | Home
The project was focused on building a simple DIY SDR radio based on Arduino on the very capable Teensy 4 series CPU. I have been using the Teensy 4 for my RF Wattmeter/Band Decoder project, now realized in a RF tolerant PCB design. I jumped in. I was mostly software focused and wanted to create a high resolution spectrum display and commercial looking UI features primarily to perform as compact low power IF radio for my VHF and microwave transverters.
I extended the KeithSDR with customizable table drive UI elements then moved onto figure a way to get a high resolution spectrum and waterfall display, eventually running at multiple FFT sizes. Today that is 1024, 2048 and 4096 both I and Q. I use multiple FFT sizes to achieve pan and zoom with no extra compute required. I also wanted the touch screen to evolve to not miss physical controls much, if at all. On the 7" 1024x600 display version I have not used hardware controls for a year.
This Zero Retries Interesting project by Mike Lewis K7MDL was discovered from a mention by the MicroHAMS Amateur Radio Club which has featured a lot of Zero Retries Interesting topics of late.
Excerpted from Boulder Amateur Television Club TV Repeater's REPEATER newsletter, May, 2024, 2nd edition, Issue #162:
IC-905 - Icom’s Microwave and ATV Transceiver, by Dave Crump G8GKQ, British Amateur Television Club
Amateur TV Operation --- The IC-905 will transmit and receive frequency modulated (FM) ATV pictures with a single sound sub-carrier. In the UK, this mode has gradually been replaced by digital DVB-S/S2 over the last 20 years.
…
Digital ATV --- The IC-905 only transmits and receives analogue FM ATV. It is a shame that no attempt has been made to handle DVB-S2 digital ATV which is now the predominant ATV mode in the UK and on the QO-100 satellite. As the unit has no ‘IF’ input or output, the only likely option for introducing this capability would be an internal firmware upgrade. Unfortunately, it is unlikely that the internal processor could handle the challenging error- correction processing required for reception, as this is usually handled in custom integrated circuits. The omission of digital ATV might preclude the use of this rig for any ATV operation in the 1296MHz band following the possible future implementation of restrictions to safeguard radio-navigation satellite services (RNSS).
…
Conclusion --- I am really pleased that Icom have brought this microwave/ATV transceiver to market. It can only serve to stimulate interest in these aspects of the hobby. It is a polished, capable unit; however, it is not a good fit for the current UK ATV scene - it would have been perfect 20 years ago. Despite the lack of flexibility, I would love to own one, but the price puts me off: £3549.95 for the basic system and another £1499.99 for the 10 GHz transverter.
Not being an active Amateur Television user, I felt I didn’t have much standing for an opinion on that capability of the IC-905. But this review by experienced ATV user G8GKQ validates my initial impressions of the television capabilities of the IC-905:
Analog television?
In a brand-new (2022) high end VHF / UHF / Microwave Amateur radio?
Only accepts analog (not USB) video signals / cameras?
I thought that FM ATV was a neat capability of the IC-905… if it had been released two decades, or even a decade ago. But the advanced Amateur Radio Television folks (especially as documented by the BATVC newsletter this is excerpted from) have long since migrated to using digital television technologies. Thus the IC-905 loses a bit of its luster in not incorporating that “state of the present” standard for Amateur Television.
Digital communications systems always represent a collection of design trade-offs. Maximising one characteristic of a system may impair others, and various communications services may chose to optimise different performance parameters based on the intersection these design decisions with the physical characteristics of the communications medium. In this article I’ll look at the Starlink service [1], and how TCP, the workhorse transport protocol of the Internet, interacts with the characteristics of the Starlink service.
…
The Starlink satellite’s Ku-band downlink has a total of 8 channels using frequency division multiplexing. Each channel has an analogue bandwidth of 240Mhz. Each channel is broken into frames, which is subdivided using time division multiplexing into 302 intervals, each of 4.4µs, which together with a frame guard interval makes each frame 1,333µs, or 750 frames per second. Each frame contains a header that contains satellite, channel and modulation information [6]. The implication is that there is a contention delay of up to 1.3ms assuming that each active user is assigned at least one interval per frame.
This leaves us with four major contributory factors for variability of the capacity of the Starlink service, namely:
the variance in signal modulation capability, which is a direct outcome of the varying SNR of the signal,
the variance in the satellite path latency due to the relative motion of the satellite and the earth antennae,
the need to perform satellite switching on a regular basis, and
the variability induced by sharing the common satellite transmission medium with other users, which results in slot contention.
I thought this was a fascinating, reasonably high level explanation of just how sophisticated the radio technology has to be for Starlink to be a usable, let alone reasonably high bandwidth system for Broadband Internet Access. The levels of dynamic variables to take into account are just staggering (to me).
OL-SDR represents the pinnacle of innovation in the field of SDR radios, offering unrivaled sophistication and flexibility. Just look at its rear panel, which offers a wide range of connections and functionality, embodying the complexity and power behind this extraordinary technological solution.
With an internal structure centered around a next-generation FPGA, OL-SDR is distinguished by unprecedented versatility and control. This extreme adaptability and operational precision position it as a versatile transceiver in a diverse range of high-demand operating contexts, where the need for extreme performance is critical.
Its internal architecture and advanced external interface are designed to meet the most demanding needs of the most sophisticated operators. OL-SDR is an ideal option for those who require maximum customization and flexibility, offering a level of functionality adaptable to a wide range of specialized applications.
Here are some of the key features of the OL-SDR:
Unrivaled sophistication and flexibility: The OL-SDR is packed with features that make it the most sophisticated and flexible SDR radio on the market.
Wide range of connections and functionality: The OL-SDR's rear panel offers a wide range of connections and functionality, making it ideal for a variety of applications.
Next-generation FPGA: The OL-SDR is powered by a next-generation FPGA, which provides unprecedented versatility and control.
Extreme adaptability and operational precision: The OL-SDR is designed for extreme adaptability and operational precision, making it ideal for high-demand operating contexts.
Advanced external interface: The OL-SDR's advanced external interface is designed to meet the most demanding needs of the most sophisticated operators.
Maximum customization and flexibility: The OL-SDR offers a level of customization and flexibility that is unmatched by any other SDR radio.
I’m not remotely qualified to vet these claims, but it looks like Olliter Laboratory (Italy) wants to give FlexRadio some significant competition. I’m surprised that new companies like this see the market for high-end Amateur Radio HF radios as significant enough to invest into, even if such products are used as a steppingstone to commercial / government sales.
The Raspberry Pi M.2 HAT+ enables you to connect M.2 M-key peripherals, such as NVMe drives and AI accelerators, to your Raspberry Pi 5. It provides fast (up to 500 MB/s) data transfer to and from these peripherals, and is available to buy today, from our network of Approved Resellers, priced at just $12.
Raspberry Pi 5 launched back in September last year with an exciting new feature on board. No, not the power button. Or the battery-backed real-time clock. We’re talking about the PCI Express (PCIe) expansion connector: this small 16-way FFC (flexible flat cable) connector, positioned at the extreme left of the board where the MIPI display connector lives on older Raspberry Pi boards, carries a single-lane (one transmit pair, one receive pair, and one clock pair) PCIe 2.0 bus.
To me, the M.2 HAT+ completes the Raspberry Pi 5 as an appliance computer. Using a MicroSD card for “disk” storage, even a “hardened / industrial” unit was widely viewed as reasonable for hobbyists, but not really reliable. With this, Raspberry Pi 5s can use Solid State Drive (SSD) modules directly for higher reliability and performance.
Zero Retries Pseudostaffer and Guest Author Jeff Davis KE9V:
Just a week ago I wrote about the rapidly changing future for amateur radio emergency services due to the growth of wireless internet access provided by the Starlink service and its fleet of low-earth orbit satellites. Then came dangerous flooding in remote parts of Brazil. Did amateur radio send in the varsity squad to provide communication help? No. But a thousand Starlink terminals were sent to facilitate needed comms in the worst hit areas.
…
Still, it’s a major shift in communication technology and one that hams shouldn’t ignore. The last thing we need is to appear to be a bunch of sour old men waving our handhelds at the heavens and cursing the magic of internet service being delivered from space. We need to find a way to use this paradigm shift to our advantage (if we want to continue hitching our wagon to EMCOMM) and that will likely take the form of using what we’re good at, radio, to fill in the gaps that will invariably appear in any such technology-based solution.
New Zero Retries Interesting Item in the Ham Radio Outlet Catalog
The top half of Page 32 of the Spring Summer 2024 HRO catalog featured a new Zero Retries Interesting device - digirig. I don’t recall seeing digirig in previous versions of the HRO catalog. I’ve mentioned digirig numerous times in Zero Retries as a compact, well-engineered audio interface (modem) for Amateur Radio data communications, ideal for use with portable radios. It’s impressive that digirig has achieved sufficient scale to be featured in the HRO catalog and have the margins to be sold via a retailer.
And… it was interesting to note what wasn’t in this edition of the HRO catalog - Tigertronics SignaLink USB units. A quick check of the HRO website for “tigertronics” shows 34 items so apparently SignaLink USBs are still being sold through HRO.
If you’re not yet licensed as an Amateur Radio Operator, and would like to join the fun by literally having a license to experiment with radio technology, check out Join the Fun on Amateur Radio for some pointers.
In its mission to highlight technological innovation in Amateur Radio, promote Amateur Radio to techies as a literal license to experiment with radio technology, and make Amateur Radio more relevant to society in the 2020s and beyond, Zero Retries is published via email and web, and is available to everyone at no cost. Zero Retries is proud not to participate in the Amateur Radio Publishing Industrial Complex, which hides Amateur Radio content behind paywalls.
My ongoing Thanks to:
Tina Stroh KD7WSF for, well, everything!
Founding Members who generously support Zero Retries financially: Founding Member 0000 - Steven Davidson K3FZT Founding Member 0001 - Prefers to Remain Anonymous 01
Founding Member 0002 - Chris Osburn KD7DVD Founding Member 0003 - Don Rotolo N2IRZ Founding Member 0004 - William Arcand W1WRA Founding Member 0005 - Ben Kuhn KU0HN Founding Member 0006 - Todd Willey KQ4FID Founding Member 0007 - Merik Karman VK2MKZ Founding Member 0008 - Prefers to Remain Anonymous 14 Founding Member 0009 - Prefers to Remain Anonymous 19
Numerous Annual and Monthly subscribers who also generously support Zero Retries financially!
Want to Support Zero Retries?
The most effective way to support Zero Retries is to simply mention Zero Retries to your co-conspirators that are also interested in knowing more about technological innovation that is occurring in Amateur Radio and encourage them to become a fellow subscriber.
One particularly effective method of promoting Zero Retries is to add a mention of Zero Retries to your QRZ page (or other web presence) and include a link:
If you’d like to financially support Zero Retries, becoming a paid subscriber is greatly appreciated and helps offset expenses incurred in publishing Zero Retries. Paid subscriptions for Zero Retries are entirely optional, as explained in this special issue of ZR: Zero Retries Administrivia - Activating Payment Options.
These blogs and newsletters regularly feature Zero Retries Interesting content:
Dan Romanchik KB6NU mentions “Zero Retries Interesting” topics so regularly on his blog (that I otherwise wouldn’t know about) that I’ve bestowed on him the honorific of Pseudostaffer.
Jeff Davis KE9V also mentions “Zero Retries Interesting” topics so regularly on his blog (that I otherwise wouldn’t know about) that I’ve bestowed on him the honorific of Pseudostaffer.
Amateur Radio Weekly by Cale Mooth K4HCK is a weekly anthology of links to interesting Amateur Radio stories.
Experimental Radio News by Bennet Z. Kobb AK4AV discusses (in detail) Experimental (Part 5) licenses issued by the US FCC. It’s a must-read-now for me!
RTL-SDR Blog - Excellent coverage of Software Defined Radio units.
Zero Retries is currently using the Substack email publishing platform to publish Zero Retries. It’s particularly suitable for small newsletters as you can get started for no cost.
If you’re reading this issue on the web and you’d like to see Zero Retries in your email Inbox every Friday afternoon, just click below to join 1600+ other subscribers:
Email issues of Zero Retries are “instrumented” by Substack to gather basic statistics about opens, clicking links, etc.
More bits from Steve Stroh N8GNJ:
SuperPacket blog — Discussing new generations of Amateur Radio Data Communications — beyond Packet Radio (a precursor to Zero Retries)
N8GNJ blog — Amateur Radio Station N8GNJ and the mad science experiments at N8GNJ Labs — Bellingham, Washington, USA
Thanks for reading! Steve Stroh N8GNJ / WRPS598 (He / Him / His) These bits were handcrafted (by a mere human, not an Artificial Intelligence bot) in beautiful Bellingham (The City of Subdued Excitement), Washington, USA, and linked to the Internet via Starlink Satellite Internet Access.
2024-05-17
Blanket permission is granted for TAPR to use any Steve Stroh content in Zero Retries for the TAPR Packet Status Register (PSR) newsletter (I owe them from way back).
Blanket permission is granted for Amateur Radio use of any Steve Stroh content in Zero Retries for Amateur Radio newsletters and distribution via Amateur Radio such as (but not limited to) Packet Radio Networks, Packet Radio Bulletin Board Systems, Repeater Nets, etc.
In such usage, please provide appropriate authorship credit for the content.
If you’d like to reuse an article in this issue for other uses, just ask.
All excerpts from other authors or organizations, including images, are intended to be fair use. Unless otherwise noted in the article, there are no paid promotional items in any Zero Retries articles.
I vividly remember the same sensation of wonder when advanced radio technologies like digital processing gain (thank you once again KA9Q), spread spectrum, ultrawideband, OFDM, and cognitive antennas were all (very patiently) explained to me for the first time.
Zero Retries is an independent newsletter promoting technological innovation that is occurring in Amateur Radio, and Amateur Radio as (literally) a license to experiment with and learn about radio technology. Now in its third year of publication, with 1600+ subscribers.
Tracking Technological Innovation in Amateur Radio - Zero Retries Newsletter.
There were… 20? folks on the live videoconference, but RATPAC’s YouTube channel has 6.2k subscribers, so it’s likely that the “watched” count will grow from the current (as I write this) 36 views. I’m grateful that RATPAC posted the video to YouTube so quickly.
This presentation was a good “backgrounder” about Zero Retries, but my closest advisors have advised me that I should do “more pictures, less text”. The longer suggestion was that the topics I discuss in presentations are “front of mind for me”, but to explain to others, visuals are more helpful than plain text.
Thus, point taken, my future slide decks will be better illustrated. As I did with the LinuxFest Northwest slide deck, I’ll annotate this one with links and then get it to RATPAC for posting with the video.
Other “Recent” Interviews and Presentations
In adding these two most recent presentations to my QRZ page - I updated other “recent” interviews and presentations:
The heavenly weather - bright sun, temps in the 70s, very light breeze, has returned to Bellingham, just in time for a Mother’s Day weekend trip to Portland, Oregon to reunite my daughter Merideth KK7BKI and my wife Tina KD7WSF… and to spoil the grandcats (and Tina) just a little bit.
What’s New at Digital Library of Amateur Radio & Communications
By Kay Savetz K6KJN Zero Retries Pseudostaffer
There’s so much new stuff in the DLARC library this month! I hardly know where to begin.
The Manuals Plus scanning project is complete!! (Well, for now!) Four pallets of radio and radio-adjacent manuals are completely scanned, online, searchable, and downloadable: 4,294 manuals in all. (In February I estimated the lot would be about 4,000 manuals. My guess wasn’t too far off. I also estimated the project would take six weeks, which turns out was optimistic.) The batch includes manuals for wonderfully esoteric hardware, a majority of which I bet had little to no reliable information online until now. Please explore the collection. Maybe there’s a manual for an obscure gadget that’s in your ham shack.
Do you want more manuals like these to be scanned? We can make it happen, with your help. Internet Archive has many more pallets of unsorted manuals just waiting to be scanned. You can help get them to the scanning center. We’ve negotiated a situation where, if money is donated, the remaining manuals can be sent for scanning without us having to pre-sort them like we did for the first four pallets. DLARC will fund the scanning of manuals that overlap with our mission, and plenty of non-radio manuals will be scanned too. If you want to help, here is a special donation link. If you’re in the U.S., donations are tax deductible.
The other Big News Item is the new DX-peditions collection. The California Historical Radio Society contributed all sorts of material documenting DX-peditions from the early 1960s through the mid 1990s. The media they sent included videotapes, cassette tapes, 35mm slides, and one reel-to-reel tape.
The videotapes went to my colleague Jason, who digitized all 60-plus of them. These little trip documentaries are provide fascinating glimpses into far-off places and long-gone people. Look at all those old cars, planes, and radios! Meanwhile, I handled the audio: four dozen recordings about trips to Kingman Reef, Pitcairn Islands, Burundi, the Galapagos, and all manner of other far-flung locales.
Yes, I handled the reel-to-reel tape, which turned out to contain a fascinating account by Frank Turek DL7FT (SK) about DX-peditions he made from 1963 to 1975. The 35mm slides (many of which are meant to accompany the audiotapes) haven’t been digitized yet; we hope to be able to scan them sometime this summer. (As you might imagine, properly scanning thousands of slides takes specialized equipment and processes.)
A tangent: snuck in with the DX-pedition videotapes are a few off-topic but very cool videos worth checking out: here’s A Message from Barry Goldwater K7UGA, a short interview with the opinionated, radio-loving senator. And, take a minute to watch Pile Up Busters, a playful parody of Ray Parker Jr.’s “Ghostbusters” theme.
Another update — I had written in February that we had 84 books in the Radio Books from MIT Libraries collection — public domain books and journals about radio that were donated to DLARC by MIT libraries and scanned by us. I thought that collection was complete — until the folks from MIT asked if we wanted scans of another 25 books: books that are so rare or fragile that the librarians thought it wasn’t a good idea to ship them, so they scanned them there. These new additions of old books include The Maintenance of Wireless Telegraph Apparatus (1918), Wireless Apparatus Making: a practical handbook on the design, construction, and operation of apparatus for the reception of wireless messages (1923), and several items in French and German.
Let’s talk radio conferences: DLARC has added material from the emcomm-focused Comm Academy and ham-focused Pacificon.
Comm Academy (originally called Communications Academy) was a free training conference for people interested in developing emergency communications skills. The first Communications Academy took place in 1998. Based in the Pacific Northwest, Comm Academy was primarily a regional event organized by the Western Washington Medical Services Emergency Communications team. Over the years, it gained a reputation as one of the West Coast’s premier emergency communications training events. The final Comm Academy event was held April 2022. This conference ran for an impressive two decades, and DLARC now has more than 400 items from the entire span of the show, including PowerPoint presentations, papers, and video recordings of some talks. There is amazing material that we can all learn from here, all full-text searchable. As I was uploading the items and adding the metadata, a few jumped out at me, including Captain Andy Stevermer’s 2007 presentation “Pandemic Response - Would Communications Make a Difference?” and Carolyn Driedger’s 2012 talk “Preparing for Future Volcanic Eruptions — Mt. St. Helens Lessons Learned” … (Kay types, worriedly watching the [active, but currently dormant - Ed.] volcano visible outside the window.)
DLARC has added material from Pacificon, an annual amateur radio convention produced by the Mount Diablo (California) Amateur Radio Club. The collection includes schedules and flyers for the show going back to 2011, videos of some presentations, some slide decks. (The 2024 Pacificon show will be October 18-20 in San Ramon, California. I hope to be there.)
I’ve continued the hunt for lost audio treasures in the TAPR Software Library CD-ROMs (1996, 1997, and 1998) and boy howdy are there some gems! I want to send bouquets of flowers to whoever recorded those talks so well and then put them on CD-ROMs so that I could find them nearly 30 years later. I don’t even hold a grudge against them for making me convert the files from RealAudio format to MP3.
Finally: as soon as I heard the news that MFJ would be winding down, I updated DLARC’s MFJ library with new manuals, newsletters, and videos from their YouTube channel.
And lest you forget, here’s that special donation link that will help us get more pallets of obscure manuals scanned. The Internet Archive and DLARC thank you.
Digital Library of Amateur Radio & Communications is funded by a grant from Amateur Radio Digital Communications (ARDC) to create a free digital library for the radio community, researchers, educators, and students. If have questions about the project or material to contribute, contact me at kay@archive.org.
Kay Savetz K6KJN is the Internet Archive's Program Manager, Special Collections… the curator of the Digital Library of Amateur Radio & Communications project.
Logo courtesy of National Telecommunications and Information Administration.
US NTIA “Open Radio” Innovation Awards Available
By Steve Stroh N8GNJ
“Open Radio Innovation”, they say? There are numerous Amateur Radio open source projects could qualify as “Open Radio” innovation, with a little bit of creativity and chutzpah.
Today, the Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) announced that up to $420 million in funding will be made available to build the radio equipment needed to advance open network adoption in the U.S. and abroad.
…
This second round of funding targets two critical areas:
Open radio unit commercialization: Accelerating the development of open radio units to the point where they meet the needs of wireless carriers and are ready for commercial trials; and
Open radio unit innovation: Improving the overall performance and capabilities of open radio units through targeted research and development.
NTIA expects to grant between $25 million and $45 million per commercialization award, and $5 million to $10 million per innovation award. Applications are due July 10.
I forwarded this to a company I thought might be interested in pursuing such an opportunity. I outlined the potential synergies that I saw, and the response was… they didn’t really “get it”. I suggested that “Improving the overall performance and capabilities of open radio units through targeted research and development.” could be interpreted to include land mobile two-way radio systems, such as repeaters and other “narrowband” infrastructure. Although “radio systems” has come to mean mostly cellular / mobile systems, and some satellite systems, there is still considerable use of land mobile two-way radio systems including public safety and especially law enforcement. Thus NTIA might be persuaded to “broaden their definition” of radio systems to two-way radio systems. Though “commercialization” might be a big leap for my ideas below, I’ll guess that these ideas could qualify for an (or multiple) “innovation awards”.
Amateur Radio Open Source Projects Could Qualify as a Basis for an NTIA Innovation Award
Amateur Radio is one of the few sources of any significant innovation in land mobile two-way radio technology (we try new things!) since 12.5 and 6.25 kHz channels were mandated decades ago now and necessitated the use of digital voice techniques.
Some examples:
M17 Project - An entire Open Source two-way radio ecosystem that includes digital voice, text messaging, repeaters, Internet linking, protocols, and young enough and still flexible enough (again, open source…) to go beyond existing two-way radio paradigms for a modest investment in focused developer resources.
The M17 Project’s Remote Radio Unit - UHF repeater mounted on a tower, including duplexer, so no expensive, lossy coax / hardline running down a tower to the radio.
Single frequency repeaters using Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) techniques. Such a repeater would listen on one time slot, and transmit on the other time slot. This concept was implemented in a Hytera Digital Mobile Radio portable repeater for emergency use, so there’s some prior art to this. The benefit of this approach is that it radically simplifies a repeater; no duplexer is required since there is only one frequency involved. Such an approach “doubles” the available number of repeaters in a given band. New Packet Radio implements TDMA, so single frequency fast transmit / receive switching is apparently doable.
ka9q-radio creates a “receive all channels” capability and its creator Phil Karn KA9Q speculates that it could be used for a mobile “voting” receiver for a simulcast repeater network. ka9q-radio could perhaps be extended into a pseudo trunking system, with more of the intelligence in the vehicle / user radio than in the network.
Use Single Sideband (SSB) for VHF / UHF two-way radio for 3 kHz channels. We now have very capable, inexpensive Software Defined Transceivers (SDTs) that can easily and flexibly generate, and automatically tune SSB signals. SSB exceeds the current “narrowband” requirement of 6.25 kHz channels, and work being done with FreeDV offers good voice quality over narrow bandwidths, and it’s now easily implemented with SDTs. Perhaps it’s time to try to build such a system for VHF / UHF and repeaters.
Those are just a few ideas that I think could qualify as “open radio units through targeted research and development“ per NTIA. I hope some company in the Amateur Radio market will be bold enough to apply for an NTIA Innovation Award.
Island Magic B.B. Link Adapter - Image courtesy of Island Magic Co.
Meet B.B. Link, the adapter that connects iPhones and iPads to Kenwood TH-D75 and D74 radios. With it, iOS applications like RadioMail can fully utilize the radio's built-in KISS TNC packet modem. Plug it into the USB-C port of the phone, turn your radio on, and you're set.
Features
Pair with the radio once, and the adapter will remember it. It automatically reconnects whenever the radio is on and within range.
Automatically identifies the correct VFO for data connections and switches the radio to KISS TNC mode when an app connects.
Allows applications like RadioMail to change frequencies as needed.
Automatically returns the radio to its previous frequency and mode once you're done.
Comes with a handy lanyard to keep your adapter within easy reach.
Over-the-air firmware updates using the B.B. Link Configurator app.
This… is one1 elegant approach to the long quest2 to do reasonable data, either chatting or email, using an Amateur Radio portable radio and a handheld device with a reasonable screen and keyboard (a modern mobile phone). It would have been more elegant for Kenwood to “get with the 2020s” in their design of the TH-D75A (released in 2023, thus the Bluetooth issues were hardly a surprise to Kenwood) and support the modern Bluetooth Low Energy specification. For the minor cost of the B.B. Link and powering it, problem solved.
Status Update on Connect Systems M17 Portable Radios
Email from Connect Systems (no web page to link to):
STATUS OF M17
The follow is the status of the M17 project as reported by the developer.
Hi Jerry,
I'm sending you the new document, with the updated modification to the mic path and a description of the reasons for the changes.
I'm not against having my name mentioned, if you want to do so. :)
Silvano Seva
About this project
There are two people primarily responsible for the development of the M17 project.
Silvano Seva who is the primary person for the firmware and
Wojciech Kaczmarski who is the primary person for the hardware.
If there are other people involved, I am sure I will hear about it and will include it in future blogs.
We are asking the amateur community to buy in advance one or more of the radios. When the radios are available, you will be the first to get them at a discount from the standard price of the radio. If at anytime you decide you would rather not support this project, you can get your money back and then get in the back of the line for when the radios are released.
The CS7000 M17 page states that the expected availability of these radios is “late May, 2024”. Again, kudos to Jerry Wanger KK6LFS for this bold measure of support for M17.
Self-contained, no PC, laptop, tablet, or phone needed
Large spectrum/waterfall display
No touch display – FFS
Luggable
Reasonable cost
Open Source on both hardware and software
I found my way to this interesting HF Software Defined Transceiver project via a brief mention on a mailing list of the associated low cost 100 watt amplifier project (see details in the presentation).
But the Zero Retries Interesting angle was that Slide 56 had this intriguing mention:
K9HZ Boards (For T41 and any QRP Radio)
VHF-UHF Boards
All Ham Bands 220 MHz - 2.4 GHz
Under development by KI3P and K9HZ
True SDR. I/Q Outputs and Inputs
While I found lots of references to K9HZ’s making printed circuit boards of the T41 widely available, I didn’t find anything about the “KI3P / K9HZ VHF-UHF Boards”.
The Modern Ham - Recent Zero Retries Interesting Articles
While videos give you a good overview of a subject, the details can easily be lost. KN4MKB’s articles provide that level of detail so you can truly follow along on his software projects.
KN4MKB has been busy of late with these Zero Retries Interesting articles:
And a few others since beginning his Modern Introduction to Packet Radio, AX25, APRS and TCP/IP series in March. One of my projects for Summer 2024 is to get a Radio Bulletin Board System (RBBS) online in my area; almost certainly a BPQ32 BBS, thus these articles are timely for me.
Note that there is an option of receiving a monthly summary of articles via email.
Today we’re pleased to announce the beta release of Raspberry Pi Connect: a secure and easy-to-use way to access your Raspberry Pi remotely, from anywhere on the planet, using just a web browser.
It’s often extremely useful to be able to access your Raspberry Pi’s desktop remotely. There are a number of technologies which can be used to do this, including VNC, and of course the X protocol itself. But they can be hard to configure, particularly when you are attempting to access a machine on a different local network; and of course with the transition to Wayland in Raspberry Pi OS Bookworm, classic X remote desktop support is no longer available.
We wanted to be able to provide you with this functionality with our usual “it just works” approach. Enter Raspberry Pi Connect.
… Raspberry Pi Connect needs your Raspberry Pi to be running a 64-bit distribution of Raspberry Pi OS Bookworm that uses the Wayland window server. This in turn means that, for now, you’ll need a Raspberry Pi 5, Raspberry Pi 4, or Raspberry Pi 400.
This is pretty cool. As I understand it, a Raspberry Pi (organization) server(s) on the Internet is queried for every connection attempt, even if you’re attempting to connect between two RPis on a LAN. It seems to me it a lot more efficient to attempt an equivalent broadcast on a LAN, and only if that’s not successful, connect to a server on the Internet. I could easily see this being a valuable teaching tool.
Anduril Industries is excited to announce Pulsar, a first-of-its-kind family of modular, multi-mission-capable electromagnetic warfare (EW) systems that utilize artificial intelligence at the tactical edge to rapidly identify and defeat current and future threats across the electromagnetic spectrum, including small and medium-size drones.
Dominance of the electromagnetic spectrum is critical to operations on a modern battlefield of rapidly-evolving drone, counter-drone, and jamming technologies. As the war in Ukraine has shown, EW tactics are evolving faster than ever — a cat and mouse game of sensing and dodging, disruption and adaptation, in the spectrum — with updates to EW and threat systems now happening over shorter timelines of weeks, days, or even hours. The next generation of EW systems must enable real-time understanding of the spectrum, and provide rapid delivery of effective countermeasures against known and new threats, across domains and modalities.
That is precisely what Pulsar does.
Electronic warfare (EW) has “downscaled” radically because of command and control of drones, and thus EW is now in the tactical realm, hence the need for this product.
A guess on my part is that applicants who are Amateur Radio Operators may well rise quickly to the top of Anduril’s hiring queue. Amateur Radio might be considered “old school” to some, but hands-on experience with radio technology is now bleeding-edge relevant.
This is a breakout Printed Circuit Board for a SA818 transceiver module.
Why did you make it?
I am a licensed Radio Amateur and building electronics is part and parcel of the culture. I have wanted to construct a radio using this module for some time and successfully built the shield for an OrangePi zero published by VoltNode. A great design but designed exclusively for the OrangePi. I wanted to be able to interface any MCU to make programming the module easier, hence the PCB here.
What makes it special?
It is a very simple low cost design, that can be controlled by RaspberryPis, Arduinos and Pico's etc.
At $10 (via Tindie), this opens up “radio tinkering” with these widely used radio modules to a whole new audience of experimenters. Note that this item is just the printed circuit board (PCB). This is made clearer on the seller’s website for this item. I think it’s a bit… confusing… to show this item with components installed, which is not what is being offered. But for $10, that’s a minor quibble.
DeepRad is a modular version of the RTL-SDR, a product beloved by radio enthusiasts. However, DeepRad offers distinct advantages. Its modularity makes integration far simpler, side-stepping the complexities of designing an RTL-SDR from scratch (such as RF considerations and chip stocking issues). DeepRad is a versatile option for integrating many different radio functions into whatever projects you’re working on today.
We want the community to create their own “motherboards” with 1, 3, or as many as 20 DeepRad modules to bring new applications to life. There are three versions of DeepRad we’ll be focusing on for this campaign:
DeepRad Module: The bare DeepRad module (no motherboard). The user has to develop a board to use it.
DeepRad Single: A single DeepRad module with a motherboard. It has USB Type-C and an antenna connection. It can be used as your regular RTL-SDR with USB.
DeepRad Quad: A motherboard with 4 DeepRad modules integrated via a USB hub with a USB Type-A connector.
Though this isn’t even at the crowdfunding stage, let alone an actual product, the concept has legs. KrakenSDR is a project with similar scope, integrating five software defined receivers into a single unit on the same timebase and USB chain, and it seems to be pretty popular for a variety of applications. Thus being able to have as many as twenty such modules (hopefully relatively inexpensive), has even more potential applications.
With another big issue. The May-June 2024 Communicator, digital periodical of Surrey Amateur Radio Communications is now available for viewing or download.
Read in over 150 countries, we bring you 120 pages of Amateur Radio content from the Southwest corner of Canada and elsewhere. With less fluff and ads than other Amateur Radio publications, you will find Amateur Radio related articles, projects, profiles, news, tips and how-to's for all levels of the hobby.
I consider the Communicator a newsletterzine - 120 pages! I consider the quality of the content to be excellent, never mind that it is written, edited, and published by volunteers. The editor mentioned that each issue requires about 40 hours of work. If you miss the general content of CQ or QST (sans contest results), the Communicator is an excellent replacement, and like Zero Retries and other “in service to Amateur Radio” publications, it’s available for free and publicly accessible. Recommended!
… for everything to operate correctly tech forward world, it has to be synchronized, right, and you can't synchronize something unless everybody agrees on what time it is. And that's all an atomic clock is. It is very simply, and we'll get into the how these things work, which sounds difficult, but it's actually pretty simple.
My daughter Merideth KK7BKI got me hooked the Stuff You Should Know podcast. I don’t listen to every episode (often as I’m settling down to sleep), but I listen to at least half of their episodes, and all that involve technical subjects (such as Space Stations). In my opinion, the two hosts are pleasant to listen to and do a credible job of research and work hard to accurately and understandably explain what they learn. From this episode I learned why Cesium is used as the basis for most atomic clocks.
If you’re not yet licensed as an Amateur Radio Operator, and would like to join the fun by literally having a license to experiment with radio technology, check out Join the Fun on Amateur Radio for some pointers.
In its mission to highlight technological innovation in Amateur Radio, promote Amateur Radio to techies as a literal license to experiment with radio technology, and make Amateur Radio more relevant to society in the 2020s and beyond, Zero Retries is published via email and web, and is available to everyone at no cost. Zero Retries is proud not to participate in the Amateur Radio Publishing Industrial Complex, which hides Amateur Radio content behind paywalls.
My ongoing Thanks to:
Tina Stroh KD7WSF for, well, everything!
Founding Members who generously support Zero Retries financially: Founding Member 0000 - Steven Davidson K3FZT Founding Member 0001 - Prefers to Remain Anonymous 01
Founding Member 0002 - Chris Osburn KD7DVD Founding Member 0003 - Don Rotolo N2IRZ Founding Member 0004 - William Arcand W1WRA Founding Member 0005 - Ben Kuhn KU0HN Founding Member 0006 - Todd Willey KQ4FID Founding Member 0007 - Merik Karman VK2MKZ Founding Member 0008 - Prefers to Remain Anonymous 14 Founding Member 0009 - Prefers to Remain Anonymous 19
Numerous Annual and Monthly subscribers who also generously support Zero Retries financially!
Want to Support Zero Retries?
The most effective way to support Zero Retries is to simply mention Zero Retries to your co-conspirators that are also interested in knowing more about technological innovation that is occurring in Amateur Radio and encourage them to become a fellow subscriber.
One particularly effective method of promoting Zero Retries is to add a mention of Zero Retries to your QRZ page (or other web presence) and include a link:
If you’d like to financially support Zero Retries, becoming a paid subscriber is greatly appreciated and helps offset expenses incurred in publishing Zero Retries. Paid subscriptions for Zero Retries are entirely optional, as explained in this special issue of ZR: Zero Retries Administrivia - Activating Payment Options.
These blogs and newsletters regularly feature Zero Retries Interesting content:
Dan Romanchik KB6NU mentions “Zero Retries Interesting” topics so regularly on his blog (that I otherwise wouldn’t know about) that I’ve bestowed on him the honorific of Pseudostaffer.
Jeff Davis KE9V also mentions “Zero Retries Interesting” topics so regularly on his blog (that I otherwise wouldn’t know about) that I’ve bestowed on him the honorific of Pseudostaffer.
Amateur Radio Weekly by Cale Mooth K4HCK is a weekly anthology of links to interesting Amateur Radio stories.
Experimental Radio News by Bennet Z. Kobb AK4AV discusses (in detail) Experimental (Part 5) licenses issued by the US FCC. It’s a must-read-now for me!
RTL-SDR Blog - Excellent coverage of Software Defined Radio units.
Zero Retries is currently using the Substack email publishing platform to publish Zero Retries. It’s particularly suitable for small newsletters as you can get started for no cost.
If you’re reading this issue on the web and you’d like to see Zero Retries in your email Inbox every Friday afternoon, just click below to join 1600+ other subscribers:
Email issues of Zero Retries are “instrumented” by Substack to gather basic statistics about opens, clicking links, etc.
More bits from Steve Stroh N8GNJ:
SuperPacket blog — Discussing new generations of Amateur Radio Data Communications — beyond Packet Radio (a precursor to Zero Retries)
N8GNJ blog — Amateur Radio Station N8GNJ and the mad science experiments at N8GNJ Labs — Bellingham, Washington, USA
Thanks for reading! Steve Stroh N8GNJ / WRPS598 (He / Him / His) These bits were handcrafted (by a mere human, not an Artificial Intelligence bot) in beautiful Bellingham (The City of Subdued Excitement), Washington, USA, and linked to the Internet via Starlink Satellite Internet Access.
2024-05-10
Blanket permission is granted for TAPR to use any Steve Stroh content in Zero Retries for the TAPR Packet Status Register (PSR) newsletter (I owe them from way back).
Blanket permission is granted for Amateur Radio use of any Steve Stroh content in Zero Retries for Amateur Radio newsletters and distribution via Amateur Radio such as (but not limited to) Packet Radio Networks, Packet Radio Bulletin Board Systems, Repeater Nets, etc.
In such usage, please provide appropriate authorship credit for the content.
If you’d like to reuse an article in this issue for other uses, just ask.
All excerpts from other authors or organizations, including images, are intended to be fair use. Unless otherwise noted in the article, there are no paid promotional items in any Zero Retries articles.
Zero Retries is an independent newsletter promoting technological innovation that is occurring in Amateur Radio, and Amateur Radio as (literally) a license to experiment with and learn about radio technology. Now in its third year of publication, with 1500+ 1600+ subscribers.
Zero Retries 0150 and Zero Retries Hits 1600 Subscribers!
There have now been more than 150 “named” issues of Zero Retries, including one memorable issue that I broke into three issues published simultaneously, but this is a nice milestone - 150+ issues, weekly without break.
The cadence of subscribership growth of Zero Retries seems to be accelerating. Zero Retries’s subscriber count hit 1500 as of Zero Retries 0146 on 2024-04-05 and scarcely a month later, 1600 subscribers! Other than a minor increase from my LinuxFest Northwest 2024 talk this past weekend, I haven’t seen any specific mention that caused an increase of subscriptions.
On Mastodon, I noticed that I hadn’t updated the subscriber count in my blurb. I went to fix that and noted that there are an additional 260 followers there, and pretty much by definition they’re following to know about new issues of Zero Retries since that’s (almost) all I post there.
And, amusingly, Substack notified me that three other Substack newsletters have begun recommending Zero Retries - one about Artificial Intelligence, one about music, and another about investing. I checked them out briefly, and couldn’t see any overlap between their subject matter and Zero Retries.
Thus I conclude that this is “gaming” of some kind within the Substack ecosystem, and it’s symptomatic that Zero Retries is no longer a good fit for continuing to use Substack to publish Zero Retries.
For the benefit of newer subscribers, Zero Retries was begun solely out of frustration that despite so much technological innovation occurring in Amateur Radio, there was no one place to know about it / read about it. Such stories were only mentioned very occasionally in the “mainstream” Amateur Radio media. Eventually that frustration boiled over into starting Zero Retries. At that time, I could imagine that Zero Retries might, conceivably, achieve 500 subscribers - that would have been fantastic. 1000 subscribers was “oh… my…”. Then the 1500 subscriber milestone ticked by and there are now a handful of new subscribers each week.
Thank you Zero Retries email subscribers, RSS followers, Substack followers, Mastodon followers, Bluesky followers, and all of you Zero Retries readers. If there were few readers, Zero Retries wouldn’t be worth continuing to publish at this pace. You readers make this investment in time, work, and sacrifice of other fun, personal projects worthwhile.
As always, my sincere thanks to all the Founding Members and Paid Subscribers who are helping keep Zero Retries going by offsetting some of the expenses incurred with Zero Retries. I plan to publish mention of all financial contributors annually on the (July) anniversary issue.
Major Conference Countdowns
Hamvention 2024 in Xenia, Ohio, USA on 2024-05-17 thru 19, in 02 weeks!
HAM RADIO 2024 in Friedrichshafen, Germany on 2024-06-28 thru 30, in 05 weeks!
My presentation at LinuxFest Northwest 2024 - Amateur Radio and Open Source (Not Just Linux) went well overall. The slide deck was too long (50+ slides), was almost entirely text (and too much text per slide), and it had a lot of extraneous mentions that weren’t really on-topic discussing Open Source activities within Amateur Radio.
That said, presenting at LinuxFest Northwest 2024 was a nice “beta” for future presentations in which I will be “evangelizing” Amateur Radio to techies as a fun, interesting, and useful (in technical careers) activity. As I mentioned this presentation to a few others this week, I received some good feedback that I’ll be incorporating into the presentation. One comment was “well… some people just want to get into Amateur Radio for the fun of it, including using Morse Code”. The implication that I took from that comment was “Do you think only techies are suitable for Amateur Radio?”. No, that’s not my perspective, which is that there are many others such as my former ARDC colleague (and now an ARDC director) Bob Witte K0NR, who can make the case that Amateur Radio is a fun, interesting hobby and activity for many folks (who aren’t necessarily techies). But I feel qualified, from my background, and Zero Retries, to promote Amateur Radio to techies.
The most recent post by K0NR discussed that “Digital Modes” activity were the third most popular activity in a survey of Canadian Amateur Radio Operators, superseded only by “Casual Operating” and “Traditional Voice Modes (SSB / AM / FM)”. That validates my perspective that “digital modes” are worth promoting to techies. Again, I’m not positing that the Zero Retries Perspective - promote Amateur Radio “techie” modes, to techies who might become interested in Amateur Radio, as the only path to grow Amateur Radio. But doing so is “a” path that I can personally, and somewhat uniquely, contribute to. Here is the video of my presentation on YouTube:
(My thanks to Digital Library of Amateur Radio and Communications for hosting it.)
Presentation at RATPAC on 2024-05-08
I will be the presenter at the Wednesday session of RATPAC (Radio Amateur Training Planning and Activities Committee) videoconference training series on 2024-05-08.
The topic of my presentation will be:
Tracking technological innovation in Amateur Radio - the Zero Retries newsletter
Mostly I want to use this presentation to highlight some of the more interesting technological innovation that’s underway in the 2020s, and there will be some overlap of my presentation at LinuxFest Northwest 2024.
Go to the RATPAC page and scroll down for the link for my presentation.
Future Zero Retries Project - The Zero Retries Interesting Catalog
As an outgrowth of a story in this issue - Why I’m Not Worried that MFJ Winding Down Presages a Downturn in Amateur Radio, I see clear need to create an online “catalog” which is actually a directory / guide of Zero Retries Interesting products. One of the problems in transitioning from single company with diverse products such as MFJ (manufacturer) or Ham Radio Outlet (retailer of many products and companies), is that it’s really hard for Amateur Radio Operators to know what products are actually available for Amateur Radio. Examples:
These companies, and dozens1 more, are small (often one person) “micro manufacturers” of unique products that don’t advertise, and don’t sell through retail such as Ham Radio Outlet or DX Engineering in the US. Not to mention the numerous Amateur Radio hardware manufacturing projects that aren’t organized as a company such as KiwiSDR and the products related to Amateur Radio distributed through Crowd Supply and Tindie.
Thus without such a catalog / directory / guide, it’s hard for someone new to Amateur Radio to know where to go for unique hardware that would make their Amateur Radio experience more fun and interesting. This isn’t a project that’s necessarily unique to me or Zero Retries… but if someone else doesn’t do it, eventually it will rise up the priority list of projects to tackle as part of the Zero Retries mission.
In the meantime…
I want to spend some significant time in N8GNJ Labs this coming week getting some traction on some fun Amateur Radio projects… not just infrastructure / organizing that has consumed the past month of my time in N8GNJ Labs.
Also to be tackled on a rare day that doesn’t include wind or rain is to repair the bent antenna mast for my primary Amateur Radio antenna.
And, of course, tomorrow… May the 4th Be With You. 😄
Apologies for the late publication time of this issue. It was difficult to finish my remembrance of K7VE.
In a widely circulated letter titled “A Heavy Sad Heart”, the Founder of MFJ Enterprises, Martin F. Jue K5FLU, announced that MFJ will cease manufacturing as of 2024-05-17.
As many of you have heard by now, MFJ is ceasing its on-site production in Starkville, Mississippi on May 17, 2024. This is also the same for our sister companies’ Ameritron, Hygain, Cushcraft, Mirage and Vectronics.
MFJ seems to be planning to continue at least some business activity, post manufacturing:
We are going to continue to sell MFJ products past May 17, 2024. We have a lot of stock on hand. We will continue to offer repair service work for out-of-warranty and in-warranty units for the foreseeable future.
As this article is written, there is no mention of K5FLU’s announcement on the MFJ website, though per the announcement, MFJ is “business as usual” through 2024-05-17.
It’s my guess that the timing of this announcement was chosen to set expectations for one of MFJ’s last appearances at Hamvention 2024 in a few weeks. MFJ’s booths have always been one of the largest at Hamvention, and unlike many other large “manufacturer” booths at Hamvention, MFJ was happy to actually sell you a product across the counter.
I’ll always have fond memories of MFJ in my Amateur Radio career as they were one of the first to license the TAPR TNC-2 design and their ability to manufacture at scale, marketing, and distribution made TNCs more widely available to Amateur Radio Operators. “TAPR” might have felt a bit “niche” to many Amateur Radio Operators in the early packet radio era, but if “Good Old MFJ” endorsed packet radio with a product, “there must be something to it”.
Unlike others who licensed the TAPR TNC-2 and literally cloned the TNC-2 design, case, front panel, and all, MFJ immediately began manufacturing their unique version of the TNC-2 (though it too was electrically a clone of the TNC-2), with less expensive thin, stamped steel enclosure and distinct aluminum faceplate rather than the extruded enclosure that TAPR used. The MFJ-1270 was briefly “co-labeled” as a TNC-2 (I have at least one such unit in my collection of TNCs) in addition to the MFJ numbering system for product names - MFJ-1270. Over the years, many MFJ TNCs have found their way to me, including a new old stock (unused, to date) Vectronics version of the MFJ-1270.
My memory is that the variants of the MJF TNC-2 / MFJ-1270 basic design, including versions with add-on 2400 and 9600 bps modems, versions with HF modems and tuning indicators, etc. easily spanned a decade, perhaps more.
MFJ apparently harbored some affection for the MFJ-1270 as long after discontinuing the MFJ-1270 and variants, as MFJ reused “1270” in a couple of related products. The MFJ-1270X was a licensed version of the Coastal Chipworks TNC-X, and the MFJ-1270PI (which, if memory serves, also a licensed product). Totally out of curiosity, I own one of the latter, and ordered my second, and probably final unit this week.
MFJ also briefly manufactured low powered data radios for 144-148 MHz (MFJ-8621) and 220-225 MHz (though I cannot find an online reference for that product). As these were intended to be simple, dedicated data radios, they were crystal-controlled and at the time they were manufactured, crystals for one’s preferred frequencies were easy and inexpensive to obtain.
MFJ always impressed me with their speed of spotting of a potential product niche and rapidly coming out with products to address such niches, at reasonable prices. Some MFJ products seemed rushed and imperfect, though MFJ always seemed responsive in supporting their products with spare parts and repairs. I was also impressed with how granular MFJ’s products could be, including small “switch boxes” which you could put between your radio and TNC, to allow easy switching between using your radio’s microphone, or the TNC, at the push of a button instead of uncabling the TNC to hook up a microphone.
I wish K5FLU a happy retirement and kudos to him for deciding to wind down MFJ gracefully. MFJ will be missed in the Amateur Radio market.
Why I’m Not Worried that MFJ Winding Down Presages a Downturn in Amateur Radio
By Steve Stroh N8GNJ
2023 / 2024 seems to be one of those transition years when a lot of change is occurring in Amateur Radio. It really is some of the best of times and worst of times. I’ve never seen so many small quantity, small company Zero Retries Interesting projects created, and almost none of them are big radios or from big companies.
One of the benefits of writing Zero Retries that I have come to enjoy most these past three years is a sense of optimism about the future of Amateur Radio. It’s easier for me… and you as Zero Retries readers, to have that sense of optimism that Amateur Radio is active and vital and progressive and future-seeking… that it has a bright future. That’s because we’re collectively aware of just how much interesting technological innovation is happening in Amateur Radio. But you and I only know such things because of Zero Retries. If it your primary news sources are / were QST, CQ, or even QRZ or some other “general Amateur Radio news” websites / blogs / newsletters / YouTube channels, etc.
In saying the following, I mean no disrespect to MFJ or its personnel. It was a profitable company for many years that made products that satisfied many needs and many customers in Amateur Radio.
But in many ways, MFJ is company that was designed for the economics of the 20th century rather than the 21st century. It made products that were designed to be sold through retail channels, at a markup, and those products were expected to be sold over the course of years and kept in production and stock - with significant “carrying costs”.
What I’m observing from the “Zero Retries Perspective” (ZRP) is a significant shift of Amateur Radio products and projects (especially those that are Zero Retries Interesting) that are created by individuals and small teams. Such products and projects are focused on specialized interest niches, or very small family of products, built in batches for near-immediate sale, and often crowdfunded or bootstrapped by the creator(s). The tools to create new things are so much better than in previous eras. For example:
Easily found open source code and libraries mean a lot less “reinventing the wheel”,
Good, free tools for creating new circuits and printed circuit boards. Then you can order assembled PCBs from China, Inc. at ridiculously low prices and ridiculously fast turnaround.
Fast processors mean that inefficient, inexpert code can be run at reasonable speeds. It’s no longer necessary to code in “efficient” languages such as assembly or C. I’m told that one significant open source software project is largely written in FORTRAN, which you don’t hear much about these days. But that software is running on modern PCs, so the “efficiency” of the code is of little concern as long as it works. Even BASIC code can now be reasonably fast, and I’m looking forward to dusting off my PASCAL (limited) experience and try my hand at writing code.
An example about “easy coding” is a recent experiment I read about. An individual with some software experience wanted to create a project driven by a microcontroller. But they didn’t want to learn such programming; they just to create a new system (that didn’t yet exist). The person used AI tools to create and debug the software, and it worked spectacularly. They were able to make their project a reality, they didn’t have to learn microcontroller programming, and the project was relatively easy, fast, and cheap.
Ability to publicize, conduct widespread testing, and sales using tools like mailing lists and payment processing systems.
A lot of this “grass roots innovation” is, with very broad perspective, simply better recognition of just how much individuals and small groups can do - if they’re motivated to try.
For MFJ to create the MFJ-1270, it took a team of engineers, manufacturing technicians, a warehouse, retail distributors, and multiple managers. In contrast, the Mobilinkd TNC4 is created, sold, and supported by two people.
Make no mistake, we’ll all miss MFJ… but Amateur Radio will be fine.
I, and many others, willl miss our friend John Hays K7VE and his many unique contributions to Amateur Radio.
John Hays K7VE and I were both part of a group in the Seattle, Washington area that was active in packet radio networking. As that activity faded, the group transitioned to being “mostly social” and until COVID-19, had met for brunch on almost every Saturday morning. There were a number of times that K7VE and I were the only ones to show up (it was a very loose group). Thus K7VE and I were able to exchange many stories, many discussions of Amateur Radio technology, and just enjoyed getting to know each other. We didn’t always agree, but K7VE was never less than gentlemanly in his disagreement. During COVID-19, K7VE retired from his day job, and he and his wife Bev KC7PAA sold their home in the Seattle suburbs and moved to a custom built home in Kingston, Washington across Puget Sound from Seattle. K7VE built a new office / shack / garage, and I was looking forward to visiting him sometime this summer and seeing his new shack.
One of K7VE’s other roles was as Western Washington coordinator for assisting those of us in Western Washington that wanted to use 44Net and 44Net IPv4 addresses. One of K7VE’s contributions was negotiating between ARDC / 44Net for a large block of IPv4 addresses for use in HamWAN.
Yet another significant, but subtle influence of K7VE on Amateur Radio was his role in creating NW Digital Radio and their “founding project”, the UDRX-440 Software Defined Transceiver / Data Radio (PDF). It speaks to K7VE’s humility that he didn’t make a bigger deal that the UDRX-440 was his vision, explained in one of his many presentations at Amateur Radio conferences, that inspired Bryan Hoyer K7UDR and K7VE to found NW Digital Radio.
The UDRX-440 came agonizingly close to becoming a product. I profoundly wish it had, even with many rough edges. It was to be a 25 watt multimode data radio with all the features we wanted - flexible modems, full software control of transmit bandwidth, frequency, power, etc. There were good, valid reasons that it didn't quite make it. The scope of the UDRX-440 informs my vision for what we could do in Amateur Radio to get real Software Defined Transceivers into the hands of Amateur Radio Operators, and we may well have the “pieces in place” in 2024 or 2025 to realize some or most of the UDRX-440’s capabilities.
One of K7VE’s most famous “hacks” was adding the ability to operate D-Star using a Yaesu DR-1X repeater, which Yaesu had built as a dual-mode System Fusion / FM repeater. The DR-1X was introduced and priced as a “loss leader” to encourage clubs to replace older repeaters and promote the growth of Yaesu’s System Fusion. K7VE explained the details in a (now deleted) blog post on the NW Digital Radio website, but archived on Internet Archive - Universal Digital Radio Controller. This same capability (Digital Voice modes) is now possible with adding a Multimode Digital Voice Modem (MMDVM) to an FM repeater. But, at the time, K7VE’s method was an elegant hack that even had Yaesu (at least a few personnel) chuckling, if a bit grimly.
K7VE was an early and enthusiastic advocate of ARDC after it transitioned to its current form as a charitable foundation and began awarding grants. Before being hired as staff as ARDC’s Outreach Manager, K7VE was an active and enthusiastic supporter of ARDC’s grant making work in chairing ARDC’s first Grants Advisory Committee. K7VE played a critical part in getting ARDC’s grant making up and running, which is told well in ARDC’s remembrance of K7VE - Remembering John Hays K7VE SK.
Beyond his large family, I think K7VE’s involvement in ARDC will be one of his largest legacies given all the change and improvement in Amateur Radio that is resulting from ARDC’s grants that support Amateur Radio activities.
K7VE was also passionate about D-Star and promoting D-Star as a “made for Amateur Radio” system. A remembrance from Jonathan Naylor K4GLX (next story) explains this facet of John’s contributions well.
My friend John Hays K7VE died unexpectedly on April 16th. The Facebook algorithms didn't see fit to show me this information and I had to be told days later by Jim KI6ZUM. Instead FB insisted on feeding me pages that I don't follow, rather than stuff that matters to me. Anyway I digress.
I knew John pretty well. He had been an early supporter of my software, and my first dealing with him were in Autumn 2009 only a few months after the release of my first D-Star and FM repeater software, and before it was in widespread use. Many of our emails were about the poor performance of the then popular GMSK modems and what we could do about them, as well as more software related items.
Once I had released the ircDDB Gateway in Autumn 2010 he moved his repeater, then based on an Icom repeater stack, over to use it rather than Icom's G2 software. The next few years would see many more emails being exchanged as I enhanced my software and he suggested changes, reported bugs, etc. John came up with the idea for StarNet which is still included with the ircDDB Gateway.
I first physically met John in 2014 as I was to attend Hamvention as a guest of NWDR, which was John and Bryan Hoyer at the time. We manned a booth at the old Hara arena, and despite being used to Ham Radio in Friedrickshafen, nothing could prepare me for the onslaught of Hamvention. I had a great time, and by the time that Sunday rolled around, I was burned out! Too much of a good thing I suppose.
John backed off a bit with my software with the release of the MMDVM. He wasn't happy with me supporting purely commercial protocols like DMR. It was indeed ironic that I got my first DMR radio at that very Hamvention from Jerry Wanger of CSI, and I also crossed swords with the DMR-MARC guys, which strongly encouraged me to go down the route that would become the MMDVM a little while later.
Since then I would see John at various shows, and then after Covid when things had more or less returned to normal, I saw him at Ham Radio in 2022, and 2023 manning the ARDC stand. I also saw him at Pacificon in October 2023 which would turn out to be the last time I saw him. We would sit and have long conversations about development work and potential projects. I was very much looking forward to seeing him at Hamvention in a few weeks.
Rest in peace John, it was an honour to be your friend.
M17 Project Seeking Funding Sources to Continue Development
Wojciech Kaczmarski SP5WWP on LinkedIn:
I'm looking for funding sources for the M17 Project.
Our current tasks include hardware proliferation (Remote Radio Unit, Module17/Micro17 and OpenHT being excellent examples). As the Project relies largely on volunteer work, I don't believe it's viable for granting (it's close to impossible to plan ahead, regardless of the time frame, as volunteer work is largely unpredictable, unreliable and chaotic).
Prototyping generates the largest expenses at the moment. We will soon run out of funds and will no longer be able to sustain development.
I'd love to keep working on our cutting edge open-source amateur radio hardware designs for profit. An alternative solution would be to start working as an external contractor or having ability to invoice the funder for the work done. The whole team is just 2 developers (hardware+firmware).
I look forward to your thoughts on this.
I had worried about this possibility. SP5WWP was keeping up a frantic pace on multiple projects. The Remote Radio Unit alone was a daunting project, but its potential is hugely promising. I hope he will be able to complete at least one “ready to go to manufacturing” prototype so a commercial sponsor would have all the material needed to make it available as a product.
LinkedIn seems to be SP5WWP’s primary posting / contact system:
D-STAR InfoCon is back at Dayton Hamvention for 2024 providing an introduction to D-STAR for new users and more advanced topics for more experienced D-STAR users. The class will be held at the Drury Inn Ballroom at 6616 Miller Lane in the heart of hotel row in Dayton. The 3-hour class will be held on Friday, May 17th beginning at 8:00am local time. This year’s topics will include getting on-the-air with D-STAR, how to connect around the world, programming for all models of D-STAR radios, using DR Mode, easy updating your radio memories and using hotspots and other D-STAR devices.
Mentioned in honor of Silent Keyboard John Hays K7VE, who was a fan of D-Star.
This is the new digiPi HAT for ham radio digi modes from a raspberry Pi. The board is desgned to be topped on a Raspberry Pi 4 or 5, on which you could work ham radio digital modes remotely. The new digiPi HAT is compatible with KM6LYW’s digiPi image. With KM6LYW’s image, you could work digi modes from a tablet or a smart phone through an internet browser. If you don’t use the KM6LYW’s image, you could still use the new digiPi HAT on a regular rasbian or debian OS by installing the softwares like wsjtx or direwolf, which enable you to work FT8/FT4 or APRS on your Pi SBC. In this case, the TFT LCD will not work, unless you could write your own C++ or Python code to make it display somethings, callsign, the decoded info from direwolf or wsjtx.
Our new digiPi HAT integrates a TFT LCD, two buttons, an on-board temperature sensor(LM75A), an ambient light sensor(BH1750), three 2.54 pin-headers for connecting it to a bme680 enviromental sensor, an external GPS module or some other sensors with I2C interface. These sensors could be used for experimental purpose, that says, with these sensors, you are able to make more funs on APRS by sending beacon packets containing the info measured by the installed sensors or a positional info from a GPS. We also preserve a PCB footprint for lora modules. You could install a SX1278, SX1276 or a LLCC68 lora module on your own. With a lora module, you could receive some lora packets and have it sent again by APRS, but you need C++ or Python skills to do this. YOU DON’T HAVE TO BUY A BME680 and A GPS MODULE if you just use the digiPi HAT for the normal ham radio digi modes operation.
This is a perfect illustration of the new, more granular ecosystem of “micro manufacturers” for Zero Retries Interesting devices. The DigiPi Project was started solely as instructions for Do It Yourself hardware, with good software. Now DigiPi is blossoming into several different options for a really polished experience.
If you’re not yet licensed as an Amateur Radio Operator, and would like to join the fun by literally having a license to experiment with radio technology, check out Join the Fun on Amateur Radio for some pointers.
In its mission to highlight technological innovation in Amateur Radio, promote Amateur Radio to techies as a literal license to experiment with radio technology, and make Amateur Radio more relevant to society in the 2020s and beyond, Zero Retries is published via email and web, and is available to everyone at no cost. Zero Retries is proud not to participate in the Amateur Radio Publishing Industrial Complex, which hides Amateur Radio content behind paywalls.
My ongoing Thanks to:
Tina Stroh KD7WSF for, well, everything!
Founding Members who generously support Zero Retries financially: Founding Member 0000 - Steven Davidson K3FZT Founding Member 0001 - Prefers to Remain Anonymous 01
Founding Member 0002 - Chris Osburn KD7DVD Founding Member 0003 - Don Rotolo N2IRZ Founding Member 0004 - William Arcand W1WRA Founding Member 0005 - Ben Kuhn KU0HN Founding Member 0006 - Todd Willey KQ4FID Founding Member 0007 - Merik Karman VK2MKZ Founding Member 0008 - Prefers to Remain Anonymous 14 Founding Member 0009 - Prefers to Remain Anonymous 19
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One particularly effective method of promoting Zero Retries is to add a mention of Zero Retries to your QRZ page (or other web presence) and include a link:
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These blogs and newsletters regularly feature Zero Retries Interesting content:
Dan Romanchik KB6NU mentions “Zero Retries Interesting” topics so regularly on his blog (that I otherwise wouldn’t know about) that I’ve bestowed on him the honorific of Pseudostaffer.
Jeff Davis KE9V also mentions “Zero Retries Interesting” topics so regularly on his blog (that I otherwise wouldn’t know about) that I’ve bestowed on him the honorific of Pseudostaffer.
Amateur Radio Weekly by Cale Mooth K4HCK is a weekly anthology of links to interesting Amateur Radio stories.
Experimental Radio News by Bennet Z. Kobb AK4AV discusses (in detail) Experimental (Part 5) licenses issued by the US FCC. It’s a must-read-now for me!
RTL-SDR Blog - Excellent coverage of Software Defined Radio units.
Zero Retries is currently using the Substack email publishing platform to publish Zero Retries. It’s particularly suitable for small newsletters as you can get started for no cost.
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More bits from Steve Stroh N8GNJ:
SuperPacket blog — Discussing new generations of Amateur Radio Data Communications — beyond Packet Radio (a precursor to Zero Retries)
N8GNJ blog — Amateur Radio Station N8GNJ and the mad science experiments at N8GNJ Labs — Bellingham, Washington, USA
Thanks for reading! Steve Stroh N8GNJ / WRPS598 (He / Him / His) These bits were handcrafted (by a mere human, not an Artificial Intelligence bot) in beautiful Bellingham (The City of Subdued Excitement), Washington, USA, and linked to the Internet via Starlink Satellite Internet Access.
2024-05-03
Blanket permission is granted for TAPR to use any Steve Stroh content in Zero Retries for the TAPR Packet Status Register (PSR) newsletter (I owe them from way back).
Blanket permission is granted for Amateur Radio use of any Steve Stroh content in Zero Retries for Amateur Radio newsletters and distribution via Amateur Radio such as (but not limited to) Packet Radio Networks, Packet Radio Bulletin Board Systems, Repeater Nets, etc.
In such usage, please provide appropriate authorship credit for the content.
If you’d like to reuse an article in this issue for other uses, just ask.
All excerpts from other authors or organizations, including images, are intended to be fair use. Unless otherwise noted in the article, there are no paid promotional items in any Zero Retries articles.
Quite possibly, there are actually hundreds, not just dozens of “microcompanies” manufacturing Zero Retries Interesting products. We’ll only know when a comprehensive directory is created.
Zero Retries is an independent newsletter promoting technological innovation that is occurring in Amateur Radio, and Amateur Radio as (literally) a license to experiment with and learn about radio technology. Now in its third year of publication, with 1500+ subscribers.
Presentation at LinuxFest Northwest on Saturday 2024-04-27
I will be a presenter at LinuxFest Northwest (LFNW) 2024 tomorrow (Saturday) at 14:30 - 15:30 in room DMC 140 at Bellingham Technical College in Bellingham, Washington USA. The subject of my presentation is on the schedule as “Amateur Radio and Linux”, but it was supposed to be (and will be):
Amateur Radio and Open Source (Not Just Linux)
My presentation will be a cursory overview of Amateur Radio activities and highlight a number of significant open source projects and what techies can do to experiment… hack around… beyond what’s possible / allowed with low-power unlicensed systems such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and LoRa / Meshtastic. I’m just trying to get the techies at LinuxFest to understand that Amateur Radio in the 2020s is technical, fun, and you can learn a heck of a lot about radio technology with Amateur Radio.
LFNW is a favorite of techies in Western Washington and Southwest British Columbia, and even draws from Portland, Oregon which is a six hour drive away. It’s one of the reasons that I became so familiar and fond of Bellingham when it came time to decide on a place to relocate when we decided to leave the Seattle metro area.
Please look for the Zero Retries hat and say Hi!
Presentation at RATPAC on 2024-05-08
I will be the presenter at the Wednesday session of RATPAC (Radio Amateur Training Planning and Activities Committee) videoconference training series on 2024-05-08.
The topic of my presentation will be:
Tracking technological innovation in Amateur Radio - the Zero Retries newsletter
Mostly I want to use this presentation to highlight some of the more interesting technological innovation that’s underway in the 2020s.
Go to the RATPAC page and scroll down for the link for my presentation.
Compensation for Favorable Mention in Zero Retries? Nope.
A Zero Retries reader mentioned not too long ago that “You must be getting all kinds of free stuff for the nice mentions of products in Zero Retries”.
Actually… no.
To date, I’ve accepted two (pretty minor) “freebie” products and a generous donation of several radios modified for data use from Tadd Torborg KA2DEW. When I actually do use those (and perhaps future) “freebie” products and write about them in Zero Retries, I’ll disclose that those items were donated.
First, I don’t ask. I don’t want there to be an expectation (or a suspicion) of paying for mentions in Zero Retries. Unless otherwise noted, I pay full price for the products that I want to experiment with and use.
Second, small vendors of Zero Retries Interesting products in the Amateur Radio market have thin profit margins as is without giving away free stuff. I get it - it’s a struggle for small vendors to stay in the Amateur Radio market. Just like optional paid subscriptions are a “signal” to Zero Retries that the content has value, my purchases to small businesses in the Amateur Radio market, like recently to Zum Radio, KiwiSDR, and RPC Electronics is a signal to them that their products are useful and valuable.
In the meantime…
Next week will be a bit of travel to finally meet Pseudostaffer Orv Beach W6BI in Vancouver, British Columbia.
CATS is a new Amateur Radio data communications system that’s somewhat modeled on Automatic Packet Reporting System (APRS). CATS is a “clean sheet of paper” rethinking of the paradigms underlaying APRS and that VE9QLE has launched CATS is testimony to the culture of technological innovation that Amateur Radio continues to experiment with new technology and paradigms like CATS.
The slide deck from this presentation is also available from RATPAC.
Parikh says there are three basic approaches to dealing with radio interference, and they use all of them. One is filtering, so that the receiver can block out everything except the exact wavelength being used to communicate. Another is using multiple bands and the third is hopping to a different band where [there] is no interference.
…
Parikh says that jammers are constantly evolving, but they are staying a step ahead with new techniques to defeat them. The time to switch to a new frequency is now measured in milliseconds.
…
Parikh describes Mesh Rider as a hybrid software-defined radio. While the theoretical, ideal software-defined radio is capable of communicating with any protocol on any wavelength, in practice it is constrained by hardware. Doodle Labs’ radio uses six different bands in a patented design claimed to be the first to offer this versatility.
I posit that Parikh chooses to omit a fourth approach to dealing with jamming - focus. For example, if a drone has a directional antenna system, flying from friendly territory (West) into enemy territory (East) it can focus its communications link West and ignore the (jamming) transmissions from the East. I’ll guess that Parikh forgoes this approach because it’s not currently practical to implement directional antennas on small, inexpensive drones1. Even “solid state” phased array antenna techniques require significant size, electrical power, and compute capability that would require a large drone with a significant power budget.
One of the challenges with such “rapid channel”, and now rapid band switching is for the two ends of the communications link to stay in sync to maintain two-way communication. I’ll guess that one of the key elements of the Doodle Labs units (sophisticated software) is that the drone unit autonomously selects the band to operate on, switching either constantly, or as necessary when encountering jamming. This could be made to work because the base unit simply listens, simultaneously, to all possible bands (using inexpensive software defined receivers), receives the (authenticated, no doubt) transmission from the drone, and communicates back on that band.
Drones on the battlefield is an example of literally life and death depending on having superior… or at minimum… survivable radio technology. (So is battlefield tactical communications which is mentioned peripherally in the article.) Given that the Ukranian drones cited are surviving the best jamming technology that Russia can throw at them, US radio technology is winning that contest… at the moment.
Doodle Labs Mesh Rider Nano. Image courtesy of Doodle Labs.
I found it remarkable that the sophistication of Mesh Rider can be crammed into a unit as small, light, and inexpensive as the Mesh Rider Nano:
And crucially, the smallest version of Mesh Rider weighs less than an ounce and costs just a few hundred dollars, making it small and cheap enough for expendable drones.
One of the limitations of Doodle Labs’ approach of using off-the-shelf radio “chips” such as those from Qualcomm, is that those chips are designed for bands that are “popular” worldwide (largest possible market) such as 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz (though there is some mention of the North American 902-928 MHz band).
Doodle Labs once offered an Amateur Radio product, the DL435 420-450 MHz OFDM Transceiver. Basically, Doodle Labs used a 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi chipset and incorporated the equivalent of a 2.4 GHz to 420-450 MHz transverter. “Green Bay Professional Packet Radio” did a great article on this product which could operate in 5 or 10 MHz channels on 420-450 MHz and could operate at speeds up to 13.5 MHz in a 5 MHz channel and 27 Mbps in a 10 MHz channel. This unit was only available for a short time and probably fell victim to the FCC bandwidth and symbol rate limits on the US 420-450 MHz (70 cm) band of maximum bandwidth of 100 kHz and maximum symbol rate of 56 “kilobaud”.
I see a number of crossovers in Amateur Radio to the technologies being implemented in the Mesh Rider systems, including the “monitor everything, simultaneously” approach (which we can now do with ka9q-radio and inexpensive Software Defined Receivers), ability to dynamically use multiple bands depending on requirements of the moment (such as selecting 50-54 MHz to communicate with one friend, and 1240-1300 MHz to communicate with another), and of course experimentation on the “unlicensed” bands for which US Amateur Radio has overlapping allocations allowing for experimentation beyond what’s possible by “unlicensed” users and products that must adhere to “unlicensed” limitations.
AREDN production software version 3.24.4.0 is now available, with many new features and enhancements. The AREDN team would like to thank those individuals who contributed to this release:
Tim [Wilkinson] KN6PLV
Paul [Milazzo] K3PGM
Darryl [Quinn] K5DLQ
Gerard [Hickey] WT0F
Jacob [McSwain] KI5VMF
Bailey [Kasin] KK6ORT
Steve [Lewis] AB7PA
Go forth and upgrade - your network will thank you!
It’s really cool to see the major contributors to AREDN mentioned prominently. I could care less if my name / callsign ever appears on some list of Amateur Radio contest results, but having my name / callsign associated with a significant technical accomplishment like this… is (again) really cool.
Kudos to all the contributors to AREDN 3.24.4.0!
And, thanks again to AREDN Ambassador (and Zero Retries Pseudostaffer) Orv Beach W6BI for tirelessly evangelizing the capabilities of AREDN within Amateur Radio.
This is the PRE-ORDER OF THE QUANSHENG UV-K5 Radio ( DIRECT FROM FACTORY) which has been modified with the si4732 chip to receive the H.F Bands and also flashed with the firmware so as the hardware mod can work.
Modifications done to the radio:
Modification of front end Amp (Removal of Inductor/cap and upgrade of cap )
Removal of FM Chip and Installation of the DSP Radio AM/FM CHIP SI4732.
Installation of the Antenna input inductor change.
Upgrading of capacitors around the Audio chip to improve clarity.
Upgrading of Firmware to enable new Radio chip operation.
Why did you make it?
I have been receiving requests who wants this radio but are unable to perform such mods. So i am stocking a small stock and modify them myself with all the mods available.
The modification is carried out by a professional engineer and great care is taken not to scratch the radio during the modification upgrade.
What makes it special?
The radio is supplied ready to use with all mods. These radios are supplied from the parent factory so rest assured you are getting the real one !
This is an item on Tindie from Seller “JasonKits QPR” in Malta. I thought this was notable that there is enough interest in these radios ability to be modified that a small business is stepping up to supply units with the necessary (or just nice to have) hardware modifications so the the unit is “ready for software hacking”.
Note that these modifications do not have anything to do with adding the ability to operate M17 mode.
Also on the subject of the Quansheng UV-K5, Dan Maloney N7DPM on Hackaday:
In the world of cheap amateur radio transceivers, the Quansheng UV-K5 can’t be beaten for hackability. But pretty much every hack we’ve seen so far focuses on the firmware. What about the hardware?
To answer that question, [mentalDetector] enlisted the help of a few compatriots and vivisected a UV-K5 to find out what makes it tick. The result is a complete hardware description of the radio, including schematics, PCB design files, and 3D renders. The radio was a malfunctioning unit that was donated by collaborator [Manuel], who desoldered all the components and measured which ones he could to determine specific values. The parts that resisted his investigations got bundled up along with the stripped PCB to [mentalDetector], who used a NanoVNA to characterize them as well as possible. Documentation was up to collaborator [Ludwich], who also made tweaks to the schematic as it developed.
Masters Communications DRA-50M. Image courtesy of Masters Communications.
Kevin Custer W3KKC on the DRA mailing list:
Our DRA-50M has been a popular choice among users, and now there are more DRA's that have been added to the M Series product list. With these product additions comes a change in revision that affects all M Series products - including the original DRA-50M. Starting with REV2, the following are features are included - at NO additional cost. Of the models listed below - M Series DRA's now ship automatically when you order a Standard DRA in a metal case. The website has been updated with the proper ordering links and individual product pages, and our assemblers have these products in stock.
In some cases - there are differences between the Standard DRA and the "M". These differences are explained in a linked page for each of the new DRA's.
Revision 2 Features:
The COMM OK (blue) LED was moved to come through the front panel.
The new front panel includes all three Status LEDs (COMM OK, HB & PTT).
All M Series boards have the choice between Transistor and Relay PTT keying.
The layout is more organized and allows the jumpers to be easily re-positioned without pliers.
The following DRA's are now available in the M Series. These listings are hyper-linked. Clicking on the model number takes you to the product's page at Masters Communications.
A transistor provides the fastest possible switching time between receive / transmit, but is incompatible with some radios. In an effort to make DRA's compatible with more radios, we're now giving the choice between transistor or relay PTT switching. The PTT keying method is selected by two mechanical jumpers - no soldering required. You choose between Transistor or Relay keying. The Relay position adds compatibility with all radios. The Transistor position insures the fastest keying on radios that are okay with electronic keying. A reed type relay minimizes the keying delay when this method must be used. Some ICOM and Commercial radios don't like a bipolar transistor, so a relay works best with them. As the software authors become more and more aggressive on timing - I wanted to retain the fastest switch time, but give the option of relay switching when is required. For radios that aren't picky - it's best to use transistor switching, but since we use a reed type relay - there is little disadvantage to this type of switching.
In my opinion, Masters Communications could have “gotten away” with perhaps two variations of their Digital Radio Adapter (DRA) series and satisfied the majority of (but not all) use cases. But instead, Masters Communications offers a wide variety of DRAs (beyond these five new models) - see the Features Comparison page.
The improvement of choice of Push To Talk (PTT; aka the “transmit” signal from the modem to the radio) circuitry in a successful product speaks volumes that Masters Communications is listening… intently2… to their customers and providing even more capable products. Plus… I’m a sucker for blinkylights on my communications equipment (makes troubleshooting a lot more efficient)… especially blue blinkylights. Not to mention that sexy Blue metal case option.
… For Turn Island Systems. Paul Elliott WB6CXC on his WB6CXC blog:
I’ve been busy. Here is the latest batch of designs that have been sent out for fab. Some are simple, some more complicated, and some are updates of earlier designs. KiCad and JLCPCB sure make this stuff easy!
Details and an illustration of each of these units are in the blog post. WB6CXC’s productivity in creation and rapid iteration of his products continues to amaze me.
Top US military officials, including DoD CIO John Sherman, said the Pentagon is embarking on a 'moonshot' to develop dynamic spectrum sharing (DSS) technology for the lower 3GHz band and other bands.
Top US military officials reiterated the Pentagon's interest in spectrum sharing during a media event this week, describing the technology as a “moonshot” that would help the US maintain an advantage against its rivals both economically and militarily.
…
The lower 3GHz band, which sits between 3.1GHz and 3.45GHz, pits the US military and the US wireless industry directly against each other. That's because the military currently operates radar and other functions in the lower 3GHz band, but the wireless industry wants to get access to the band for 5G.
According to wireless industry lobbying association CTIA, policymakers need to release the band for 5G so that the US can stay competitive on the international stage. But military officials generally argued that the band is necessary for a variety of military operations, including technologies designed to intercept missiles fired into US territory. As a result, DoD officials have voiced support for spectrum sharing but not for releasing the spectrum completely. The wireless industry generally wants exclusive access to the spectrum.
Not Amateur Radio, but illustrative of the tenacity and omnivorous requirement for more, more, more spectrum (exclusive if at all possible) for mobile telephone systems in the US.
I attended a wireless conference more than a decade ago where it was stated by a presenter that the mobile telephone industry wanted access to this portion of spectrum so badly that they had begun a long term (patient, but relentless) campaign against the US Department of Defense to lobby for exclusive access to it. At the time, I didn’t give much credence to such a campaign. The Citizens Band Radio Service (CBRS) band - 3.55 to 3.7 GHz overlaps with a RADAR system used on US Navy carriers, but the DOD wasn’t required to modify anything in their operations of those RADARs for CBRS. Apparently, these “discussions” have now entered a new phase with the DOD actively contemplating changes to its systems to accommodate the mobile telephone industry.
I’ve known about IPv6 for the last two decades or so, but I’ve never gone beyond “an overengineered solution to the IPv4 address space problem”. IPv6 was even presented as “every atom could get its own IP address, no IP address shortages anymore”, but I didn’t know how true that was either. I occasionally saw an IPv6 address here and there because almost every device supports IPv6 today. I believe cellular network operators even default to it, so you’re probably reading this on a device that uses IPv6.
Last week, I decided to learn about how IPv6 works under the hood, and I’ve learned quite a few interesting facts about it.
I enjoyed Kapanoglu’s conversational explanation of some of the details of IPv6, which we will all be using natively by the end of the decade - IPv4 just cannot keep up with the demands of modern Internet usage.
DSS-43 is the only antenna that can communicate with the probe.
For more than 50 years, Deep Space Station 43 has been an invaluable tool for space probes as they explore our solar system and push into the beyond. The DSS-43 radio antenna, located at the Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex, near Canberra, Australia, keeps open the line of communication between humans and probes during NASA missions.
Today more than 40 percent of all data retrieved by celestial explorers, including Voyagers, New Horizons, and the Mars Curiosity rover, comes through DSS-43.
“As Australia’s largest antenna, DSS-43 has provided two-way communication with dozens of robotic spacecraft,” IEEE President-Elect Kathleen Kramer said during a ceremony where the antenna was recognized as an IEEE Milestone. It has supported missions, Kramer noted, “from the Apollo program and NASA’s Mars exploration rovers such as Spirit and Opportunity to the Voyagers’ grand tour of the solar system.
“In fact,” she said, “it is the only antenna remaining on Earth capable of communicating with Voyager 2.”
But I think the more remarkable accomplishment is that we still have a communications path to Voyager 1 and Voyager 2, thanks to antennas like DSS-43… and the people who design, build, maintain, and operate them. Can you imagine the sense of pride that the DSS-43 team feels that every bit of knowledge from Voyager 1 and 2 and other deep space probes is available to humanity because of what they do to keep that antenna working?
It’s one of the harder things to get new Amateur Radio Operators to understand that in a radio communications system, an optimal antenna is the primary component. If the antenna isn’t (or can’t be, by design) optimal, it’s possible to compensate for a less than idea antenna (as we’ve seen with our mobile phones, especially direct communications with satellites), with higher transmit power, a more sensitive receiver, software / protocol such as Forward Error Correction, etc. But nothing beats an optimal antenna, which is why after more of a century of Amateur Radio experimentation with antennas, we’re still trying new things such as mechanically tuned antennas.
If you’re not yet licensed as an Amateur Radio Operator, and would like to join the fun by literally having a license to experiment with radio technology, check out Join the Fun on Amateur Radio for some pointers.
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SuperPacket blog — Discussing new generations of Amateur Radio Data Communications — beyond Packet Radio (a precursor to Zero Retries)
N8GNJ blog — Amateur Radio Station N8GNJ and the mad science experiments at N8GNJ Labs — Bellingham, Washington, USA
Thanks for reading! Steve Stroh N8GNJ / WRPS598 (He / Him / His) These bits were handcrafted (by a mere human, not an Artificial Intelligence bot) in beautiful Bellingham (The City of Subdued Excitement), Washington, USA, and linked to the Internet via Starlink Satellite Internet Access.
2024-04-26
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Though, I’ll guess, that there is experimentation or actual use of sectorized antennas. That approach could be reasonably lightweight and requires only a modest antenna switching unit.
Zero Retries is an independent newsletter promoting technological innovation that is occurring in Amateur Radio, and Amateur Radio as (literally) a license to experiment with and learn about radio technology. Now in its third year of publication, with 1500+ subscribers.
I’m agog at the number of comments, and the number of commenters, resulting from the topics discussed in Zero Retries 0147. We commenters had (and as I write this mid-week, the discussions continue) wide-ranging conversation(s) about Amateur Radio data networks, exchanging a number of views. Honestly, that was incredibly fun to see the discussions - between subscribers. I really loved all that discussion - Thanks folks!
While the comment function works as (Substack) intended (light, focused comments), I found that the commenting in Substack quickly grew awkward as the topics diverged (forked) a bit, and it got harder to keep track of the discussion forks. And, only the commenters were aware of the discussion (if you comment, you receive notifications).
The amount of discussion that resulted from Zero Retries 0147 reminded me that I need to get busy on creating a Zero Retries discussion (mailing) list on Groups.io. That’s been on the Zero Retries “to do” list for a while now, but publishing Zero Retries every week, and working on the book, has kept me pretty busy of late. Given that there are > 1500 Zero Retries subscribers, a Zero Retries mailing list would immediately blow past Groups.io’s free tier (100 maximum), requiring a Groups.io Premium (paid) tier. Thus, that’s another expense in publishing Zero Retries that is offset by the wonderful folks who opt for Paid Subscriptions of Zero Retries.
I know that I ought to also create a parallel Zero Retries Discord server (discussion… not physical, but Discord calls a discussion group a “server”), but I’m not up to managing that and a Groups.io group quite yet.
Podcasts Need Transcripts
The first article, below, discusses a podcast, and thus this observation.
One of my frustrations about many podcasts is that they’re “audio only”, especially podcasts done by non-professionals. That is, no transcripts, few if any show notes, etc. But us Mac and iPhone / iPad users now have a solution to that issue - the Apple Podcasts apps now automatically (machine) generates a transcript of any podcast you listen to in an Apple Podcast app. Thus, that capability made a tedious task - teasing out the relevant portion of this podcast into text, easy easier, just search, copy, and paste. And copy and paste… and copy and paste…
To prevent copy and paste being too easy for entire podcasts, Apple limits the amount of text that can be copy and pasted from the Podcast app’s automatic transcript to approximately two paragraphs at a time. Thus to get the snippet of the podcast below required multiple copy and paste cycles. Tedious, but manageable.
In browsing a bit, Apple allows the podcast creator to access their transcription of podcasts to embed the (full) transcription into the podcast’s “page” via Apple’s podcast distribution. Thus podcasters don’t have to go to the expense of having their podcast transcribed; as I read it, that service from Apple is free.
Yes, I’m aware that there are dedicated transcription services out there for transcribing video and audio recordings, especially now in this era of good-trending-towards-great transcription using Artificial Intelligence techniques, but those are subscription services and I’m not quite to that point, yet.
Because I can now read / skim a transcript, a number of podcasts are now more accessible to me, such as the Linux in the Ham Shack podcast.
Overly Ambitious Article on Next Generation Concepts of Amateur Radio Repeaters
A lot of ideas about the future of Amateur Radio repeaters came together this week, but they were pretty disparate, so it was requiring significant butt-in-chair time to weave that article together into a coherent whole. But 15:30 on Friday keeps coming at me irrevocably, and the article was not yet in reasonable shape for publication. Hopefully I’ll have it complete next week for Zero Retries 0149.
In the meantime…
This week is bittersweet in our household - life can be way too short. Thus, after Zero Retries is completed, I’m declaring this a light “workweek” to make time for more fun, hands-on, doing Amateur Radio activities here in N8GNJ Labs.
My thanks to Tom Salzer KJ7T for recommending the Ham Radio Work Bench (HRWB) podcast. They release new episodes biweekly, and discussions are often hands-on and technical, thus often Zero Retries Interesting… but the duration is sometimes 2 hours, and thus are challenging to make enough time for some weeks.
There were many interesting discussion threads in this episode of HRWB, but one of the best bits was a brief, but pithy discussion of Meshtastic being contrasted with Amateur Radio, between Mark Herbert G1LRO and the HRWB host and co-hosts.
So I was thinking I'll probably put this [Meshtastic node] up on the roof and just leave it as a note to kind of help the mesh. It really comes back to the old days of Packet Radio, which I really enjoyed back in the 80s when this was the same thing, really. You were connecting, you know, computing devices together across AX25, and that was the same sort of thing.
You could hop through other people to get to your destination.
So I have to ask you a question. Since we're on the Meshtastic rat hole, and this conversation topic came up in a previous episode, and my comment about Meshtastic was it feels like a solution looking for a problem. And when I look at something like this, I tend to look at it two ways.
One is the technology. What is it? What does it do?
How does it work? And all that. And then separately, like, what would you do with it?
So the technology part I totally get. I mean, you know, put up a mesh radio, connect it to other radios, be able to send some data. That's very interesting to me.
However, on the other side, which is like to what end, I have no idea. So aside from the fact that you could put one up and connect to somebody else, do you have any idea of like what it would be useful for?
I think it's useful for getting people excited about this stuff, for one, because, you know, there's a community there and it's kind of a, it's like, it's almost like an underground community they can connect to and that they know something's going on, but you need to have one of these to be part of it. So I think it's really useful for like the Arduino generation because it is effectively an ESP32 and you use the same ID and everything. For forgetting that, I forget the Arduino generation interested in radio technology and communicating through radio.
So I think as a kind of gateway drug into amateur radio, this is fantastic because we can get some of those guys then pulled in and say, you know, you've built something, you understand the tech and you've got the buzz. Now find out what you can do if you get licensed and you can talk around the world and use some of the really exciting stuff that we're doing.
So actually as a motivator to get other people who may not be thinking of Ham Radio interested, so that makes sense.
And with that… I’m now convinced to get involved with Meshtastic.
There’s a precedent to this moment where Meshtastic as an “entry level radio technology” is rapidly becoming popular (bordering on wildly popular, at least among techies). The popularity of Meshtastic, and the enthusiasm of the Meshtastic users could “bleed over” into Amateur Radio. In the US, the Citizens Band Radio Service rose out of obscurity (it was created in 1945) and became rabidly popular in the early 1970s1. Having gotten a “taste” of the fun (and utility) of CB as entry level radio communications, many “CBers” became Amateur Radio Operators for the fun (and utility) of being able to use VHF / UHF repeaters2, do “skip” (and use more transmit power than 5 watts) legally, and many other activities in Amateur Radio. That “bulge” of new Amateur Radio Operators benefitted Amateur Radio enormously in numbers, in new talent, new energy in Amateur Radio, and in increased recognition of Amateur Radio in society.
Meshtastic is a perfect “easy entry point” into wide area data communications via radio for those that are comfortable with microcontrollers and embedded computers . Meshtastic’s concept, documentation, the robust technology (LoRa), and especially the many self-support communities, make it easy to “get on the air”. In the US, most Meshtastic activity is occurring on 902-928 MHz, which is overlaid between “Part 15” (license-exempt) use and Amateur Radio use. Thus there’s no license required to get active on Meshtastic, and that’s a huge advantage in getting people interested in wide area data communications via radio.
From the perspective of Amateur Radio, Meshtastic is “Amateur Radio data communications Lite”.
Like G1LRO, I now think that us Amateur Radio Operators that are active in data communications via radio should get busy and get online with Meshtastic and start participating with your local Meshtastic users. Make yourself (subtly) known as an Amateur Radio Operator, and be prepared for the inevitable inquiries from the most enthusiastic Meshtastic users about “well, how can I go to the next level” - faster speeds, more interesting uses, etc. Be ready with a story and applications such as a BBS, email, file transfers, etc. For example, the folks in the North Carolina Packet (NCPACKET) network, EastNet Packet Network, Southern California AREDN Mesh Network, and others could get involved in their local Meshtastic networks and offer mentoring to Mestastic users that wished to learn more about Amateur Radio.
I think the critical thing about inviting Meshtastic users to participate in Amateur Radio is to have something interesting online and operational that really is “next level” beyond Meshtastic to show to them, such as the networks in the previous paragraph. In my opinion, only having a few APRS digipeaters, Winlink RMS stations, especially with legacy packet radio (1200 bps AX.25) etc. won’t impress Meshtastic users too much. Also, there needs to be local documentation about “how to join in the fun”, such as the excellent “onboarding” documentation developed by Terrestrial Amateur Packet Radio Network (TARPN).
And, full disclosure, I’m not there yet in being able to offer the “next level” experience I described to Meshtastic users in my area. Nor is that infrastructure in place to offer an interesting “next level” experience… but I’ll be working on doing so. But in the meantime, I’m going to work on getting online with Meshtastic, mostly because I’m technically curious.
And, in transparency of how little I know about Meshtastic, in researching this story, I discovered that, in addition to the web app and apps for IOS (iPhone, iPad) and Android, there is a Meshtastic app for Mac. That’s going to make it interesting…
Wojciech Kaczmarski SP5WWP, the lead developer of the M17 Project, has been busy this week documenting the M17 Remote Radio Unit in two (to date) videos on YouTube.
The first video is SP5WWP's quick introduction to the Remote Radio Unit:
In future such presentations, I hope SP5WWP can be persuaded to use a non-conductive pointer (suggestion - non-metalic chopstick). As a former electronic technician, I kept wanting to yell at the video that pointing at electronic components with a conductive pointer (a small screwdriver) on a board that’s powered up, is just… a bad idea.
One of the surprises (most interesting technology) of the RRU in the first video is the inclusion of a circulator which provides protection for the (expen$ive) power amplifier module in case of loss or damage to the feedline or antenna resulting in excessive Standing Wave Ratio (SWR). That’s normally a feature only found in more sophisticated radio, and illustrates the care that SP5WWP is taking with this project.
The RRU is currently in its fourth iteration, and a fifth iteration is being planned. The current RRU is capable of only FM and M17 modes, but a future generation of the RRU will incorporate “SX 1255 chips” to be able to do I/Q at higher data rates to perhaps support 64-QAM, and that version will be able to do nearly any other mode.
The second video is SP5WWP's quick introduction to the Common Amateur Radio Interface protocol:
One of the surprises of the second video was that there will be a Baseband Unit (BBU) in addition to the Remote Radio Unit (RRU). I don’t recall any previous mention of the BBU, and thus I had assumed that the “Base unit” would be a simple interface to provide appropriate power to the RRU and perhaps a fiber-to-Ethernet converter. I further assumed that all the “heavy lifting” of the radio functions (waveform generation, waveform decoding, etc.) would be done in software running on a host computer.
SP5WWP discussed the BBU only briefly, with the majority of the second video discussing the protocol and messages that will be exchanged between the BBU and the RRU. SP5WWP calls this protocol CARI - Common Amateur Radio Interface.
There are four types of data within CARI:
BBU ➡️ RRU - Baseband uplink
BBU ⬅️ RRU - Baseband downlink
BBU ↔️ RRU - RRU control
BBU ⬅️ RRU - RRU feedback
This is a hugely ambitious project, but in part that’s a testament to SP5WWP’s relentless focus on building up M17 to offer a “full family” of hardware options. I look forward to future videos from SP5WWP on the RRU and BBU.
The US Department of Defense will host this year's Armed Forces Day (AFD) Crossband Test on May 11, 2024. For more than 50 years, military and amateur stations have taken part in this event, which is an interoperability exercise between hobbyist and government radio stations. The event is open to all licensed amateur radio operators and will not impact any public or private communications. The AFD Crossband Test is a unique opportunity to test two-way communications between military communicators and radio stations in the Amateur Radio Service (ARS), as authorized in 47 CFR 97.111.
These tests provide opportunities and challenges for radio operators to demonstrate individual technical skills in a tightly controlled exercise scenario. Military stations will transmit on selected military frequencies and announce the specific ARS frequencies monitored. All scheduled times will be in Zulu (Z), and all scheduled frequencies will be upper sideband (USB) unless otherwise noted.
AFD is classified as an observance -- not a federal holiday. It will be celebrated on Saturday, May 18, 2024, and it will be a time of honor. The establishment of AFD was first announced on August 31, 1949, by then US Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson. It was meant to replace the separate Army, Navy, and Air Force Days. All branches were combined to create the US Department of Defense. The first Armed Forces Day was held on May 20, 1950. The day is celebrated with special events, tributes, observances, and parades.
Intercommunication between Amateur Radio Operators and US Department of Defense is pretty cool. Most of the communication will be “radiotelephone” (voice), but there will be some data communications:
An AFD message will be transmitted utilizing the Military Standard (MIL-STD) Serial PSK waveform
(M110) followed by MIL-STD Wide Shift FSK (850 Hz RTTY) as described in MIL-STD 188-110A/B.
Technical information regarding these waveforms is provided at:
Pseudostaffer Orv Beach W6BI on the AREDN web page:
AREDN nightly build 20240417 has been designated as the release candidate for the next production release. If you haven't tried a nightly build recently, we encourage you to do so. There's a ton of enhancement and updates. They've all been tested, but having more people use them helps any subtle issues that might be remaining be uncovered. Here's a list of the many changes since the last production release:
Meshmail is an application and protocol for sending and receiving email messages over a mesh network. It utilizes inexpensive LoRa radios running open source Meshtastic firmware.
The app can be run in either client or relay mode: a relay has internet access and manages connections to IMAP and SMTP servers, while the client has only a connection to the mesh.
When a new message arrives at the relay, it is encoded into a protobuf and then split into numerous fragments--binary blobs that are later reconstituted on the client. After generating the fragments, the relay sends a message shadow to the mesh which informs clients of the existence of the message. The shadow contains a preview of the content (subject and sender), as well as a fingerprint (a unique hashcode id), and the number of fragments used. The client then proceeds to send fragment requests and the relay responds by sending fragment blobs. Once the client has all the expected fragments, it concatenates them and reconstitutes the protobuf. Outbound mail is handled by the same protocol, but with the tag of OUTBOUND indicating to the relay that it needs to be transmitted over SMTP.
Meshmail is currently alpha level code, but fully functional. Future potential improvements may include support for multiple clients on a single relay, more advanced email features like bcc, reply all, and attachments, relay status broadcasts, and tuning of protocol parameters.
Oh… this is interesting! This is the first interesting application, beyond text chatting, I’ve seen for Meshtastic.
I know nothing of the background, or the experiences of buying from this online store. There is an interesting mix of devices for sale there such as the BP Pager for POCSAG 137-199 MHz 400-499 MHz.
Supports VOX PTT by the tone on the unused right channel (experimental)
Works with all major OS flavors: Windows, MacOS and Linux
Uses a single TRRS connector compatible with existing Digirig audio cables
Growing collection of pre-made cables including popular Icom, Yaesu, Elecraft, Baofeng, Xiegu transceivers
Isolation can be easily added using inexpensive USB isolator dongle
I think this devices is just brilliant - it’s as minimalist of an audio interface as one can get!
In the short time since it was revealed, it’s garnered enough excitement to rate a review on Hackaday - Emails Over Radio.
Jobs at FlexRadio
Annaliese McDermond NH6Z:
FlexRadio is hiring four software engineers to work with me and the rest of my teammates. The company is very open to remote team members (I’m one of them, but we have a couple of others.). C/C++ experience is a plus, but we code in a variety of different languages. There’s more information on our website if there’s any interest.
I also think we have at least one position open in our hardware engineering team.
NH6Z is an old friend and a very accomplished software engineer and knows Amateur Radio systems. FlexRadio got a stellar deal hiring her.
If you inquire about employment at FlexRadio, please tell them NH6Z and Zero Retries referred you.
If you’re not yet licensed as an Amateur Radio Operator, and would like to join the fun by literally having a license to experiment with radio technology, check out Join the Fun on Amateur Radio for some pointers.
In its mission to highlight technological innovation in Amateur Radio, promote Amateur Radio to techies as a literal license to experiment with radio technology, and make Amateur Radio more relevant to society in the 2020s and beyond, Zero Retries is published via email and web, and is available to everyone at no cost. Zero Retries is proud not to participate in the Amateur Radio Publishing Industrial Complex, which hides Amateur Radio content behind paywalls.
My ongoing Thanks to:
Tina Stroh KD7WSF for, well, everything!
Founding Members who generously support Zero Retries financially: Founding Member 0000 - Steven Davidson K3FZT Founding Member 0001 - Prefers to Remain Anonymous 01
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These blogs and newsletters regularly feature Zero Retries Interesting content:
Dan Romanchik KB6NU mentions “Zero Retries Interesting” topics so regularly on his blog (that I otherwise wouldn’t know about) that I’ve bestowed on him the honorific of Pseudostaffer.
Jeff Davis KE9V also mentions “Zero Retries Interesting” topics so regularly on his blog (that I otherwise wouldn’t know about) that I’ve bestowed on him the honorific of Pseudostaffer.
Amateur Radio Weekly by Cale Mooth K4HCK is a weekly anthology of links to interesting Amateur Radio stories.
Experimental Radio News by Bennet Z. Kobb AK4AV discusses (in detail) Experimental (Part 5) licenses issued by the US FCC. It’s a must-read-now for me!
RTL-SDR Blog - Excellent coverage of Software Defined Radio units.
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More bits from Steve Stroh N8GNJ:
SuperPacket blog — Discussing new generations of Amateur Radio Data Communications — beyond Packet Radio (a precursor to Zero Retries)
N8GNJ blog — Amateur Radio Station N8GNJ and the mad science experiments at N8GNJ Labs — Bellingham, Washington, USA
Thanks for reading! Steve Stroh N8GNJ / WRPS598 (He / Him / His) These bits were handcrafted (by a mere human, not an Artificial Intelligence bot) in beautiful Bellingham (The City of Subdued Excitement), Washington, USA, and linked to the Internet via Starlink Satellite Internet Access.
2024-04-19
Blanket permission is granted for TAPR to use any Steve Stroh content in Zero Retries for the TAPR Packet Status Register (PSR) newsletter (I owe them from way back).
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Rabidly popular to the point where the FCC gave up on insisting on CB users obtaining an FCC license and use FCC assigned callsigns (I still have mine - . They re-conceptualized CB as a hobby radio service, not requiring a license, where “nearly anything goes” as long as the equipment did not transmit more than 5 watts, using AM/SSB, and within the assigned spectrum for CB. Recently, FM is now legal on US CB radios.
Yes, acknowledged that GMRS and GMRS repeaters were / are an option for “CBers” wishing to improve their capabilities from 27 MHz, 5 watt Citizens Band equipment.
Zero Retries is an independent newsletter promoting technological innovation that is occurring in Amateur Radio, and Amateur Radio as (literally) a license to experiment with and learn about radio technology. Now in its third year of publication, with 1500+ subscribers.
Given the large size of Zero Retries 0146 last week, I wasn’t quite sure what would happen when it auto-published at 15:30 Pacific on 2024-04-05. As I was writing it, I received the usual warnings from Substack of “Too large to email”, but that’s nothing new. But, I was pretty sure that ZR 0146 was the largest single issue of ZR that I had attempted to email. Thus I wasn’t sure how Substack (and, potentially, email providers like Gmail, Yahoo, etc.) would deal with such a large emailed newsletter. (I knew the web / online version was available, of course, so I wasn’t really too worried.)
A few hours after ZR 0146 auto-published, I was curious and looked at the stats on Substack… and there were none. I think it said that there had been one (1) “open”. I thought “uh, oh”… My sanity check of having each issue sent to several of my backup email addresses - all of those looked OK. So I checked periodically throughout the evening, several folks “liked” ZR 0146, but the weird stats didn’t change.
On Saturday morning I got a status message from Substack saying that the publisher dashboard function wasn’t working… Oh… OK, whew! Sure enough a few hours later Substack fixed the dashboard, and the usual stats showed up, indicating that yep, folks were opening ZR 0146, clicking on links, etc.
The one time I really cared about seeing the stats…
Well, it ended up being funny to me, at least.
And Another Funny Thing…
On Tuesday this week I received an odd voice mail (the caller wasn’t in my Contacts, thus didn’t ring through) informing me that www.zeroretries.org was going to a “This Domain Parked” page. My first thought as I was listening to the voice mail was that it was another “register your domain with us” scam, but then the caller finished with their name and callsign and mention that we had met briefly. Sure enough, www.zeroretries.org was offline and the domain registrar was redirecting it to a “parked” page. Oh, crap… But updating the credit card on file for that domain (one of the many expenses helped by paid subscriptions) got things back to normal. For some reason the domain registrar had not notified me that the zeroretries.org domain auto-renew had failed for an out-of-date credit card.
Thank you Jack Wolfe KI7RMU for the heads-up about www.zeroretries.org.
Rescanning TAPR Packet Status Register
A number of the scans of various issues of the TAPR Packet Status Register (PSR) newsletter on the TAPR website and Internet Archive’s Digital Library of Amateur Radio & Communications (DLARC) are of poor quality, and thus the Optical Character Recognition (OCR) conversion of printed text to electronic text suffers. (The PSR article cited in the second article in this issue is an example - the resulting text required a fair amount of manual cleanup. Example: deter¬ mines.
I don’t remember which issue of PSR it was that I wanted to do a cut and paste from, and noted the poor quality of the OCR’d text. That coincided with having declared a block of a few days as “decrapify my office for better productivity” and one background task I had been deferring was scanning my archive of PSRs, so I decided to just do that as I was sitting and decrapifying my office. I set my scanner (a venerable, but working great Fujitsu ScanSnap S1500M sheet feeder) to minimal compression, highest resolution, gray scale, and simultaneous OCR, and I was surprised how little time was required for each scan. The ScanSnap application seems to make good use of multiple cores on my Intel Mac Mini and my office decrapifying workflow was chopped up into five minute blocks as each issue scanned and OCR’ed. (I converted all of my paper PSR copies into single sheets for sheet feed scanning.) PSR is the “publication of record” for much of the evolution of Amateur Radio Packet Radio, so it made sense to me that PSR justified one final high resolution scan, and I had a lot of the earliest issues that I think were given to me upon my becoming (briefly) the editor of PSR, so it could be that I’m one of the last to have these good issues.
Thus I stumbled on the WA7GXD / KK7P article on bit-regenerative repeaters, and that article was highly relevant to this issue’s theme.
Confluence of Packet Radio Networking Ideas
Sometimes, things just come together for Zero Retries (but admittedly, I cast a wide net for Zero Retries Interesting items). In this case, the three primary articles all came out or were rediscovered within the same few weeks, and all of them nicely fit together into the theme of Amateur Radio data networking:
Don Rotolo N2IRZ’s thoughts about the guiding philosophies of Terrestrial Amateur Packet Radio Network (TARPN)
Lyle Johnson WA7GXD / KK7P on improving the efficiency of Amateur Radio data communications over Amateur Radio repeaters
Brian Webster N2KGC’s thoughts on modernizing existing Amateur Radio (Packet Radio) data networks for a new generation.
Not exactly a grand plan… but it works together.
Honoring Confidentiality… However Frustrating That Is
I’ve been in touch this week with two developers with exciting projects… that I can’t talk about here in Zero Retries - yet.
One group of developers just received an ARDC grant which makes their project viable. Their project is foundational to Amateur Radio, similar (I think) in scope to the difference that Internet Archive’s Digital Library of Amateur Radio & Communications (DLARC) is making to Amateur Radio in preserving its history to inform the present (such as the third article in this issue). That grant hasn’t been made public yet by ARDC, so the developers don’t yet feel free to reveal their (now grant funded) project. But I’m working on the story to be ready for when ARDC does disclose their “Spring 2024” grants.
Another exciting project has been in development, but was stalled until recently, and the news I got about its renewed progress is really exciting. But those developers would prefer not to discuss their recent progress pending a big reveal at a future event… and I totally get that as that’s the way I feel for some issues of Zero Retries when I feel I have a particularly good story to tell.
I wish I could “tell all”, folks, as soon as I learn about exciting stuff. But, keeping exciting news confidential, as background information, until the newsmaker is ready to announce is the price to be paid. The upside of knowing a bit more about exciting developments that are in progress makes Zero Retries better, if for no other reason than I have a very real, substantive basis for the positive, progressive, hopeful tone about technological innovation in Amateur Radio that I try to maintain here in Zero Retries.
In the Meantime at N8GNJ Labs…
The biggest accomplishment / time sink of the week was a household infrastructure project to pull an Ethernet cable between the house and N8GNJ Labs. The Starlink terminal that’s our primary Internet access is next to N8GNJ Labs and has been performing perfectly. I have no complaints at all about Internet Access via Starlink and even with the current slightly compromised location, it just works. A recent Starlink speed test was 173 Mbps Download, 10 Mbps Upload, ~20 mS latency - works great for video streaming and the occasional upload, and video conferences. But, I didn’t have good connectivity between the house and N8GNJ Labs.
I had been relying on a pair of “power line modems” to connect N8GNJ Labs and the house, but they have been gradually degrading, and in the last few weeks they’ve required multiple “unplug, wait 10 seconds, replug” cycles per day. That unreliability was finally to the point that this week I opened up a wall in N8GNJ Labs where I knewwas pretty sure there was a conduit between the house (somewhere) and N8GNJ Labs. To my delight (and relief), the conduit was where I thoughthoped it was, and it was a 2-inch conduit with only one legacy telephone cable in it.
It took me all day, much disruption in N8GNJ Labs (not all put back to normal as I write this), and several trips to Hardware Sales (we’re blessed to have a real, independent hardware store here in Bellingham) for “supplies”. There is now “just plain Ethernet” between N8GNJ labs and the house running at “wire speed” - and “what a relief it is” to finally have “no hiccups” connectivity between N8GNJ Labs and the house. Sometime this summer when I’ve had time to study and plan and purchase all the required units, that Ethernet will be replaced with fiber (mostly for electrical isolation) and I’ll finish the household / N8GNJ Labs network integration. For now, Ethernet works perfectly. For household Wi-Fi, I continue to recommend the Ubiquiti UniFi Express. (No compensation, just a hands-on recommendation.) Despite its diminutive size, its performance is stellar.
It looks like I’ll be picking up a Direct Broadcast Satellite (DBS) dish this weekend, complete with Low Noise Amplifier and the receiver, courtesy of the Free Stuff section of Bellingham Craigslist. This will be my third such free dish (but my first receiver). I don’t yet have an intended purpose for them, but free is… well, free. Perhaps I’ll eventually have enough to start myVery Small Array.
Stuff I read / listened to / viewed in the past week included:
I watched the Tech Minds (Matt Miller M0DQW) review of the KiwiSDR 2 on YouTube. M0DQW does a great job of reviewing Zero Retries Interesting units without the breathless and overhyped style (he doesn’t even appear on camera) of many other Amateur Radio YouTube creators. The KiwiSDR 2 is a sweet piece of kit and the review convinced me that the KiwiSDR 2 is now next up on my sliding “About $200 discretionary budget” for Amateur Radio projects. Now I just need to wait for the ordering window for Batch 3 of the KiwiSDR 2 to be opened. I’m on the list to be notified.
The Mount Baker Amateur Radio Club’s (MBARC) 2024-04 General Meeting was a presentation by AMSAT Ambassador Clint Bradford K6LCS on How to Work Amateur Satellites with Your Handheld Radio. (The video recording is pending as this issue is published, I’ll update this when the video is available.) K6LCS tailored his presentation (as he always does) for MBARC, with some amusing elements. After K6LCS’ presentation, I (and I think many of us) felt like “Wow… why am I not working these “Easy Sats?”. At a minimum, I’ll soon be dedicating a radio and receive antenna to monitor for the International Space Station’s audio (and packet) downlinks, as well as other Amateur Radio satellites that have FM downlinks. (Doing so beats scanning local repeaters that are almost entirely quiet except for automatic identification.) You can learn more about K6LCS and his presentations and Amateur Radio satellite evangelism at his www.work-sat.com website, or contact him by phone at 909-999-SATS (7287) or email - clintbradford@mac.com.
The biggest adventure of our household for the coming weekend is that the grandkittens are coming to visit… sans parents… and oh, I don’t think our household is anywhere near ready for two energetic kittens. We shall see - it will certainly be an adventure for these two “city kittens” who have only lived in the confines of a two-bedroom apartment.
What’s New at Digital Library of Amateur Radio & Communications
By Kay Savetz K6KJN Zero Retries Pseudostaffer
Happy spring from the Digital Library of Amateur Radio & Communications. If you’re just tuning in: I’m Kay, the person who is lucky enough to oversee the creation of this unparalleled online library of ham radio and related communications. Here are some the latest additions to the DLARC library.
Also new in DLARC are two issues of SSTV Today, a newsletter devoted to slow scan television. I learned about SSTV Today through the obituary of its publisher, Ron Flynn KB8LU. Mr. Flynn passed away at the age of 82 on February 22. Among many other accomplishments and interests that were part of a life well-lived, the obit mentioned his newsletter. I wrote a letter to his family. His window Patricia wrote back a lovely letter: “Because my husband was legally blind, I was quite involved with his computer work, and accompanied him several times to the Dayton, OH amateur radio convention. I have found two copies of SSTV Today, and will gladly give them to you for the archives.” The two issues that she sent were v1n4 from November 1983, and v2n7 from July 1984. You’ll find dot-matrix printouts, a report from Dayton Hamvention, and ads for SSTV gadgets (some of which seem astoundingly expensive when price adjusted for inflation!) Of course I’m dying to find other issues of SSTV Today to add the the DLARC library. I’ve added them to the ever-changing DLARC Wantlist.
I learned about Cornbread Road — Jeff Davis KE9V’s audio-format ham radio mystery — here in the pages of Zero Retries. Davis released the episodes in 2010, but it was difficult to find them online recently. KE9V agreed to re-release Cornbread Road — all 13 episodes plus the hard-to-find epilogue — on DLARC. His intriguing blurb for the series: “Deep in the Heartland a small group of ham radio enthusiasts enjoy an idyllic existence of wide open spaces, no antenna restrictions, low-noise levels, simple living, and good fellowship. But things aren’t exactly as they seem. Unexplained lights in the night sky, radio signals masked from the ether, strange late night visitors to this small farming community…"
How’s your Portuguese? I ask because DLARC just added 46 issues of Revista QSO, a free monthly publication published in Brazil. The magazine is aimed at radio amateurs, and also covers related subjects such as electronics, robotics, programming, drones, and 3D printing. The “zeroth” issue was published in 2011, but the magazine hit its stride with a more regular publishing schedule in 2020.
How’s your Polish? My Internet Archive colleague Jason Scott has been archiving all sorts of public domain works in the Polish language: that collection is closing in on a half-million items. A small subset of that material is about radio, so I pulled those into a Radio Books in Polish collection: 164 items so far, including many issues of “Krótkofalowiec Polski” — that’s Shortwave Polski, a monthly magazine devoted to Polish amateur radio — and “Radiotechnik,” an “illustrated monthly popular-technical magazine devoted to radio engineering and related fields.” Most of this material spans the years 1928 through 1939.
Switching back to the English language, we’ve added 125 newsletters from the North East Weak Signal Group N.E.W.S. Letter. Based in Longmeadow, Massachusetts, NEWSG is a flock of VHF/UHF/SHF enthusiasts. We have their newsletter going back to 1996. I’ve also added 20 recent issues of the National Radio Club DX News newsletter, bringing the number of issues in that collection to 2,763, going back to the group’s founding in 1933. National Radio Club is the oldest and largest club dedicated to medium wave DX.
The WA7BNM Contest Calendar provides detailed information about amateur radio contests around the world, including their scheduled dates/times, rules summaries, log submission information and links to the official rules. Bruce Horn WA7BNM has been providing this service for the amateur community since 1998(!) He serves up this contest information in a variety of formats, including a weekly newsletter. At my request, Bruce dug through the database and managed scrape up the newsletters going back to 2002. Thanks to his meticulous research and keeping old data, DLARC now has a searchable record of ham radio contests — 1147 weekly newsletters, going back 22 years.
We’ve added a collection of vintage documents from Eastnet Packet, a packet radio group that’s been around for decades: look here for Flexnet and IGATE manuals and other good stuff.
Believe it or not, this isn’t even close to a complete list of everything we’ve added to DLARC since I wrote last month. For instance, there’s a nearly constant influx of recent amateur radio newsletters from around the world. The scanning centers in Fort Wayne and Boston are always ingesting new material. There are partially-finished projects in the works that I will tell you about later this year. I encourage you to go to the DLARC homepage to search or browse for your favorite radio topic. If you don’t know where to start, follow the advice of N3VEM who said on Mastodon, “So here’s a fun thing to do — go to @dlarc section of the Internet Archive and do a search on your own callsign, and see what pops up.” (Tip: choose the “Search text contents” button for the deepest search.)
Digital Library of Amateur Radio & Communications is funded by a grant from Amateur Radio Digital Communications (ARDC) to create a free digital library for the radio community, researchers, educators, and students. If have questions about the project or material to contribute, contact me at kay@archive.org.
Kay Savetz K6KJN is the Internet Archive's Program Manager, Special Collections… the curator of the Digital Library of Amateur Radio & Communications project.
Image courtesy of TARPN
Why TARPN?
By Don Rotolo N2IRZ Zero Retries Contributing Author
You may have heard of the Terrestrial Amateur Packet Radio Network (TARPN), and indeed you may even be running a node in one. If so, you can skip to the end, but for the rest I encourage you to read on for a snippet of a Zero Retries Interesting (ZRI) thing.
AX.25 packet isn’t new, nor is G8BPQ networking1. Many of us experimented with packet way back when, and ultimately found it uncompetitive with what could be done with the then-nascent Internet. Or more recently been involved with APRS, one popular application for packet. But other than a few mild tricks, the modern world doesn’t need packet, much like it doesn’t need AM on HF – there will always be enthusiasts, but it’s not mainstream. Or?
A large-ish group in the Raleigh area has built a fairly large, well-performing packet network of around 50 nodes over several counties in North Carolina. Other areas, including Virginia and Kentucky, are growing their own AX.25 TARPN networks. So, why the interest in 1980’s technology? I mean, are they really satisfied with 1200 baud links over a dozen or more hops?
The short answer is that AX.25 is a means to an end. Several ends, in fact. The biggest end is the social network it forms: An application called TARPN Home (by Fin Gold NC4FG) includes a really spiffy real-time Chat feature, keeping those on the network in contact with each other. Even with what we might consider slow links, this app is surprisingly fast and more than responsive enough for serious real-time conversations. And you don’t need to tie yourself to your station: Using WiFi for the last few yards, its HTML user interface lets you use it on any device that supports a browser.
So way back when, in the heyday of packet networks, most networks had trouble traversing a dozen links. This was neither a failure of AX.25, nor of the packet networking software being used, but one of network design in the RF space. There were two major errors prevalent: Shared frequency links and user ports.
Shared frequencies for network links seemed to be a good idea, saving money on equipment and allowing better coverage when someone was lucky or persistent enough to score a high-visibility antenna site. But the issue here is that collisions, hidden-transmitter syndrome (HTS) and channel saturation cliffs doomed these shared channels to failing as soon as they got even a little busy. The simple solution? Dedicated point-to-point links for every link. This is one of the hard and fast rules of a TARPN.
User ports on a shared access frequency also seemed like a good idea, allowing users easy access to the network with modest equipment. But in addition to again suffering from HTS and that saturation cliff (where the channel capacity drops suddenly to zero), it had the even more deleterious effect of separating networkers into two classes: Sysops and Users.
Users had no skin in the game, and so would either go do other things when the channel didn’t work as desired or engage in (often unwitting) destructive behaviors like highly-aggressive TNC parameters, hurting the channel for everyone. Sysops generally enjoyed great network access, but soon tired of complaints from users, dampening their enthusiasm for spending what were considerable sums at the time for a bunch of whiners. The simple solution? No user ports, everyone is a sysop. This is another hard and fast rule of a TARPN: To participate, you need to build a node and link in.
Some of the other rules are to allow for reasonable support possibilities: Only G8BPQ nodes, running a TARPN profile, on Raspberry Pi computers, where everything is discoverable and transparent. Big-money and high-visibility sites* aren’t mixed in, keeping it controllable by the individuals. And, non-Amateur Radio sources for data carried by the network are limited to cut & paste. Internet links and other wormhole-like paths are forbidden, as these only serve to make people lazy, in addition to not promoting amateur radio.
While the rules for a TARPN might seem restrictive, they make a huge difference in how the network functions. TARPN links do not have a tendency to fail when traffic reaches saturation. HTS and collisions are nearly nonexistent. And when there is a link failure, diagnosis is straightforward.
While the social network created by the chat feature of TARPN Home is arguably the killer app, that isn’t the only reason to build a TARPN. Learning is one of the top other reasons: Antennas, propagation, Linux, networking, station-building, wiring, soldering, and a bunch of other really valuable skills are practiced and perfected. And new friendships bloom, which is a different but still valuable kind of social network.
And what’s the ultimate goal? Growing amateur radio. Us old folks will eventually die off, and with no younger blood to carry on, we’re doomed. Ham radio will not go away so easily, but as the ranks thin, it becomes less relevant, a kind of death spiral. Kids are rarely interested in nets, repeaters or traffic handling, but give them an app on their phone so they can chat with their friends and they’ll consider getting their license. To that end, we all need to run regular events at club meetings, teaching how to solder and build things, getting on HF to have conversations with distant places, talking through (or to!) satellites, and other high-energy fun. Beginners night, every month.
Is that all there is? No, not by a long shot. But writing more about it is wasteful when there’s a website, https://tarpn.net, that covers all the details in great depth. Go take a look at the Shopping List for Node Construction (on the builders page) to see if you have enough to build two nodes. Then follow the lengthy-but-simple instructions to build and configure them. If you need help, there’s a Groups.io mailing list dedicated to TARPN where help is plentiful. Even without radios, you can get them talking over wires, and start to explore the possibilities for under $100. Try it, I think you might be surprised. But I need to warn you: The fun doesn’t really start until you have around 5 nodes.
* High visibility sites - i.e., not at someone's home, as in a commercial tower, where 24/7 access may be challenging. If someone lives atop a big hill, that's fine. Access is the concern, particularly when the system is being stressed.
Don Rotolo N2IRZ is a writer on Zero Retries Interesting topics, most recently with his decades-long bimonthly column Digital Connection in CQ Amateur Radio Magazine.
Advantages of a Bit-Regenerating Repeater for Local Area Networks
By Lyle Johnson WA7GXD / KK7P
Prelude by Steve Stroh N8GNJ
This article is from the TAPR Packet Status Register newsletter #46, dated 1992-04, page 7 and 8. This might seem a counterpoint to N2IRZ’s article - it’s not. But it is convenient timing that N2IRZ submitted his article for the same issue that I had planned to run this article, thus offering a perspective of two different approaches to build Amateur Radio data networks. As you read in N2IRZ’s article, there are working TARPN networks - present day, so provably, TARPN’s approach works. The “TARPN philosophy” precludes use of repeaters (see mentions of “Sysops” vs “Users” in N2IRZ’s article) despite that such repeaters eliminate Hidden Transmitter Syndrome and make it very easy to “get on the network”.
This article is the first mention of Bit-Regeneration Repeaters for Amateur Radio Packet Radio that I’m aware of. This article was the impetus for the creation of the Puget Sound Amateur Radio TCP/IP Group’s network which, at its peak, provided five bit regeneration repeaters for general access. Four of those were 9600 bps based on the TAPR bit-regeneration option board for TAPR 9600 bps modems running on TAPR TNC-2 TNCs (and clones). I can testify from direct experience that the theoretical advantages that WA7GXD / KK7P explains in this article were borne out in practice on the 9600 bps bit-regeneration repeaters we built and used in the PSARTG network.
And yes, I concede the point that despite its technical sophistication, the PSARTG network no longer exists, and TAPRN networks exist and are growing.
While the specific technology described in this article is now outdated, I think that the idea of data via repeater is useful addition to Amateur Radio capabilities. There are several “game changers” that may well make data via repeater more viable in this era, including…
Much better modems, such as the vastly improved sensitivity and “recoverability” in the Dire Wolf software TNC. And, modems and protocols based in software mean that systems can now evolve and improve for both infrastructure and users.
Implementation of Forward Error Correction (FEC) such as Improved Layer 2 Protocol (IL2P) that vastly improves the throughput of data without requiring retransmission.
We have the potential for even faster data rates than 9600 bps now and that could easily minimize the “no one goes there anymore… it’s too crowded” effect of a popular resource like a data repeater.
Some Amateur Radio data communications systems are now making use of Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) in the audio channel; essentially subdividing the audio spectrum into many discrete “subchannels” and then dynamically managing each subchannel. This requires significant compute power, which is no longer expensive.
While I think the ideal method of doing so would be to install a Multi Mode Digital Voice Modem (MMDVM) which would include the still-in-development MMDVM-TNC data mode, but there are other methods for data via repeater such as using VARA-FM over an analog FM repeater, with the repeater programmed to transmit a different subaudible (Continuous Tone Coded Squelch System - CTCSS) tone when VARA-FM is being used, and thus voice users can choose to mute the repeater unless voice is being transmitted.
I predict that we will start seeing a slow evolution of analog FM (voice) repeaters that, while still online, are now mostly silent, being “repurposed” into transporting data as well as analog FM voice. It might end up being a faster evolution if MMDVM-TNC is released as a working system.
Background
Over the past ten or twelve years, a number of approaches have been taken to the design of packet radio-based local area networks (LANs). These designs have used various protocols (polling, balanced “interrupt-driven” systems like AX.25, connection- oriented and datagram styles) as well as varying approaches to “medium access.” Typical implementations include systems with full-duplex audio repeaters, digipeaters, single-frequency “networks” and various ad-hoc combinations of all of the above.
In this paper I will attempt to outline a cost-effective, spectrum-efficient method of network implementation at the local level.
Media Access
Media access is a term used to describe the method by which a packet radio station determines that it may safely transmit data, and how it determines if the data it sent was successfully received by the intended recipient.
Most packet radio modems in common use provide a data carrier detect (DCD) output. This signal is used by TNC software to determine if the modem’s bits are worth decoding (valid signal) as well as to determine if the channel is occupied by another station, in which case the TNC will defer its transmission.
There are fundamental problems with this general approach. In some cases, a station may be able to hear distant stations (a hilltop location, for example) and the DCD will cause this transmitter to defer forever, even though its transmissions might not cause any problem to the distant station’s operation (which may be communications with a nearby station at the distant location, for example).
Or, the station’s DCD circuit may be implemented poorly, allowing transmissions to occur and generate interference with stations it was unable to reliably detect.
There is one school of thought which suggests that, since DCD is an often unreliable indicator, it should be ignored and other approaches used to arbitrate channel access. There are others who would couple this approach with a system allowing the TNC to control the transmitter power output level to create "cells” much like a cellular phone system. This approach is valid and is being pursued.
However, there is another approach that is not widely used, but overcomes much, if not all of the problems associated with geographic considerations.
Full Duplex Repeater-based LAN
The use of a full-duplex repeater brings a significant advantage to local area network communications.
It virtually eliminates the “hidden station” effect. If the repeater can hear a transmission, then every station that uses the repeater can hear the station. Thus, DCD can be used as a reliable indicator of channel occupation.
The geographic coverage of the LAN can then be tailored by repeater location and antenna configuration (use of downtilt, broad lobe beam antennas, etc.). Repeater-based LANs can then be networked using another frequency, or combination of frequencies, to implement an efficient network topology.
The usual objection to the use of repeaters is that they require duplexers, and duplexers are several hundred dollars, so repeaters shouldn’t be used. However, in many cases single-frequency “digipeaters” are co-located in intense RF areas and require the use of RF filters as well. And, “node stacks” typically combine several RF transmitters and receivers in close proximity, also requiring RF cavities and/or duplexers.
The use of a full-duplex repeater can be significantly enhanced with the addition of a bit regenerator.
What Is A Bit Regenerator?
In its simplest form, a bit regenerator is a device which is interposed between the repeater’s receiver output and transmitter input. It incorporates a modem (demodulator portion) to recover the received data to the bit level (digital levels, not analog or audio). These bits are then used to drive a modem (modulator portion) which then drives the repeater’s transmitter. DCD is typically used to provide the PTT mechanism to the repeater. The advantage of this is that the transmitted signal is of the proper deviation, even if the received signal is seriously under- or over-deviated.
Another advantage is that the repeater is dedicated to the function for which it has been coordinated -packet radio (or RTTY or whatever other digital mode is designated for it). There are several drawbacks to this simple approach. Perhaps the most serious drawback is related to clock recovery. Any “jitter” on the received data due to noise will be retransmitted. If the received signal is marginal, the transmitted signal will automatically be at least as marginal. Thus, if you have a less than optimum path to the repeater, you will have a difficult time decoding signals from other marginal users. The bit-regenerator can be enhanced to overcome this primary difficulty. A first-in first-out (FIFO) buffer can be incorporated to collect some number of received bits, then deliver them to the transmitter. This buffer acts somewhat like a rubber band, stretching and shrinking as needed to keep the transmitter happy. In this manner, clock jitter is completely removed by use of a crystal-controlled clock on the transmit modem. The buffer must be deep enough to allow for variations in the speeds between various modems (usually well under 0.1%). For Amateur packet radio needs using AX.25 protocols, or any other protocol where the number of bits in a given transmission is under about 20,000, a 16-bit deep FIFO filled to 8-bits before transmission occurs, will easily suffice.
Other Potential Advantages
The implementation of a bit-regenerator on the TAPR 9600 bps modem has other advantages that may be exploited by future TNC firmware. If the bit regenerator/modem is attached to a TNC, the TNC PTT will override the FIFO buffer output. This would allow, for example, a nodestack using a full-duplex bit-regenerator repeater to “grab the channel” in case of an emergency or for administrative purposes. At the same time that the TNC is sending its data, it will still be receiving the uncorrupted transmission from the station which was being regenerated. Thus, the received data is not lost and may simply be delayed if the proper firmware is available for the TNC.
Another application, also requiring specialized firmware, is that of channel-use enforcement. Enforcement is a strong word to use in the Amateur context, but consider the following scenario. Assume a bit-regenerating repeater is being used for a local area network, and that specialized firmware exists on the attached TNC. Further assume that a local user comes on frequently during “prime time” and refuses to set his TNC’s parameters to share the channel in accordance with locally agreed upon guidelines. Maybe this user likes to transfer megabyte files and sets DWAIT to 0, persistence to 255 and FRACK to 1. He is a hog. After repeatedly asking him to change his patterns, the system administrator simply logs this station’s callsign into the “lock out” list on the TNC. Now, whenever this callsign is detected by the TNC, the TNC simply asserts its PTT for 10 mSec and the repeated transmission is corrupted. Thus, the channel abuser is prevented from using the machine. When he amends his ways, his call is removed from the TNC’s blacklist and he can share the channel resource with everyone on an equal basis.
To implement this, the TNC would simply check for the “FROM” call field in the packet as its is being received. There is no need to wait for the CRC! If the incoming packet is decodable by anyone, the address header will be received correctly. If it is correct, then the PTT assertion can occur prior to the CRC to ensure the packet is “locked out”. If the header is misinterpreted due to noisy reception, then the bit-regenerated packet will be exactly as corrupted, and the packet would be rejected by all listening stations anyway. Thus, the enforcer mode is technically feasible. Or, assume that a METCON unit is attached and it is monitoring the deviation of incoming stations via the detector output from the repeater. A transmission could be sent to a station running with too much deviation, asking him to reduce his deviation. Or an automated deviation reporter could be implemented, providing a community resource for getting the deviation set properly. Finally, a bit-regenerator makes a full-duplex 9600-bps (or faster) local area network not only feasible, but easily doable. Hopefully, the availability of the TAPR 9600 bps modem with its bit-regenerator capability will encourage the growth of such higher speed LANs.
Conclusion
A bit-regenerating full-duplex repeater offers many advantages when implementing a local area network. It allows existing TNCs and radios to work in a coordinated fashion, defines a geographic area of coverage and removes hidden stations within that area of coverage. It offers opportunities to encourage technically and socially sound usage patterns for the shared spectrum resource.
Why It's So Hard to Get People Excited About Using Connected Packet Systems
By Brian Webster N2KGC
Editor’s Note - This article was posted to the EastNetPacket mailing list. Much of the discussion is specific to the collection of technologies and networks that make up EastNet (in the New England region in the Northeast US), but Brian’s observations about the general issues of current packet radio networks are, in my opinion, “spot on”. This article complements the previous two articles well as another perspective on Amateur Radio data networks.
It has occurred to me, that one of the big reasons modern hams are not getting excited about packet radio, is the fact that it’s hard to try and understand what the network even does.
Let’s face it, if you did not do packet back in the 90’s you don’t have any appreciation for what the network is really doing. Most new hams have never had to use a dial up modem and log in to their ISP with a terminal program.
While our networks are not blazing fast fiber internet speeds, they will do a lot of cool stuff still at the speeds we can offer.
A major drawback for everyone is the fact that they have no idea what to do on the network, everything is command line basic text driven. Failing to recognize this drawback is what is keeping anyone new from coming in to the fold.
What I am struggling with is having a user interface that today’s users can function with is the modern day skill sets users have. If you are to try to play around on any packet network these days, you have to have a knowledge of the old command line abbreviated text commands, that is exacerbated by the various node operating systems and their own unique commands and features. You really have to hack around even when you know how current pack systems work. Here is something of what I am frustrated with. Connecting to a large packet network now these are the various Node operating systems you are likely to encounter:
[G8BPQ]
JNOS
FlexNet
X-Net
XR-Node
URONode
Variations of native Linux nodes
Kantronics KA-Node
And others….
There was never any standardization and NONE of those archaic functions have been ported to something useable in today’s world. If you manually try to crawl around a packet network node hoping to explore, you likely have to know what commands and command line features are available once you connect. Most hams these days have no idea what even one of these operating systems can do or even how to get a basic help file or a simple description of what they just connected to.
The BBS system are just as problematic; the funny thing is that most of them can operate very much like today’s web based forums do. The Outpost Packet Message Manager software is a step in the right direction in addressing this.
What is needed is a local hardware/software device like the DigiPi that gives you a basic web page, with wireless connectivity that you can use a phone, tablet or other computing device to connect with. This appliance should detect what node operating system it just connected to and locally offer from the device memory, a web page(s) that provides some hints in HTML format of what commands can be used and the things you can do on the network. If the OS is not known, it serves up some help on how to figure it out or some basic commands that can be tried. All of this help should be HTML formatted on the local device so that it reads easily, but on slow speed networks all of that information does not need to transit the network. Until something like this happens, packet will stagnate.
How many of you know how to connect and use a BBS? Did you know that many nodes and BBS also have the ability to connect to local and worldwide chat systems? Did you know that there are still DX Clusters operating on packet? Would you know how to interface with the WinLink System by packet or did you even know that you can?
Now imagine that you know nothing about packet and are trying to figure out how to use it.
What we need is an effort to really simplify the USER experience on a packet network. They need to believe that there are so many functions that we can do on these networks we have been building and maintaining all these years and that it can be done without the Internet in so many cases. A lot of the new hams got interested in the hobby because they wanted to do cool things like that. But we have failed them with packet because we have not advanced the user interface that was designed in the late 70’s and early 80’s
This is where we have failed. Steve Stroh has talked about this problem in Zero Retries with his idea of the perfect all in one appliance. That device is getting closer to reality with the DigiPi and now you can get the radio interface with GPS that requires no soldering, so we are getting closer. But even if Steve declares that someone has the perfect device, when they use that and try to interface to the packets networks, there is still going to be a great deal of disappointment with packet radio.
It’s not that we don’t have the technologies available. The developers have been doing a great job adapting and improving over the years, what we have missed the boat on is the end user interface and experience. HTML and GUI based systems should not be too hard to develop so long and the actual information that needs to transit from one place to the other is known to be constrained by speed/bandwidth capacity. That is really not an issue. Look at what they are doing with Meshtastic. THEY have solved the issue of the user interface to attract people. They have slower speeds to offer than the current 1200 baud packet systems.
We need to learn from the Meshtasic project, “Packet Radio has a lack of a good interface and end user experience”.
Flame suit on, but I ask that you think about these points before we all jump to defend how we have been doing things forever.
Sean Haga KD4WLE replied to N2KGC:
You mean something like AREDN?
Mostly GUI driven with a familiar web interface.
Either RF based or Internet Tunnels to fill in gaps
Fast
Large and ACTIVE userbase
Active developer community
My entire BPQ stack is on AREDN, along with the graphical BBS interface.
My DX Cluster is on AREDN
Email, just like the internet
Webservers
Cool IM Platforms (I run RocketChat with an AREDN and regular Internet interface, so you can install the app on your smart phone)
VoIP
Computer Aided Dispatch for EmComm people
WinGate gateways
I even stuck one of my Meshtastic nodes on AREDN
And so on..
We have almost completed an Arden Network in East Florida that stretches the entire length of Brevard county.
Brian Webster N2KGC is the current President of EastNet, a large heterogeneous Amateur Radio Packet Radio network in the Northeast US that encompasses a range of legacy Amateur Radio networking systems.
Editor’s postscript to Why It's So Hard to Get People Excited About Using Connected Packet Systems (previous article) by Brian Webster N2KGC, and comments by Sean Haga KD4WLE.
N2KGC’s article nicely illustrates that even existing, working, active Amateur Radio Packet Radio are struggling to evolve in this era. N2KGC is correct that the varied… and antiquated… and sparsely / poorly documented user interface(s) to the EastNet network elements is a stumbling block to new Amateur Radio Operators (with no previous background on legacy Packet Radio), but slowly we’re getting a handle on that. We’re no longer resource constrained to host new user interfaces - we have ample compute power and we have powerful user interface and scripting tools including interactive web apps. My two primary examples of how much better user interfaces for Amateur Radio data networks can be are two stellar, modern apps - RadioMail for Apple iPhone / iPad (primarily for Winlink) and VarAC for Windows (primarily for use with VARA HF and VARA FM).
We don’t have to start entirely from scratch. We have some great, friendly, graphical user interface (GUI) applications like WINTNC (venerable enough to include support for Baycom modems), D-RATS (originally developed for Icom D-Star radios for the ~900 bps data stream built into every D-Star radio), and in N2IRZ’s article he mentions TARPN Home.
DigiPi is a great example of a friendlier user interface (all the apps run in a web browser on a remote device like laptop, tablet, or phone)… but there needs to be a more fundamental rethinking of the separation of the networking and the user interface. N2KGC’s mention of Meshtastic is a good example of a nice user interface, but that’s an entirely fresh start with no backwards compatibility.
Modern email on Amateur Radio via KA9Q NOS
“Back in my day…” (yeah, dating myself…) one of the best examples of a nice user interface was the example of KA9Q NOS (stay with me… yes, really, KA9Q NOS). NOS was essentially a TCP/IP stack that ran on DOS, but had built-in drivers for Amateur Radio Packet Radio hardware, including KISS TNCs. One of the best ideas of KA9Q NOS was that it had standard interfaces that sent and received email. You could compose and read email using the very geeky “Bdale’s Mailer” companion app… but KA9Q NOS also supported a standard POP and SMTP interfaces… so you could use an email app like Eudora or Thunderbird - all you had to do to use a modern mail client with Amateur Radio networking was to point the mail app to the appropriate ports on your Amateur Radio system (which is the same approach that RadioMail and VarAC use). This capability is still present in modern “xNOS” applications - G8BPQ, JNOS, etc.
Amateur Radio has significant new technologies such as MMDVM-TNC that may allow us up to 38.4 kbps over conventional 20 kHz VHF / UHF channels (perhaps even via repeaters), we have New Packet Radio which may allow up to 1 Mbps on 1 MHz VHF / UHF channels, and as KD4WLE pointed out, we now have fast (microwave network) data capability with AREDN (and HamWAN, and HAMNET.EU). None of this has to be either / or, or requires completely jettisoning the old stuff in favor of something entirely new (such as Meshtastic). It does require some rethinking of old paradigms such as N2KGC points out, and some adaptation to make the networking available in one area (such as EastNet) look like “just another network” in a unified, easy to comprehend and operate user interface based on modern user interface frameworks and modern networking. Sending an email via Packet Radio BBS to Amateur Radio Operator “A” should be just as easy as sending an email via AREDN to Amateur Radio Operator “B”, and there should be a standard way to view the contents of a Bulletin Board System without resorting to a dumb terminal interface where every prompt is sent every time.
We (Amateur Radio) really can have it both ways - legacy networks and new, more capable networks - we just have to have some help making better user interfaces and adhering to the “stack layers” (which has gotten kind of muddled in Amateur Radio these last few decades).
Lastly… if you… or you and some co-consiprators, have the skills and the desire to tackle such an ambitious project as developing a well-structured user interface for Amateur Radio networking, with support for many / most / all of the wild and wooly Amateur Radio networks that have been developed over the decades…
Steve Stroh N8GNJ is the Editor of the Zero Retries newsletter and an outspoken advocate of data communications using radio technologies in Amateur Radio.
Another attraction will be the 15th annual AMSAT/TAPR Banquet on Friday at 18:30 EDT. This dinner is always a highlight of the TAPR (Tucson Amateur Packet Radio) and AMSAT (Radio Amateur Satellite Corp.) activities during the Dayton Hamvention. This year’s banquet speaker will be Bill Reed, NX5R, AMSAT Volunteer Engineer, who will highlight the forthcoming PACSAT digital communications payload.
Of all the current, and proposed AMSAT satellites / payloads, PACSAT is the most Zero Retries Interesting… and AMSAT has revealed… not much… to date about PACSAT. I’m sure that NX5R’s banquet speech will be especially interesting and revealing as all the other AMSAT activities have to compete on AMSAT’s packed forum schedule during Hamvention. I don’t always attend the AMSAT / TAPR Banquet when I attend Hamvention… but this one I would definitely make time for. Wish I was able to attend Hamvention 2024!
This video is ~ 3 months old, but it’s new to me (I learned about it from the RadioMail newsletter - scroll to the bottom of the RadioMail page to subscribe). Georges Auberger WH6AZ shows how to use Winlink to send Internet email from a very compact VHF / UHF station consisting of a Windows PC (palm sized, battery powered…) to run VARA FM, a Digirig Mobile audio interface connected to a portable radio, and WH6AZ’s application RadioMail which connects to the PC via Wi-Fi. I was impressed that the Windows PC running VARA FM had been reduced to a physically small appliance (no screen, keyboard, or pointer)… just apply power and input / output cables. WH6AZ provides a polished demo of a streamlined and portable system - a “Go Kit” in a pouch.
ARRL is working to engage the next generation of radio amateurs right in the classroom. Many young people have become active hams because of the ARRL Teachers Institute on Wireless Technology.
This donor-funded effort brings teachers from across the United States together to get them excited about radio through hands-on experiments. The Institute then trains them on how to take that excitement back to their classrooms as they incorporate amateur radio into science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) learning.
Now, we're looking for the right candidate for a position that will help us grow that program. In a posting at www.arrl.org/employment-opportunities, potential candidates can find the entire list of criteria we're looking for in the Assistant Education and Learning Manager.
The position is perfect for someone with an education background, but the most important trait is being able to authentically share a passion for amateur radio, according to ARRL Education and Learning Manager Steve Goodgame, K5ATA. "We want someone energetic and passionate about amateur radio - willing to hit the streets at conferences to get teachers fired up. This person is going to help run the Teachers Institute and be a champion for engaging youth in amateur radio," he said.
Someone who has a passion for educating will be a great fit. According to the listing, the incumbent will develop schedules, choose material and coursework, and understand the needs of education program students. The Assistant Manager will work to facilitate and instruct Teachers Institute sessions.
If you're interested in the job, email Goodgame at sgoodgame@arrl.org. ARRL is an equal-opportunity employer.
… is a donor-funded professional development program designed to help classroom teachers elevate their STEM programs through the use of wireless technology. As a part of the ARRL Education & Technology Program, several sessions are conducted each year, and the program continues to grow.Teachers Institute is filled with lectures, hands-on activities, and demonstrations to inspire teachers so they can inspire their students through the use of tools and strategies to introduce basic electronics, radio science, satellite communications, Amateur Radio, radio direction finding (fox hunting), weather science, microcontrollers, and electronic sensors to their students. Teachers are provided with the equipment needed to take wireless technology to their classrooms. If you, or someone you know, would like to support ARRL's mission to elevate STEM programs in schools, click here: DONATE TODAY or contact the ARRL Development Office at (860)594-0291
I understand that “data communications via radio” is a tough concept to teach when radio is a pretty new concept to most teachers. But I do wish ARRL would try to demonstrate that “radio” is capable of modern communications like data and text messaging. One method to do so, since there will undoubtedly be portable radios involved, would be to demonstrate the Ribbit / Rattlegram text messaging app which runs on Android or iPhone and acoustically couples the audio (no cables or hardware audio interface required) into any portable radio using the radio’s speaker / microphone to send and receive data using the phone’s speaker and microphone. Perhaps whoever fills this new position at ARRL will be able to incorporate Ribbit / Rattlegram into the curriculum of the Teacher’s Institute for Wireless Technology.
Paracon is a packet radio terminal for Linux, Mac and Windows. It is focused on simplicity and ease of use, and incorporates the core functionality that most packet users need without trying to include all of the bells and whistles that few would use.
Key features of Paracon include:
Multiple simultaneous AX.25 connected mode sessions, allowing for connections to multiple BBS or other remote nodes.
Unproto (UI, or datagram) AX.25 mode, allowing for keyboard-to-keyboard chat or other non-connected uses.
Text-based console application looks and behaves the same on all supported platforms (Linux, Mac, Windows).
Uses the AGWPE protocol to communicate with any server implementing that protocol. Tested and supported with Direwolf, ldsped and AGWPE.
Self-contained executable requires only a Python installation to run, without the need to install any additional dependencies.
As interesting as Paracon is, I actually became more interested in the parent (?) project of Paracon, PyHam:
PyHam is a collection of applications and software libraries for ham radio enthusiasts, written in Python.
The applications are intended to address real-world use cases for the ham while keeping complexity to a minimum and focusing on ease of use. By avoiding the lure of trying to be all things to all people, PyHam applications target the majority of users at the possible expense of those few who may desire additional capabilities.
The libraries are written in pure Python, and each focus on a particular technology with the goal of making that technology easier to work with than it otherwise would be. PyHam applications are themselves built upon these libraries.
PyHam software has been developed with a primary focus on Direwolf as a platform, since it is the dominant software TNC in use today. However, where appropriate, the software has also been tested against other platforms such as ldsped and AGWPE.
PyHam applications include:
Paracon (described above)
Libraries - Python packages that can be installed from PyPI, the Python Package Index, using pip.
PyHam_AX25 - Modules for working with AX.25 packets in an amateur packet radio environment on all platforms. Includes support for NET/ROM routing table updates, and also facilities for working with the Linux native AX.25 stack.
PyHam_KISS - A client implementation of the KISS TNC protocol, providing send and receive capability via a TCP/IP connection.
PyHam_PE - A full Packet Engine client library for the AGWPE protocol, enabling and simplifying the creation of connected-mode and unconnected applications that communicate through servers such as Direwolf or ldsped.
These would seem to be ideal “building blocks” for future Amateur Radio data communications modes. From my limited understanding, these modules offer a “template” for how to create “modules” when implementing other or new data modes used in Amateur Radio using a modern software framework.
A cross-link allows you to pass AREDN traffic across non-AREDN network links.
Comparison with tunnels
Tunnels and cross-links both connect two nodes together, so they are the same in that respect. However, they do it in very different ways.
Tunnels are a simple to use, all in one feature, which operates over your regular Internet to connect two AREDN nodes. There is a bit of configuration information to exchange, but it is all fairly easy to set up. Tunnels only work over your WAN connection, you use the IP address given by the server, and there is very little else to configure.
Cross-links, on the other hand, are much more basic and flexible. The configuration lets you choose IP addresses yourself, as well as setting a VLAN and port on which xlink traffic leaves the device. The IP addresses let the system route the data (OLSR works at layer 3 so every interface needs an IP address), but unlike the tunnel you can set these addresses any way you desire. You choose any unused VLAN number yourself, and the port sets how you want the data to be physically sent into or out of the node. How the data is moved to the peer device is not defined in any way, and deliberately so. Maybe you want to connect that port directly to a non-AREDN PtP radio. Maybe you feed it into a switch then use some other tunneling technology to get it where it needs to go. Maybe it is just a bit of Ethernet cable. It is entirely up to you. Personally, I use tunnels to connect nodes over the Internet, but I use xlinks to connect nodes over Point-to-Point radios which are not running AREDN firmware.
I knew that this was a capability of AREDN, and widely used in larger AREDN networks… I just didn’t know the particulars or the terminology, and KN6PLV explains it well in this article.
Apologies that I didn’t record who in the Mid-Island AREDN group (Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada) brought this to my attention.
They say that if you love something, you should set it free. That doesn’t mean that you should spend any more on it than you have to though, which is why [EngineerGuy314] put together this Raspberry Pi Pico high-altitude balloon tracker that should only set you back about $12 to build.
This simplified package turns a Pico into a tracking beacon — connect a cheap GPS module and solar panel, and the system will transmit the GPS location, system temperature, and other telemetry on the 20-meter band using the Weak Signal Propagation Reporter (WSPR) protocol. Do it right, and you can track your balloon as it goes around the world.
The project is based in part on the work of [Roman Piksayin] in his Pico-WSPR-TX package (which we covered before), which uses the Pico’s outputs to create the transmitted signal directly without needing an external radio. [EngineerGuy314] took this a step further by slowing down the Pico and doing some clever stuff to make it run a bit more reliably directly from the solar panel.
If this project doesn’t get your imagination stirring about what’s possible in Amateur Radio with incredibly powerful, but cheap computing power (again, notice… no… radio…) then please just unsubscribe now from Zero Retries.
This project epitomizes my recently updated email tagline: Radios are Computers - With Antennas!
If you’re not yet licensed as an Amateur Radio Operator, and would like to join the fun by literally having a license to experiment with radio technology, check out Join the Fun on Amateur Radio for some pointers.
In its mission to highlight technological innovation in Amateur Radio, promote Amateur Radio to techies as a literal license to experiment with radio technology, and make Amateur Radio more relevant to society in the 2020s and beyond, Zero Retries is published via email and web, and is available to everyone at no cost. Zero Retries is proud not to participate in the Amateur Radio Publishing Industrial Complex, which hides Amateur Radio content behind paywalls.
My ongoing Thanks to:
Tina Stroh KD7WSF for, well, everything!
Founding Members who generously support Zero Retries financially: Founding Member 0000 - Steven Davidson K3FZT Founding Member 0001 - Prefers to Remain Anonymous 01
Founding Member 0002 - Chris Osburn KD7DVD Founding Member 0003 - Don Rotolo N2IRZ Founding Member 0004 - William Arcand W1WRA Founding Member 0005 - Ben Kuhn KU0HN Founding Member 0006 - Todd Willey KQ4FID Founding Member 0007 - Merik Karman VK2MKZ Founding Member 0008 - Prefers to Remain Anonymous 14 Founding Member 0009 - Prefers to Remain Anonymous 19
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Want to Support Zero Retries?
The most effective way to support Zero Retries is to simply mention Zero Retries to your co-conspirators that are also interested in knowing more about technological innovation that is occurring in Amateur Radio and encourage them to become a fellow subscriber.
One particularly effective method of promoting Zero Retries is to add a mention of Zero Retries to your QRZ page (or other web presence) and include a link:
If you’d like to financially support Zero Retries, becoming a paid subscriber is greatly appreciated and helps offset expenses incurred in publishing Zero Retries. Paid subscriptions for Zero Retries are entirely optional, as explained in this special issue of ZR: Zero Retries Administrivia - Activating Payment Options.
These blogs and newsletters regularly feature Zero Retries Interesting content:
Dan Romanchik KB6NU mentions “Zero Retries Interesting” topics so regularly on his blog (that I otherwise wouldn’t know about) that I’ve bestowed on him the honorific of Pseudostaffer.
Jeff Davis KE9V also mentions “Zero Retries Interesting” topics so regularly on his blog (that I otherwise wouldn’t know about) that I’ve bestowed on him the honorific of Pseudostaffer.
Amateur Radio Weekly by Cale Mooth K4HCK is a weekly anthology of links to interesting Amateur Radio stories.
Experimental Radio News by Bennet Z. Kobb AK4AV discusses (in detail) Experimental (Part 5) licenses issued by the US FCC. It’s a must-read-now for me!
RTL-SDR Blog - Excellent coverage of Software Defined Radio units.
Zero Retries is currently using the Substack email publishing platform to publish Zero Retries. It’s particularly suitable for small newsletters as you can get started for no cost.
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More bits from Steve Stroh N8GNJ:
SuperPacket blog — Discussing new generations of Amateur Radio Data Communications — beyond Packet Radio (a precursor to Zero Retries)
N8GNJ blog — Amateur Radio Station N8GNJ and the mad science experiments at N8GNJ Labs — Bellingham, Washington, USA
Thanks for reading! Steve Stroh N8GNJ / WRPS598 (He / Him / His) These bits were handcrafted (by a mere human, not an Artificial Intelligence bot) in beautiful Bellingham (The City of Subdued Excitement), Washington, USA, and linked to the Internet via Starlink Satellite Internet Access.
2024-04-12
Blanket permission is granted for TAPR to use any Steve Stroh content in Zero Retries for the TAPR Packet Status Register (PSR) newsletter (I owe them from way back).
Blanket permission is granted for Amateur Radio use of any Steve Stroh content in Zero Retries for Amateur Radio newsletters and distribution via Amateur Radio such as (but not limited to) Packet Radio Networks, Packet Radio Bulletin Board Systems, Repeater Nets, etc.
In such usage, please provide appropriate authorship credit for the content.
If you’d like to reuse an article in this issue for other uses, just ask.
All excerpts from other authors or organizations, including images, are intended to be fair use. Unless otherwise noted in the article, there are no paid promotional items in any Zero Retries articles.
Editor’s Note - G8BPQ Nodes can use a variety of networking options, including “Net/ROM / TheNET” mesh networking as well as conventional connections supported directly in AX.25.
Zero Retries is an independent newsletter promoting technological innovation that is occurring in Amateur Radio, and Amateur Radio as (literally) a license to experiment with and learn about radio technology. Now in its third year of publication, with 1500+(!!!) 1400+ subscribers.
Honestly, folks… when I began publishing Zero Retries in July 2021, I had no idea that my quirky little newsletter about a niche, of a niche, of a niche1 would become this popular.
For the benefit of newer subscribers, Zero Retries was begun solely out of frustration that despite so much technological innovation occurring in Amateur Radio, there was no one place to know about it / read about it. Such stories were only mentioned very occasionally in the “mainstream” Amateur Radio media. Eventually that frustration boiled over into publishing Zero Retries. At that time, I could imagine that Zero Retries might, conceivably achieve 500 subscribers - that would have been fantastic. 1000 subscribers was “oh… my…”.
And, now, 1500 subscribers?!?! Really, I had not imagined that milestone. In addition to email subscribers, I also have a small following on Substack (via the Substack app) and readers from my notifications of new issues of Zero Retries on Mastodon (@n8gnj@mastodon.radio) and Bluesky (@n8gnj.bsky.social).
This latest surge in subscribers was, in large part, to a very nice mention by Mark Herbert G1LRO - see the first story in this issue. Thanks G1LRO!
My sincere thanks to all the Founding Members and Paid Subscribers who are helping keep Zero Retries going by offsetting some of the expenses incurred with Zero Retries. I plan to publish mention of all financial contributors annually on the (July) anniversary issue.
Major Conference Countdowns
Hamvention 2024 in Xenia, Ohio, USA on 2024-05-17 thru 19, in 06 weeks!
HAM RADIO 2024 in Friedrichshafen, Germany on 2024-06-28 thru 30, in 09 weeks!
This is one of those rare weeks that at the beginning of the week, I already know the major themes of the upcoming issue of Zero Retries. Significant developments happened throughout the weekend immediately following Zero Retries 0145, and the challenge is in capturing it all to report out here in Zero Retries.
For this issue… Zero Retries probably wrote itself too much. I have no idea what Substack is going to do with an issue this large. Substack’s new “statistics state this issue is 9703 words, 481 sentences, and “reading time - About 45 minutes”. I previously worried about that problem and once published a long issue of Zero Retries in three simulatenous parts, but that ultimately proved to be a bit too painful to manage. So, I’m going to just let fly with this way-too-big-for-an-email-newsletter Zero Retries 0146… and we’ll see how it goes.
DLARC Box 24 - Away!
This past week I packed up and shipped my 24th box of paper media relating to Amateur Radio and Communications to be digitized and made available in Internet Archive’s Digital Library of Amateur Radio & Communications (DLARC). I’m very proud to participate in DLARC and contribute unique material into DLARC that’s never been available online and publicly accessible. Box 24 included:
Issues of the original Zero Retries, the newsletter of the Northwest Amateur Packet Radio Association (NAPRA),
Various Amateur Radio books2 I purchased inexpensively at a recent electronics flea market,
Manuals and sales material about a major manufacturer’s packet radio products from the 1980s.
Seriously folks… look around your shack at the paper (and electronic) media that you’ve accumulated and imagine its value to future (and present) generations of Amateur Radio Operators… and its likely demise at the recycler’s if you don’t make provisions for it now, while you can. If you’re so inclined to contribute to DLARC, contact:
Kay Savetz K6KJN Program Manager, Special Collections Internet Archive, Digital Library of Amateur Radio & Communications kay@archive.org
And, kudos to ARDC for having the vision to fund a large grant3 to Internet Archive to create DLARC… and gratitude to K6KJN for stepping up to manage DLARC (it’s a lot of work).
Excitement About Amateur Radio Technological Innovation
I mean no disrespect to anyone for their opinions… but from my perspective (albeit being occasionally privy to some exciting, but private info)…
If you aren’t excited about the potential of Amateur Radio in the next few years… you’re just not looking at the same end of the “telescope” that I’m looking at.
In 2024 and beyond, Amateur Radio has better tools, more opportunities, and more talent and collaboration coming into it than ever before. If all you’re seeing in Amateur Radio is the same old, same old… and “inevitable decline”, you’re simply not looking in the right places. There’s so much going on in Amateur Radio and adjacent to Amateur Radio that I can’t keep up at times to report out all of what’s going on in technological innovation in Amateur Radio.
I’m a bit silo’d off in this corner of the world, writing Zero Retries and working on various projects in N8GNJ Labs. To keep up my personal enthusiasm for Amateur Radio, it’s become apparent that I gotta get out more and mingle with the co-conspirators of technological innovation in Amateur Radio. Home Power magazine used a great phrase to describe such folks - Them That’s Doing.
Part of that is to go where such folks gather, and yes, that’s on me to get myself there. Though I’m unable to attend Hamvention 2024, I’ll be attending SEA-PAC (Seaside, Oregon, USA) in June and Pacificon (San Ramon, California, USA) in October. I also hope to “go North” a bit and perhaps mingle with some of the folks at various Vancouver, British Columbia Amateur Radio Clubs (especially Surrey Amateur Radio, which is the parent organization of the amazing newsletterzine The Communicator).
But another part of having more interactions with co-conspirators in technological innovation in Amateur Radio is to create online opportunities specific to Zero Retries Interesting subject matter. To that end, within the next few months I’m going to start a series of Zero Retries videoconference meetings specifically to discuss Zero Retries Interesting topics. For example, I’m a big fan of Radio Amateur Training Planning and Activities Committee (RATPAC) - they do a great job, and some of their presentations are quite Zero Retries Interesting.
One unique aspect of the Zero Retries videoconferences will be that with Zero Retries, I can follow up presentations with written material, beyond what RATPAC (or most other Amateur Radio videos) do with posting videos and slide decks. With 1500 potential attendees from the Zero Retries subscriber list, that would be a bit overwhelming, so I’m going to have to figure out a way to keep it manageable - To Be Determined.
In The Meantime…
There are a few mostly sunny days in the weather oracle’s (app) forecast for this coming week that I’m looking forward to.
I’m still contemplating next steps about the bent antenna pole. Fixing it will require ladder work that I’m not looking forward to.
The Color Computer ephemera still awaits boxing up.
I’ll be working on an outline for my talk later this month at LinuxFest Northwest 2024 here in Bellingham, Washington on the subject of Amateur Radio and Linux. The actual presentation will be about Amateur Radio and the Open Source ethos, not just Linux.
I’m overdue on a long-deferred project to put a radio on the air with VARA FM; my thanks to a long-waiting co-conspirator for this here in Whatcom County who is ready to test with me. Then, build up a VARA FM demonstration system with two 222 MHz radios, two modems, and two laptops for a planned demonstration later this month.
I’ll be spending significant butt-in-chair time spent on my upcoming book The Zero Retries Guide to Amateur Radio in the 21st Century.
Zero Retries 0147 is already starting to write itself with a Zero Retries Interesting article contributed and an interesting development already influencing the theme of that issue.
In Zero Retries 0136 - Reimagining Amateur Radio Part 2 - Data Appliance, I wrote a description of what I through Amateur Radio needed to participate on Amateur Radio data modes was an integrated, clean system that could be stuck in a corner (no need for a “shack” or even a desk) and you accessed it and conducted your Amateur Radio (data) activities via a laptop or tablet or phone from the comfort of your couch or favorite chair. To my delight, Mark Herbert G1LRO read my concept of an Amateur Radio Data Appliance… and then created one!
Image courtesy of Mark Herbert G1LRO
G1LRO teased this same photograph on Facebook on 2024-03-05, but didn’t provide any details, thus I refrained from speculating, and didn’t mention it at that time.
Over the weekend of 2024-03-30 and 31 (somewhere… I can’t find the mention now), G1LRO teased about “the big announcement tomorrow”. Being a fan of G1LRO and his continually expanding the capabilities of the URC, I made a point of checking out G1LRO’s website first thing Monday morning, and wow…
Currently under development on the G1LRO workbench is the U-Pi-S. This unit is a companion to the Universal Radio Controller (URC) that provides key elements to create the full specification of the Amateur Radio Data Appliance.
Embedded computer with a minimal display for status / health / troubleshooting
Networking required to for remote access via “household” network (not Internet)
Most of all, cabling to interconnect all of the above
The U-Pi-S is new to the line-up as it contains the power and computing facilities to create a full antonymous Amateur Radio Data Appliance.
Inside the U-Pi-S is a 12V 15W UPS with 5V power management to operate the integrated Raspberry Pi Zero-W processor. The new Pi-Zero provides ample horsepower to drive most current Ham software, and also has a small LCD screen with control buttons to display and manage system information.
On the rear panel is a high-power 5V output (1.5A) via USB to power the transceiver module, and a separate data USB connection from the Raspberry Pi to connect to the URC main functions. Additionally a 12V UPS-protected output is present to drive low-power equipment.
Inside the U-Pi-S are the main power and computing components to support a stand-alone digital micro-station
Using the upcoming URC transceiver module, a complete stand alone system can be made for uses such as APRs digipeater, simplex repeater, packet node, Allstar Node etc.
The unit runs the DigiPi software Ham Radio software suite especially well, and you’ll find specific articles are making DigiPi run on the URC on this site. Of course you can run virtually any ham radio software written for the Raspberry Pi on the U-Pi-S and URC, DigiPi is just one example.
In Steve’s article he proposes: “With the Data Appliance I’m imagining, add an antenna that’s appropriate for the individual user’s situation, and the new Amateur Radio Operator can operate Amateur Radio data modes within their apartment, condo, or home with a minimum of hassle. Sit down at the kitchen table, or the couch, with their laptop, tablet, or phone when it’s convenient. The Data Appliance is tucked out of the way in a corner, perhaps even on an apartment or condo balcony with a small solar panel and antenna.”
The mission for this unit is to have the URC with Transceiver and UPS providing some foundation for how Amateur Radio could be re imagined / re conceptualized to be more relevant to younger techies in the 2020s.
Please subscribe to the Zero Retries newsletter for valuable updates on the world of digital amateur radio https://www.zeroretries.org.
To be clear,
All credit for this newest unit goes to G1LRO - it’s entirely his creation. I had no idea this unit existed (I didn’t collaborate on this project) until his unveiling of it on 2024-04-01.
This is not an April Fool’s Day prank (G1LRO was asked that on a Facebook comment, and he said No, it’s real).
G1LRO had a bit of a head start on the Data Appliance concept as I explained in the original article when I mentioned the Universal Radio Controller V2 as a partial implementation of the Data Appliance concept:
… the URC V2 takes a giant leap towards becoming a Data Appliance, albeit at 2 watts transmit power. There is some assembly required by the user (as I read the article) that requires the user to install either a VHF or UHF radio module, and some other components. Commendably, the URC V2 information is available as open source.
G1LRO’s URC transceiver module (previously referred to as the VHF/UHF Transceiver Personality Board) is apparently still in development, so all of the elements of a URC Data Appliance aren’t quite ready for sale, but with this development, it appears imminent!
I’m grateful to G1LRO for giving form to my concept of an Amateur Radio Data Appliance. I can’t wait to get one in N8GNJ Labs and put it on the air.
YouTube Overview of Universal Radio Controller
Also on 2024-04-01 (coincidentally, I think), Matthew Miller M0DQW published an overview of the Universal Radio Controller (but not the UPS & Compute Module unveiled today) on his Tech Minds YouTube channel.
Connect Systems Unveils Planned Radios With M17 as a Standard Feature
By Steve Stroh N8GNJ
Portions excerpted from Connect Systems, Inc. website and email are reproduced here in Zero Retries with permission of Jerry Wanger KK6LFS of Connect Systems, Inc.
Disclaimer - I have no pecuniary interest in Connect Systems, Inc. or these new radios. My sole interest is that these new radios are Zero Retries Interesting, and thus I’m sharing information about them here in Zero Retries.
This is an exciting development in the evolution of the M17 Project. To be clear, these new Connect Systems units are not the first radios that implement M17. The M17 OpenHT (portable, still in development) implements M17, and OpenRTX has developed modifications for several radios to implement M17.
The “claim to fame” of these units from Connect Systems, Inc. is that they will almost certainly be4 the first to implement M17 as a native capability, available off the shelf, ready to run M17.
In Zero Retries 0133 - Connect Systems CS800D PLUS - Next Generation, the primary discussion was about the development of the (mobile) CS800D PLUS radio. The article emphasized the tight relationship that Jerry Wanger KK6LFS has developed with an Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) in China. That tight relationship was key in being able to develop the unique feature set of the CS800D PLUS.
At the end of the article, I said:
Editor’s Postscript - After I received the original email, I talked briefly with KK6LFS and suggested that adding M17 as a “native” mode of the CS800D PLUS would be a unique selling point as the first Amateur Radio that supports M17 out of the box. KK6LFS agreed that the CS8000D PLUS was likely (ultimately) capable of doing so, but there are a number of issues to be addressed before M17 could be implemented.
In a followup exchange of emails, I provided KK6LFS with some pointers to the M17 Project and pointers to the work that OpenRTX had done in adapting some portable radios to operate M17. As we ended the exchange, KK6LFS seemed somewhat interested in M17, but was non-committal.
We will soon have a two commercial radios with M17. We currently are calling them CS7000 M17 and CS7000 M17 PLUS. I will probably generate a blog about the radios in the near future and you are welcome to reproduce it in its entirety or part of it. You can go to www.csi-radios.com to look what is put on the website.
It is being implemented by one of the key developers of the M17 project. It is being financed by Connect Systems Inc.
Best Regards,
Jerry
CSI’s Primer on M17 and its New M17 Radios
This was posted to the Connect Systems, Inc. mailing list by Jerry Wanger KK6LFS to discuss the “bigger picture” of implementing M17.
What should you know about M17?
The M17 is a radio technology developed using open source hardware, software, and offer a complete digital radio protocol for data and voice, made by and for amateur radio operators.
The protocol’s voice mode uses the free and open Codec 2 voice encoder. This means there are no patents, no royalties, and no licensing or legal barriers to scratch-building your own radio or modifying one you already own.
This freedom to build, understand and innovate is core to amateur radio, but has been missing from the commercially available digital voice modes. This is part of why amateur radio digital voice modes have largely stagnated since the 1990s and we’re almost wholly dependent on commercial products that aren’t well designed for amateur radio users.
M17 is about unlocking the capabilities that amateur radio hardware should already have.
Here you will find people working on radio hardware designs that can be copied and built by anyone, software that anyone has the freedom to modify and share to suite their own needs, and other open systems that respect your freedom to tinker.
This radio will be both DMR compatible and M17 compatible. By having a radio M17 compatible, you now open up the possibilities of quickly flashing other protocols into the radio such as Fusion, DSTAR, NXDN and others.
With other radios, to completely reflash the radio requires you to take apart the radio, short two pins and then turn on the radio to get into a special downloading mode. With this radio you press the top button and turn on the power to get into the special downloading mode.
What is unique about the CS7000 M17 PLUS radio?
Besides all the features of the basic CS7000 M17 radio, this radio will double the amount of code memory, about three times the amount of internal ram memory and run about three times faster.
This will allow the HAM community to advance the state of the art in communication technology and have the first true multi-protocol digital radio.
Connect Systems M17 Radios
We are developing two radios based on an existing radio from our manufacturer. This M17 radio is going to be a modified CS760. To be true to the M17 project, schematics and a parts list will be provided so you can make your own. However, as part of the design, for the CS7000 M17 we will allow you to load at will either the M17 firmware or the DMR software.
If you wanted to make your own radio, the DMR software will require you to spend a few hundred thousand dollars for the AMBE II vocoder firmware, the radio and battery tooling will cost about $80,000 and you will need to find someone to build it for you. The parts are so small in the radio, you need to either go to someone who has the capability to build the radio or solder it yourself under a microscope. Using three-dimensional printing technology, it is possible to build the case and battery holder yourself for a nominal cost thereby saving the $80,000 in tooling cost.
Why buy CS7000 M17 when you can get a cheaper M17 radio?
There are some inexpensive Chinese radios you can modify to do the M17 protocol. If you have the tools and ability to work with small SMD parts you can save a little. With the CS7000 M17 we do it all for you and it is plug and play.
The CS7000 M17 is a much better radio than the cheap Chinese radios. This radio is Part 90 certified, manufactured to commercial standards and has a frequency range of 400-512 MHz. The other radios are typically 400-470 MHz and designed to amateur standards. Many of those radios are not Part 90 certified.
Why should you get the CS7000 M17 PLUS?
The CS7000 M17 PLUS was designed to have multiple protocols in a single radio. The CS7000 M17 can only have a single protocol at a time. The DMR protocol takes between 500,000 and 1,000,000 bytes of code depending on the features you have. The M17 protocol takes about 400,000 bytes of code. There is a lot of overlap between the code that the DMR protocol takes and the M17 takes so in theory the combined will take a lot less than the sum of the two.
The DMR or M17 protocol takes most of the available resources of the computer running at 168,000,000 instructions per second. The CS7000 M17 PLUS microprocessor will run at three times the speed thereby allowing you to develop better algorithms and have more features than you can have with the basic radio.
What can a more powerful M17 radio do?
We can change the modulation from 4FSK to 16FSK. That will allow us to reduce the bandwidth in half. We can change the vocoder to work at half the data rate. This will again reduce the bandwidth by two. With these two features we can have four channels in a bandwidth of 6.25 KHz. If we use the bandwidth of the old analog channel, we can have 16 channels of voice compared to the single channel of voice that we used to have. If we use it for data, we could double the transmission speed.
We can put in an AGC for the voice so the voice level will sound the same no matter how softly the other person is speaking.
I am sure the amateur community will develop other features that will advance the state of the art compared to commercial radios.
What is Connect Systems Role in this project?
We are doing two things. We are paying to have one of the key designers of the original M17 radio implement what was done before in the cheap Chinese radios in the CS7000 M17 and CS7000 M17 PLUS.
We are coordinating and paying the manufacturer of the radio to make the necessary changes to make the CS7000 M17 and CS7000 M17 PLUS radios.
Status of CS7000 M17 Project
Have manufacturer send sample radios to engineer to modify and test. Completed
Have engineer pay import duties and receive radio. Completed
Determine changes necessary to put in radio. Completed
Put changes in radio and test to verify changes work. Pending
Modify software from working M17 radio to be compatible with CS7000 M17 radio. Pending
Improve performance of radio. Pending
Release radio for limited beta testing. Pending
Ship to new radios to customers who prepaid. Pending
Supporting This Project
We are asking the amateur community to buy in advance one or more of the radios. When the radios are available, you will be the first to get them at a discount from the standard price of the radio. If at anytime you decide you would rather not support this project, you can get your money back and then get in the back of the line for when the radios are released.
The CS7000 M17 is the first Amateur digital radio designed for the M17 protocol. The user make the radio into either a M17 radio or a standard DMR and Analog radio.
There are a few things that make this radio different than the standard DMR radio.
The ability to easily get in the native boot mode of the microprocessor to unbrick the radio without opening the radio. This is very important when developing new features because of chance in bricking the radio.
Hardware modifications from standard DMR radios to allow it be used with protocols other than DMR and Analog.
Optional GPS.
Although there is not enough memory in this version of the radio to support multiple protocols at the same time, this radio should be able to take the protocols developed for the plus version and be ported to this version of the radio.
This is a radio designed to do the M17 Protocol. For those not familiar with M17, it uses 4FSK modulation with an open source Protocol and Vocoder. This entire methology was designed by the HAM community. At the current time, this radio is not finished. However, if you would like to buy it now, you will get a $50 discount from the regular price and will ship in the sequence we get orders when the radio is finished. We are in effect setting up a "Crowd Funding" page. If at any time before the radio is shipped, you are welcome to cancel the order and you will get a complete refund of the amount you paid. We expect to ship in late May 2024.
This radio includes the following items:
Radio
Battery
Antenna
Power Supply
Battery Charger
Strap
Programming Cable
Due to limitations of the the hardware, this radio will only do M17. There is not enough memory in the radio to do more protocols. See CS7000-M17 PLUS for more features.
The CS7000 M17 Plus is the first Amateur digital radio that has the ability to have multiple protocols in a single radio. The first version of this radio will have DMR, M17 and Analog protocols.
There are a few things that make this radio different than the standard DMR radio.
Double the program memory to two megabytes that will allow a single radio to have DMR, Analog, M17 and other protocols such as DSTAR, P25 and other protocols.
Triple the RAM memory to 1 megabyte that will allow the radio to overlay large programs that is unique to diferent protocols.
A processor that is three times faster than what is normally used in DMR radios to allow the abilty to develop new algorithms to advance the state of the art of communications and allow the radio to work better than the commercial radios that are currently sold.
The ability to easily get in the native boot mode of the microprocessor to unbrick the radio without opening the radio. This is very important when developing new features because of chance in bricking the radio.
Hardware modifications from standard DMR radios to allow it be used with protocols other than DMR and Analog.
This is a radio as initially shipped, is designed to do the DMR, Analog and M17 Protocol. For those not familiar with M17, it uses 4FSK modulation with an open source Protocol and Vocoder. This entire methology was designed by the HAM community. At the current time, this radio is not finished. However, if you would like to buy it now, you will get a $50 discount from the regular price and will ship in the sequence we get orders when the radio is finished. We are in effect setting up a "Crowd Funding" page. If at any time before the radio is shipped, you are welcome to cancel the order and you will get a complete refund of the amount you paid. We expect to ship in late August 2024.
This radio includes the following items:
Radio
Battery
Bluetooth
GPS
Vibrator
Antenna
Power Supply
Battery Charger
Strap
Programming Cable
This radio is in effect a super CS7000 M17 radio. Compared to the CS7000 M17, the radio is about three times faster, has twice the program memory and at least four times the flash memory used to hold contacts, channels and other parameters.
With this capability, the radio can easily do multiple protocols in the same radio.
(End of Connect Systems material.)
This is a really cool development!M17 is really starting to gain some traction with this privately funded development of portable radios with native M17 capability.
Couple this with the infrastructure for using M17 such as repeaters:
One reason… perhaps a nitpick, but still important, is that with CSI’s M17 radios, Amateur Radio finally has a “plug and play” open source digital radio system that it can promote to those who require a system to be open source before they have any interest or involvement. For example, in DMR, D-Star, and System Fusion, they have been “turned off” by the presence of a proprietary CODEC in the middle of the radio that they had no capability to work around. Although a proprietary CODEC might still be present in these radios, it’s use is optional (required if you want to use the radio for DMR) or bypassed when operating in M17 mode.
Note the excitement discussed in Zero Retries 0145 about the Quansheng’s UV-K5 - The Most Hackable Handheld Ham Radio Yet. From my reading, the UV-K5 is (somewhat) accidentally compatible with hacking… but the CSI CS7000 M17 Plus is truly designed for hacking:
2 MB flash (?) memory for storage
1 MB RAM
Fast(er) processor
Easy to recover from a bricking when experimenting with software.
Built in GPS
Built in BlueTooth
I was intrigued with KK6LFS’s description of the potential uses of the CS7000 M17 PLUS’ enhanced capabilities:
We can change the modulation from 4FSK to 16FSK. That will allow us to reduce the bandwidth in half. We can change the vocoder to work at half the data rate. This will again reduce the bandwidth by two. With these two features we can have four channels in a bandwidth of 6.25 KHz. If we use the bandwidth of the old analog channel, we can have 16 channels of voice compared to the single channel of voice that we used to have. If we use it for data, we could double the transmission speed.
One of the unrealized capabilities of current generation portable radios for Amateur Radio is data, especially once radios (especially portables) began to include Bluetooth. In theory, this was a great development for being able to do Amateur Radio data from one’s laptop (or phone or tablet). But the reality quickly became apparent that either the protocols implemented in the radios have fallen short (the slow data of D-Star and the limitation of “photos only” in System Fusion are two examples) or the Bluetooth implementation has been incompatible, etc. With the existing protocols and the Bluetooth… we had no way to fix those once we knew what the issues were5.
That’s no longer the case with the CS7000 M17 PLUS… having its capabilities defined almost entirely in software. Once we figure out something is wrong, we can fix it. And it will probably be just as easy to add new features and fix existing features now that the paradigm for doing so easily has been established with the “easily hackable” Quansheng UV-K5.
Some ideas of mine that the CS7000 M17 PLUS might be capable of:
Variable Forward Error Correction (FEC) for voice depending on conditions. For example, the repeater could report back to the radio that it’s at the limit of the current FEC for good voice quality and the radio needs to engage a more robust FEC to maintain good communications.
Simultaneous voice and data similar to the way System Fusion can transmit all digital voice at high quality, some digital voice and some data, or all data at higher speed.
Support two different modes such as M17 for voice and text, and MMDVM-TNC for higher speed data.
For those that are thinking “M17… just another digital voice mode…” when we already have digital voice modes such as DMR, D-Star, System Fusion, P25, etc., M17 is a new and unique capability in Amateur Radio because:
M17 was developed from within Amateur Radio for the unique needs of Amateur Radio.
M17 was created from the beginning using Open Source principles - there’s no proprietary interest or encumbrances as there are with previous digital voice systems.
M17 doesn’t use / require the use of a proprietary CODEC chip such as all previous implementations of digital voice. M17 uses the open Codec 2 CODEC.
M17 isn’t just a digital voice protocol; it’s the entire ecosystem - digital voice, data, the protocol, Internet interoperability, reference hardware implementations, etc.
In short, M17, with its open source ethos, and now a reasonable range of entry points including reasonably priced “buy it and use it” radios such as the CS7000 M17, or even less expensive radios that can be modified for M17, bodes well for experimenters that want to experiment with open source technologies in Amateur Radio.
Kudos to Connect Systems for this development to move M17 forward into mainstream use!
Connect Systems and KK6LFS - Asking to Vote With Your Wallet
Connect Systems is committing its own funds on the speculation that there will be a market for these radios, and it’s asking for a show of confidence for these radios by putting down deposits for radios delivered within 2024. I think that’s a reasonable request and a more efficient way to crowdfund the development costs than using a third party like Kickstarter or GoFundMe.
I’m sufficiently intrigued that I’ll be putting down a deposit on a CS7000 M17 or CS7000 M17 PLUS within the month. I hope I’ll have lots of company to encourage continuing development of these new radios.
Detailed Plans for Immediate Future of APRS Foundation
By Steve Stroh N8GNJ
If this issue of Zero Retries weren’t already overflowing (for a emailed newsletter), I would reprint this email from APRS Foundation in its entirety. But that’s not possible in this issue, and this new information about APRS Foundation is timely, thus I’ll defer to the original post for the detail of the help that APRS Foundation is requesting.
It’s still puzzling to me that this type of fundamental information is available solely on ephemeral mailing lists instead of being prominently posted on APRSF’s website… but one of the things they’re asking for help is with the website, so maybe, eventually they’ll do so.
Jeff Hochberg - W4JEW, APRS Foundation President, on the two APRS mailing lists:
The APRS Foundation intends to build a solid foundation for APRS to build upon - no pun intended. You have to admit…that was a little “punny.” I couldn’t resist! :-)
We can head in countless directions, but much cleanup must be done to establish a baseline.
A mix of technical and non-technical work needs to be done. Some won’t be fun, but it’s a necessity and will be rewarding! It’s long and daunting, but please read through the opportunities to find a place where your skills can help.
Define Use Cases
Opportunity - Start APRS Use Cases Thread
Rebranding
Opportunities - Rebranding
Website
Opportunities - Web Design & Content Review (Multiple opportunities)
Webmaster
Opportunities - Webmaster (1 to 2 opportunities available)
Documentation
Opportunities - Documentation Editor (4 to 6 positions available)
Project Management
Opportunities - Project Manager (# based on demand)
Please email info@aprsfoundation.org if you are interested in helping manage the aforementioned projects and/or any future projects.
Volunteer Work - Not Employment
While APRS Foundation Inc. is a non-profit organization, please do not perceive these opportunities as an offer of employment. John, Lynn, John, Jason, and I are board members, but we do so on a voluntary basis and are not compensated in any way.
The work we are requesting assistance with is on a volunteer basis only.
Keep in mind that we are all working towards Ensuring the Future of APRS! There is no better way to give back to the global amateur radio community than through work of this nature! It’s extremely important, and the rewards are that you get to say you worked on it!
A Lot To Do
As you can see, there’s a lot to do. We're looking for a few good hams!!! We are just getting started! But we cannot do this without YOU!
To make this point abundantly clear, our door is open to any licensed amateur radio operator worldwide interested in contributing to the effort! If one of the areas above strikes a chord with you, please join the conversation and come along for the ride!
Please be patient—we may take a week or two to reply, but I assure you we will!
Thank you for taking the time to read this message. We look forward to working with you!
Here is the proposal for an AMSAT-DL geostationary microwave amateur radio payload, written by the authors Kai Siebels DH0SK and Matthias Bopp DD1US. The proposal takes into account the technical requirements and needs of radio amateurs. Various aspects such as orbit, satellite and platform as well as payload are taken into account.
Among the possible orbits such as MEO, HEO and GEO, the GEO orbit has proven to be the most suitable due to the extensive experience with OSCAR-100. A good compromise for the orbit position would be at ~43 degrees West to also support Eastern European countries and most of North America.
A payload for amateur radio should allow the greatest possible scope for experiments on different bands. Six bands could be used for the uplink to enable experiments with different frequencies. The main uplink band is the 13 cm band, the main downlink band is the 3 cm band. All proposed band / NB transponder combinations can be implemented at the ground station with very reasonable effort.
A dedicated AMSAT (Amateur Radio) mission based on an ESA-supported Micro GEO provides opportunities for several additional experiments that support AMSAT’s education, science and development goals to inspire young people with amateur radio technology. Finally, such a mission could also provide an excellent platform for disaster/emergency communications directly via the GEO satellite transponders.
The link in the first paragraph is a 31 page presentation (PDF) with an amazing amount of detail about potential options for another Amateur Radio geosynchronous satellite, which would include coverage for much of North America (Canada).
In Issue 158 of the Boulder Amateur Television Club TV Reporter’s REPEATER newsletter, Editor Jim Andrews KH6HTV mentioned this Zero Retries Interesting information:
SAN DIEGO ATV NEWS: Mario, KD6ILO, has recently sent us several e-mail up-dates on their on-going project to use light transmitters in place of microwave transmitters to link up their several sites. I will try to summarize what they are doing here.
Mario reports that they are doing over the air tests of their new optical ATV link transmitter over a 3 mile path between a couple of the group's sites in southern California, San Diego area. The laser transmitter is operating on 1.55μm {1550nm}. They are using 600 mW of power. An EDFA laser light amplifier is used as a pre-amp for the optical receiver. Pointing their extremely narrow laser beam is tricky. They use a beacon beam to find its mark, acquiring and keep a lock once established to send test signal.
Their plans are that these will be used for back-bone links to replace their current RF links for optimum deployment and handling very high data traffic which RF can't. They are calling their system FSOC, short for Free Space Optical Communications. This project is costing their group $120,000. EDFA amplifiers do not come cheap ! Sounds like they found some "deep pockets" somewhere!
Laser links?!?!?! Who can’t get excited about laser links?
Part of our ARDC grant activities is to support the FreeDATA project. Simon and team have recently completed a major re-write and FreeDATA is back on the air. This month I’ve been working with Simon on a faster modem waveform for “ACK” packets, that will help speed up the FreeDATA protocol. I’m also pleased to see FreeDATA working over real HF channels, including this 7 hour 1.44Mbyte file transfer over an 800km path.
Good progress report on this open source project by Great Scott Gadgets (of HackRF fame)…
to design a single hardware platform capable of serving as many popular types of one-port or two-port RF test instruments. We plan to build a directional coupler into a wideband, full-duplex SDR platform to enable URTI to function as a:
GRCon24 will take place in Knoxville, TN from Sept 16-20
GRCon 2024 celebrates and showcases the substantial and remarkable progress of GNU Radio and its usage in a diverse field of applications and industries.
We invite developers and users from across the GNU Radio Community to present your projects, presentations, papers, posters, and problems at GNU Radio Conference 2024. Submit your talks, demos, and code!
Call for Participation Key Dates:
March 1 - Open for Abstract Submissions
June 17 - Abstract Submissions Close
July 12 - (Initial) Main Track Schedule Posted
GNU Radio has a lot of crossover potential with Amateur Radio, and there are always several Amateur Radio related presentations during a GRCon.
Pi 5 is still an odd fit for day-to-day desktop use; cheap mini PCs come closer.
I recently tried to use a Raspberry Pi 5 as a regular desktop PC. The experiment wasn't a failure—I was able to use a Pi to get most of my work done for a few days. But the device's performance, and especially the relative immaturity of the Linux's Arm software ecosystem, meant that there were lots of incompatibilities and rough edges.
One of the problems with trying to use a Pi 5 as a regular desktop computer is that, by the time you've paid for the 8GB version of the board, a decent active cooler and case, and (ideally) some kind of M.2 storage attachment and SSD, you've spent close to a couple of hundred dollars on the system. That's not a ton of money to spend on a desktop PC, but it is enough that the Pi no longer feels miraculously cheap, and there are actually other, more flexible competitors worth considering.
…
But if you're actually looking for a cheap functional everyday PC and not just a hobby project, these oddball no-name computers do give you a lot for your money. Arm software is on the rise, but in the here and now (and for the foreseeable future), there's simply no substitute for the app compatibility of an x86 processor, whether you're trying to run the same Linux distros you run on the Pi or you want to run Windows 10 or 11.
In my reading, I’ve seen a number of folks come to the same conclusion. If you’re looking for a reasonable, but cheap “desktop” experience, then the mini PCs with Intel processors are probably a better value versus a fully fleshed out a Raspberry Pi 5 board with fan, solid state drive, etc. Many of them can also be run directly on 12 volts. The article explains how to pick mini PCs with current Intel processors that provide reasonable performance despite the low price.
I remain a fan of Raspberry Pi computers for the ability to create dedicated appliances for various tasks with the RPi as a compute core, but with the RPi5’s requirement of a fan… (versus a fan being optional, with a decent heatsink on the RPi4) is problematic. It may be that the RPi5’s real potential will only be realized in follow-on products such as a “Raspberry Pi 500” or a Raspberry Pi 5 compute module.
TACNPR - Another Independent Implementation of New Packet Radio
On that site, there is both the CAD view (mockup) of the board, and what certainly looks like a completed board (at least the top side - the power amplifier brick is probably mounted on the bottom of the board).
I had not previously heard of this project, and doing a brief web search, found this informative slide deck - SCOMS TACNPR project which provides background on this project:
We wanted more integrated hardware than the original (+integrated PA)
Finnish Scouts organization was seeking a reliable telemetry solution for a big
scout camp
Scoms* team (Scout Monitoring System) had some ideas and synergy with their earlier projects
Personally, I wanted to learn KiCAD (switched from EAGLE)
Technical guidelines
Must: Binary compatibility with the original design (exactly the same CPU)
W5500 (SPI ethernet) and RJ45 jack integrated
This decision was changed later on: module, to save space on board
RF PA would be Motorola MHW720A hybrid (20W out)
Well-known from RD5* Mobiras
PSU: Buck converter design from an earlier Scoms project
2 converters in parallel to generate enough amps at 12V, third one to step down 12→3V8 for logic
KiCAD will be used, prototypes using JLCPCB PCBA (assembly) service
Targetting 100mm x 100mm board size
SRAM option included, but no support for FDD mode
SMD LEDs where they happen to be
Same license as the original work (TAPR OHL)
The big benefit of this unit is that they chose a power amplifier module capable of 20 watts! That power level will help out a lot on a transmission with a 1 MHz channel size.
This is a cool project, but in a web search I wasn’t able to find any more details such as if these units were ever put into use or built up other than as a prototype. The last update on the Github page was in mid-2023. I hope this project has continued!
If you want to get going on New Packet Radio in 2024 (100 kbps - 1 Mbps, 420-450 MHz, 7 watts, native TCP/IP with an Ethernet interface), I recommend the New Packet Radio Modem Version 2, NPR-H 2.0. It’s assembled and tested (need to add an enclosure), and available immediately.
A Smattering of Amateur Radio Technology Societies
Finally, this is an amusing, claimed-to-be-true story (despite being published on 2024-04-01) that illustrates nicely the line-of-sight issues with outdoor, long distance microwave communications.
Followup / additions / corrections on stories in recent issues of Zero Retries.
More on IPv6 in Amateur Radio - Previous Discussions
I’ve discussed the potential use of IPv6 in Amateur Radio several times previously in Zero Retries, most extensively in Zero Retries 0127 - More Thoughts on IPv6 - No “44Net” within IPv6. Apparently I’m late to the exploration of this topic - my bad for not doing a web search prior to writing that article. There’s some significant previous work:
If you’re not yet licensed as an Amateur Radio Operator, and would like to join the fun by literally having a license to experiment with radio technology, check out Join the Fun on Amateur Radio for some pointers.
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More bits from Steve Stroh N8GNJ:
SuperPacket blog — Discussing new generations of Amateur Radio Data Communications — beyond Packet Radio (a precursor to Zero Retries)
N8GNJ blog — Amateur Radio Station N8GNJ and the mad science experiments at N8GNJ Labs — Bellingham, Washington, USA
Thanks for reading! Steve Stroh N8GNJ / WRPS598 (He / Him / His) These bits were handcrafted (by a mere human, not an Artificial Intelligence bot) in beautiful Bellingham (The City of Subdued Excitement), Washington, USA, and linked to the Internet via Starlink Satellite Internet Access.
2024-04-05
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None of these books contributed to DLARC were published by ARRL. I’ve contributed ARRL books to DLARC, many that are long out of print (and not available from ARRL as print on demand, or digital versions), but they don’t appear in DLARC. When I asked about them, I was told “ARRL has asked us to take them down, and we complied.” I can understand this position regarding titles still available for purchase (including digitally or via print on demand). But absent that case, I really wish ARRL could understand the role of a publisher in the 21st century.
The CSI radios aren’t shipping yet, and thus it’s conceivable (but unlikely…) that another manufacturer will ship a radio with native M17 support in the interval between CSI’s announcement and the radios actually shipping. But CSI has a good reputation and many satisfied customers.
Yes, current generation radios can be updated via a firmware update, but such updates seem to be very rare, and current commercial vendors are loathe to provide updates that add features, especially when they cannot get additional revenue for such added features.
Zero Retries is an independent newsletter promoting technological innovation that is occurring in Amateur Radio, and Amateur Radio as (literally) a license to experiment with and learn about radio technology. Now in its third year of publication, with 1400+ subscribers.
As I’ve said, I’m a big fan of Jeff Davis KE9V’s series The Zombie Apocalypse in which Amateur Radio is a significant plot element. I’m not going to naysay any of the plot elements; he’s the writer, thus it’s his story to tell. Good stories make you think, and one paragraph in TZA Episode 9 made me think:
Oddly enough, amateur radio was the most consistent form of data transfer available and some limited regions were beginning to rely on the information it exchanged. Though it was a throwback to the 1950’s, message handling was being done by ham radio traffic networks the old-fashioned way, via phone and Morse code as these could be maintained without need of computers or internet connectivity. These were limited to populous regions and messages often took days or weeks to be delivered, when they could be delivered at all. Still, this was impressive to Clinton given that most older hams, like himself, who had traffic handling experience, probably didn’t survive the ordeal. He thought it amazing this was now being handled by the whizz kids, without their computers, forced to rely on Morse code and a pencil to carry on the tradition and they seemed to be doing well.
One of the premises of TZA is that most electronic equipment was no longer functional, but it seems to me that computers are now so ubiquitous1 to the point that a reasonable number of computers would survive, and (at least in my way of thinking) Amateur Radio Operators would be one of the best uses of computers for (faster than manual) data communications on HF. With that thought rattling around in the back of my mind, when I received an email from a Zero Retries reader about HF data communications, that quickly triggered the article Continuing Development (Fork) of ARDOP in this issue.
M17 Announces New Open-Source Hardware for Amateur Radio Enthusiasts and Enhancements to Current Offerings
Supplementary commentary by Steve Stroh N8GNJ
This article is a joint press release from ARDC and M17 Project. I wouldn’t normally feature a press release verbatim in Zero Retries, but this one is perfectly aligned as Zero Retries Interesting (despite some awkward phrasing such as “Amateur Radio Enthusiasts”). All three of these projects by M17 have been previously discussed in Zero Retries, thus this serves as an update on these projects.
M17 launches innovations in hardware, software, and UHF/VHF digital voice protocols, all of which are open-source.
March 29, 2024 — Funded by a grant from Amateur Radio Digital Communications (ARDC), M17 is excited to announce enhancements to their current hardware solutions for amateur radio operators as well as a new hardware offering:
Module17 – an M17 modem that converts a 9600 baud capable radio into an M17 transceiver;
OpenHT – a cutting-edge QRP dual-band handheld transceiver (HT) that utilizes SDR technology; and
[NEW] Remote Radio Unit (RRU) – a comprehensive, UHF FM/M17 ‘repeater in a box’, optimally designed for close antenna placement, enhancing signal strength and reliability.
Module17 is undergoing significant enhancements, evolving from revision 0.1e to 1.0. Improvements to Module17 will focus on design and ergonomics, featuring an extruded aluminum case for aesthetic appeal. The anticipated release of revision 1.0 is forthcoming. In the interim, a preview revision 0.99 is available, which addresses previous non-critical hardware bugs.
OpenHT is one of the pioneering open-source SDR HTs available, potentially the first of its kind. Its prototype, released last year, supports 70cm and 13cm bands, offering versatile transmission capabilities such as FM (including M17), AM, SSB, BPSK/QPSK, and higher order modulations, such as 16QAM. M17’s ongoing development efforts include VHSIC Hardware Description Language (VHDL) code for the programmable logic components of the radio, further enhancing its functionality.
Work is also underway for the development of a RRU transceiver, aiming to provide a comprehensive FM/M17 repeater for remote sites or masts. The RRU includes features such as an N connector for direct antenna connection, eliminating the need for a long coax, and a multimode optical fiber duplex pair, allowing for improved RF performance. The RRU supports SDR IQ transceivers, allowing for additional modes, and can also output RF power exceeding 50W (CW). The current working prototype, revision B, facilitates linking to M17 reflectors and integrates Raspberry Pi interface software for M17 reflector linking.
All of the aforementioned hardware is developed entirely from open-source designs, adhering to TAPR, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 and/or GNU GPLv2/v3 licenses, exemplifying M17’s commitment to innovation and community collaboration.
“I believe the work done by our Project's team and contributors will free the amateur radio community from the use of proprietary digital voice modes, also allowing for easier data transfer,” says M17 Founder and Lead Developer Wojciech Kaczmarski (SP5WWP). “We have achieved a lot already, yet still there's plenty of work ahead of us. I encourage everyone to join the effort, as the Project won't succeed without community's help."
It’s really good to see that M17 is taking advantage of its ARDC grant to push forward these projects to (apparent) completion and wide availability. During my involvement with ARDC on its Grants Advisory Committee, I “fought hardest” for transformative projects like the grant to M17 to tackle projects that were too big or too speculative for commercial development, or didn’t offer a competitive advantage to commercial developers to be assured of a return on their investment. I continue to characterize ARDC grants as “venture capital2 for Amateur Radio research and development”.
When I first began interacting with M17 Project, I made the point that Module 17 (which was then purely a prototype / proof of concept) was good enough and just needed to be made “available to the masses”. At that time, you could make your own Module 17 - first you had your own printed circuit board made, then you sourced the components… etc. Obviously that was a non-starter for all but the most technically ambitious folks, and didn’t do much to encourage M17 activity. Kudos that Module 17 is now going to be a product, not just a project.
The OpenHT is an impressive, ambitious project, but reading about it, if you’ve been following developments in technological innovation in Amateur Radio here in Zero Retries, OpenHT feels like a development whose time has come. OpenHT is similar in scope to an earlier project - Whitebox / Katena that was begun by Bruce Perens K6BP and Chris Testa KD2BMH in 2016. Unfortunately, at that time, the technology wasn’t quite up to the scope of the project. Eight years later, the radio components, the processors, and the software framework are now widely available. Most importantly, in tackling the OpenHT, the ARDC grant that M17 received provided funding to “pay their way over the rough spots” such as tricky radio frequency design issues. But the biggest indicator of potential success for OpenHT is a significant use case that’s lacking in any other project - a “native” implementation of the brand new, open source, designed by Amateur Radio for Amateur Radio M17 mode.
As for the Remote Radio Unit (Repeater), I gushed about that project more than a bit in Zero Retries 0130 - Remote Radio Unit for M17 / FM Repeaters. The RRU (Repeater) is a fantastic example of out-of-the-box thinking of a radio system designed by Amateur Radio for (the unique needs and requirements of) Amateur Radio. There are just so many things to admire about the scope of the RRU - using fiber optic communications between the unit and its base, that it’s essentially a Software Designed Transceiver, reasonable power output for UHF operations, etc. It’s interesting that the RRU debuted not long after the Icom IC-905 which also mounts “most of the electronics” remotely on the tower near the antenna. In my opinion, the RRU is more technically sophisticated than the IC-905 in some ways such as using of fiber optic communications, and being able to add modes and features through software changes determined by the user.
I hope that M17, perhaps in conjunction with a company comfortable with open source (Crowd Supply, perhaps?) is able to bring all three of these units to some kind of public availability for those that aren’t quite up to “build it yourself” as M17 offered with the early versions of the Module 17.
Similarly, I hope that ARDC is able to learn from the significant potential of these three projects that could significant advance Amateur Radio technology… that there’s a huge gap between prototype development (easy) and “getting hardware into people’s hands” (hard, expensive). Amateur Radio used to have many companies such as PacComm, MFJ Enterprises, Advanced Electronics Applications, and TAPR, that eagerly stepped into that role. But there are only a few now, and they need encouragement. Perhaps ARDC could do Requests For Proposals (RFPs) to manufacture “seed” quantities of units that would pay for the non-recurring engineering and initial product costs.
But, for now, it’s gratifying to see the progress that has been made by M17 for these three new projects that even in a prototype phase, do advance Technological Innovation in Amateur Radio.
Data communications on Amateur Radio HF bands are an important capability to be able to exchange reasonable amounts of arbitrary data (file transfers) within a reasonable time without requiring any infrastructure (repeaters, microwave networks, Internet, etc.) other than two or more similarly equipped HF radios. For example, using HF to exchange Bulletin Board System (BBS) messages and bulletins between BBS systems that cannot connect via VHF, microwave, or Internet.
While there are many data communications systems in use on Amateur Radio HF bands, two specific “reasonably fast” and “reasonably reliable” systems seem to be primary - VARA HF software and modem units from SCS that implement the SCS Pactor-4 protocol. For many Amateur Radio Operators, VARA HF works so well, for the reasonable cost ($69) for a VARA license key, “fast” data communications on Amateur Radio HF is a solved problem.
But, both VARA and Pactor-4 are proprietary technology, and thus not open to experimentation and improvement. Thus there is continuing interest in developing new “reasonably fast” and “reasonably reliable” systems for use on Amateur Radio HF bands.
ARDOP (Amateur Radio Digital Open Protocol) was an ambitious project begun by Rick Muething KN6KB of Amateur Radio Safety Foundation (Winlink) in 2015 to develop a new HF data protocol as a replacement for the earlier Winlink Message Over Radio (WINMOR) “transport” protocol previously used in Winlink clients and servers. Goals for ARDOP included:
Hardware compatibility – accommodate frequency accuracy of typical HF and VHF / UHF radios, majority of audio interface (“Sound cards”), all popular methods of Push-To-Talk (PTT), and flexible host interface (TCP/IP socket or serial).
Use of Forward Error Correction (FEC) and Automatic Retry Request (ARQ) for
error free data transfer.
A broadcast / multicast mode using FEC.
Automatic adjustment of timing parameters, including for use with VHF / UHF
voice repeaters, round trip timing, latencies in the operating system (if any), TX delay, networking, etc.
“Handshake” between two stations to establish common parameters such as channel size (200, 500, 1000, or 2000 Hz), modulation method, and forward error correction (FEC) to maximize the fastest possible error-free data transfers.
Strong resistance to multipath distortion on HF.
Listen-before-transmit mechanism to avoid causing interference with a communication in progress.
Agnostic implementation – software on host computer (“Sound card” mode) or dedicated processor / DSP (real-time or no operating system).
An additional goal of ARDOP was to be compliant with the the arcane US FCC symbol rate limitations (maximum of “300 baud”), but in 2024, that is no longer an issue given US / FCC regulations were recently rewritten to remove “baud rate” limitations and specify a maximum bandwidth of 2.8 kHz.
There were two “stable code” implementations of ARDOP:
ARDOPc v13 by John Wiseman G8BPQ, for Linux
WIN_ARDOP4 v1 by Rick Muething, for Windows
When I last researched ARDOP in 2023, ARDOP development appeared to be stalled, likely because VARA had proven to be “reasonably fast” and “reasonably reliable”, to the point that many considered VARA to be good enough.
Forking ARDOP For Continued Development
Thus it’s interesting to note that development of ARDOP has been restarted as a “forked” software project.
A few months ago I started working on some improvements to a fork of John Wiseman's [G8BPQ] multi-platform implementation of [ARDOP] because the existing version was not working properly on the hardware I was using. I pushed some of that work to a Github repository at https://github.com/pflarue/ardop. Regrettably, today I have deleted that repository from Github.
A few weeks ago I realized that there was no clear license statement in the repository I forked to begin my edits. I had originally misinterpreted a license statement for one of the libraries used for [ARDOP] to apply to the entire repository. So, I proposed to John Wiseman whose code I forked and to Rick Muething [KN6KB], who wrote the specification and original implementation of ARDOP, to explicitly release my fork under the open source MIT license with all three of our names. John quickly agreed to this, which I appreciate. Unfortunately, after repeated attempts to contact Rick via multiple channels, he never responded to my proposal. Without clear licensing from the earlier developers, I do not feel that I have the legal right to share my own edited version.
While Rick wrote in the ARDOP Specification that “The specification and the protocol will be released to the public domain.” and “It is recommended but not required that software or firmware implementations of the ARDOP be released as open source”, I know of no public statement from him that that his own implementation was ever released under any open source license.
If I later receive approval from Rick, I will once again make my edits available to others. Lacking that, I intend to write a new open source and well documented implementation of [ARDOP] in clean modern c++. However, this will take a while, in part because I don't yet have the ability to write all of the required code. My study of DSP and other topics related to digital communications is ongoing. If and when that code becomes sufficiently usable for others to begin testing or using it, I will post an announcement to this group. Happily, in contrast to VARA, the ARDOP specification is sufficiently detailed to allow a new implementation to be written, and while not released under an open source license, the source code for extant reference implementations can be consulted to clarify any protocol details that may be unclear in the specification.
Later post by KG4JJA (2024-03-25):
My understanding is that significant portions of John's [ARDOP] implementation are translations of Rick's code with only the minimal edits required to translate it from Visual Basic to c. Thus, I feel that I need consent from both of them to apply a new license to my fork of this code.
After my recent post here, I received an email from Rick in which he gave me permission to use, expand, modify, or improve the ARDOP code. I hope that this means that he will also permit me to release it under the MIT open source license as I had previously requested. I wrote him back asking for clarification of this, and am waiting for a response.
And finally KG4JJA posted (2024-03-27):
Good news! Rick has agreed to permit redistribution of changes to [ARDOP], as John had already done.
So, within the next few days I'll be restoring my fork of John Wiseman's [ARDOP] repository at GitHub with a new MIT open source license file. Soon thereafter I'll be posting a new release with binaries for both Windows and Linux.
This may take a few days because I need to get to a spot with better internet access to push changes to GitHub.
I am also working on some further changes. The one that I'm most excited about for my own use, as well as for anybody else running [ARDOP] on a headless server (I'm using a Raspberry Pi Zero 2W) along with Pat Winlink, is a new [ARDOP] GUI that runs in a browser windows (like the http UI for Pat). Like the Windows and Linux desktop versions of the [ARDOP] GUI, it will display a waterfall of received audio, a constellation plot indicating the quality of received frames, and show frame types sent and received. It will also allow the user to send tuning signals and adjust the transmit drive level. That and other additional features still need some work, but they are coming.
Watch this [ARDOP] Users group for future notifications that I'll post when new updates are available.
Thanks to Rick Muething KN6KB and John Wiseman G8BPQ for giving me permission to share my changes, and for their hard work to produce the source code that I'm working from.
I was initially confused why KG4JJA was reluctant to make use of a specification, for ARDOP (which an advisor confirmed is not copyrightable), but he explained his concern that G8BPQ’s ARDOP software potentially incorporated software by KN6KB.
ARDOP + OFDM?
The KG4JJA ARDOP fork of G8BPQ’s ARDOP software doesn’t currently include an experimental version of G8BPQ’s ARDOP software that incorporates Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM):
While I have not looked much at the other versions in John's repository such as ARDOPOFDM that you mentioned, my understanding is that those contain experimental extensions or changes from what is in the protocol specification.
OFDM is one of the technologies incorporated into VARA HF and VARA FM. The use of OFDM in VARA HF and FM is one of the primary reasons that those systems work so well. The utility of OFDM in these experimental versions of ARDOP was confirmed by Jouko Nurma OH5RM:
From very beginning of Ardop here in OH [Finland] was a group of active testers for every new version, including [ARDOP2] and [ARDOPOFDM]. In these test we found [ARDOPOFDM] to be [about] twice as fast as the original. But as [ARDOP] lost sync often in our northern multipath conditions, people gradually changed to VARA HF for more reliability in Wilink communications and [ARDOP] [usage] dropped out here.
KG4JJA is concerned about interoperability of his “fork” with the current implementations of ARDOP:
Continuing forward, my intent is to further improve the reliability and usefulness of this implementation. To me, an important part of that reliability is for it to be compatible with Ardop_Win, as distributed with Winlink Express for Windows. Thus, I will try hard not to introduce any changes that are incompatible with the [ARDOP] protocol specification or which appear to impair the ability to communicate with that implementation.
…
Also, in agreement with concerns Rick Meuthing has raised, I think that any software containing incompatible changes must be more clearly labeled as such, or given a completely different name so that all software claiming to be usable implementations of [ARDOP] are interoperable. Otherwise, users may be confused and attempts to communicate may fail.
Thus “advanced” ARDOP development that includes improvements such as OFDM (and, in my opinion, given how well VARA HF has proven out OFDM, any new systems for HF data communications absolutely should incorporate OFDM) might not retain the name “ARDOP”. Naming and versioning is a valid concern - it’s apparently a frustration that each new version of VARA HF (and new versions are occurring pretty frequently of late), aren’t interoperable with earlier versions of VARA HF.
Mercury and FreeDATA
In addition to KG4JJA’s promising work on evolving ARDOP, there are two other promising projects in progress to develop new (current Digital Signal Processing and software technology in the 2020s) “reasonably fast” and “reasonably reliable” data communications systems for Amateur Radio HF - Mercury and FreeDATA.
I know this is a bit off-topic, but as we already discussed about future goals here - We just released Mercury modem 1.5: https://github.com/Rhizomatica/mercury
We are keeping the TNC interface similar to [ARDOP], so we can do some comparisons soon. We did first tests over the air tests with negative SNR with success!
… versatile, open-source platform designed specifically for HF communications, leveraging Codec2 data modes for robust global digital communication. It features a network-based server-client architecture, a REST API, multi-platform compatibility, and a messaging system.
Direct Data Transmission: Facilitates the direct transmission of data over HF channels, ideal for use in remote, disconnected, or emergency environments where traditional communication infrastructures are lacking.
Built-in Messaging System: Allows for the sending of text messages and file attachments directly over HF channels, bypassing the need for conventional internet-based messaging services.
Asynchronous Messaging: Messages are stored internally and delivered when the connection is established, supporting communication in environments with intermittent or unreliable HF signal conditions. This improves chance, messages reach their destination despite connectivity challenges.
Thus we have now have at least threeopen source projects that have the potential for “reasonably fast” and “reasonably reliable” data communications for Amateur Radio HF communications. Couple these software projects with the many… numerous… open source Software Defined Transceivers available for HF, and it will be a very interesting next few years for data communications on Amateur Radio HF bands.
My thanks to Bill Buhler AF7SJ for pointing out Peter LaRue KG4JJA’s posting on the users@ardop.groups.io mailing list. I’m now subscribed to that list.
The Cornbread Road audio serial is online again - for good this time!
Jeff Davis KE9V:
I recently uploaded the Cornbread Road audio series to the Digital Library of Amateur Radio & Communications. DLARC is a project of the Internet Archive (the not-for-profit online library best known for The Wayback Machine.) DLARC is growing into a massive online library of the past and present of ham radio and related communications.
It is funded by a grant from Amateur Radio Digital Communications (ARDC).
Cornbread Road was a ham radio mystery, produced in 13 audio episodes (10-15 minutes each) plus an epilogue and was originally released one week at a time between the summer solstice and autumnal equinox in 2010. I have reprised it here several times since then, but am pleased to see it enter the ham radio zeitgeist and will now be continuously available for download for many years to come.
Deep in the Heartland a small group of ham radio enthusiasts enjoy an idyllic existence of wide open spaces, no antenna restrictions, low-noise levels, simple living, and good fellowship. But things aren’t exactly as they seem. Unexplained lights in the night sky, radio signals masked from the ether, strange late night visitors to this small farming community…
I am beyond delighted that the Cornbread Road series is now permanently available for your (and my) Zero Retries Interesting listening pleasure, thanks to DLARC and KE9V. I’m doubly glad that the epilogue is included in the archive on DLARC. I’m gratified that I had a small role in making this happen with a mention of Cornbread Road in Zero Retries 01433.
Localino New Packet Radio Modem Version 2, NPR-H 2.0 - Back in Stock
in Zero Retries 0137 - Localino New Packet Radio Modem Version 2, NPR-H 2.0, I mentioned a variant of the Open Source New Packet Radio (NPR) units designed and built by Localino. The Localino units offered a significant improvement over the original New Packet Radio units by including an integral 7 watt power amplifier, making these units far more usable than the original units that required a (sometimes hard to find and match) external power amplifier. At the time of the previous article, NPR-H 2.0 units were out of stock, but at the time, Localino assured me that “they’ll make more”, and as of this week, units are back in stock on Tindie.
Localino power amplifier for New Packet Radio. Image courtesy of Localino / Tindie
And, speaking of “sometimes hard to find and match” external power amplifiers for original New Packet Radio units, Localino now has that covered also with a 38 dBm (7 watts) power amplifier:
What makes it special?
It has high power RF switches, a VOX trigger and digital input switch. For the lowest packet error rate you should use the digital 3-5V line connected from the NPR and auto switch the PA.
If you’re just getting started in New Packet Radio, definitely buy the NPR-H 2.0 units. If you buy a pair so that you can experiment with a co-conspirator within UHF simplex range, they are plug-and-play other than an enclosure, requiring only a 433 MHz antenna, 2A (minimum) 12 volt power supply, and a computer connected via USB. They are native TCP/IP devices, so any application that works with TCP/IP will work with New Packet Radio.
It’s tiresome, but necessary to repeat this caveat when discussing the use of NPR units in the US: Currently, you have to “dial down” NPR to use only a 100 kHz channel because of the FCC’s arcane maximum bandwidth regulations for the US Amateur Radio VHF / UHF bands. Other countries do not have such bandwidth limitations and thus NPR can operate use a 1 MHz channel and operate at its maximum 1 Mbps. We US Amateur Radio Operators hope that the FCC will remove those restrictions in Docket 16-239 and thus we’ll be able to operate NPR at 1 Mbps. But, to date, nothing heard from the FCC.
Only slightly facetious… but I wonder if a group of Amateur Radio Operators (or an Amateur Radio organization) were to file for a Special Temporary Authority (STA) to operate NPR at maximum channel size of 1 MHz for 1 Mbps would “get some attention” at the FCC to complete Docket 16-239.
All right, confession time. I don’t use my handheld ham radio for much more than eavesdropping on the subway dispatcher when my train rumbles to a mysterious halt in a dark tunnel. But even I couldn’t help but hear the buzz surrounding a new handheld, Quansheng’s UV-K5.
It caught my attention in part because for over a decade, Baofeng has been the name in Chinese handhelds. In 2012 Baofeng made waves with its UV-5R radio, upending the sleepy handheld-transceiver market. Prior to the 5R, the price tag of the cheapest VHF/UHF handheld was a little north of US $100. The 5R sold for a quarter to a third of that. Hams groused about the 5R’s so-so technical performance—and then bought a couple anyway, so they’d always have a radio in their car or workplace.
Now it’s Quansheng that’s making a splash. The UV-K5, released last year, might be the most hackable handheld ever, with a small army of dedicated hams adding a raft of software-based improvements and new features. I had to have one, and $30 later, I did.
There were some Zero Retries Interesting points in this article, such as
Another mod allows you to exchange text messages between K5s.
A modder known as whosmatt has created a Web-based patcher/flasher for the K5 that lets you pick a selection of mods from a menu. It then combines them with the official firmware to create a custom image for uploading (as long as you don’t exceed the total amount of memory). In fact, if you’re using Chrome, Edge, or Opera, you don’t even need to use Quansheng’s installer to upload the firmware: You can update the radio’s flash memory directly from the browser via the built-in Web Serial API and the USB programming cable.
That hobbyists / hackers have figured out how to “super-purpose” hardware to add functionality that wasn’t within the original design scope isn’t exactly news4. After reading the teaser headline and the article, my most burning question is whether, solely with software, could the UV-K5 run the M17 protocol for digital voice / text messaging? I haven’t seen an answer yet, but it appears that Wojciech Kaczmarski SP5WWP (primary developer of M17) is “on it”.
Most interesting, to me, was the “meta” of this article - that the prestigious IEEE Spectrum decided to cover Amateur Radio experimentation, and thus speak to the relevance and interest and technical experimentation possible with modern Amateur Radio. That… is notable!
DECT-2020 NR operates in the global, license-exempt 1.9 GHz band, which means you can set up a network without frequency planning or spectrum leasing costs. Since this 1.9 GHz band is globally available, it also enables utilizing a single radio, bill of material, and hardware version for use everywhere.
Consequently, DECT-2020 NR is completely ‘non-cellular’ and doesn't require cellular mobile networks or existing infrastructure, such as base stations, to operate. With DECT-2020 NR, you simply build your own private wireless network in which every node can be an access point with a direct backhaul connection to the Internet. (In DECT-2020 NR terminology, this is called a 'sink node'.)
This lack of centralized setup and operation immediately enables self-organizing and healing mesh networking wireless topologies and all their reliability benefits. For example, no single point of failure can bring down an entire network because traffic can be rerouted automatically and rapidly around the failure node or even back-up sink nodes.
DECT was originally an acronym for Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunications5 technology, but now it seems to mostly be a brand name. DECT is a decent standard for cordless telephones using digital modulation and semi-secure encryption as opposed to the cheaper analog (and thus, insecure) technology that was originally used in cordless phones for the US market.
While this article was published in 2021, it surfaced in one of my feeds this week. Even though it three years old, I thought it was still Zero Retries Interesting as I wasn’t previously aware of the existence of DECT-2020.
Despite that the above article states “global, license-exempt 1.9 GHz band”, in the US, only 1.92 - 1.93 GHz (10 MHz) is license-exempt. In the US, this portion of 1.9 GHz is called Unlicensed Personal Communications Service (UPCS). In the US, the remainder of the 1.9 GHz band was allocated for licensed use in various auctions.
As of Feb. 24, 2022, DECT–2020 has been adopted as “the first global non–cellular 5G technology” and will be included in the 5G standards by the International Telecommunication Union’s Radiocommunication Sector (ITU–R). DECT Forum, a non–profit industry organization, is promoting the standard under the name New Radio plus (NR+).
What I found Zero Retries Interesting was that DECT-2020 is claimed to be included in the “5G” standard and thus the capability to operate in the 1.9 GHz band without need of cellular infrastructure is theoretically built in to modern mobile telephones. Thus it’s theoretically possible for a newer mobile telephone to be more usable6 in the case of a mobile network failure if a “DECT-2020” / NR+ network can be made available.
The DECT Forum is pleased to announce NR+ an entirely new wireless technology emerging from the DECT lineage that started almost 30 years ago. This new radio is not an adaptation of DECT, but a completely new OFDM-based RF technology standard aimed squarely at serving the needs of non-cellular professional stand-alone wireless networks.
It heralds the chance at last, for private businesses or ventures to deliver the widest range of local voice, data and IoT services – with one technology!
Recently approved by ITU-R WP5D, it is the world’s first non-cellular 5G technology standard. As with the original DECT, the standard was developed by ETSI bringing together industry experts in pro-audio, IoT and RF technology with the support of the DECT Forum membership.
Although a completely new technology, NR+ will share the regulations associated with DECT, allowing NR+ to co-exist with DECT in the license-free 1.9 GHz band that is available in most parts of the world. It also builds on the well-proven advantages of DECT that have made the technology a favourite of developers of networked voice & data systems that require very high reliability and outstanding quality of service.
I was not able to find an actual product that makes use of NR+, but apparently it’s still early days for NR+. Nordic Semiconductor is one vendor that will be manufacturing chipsets for NR+ with first availability in February, 2024. This was encouraging:
Is there any license or subscription to pay?
The DECT NR+ technology standard is open and freely available to start developing. DECT NR+ technology does not have subscriptions.
This has some interesting implications for new products and services that can make use of the UPCS band in the US and potentially more portions of the 1.9 GHz band in other countries. One interesting aspect of 1.9 GHz compared to other license-exempt portions of spectrum such as 2.4 GHz is that given the long history of DECT, “voice” is a well-standardized protocol in 1.9 GHz, and thus there could be new devices that seamlessly interleave voice, messaging, and data using well-defined standards. Thus different manufacturer’s devices could / should / might be interoperable. If the DECT NR+ technology standard really is “open and freely available”, it might be interesting to see if its OFDM technology could be adapted for Amateur Radio use, such as the 1240 - 1300 MHz band or even smaller portions of spectrum such as 50-54 MHz or 222 - 225 MHz.
Rosy Schechter KJ7RYV on the 44Net mailing list(s):
I’m pleased to share that on Wednesday, April 3rd, at approximately 9am PDT / 4pm UTC, Chris G1FEF will release a new 44Net portal. We’ll give you a heads-up once we make the switch; expect some downtime starting at about 1am PDT / 8am UTC until launch time.
Here are the features the new portal will include:
A new ticketing system to improve support response time
DNS management
Modern secure framework
Improved UI/UX
Capability to facilitate a pool of administrators
Of course, the portal upgrade will not change your address space assignment.
Also, along with any new launch – though we have done thorough testing with the TAC and staff– we expect that folks will find some bugs. We appreciate your patience should you find them, as well as your feedback.
If you have any questions in the meantime, please ask here or direct them to newportal@ardc.net.
Kudos to ARDC for this. The previous portal was practically an institution in itself, and it had to be difficult to tease out all the issues from the nooks and crannies of the old portal that had been patched and added onto over the decades.
Hopefully this lays some groundwork for the future 44Net VPN service.
A couple months ago, soon after we posted our If I touch this tower, I die video, a few commenters mentioned you likely wouldn't die after touching a high-power AM tower—rather, you'd have serious RF burns.
I was trying to figure out a way to somewhat safely test the scenario: what would happen if someone walked up and touched the tower, while standing on the ground?
No test scenario can be perfect—and with high-power RF, 100% safe... but after discussing it with my Dad a bit, we determined a hot dog could be a decent proxy for a human finger, and holding it far away on a wooden rod would provide enough safety margin, assuming we accounted for RF exposure limits at the site.
When I saw the title of this video on YouTube, I was skeptical. But after watching it, new Amateur Radio Operators Jeff Geerling KF0MYB and Joe Geerling KF0MYJ applied reasonable rigor about appropriate RF exposure limits for being in close proximity to an AM broadcast antenna driven by a 6 kW transmitter. Watching “the test” leaves an impression to be very cautious around antennas driven by high-power transmitters.
Ectobius - Zero Retries Interesting Amateur Radio Satellite
ULTRA-SMALL SATELLITE HAS AMATEUR RADIO CAPABILITY
JIM/ANCHOR: Meanwhile, just a few days earlier, a few dozen satellite were sent into space and among them was an ultra small CubeSat available for amateur radio use. Andy Morrison K9AWM tells us about it.
ANDY: Weighing just 1.3 kg, the small satellite known as Ectobius was launched on the 4th of March in California aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 to conduct radar detection of the Earth. It will also provide amateur radio access.
The creators, Care Weather and the Brigham Young University Spacecraft Club, are calling this the smallest satellite radar system ever in orbit. CareWeather said it is the first in its fledgling series of weather satellite precursors. Ectobius, a 1U CubeSat, was among 53 payloads on board SpaceX's Transporter-10.
The university club will be coordinating the sharing of amateur radio activity. Hams will be able to use the CubeSat as a mailbox, digipeater and telemetering station if they wish to study CubeSat thermals.
According to the CareWeather and BYU club website, Ectobius is expected to have an orbital life of three years, although the duration of its scientific mission is only two months.
This is Andy Morrison K9AWM.
Kudos to Amateur Radio Newsline for surfacing this interesting development - I haven’t seen mention of this new Amateur Radio satellite anywhere else.
This is one of the few (or perhaps the only?) Amateur Radio satellite in the past decade (or two?) that includes a “mailbox” feature and (apparently) only providing data communications rather than a “flying repeater”, thus it’s Zero Retries Interesting. That said, there is frustratingly little information currently available about the Amateur Radio subsystem of the Ectobius satellite.
satnews - Ectobius will also be available to amateur radio operators to use as a mailbox, digipeater, and telemetering station for the study of cubesat thermals. The satellite was built by Alex Laraway and Patrick Walton.
Care Weather - Ectobius will also be available to amateur radio operators to use as a mailbox, digipeater, and telemetering station for the study of cubesat thermals.
I guess we’re just going to have to wait for someone in the BYU Spacecraft Club (which is named, repeatedly, as the management for the Amateur Radio activity of this satellite) to publish the details of Amateur Radio activities on Ectobius.
This is follow up to my introduction on Packet Radio. Direwolf is a software TNC, and one of the best things to happen to packet radio in the 21’st century. Gone are the days of expensive Kantronics TNC‘s. Direwolf gives us a free, opensource TNC, that is highly customizable for just about every need, and runs on about any system we have laying around. The TNC is the foundation of any packet radio system, that’s why we are starting here. This will serve as the reference point for every other tutorial we do in the packet radio series. But with great power comes some type of learning curve. That’s why I’m making the Ultimate guide to Direwolf TNC for Packet Radio. If you’re more of a documentation buff, and don’t need anyone to hold your hand, you can dig into the official docs here.
The following guide will get you a working direwolf installation with basic configuration. Proceed to the next post to tweak the settings and get it tuned for your radio. Although it includes instructions for VOX, I highly discourage it, and you will most likely not have a good time on anything other than APRS.
This is a thorough written treatment on getting Dire Wolf Software TNC installed, configured, and working. Kudos to Billy Penney KN4MKB - this document and procedure was obviously a lot of work!
If you’re not yet licensed as an Amateur Radio Operator, and would like to join the fun by literally having a license to experiment with radio technology, check out Join the Fun on Amateur Radio for some pointers.
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2024-03-29
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I nearly made a comparative reference to a certain ubiquitous, obnoxious insect common in urban areas, which apparently can survive nearly any challenge, including nuclear war. But, the “ick” factor for some might have derailed further reading of the story, thus I didn’t make that comparative reference.
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Welcome Back to Zero Retries - Don Rotolo N2IRZ
One of my favorite Zero Retries Interesting authors, Don Rotolo N2IRZ, has provided us with another great Zero Retries Interesting article in this issue. I’m glad that N2IRZ’s excellent writing is now publicly accessible here in Zero Retries. In his article, N2IRZ answered a nagging question I’ve had about LoRa… just how comparable is it to packet radio? N2IRZ’s article does a good job of answering that question.
Sometimes, Standing By is the Only Option
There are a number of things I’m trying to keep track of that, frustratingly, seem to be in limbo at the moment:
The ultimate status of CQ Magazine / CQ Communications. All we know is that the website is offline, emails are not being answered, and no one is saying anything about the ultimate fate of CQ. You’d think there would be some “official” word by now, even if it’s just “we’re done; put in your bid for the assets at auctions-r-us.com/cq”.
Whether we’ll see the new MMDVM-TNC data mode become a reality. Through the end of 2023 there was steady progress being made on MMDVM-TNC. Then things went quiet. I still have high hopes for MMDVM-TNC; if it does become a reality would enable conventional FM repeaters to add not just digital voice modes, but a 9600 (and perhaps 19200) bps data mode with integral Forward Error Correction (FEC).
The FCC has yet to announce their decision whether they will delete or otherwise modify the current bandwidth limits on the US Amateur Radio VHF / UHF bands, as recommended by a majority of the commenters and the ARRL.
ARDC has yet to formally announce their 44Net VPN service to allow the easy use of 44Net IPv4 addresses for Amateur Radio and (carefully controlled other) uses.
Knowing more about the “big picture” of what APRS Foundation intends to adopt as their mission and goals for the evolution of APRS. It seems odd that there have been several emails on various APRS lists, but the APRS Foundation website continues to be bare-bones, with none of the context from the emails. I hope that APRS Foundation is able to realize its potential, but not having any significant content on their official website is worrying.
Hoping for some “big reveals” of new Amateur Radio products at Hamvention 2024. If there are going to be new products for Amateur Radio in 2024, it’s likeliest that they’ll be unveiled at Hamvention 2024 to get the biggest public relations “splash” possible.
Waiting for the next installments of KE9V’s excellent serial The Zombie Apocalypse. KE9V has published eight episodes so far and as soon as I see a new one on my RSS feed, it’s a “read it right now” priority.
I know… patience… patience…
In The Meantime…
I’ll be enjoying the snippets that are popping up about the presentations from this weekend’s HamSCI Workshop 2024. HamSCI and this conference is a fantastic example of science and technological innovation occurring in, and adjacent to Amateur Radio.
I’ll be enjoying the quiet and fresh air of rural Whatcom County, Washington after a week in Downtown Portland, Oregon. Hopefully I’ll be able to enjoy some sunny, warm days this coming week where I can open the big shop doors of N8GNJ Labs and let some fresh air in. I’m solar powered, and it’s finally shorts-only season again now that the temps are consistently in the 50s and above,
I’ll be staring at and contemplating next steps about what to do about the permanently bent middle ten foot section of my thirty foot antenna mast attached to N8GNJ Labs that apparently wasn’t up to dealing with the “Whatcom Winds”. It’s now bent at a comical angle, to the point the neighbors comment on it.
I’ll be sorting out a few new treasures recently acquired at the recent big electronics flea market in the Seattle area, including a pair of Coastal ChipWorks TNC-X units that I had always wanted, but never quite got around to buying before Coastal ChipWorks went out of business.
Most urgently, I’ll be working on my upcoming book The Zero Retries Guide to Amateur Radio in the 21st Century. If weather permits, I’ll be working on it with the laptop in the fresh air and the stimulation of all the cool stuff waiting for me to tackle in N8GNJ Labs.
Have a great week folks, and thanks for being Zero Retries readers and subscribers!
LoRa radios were tested on an AX.25 packet link by timing a text file transfer. The fastest settings delivered about half the speed of a 1200 baud AX.25 wired link, with a relatively high error rate. LoRa radios are marginally useful for AX.25 networks, and then only in exceptional circumstances.
Over several weeks, I evaluated the “LoRa Radio Bonnet with OLED – RFM95W” at 915 MHz (33 cm band) ($32.50 from Adafruit) for performance and range for possible use in an AX.25 Packet network. These were paired with Raspberry Pi Pico W boards for ease of implementation, and operated under Part 15 (unlicensed spectrum).
In choosing this experiment, the big attractions were low cost, simple implementation and the use of a frequency band that is relatively unused, an advantage at sites where 2 meters and 70 cm are already heavily used and prone to self-interference. A big disadvantage of the 33 cm band is that feedline losses are huge, meaning the radio needs to be very close to the antenna.
A TARPN network (tarpn.net) set up on the bench was used for all testing. The particular LoRa/Pi implementation used relies on 802.11 Wi-Fi for connectivity between the TARPN Node and the Raspberry Pi Pico W, attached to and controlling the LoRa radio. In theory, a USB link between the Pi and TARPN node could be made to work, and this was attempted, but it was abandoned after a few attempts. Assuming sufficient Wi-Fi range, it is possible to place the LoRa radio at the antenna, with some weather protection.
The OLED included with the LoRa radio board was implemented to display operational status and some basic information. Logging to a text file on the Pi Pico was used extensively to determine timing and signal status (RSSI, S/N ratio, Frequency error, and payload size). For each LoRa radio, a simple ground plane antenna was constructed, using 0.141” hardline and a 4-wire groundplane at a 45 degree angle from the radiator. These were placed around 40 feet apart during testing, passing through three residential sheetrock walls. It was assumed that feedline losses were zero. An inexpensive adapter (from Adafruit) was used between the LoRa board and the antenna’s SMA connector.
During testing, signals varied but were generally displayed in the range of -60 to -80 dBm, with a displayed S/N ratio from +9 to 12 dB. Frequency errors of several kHz were commonly seen, which was reduced somewhat by setting one transceiver frequency 3 kHz above the other.
The Adafruit specs claim up to 100 mW (+20 dBm) output power, but in the implementation used any setting above 15 dBm (31.6 mW) seemed to reduce the power to +5 dBm, likely a default. The specs also claim a range of up to 20 km with good antennas and line of sight. Data and error rates for this range are not mentioned.
Testing was performed at +15 dBm output to the antenna, except as noted. Although loop yagis were constructed for eventual large-distance testing, these were never used, since performance was poor even at close range.
Data rate (speed) and error rate (robustness) are said to be inversely proportional. The widest bandwidth (500 kHz) is fastest but least robust, and the slowest (and most robust) practical bandwidth is 62.5 kHz – any narrower and frequency drift becomes significant enough to disrupt communications. The Spreading Factor (SF) also affects speed and robustness. Supposedly this can vary between 5 (fastest, least robust) and 12 (slowest, most robust), but in the implementation used, 7 was the lowest factor that functioned. Another factor is the Coding Rate, which can be set between 5 (fastest) and 8 (most robust), meaning that between 5/4 and 8/4 of the data is sent redundantly. The Coding Rate remained constant at 5 during testing.
The TARPN Stresstest (and not “Linktest”) is a semi-automated function that causes a node to connect to a neighbor node, then connect back to itself, creating a loop path. Once the path is established, a standard text file of about 10 kB (100 lines of 100 characters each) is sent through the loop, and the time for completion is recorded. This test exercises real-world concerns such as collisions, wait time and packet loss. A shorter time indicates better overall link performance. For each of the three bandwidths, the test was repeated “n” times, and both ends were used to initiate the stresstest more or less an equal number of times. For the 250 kHz and 500 kHz BW tests, the error rate (as reported by the G8BPQ “R R” command after resetting the link statistics) was also recorded.
Testing at 62.5 kHz bandwidth with SF=7 yielded an average data rate of about 25.1 Bytes/sec (B/s). (n=7) (power was +5 dBm).
Testing at 125 kHz with SF=7 yielded an average rate of 25.8 B/s (n=5).
Testing at 250 kHz with SF=7 yielded an average rate of 17.8 B/s (n=9) Error rate=12%.
Testing at 250 kHz with SF=12 yielded an average rate of 13.25 B/s (n=3) Error rate=4%.
Testing at 500 kHz with SF=7 (fastest rate possible) transferred just under 26 B/s (n=5) Error rate=7%. Note that this is not much different from the 62.5 kHz result.
For comparison, a 1200 baud AX.25 link over wire delivers around 51 B/s, and a 9k6 link on 70 cm (Tait 8105) averages 124 B/s. Indeed, even at 125 kHz and SF=7, the LoRa data rate was just over 25 B/s, remarkable steady despite different bandwidths. In one single test, the very fastest data rate of 29.27 B/s was at 62.5 kHz, SF=7, and a mere +5 dBm.
The spreading factor definitely influenced robustness, at the expense of speed. Power did not seem to be a factor in the test conditions, but likely has an influence upon more challenging RF paths. Errors were significant in that the lowest error rate of 4% was never improved upon.
While it should be considered that the experimental techniques and setup could be flawed, leading to poorer performance than should be expected, several variations of physical test setup were tried (but not exhaustively) that appeared to disprove this idea. It should be noted that at distances of several inches, performance was noticeably worse than at distances of a few feet, perhaps due to near field effects.
For a link measured in thousands of feet, even with substantial antennas and maximum power, the data rate is expected to need to be slowed considerably to realize an acceptable error rate. The effect of amplification was not explored, since even at good signal strengths and S/N ratios, performance remained mediocre. If data rates well below 600 Baud are acceptable, at distances often referred to as “shouting distance”, these radios may have some value, particularly because LoRa uses spread-spectrum that is lightly populated, moderately interference-resistant and signals can be encoded or encrypted on the non-Amateur segment of the 33 cm band. But in a practical sense, there is very little need for such links.
Contact me if the software package that was for this test implementation is desired, as it was customized and is unavailable elsewhere. This software is an adaptation of work done by Vance Vagell KV4P, which itself is a fork of a project by Alfredo Vania IZ7BOJ on Github.
ARDC has hinted… teased… that they are close to offering a “44Net Virtual Private Network (VPN) service” for use by Amateur Radio Operators in the near future. Frustratingly, the closest thing to a mention of the 44Net VPN on ARDC’s website is a photo of a portable (cellular) router in ARDC’s February 2024 newsletter in the section TAC Update. I hope that ARDC does a better job of explaining the 44Net VPN service in the near future.
44Net is shorthand for Internet network 44 (44.0.0.0/9, 44.128.0.0/10), also known as AMPRNet. Since its allocation to amateur radio in the mid-1980s, the network has been used by amateur radio operators to conduct scientific research and to experiment with digital communications over radio. The goals are to of advance the state of the art of Amateur Radio networking, and to educate amateur radio operators in these techniques.
Currently, the only “easy” way to get connected to other 44Net users is for someone in your area to have established (and maintain) a 44Net gateway that will route your 44Net traffic from your 44Net IP address, to and from other 44Net users and / or the Internet.
If such a gateway doesn’t exist in your area, your only option is to create your own gateway. From my understanding, this requires setting up a Linux “instance” (virtual Linux computer) at a hosting company and invoking a long, meticulous, exacting series of incantations to establish your 44Net routing. You’ve go to do everything right, or it doesn’t work at all, or worse, it screws things up, not just for you, but perhaps your hosting company, and maybe even your fellow 44Net users. Plus you have all the overhead and hassle factor of keeping a Linux system up to date, secured, patched, and monitored to ward off the ceaseless attacks on any system “exposed on the Internet”.
Fortunately for us networking mortals who generally just use the Internet, but want to experiment at least a little bit with 44Net IPv4, there’s now a possibility that we don’t have to master the necessary incantations (and expenses) of a Linux “instance” and maybe we’ll just be able to buy a small box, download a script from 44Net, and be able to route our IPv4 44Net packets directly from our existing personal Internet connectivity with a minimum of hassle and no expense.
Why is this (future) capability significant? Basically, because experimenting with Internet for a casual experimenter like me is a “there be dragons” experience if you try to open up your personal Internet system to experiment. You’ll be descended upon by extremely hostile and aggressive and guaranteed harmful bots constantly on the lookout for a chink in your Internet armor. Doing so is the equivalent of leaving your front door ajar or your car unlocked in a bad neighborhood - just not a good idea.
My example use case for making a block of my (assigned) 44Net IPv4 addresses accessible to fellow 44Net (Amateur Radio) users is that I’m planning to set up a test lab consisting of Amateur Radio radios, modems, and computers to test interoperability between various radios and modems. My hope is that I can grant access to others to access these systems so they can run their own tests such as new modem software, new protocols, etc. in an existing lab setup without having to undergo the expense of buying their own radios and modems to do such testing. Theoretically, they can just “shell into” the Raspberry Pi system that is connected to a Kenwood TM-V71A connected to a AEA PK-96 9600 bps TNC, to test compatibility with another 9600 bps system in my test lab.
Yes, I could do this with regular Internet, but where’s the fun in that? If I was interested strictly in utilitarian communications, I wouldn’t be experimenting with Amateur Radio.
Another use case is that Starlink users like me are severely challenged about anything using IPv4 “incoming” via our Starlink systems. When I had my Comcast cable modem, I was granted temporary use of a (Comcast-owned) IPv4 address that was reasonably stable (for a consumer Internet system). But Starlink uses a much more complicated system for assigning IPv4 addresses to its customers called Carrier Grade Network Address Translation (CGNAT), which makes it all but impossible for an incoming IPv4 connection to my Starlink system.
But if the 44Net VPN becomes a reality, I will have a small router on my internal network that will route my 44Net address block out to a 44Net VPN server. Once I’m connected to the 44Net VPN server, I can exchange 44Net IPv4 packets there with other 44Net users / addresses easily.
Another use case for a 44Net VPN service is that currently AREDN nodes can use a “tunnel server” via Internet if they don’t have connectivity via radio - basically a simpler version of a VPN. But an AREDN tunnel server can only use a static IPv4 address… with incoming ports enabled… cue scary music. But if the 44Net VPN service does become available, AREDN tunnel servers could be operated “inside” the 44Net VPN service, with much less hassle and more security.
Another use case could be that repeaters and remote radio stations that are linked via Internet can get (static, routable) 44Net IPv4 addresses instead of needing to rent a static IPv4 address from their Internet provider.
I hope that the 44Net VPN service becomes a reality in 2024.
This is the first video in a playlist intended to address the wide disbursement of packet radio knowledge.
This video covers the concept of packet radio it's history, APRS, BBS (bulletin board systems), TNC's like direwolf, and TCP/IP over packet radio. After this you will have a good foundation on the current state of packet radio in the ham or amateur radio community. Next we will talk about the most popular software TNC, direwolf, and set it up for future videos.
I’m a fan of the Modern Ham YouTube channel by Billy Penney KN4MKB, to the point that it’s mentioned in the “boilerplate” near the end of every issue of Zero Retries.
This video is the first of a planned series of videos on this subject. Kudos that KN4MKB is going to tackle “advanced” aspects of Amateur Radio Packet Radio such as TCP/IP over Packet Radio, and use of New Packet Radio.
KN4MKB makes a valid point that most of the information available on the web about packet radio is archival, and not easily digestible. I’ll also observe that such descriptions don’t incorporate modern implementations of Amateur Radio Packet Radio technology for easy comparison, such as (to cite two random examples) the RPC Electronics SMT TARPN NinoTNC and the Mobilinkd TNC4. If you watch the first few minutes of the video, KN4MKB makes a pretty convincing case for “we need something better”. I agree wholeheartedly - my answer to that issue is my future book The Zero Retries Guide to Amateur Radio in the 21st Century.
I know that I may sound “old” and condescending in saying this… but it’s fascinating and instructive to me to see KN4MKB tackle this subject with the fresh perspective of someone of his generation, developing a presentation of the subject for his generation. I’m very much looking forward to a careful viewing of this and future videos in this series.
It’s like an invisible world that always surrounds us, and allows us to do many amazing things: It’s how radio and TV are transmitted, it’s how we communicate using Wi-Fi or our phones. And there are many more things to discover there, from all over the world.
In this post, I’ll show you fifty things you can find there – all you need is this simple USB dongle and an antenna kit!
I found that a very exciting experience – trying to make so many new things really pushed me to leave my comfort zone, to be creative, and not to get sucked into rabbit holes too deep.
I knew I definitely wanted to try the technique again. So, when I took a week of vacation, I decided to try to find 50 things to do with a Software Defined Radio!
…
The software I liked best, and which I used for many things, was SDR++. It allows you to explore the frequency spectrum very smoothly, and has a modern user interface!
This article was a great treatment of some of the myriad things that are possible to explore about radio technology with an inexpensive Software Defined Receiver (thus, no Amateur Radio license required), some open source software, and some curiosity and ingenuity. I particularly enjoyed
CATS is a new communication and telemetry standard intended to surpass the current Automatic Packet Reporting System (APRS) standard by leveraging modern, super-cheap Frequency Shift Keying (FSK) transceivers rather than standard FM units. The project is in the early stages, but as of this writing, there is a full open source software stack and reference hardware for both Raspberry Pi-based gateway devices and an STM32-based mobile device.
From a radio perspective, CATS uses raw FSK rather than the inefficient AFSK used by APRS. A real killer for channel utilization is the PTT time; this is the dead time around a packet APRS requires for ‘keying up’ and ‘keying down.’ The CATS standard is aggressive with PTT timing, enabling the channel to get going on sending the data sooner.
I’m glad Hackaday is continuing to mention new Amateur Radio systems / ideas such as CATS to their Maker / Hacker / Techie audience… we (progressive / technical / data-centric Amateur Radio) need to offer more technical and interesting projects like that.
Digirig Mobile Lite
Screen grab image courtesy of KM4ACK YouTube Channel
From my perspective, the Digirig Mobile (see below) is about as basic, functional, and physically compact… elegant… as one could want from an audio interface intended for use with portable, “backpack”, and mobile radio units. It’s really an elegant implementation of an audio interface for Amateur Radio applications that use audio interfaces, and I look forward to having one or two Digirig Mobile units for my use eventually (but that’s considerably behind my backlog of projects for N8GNJ Labs).
But apparently there’s a market for an even more basic and physically compact version of Digirig - the Digirig Mobile Lite.
On his KM4ACK YouTube channel, Jason Oleham KM4ACK offered a preview of the prototype of the Digirig Mobile Lite:
As I understand it, other than the form factor, the primary difference is that the Lite does not incorporate a serial port for CAT control - the single jack is for audio.
Seeing how small this could be, it would be really cool if one of these could get incorporated into a basic, generic portable FM radio, with only a USB-C jack needed to connect with the host computer. It would be very cool to have just a combination of a portable radio cabled to a smartphone, being able to run the entire range of Amateur Radio software that uses audio interfaces.
Kudos to Denis Grisak K0TX for creating Digirig mobile, and now Digirig Mobile Lite.
It has long been my plan to use the "zeroconf" (Zero Configuration) protocols to simplify ka9q-radio configuration as much as possible. These are the same protocols you use when, for example, you choose a printer on your LAN.
The idea is to alleviate having to remember DNS names (e.g., hf-receiver.local, hf-pcm.local) when starting the interactive programs like 'control' and 'monitor'. Several components of ka9q-radio have advertised their services for some time, but until now nothing has actually used them.
As a first step, if you don't specify the command/status for an instance of radiod, the 'control' program will now browse the network and give you a list to choose from. E.g., on my home network:
In the comments of Zero Retries 0143, Franco Venturi K4VZ and I exchanged our respective views about whether publicly documented systems versus systems that are not publicly documented systems were appropriate for use in Amateur Radio. It was a stimulating back and forth; exactly the kind of dialog I was hoping for with Zero Retries. Thank you K4VZ!
Join the Fun on Amateur Radio
If you’re not yet licensed as an Amateur Radio Operator, and would like to join the fun by literally having a license to experiment with radio technology, check out Join the Fun on Amateur Radio for some pointers.
In its mission to highlight technological innovation in Amateur Radio, promote Amateur Radio to techies as a literal license to experiment with radio technology, and make Amateur Radio more relevant to society in the 2020s and beyond, Zero Retries is published via email and web, and is available to everyone at no cost. Zero Retries is proud not to participate in the Amateur Radio Publishing Industrial Complex, which hides Amateur Radio content behind paywalls.
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Amateur Radio Weekly by Cale Mooth K4HCK is a weekly anthology of links to interesting Amateur Radio stories.
Experimental Radio News by Bennet Z. Kobb AK4AV discusses (in detail) Experimental (Part 5) licenses issued by the US FCC. It’s a must-read-now for me!
RTL-SDR Blog - Excellent coverage of Software Defined Radio units.
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More bits from Steve Stroh N8GNJ:
SuperPacket blog — Discussing new generations of Amateur Radio Data Communications — beyond Packet Radio (a precursor to Zero Retries)
N8GNJ blog — Amateur Radio Station N8GNJ and the mad science experiments at N8GNJ Labs — Bellingham, Washington, USA
Thanks for reading! Steve Stroh N8GNJ / WRPS598 (He / Him / His) These bits were handcrafted (by a mere human, not an Artificial Intelligence bot) in beautiful Bellingham (The City of Subdued Excitement), Washington, USA, and linked to the Internet via Starlink Satellite Internet Access.
2024-03-22
Blanket permission is granted for TAPR to use any Steve Stroh content in Zero Retries for the TAPR Packet Status Register (PSR) newsletter (I owe them from way back).
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Zero Retries is an independent newsletter promoting technological innovation that is occurring in Amateur Radio, and Amateur Radio as (literally) a license to experiment with and learn about radio technology. Now in its third year of publication, with 1300 1400+ (!!!) subscribers.
I’ve been following “73 from G5DOC” for some time, and enjoy G5DOC’s content.
Thanks EI7GL and G5DOC for your recommendations of Zero Retries!
It’s irritating that Substack allows only a maximum of three “blurbs” to be displayed; I’ll try to rotate my “blurbs” to accommodate the Amateur Radio Setback newsletters that publish public (not excessively paywalled) content.
Large Amateur Radio Conferences Countdowns
Just keeping track of (US) Hamvention is probably a bit parochial, though there’s ample international attendance. Thus I’m broadening this countdown to the “big three” Amateur Radio conferences. I think that the big 2024 Amateur Radio conferences will have some interesting announcements.
Hamvention 2024 in Xenia, Ohio, USA on 2024-05-17 thru 19, in 09 weeks!
HAM RADIO 2024 in Friedrichshafen, Germany on 2024-06-28 thru 30, in 12 weeks!
I’d love to receive input on what the equivalent of these three is for Australia, or any other comparable “national” Amateur Radio Conference, but I haven’t been able to suss out which Australian Amateur Radio conference (there are many) is “the big one”.
Paid Subscribers Update
My thanks to Victoria Yanovich K8VSY for becoming a Paid Subscriber to Zero Retries this past week! I’ve been following Victoria’s blog for a while now, which I discovered on Mastodon.
My thanks to Prefers to Remain Anonymous 25 for becoming a Paid Subscriber to Zero Retries this past week!
Financial support is a real vote of confidence for continuing to publish Zero Retries.
Ward Silver N0AX is 2024 Recipient of Hamvention Technical Achievement Award
It feels prescient that in Zero Retries 0142 I recommended a Zero Retries Interesting video of Ward Silver N0AX’s banquet talk at the 2015 ARRL and TAPR Digital Communications Conference (DCC) - Ham Radio… Now What?…
For the past 15 years Ward has been the Lead Editor of the ARRL Handbook and the ARRL Antenna Book, and a primary author of all three ARRL License Manuals and study guides from 2004 until his retirement in 2023. He wrote the well-received “Grounding and Bonding for the Radio Amateur” (now in its 2nd edition) and “Ham Radio for Dummies” (now in its 4th edition). His monthly QST column, “Hands-On Radio” ran for 180 issues and has now been published in book format. The recent ARRL book, “Here to There: Radio Wave Propagation” includes his contributions including being its editor. He gives many online and in-person presentations and is a two-time recipient of the Bill Orr Technical Writing Award, as well.
An electrical engineer, he designed microprocessor-based products and medical devices for twenty years before beginning a second career as a teacher and writer. Licensed since 1972, he is a co-founder of the World Radiosport Team Championships, and was inducted into the CQ Contest Hall of Fame in 2015, with numerous top scores and records. He is President of the Yasme Foundation (yasme.org) and is also a board member of the HamSCI collaborative research group (hamsci.org). Ward’s primary interests in amateur radio include radiosport, antenna design, and supporting his local emergency response team.
I worked with N0AX in 2023 to contribute a small portion of the 100th Anniversary of the ARRL Handbook, and it was evident that he was a highly skilled managing editor of that project.
I wasn’t aware of the Hands-On Radio anthologies (Volume 1 & 2, Volume 3) - I’ll have to buy those for my collection of N0AX books.
Congratulations Ward! This recognition is richly deserved!
EastNET Quarterly Videoconference on 2024-03-14
I participated in the EastNET Quarterly videoconference this past week and it was energizing to listen to the discussion of not just an operating, and growing Amateur Radio heterogenous (not just classic Amateur Radio Packet Radio) network, but that other technologies (that I’ve been discussing here in Zero Retries) were being actively considered and experimented with. The agenda was published on the EastNET mailing list:
Hamgate – The easy way to get yourself connected to the ampr.org (44 Net) network.
Status of your regional efforts, projects and general network connectivity.
There was also a bit of discussion about AREDN mesh networking, and I put in a brief plug for experimenting with VARA FM, not just VARA HF (though the primary use of VARA HF was not for networking per se, but moving messages regionally between Bulletin Board Systems. Kudos to the organizers for this interesting videoconference!
Nothing heard on FCC 16-239
No news yet from the FCC about amending the US Amateur Radio rules to remove bandwidth limits from the US Amateur Radio VHF / UHF bands. When that decision is finally made, it will probably warrant a special issue of Zero Retries.
New Junior Late Night Assistant Editor (In Training)
While Jack Stroh will remain Late Night Assistant Editor Emeritus, in preparing this issue, my grandkitten Schrödinger (Shrödy) “expressed some interest” in the preparation of Zero Retries.
Happy Friday from sunny and warm Portland, Oregon USA.
What’s new at Digital Library of Amateur Radio & Communications
By Kay Savetz K6KJN
Hello from Internet Archive’s Digital Library of Amateur Radio and Communications. I just ran the numbers: DLARC currently has 112,742 items for you to read, watch, and listen to. We’ve scanned more than 940,000 pages of books, magazines, journal issues, manuals, and radio catalogs. Other documents not scanned by Internet Archive (such as newsletters provided in PDF format by ham clubs) encompass more than 82,000 documents, 1.4 million pages. Audio items (including podcasts and radio shows) encompass 14,328 items: more than one year of audio material. 7,692 video items, which is now enough that it broke my “how long would it take to watch it all?” script.
Here’s a peek into some of what we’ve added to DLARC in the past month.
It’s a big month for radio magazines in the DLARC archive! We have added the complete run — 181 issues — of VHF Communications, a magazine that was published quarterly from 1969 through 2013. It focused on the VHF, UHF, and microwave bands. It was spun off from UKW Berichte, a German radio magazine.
We also added 300+ issues of Monitoring Times, a magazine that covered shortwave, longwave, amateur satellite, military communications, and more obscure radio communications. Monitoring Times was published from 1982 through 2013, and DLARC has a majority of the issues for you to read, search, and download. According to the handy DLARC Wantlist, we still need all the issues from 1982 though 1986, most of 1986 and 1987, and just a handful of issues from the 1990s. Let me know if you have these to share: I want to make this a complete collection.
DLARC also added 154 issues of Mobile Radio Technology, a magazine devoted to land mobile radio, focusing on radio design, FCC and spectrum politics, and other topics related to the technology. Launched in 1983, the magazine was later renamed to Urgent Communications. Our collection hits its stride in 1992 — we still need most issues published from 1983 to 1991. As with VHF Communications and Monitoring Times, you can download them or view them online.
But wait, there’s more! DLARC also added 154 issues of Circuit Cellar, a magazine for hardware hackers that spun off from BYTE magazine when BYTE was moving away from hardware projects. There’s plenty of interesting radio communications projects in those pages. This was supposed to be a nearly collection, but Fedex apparently lost one of the two boxes of magazines on their way to the scanning center. So again, if you have any issues to donate that aren’t one of these 154, please let me know.
I mentioned in January that DLARC had acquired 370 issues of the W5YI Report. If you’ve somehow managed to read all of those already, I have good news: now we’re up to 462 issues. These new issues were donated to the library by the estate of Fred Laun, K3ZO. “America's Oldest Ham Radio Newsletter” was published from 1978 until 2003 by Fred Maia, W5YI. I really want to complete this collection. We still need the earliest years (volumes 1-5), most of 1992 (volume 14) and, well, any issues that you don’t see online yet.
Finally, we continue to build our collection of Radio Fun, which was Wayne Green’s tabloid-sized “beginner’s guide to the exciting world of amateur radio.” Published only for a couple of years in the mid-1990s, it was a meant to be a bridge into the hobby for newbie hams, We’re up to 30 issues scanned, with more in the pipeline. (I’m not sure what was the last issue: if there are issue numbers above #51, we still need those.)
(You’re not seeing double: yes, we added two newsletters called Feedline from different clubs. For those keeping score at home, there’s also the Western Illinois Amateur Radio Club “Feedline” newsletter, which DLARC added last year.)
That’s a whole lot of reading material. Let’s move on for a moment to amateur radio conferences, starting with the TAPR Digital Communications Conference.
These well-recorded sessions were found on TAPR Conference CD-ROMs as RealAudio files, an audio format so obsolete that it might as well be Sanskrit. I converted them to MP3 and carefully organized them. The audio fidelity isn’t the highest — but a) it’s better than SSB on 40 meters; b) it’s a small miracle that these recorded presentations exist at all, so let’s not quibble about sound quality. The recordings of these presentations can provide so much more detail than the PowerPoint decks and papers alone. From 1996, there’s Keith Sproul WU2Z’s talk about WinAPRS, recorded not long after version 1.0 of that software was released; and Lyle Johnson WA7GXD’s banquet speech about the “Future of Amateur Radio.” (Did his predictions come true? Listen and decide for yourself.)1 In 1997, just a year after the print-your-own-driving-directions service MapQuest.com launched, Tom Clark W3IWI gave a talk called “What is GPS? How does it work and why do I care?”
(And, oops! While writing this I found “DCC1996: Unknown session” which was an unattributed audio file that apparently I forgot to dig into. A DLARC logo sticker goes to whoever tells me who it is and what it’s about. Actually, it sounds like it may be multiple short talks.)
FOSDEM (Free and Open Source Software Developers' European Meeting) is an annual event for software developers held in Brussels since 2000. Talks at that conference run the gamut of topics including programming, security, and databases. Often, this con has a radio track: sometimes it’s been called Free Software Radio, other times it’s called Software-Defined Radio. By any name, FOSDEM’s more than 130 FOSDEM Radio Presentations are now available in DLARC, complete with videos and, when available, slide decks. There are countless interesting talks such as 2018’s "Bring-your-own-radio hacking session” and 2022’s “Emitting Hellschreiber from a Raspberry Pi GPIO.” (Today I learned that hellschreiber is a morse-like graphical transmission of digital data reminiscent of fax over wireless used during the second world war by the German military.)
Internet Archive just launched “Lists”, a new feature that any logged-in user can use to organize Internet Archive item into personal collections. For instance, you might create a list of your favorite radio books, or groups of items on related niche topics. Lists can be private (like a set of bookmarked items just for you) or public (to share the item collections you create with the world.) Here’s more information about Lists. I started a list called Best of DLARC, highlighting some of the great resources in our radio library. It was a challenge to limit it to just a couple dozen items. What do you think should be part of that list?
Digital Library of Amateur Radio & Communications is funded by a grant from Amateur Radio Digital Communications (ARDC) to create a free digital library for the radio community, researchers, educators, and students. If have questions about the project or material to contribute, contact me at kay@archive.org.
No, this isn’t an article written with “help” from Artificial Intelligence (AI) / Machine Learning (ML); it’s about using AI/ML within radio technology for better, more efficient radio communications.
AI/ML is much in the news of late, and a recent ZR > BEACON item about a Qualcomm chip for radio communications that embeds AI capabilities is just the beginning of increasing use of AI/ML in radio technology.
There was a recent presentation - AI in Amateur Radio (“I'm sorry, Dan. I'm afraid I can't do that”) by Michelle Thompson W5NYV for RATPAC, but I wasn’t able to attend that videoconference and they have not yet posted the archived content. Thus none of this reflects what was discussed in that presentation.
Not Quite Realized Techniques for More Efficient Spectrum Use
None of what is described in this article is actually an implementation of AI/ML techniques. The techniques described here, and in the prior article, have been implemented / explored / theorized prior to the advent of AI/ML… but it’s easy to imagine how much more powerful these techniques would be through the use of AI/ML, especially now that AI/ML can be embedded (don’t require centralized, server farm processing such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and many other AI systems).
Technique - Television White Spaces (TVWS) Spectrum Sensing (Cognitive Radio)
More than two decades ago, when the demand for Broadband Internet Access was intense, and broadband Internet access infrastructure was just beginning, there were many disparate, competing methods of providing Broadband Internet Access. In my writing, I foresaw that someone would try to make opportunistic use of the largely vacant television broadcast spectrum for Broadband Internet Access. That idea eventually became known as “Television Whitespace” - FCC-04-186.
In my comments to the FCC I promoted a “spectrum sensing” approach; basically that a “Television White Space” (TVWS) radio should periodically “listen” for a television transmission, and if one is received, then the TVWS radio should move off that television channel to avoid interfering with that television transmission. That approach became known “cognitive radio”.
Ultimately the “sensing” approach wasn’t chosen by the FCC because (in my opinion) it offered too little “friction” for an alternative use of “television broadcaster’s” spectrum. TVWS radios now exist, but are burdened by the requirement to use a complex “Mother, May I?” infrastructure to insure, to an unreasonable degree, that a WSR will not cause any conceivable interference to a television broadcast. As useful as White Spaces could have been, the technology never quite recovered from that limitation to be used widely for consumer Broadband Internet Access.
Although I didn’t offer this observation in my FCC comments at that time, since then I have made the observation that computers can make decisions about spectrum usage in microseconds; humans make the same sorts of decisions in years, with regulations and laws that are obsolete by the time they’re agreed to and committed to text.
Technique - Announcing Your Transmission Schedule, Then Focusing Transmissions
Being a writer during the early days of the commercial Internet, specializing in Wireless Broadband Internet Access, was the best, er, scam of my career because companies with interesting wireless technologies wanted to talk to me so that I might write about their company and their products. Being an Amateur Radio Operator with a little bit of background in networking and computers, having companies wanting to tell me about their wireless technology was endless intellectual fun.
One of the most interesting technologies I was briefed on was a startup company that made outdoor microwave network systems that were “multipoint to multipoint” on the 6 GHz and other bands that were licensed solely for point-to-point links. Thus, multipoint to multipoint operation seems not to be compatible with those bands. But this company’s systems had two interesting capabilities that made multipoint to multipoint feasible and legal. First, these systems used (very early, expensive) phased array techniques with a sector (either 90° or 120°) antenna. Within the sector, the phased array would focus in particular direction, transmission-by-transmission. Thus if a node X needed to communicate with node Y, both node X and Y would would focus on that path. If node X needed to communicate with Node Z, both node X and Z would focus on that path. Thus, despite the sector antenna, effectively, these were point to point transmissions, thus compatible with the intended use of that band. To “keep it legal”, point-to-point licenses were arranged for all possible link paths such as node X to node Y, node X to node Z, node Y to Node Z, etc.
I don’t quite remember the particulars of the second feature - broadcast of transmission schedules, but approximately, the multipoint to multipoint technology allowed paths and frequencies to be reused very aggressively, even between competing networks. For example, if a path study between node X and node Z on frequency 1 showed that there might be interference to an existing licensed link, the second license probably wouldn’t be granted. But if both networks used this company’s systems, paths and frequencies could be “shared” because each unit would broadcast its “schedule” of transmission time, frequency, and direction / path - to all other units that were within its operating area. With that information being shared amongst all the units, all of the units that could “hear” each other could create a common, cooperative schedule of transmissions, frequencies, and paths so that different networks could reuse paths and frequencies without interfering with each other. While this wasn’t Artificial Intelligence or Machine Learning, it was an example of the kind of substantive difference that AI / ML techniques could make in congested portions of spectrum, especially when there are competing users of that spectrum. The humans might not want to cooperate between themselves (preferring exclusive allocations of spectrum), but in such a system, the radios have no trouble cooperating amongst themselves.
The company was surprised that I understood the advantages of their new (to them) concept so well, and so quickly. That’s because this wasn’t the first time I had heard of such a technique.
Decentralized Channel Management in Scalable Multihop Spread-Spectrum Packet Radio Networks
So I was looking for a thesis topic. And that's sometimes a hard thing. And that's sometimes why people take so long to get their graduate school, to find what are you going to do?
You only do that on thesis, and it's kind of a big deal. And part of the problems with finding a thesis topic is that I was being distracted by all sorts of things, including ham radio, which I was getting more and more involved in the ham radio club. And what they were doing was hidden transmitter hunting. And I was running around wasting time looking for a hidden transmitter that kept getting hidden in the Boston area.
And I was also getting distracted by other fantasies. I was having technical fantasies to build things and do neat things. And I was sort of in a computer science, more oriented graduate program. And one of the things that always frustrated me was the fact that I had to walk across campus to go back to freshman year.
I had a 300-bit per second dial-up in my room. I'd have to walk across campus to get the real useful connection to the computer in the net, which was a 9,600-bit per second 2480 VT100. But by the time I was in graduate school, I had the 9,600 bit per second modem in my room. But it wasn't useful because I'd walk across campus. And by then I had an office where I had a MicroVAX 2 running X-window system. And it was on the net. And on 10-megabit Ethernet, well hooked to the Internet.
And frustration… why can't I have the net at home? And so I'd always been scheming on how to do this. Actually, one of the buildings I lived in was the building which had the 10 Megabit microwave for the NEARNET, which was the Boston area internet. And actually, I lived on the 8th floor. And up on the 26th floor was all the equipment. And they had routers and everything. And there was actually fiber, only six feet from my room, where it was the trunk.
And it's like… and I still had to dial in with my 9600 bit per second. Frustration, frustration. This is a frustration I had, I think, a better part of a decade. And so then I moved. And I looked. And the building they had my office in, I could see many windows in that building. Not my own, but I could see many windows in that building out my window. I don't remember the exact distance. There's one or two kilometers. I ought to be able to do something.
And I started thinking free space optical links, which actually there are a few of those around. But of course, they were very expensive for a graduate student budget in those days. So I started having other fantasies.
Like maybe I could build a pair of radios. And actually, optics has a problem that you have to get lenses. And you have to line it up. And it doesn't work when it rains. So I started thinking about radio. The problem with radio is, well, you need a license.
Well, I already have a HAM license. But there's this content problem that you can't just go read all your email, because you never know what anybody has sent you. So you can't take responsibility for it. So I thought, well, I need something. And besides, I sort of wanted to be able to let my friends do this. And most of them didn't have licenses. And so what I wanted was a loophole.
So I actually went off and I sat down in the small law library at the business school at MIT. And I actually sat down and I started reading 47 CFR in general, and particularly 47 CFR 15, which is the place I expected I'd find a loophole. That's what people call Part 15. This is sort of what a lawyer's would call Part 10.
This is volume 47 of the Code of Federal Regulations, which are the regulations that are written by the bureaucrats, not the laws that are made by the legislative process. Anyway, this is with the Part 15 unlicensed authorization that I discovered. And this was probably late in 91. I'm reading along, looking at each of the things you can do in Part 15. And I'm like, wow, you can do a watt as long as your antenna gain is at most 6 dBi. So sort of an ERP of 4 watts in three different bands, the widest of which is 125 MHz wide.
But this regulation required that you use spread spectrum with at least 10 dB of processing gain in the receiver. Most people are ignoring this requirement that you actually demonstrate the system of 10 dB of processing gain in the receiver these days.
But anyway, sitting there reading the FCC regulations is like, what's the spread spectrum? And what's the processing gain? And I had sort of gone through the computer science curriculum, so I hadn't had all the modulation and that sort of theory.
So that sent me off studying, looking in the library. And I started thinking, oh, yeah, that's something I could do. And I started having fantasies of building up. Here's me. Here's the building I want to get to. I want that. And that'd be neat. And of course, any time you go to the trouble of spinning some boards and populating them, you don't build just two boards. You actually get a dozen boards made and maybe a prototype. And then you figure out how to really make them. And then you sell them to your friends.
The above was only the first 100 “transcription snippets” (of 2297) from Internet Archive’s recording of that talk. From my fallible memory of the talk, after KD1KY began fantasizing about accessing the computer systems from his dorm or apartment via packet radio… he then began thinking about how such a system would be able to scale so that everyone could do so. From his Amateur Radio experience, he was well aware that collisions can quickly collapse a network into uselessness. Thus he pondered how could that the congestive collapse situation be avoided without resorting to rigid (unworkable) assignments of frequencies to individual users or groups, or an entirely new system that assigns time slots2, etc.
The technique that KD1KY imagined and describes in his paper is that each node maintains a schedule when it will transmit, and then broadcasts that schedule. Each other node on the same frequency hears other node’s “transmit schedule” transmissions and adjust their own transmission schedule accordingly. Thus, over time, all the nodes eventually settle into a reasonable schedule that minimizes collisions… without requiring proscriptive coordination. Such a scheme also has the advantage of a new node coming into the network can first listen to the existing node’s “transmit schedules” and then attempt its own transmit schedule, and the other nodes accommodate the new node’s need to transmit.
I’ve kept KD1KY’s system in mind over the decades, and the technologies now available in Amateur Radio it’s never seemed more opportune to apply such a technique. What’s fascinating about this technique, applied to Amateur Radio, nearly three decades later, is that now we have a “universal receiver” in ka9q-radio - one receiver that can monitor all the “channels” on an Amateur Radio VHF / UHF band. That potentially providing a much improved technique than KD1KY imagined; if the ka9q-radio receiver “hears” that a particular channel has less use, the node can decide to move its transmissions to the lesser-used channel, listen, then announce its presence with a “transmit schedule” transmission. What’s different about ka9q-radio versus scanning or periodic listening is that it can receive all channels, simultaneously, providing a comprehensive and realtime “map” of users on, and usage of each channel.
Of course, it requires quite a bit of compute power to sort through the various transmissions and rationalize them into a usable, actionable transmission schedule that will efficiently, reliably get your data to the intended recipient, but now we have ample, cheap compute power such as Raspberry Pi 5 that we can afford, both in resources and cost (we can dedicate it to the task).
Since 1995, we also have better modems for more efficient, more reliable data communications in a typical 20 kHz VHF / UHF channel than 1200 baud AFSK circa 1995, and we may even be able to use wider channels (hint, hint FCC…), but that’s a discussion for a future article.
If We Can Receive Everywhere… Then We Can Transmit Anywhere
… and still communicate.
This is one of the most profound insights I’ve gained from thinking about ka9q-radio:
For digital communications (voice or data), it no longer matters where you transmit (what frequency / channel) because we can now receive everywhere (any frequency / channel)… and “find” each other with digital identifiers.
A radio using ka9q-radio techniques can monitor every channel, simultaneously, monitoring for a particular callsign or other identifier.
Packet Radio had this neat feature called the LLIST - callsigns you didn’t want your system interacting with. Just add a packet radio system’s callsign to your system’s LLIST and your system just ignores the other system.
D-Star, System Fusion, and M17 all use Amateur Radio callsigns as the Radio ID.
Once a radio is transmitting a unique digital identifier, all kinds of things are possible. Like LLIST, some DMR repeater owners have made use of Radio ID to exclude (people they consider) problematic individuals by “locking out” individual radio IDs. Once “locked out”, they’re not even allowed to transmit into the repeater. They can try, but the repeater doesn’t “authorize” them to transmit.
But a more benign, better use of a radio’s digital identifier is a scenario like wanting to have conversations with a friend, and your radio is “ka9q-radio capable”. Thus, you set your radio for “I want to hear from Betsy whenever she transmits on whatever repeater system” and your system will just notify you “Betsy is transmitting”. Hanging out on a specific frequency or repeater will be “quaint” in comparison.
The digital identifier doesn’t have to be a radio / individual; it can be a group identification such as anyone in a specific Amateur Radio club, or even a specific “net”, or nearly anything.
Summary - We Are Just Getting Started With Data Experimentation on Amateur Radio
Phil Karn’s KA9Q observation in the previous story, to a non Amateur Radio audience, that Amateur Radio is a great place for experimentation in radio technology has never been more true than it is in the 2020s.
Amateur Radio is the ultimate “greenfield” environment for experimentation with new radio technologies.
There is little rigid segmentation of Amateur Radio bands, especially our VHF / UHF bands; there are just a few areas that are reserved for special purposes such as space communications or low power operation.
We now have reasonably-priced and reasonably capable “universal software radios”.
We now have reasonably priced and reasonably powerful compute power that can be dedicated to “radio” use.
More than ever, the new Amateur Radio are curious techies with interesting ideas who are used to experimenting with ideas about communications in software. Their lack of knowledge about “well, this is the way we’ve always done it” is actually an advantage for new radio technology. They just need to learn the “radio bits”, and the (US) Technician license is a good entry into Amateur Radio.
There’s no shortage of interesting ideas, projects, and technologies to apply. With Software Defined Radio technology, experimentation in radio technology can easily be conducted mostly in the software realm, rather than the hardware realm, or even having to build much new radio frequency hardware.
There just isn’t much that we can’t do in this new era.
We just have to want to try to do some of this rich experimentation in radio technology!
The Biggest Issue of “The Zombie Apocalypse” - No Grid Power
By Steve Stroh N8GNJ
This isn’t quite Amateur Radio… but it’s adjacent to Amateur Radio because our radios don’t work without power. Battery backup can keep the radios operating for a while, but most of us use grid power to charge our batteries with perhaps a bit of solar, but longer term unless we have a big solar system to carry our base load, we’re in trouble without grid power.
This was written by Jeff Davis KE9V, almost in passing, as a cautionary tale for his new series The Zombie Apocalypse - see ZR > BEACON for the details.
The aging power grid in the US will quickly become a major problem in any SHTF scenario that can be conjured. The cost to replace it is enormous and I’m not even certain with $34 trillion of debt the US could afford to revamp the entire power grid system even if it really, really wanted to.
Even if the grid doesn’t technically fail, control of it may fall into the hands of jack-booted thugs who could benefit from pulling the plug on select regions. However that turns out, assuming that power will always be available is a terrible assumption. And the lack of basic power impacts everything…
In 2005 Central Indiana experienced a once in a lifetime ice storm. Power lines were down everywhere and power wouldn’t be restored at my house for eight long, agonizing days. But that was the least of our problems during the first 72 hours. With power off the internet was down. Gas stations had fuel and kerosene in their tanks but without electricity, no way to pump it out of the ground. Portable generators got those pumps running by the 3rd day of the crisis, but with no internet connectivity anywhere in town gas stations and other retail outlets (grocery stores) couldn’t take a credit card. And since power was down on a broad scale, ATM’s were out of service. You got a suitcase full of cash at home and you might do okay, you got ten bucks in your pocket, and you were effectively “broke”.
I’m an engineer, I know how a lot of things work. But that ice storm experience gave me a different perspective about the way things work and believe me, we’ve built most things wrong. I mean, unless you believe in magic, miracles, and a lot of good luck, then just over the hilltop lies an ominous future.
Access to power is the number one concern for surviving the zombie apocalypse. You may disagree, but power generation needs to be very high on your list. Remember, if the power and internet are out broadly, no one will be able to let QRZ know you’ve become a Silent Key. Best you solve the power problem first, long before worrying about stockpiling ammo and MRE’s.
Sometimes you just read something that “smacks you upside the head” and causes you to say, “Damn, he’s right!”.
As an example, my wife and I have been dithering about adding “infrastructure” solar + battery to our new (to us) house, but complicating that decision is that we may decide to relocate in a few years, and “solar” hasn’t proven to be a durable investment when selling a home, at least not to the point of fully recovering the investment; I’m not going to realize a $30k+ increase in sale price to recover my cost of installing of solar + battery.
Complicating decisions about adding infrastructure solar + battery, there are many ways to do it wrong - YouTube offers a number of fabulous studies in poor solar installations, including poor components, poor installation, sloppy integration of components, sloppy wiring, and many other issues. From my perspective, one of the worst mistakes (in this era, now that “household” batteries are actually practical) is to add solar but no battery (“Grid-Tie” solar). Grid-Tie solar seems to me to be largely a feel-good exercise that saves some money on power bills. With Grid-Tie solar, when the grid goes down, unless you’ve made very specific (out of the ordinary) provisions for your solar system to provide power to your house in the absence of grid power… your solar power goes offline with the grid. Not to mention, no sunshine, no power.
Another mistake would be, at least from one review I read, is to use Tesla’s Powerwall products. Powerwall includes a remote monitoring capability, and the damning review reported that after his Tesla solar panel system + Powerwall “couldn’t phone home” for a period (the cell system was down in a widespread power outage), the Powerwall shut itself off solely because it couldn’t be remotely monitored.
Update - Per a comment from Steven Monsey apparently this is old information. I could not find any confirmation of my statement.
My late Editor Rotundus Jack Rickard (of Boardwatch Magazine fame) found a new calling after Boardwatch in converting gas vehicles to electric, and later “non mainstream” solar power systems, including repurposing battery packs salvaged from electric vehicles, for stationary use. Rickard proposed a concept for home solar systems called “Selfish Solar” where your solar power system was mostly an island, but could connect, opportunistically, to the grid. Or not, depending on circumstances of the moment - under your control. Thus, with that great, prescient advice, when / if I do pull the trigger on infrastructure solar + battery, I will be very careful to specify to the designer of the system that my primary requirement is that the system to be completely independent to the state of the grid connection. If the grid is available, great. If not, my solar + battery system can carry the critical loads of the household (and at least my prioritized Amateur Radio equipment)… with no “Mother, May I?” nonsense like the Tesla Powerwall requires.
An interesting middle ground in household battery backup, that seems to be gaining considerable momentum, is large “semi stationary” charger / battery / inverter systems such as the EcoFlow DELTA Pro Ultra and the Anker SOLIX F3800, and I’m sure others in the same power class. All of these are around $5,000, accept solar panel power directly (built in solar charge controller), and can plug into any pre-wired “generator” panel and have front panel outlets. The newest ones can output 2 phase 240 volts so they’re plug compatible with large whole house generators and electrical panels set up for use with generators. Even better than generators, they can operate as a “many circuit uninterruptible power supply” if they are set up with a charging connection to grid power. You can just leave the “generator panel” engaged for full time power continuation. Some YouTubers are even setting up their breaker panels themselves to wire these units in. Such Do-It-Yourself electrical work seems to be a gray area because the battery unit isn’t “permanently installed”. The bonus of these units is that if you move (like we’re likely to do), you can take it with you. What seems to have made these units popular and cost-effective is that China is making more batteries than their domestic, and automotive markets can absorb, thus these units keep getting more capable or cheaper nearly by the month.
I think Jack Rickard would be happy to see the emergence of these units as a disruptive element for the home energy / solar market. They might not ride out an entire eight days of KE9V’s 2005 “no grid power” nightmare, just on the battery. Or, they might considering that you can just keep adding battery modules to increase the battery capacity. One of these units might be cheap insurance, along with a few solar panels to give yourself some power input other than a gasoline generator.
In the next several posts, I want to explore the feasibility for radio communication during an actual SHTF situation. I’m not talking about a tornado or hurricane event. Ham radio operators are already well-equipped to help out in those kinds of transitory situations and newspaper headlines point this out daily. What I want to discuss is a zombie apocalypse. You know, a full-scale military invasion by some enemy, or perhaps worse, all-out cyber warfare. An EMP event or another global pandemic. Etc.
Episodes 2, 3, and 4 have dropped, and this series is definitely going to be interesting. Pseudostaffer Jeff Davis KE9V is a proven, gifted storyteller, though he’s unsentimental about his past projects like the stellar audio series Cornbread Road (no longer generally available online).
Description: Users of ka9q-radio and related software
This is a good place to ask questions and generally learn about using the ka9q-radio software. It’s a Google Groups list, and you’ll have to request permission to join the list.
SigintOS is an Ubuntu based distribution with a number of built in signal intelligence applications for software defined radios such as the RTL-SDR and TX capable SDRs like the HackRF, bladeRF and USRP radios.
The OS has a built in launcher UI that helps to automatically launch and set up parameters for various programs and GNU Radio scripts that are commonly used. Examples include an FM transmitter, GPS transmitter, GSM base station searcher, IMSI catcher, LTE base station searcher, LTE decoder and a jammer.
SigintOS 2.0 Community Edition; It was developed to provide a much better experience to its users. With a new interface, more stable and powerful infrastructure and development environment, it allows users to develop new tools in addition to existing tools.
Developing Signal Intelligence tools is now much easier with SigintOS™
It is now much easier to develop your own tools with SigintOS™, which contains the world’s most famous and free signal processing and communication software. You can develop them effortlessly with tools such as QT and KDevelop.
Wouldn’t it be cool if there was a SigintOS for Amateur Radio modes?
Image courtesy of Lime Microsystems / Crowd Supply
A radio frontend carrier board for LimeSDR XTRX and the Raspberry Pi CM4
LimeNET Micro 2.0 is a modular radio platform that leverages the Raspberry Pi CM4 and LimeSDR XTRX for their respective computing and RF features. It is significantly more versatile than the previous version of LimeNET Micro, which was limited by a slower (CM3) compute module and an integrated SISO radio. LimeNET Micro 2.0 is an ideal tool for a wide range of wireless applications ranging from experimental deployments to real-world enterprise installations.
Features & Specifications
LimeNET Micro 2.0 provides access to all of the connectivity and functionality of the CM4 and LimeSDR XTRX boards at its heart. That includes:
USB 2.0 Type-C socket (boot and power delivery)
Dual USB 2.0 Type-A sockets (downstream ports) or a front-panel USB 2.0 header (unpopulated)
Gigabit Ethernet jack with PoE support
Mini PCIe x1 Gen 2 (5 Gbps)
2x HDMI 2.0 receptacles (up to 4K 60P supported)
2x 15-pin FPC connectors for MIPI DSI display and CSI camera
3.5 mm, 4-pin jack for analog audio and composite video
MicroSD card slot
NanoSIM socket
Coaxial RF (4x SMA female + 4x U.FL female) connectors for RF frontend
Coaxial pass-through U.FL to external SMA connector
20-pin Raspberry Pi CM4 GPIO header (3.3 V)
14-pin Raspberry Pi CM4 SYS header
5-pin front display connector (power, I²C, button)
Raspberry Pi CM4 UART0 header (unpopulated)
2-pin and 4-pin fan connector at 5 V (default), 3.3 V, or VCC_INT voltage
The new frontend module (FEM) provides higher output power using Qorvo drivers and amplifiers for a more comprehensive coverage range while keeping the frequency flexibility of the original LimeNET Micro. It also features low noise amplifiers (LNAs) and SPDT switches that provide for both FDD and TDD modes of operation.
We will reveal more new features, enhancements, and applications of LimeNET Micro 2.0 before and during the campaign.
This will be an interesting project to follow. The use cases for the previous version of the LimeNET Micro include:
Inexpensive enterprise and personal networks
Rural, autonomous, and resilient networks
Universal IoT communications hubs
Rapid deployment infrastructure for emergency response
Remote radio solutions for amateur radio and radio astronomy
Integration into application-specific RF appliances
Radio spectrum survey
Passive wireless geolocation
PHY and security research
RF-aware robotics
My thanks to Zero Retries subscriber ReadyKilowatt for the pointer to this project.
As someone who works in information security, I do threat modeling every day, I can’t help but notice that the state of security in amateur radio, both radio systems and internet-based systems used by amateur operators is a total disaster. Some of this is the result of the law–it is not permissable to obscure the meaning of a digital transmission–and some of it is of a more practical nature. Hams have traditionally assisted in emergency communications and disaster relief where minimal equipment may be available so a less secure system is still accessible without the aid of a computer.
Here are some examples of how authentication is handled on a variety of systems.
Many repeaters can be remotely managed by a series of DTMF tones.
Packet TNCs can be managed by entering the sysop command and a subset of a preconfigured password. For example, on a Kantronics KAM XL, the process looks like this: “Upon receiving the SYSOP command from a remote user, the PBBS will return three lines of five numbers each. These numbers indicate the character positions in the RTEXT command.”
Winlink will prompt a user connecting with a terminal or via APRSLink for three specific characters in your password, and any 3 other characters in the password from any position.
AREDN nodes use a standard username and password over an unencrypted HTTP connection.
While KU0HN’s points are valid, in mild defenseexplanation of the Kantronics KAM XL and repeaters of long standing, they’re old and not designed with any significant security in mind. If you pop the cover of a newly purchased KAM XL, you’ll see that it’s design is essentially unchanged from a KAM XL from decades ago. The majority of repeater controllers are of a similar vintage.
This is not to say that the managers (trustees) of “public” systems shouldn’t do better… they should.
I wanted to include this item in this week’s Zero Retries, and that didn’t give me enough time to do full due diligence to back the points below, so I could easily be wrong. But, as I understand the “encryption” status quo in Amateur Radio…
Encryption of a communication in Amateur Radio is currently only allowed for managing satellites and for remote control of hobby vehicles (remote control airplanes, and in recent years, drones).
Authentication of the identity of someone transmitting is not specifically disallowed, thus legal. Method of authentication is not addressed in the Amateur Radio regulations, thus left to the ingenuity of the sender. I believe this is discussed at length in the “Hailing Channel” video discussed in Zero Retries 0142.
Novel (to someone) modulation methods are not encryption, as long as you’re prepared to prove that the modulation’s intent is not “obfuscation” of the content, and that the content can be recovered using a typical example of the system (or published protocol, or algorithm). For example, using a pair of (unencrypted) P25 radios to communicate isn’t encryption, nor is using an uncommon data format such as the data capability embedded in DVB-T video.
A related area of data communications that can be mistaken for encryption is data compression, but, again, as long as you’re prepared to prove that the modulation’s intent is not “obfuscation” of the content, and that the content can be recovered using a typical example of the system (or published protocol, or algorithm).
Encryption is one of the issues that are coming up repeatedly when techies encounter Amateur Radio, especially when discussing the potential use of Amateur Radio for emergency communications. One of the most valid points is that encryption is perfectly acceptable (and is the default of many systems) operating in license-exempt spectrum such as 2.4 and 5 GHz… so why should an Amateur Radio system, when providing emergency communications, be encumbered by not being allowed to use encryption?
It is an issue, and I’ve been told that there are some discussions underway to potentially work substantively on this issue… but nothing public yet.
I think KU0HN’s proposal has a lot of merit and could be a reasonable next step:
Currently § 97.207(b) regarding space stations reads: “Space telemetry transmissions may consist of specially coded messages intended to facilitate communications or related to the function of the spacecraft.” A similar section should be added to the regulation of Repeater Stations, Amateur Stations under Telecommand, Message Forwarding Systems, and Automatically Controlled Digital Stations to read “Transmissions may consist of specially coded messages intended to facilitate communications or related to the function of the station.” This simple change would permit the safe and secure remote management of stations without violating the open spirit of amateur radio.
If you’re not yet licensed as an Amateur Radio Operator, and would like to join the fun by literally having a license to experiment with radio technology, check out Join the Fun on Amateur Radio for some pointers.
In its mission to highlight technological innovation in Amateur Radio, promote Amateur Radio to techies as a literal license to experiment with radio technology, and make Amateur Radio more relevant to society in the 2020s and beyond, Zero Retries is published via email and web, and is available to everyone at no cost. Zero Retries is proud not to participate in the Amateur Radio Publishing Industrial Complex, which hides Amateur Radio content behind paywalls.
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More bits from Steve Stroh N8GNJ:
SuperPacket blog — Discussing new generations of Amateur Radio Data Communications — beyond Packet Radio (a precursor to Zero Retries)
N8GNJ blog — Amateur Radio Station N8GNJ and the mad science experiments at N8GNJ Labs — Bellingham, Washington, USA
Thanks for reading! Steve Stroh N8GNJ / WRPS598 (He / Him / His) These bits were handcrafted (by a mere human, not an Artificial Intelligence bot) in beautiful Bellingham (The City of Subdued Excitement), Washington, USA, and linked to the Internet via Starlink Satellite Internet Access.
2024-03-15
Blanket permission is granted for TAPR to use any Steve Stroh content in Zero Retries for the TAPR Packet Status Register (PSR) newsletter (I owe them from way back).
Blanket permission is granted for Amateur Radio use of any Steve Stroh content in Zero Retries for Amateur Radio newsletters and distribution via Amateur Radio such as (but not limited to) Packet Radio Networks, Packet Radio Bulletin Board Systems, Repeater Nets, etc.
In such usage, please provide appropriate authorship credit for the content.
If you’d like to reuse an article in this issue for other uses, just ask.
All excerpts from other authors or organizations, including images, are intended to be fair use. Unless otherwise noted in the article, there are no paid promotional items in any Zero Retries articles.
Again, from fallible memory, there was at least one “assign time slots” packet radio system that was tried in Amateur Radio… I just don’t remember which one it was.
Zero Retries is an independent newsletter promoting technological innovation that is occurring in Amateur Radio, and Amateur Radio as (literally) a license to experiment with and learn about radio technology. Now in its third year of publication, with 1300+ subscribers.
Hamvention 2024 in Xenia, Ohio, USA on 2024-05-17 thru 19, countdown - 19181716151413121110 weeks!
This week, Tina KD7WSF and I had our final Go / No Go meeting about attending Hamvention 2024 in Xenia, Ohio, USA and decided that Hamvention 2024 was a No Go for us. We’ve had some significant, necessary financial hits this year already, and thus attending Hamvention 2024 in a couple of months isn’t within our financial means at the moment.
To answer the question in advance, the revenue from Paid Subscribers to Zero Retries are very much appreciated, but that revenue (to date) is basically offsetting some expenses that I incur in publishing Zero Retries.
I’ll continue the Hamvention 2024 countdown here in Zero Retries because it’s my guess that at Hamvention 2024, as the largest Amateur Radio event in the world, some interesting announcements and developments will emerge. As of Hamvention 2024, the Amateur Radio industry and electronics manufacturing in general will have experienced a full year or so of “normal” component availability, full factory capability, and as the severity of COVID-19 has waned, there’s increased interest in attending large events such as Hamvention. For the same reasons, I expect HAM RADIO 2024 in Europe to also be a great Amateur Radio conference.
Paid Subscribers Update
My thanks to Ron Sparrow N7RDE for becoming a Paid Subscriber to Zero Retries this past week!
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Financial support is a real vote of confidence for continuing to publish Zero Retries.
Zero Retries Isn’t Authoritative…
New subscribers to Zero Retries sometime mention (privately) how much they enjoy learning about what’s happening in “Zero Retries Interesting” Amateur Radio, that Zero Retries informs them about.
Thus I feel compelled to periodically explain here in Zero Retries… somewhat as a disclaimer… that I don’t consider what I, and the contributing authors, discuss here in Zero Retries to be an authoritative, comprehensive overview of all Zero Retries Interesting developments.
There is far more Zero Retries Interesting activity going on in Amateur Radio and adjacent / relevant to Amateur Radio than I can cover in a weekly newsletter.
Some weeks, like this one, I can only cover perhaps 20% of what’s actually occurring. I “bookmark” many more interesting developments than I‘m able to mention in Zero Retries. And, there are times when I decide not to discuss a very interesting development because I simply cannot do justice to them within the limited time and space I have available here in Zero Retries. One example is the incredible amount of activity now occurring with Meshtastic, LoRa for hobbyist use, and Reticulum Network1. Seeing daily glimpes of Meshtastic activity on several Facebook groups reminds me of the explosion of activity in the 1980s of the early years of Packet Radio.
As I write this… mid-week, in the past hour I’ve bookmarked approximately ten interesting articles, knowing that I’m only going to be able to cover two or three of them at most in this week’s Zero Retries. And, there’s rarely time / space to “catch up” on past Zero Retries Interesting developments, because more occur… daily.
In the end, I’m an individual writer, working part time to write Zero Retries, and trying to balance my time and energy to actually be doing Amateur Radio (and other fun technical activities) in my life2. To really do justice to the full scope of Zero Retries Interesting developments in, and adjacent to, Amateur Radio would require a small staff (such as the staff of Amateur Radio Newsline), to look at, evaluate, and write up Zero Retries Interesting developments and publish on a daily basis. That’s a fun fantasy, but hardly realistic. Offsetting that, I take comfort that, at least Zero Retries as it is now is surfacing some Zero Retries Interesting developments that few others are mentioning.
Zero Retries Content Distributed via Amateur Radio?
I was asked a few weeks ago if I had any objections to having Zero Retries content distributed via Amateur Radio, such as Packet Radio networks. I don’t have any objections… in fact, I’d be honored for that to happen.
To make my perspective clear, I’ve updated the “boilerplate” at the end of each issue of Zero Retries (starting with this issue) to include:
Blanket permission is granted for Amateur Radio use of any Steve Stroh content in Zero Retries for Amateur Radio newsletters and distribution via Amateur Radio such as (but not limited to) Packet Radio Networks, Packet Radio Bulletin Board Systems, Repeater Nets, etc.
In such usage, please provide appropriate authorship credit for the content.
The reason I don’t do so myself is that, for me, Zero Retries is a “pecuniary interest” (however modest). Thus US Amateur Radio regulations prohibit me from distributing Zero Retries content via Amateur Radio.
But for others to distribute Zero Retries content via Amateur Radio, who are unaffiliated with me or Zero Retries, and not at my request, I don’t see any pecuniary interest issues.
Distilled Wisdom - Ham Radio... Now What?
I was looking for something else when I found a wonderful talk by N0AX - Ham Radio… Now What? from the 2015 ARRL and TAPR Digital Communications Conference (DCC) where N0AX was the banquet speaker. Given that I’m primarily a reader, I rarely recommend a video or audio recording and admittedly I don’t usually accept recommendations to claim an block of my time to watch a video or listen to an audio. Thus this is one of my rare such recommendations - this talk is worth watching3.
H. Ward Silver N0AX is a nexus in Amateur Radio. For decades now he has seamlessly blended the many disparate facets of Amateur Radio, between the deeply technical aspects (designing, building, experimentation) with the operational aspects (DXing, contests) with the big picture of Amateur Radio (he was staff, and is now a contractor with ARRL), and a perspective of Amateur Radio from the “real world”. N0AX is also an accomplished author (Ham Radio for Dummies, now in its 4th edition, is a favorite gift of mine to those expressing an interest in Amateur Radio)… and a mandolin player. I think of N0AX as the Robert Fulghum of Amateur Radio for his down-to-earth observations of the “Amateur Radio condition”.
In this talk, N0AX offers distilled wisdom of what is next for Amateur Radio, and what Amateur Radio is going to have to do to get there successfully, and some thoughts on how to bridge the gap. This is a talk that I’m going to watch several more times as it’s essentially a “business plan” for what I’m trying to accomplish with Zero Retries in exposing Amateur Radio to a new generation of techies to perhaps interest them in a career in radio technology… because we (US and Western society) really need radio technologists… and lots of them… and soon (now… yesterday).
One primary takeaway… if we in Amateur Radio want to get the attention of this younger generation, we have to meet them where they are… which probably means that if I want to realize the potential of Zero Retries, I’ll have to get Zero Retries onto Discord, video, and other media that I’m less comfortable with than text. I’ve known this, but I’ve been reluctant to embrace that truth, but N0AX makes a compelling case for doing so.
A second takeaway from N0AX’s talk is that I’m going to try to add the International Microwave Symposium (IMS), which N0AX called “The World Series of RF”, to my schedule, perhaps next year, to try to gather info and represent Amateur Radio.
My thanks to Gary Pearce K4AAQ for the excellent video recording of this and other talks at the 2015 DCC and other DCCs, and of course TAPR and especially (then) TAPR President Steve Bible N7HPR for his leadership in hosting the DCC over the recent decades.
During his appearance on the 2024 NTIA Spectrum Policy Symposium, Panel Session - Pillar Four - Growth of the Spectrum Workforce, Phil Karn KA9Q offered two major perspectives about Amateur Radio to the other panelists and the audience. The first, and more dominant, of those perspectives (given the assigned topic of the panel) that was that Amateur Radio can be a component of getting younger folks interested in radio technology, and then possibly into academics and a career in radio technology (growing the “Spectrum Workforce”).
But the second point KA9Q made (several times) was probably overlooked - that Amateur Radio is a great “proving ground” for experiments and experimentation in radio technology.
KA9Q said:
… When it comes to technical experimentation is we often do things before anybody else is interested. A good example of that is that in the mid 80s I wrote an Internet Protocol package for the PC. As far as I know it's the first one that was a complete implementation and we were running the internet protocols over radio in the 1980s when nobody else was interested.
…
That's another thing about ham radio I think is fascinating is that we do stuff simply because it's fun and that's often long before anybody has any thought of doing commercial use of this stuff. As far as I know the only other people doing this at that time were the military and doing it with extremely expensive hardware. We were doing it with something we could afford as individuals. So not only did we experiment, we innovate, and we educate. I think we also innovate and often very early… much earlier you might think.
…
But [also don’t] forget the potential of the ham service to contribute to direct experimentation with some of the problems you're talking about. In the Amateur [Radio] Service no one station owns a frequency. We have to sign every time we renew our licenses. It says no amateur station owns the frequency. We have to share, so we've already had to deal with these problems of spectral sharing, mutual interference, and dynamic allocation for a long time. I personally have gotten very interested in trying these out on the ham bands. In 1990 I came up with one of the techniques for dynamic spectrum sharing. [That] sounds an awful lot like what I've been hearing recently about where you get on and say “Hey I need to listen here for a certain period of time, please stay off that frequency.” I did this in 1990; I was doing it for ham radio. I didn't know… had no idea that anybody would do anything like that. Later it made its way into Wi-Fi; it’s one of the features of Wi-Fi.
So we do have potential not only for education I think but some small scale experimentation especially in the fields where apparently other people were having problems. I was surprised to hear about problems with communication between different groups who are sharing the spectrum or in going through the kinds of regulatory approvals you need to to operate a new waveform. Hams have a lot of regulatory flexibility as long as we stay within rules (one and a half kilowatts maximum power output), we have to stay in the band, stay in the bandwidth limits, [and] don't intentionally interfere with anybody. We can do pretty much what we want and that does seem to be a very big advantage of the ham service. So on a small scale and perhaps on an academic scale we can try some of these things and I'm certain we would be delighted if some of the results were useful to the larger spectrum sharing community.
The story about the Qualcomm “AI Wireless” chip, combined with KA9Q’s suggestion of experimentation triggered a memory from watching a DCC talk by Bob McGwier N4HY who stated (paraphrased, from fallible memory) that “machine learning (ML) is going to be huge in radio technology”. At the time, that statement sounded prescient, but I now know that in N4HY’s it’s classified; I can’t talk about it day job, he had already been observing (or perhaps creating) machine learning being applied to radio technology… for years.
I was working on an article about the use of AI / ML in Amateur Radio (actual usage, not the usual “AI wrote part of this article”), but I couldn’t finish it satisfactorily for this week’s issue, so it’s deferred to a future issue.
ka9q-radio
One near-term project that Amateur Radio could easily start experimenting with is creating integrated communications systems out of many disparate systems - using inexpensive compute power and Software Defined Receivers (and perhaps transmitters), and no small amount of ingenuity and out-of-the-box thinking. KA9Q’s project ka9q-radio is one example. For the price of an antenna, Software Defined Receiver, and a Raspberry Pi 4, it’s now feasible to monitor all the 20 kHz (repeater and simplex) channels on any VHF / UHF band… or all of 50-54 MHz, 144-148 MHz, 219-225 MHz, and 440-450 MHz for the price of four receivers and four computers. It’s probably sufficient to use a discone antenna as the combined antenna for all four receivers.
To create an “omniradio”, you just “pipe” the output of ka9q-radio into a “console” and when your system sees a transmission of interest, the system automatically selects an appropriate radio for a transmission, tunes that radio to the appropriate frequency, and transmits.
Hailing Channel(s)
Another concept, ripe for experimentation in Amateur Radio is creating Hailing Channels. I sent this note to the members of the APRS Foundation Board earlier this week:
APRS Foundation Leadership:
Now that the APRS Foundation is getting itself settled as a functioning organization. I understand that APRS Foundation still has a lot of “backlog” work to do that falls to it in the wake of WB4APR’s death, but I think it would be beneficial for APRS Foundation, and its role within Amateur Radio, to have a vision for the future.
Thus I have a suggestion for a long-term, futuristic project that I think fits well into the APRS Foundation’s role, that would extend the concepts of APRS well into the future - create a Hailing Channel system.
I recommend that all of the APRS Foundation board watch this video:
It’s titled “A Hailing Channel for Packet Radio” and it was presented by Bryan Hoyer K7UDR (cc’d on this email) at the 2012 ARRL and TAPR Digital Communications Conference. Unfortunately this video predates YouTube’s implementation of captions or transcripts, so I can’t offer text excerpts that get the primary points across here in an email.
I think that a Hailing Channel is an incredibly powerful concept and in this era of SO many new data modes, alll sharing our Amateur Radio VHF / UHF bands, most of which cannot interoperate (for example, higher speed packet radio using IL2P, VARA FM, M17, and New Packet Radio cannot “see” each other), a Hailing Channel where different modes can “announce” themselves (N8GNJ, at location X, is using VARA FM on 222.123) in a common format, would be a really incredible capability. Such a capability to accommodate “mixed modes” would be unique to Amateur Radio and really demonstrate technological innovation is actively occurring in Amateur Radio.
The idea of segmenting our VHF / UHF bands rigidly by static band plans to segment various modes is, frankly, a concept of the past century. Band plans, repeater guides, etc. are outmoded concepts given how dynamic our new Amateur Radio usage can be - using one mode on one frequency and using another mode on a different frequency, etc. We need some system that is dynamic and real-time to help all Amateur Radio users understand “what’s going on, where, and when”, and I think that the Hailing Channel concept that K4UDR discusses is at least the genesis of such a system.
I think Hailing Channels should be established on each VHF / UHF band, and within each band, the frequency should be flexible, other than the very long-established 144.39 MHz for the original, legacy, APRS at 1200 bps AFSK AX.25. For example, if you decide to load the “Hailing Channel software” onto a computer, which is connected to a Software Defined Receiver, the receiver would immediately begin “scanning” for the Hailing Channel “universal marker beacon” to find the Hail Channel frequency on each band, in the local area, and if nothing is found (for example, few users of the 222-225 MHz band), the software would suggest creating a Hailing Channel on the quietest frequency that it found on 222-225 MHz.
I don’t think there is anything that APRS Foundation could do that would be more impactful to future Amateur Radio than to implement the Hailing Channel concept that Bryan discusses in this video.
Given that this presentation was given in 2012, and it’s now twelve years later, you might think this concept is outdated. I don’t think that’s actually the case - I think that a Hailing Channel was just a bit ahead of the technology that could make it a reality. In 2012, we barely had the technologies that could make the concept of a Hailing Channel a reality. Now we have Raspberry Pis and other embedded computers that could be dedicated to a Hailing Channel in each Amateur Radio station, we now have inexpensive and very good Software Defined Receivers, including units like the KrakenSDR (https://www.crowdsupply.com/krakenrf/krakensdr) that could monitor Hailing Channels on all five Amateur VHF / UHF bands simultaneously.
I suggest that the APRS Foundation make the creation of a Hailing Channel standard an official project. Now that APRS Foundation is a 501(c)(3) it can apply for a grant from ARDC to pay for the work to create a Hailing Channel standard, and with a grant secured, it could issue a Request for Proposals to DO the work to create a Hailing Channel standard. Or, if ARDC isn’t willing to provide a grant without a solid proposal, reverse my suggestion and issue a Request for Proposals, choose the most promising one or two (hedge your bets) and then seek a grant from ARDC.
Why APRS Foundation? Because it’s the only organization within Amateur Radio that has any “standing” to implement the Hailing Channel concept, and it now has a 501(c)(3) enabling it to seek grants from ARDC to pay for such work to be done.
Lastly, if you watch to the end of the video, Bob gave his blessing to the Hailing Channel concept.
The primary takeaway from these three points
KA9Q observing that Amateur Radio is ideal for experimentation with new radio technologies,
ka9q-radio providing us with a new “receive it all, simultaneously” capability beyond the convention of a single radio / “scanning the band”,
The idea of a Hailing Channel
… are all things that could easily be accommodated within Amateur Radio and provide Amateur Radio with capabilities that simply aren’t possible with other radio services.
Then, layer on N4HY’s observation that “machine learning (ML) is going to be huge in radio technology”.
The possibilities for new radio technologies being developed within Amateur Radio just stagger the imagination.
This story is a great example of why I don’t consider Zero Retries as “authoritative” on Zero Retries Interesting developments because I cannot keep up with, nor report out on all things Zero Retries Interesting such as the revival of the KiwiSDR into the KiwiSDR 2.
This story could be considered a continuation of the previous story about providing new, experimental capabilities in Amateur Radio that just aren’t possible in other radio services.
I last wrote about the very Zero Retries Interesting KiwiSDR project in Zero Retries 0112 - Update to KiwiSDR In Progress on 2023-08-18. Since then, I had not tracked, nor reported on the progress of that project. In that interval, the design update of the KiwiSDR to KiwiSDR 2 was completed and the first production run was built and shipped to customers. The second production run is sold out and in process, and a third production run is in work, and (I think… the website is ambiguous) you can get in the queue to purchase a unit from the third production run. I think the process for that is to send an email expressing your interest.
A quick refresh on the concept of the KiwiSDR:
The [KiwiSDR] is different from other SDRs. It is a standalone device that attaches to your local network and is optionally accessed through the Internet. A browser is used to connect to the user interface. Most other SDRs generate raw IQ data and need to be connected directly to a PC or laptop running OS-specific, installed software.
Browsers supported include Firefox, Chrome, Safari and Opera on Windows, Linux and Mac. A version of the interface for mobile devices is under development. Until then the browser interface will work on iPad and Android devices with a large enough display. The Kiwi supports up to four simultaneous connections each with their own independently controlled audio and waterfall channels. An extension interface allows advanced signal decoding directly in the browser interface without installing additional software. The most popular is the integrated WSPR decoder and Time Difference of Arrival (TDoA) signal direction finder. The Kiwi also includes a software-defined GPS receiver used to calibrate the SDR frequency and obtaining time-of-day.
The use case of the KiwiSDR is pretty specific - a “conventional” receiver (as in, tune one frequency at a time to listen / decode) with the advantage of remote operation via a web browser, with the receiver and “server” being pre-integrated.
But the bigger picture of remoted a Software Defined Receiver (SDRx) that can receive all of 0-30 MHz simultaneously, and stream that data, it struck me that SDRx units could be used by an Amateur Radio Operator… or Operators - as their primary receiver. The idea would be to create a “receive server”, or “Receiver as a Service” at a good location where there is minimal noise, and good connectivity. The “receive server” would stream the data of from the receive server via various broadband connections such as a fast data stream on 420-450 MHz (if the FCC agrees to remove outmoded maximum bandwidth regulations) or 1240-1300 MHz, or using microwave networking, or reliable Internet connectivity like Starlink and IPv6.
What I’m imagining, that seems different, is that a remoted SDRx can become, essentially, the receiver stage for all of an Amateur Radio Operator’s HF operations. Instead of trying to use an HF receiver at your location, which may be in a poor “radio” location such as when you cannot put up an external antenna, or experience excessive noise on the HF bands (cheap switching power supplies noise).
One example that’s applicable to this scenario is that loop antennas for HF require tuning adjustments for the frequency you want to transmit on, which compromises the ability to receive on other frequencies in the band, or other bands. Using a KiwiSDR or other SDRx unit in the above scenario lets you continue to receive all HF frequencies in a band, or other bands. Thus you can adjust the loop antenna as needed to transmit, without regard to the effect that would have on being able to receive.
Thus you could build a customized, unique-to-you HF transceiver, largely out of software. The receive portion of the “radio” display could be the output of the remoted SDRx, and the transmit portion of the the “radio” display could be whatever transmit system you have at your location, and it would look integrated, just as if you were using a conventional transceiver.
This seems, to me, to be a powerful new capability in HF radio communications.
But, such a scenario isn’t limited to HF; this scenario is also feasible for VHF / UHF operations with the use of ka9q-radio described in the previous article. In a nutshell, ka9q-radio marries a reasonably capable computer with a compatible SDRx and can simultaneously receive all standard (20 kHz) channels in a VHF or UHF band. KA9Q is able to receive all repeaters in the San Diego, California area on 144-148 MHz, 222-225 MHz, and 440-450 MHz with the use of three SDRx units and three Raspberry Pi 4 computers.
Thus the same “Receive Server” paradigm is possible in VHF and UHF, effectively decoupling receivers from transmitters.
Conceivably, we could simplify, and cost-reduce data communications in Amateur Radio considerably by building new generations of Amateur Radio data communications equipment as transmitters-only - because we no longer need the receivers to be integrated. It would also extend to the old idea of cross-band operation. If everyone is able to receive all of the VHF / UHF channels, then they can transmit on whatever band is convenient, and everyone else would be able to receive those transmissions.
This event is organised by and for Raspberry Pi enthusiasts 7 Mar 2024 7.45pm – 9.45pm GMT WI Hut, Aughton Town Green Ln Aughton, Ormskirk L39 6SF United Kingdom
Amateur Radio is a fascinating hobby that enables amateur techies to experiment with all forms of wireless communication, learn about space weather and the effects it has on worldwide communication, communicate with other radio amateurs around the world, and also get started in space communications with satellites and the astronauts on the International Space Station. Modes of communication available to radio amateurs include Morse code, voice, computer data, wireless VOIP (Voice over IP) like digital voice, imagery and video. Licences to transmit are easily obtained by most, whilst the ability to receive does not require a licence and can be enjoyed by all.
Raspberry Pi 5 is the latest, fastest and most powerful model released to date. Previous versions have been pressed into service for uses in the field of amateur radio, but this new version promises to make communications smoother and enable radio amateurs to truly multi-task whilst communicating.
We will endeavour to show you how to set your Raspberry Pi 5 up with some of the most popular amateur radio applications, connect it to a radio receiver/transmitter and receive/communicate.
What’s notable about this (now past) event was that it wasn’t organized by an Amateur Radio group… it was organized by a Raspberry Pi group.
We're still quite a ways from an AREDN software Release Candidate and there's been many useful updates in the nightly builds. Here's a summary of what's new in the nightly builds (some very cool stuff!)
A few items that leaped out at me from this long list:
Added support for Wireguard tunnels
Added x86 to SUPPORTED_DEVICES
New supernodes no longer have access to legacy tunnels
Legacy tunnels will be removed from supernodes in the next prod release
NOTE: in the distant future, legacy tunnels will be completely removed. Migrate to Wireguard tunnels now and avoid the rush :-) They’re way better anyway.
It’s interesting to note the new inclusion of Wireguard tunnels in AREDN, given that the future 44Net VPN service from ARDC also uses Wireguard tunnels. Hmmm… perhaps some compatibility will emerge, though not quite ARDC providing an ARDEN tunnel server as I’ve been advocating to ARDC for some time.
Minnesota Amateur Radio Technical Society was formed in March 2012 with the purpose of furthering the technical side of amateur radio. Our intent is to expand this site to make available presentations from our meetings, general technical resources relating to amateur radio, and provide a forum for technical discussion.
More club information Use the hamburger menu in the upper left to navigate this site.
We have a Tech Net on Mondays @ 7:00PM on the 146.25/85 repeater network, details here on RepeaterBook.
Please subscribe to our mailing list or consider attending a meeting.
Meetings are being conducted on the first Saturday of each month at 1:00pm at the Minnetonka Community Center.
I’d never heard of that symbol (three stacked horizontal bars) be referred to as a “hamburger”, but they’re right - that’s a great name for it.
But, mostly, anytime I encounter an Amateur Radio Organization with the word Technical in it, I can’t resist mentioning it in Zero Retries and perhaps providing that organization a bit more publicity. Before I encountered MARTS, I’d been considering if it’s feasible to create a statewide Amateur Radio organization for Washington that, like MARTS, would “[further] the technical side of Amateur Radio”… WARTS.
5 watt in 100 watt out 175 euro and 225 euro with extra copper
80mw in 100 watt out 250 euro and 300 euro with extra copper
build in circulator is 75 euro exta and screw on external type is 100 euro exta.
200 watt amplifier is 520 euro, with copper insert, the circulator option on this can only be external.
I am working on a higher variety of power amps.
I think I learned of PE1RKI’s website (and business) from someone wanting a unique antenna, perhaps for use with one of the microwave bands for an Icom IC-905. I’m in awe of the many small, intensely technical businesses like PE1RKI that exist solely to support small technical small communities within Amateur Radio.
A network of 31 GPS satellites 12,000 miles above Earth broadcast positioning, navigation and timing signals.
…
Lockheed Martin is now making a more advanced version of the GPS III, called GPS IIIF. The Air Force in 2018 awarded Lockheed Martin a contract worth $7.2 billion for up to 22 GPS IIIF satellites. Ten have been ordered so far.
…
Companies were asked to submit concepts for a demonstration of smaller and cheaper GPS satellites that would “inform future planning for the GPS enterprise,” SSC said. “There is no formal follow-on to the GPS IIIF program at this time.”
At the very end of the article was this:
Separately from the GPS program, the Space Force is doing market research to identify commercial navigation technologies that could be integrated into military systems to augment or back up GPS in case of outages or jamming attacks.
That article begins:
For decades, the Global Positioning System (GPS) constellation has reigned supreme as the world’s go-to navigation tool — guiding everything from aircraft carriers to Uber drivers.
But GPS is susceptible to jamming and spoofing. Malicious actors can deliberately disrupt or manipulate the signals, leading to inaccurate or misleading positioning information.
These vulnerabilities endanger critical infrastructure, emergency response and military operations, prompting increased interest in alternative PNT, or positioning, navigation and timing technologies that do not depend on GPS.
While the Pentagon has long pursued augmented GPS capabilities, including using allied backup systems, it is now scoping a burgeoning commercial market promising innovative options to reduce GPS dependence.
In response to the military’s call for PNT alternatives, companies are lining up with offerings to fill gaps if GPS ever goes dark. These range from terrestrial networks that leverage existing cellular infrastructure to new constellations of low-orbiting small satellites broadcasting PNT signals.
Back in the “Doodlebugging” phase of my checkered technical career, which predated GPS, for precision position determination our ship, we used a very complex integration of:
Digitized (weighted damping) input from the ship’s gyrocompass,
Honeywell ring laser gyro the size of a small filing cabinet (don’t bump it, and you’d be docked pay if you ever set a coffee cup on top of it),
Doppler sonar (when we were in shallow enough water to get a return),
Transit navsats (two passes per day!),
The most expensive LORAN-C receiver that was available,
All of the above were inputs to an HP 1000 computer (it had to be rugged given the environment),
Two human naviguessers, each working a 12 hour shift.
When our ship was close enough to shore, we used a terrestrial Syledis system for even higher precision position determination.
The system operated in the UHF segment of 420-450 MHz. It was manufactured in France by Sercel S.A., headquarters Carquefou, and was operational during the 1980s and until about 1995.
If you’re not yet licensed as an Amateur Radio Operator, and would like to join the fun by literally having a license to experiment with radio technology, check out Join the Fun on Amateur Radio for some pointers.
In its mission to highlight technological innovation in Amateur Radio, promote Amateur Radio to techies as a literal license to experiment with radio technology, and make Amateur Radio more relevant to society in the 2020s and beyond, Zero Retries is published via email and web, and is available to everyone at no cost. Zero Retries is proud not to participate in the Amateur Radio Publishing Industrial Complex, which hides Amateur Radio content behind paywalls.
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Dan Romanchik KB6NU mentions “Zero Retries Interesting” topics so regularly on his blog (that I otherwise wouldn’t know about) that I’ve bestowed on him the honorific of Pseudostaffer.
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Amateur Radio Weekly by Cale Mooth K4HCK is a weekly anthology of links to interesting Amateur Radio stories.
Experimental Radio News by Bennet Z. Kobb AK4AV discusses (in detail) Experimental (Part 5) licenses issued by the US FCC. It’s a must-read-now for me!
RTL-SDR Blog - Excellent coverage of Software Defined Radio units.
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More bits from Steve Stroh N8GNJ:
SuperPacket blog — Discussing new generations of Amateur Radio Data Communications — beyond Packet Radio (a precursor to Zero Retries)
N8GNJ blog — Amateur Radio Station N8GNJ and the mad science experiments at N8GNJ Labs — Bellingham, Washington, USA
Thanks for reading! Steve Stroh N8GNJ / WRPS598 (He / Him / His) These bits were handcrafted (by a mere human, not an Artificial Intelligence bot) in beautiful Bellingham (The City of Subdued Excitement), Washington, USA, and linked to the Internet via Starlink Satellite Internet Access.
2024-03-08
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As the Reticulum documentation mentions very prominently… It is not possible to establish unencrypted links in Reticulum networks. It is not possible to send unencrypted packets to any destinations in the network. Thus it’s a bit problematic to use Reticulum on US Amateur Radio spectrum… though it would make an interesting Part 5 Experimental License experiment to see how well it would work.
An exception to “excessive butt-in-chair time” is, at the moment, is that I am devoting large blocks of “butt-in-chair time” to writing the Zero Retries book. Other that that, my self-imposed “rule” is that at this stage of my life, I don’t want to be a professional writer “about” Amateur Radio that spends more time writing about Amateur Radio than doing Amateur Radio.
Zero Retries is an independent newsletter promoting technological innovation that is occurring in Amateur Radio, and Amateur Radio as (literally) a license to experiment with and learn about radio technology. Now in its third year of publication, with 1300+ subscribers.
Hamvention 2024 in Xenia, Ohio, USA countdown - 1918171615141312 11 weeks!
It’s now looking possible that Tina KD7WSF and I may do another cross-country driving trip to attend Hamvention 2024. If we do so, there will be some “Zero Retries time” factored into this trip (unlike our 2022 cross country driving trip to Hamvention). If you’re a Zero Retries reader that’s “on the path” between Bellingham, Washington and Xenia, Ohio and would like to potentially meet up, let me know.
Paid Subscribers Update
Some weeks, like this one, are harder to write Zero Retries than others, but having four new Paid Subscribers to Zero Retries in one week was considerable “wind in the sails”:
My thanks to Scott Nacey KK6IK for becoming a Paid Subscriber to Zero Retries! KK6IK offered this nice message (now included in the Accolades for Zero Retries section of the Zero Retries About page) with his paid subscription: [Zero Retries] is the best, most leading edge commentary on today's Ham Radio. Keep it up.
My thanks to Charles Riley G4JQX for becoming a Paid Subscriber to Zero Retries!
My thanks to Prefers to Remain Anonymous 22 for becoming a Paid Subscriber to Zero Retries!
My thanks to Prefers to Remain Anonymous 23 for becoming a Paid Subscriber to Zero Retries!
Financial support is a real vote of confidence for continuing to publish Zero Retries.
There were also fifteen or so new free subscriptions to Zero Retries this week. Thus Thanks, someone, for mentioning Zero Retries that motivated this burst of subscriptions.
Apologies for late publication of Zero Retries this week. This issue was “nearly done” as I came out to my office this morning, but as I started putting the final tweaks on this issue, the “background processes” in my mind took over and there was more detail to extract into text. Zero Retries is a passion project, where the content is more important than “deadline” (but not at the sacrifice of publication interval consistency).
Post-publication update: Upon publishing this issue, I noted a number of typos, omissions, and received a few good suggestions via the comments that merited a minor re-edit of this issue. Thus there are some minor differences between this “web version” and the version that was emailed to subscribers.
In the last few hours of preparation of this issue of Zero Retries, I learned that Bob Heil K9EID died today at the young age of 83. I’ll let others such as ARRL tell the bigger story of K9EID’s history and long string of accomplishments and honors.
To me, K9EID was one of those rare people that just seemed to radiate positive energy, and we in US Amateur Radio were blessed that he was one of us. I only met K9EID once at Hamvention a few years ago where we had a conversation about the merits of microphones that incorporated a native USB interface or using Heil’s USB to analog microphone adapter (which I purchased). In those few minutes, I felt like I’d known him for years, and apparently that impression is universal within Amateur Radio.
K9EID was just a really nice person who made you feel like he was just a fellow Amateur Radio Operator, despite his vastly greater experience, knowledge, and expertise. K9EID didn’t have to staff the Heil booth at Hamvention, but he obviously enjoyed doing so that he could talk to folks passing by and answer questions.
I’m not aware of K9EID being substantively involved in data communications in Amateur Radio1, but he was the authority on voice audio quality on Amateur Radio units. “Dr. Bob” will be missed!
Some Semi-conclusions on Amateur Radio and the “Spectrum Workforce”
By Steve Stroh N8GNJ
Since Zero Retries 0140, with all that running around in my mind for a week now, I’ve developed some semi… “50%” (AKA half-assed) conclusions about Amateur Radio’s role in improving the pipeline of individuals interested in radio technology and thus perhaps becoming motivated to join and grow the “Spectrum Workforce”. My rumination was greatly helped by the great conversation and comments expressed in the Comments section of Zero Retries 0140 and some lengthy and multi-round email exchanges.
The primary conclusion I’ve come to about the issue of growing the “Spectrum Workforce” via Amateur Radio is that the only portion of the population that could have an interest in Amateur Radio in the 2020s and beyond… are techies2. In the end, Amateur Radio is a technical activity. Even the simplest activity of Amateur Radio - using a portable radio, requires enough interest to understand frequencies of operation, settings on the radio, knowing about the other party you’re attempting to communicate with, procedure to get a response, etc. None of that “appeals” to anyone other than someone with a technical perspective, interest, and curiousity.
The other major justifications for Amateur Radio - “International Goodwill” and “Emergency Communications” were relevant in the previous century, but not now. Effortless and effectively free video conferencing and messaging, and multiple, robust systems now available to first responders have assumed those roles. I take no joy in those observations… that is simply the reality of Amateur Radio in the current century.
Thus… how does “Amateur Radio” (all of us current Amateur Radio Operators… organizations, etc. in toto) appeal to the techies of this era to the point of a techie becoming licensed as an Amateur Radio Operator and more importantly get involved in Amateur Radio… use Amateur Radio’s vast capabilities, spectrum, etc.? At scale?
Obviously… Amateur Radio needs to market / advertise / recruit / evangelize Amateur Radio to techies. As I said in the Zero Retries 0140 comments, here in Zero Retries, I haven't been getting into the specifics of the outreach effort that would be needed to attract techies into Amateur Radio at scale. What platforms, who does the work, what the messaging should be, etc.? Those will be decisions for those that will actually do the evangelism work... if someone... someoneS, some organization steps up to do the work. I think it's going to require some new thinking and some new energy to coalesce into a modern, virtual, distributed, organization suitable for addressing the conditions of this century. Our existing Amateur Radio organizations just don't seem up to this particular challenge. That’s not a slam on those organizations as they are of the previous century, when society and communications were vastly different.
Semi-conclusion 1 - Fun Stuff That Appeals to Kids
Some Amateur Radio activities can be fun, easy to access and understand, and can be really absorbing to kids. The techie kids can really dive deep, and the non-techie kids can still enjoy the activity. Activities like:
Transmitter (“Bunny” / “Rabbit”) Hunts can engage kids in, essentially, a more active form of hide and seek, with a minor reward, similar to Geocaching. They find the “bunny”, they get a small prize.
Sitting on a park bench chatting on a portable radio with a friend via a repeater is intriguing to a curious kid that the person they hear you chatting with is tens of miles away… and the kid’s previous experience with FRS radios last summer at the amusement park was much more limited. There’s an Amateur Radio group in Minneapolis / St. Paul Minnesota USA that goes way beyond that simple example - Hams In The Park (HITP) meets monthly during the Summer months in a regional park just for fun and camaraderie… and showing off Amateur Radio, at least a bit.
Parks On The Air (POTA) / Summits On The Air (SOTA) is a bit more standalone than the park bench / HITP described above, but it can still be interesting exposure of Amateur Radio to a curious kid. I recall reading that my friend Dan Romanchik KB6NU provides a “one pager” as part of his POTA activities, which includes a brief explanation of Amateur Radio, and what specifically he is doing.
Balloon Launches and the resulting tracking and recovery (especially with payloads the kids build) can really get kids involved. One interesting tip from Phil Karn KA9Q in his involvement with balloon launches is that if a kid gets their Amateur Radio license, their callsign gets to be on the balloon payload. To me, that’s the perfect “hook” - no pressure - the balloon will still get launched, but if the kid is interested enough to get an Amateur Radio license, that “cool factor” of their callsign being on the payload is a quite a reward.
Ribbit / Rattlegram text messaging with ordinary consumer radios (like FRS / GMRS). Wait… what??? You could text without a cellular connection??? I didn’t know you could do that!
Public display of decoding data signals on HF, such as in a museum. I thought of this idea from grant requests from museums with an Amateur Radio display during my time on the ARDC Grants Advisory Committee. Imagine a display with a waterfall or other visual representation of signals, and a knob that lets an observer change the receive frequency to match a signal displayed on the screen. There would also be a speaker with the received signal being heard (but not too loud). Then, as the signal is tuned in, a second display displays the decoded signal. Of all the data signals I’ve heard, RTTY is the coolest-sounding (to me).
Set up a Raspberry Pi as an FM broadcast transmitter. This would work best as an additional element of a curriculum that otherwise uses Raspberry Pis as instructional elements. The “wow factor” of this demonstration would be that Raspberry Pi’s are “just computers”, or “robot controllers”, right? First, have an FM broadcast receiver and tune a few local broadcast stations. Explain that those transmitter systems are very big, very expensive, very complicated (show a photo). Then, load a (pre-loaded) Micro SD card into a Raspberry Pi, attach the appropriate wire length to the appropriate pin, and plug in a USB handheld microphone (check your local thrift store - I’ve purchased several that way). What kid wouldn’t want to be their own announcer on the radio? Then send kids out the door with the receiver and see how far the signal propagates.
Operate via the “easy sats”4 (Amateur Radio satellite repeaters) in a public setting. A big, interesting looking antenna (but not too big as it’s typically held in hand) and a portable radio… there are multiple layers of this activity to a curious kid. A laptop computer displaying the satellite’s profile could be an effective display.
Participate in Neil’s Night5 (attempt receiving data of Earth-Moon-Earth contacts on the evening of July 20th, the anniversary of humanity’s first steps on the Moon). See the Neil’s Night series in Zero Retries 0097, Zero Retries 0098, and Zero Retries 0099 for more details.
Provide assistance in participating in Amateur Radio STEM curriculums6SPARKI, developed by ARISS (Amateur Radio on the International Space Station) is an excellent example of well-developed STEM curriculum that incorporates Amateur Radio. Despite the development work done by ARISS, there’s always room for assistance of a teacher, especially if the assistant is knowledgeable about the subject (radio, physics) and has some relationship with the school such as being a parent or grandparent of a student.
Note that all of these activities seem casual - to the kid. In reality, they require planning and preparation. But the kids can walk up, take it in, ask questions, and depending on their interest (or, the skill of the preparation and the presenter) they might want to get more involved.
That willingness to let the kid engage at their interest level - lightly, deeply, or not at all, is critical. Too often, we adults do take this seriously (because, you know, we put a lot of work into this “on your behalf”), thus the danger of taking it too seriously.
Taking such demonstrations of radio technology too seriously is one minor criticism I have with some of the STEM projects that promote Amateur Radio. In my opinion, some of them lean too hard on the theory and follow-on like “ready to study and get your Amateur Radio license?” Some, probably most kids were just curious about the funny looking piece of electronics.
Semi-conclusion 2 - Us Amateur Radio Techies Have to Rise Above the “Same Old, Same Old”
Given the “environment” of typical Amateur Radio that emphasizes activities like HF, contesting, DXing, etc. (as exemplified by the Same Old, Same Old content that comprises most of QST magazine and the late CQ magazine), we techies who are in Amateur Radio for the technical fun and experimentation (like what I described with SD Transceivers in Zero Retries 0140) are going to have to find ways to rise above the “Same Old, Same Old” factor if Amateur Radio is going to be able to appeal to techies.
One example I’ve learned the hard way in my Amateur Radio experience is that it’s not enough for me to build up my cool new system to try out a cool new mode… and then try to talk it up to promote others to build a similar system so they can also play with the cool new mode. If you want to get the point across about a cool new mode such as:
(These are all examples of things I plan to work on, some of which I have purchased equipment for.)
To showcase a new mode / system, the reality is that you’ll need to build at least three units, and I’ve embraced that reality. When I purchase “bits and bobs” to start a new project to explore a new mode, I willingly endure the extra cost of buying more than one unit so that I can put a second, or third station together so that I can provide a loaner unit to someone that expresses interest. Getting someone to invest their funds on something that (to them) is speculative, that they might not end up enjoying, is a big ask. But borrowing a loaner unit, taking it home and plugging it in and trying it out is a lot more approachable. If they like it and decide that they want to play along, you’re in a good position to act as an advisor / coach / troubleshooter for their involvement.
For example, there’s currently no VARA FM activity (that I’m aware of) in my county. Thus I’m in the process of building up two, and eventually three VARA FM units using 222 MHz radios that will showcase the speed of VARA FM for in-person demonstrations, such as upcoming meetings of the local Digital Group. That wasn’t cheap - two radios, two modems, two (used, surplus) laptops, etc. But it’s the onlymost effective way (I know of) to explain the value of VARA FM - let people see it for themselves and potentially make loaner units available.
Another example is that there are no repeaters in my area where data transmissions are welcome. Some experiments with data over repeaters have been tolerated, with prior arrangement, for brief periods… but not welcome. Thus I’m working towards creating a new repeater7 that will be a conventional FM repeater which will welcome data communications as a primary use - no apologies, disclaimers, scheduling required.
Semi-conclusion 3 - Guerrilla Evangelism Force for Technical Amateur Radio
In the absence of a grand campaign and an organization that’s funded and chartered to do a grand campaign to promote modern Amateur Radio for this era, we Amateur Radio techies are, by necessity, need to become a “guerrilla evangelism force”.
We who choose to become “Guerrilla Evangelists” for Technical Amateur Radio will, again by necessity, need to start thousands of individual, small, laser-focused campaigns. The task is to chat up individual school instructors about the value of Amateur Radio to classes and students that would benefit from participating in Amateur Radio. This can start as simply as an individual Amateur Radio Operator who’s playing around with something interesting coming in to a class as a “guest presenter”.
Another approach is to “put yourself out there” to present Amateur Radio in some (non Amateur Radio) technical activity or conference. An example is that I volunteered to do a talk at LinuxFest Northwest here in Bellingham, Washington, USA. My talk will be Amateur Radio and Open Source and I will highlight that Amateur Radio, despite the popular (“Same Old, Same Old”) perception, is actually a “hacking” culture not dissimilar to the Linux culture, and that there is a lot of Open Source software (and hardware) in use in Amateur Radio in this era. I want to put Technical Amateur Radio out in front of them, including a handout with some resources such as online study, online exam sessions, and most importantly my name and contact info as a personal resource for them if they want to learn more.
A similar approach may work with Amateur Radio conferences and events such as a demonstration at a hamfest, but the “Same Old, Same Old” resistance will be considerable. The upside of Amateur Radio conferences and events is that in that crowd, an Amateur Radio license can (usually) be assumed. Thus if the folks at the hamfest are interested, they can get started a lot faster.
These “be brave and put yourself out there” approaches are necessary. An example is that my experiences with trying to evangelize Technical Amateur Radio activities at existing Amateur Radio clubs, even here in the high-tech Pacific Northwest, have been discouraging… while my presentations have been politely received, there is little “uptake” within the club8. Even Amateur Radio clubs that have a founding in technology companies seem to be far more interested in “Same Old, Same Old” Amateur Radio.
Thus, I’m imagining small “guerrilla bands” of 2-5 people (you’re going to need at least one co-conspirator) doing this evangelism, willing to be on speed dial for supporting classes, explaining weird stuff about Amateur Radio to the instructors, hand-holding for the instructors to get their license (if desired, etc.) It can go as far as perhaps establishing an Amateur Radio club a school or organization, complete with helping them write a grant proposal to ARDC to get it started with some equipment instead of “whatever you can get donated” which won’t be a great experience.
Concluding My Semi-conclusions
These are just some of my ideas… my “it seems to me’s” about growing Amateur Radio by reaching out to those fellow “technically curious” individuals in our now-technical society. I’m convinced that such an approach would work (and has proven to work, albeit on a small scale). But as to the bigger picture of doing so at scale, well, that will have to be up to those (few) that have the ability to make such a project a reality.
My misgivings about Amateur Radio Over Internet is that I probably know too much from my background writing about the Internet industry and my knowledge of just how fragile consumer Internet access is, especially via cable, DSL, and cellular. “Consumer Internet” fails when there is any, even minor “disruption”. My daughter offered me an recent example of a car crash into a power pole near her apartment building took out not only her cable Internet, but also cellular service because apparently there was a heavily used fiber bundle on that pole. When that fiber bundle was severed it disabled the cellular microcell that provided cellular service in her apartment building.
“Kind of the point” of Amateur Radio, at least in my mind, is that it can work independent of external systems such as grid power and consumer Internet access, and putting Internet in the middle of an Amateur Radio activity or system can compromise the utility of Amateur Radio.
The TL;DR of this article is that I’m at peace with Amateur Radio Over Internet. This conclusion, this change of perspective, has been in gestation with me for quite some time, easily more than a decade, or two.
This article was originally my Semi-conclusion 4 (see previous article), because Internet is so integral to the current generation that any communications technology that doesn’t incorporate Internet to some degree might be perceived as irrelevant or just… dumb. Thus I wanted to address that, but as I worked on this article, it made more sense for this subject to be a seperate article.
My perspective to fully embrace Amateur Radio Over Internet9 resulted from a number of factors:
There are many, many, manygood… great uses of Internet in combination with Amateur Radio such as WSPRnet, BrandMeister, Winlink, aprs.fi, “incidental Internet Access” via HamWAN, etc. that provide a synergy between the utility of Amateur Radio and the utility of Internet, resulting in a unique capability that wouldn’t be possible solely with Internet or solely with Amateur Radio.
I’m a proponent of the Internet Tunnel function of AREDN nodes. That capability lets an individual connect with other AREDN nodes and users and get familiar with using AREDN without requiring another station to be within range (which is problematic with low power microwave units). If you get comfortable about AREDN, it’s then easy (and fun) to encourage someone else within range to set up an AREDN node so you can share the fun.
My colleague-in-writing-about-Amateur-Radio, Tom Salzer KJ7T (who writes The Random Wire newsletter) made a compelling case that Amateur Radio Over Internet… is still Amateur Radio. He made the case so well that after reading KJ7T’s article Easy AllStarLink, I felt that my misgivings about Amateur Radio Over Internet was akin to one of those “That’s not real Amateur Radio” elitist snobs that I have no use for. (Thanks KJ7T for curing me of my misgivings about Amateur Radio Over Internet).
With any luck, my local Amateur Radio club will soon set up a remote HF station that can be a nice perk / incentive for club members who can’t have an HF station of their own to try out HF via web browser. I hope that we’ll be able to implement something like Remote Ham Radio’s “Youth Network” that offers free use of remote HF stations for Amateur Radio Operators up to 21 years old.
ARDC seems poised to offer their 44Net Virtual Private Network (VPN) in 2024. I think this will be a gamechanger for use of Internet within Amateur Radio. With the 44Net VPN, Amateur Radio Operators can use a static, routable IPv4 addresses for their activities. One cool aspect of getting a 44Net IPv4 address is that you aren’t issued a single IPv4 address, at minimum, you’re issued a small block. Thus you can have more than one system online. One fun thing I can easily imagine is assigning an individual IPv4 address to a VOIP telephone. With the right phone and setup, no “PBX” (such as Asterisk) is needed - just put your buddy’s 44Net IP address for his VOIP phone into your VOIP phone’s speed dial. I’ll be writing more extensively about the 44Net VPN and its implications in a future article in Zero Retries.
I hope to provide remote access to various Amateur Radio systems for software and other development as part of N8GNJ Labs, which will be implemented via Internet and 44Net.
But one of the biggest factors of my now being At Peace with Amateur Radio Over Internet is the arrival of Starlink as an option for consumer Internet access that can be highly reliable. Indeed, Starlink is battle-tested by use in Ukraine, and Starlink is not easy to disrupt by weather events, power failures, pole-seeking vehicles, fiber-seeking earthmovers, etc.
Starlink is a bit more expensive than typical consumer Internet access, and not quite as fast, especially not as fast as fiber Internet. Starlink is also not symmetric - upload speeds are considerably lower than downlink speeds… but given the physics of satellite communications bandwidth, that’s a limitation that’s easy to understand.
If I can keep my Starlink terminal powered (totally feasible now as I demonstrated on a small scale with my “Meadow Day” experiment last summer), then I have highly reliable Internet access, including IPv6. For example, I would never consider becoming a local Winlink Radio Mail Server (RMS) if my only Internet access was via a cable modem. Even keeping my cable modem powered on emergency power wouldn’t provide a reasonably reliable Internet connection. But with Starlink, maintaining reliable Internet access for Winlink users (and my neighbors) during a power outage or other communications emergency is entirely feasible.
Wojciech Kaczmarski SP5WWP is designing the Remote Radio Unit and recently posted an update on LinkedIn:
Image courtesy of Wojciech Kaczmarski SP5WWP
Ethernet interface board for the Remote Radio Unit (RRU). It connects to an Eth-fiber converter and allows for baseband transfer using "CPRI-lite" protocol based on ZeroMQ. Standby for more news concerning our open source M17 RAN hardware (and more!).
The Remote Radio Unit is a very Zero Retries Interesting Project - see Zero Retries 0130 - Remote Radio Unit for M17 / FM Repeaters. The name is unassuming… practically a stealth name designed to “undersell” the concept of the project, which is to develop a compact Amateur Radio 70 cm (420-450 MHz) repeater, complete with integral duplexer that could be installed close to an antenna. With the radio systems in close proximity to antenna, only power and communications (fiber Ethernet) are required to be run up a tower (no coaxial cable or hardline).
As with all projects funded by ARDC, this project is open source. It’s fascinating to consider the implications of this unit. SP5WWP seems to be making progress rapidly enough that prototypes of this unit might be shown (my speculation) at major Amateur Radio events - certainly at HAM RADIO this Summer.
The FastConnect 7900 relies on AI to improve connectivity while reducing power.
Wireless spectrum is always at a premium—if you’ve ever tried to connect to Wi-Fi in a crowded airport or stadium, you know the pain that comes from crowded spectrum use. That’s why the industry continues to tinker with ways to get the most out of available spectrum. The latest example: Qualcomm’s FastConnect 7900 chip, which the company unveiled Monday at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
Qualcomm touts the FastConnect 7900 as a provider of “AI-enhanced” Wi-Fi 7, which the company views as an opportunity to create more reliable wireless connections. The chip will also better integrate the disparate technologies of Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and ultrawideband for consumer applications. In addition, the chip can support two connections to the same device over the same spectrum band.
…
Using AI to manage wireless spectrum connections isn’t a new problem or solution, but Qualcomm’s chip benefits from running everything on-device. “It has to run on the device to be effective,” says del Prado. “We need to make decisions at the microsecond level.”
Put another way, using the Wi-Fi connection itself to transmit the information about how to adjust the Wi-Fi connection would defeat the purpose of AI management in the first place—by the time the chip receives the information, it’d be way out of date.
Unlike every other mention of putting Artificial Intelligence (AI) features gratuitously into a product just to generate “buzz”, this inclusion of AI features (arguably mostly algorithmic… but perhaps it can “learn”, thus justifying the AI label) makes sense. It makes even more sense when you factor in dynamic interleaving of different radio technologies such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Near Field Communications (NFC), and even Ultrawideband (UWB) and various spectrum such as 2.4 GHz, 5 / 6 GHz, and 60 GHz.
I really like that these features are “on chip”, and hopefully we’ll soon see such functionality migrate into chipsets that are more flexible with regards to choice of spectrum. I can imagine many scenarios in Amateur Radio for such a device.
DietPi is an extremely lightweight Debian OS, highly optimised for minimal CPU and RAM resource usage, ensuring your SBC always runs at its maximum potential.
…
The February 19th, 2024 release of DietPi v9.1 comes with new support for the Raspberry Pi 5, enhancements for ROCK 4 SE and NanoPi R5S/R5C/R6S/R6C/T6. Additionally, enhancements and bug fixes for several dietpi-software options are included.
I was unaware of “DietPi” until this mention of v9.1 surfaced recently. This makes complete sense as Rasperry Pi is increasingly targeting its new systems, and Raspberry Pi OS as a desktop-class computer and operating system. DietPi seems like a better fit for “appliance” applications such as Amateur Radio… perhaps even a good choice as an OS for the DigiPi system.
It’s also interesting that despite the “Pi” in the name, DietPi is developed for a range of single board computers, including some pretty popular units such as PINE64, Orange Pi, and even RISC-V which I expect to see a lot more usage in the coming years.
The new [WiFi Retromodem] PCB is equipped with everything needed to get a retro computer online again, including all the ports to connect a computer without any further modifications. It houses a few modern upgrades beyond its on-board processors, though. Rather than needing an actual acoustic coupled phone, this one has an ESP32 which gives it wireless capability. But the replacement PCB maintains the look and feel of the original hardware by replicating the red status LEDs at the front, fitting into the original Hayes cases with no modifications needed at all, and even includes a small speaker through which it can replicate the various tones, handshakes, and other audio cues that those of us nostalgic for this new online era remember quite well.
This is exactly what I imagine doing in a (distant) future project in re-animating a number of Amateur Radio data communications units, most notably a quantity of PK-232s that I have accumulated. My imaginary name for this project is Franken-232. I imagine retrofitting the PK-232s with a high-resolution audio interface and a Raspberry Pi computer. But, there are many projects queued up here in N8GNJ Labs ahead of the Franken-232… but I’m looking forward to working on it eventually. If anyone wants to jump ahead of me on such a project, get in touch - I’m sure we can work something out.
Inspired by this unit, my Franken-232 project will now include a speaker and an audio clip of a 1200 bps AX.25 connection handshake. If the Franken-232 ever does become reality, I’ll immortalize my callsign as part of that audio clip.
There was a lot of great commenting, conversations, and cross-fertilization… and even some co-conspiratorial discussion in the Comments of Zero Retries 0140. Thank you commenters (and email correspondents) - that level of interest helps keep me going!
If you provide feedback via email, I may excerpt your feedback or include it in full. Unless you specifically grant me permission to include your name, I won’t do so. Feedback may be lightly edited for clarity.
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These blogs and newsletters regularly feature Zero Retries Interesting content:
Dan Romanchik KB6NU mentions “Zero Retries Interesting” topics so regularly on his blog (that I otherwise wouldn’t know about) that I’ve bestowed on him the honorific of Pseudostaffer.
Jeff Davis KE9V also mentions “Zero Retries Interesting” topics so regularly on his blog (that I otherwise wouldn’t know about) that I’ve bestowed on him the honorific of Pseudostaffer.
Amateur Radio Weekly by Cale Mooth K4HCK is a weekly anthology of links to interesting Amateur Radio stories.
Experimental Radio News by Bennet Z. Kobb AK4AV discusses (in detail) Experimental (Part 5) licenses issued by the US FCC. It’s a must-read-now for me!
RTL-SDR Blog - Excellent coverage of Software Defined Radio units.
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More bits from Steve Stroh N8GNJ:
SuperPacket blog — Discussing new generations of Amateur Radio Data Communications — beyond Packet Radio (a precursor to Zero Retries)
N8GNJ blog — Amateur Radio Station N8GNJ and the mad science experiments at N8GNJ Labs — Bellingham, Washington, USA
Thanks for reading! Steve Stroh N8GNJ / WRPS598 (He / Him / His) These bits were handcrafted (by a mere human, not an Artificial Intelligence bot) in beautiful Bellingham (The City of Subdued Excitement), Washington, USA, and linked to the Internet via Starlink Satellite Internet Access.
2024-03-01
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Thus my use of “Muted Microphone” honorific for those, like Art Bell W6OBB before him, who were far more active using voice modes on Amateur Radio than CW (Silent Key) or data communications (Silent Keyboard).
… growing Amateur Radio at scale. Of course there will continue to be folks that become Amateur Radio Operators for reasons other than being a techie, such as family and friends who are inspired, and the desire for personal “off the grid” communications, etc.
“Standalone” as opposed to a unit like a typical HF transceiver connected to a WSPR modem. Of course, this would require an Amateur Radio Operator to act as a “control operator” / sponsor - could be a fellow instructor, parent, grandparent, etc.
Yes, the reality / necessity of creating a new repeater grates on me also given the lack of use of most Amateur Radio repeaters in this era. But, repeater owners are herd creatures and very, very few would welcome regular use of data over their repeater. Thus creating a new repeater is just one part of “routing around the Same Old, Same Old” attitudes in Amateur Radio.
One reasonable explanation I heard for what I’ve observed is one Amateur Radio Operator’s explanation: “In my day job, I work on very intense high tech systems. Thus in my non-work time, I don’t want to do more “high tech” - I get enough of that at work. Instead, I like the “low-tech” stuff - random CW contacts, low power radios, and experimenting with different kinds of HF antennas.” That makes sense.
I make a distinction, that often doesn’t translate well in text without lengthy explanations (like this footnote) between Internet, and intranet. The former is “the big worldwide network”. The latter is the use of Internet technologies such as the TCP/IP protocol, routers, Wi-Fi access points, Ethernet, etc. The latter was never problematic to me at all, no more than using RS-232 data cabling with my Amateur Radio equipment.
Zero Retries is an independent newsletter promoting technological innovation that is occurring in Amateur Radio, and Amateur Radio as (literally) a license to experiment with and learn about radio technology. Now in its third year of publication, with 1300+ subscribers.
I’ll be on the road for this one, so I’ll dial in on the phone and mute. I hope that there will be an actual announcement of the 44Net VPN service.
FCC Docket 16-239 (“Amateur Baud Rate”) - Nothing Heard To Date
At least once per week, I take a look at Docket 16-239 to see if perhaps the FCC quietly slips a decision into the record.
To date, nothing heard (nothing new in the record) since the last Reply Comment was filed 2024-01-23.
I hope, I hope, I hope, I HOPE… that the FCC accepts the recommendation in the majority of the comments eliminate the symbol rate limitations (likely) and the maximum bandwidth limitations (hopefully) currently applied to US Amateur Radio VHF / UHF bands.
Amateur Radio and the Growth of the Spectrum Workforce in the US National Spectrum Strategy
By Steve Stroh N8GNJ
I’ve completed a considerable document - Amateur Radio and the Growth of the Spectrum Workforce in the US National Spectrum Strategy. It adds context (and considerable “cleanup”) of the transcripts of the NTIA Spectrum Policy Symposium that appeared in the two previous issues of Zero Retries. I created it as a standalone document on the Zero Retries website rather than a special issue of Zero Retries, which would appear in the list of Zero Retries issues for a while and then age out in chronological order.
Zero Retries is an independent newsletter by Steve Stroh N8GNJ that promotes technological innovation that is occurring in Amateur Radio, and Amateur Radio as (literally) a license to experiment with and learn about radio technology.
What follows are excerpts from the [Biden-Harris Administration] National Spectrum Strategy (NSS), which was published 2023-11-13, and the US National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA)’s 2024 Spectrum Policy Symposium, which was held 2024-02-01 that are relevant to US Amateur Radio and the mission of Zero Retries… and the perspective of Zero Retries Editor Steve Stroh N8GNJ.
As such, the following may provide an incomplete perspective of the totality of the NSS and the information and perspectives provided at the 2024 Spectrum Symposium. Thus, links to the NSS and the Symposium video recordings are provided for those that wish to “dive deeper” than this focused perspective.
Document Primary Takeaway
Here’s the primary takeaway (excerpt) of the document that’s relevant to Amateur Radio and Zero Retries readers:
Relevance of Pillar Four of the National Spectrum Strategy to US Amateur Radio
The discussion of Pillar 4 of the [Biden-Harris Administration] National Spectrum Strategy…
Pillar 4 Panel Discussion: Growth of the Spectrum Workforce, Increased Understanding of spectrum, and Raised Awareness of spectrum’s Importance to the Country
… directly relates to the utility, and perhaps the importance of Amateur Radio - if the need for rapidly growing the “Spectrum Workforce” is truly considered important and urgent.)
The concept of “growing the “Spectrum Workforce” is enshrined into US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Regulation § 97.1 - Basis and purpose:
The rules and regulations in this part are designed to provide an amateur radio service having a fundamental purpose as expressed in the following principles:
(a) Recognition and enhancement of the value of the amateur service to the public as a voluntary noncommercial communication service, particularly with respect to providing emergency communications.
(b) Continuation and extension of the amateur's proven ability to contribute to the advancement of the radio art.
(c) Encouragement and improvement of the amateur service through rules which provide for advancing skills in both the communication and technical phases of the art.
(d) Expansion of the existing reservoir within the amateur radio service of trained operators, technicians, and electronics experts.
(e) Continuation and extension of the amateur's unique ability to enhance international goodwill.
Note particularly (b), (c), and (d).
It’s understated and often overlooked, but note this key phrase, with relevance to the discussion of “Pillar 4 of the NSS”:
… a voluntary noncommercial communication service
Individuals become involved in Amateur Radio (and related radio technology hobby activities) purely on a voluntary basis, out of interest in radio technology (and other facets of Amateur Radio). Often, involvement in Amateur Radio evolves from exposure to STEM - Science / Technology / Engineering / Math subjects, either from personal interest, or exposure during formal education. Individuals must study technical subjects to pass an Amateur Radio examination, must understand and uphold their responsibilities as licensed Amateur Radio Operators, and must even pay a modest fee to the FCC to obtain and renew their Amateur Radio License.
After obtaining one’s Amateur Radio license, there is the expense of purchasing and operating Amateur Radio equipment (station) and other costs to participate in Amateur Radio activities such as paying dues to Amateur Radio clubs, and fees to travel to and attend Amateur Radio conferences.
In short, Amateur Radio Operators undergo considerable commitment to being Amateur Radio Operators. Voluntarily, and at some expense, self-educate themselves on subjects of radio technology.
Thus Amateur Radio Operators are ideal candidates for inclusion into the “Spectrum Workforce as explained in Strategic Objective 4.1:
Preparing a well-trained U.S. workforce is essential to the policy proposals, potential investments in technologies, and research initiatives described in this Strategy. All stakeholders, including industry, academia, state, local and Tribal governments, as well as the Federal Government, must have a spectrum workforce with the necessary skills to work across current and emerging technologies.
We must also prepare the spectrum workforce of the next generation for a globally competitive environment where innovation is a key to successful national economic growth and spectrum access in support of critical Federal missions.
and …
Attract, train, and grow the current and next- generation spectrum workforce.
…
A well-trained workforce that can fill critical spectrum-related jobs across all relevant sectors is essential to ensuring that the spectrum ecosystem remains effective, efficient, and responsive to the evolving needs of the wireless ecosystem and society at large.
Yet… despite the obvious synergy of US Amateur Radio Operators voluntarily training themselves on radio technology…
There is no mention… whatsoever… or even a hint, vague reference, etc. to the existence of Amateur Radio in the Biden-Harris Administration’s National Spectrum Strategy (NSS). That, despite the Amateur Radio Service being one of the radio services administered by the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and the FCC’s involvement in the creation of the NSS:
The Strategy reflects collaboration with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), recognizing the FCC’s unique responsibilities with respect to non-Federal uses of spectrum, and coordination with other Federal departments and agencies (referred to collectively here as “agencies”).
The potential of Amateur Radio to accelerate the stated goals of Pillar 4, notably Strategic Objective 4.1:
Attract, train, and grow the current and next-generation spectrum workforce.
and Strategic Objective 4.3:
Improve the public’s understanding of radio frequency spectrum and raise awareness of its role in everyday life.
… seems to have been overlooked, or ignored, or simply unknown. But …
Who… better???… to help realize these goals than US Amateur Radio Operators?
I have tried to make the case in Zero Retries that the “Spectrum Workforce crisis” (using the verbiage of the National Spectrum Strategy) is very real. That crisis is that much of the radio technology in the US such as mobile telephones, satellite communications and navigation, Wi-Fi, etc. that are now an integral, inseparable… part of our daily lives as a technological society, is increasingly developed and manufactured outside the US. Without a sufficiently large, well-qualified “Spectrum Workforce”, the US is at a significant disadvantage in its use of radio technology developed in other countries… some of which are openly hostile to the US.
Document Concluding Section
And here’s the concluding section of the document:
Editor’s Concluding Thoughts
I feel that the Biden-Harris Administration’s National Spectrum Strategy document and this “Pillar Four” panel discussion is a critical “wake up call” for US Amateur Radio to be seen as relevant in educational, vocational, and academic training in the US… and generally relevant in US society. Note that the panel discussion was narrowly focused on the subject of the use of radio technology (spectrum) and growing the base of those that are capable of developing and deploying radio technology. While STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) was mentioned organically and frequently in the panel discussion, if not for Phil Karn KA9Q’s participation on the panel, any discussion of US Amateur Radio would have been entirely absent.
US Amateur Radio owes a debt to Phil Karn KA9Q for substantively representing US Amateur Radio on this panel, and making a reasonable case that Amateur Radio can be an element of education, and fomenting interest in radio technology and thus contribute to the “Spectrum Workforce”.
US Amateur Radio also owes a debt to Amateur Radio Digital Communications (ARDC) for (presumably) sponsoring Karn’s presence on this panel discussion, as well as its ongoing grantmaking to advance Amateur Radio and related activities such as sponsoring scholarships and Research and Development.
While there was no mention of Amateur Radio’s potential for early education of the “Spectrum Workforce” in the National Spectrum Strategy, or mention of the ARRL during the panel discussion, ARRL posits:
that Amateur Radio spectrum not being identified for reallocation or additional sharing in the NSS was a result of significant behind-the-scenes work during the formation of the NSS. Thus US Amateur Radio owes a debt to ARRL for that work.
Future discussions of this topic will continue in Zero Retries newsletter, beginning with Zero Retries 0140, published on 2024-02-23. Earlier versions of the transcript appeared in Zero Retries 0138 (Part 1) and Zero Retires 0139 (Part 2).
My Concluding Conclusions
After wading through the National Spectrum Strategy (NSS) and listening (and laboriously transcribing… well, editing…) the transcript text over the past few weeks…
I wanted to blame someone involved with creation (and vetting) of the NSS, and the Symposium, and the Pillar 4 Panel Discussion, with not paying attention / not mentioning… all but ignoring (again, except for the contributions of Phil Karn KA9Q) US Amateur Radio as part of the National Spectrum Strategy.
But… with more time and more thought… is there, really, reason to assign blame for the omission of Amateur Radio in the NSS and near-total omission of Amateur Radio in the Symposium?
No.
I conclude that there is not any singular blame to be assigned for the omission of Amateur Radio in the NSS or the peripheral mentions of Amateur Radio in the Symposium.
In particular… my initial reaction was to “blame” the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for not promoting Amateur Radio (one of the radio services that they are charged to administer) as a potential pathway to participation in the “Spectrum Workforce”. After mulling this over for most of this week, I’ve concluded that while the FCC administers US Amateur Radio, the administration of Amateur Radio (or any other of the many radio services) does not include promotion of any radio service the FCC administers. Simply, “promotion” of a radio service is not a role assigned, or supported, of the (very busy) FCC.
The only blame that I feel can reasonably be assigned for the omission of Amateur Radio in the National Spectrum Strategy is to US Amateur Radio as a whole.
While we in Amateur Radio:
Amateur Radio Operators,
Amateur Radio media (in all its forms),
Amateur Radio vendors,
Amateur Radio organizations,
Amateur Radio’s portrayal in non-Amateur Radio media (press, documentaries, entertainment),
Amateur Radio’s interactions with entities outside of Amateur Radio (such as with government agencies)…
… try to promote our favorite facets of Amateur Radio (or products), the sobering truth is that in the current era, Amateur Radio is perceived, almost completely, as a quaint, niche, hobby enjoyed by a small, aging, almost entirely male portion of the population. Thus, Amateur Radio is not very relevant to society.
In a word, Amateur Radio is insular. From Merriam-Webster:
Characteristic of an isolated people
especially : being, having, or reflecting a narrow provincial viewpoint
Largely, that describes Amateur Radio and Amateur Radio Operators. While we’re usually enthusiastic about Amateur Radio… we do so amongst ourselves, to fellow Amateur Radio Operators, but far less to those who aren’t Amateur Radio Operators. Because:
They don’t understand about tech and especially radio,
They don’t understand how cool DX or Packet Radio is,
They think Amateur Radio is too much trouble / impractical / unnecessary,
Etc.
So, it’s no surprise that Amateur Radio is largely out of sight, out of mind, out of relevance in society.
I can hear the spluttering as you read this. But… but…but…whaddabout…
Emergency Communications?
Technological innovation in, and experimentation with radio technology?
Involvement in STEM education?
Other public service aspects such as assistance in finding sources of radio jamming?
Good works by Amateur Radio organizations, such as scholarships?
All good points, but largely irrelevant with the overwhelming perception in society that Amateur Radio is individuals communicating amongst themselves using a quaint form of wireless that’s become irrelevant in the modern era.
So… Amateur Radio is (perceived as) irrelevant… a quaint, but harmless anachronism.
Is that a bad thing? Does it matter?
One long-time advisor to Zero Retries posits that the societal perception of Amateur Radio doesn’t matter. They got into Amateur Radio for the love of playing around with radios and the fun of reaching out with their radio to individually communicate with far-off places. Their point to me, repeatedly, is that they don’t care about all the “external” perceptions of Amateur Radio. To them, Amateur Radio is merely a personal hobby, and the bigger picture is of no interest to them.
While that advisor’s perception is valid, for them, I think it’s shortsighted. Amateur Radio only exists (so that the advisor is able to enjoy it) because of the allocation of portions of spectrum for use by Amateur Radio. Those portions of spectrum can be reassigned to other uses (and have been - repeatedly) if those portions of spectrum are determined to have a better and higher use by other radio services and systems. The recent reallocation of Amateur Radio spectrum in the 3.5 GHz region is one example. Thus even if that advisor’s perspective is valid, they’re enjoying their hobby because of the contributions of previous generations of Amateur Radio Operators to create and preserve portions of spectrum for Amateur Radio use.
So… What Can… What Should… What Could We Do to Promote Amateur Radio in Society?
Honestly… I don’t know.
The easy answer is that “Amateur Radio” should start a public relations campaign to promote Amateur Radio. But saying that is laughably ignorant of the realities:
The current lack of “popular will” to do so within Amateur Radio,
The “big lift” that would be required to “educate” Amateur Radio as a whole of the necessity to address this issue,
The funding required for a coordinated campaign such as advertising, especially the skilled personnel that can work on this issue consistently,
The coordination required amongst many subsets of Amateur Radio that don’t regularly coordinate (us data fans don’t often mingle with the hardcore DXers),
Working with teachers and professors in technical colleges, community colleges, universities, etc. … at scale,
Making Amateur Radio clubs more welcoming and developing more outreach in their communities.
Amateur Radio has been in “pullback” from general recognition in society for generations now. One of my benchmarks of Amateur Radio’s recognition in society was when CQ, QST, and 73 Magazine were displayed in the “hobby” section of newsstands. 73 ceased publication decades ago now, and ARRL chose not to pay to have QST appear on newsstands, and CQ’s print production has been problematic for years and now the parent company is probably out of business.
We could do something like a campaign to get ARRL’s magazine “On The Air”1 into libraries in the kid’s sections (yes, they still exist, last I checked). But that’s expensive and would require “someone” to fund it and coordinate it.
As a bare minimum start, I created a private, independent email list (no organizations) about “Future Amateur Radio”. To start discussing that subject, I invited three prominent Amateur Radio Operators to participate. Only one did so… which I think is probably representative of the situation US Amateur Radio finds itself in. I plan to make more such invitations in the coming weeks, and I hope we can start some discussions there about what positive steps can be made, or perhaps develop recommendations.
Lastly, this discussion wouldn’t be complete without mention of the role of ARRL - “The National Association for [US] Amateur Radio”. As tempting as it is to “beat up” on ARRL as being “missing in action” in Amateur Radio’s “creeping irrelevance” in society, the reality is that ARRL is merely a reflection of US Amateur Radio and US society (which is another observation that my advisor made). Officers of the ARRL Board get voted in, and out. We as US Amateur Radio Operators, at least the few elect to be ARRL (increasingly expensive) dues-paying members, can choose to run for ARRL Board seats, or not, and exercise our vote in the ARRL elections that are competitive, or not.
This discussion also wouldn’t be complete without mention of a relatively new factor in US Amateur Radio - Amateur Radio Digital Communications (ARDC) and its annual grant disbursements of ~$5M. Thanks to ARDC there is, potentially, funding available for Amateur Radio advocacy. But while ARDC has made it clear that it’s not their role to do such advocacy (they’re simply not structured, or chartered, to do so), ARDC has provided grants for other organizations to do such (similar) work.
Power Amplifier Suitable for Software Defined Transmitters
By Steve Stroh N8GNJ
I have found a source of power amplifiers suitable for use with the very low transmit power of software defined transmitters (SDTx). From my perspective, this development makes it practical to consider the use of Software Defined Transceivers (SDTs) combined with these power amplifiers, for typical use in Amateur Radio, especially faster (wideband) Amateur Radio data communications enabled by Software Defined Radio technology.
I teased this development in Zero Retries 0139’s Request to Send:
I finally identified a source for a key piece of hardware, the lack of which being generally available, has (in my opinion) been stifling progress on Amateur Radio technological innovation. It will take some time to tell that story, so it’s deferred to the next issue of Zero Retries. But I’ll say this: I… am… JAZZED… about this development!
Since I discovered the wonder of SDTs being able to create near-infinite types of radios with a “universal” hardware widget and some software, and that such software is available as pre-built building blocks (GNU Radio) and even a graphical user interface to “drag and drop” the blocks (GNU Radio Companion), SDTs were simultaneously practical… and impractical.
Impractical is because SDTs such as the Analog Devices ADALM-PLUTO have transmit power levels about 10 milliwatts (10 mW). The low transmit power is understandable; not only are such devices generally regarded (and sold) as “lab equipment”, but their power supply is minimal, such as a computer’s USB port.
But, that’s what power amplifiers are made for, right? Well, in Amateur Radio, a low power device is typically a portable radio that transmits 1 - 5 watts. Thus the 10 mW output of a SDT isn’t nearly enough transmit power to drive a typical Amateur Radio power amplifier such as the RM ITALY VHF HT Linear Amplifiers LA-145:
RF Input for Maximum Output: 3 watts
Thus, I’ve been on a quiet quest for either a reliable source of a “driver amplifier” that would boost the transmit power output of an SDT to a power level suitable to drive a power amplifier like the LA-145 to full output, or a power amplifier that can be driven to full power directly from the very low transmit power of a SDT.
No Reliable Source of Driver Amplifiers
Driver amplifiers exist, and are actually “easy to find” on eBay; a quick search found “20DB RF Amplifier 0.5-6 GHz” for US$10.99. But I’m… dubious… about such units from (effectively) unnamed sources. Dealing with such units on eBay comes with ample reasons for caution such as this notice in the listing for the above unit:
Please note that the new type and old type of this product will be sent randomly, and make sure you will not mind before ordering.
My biggest plaint about eBay units is that even if you find one that is suitable, that works, there’s no predictability that you would be able to find such a unit a second time, much less being able to recommend such a unit for others to purchase and be able to replicate the “Amateur Radio VHF / UHF Software Defined Transceiver - with practical transmit power levels” that I’m imagining.
If I could buy such a unit from a reliable Amateur Radio dealer at even 5x that price, I’d do so. But I have yet to find such a unit from a reliable dealer that has committed to supplying such units on a repeatable basis.
I’m a fan of KH6HTV’s newsletter for Amateur Radio Television, 155 issues to date, with all kinds of Zero Retries Interesting info about operating television in Amateur Radio (especially digital television) and the actual operation of a television repeater (and a club to support it) in the Boulder, Colorado area.
I excerpted a recent article from this newsletter in Zero Retries 0139 - Q0-100 is Not a Ham Satellite. (What is it ?). Another recent interesting article in Issue 155 was the conclusion of significant testing of various antennas for Amateur Television use:
ATV Antennas - Wrap Up
Jim, KH6HTV
We have finally finished our testing of 70 cm & 23 cm antennas for possible use in ATV service. Here is our list of recommended antennas.
KH6HTV VIDEO Model 23-12 amplifier (for 1240 - 1300 MHz). Image courtesy of Jim Andrews KH6HTV.
Disclaimer: I have not purchased, nor have I tested the unit I’m about to describe. I plan to do so, but as of this writing, I have not yet done so.
Jim Andrews KH6HTV is a highly experienced electronics designer who has been building specialized amplifiers for use in Amateur Radio Television for more than a decade. When I saw mention of his amplifier products in his newsletter…
KH6HTV Video is my retirement, ham shack, hobby business. My objective is to supply Amateur TeleVision (ATV) products to other ATV hams who are seeking an “appliance operator” solution, rather than “home-brewing” their own gear.
… it occurred to me that if these amplifiers were designed for wideband (up to 6 MHz) television use and high duty cycles, they might also be applicable for wideband data use.
The KH6HTV-VIDEO Model 70-9B, RF Power Amplifier is for use in the amateur radio 70cm band (420-450 MHz). It is a Class A-B amplifier designed for linear service. It can be used to produce a 70 Watt FM signal or 25 Watt (pep), analog, TV signal. It can also produce a 10 Watt (rms), high-definition (1080P), digital TV signal. The rf power output can be lowered -3 dB or -5 dB for reduced DC current draw with the front panel rotary switch. Provision is included for external PTT control. It is ideal for use as the final amplifier in a digital ATV repeater.
I emailed KH6HTV to ask what drive levels his amplifiers required, explaining my quest for an amplifier compatible with Software Defined Transmitters, and this was his reply:
Amplifier Input requirements. All of my amplifiers have plenty of gain, more than sufficient to handle any of the low power SDR radios, such as you list, the Pluto, Lime & Pitaya. Check out the detailed spec. sheets. All of the amps have about 50dB or more gain.
For example -- 100 Watts RF = +50dBm -- with 50dB of gain, this calculates out to require 0dBm, i.e. 1 mW of input drive rf power.
It was a challenge to put that much gain in one box. Early prototypes became 80 Watt power oscillators before I discovered the engineering secrets. My amps are now stable and do not oscillate. They are all tested to verify stability.
All of my amplifiers have a high power output stage, but they also include a built-in, low level, driver amplifier stage which allows for RF input power of < 1mW to drive the amp to full power output.
I originally designed my amplifiers for analog TV service where they would be driven by CATV, NTSC modulators. Those modulators were used in the head end offices of the cable companies. They all put out typically a max. of 0dBm and some of them even less. So to use them and then boost the rf output to many watts really did require a whole lot of gain. Essentially the same situation you now are encountering with the various SDR rigs.
Likewise, for our digital ATV today, the modulators which we purchase are similar in output to your SDRs. They too put out at most about +10dBm. Actually most are less than that. The digital ATV modulators drive my amps directly also.
So… wow! Finally a reliable supplier of a suitable amplifier that will work with Software Defined Transceivers, and based in the US.
Currently, KH6HTV manufactures transmit power amplifiers and receive pre-amplifiers for the Amateur Radio 70 cm (420 - 450 MHz) and 23 cm (1240 - 1300 MHz) bands.
When I discussed the potential of his amplifiers for use for wideband data modes, and the possibility that other bands might be able to do higher data speeds if the FCC does remove the bandwidth limits from all Amateur Radio VHF / UHF bands, and thus 1.25 cm (219 - 220 and 222 - 225 MHz) might become a band actively used for high speed data communications, KH6HTV replied:
My amplifier design is rather universal. I could build amps similar to the 70-7, 70-9, and 23-11 for the 144, 220, 430, 915 or 1270 MHz band.
The prices would all be similar, no matter which band.
Some details to consider in using KH6HTV’s amplifiers with SDTs:
KH6HTV’s amplifiers are not inexpensive, but I consider his pricing reasonable - a good value proposition. I will purchase one (or more) when I am ready to begin building my Amateur Radio VHF / UHF Software Defined Transceiver unit.
KH6HTV’s amplifiers are unidirectional - they have an input and an output; they are not bidirectional, thus sharing a single antenna between the transmitter / amplifier output and the receiver input of an SDT must be carefully considered. (See note below.)
KH6HTV’s transmit power amplifiers do not have “transmit sensing”. The amplifier begins amplification only when the “Push to Talk” (PTT) input is triggered, or the unit’s “Xmit ON” switch is toggled. Thus there is the issue, in using a Software Defined Radio, of the SDTx providing a reliable PTT signal. Typically there’s no PTT signal available on an SDT, so perhaps part of the Software of the SDT will have to integrate another piece of hardware (simple microcontroller with a USB connection on the same computer?) to provide the PTT signal that a KH6HTV amplifier requires.
KH6HTV only builds his amplifiers for use by US Amateur Radio Operators: NOTICE: This linear amplifier is not FCC type accepted. Therefore, the use of this amplifier is only legal in the USA, amateur radio, 70 cm band (420 - 450 MHz) / 23 cm band (1240 - 1300 MHz). Owners and operators of this amplifier must be licensed amateur radio operators
As for the issue of a Software Defined Transceiver requiring isolation of the transmitter from the receiver (full duplex operation with no built in duplexer), I predict that an old technique for VHF / UHF operation will become popular again - crossband operation. Crossband operation is now easy and inexpensive by using Software Defined Receiver units that can receive, wideband signals on all Amateur Radio VHF / UHF bands. The Boulder, Colorado Amateur Television repeater operates crossband:
Input frequencies are primary, 1243 MHz, 6 MHz BW, and secondary 441 MHz, 2 MHz BW & 6 MHz BW. The repeater automatically switches to any incoming TV signal. The 70 cm output is on 423 MHz, 6 MHz BW.
Thus one of my experiments will be to transmit on, for example, 440 MHz (with one of KH6HTV’s amplifiers) and receive on 222 MHz with a SDRPlay RSP1B. I can use a tri-band antenna such as the Comet CX-333 and associated triplexer with the transmitter connected to the 440 MHz port, and the receiver connected to the 220 MHz port.
That’s the theory anyway… and it’s been just that, a theory for way too long. Now with the existence of the KH6HTV amplifiers, VHF / UHF Software Defined Radio has gotten practical for me, and that’s exciting!
Operating Amateur Radio Video
Also, I’m not ruling out the potential for using my future KH6HTV amplifier(s) for its originally intended purpose - video. Video is an interesting… um, “mode”… that could be potentially repurposed for data operations. It has long been discussed, quietly, that in the US Amateur Radio 70 cm (420-450 MHz) band that there is no restriction (other than small slivers for operations such as space, and informal band plans) of television signals that can occupy a 6 MHz channel… but “data” operation is constrained to a maximum 100 kHz channel. Thus it’s been joked for decades now that if Amateur Radio data enthusiasts really wanted to have fun with wideband data modes in 420 - 450 MHz, one way to do so, within the “letter of the current regulations”, would be to build a “television” repeater and find some clever way to encode “video” to justify the use of a channel wider than 100 kHz. One such method would be a system that transmits a data stream that regularly transmits digital photographs such as JPGs (slow scan video), with a “secondary” use of arbitrary data such as files, email, etc. Obviously it’s preferable that such workarounds for operating wideband data modes on 420 - 450 MHz will, hopefully, soon not be required if the FCC eliminates bandwidth limits on the US Amateur Radio VHF / UHF bands as part of FCC Docket 16-239.
Indeed, in a followup email, KH6HTV made a very similar point that current digital television modes are already, essentially, the digital bitstream that I imagine in the previous paragraph:
Hams Sending High Speed Data… Have you given any thought to what digital TV is all about? It really is also sending digital data bits, plus at very high data rates. The digital TV data stream is really a whole lot of addresses, data packets, bit error corrections, etc. What is different from [that] vs. “data”? Just that the data content is oriented towards video and audio vs. emails, etc.?
High speed? You betcha. For example with our DVB-T digital video broadcast - terrestrial standard, using a 6 MHz wide TV channel and 64QAM constellation / modulation we pipe out data at a rate up to about 22 Mbps. In addition to sending video and audio, our modulators also provide the optional capability to send a secondary, independent data stream of lower speed data.
Framed that way, digital television is just another protocol impressed on a data stream.
All that said, I’ve not yet explored Amateur Radio video, but that is a mode that I consider Zero Retries Interesting and it’s on the list for eventual experimentation in N8GNJ Labs, especially with this intriguing offer from KH6HTV:
Special Offer for Newcomers to ATV
If you are new to ATV and want to get started in high-definition, digital ATV, I offer you a special service. If you purchase an RF Linear Power Amplifier and combo receiver from me, I will purchase and then resell to you at cost, a Hi-Des Model HV-320E, DVB-T modulator. I will program both the modulator and receiver for you. Thus, when you receive the complete transmitter/receiver package, it will be ready to work immediately for you. Great KISS deal for turn-key, “appliance operators”.
Federal Communications Commission’s Facebook page:
We value a diverse workforce, and our HR and Office of Engineering and Technology departments recently partnered with the University of New Mexico to recruit top-tier Honors Engineers into federal careers in Electronic Engineering through job fairs at Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Hispanic Serving Institutions. If you're an Electronic Engineering student set to graduate in May 2024, we invite you to apply for the Honors Engineers Program, with applications open through July 2, 2024. You can submit through USAjobs.gov at https://www.usajobs.gov/job/767902700.
If you are, or know of, a young person appropriate for these jobs, please do so. The FCC desperately needs more technical knowledge in the organization!
From Asia Times, by Gabriel Honrada, February 20, 2024:
Device reputedly capable of real-time monitoring and analysis of wider electromagnetic spectrum, key for decoding enemy signals and making battlefields transparent.
Chinese scientists claim to have developed an advanced military surveillance device that could significantly enhance China’s electronic warfare capabilities, a high-tech realm where future conflicts will increasingly be fought and potentially decided, South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported.
The device is small in size, high in performance and low in power consumption, the SCMP report said. It will allow the Chinese military to detect and lock on to enemy signals at unprecedented speeds, decode their physical parameters almost instantly and effectively suppress them while ensuring the smooth flow of their communications, the report said.
The technology was previously considered a pipe dream due to the enormous amount of data to be processed in the heat of combat. However, Yang Kai, a professor from the School of Information and Electronics at the Beijing Institute of Technology and lead scientist on the project, gave SCMP a glimpse into the strides his team has reportedly made in the area.
The real-time analysis bandwidth of traditional spectrum monitoring systems is generally restricted to a range of 40-160 MHz. However, the new Chinese equipment has supposedly extended the frequency range into the gigahertz zone, covering the frequency range used by amateur radio enthusiasts and even Elon Musk’s Starlink satellites.
Yet another example of how inexpensive and exponential compute power is being used in radio technology to create capabilities that just weren’t possible… or practical… even a few years ago. Extrapolating from stories like this that are being reported openly, it’s not too hard to imagine what’s happening on the bleeding edge of radio (and compute) technology, such as new semiconductor devices that are being created exclusively and secretly for military and government use.
The problem that this presents for the US (military) isn’t to stay equivalent with such technological capabilities… its the ability to bring such capabilities into mainstream use in reasonable time and at reasonable cost. That takes a lot of talent in radio technology… see the first story in this issue.
Another Zero Retries Interesting Organization and Newsletter - N.E.W.S.
North East Weak Signals (N.E.W.S.) is a club in Longmeadow, Massachusetts USA with activities on VHF / UHF / Microwave bands. The club features regular meetings, an annual conference, and a Zero Retries Interesting newsletter that they make available for public access - the N.E.W.S. LETTER (clever!).
My thanks to Pseudostaffer Jeff Davis KE9V for mentioning this club’s annual conference, from which I found the newsletter.
From Amateur Radio Newsline Report 2416 for Friday February 16th, 2024:
PAUL/ANCHOR: An antenna system has received high marks for its ability to communicate with large numbers of satellites around the clock. Dave Parks WB8ODF gives us those details.
DAVE: Tests of a digital phased array antenna system in Fairbanks, Alaska, showed it to be capable of handling more than 300 satellite contacts daily - and doing it around the clock, according to the company that developed it. In reporting the results on the 7th of February of its three months of testing, L3Harris Technologies said that the prototype system also demonstrated the ability to handle as many as eight contacts at the same time.
L3Harris senior scientist Brian Haman later issued a statement saying that the company was very pleased with the results.
L3Harris has said that this kind of technology will prove especially useful in helping to achieve simultaneous horizon-to-horizon communications. It is also able to reduce any RFI it locates. L3Harris developed the array in response to government and commercial customers' needs to reach constellations in different orbital planes as well as large constellations in low-Earth orbit.
The research and development was done in agreement with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Satellite and Information Service to develop a means of collecting data from an increasing number of satellites in a cost-effective way.
Phased array antenna systems seem almost seem magical… until you factor in the immense compute power that is now available to inexpensively compute the necessary excitation of amplitude and phase angles necessary for each element of an array of small antennas. Phased Array Antennas are finally beginning to trickle down to ordinary commercial, and almost to consumer use.
ARISS engineers in the US and Europe worked hard to deliver all the equipment to NASA at the end of December.
Watch for information on ground station configuration and updates as it gets closer to integration on the International Space Station.
If memory serves, video transmissions from this unit will be digital, not analog.
VHF Communications Magazine - Now in DLARC
VHF Communications was one of my favorite magazines in my Amateur Radio career. It was published between 1969 and 2013 and I would buy it when I would occasionally see an issue for sale at a hamfest, but I never did quite go to the trouble and expense of subscribing. But I learned a lot, over time, from each issue that I got my hands on.
VHF Communications was published from 1969 and 2013. It focused on the VHF, UHF, and microwave bands. It was spun off from UKW Berichte, a German radio magazine. It is included in DLARC with the permission of publisher Andy Barter.
When a beloved publication like VHFC becomes available in DLARC, I do my favorite search, “Packet Radio”, and wow, there was a lot of good stuff. My favorite (again, from a very quick search):
The AX.25 protocol was defined around 1980, shortly after the successful Vancouver experiments. From the protocol point-of-view, AX.25 used amateur radio callsigns as addresses in an otherwise very similar protocol to other professional protocols.
From the amateur radio point of view, AX.25 was the first widespread protocol to allow automatic networking in place of simple point-to-point contacts. The AX.25 built-in but inefficient "digipeater" was soon replaced by many different AX.25 network nodes developed all around the world.
AX.25 arrived in Slovenia around 1985. Initially all contacts were made on a single frequency 144.675MHz using narrow band, voice grade NBFM (15kHz) radios with Bell-202 AFSK modems. A single 1200bps_ channel only allowed hand typed chatting. Increasing the number of channels and installing 70cm band interlinks among nodes only brought minor improvements.
The first decision was simple. In 1988 simple WBFM radios operating in the 23cm amateur band were developed, where "wide band" means 230kHz filters as used in broadcast FM receivers. These radios allowed a 38400bps network backbone with simple Manchester modems.
This article was taken from part of Matjaz Vidmar’s web site [1] and describes the new transceivers designed for a major upgrade to the Slovenian AX.25 network using a new version of the AX.25 protocol. The new protocol is described in detail on the web site.
The article provides ample descriptions about the hardware that operates at 2 Mbps, including block diagrams, some circuit diagrams, etc. This is the kind of material that could be a building block for a software implementation of a similar “radio” within a Software Defined Transceiver. The web pages at the end of the article are no longer online, but S53MV’s current web page is https://s53mv.s56g.net/
… which led me to the article Ne-Brezhibni Protokol (Non-Flawless Protocol). “NBP” was mentioned in the article above, but that linked article was no longer online. Fortunately S53MV put the complete article online, lavishly illustrated for easier understanding.
The main requirement for a new amateur packet-radio protocol is to make radio links as reliable as wire links. Any other requirements should be met by higher-layer protocols at the discretion of the end users, thus allowing as much experimentation as possible. The new protocol was named "Ne-Brezhibni Protokol" (NBP) meaning Non-Flawless Protocol.
NBP uses two different type of frames over a radio link: a data frame and an acknowledge frame. A NBP data frame includes a 32-bit tag field, two address paths, a payload and a CRC. In a radio transmission, carefully chosen 32-bit pseudo-random numbers (PRNs) are used as 32-bit tags to uniquely identify a particular data frame on a particular radio segment of the network. The same PRN is used for the initial transmission and for any retries of the same data frame.
The correct reception of a data frame is acknowledged by replying with the same PRN. The NBP acknowledge frame only contains the PRN, one single address (acknowledges may be sent to the broadcast address ALL) and the CRC.
Wow… reading more about NBP is quite the rabbit-hole that I briefly fell down. Now bookmarked / “pinned tab” for in-depth reading.
This is just a smidgen of the fascinating information that is surfacing in DLARC!
If you’re not yet licensed as an Amateur Radio Operator, and would like to join the fun by literally having a license to experiment with radio technology, check out Join the Fun on Amateur Radio for some pointers.
In its mission to highlight technological innovation in Amateur Radio, promote Amateur Radio to techies as a literal license to experiment with radio technology, and make Amateur Radio more relevant to society in the 2020s and beyond, Zero Retries is published via email and web, and is available to everyone at no cost. Zero Retries is proud not to participate in the Amateur Radio Publishing Industrial Complex, which hides Amateur Radio content behind paywalls.
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RTL-SDR Blog - Excellent coverage of Software Defined Radio units.
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More bits from Steve Stroh N8GNJ:
SuperPacket blog — Discussing new generations of Amateur Radio Data Communications — beyond Packet Radio (a precursor to Zero Retries)
N8GNJ blog — Amateur Radio Station N8GNJ and the mad science experiments at N8GNJ Labs — Bellingham, Washington, USA
Thanks for reading! Steve Stroh N8GNJ / WRPS598 (He / Him / His) These bits were handcrafted (by a mere human, not an Artificial Intelligence bot) in beautiful Bellingham (The City of Subdued Excitement), Washington, USA, and linked to the Internet via Starlink Satellite Internet Access.
2024-02-23
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