I find the history of all-in-one-cables interesting. I come from ancient video production (late 80s time frame), which means I was still using equipment from even earlier. Back then some of these AIOCs were 1" round with 15-20 pins. It was all analog signals which meant each signal needed its own pin. Some AIOCs were D-style connectors with up to 15-20 pins that were not compatible with things like VGA/DB25/SCSI types of computer cables. Going digital drastically reduced the number of pins for old parallel connections and down to one as the signal became serial. My favorite was SDI which carried the video and audio down a single pin coax cable with a twist lock BNC connector. Consumer grade released DV cables and then HDMI. Both of which are inferior in my opinion specifically for their lack of locking when connected, but their extra pins do allow for interesting things consumer friendly like ARC and ethernet/data stuff.
SDI is definitely still used, and still found on professional monitors. I think locking is not worth it for consumer-grade equipment, where cable reconnexions are rare, but some push-in connectors are better than others. For example, VGA without screws is a bad idea.
Oh, this is cool. It's like a DIY Digirig! I really like that it is MIT-licensed (open source design).
You could change the audio plugs to sockets so you can use the device with radios that have the speaker/mic plugs at a different gap (Icom HTs seem to have the plugs at 10mm apart[0] instead of the Kenwood/Baofeng/etc. spacing of 12mm[1].
Yeah seems like making these 3.5mm receptacles would be the icing on the cake -- in fact, might even win some converts marketing it as an open source digirig.
It's definitely still worth getting into, and in many ways it's more accessible than ever. Equipment prices are lower than ever, and there is so much information available on nearly any subject within the hobby.
A few hot things right now:
* FT8 and other weak-signal digital modes are so good at long-distance communication that it almost feels like magic.
* Software-defined radio (SDR) opens up a new world of cheap signal processing. This is why a $300 radio today can outperform a $3000 radio from a decade ago, or why you can buy a NanoVNA vector network analyzer for $65 and it fits in your hand, rather than paying $5000 for a used HP VNA that barely fits on your desk.
* Near-field communications, like RFID and keyfob hacking. The Flipper Zero is a fun little widget for this.
Personally, I enjoy FT8, CW/Morse code with a straight key or bug, antenna design (wire antennas are cheap and endlessly tweakable), and portable operation. I'm interested in amp design as well, but that's mostly confined to reading circuits and daydreaming. :)
I'm pretty deep into radio and never in a million years would have thought I would be. I even remember giving a co-worker a hard time for getting his ham radio license. Now, I'm a full-fledged GMRS and ham nerd.
1) It's worth getting into for 3 reasons: emergency communications, learning about some very interesting technical things like how antennas work, networked repeater systems, and there's a social aspect to talking with others on simplex and repeaters. Radio is far more technical than I ever realized and it's a very deep topic.
2) There are some good YouTube channels that can give you a quick overview of what's possible (Ham Radio Crash Course, Ham Radio 2.0) I also have a podcast where I talk about GMRS (similar to ham but very limited) at gmrs.fm
You might be surprised at how interesting radio can be. I was.
I'll answer you second question first, ham radio crash course is probably the most popular amateur radio you tuber.
I got licensed about a year ago and I'm still having a blast with it. There is the standard ways of communication via radio, voice and continuous wave (morse code). Most modern radios are able to be connected to a computer to communicate with other radios digitally. Digital modes are generally better for low power.
I have a lower end 20 watt radio and I can regularly talk to all of the continental united states, but depending on conditions I have reached South America and eastern Europe.
The US exams involve a lot of memorization; for the Technician and General exams, I highly recommend running through the questions in the $3.99 HamStudy app/completely free hamstudy.org website. For the Amateur Extra, I crammed using "Pass Your Amateur Radio Extra Class Test - The Easy Way!" by Craig Buck, and the title is completely correct: it isn't "Deeply Understand the Material on the Extra Class Test," and is useless for anything other than passing the current US Amateur Extra Class exam. "Amateur Radio Extra Class Licensing" by Stephen Horan did a bit more education and has been worth looking at since passing the exam.
I passed my exams, and while I paid close attention to all of the safety/legal things (and looked them up for Germany, where I live and later converted my license), I left fully understanding the technical parts for after I got licensed and was able to start doing. For example, I memorized a bunch of stuff about antennas to get the questions right on the exams; over the past few months, I've been modifying and scavenging the ones I bought early on and making my own.
Will note that having a license can be useful outside of ham, too. E.g. if you're a hiker it can be handy to be able to carry a "real" radio with you. The license test doesn't cost much and is super easy (the entire pool of questions/answers is posted online and there are study guides).
There are endless things to do, depending on your interests. Whether you enjoy ham radio or not probably depends more on what sub-community that you get involved with, rather than "ham radio" generically. I have been licensed for 50 years now -- what keeps me interested is a mix of: 1. I belong to an active contest-oriented club, and participate in several HF radiosport competitions each year. 2. Building HF antennas from stacks of raw aluminum tube, 3. I am in the process of building an FM repeater for the 1200 MHz band. 4. I am studying-up on software-defined radios, and hope to scratch-build some kind (any kind, really) of SDR transceiver that works acceptably. 5. In the past I have done weak-signal VHF/UHF DX'ing, and might cycle back to that activity again.
Anyway.... there are an infinite number of other things that you can get into, depending on what mood strikes you. Satellites? Check. Digital television? Check. Remote control stations? Check. I tend to switch around. My guiding philosophy: "It's a hobby -- if you aren't having fun, you are doing it wrong."
As I mentioned above, the communities that you participate in, be they meat-space or on-the-air, will shape your enjoyment. Visit some clubs. You might get lucky on the first probe, but if that crowd doesn't resonate with you, try another. As I mentioned above, I belong to a contest club because the dominant personality type is a little competitive and a lot inquisitive, always looking for ways to improve station and operator performance. In contrast, there are public-service/emergency-communication oriented clubs, so if providing comms for a bicycle rally or participating in a severe-weather observation network is more your style, look for a group that does that. There are home-brew clubs where everyone is into scratch-building radios, if you are more the experimenter type.
The ARRL web site has license study material and other training material. Most places in the USA have local volunteer clubs that run license exam sessions.
Totally! I got my tech back in the '10s and just got my general a few months ago. The coolest tinkering part is the antenna. So much cool physics and mental imaging of emission patterns based on the length and frequency you want to broadcast on. The digital modes are so neat too by allowing contacts without needing to speak/helps people with some anxiety about sounding silly on the radio : )
You can talk to satellites on 20 and 70cm, which I haven't gotten into yet but seems really cool. I have just started playing with 10/20/40m with a little time spent listening on 80/160m. Just scanning through the EM spectrum with a waterfall showing a section of bandwidth is so interesting.
1. I got my license in college, since my advisor was a big radio guy. I never really could get into it because it’s inherently social (you have to talk to people over the radio). That’s not to say people were unfriendly- everyone really was welcoming. I just never built a “sticky” social connection to it. I was young and didn’t really need more socializing while in school, and didn’t try to make it work...
2. The best trustworthy guide is a person IRL. But others have listed great online resources too.
The technical stuff is super fun and you could spend a lifetime playing with the cool equipment and fiddling with your setup. BUT if you don’t make a social connection and interact with others, it gets old. I keep my radio for emergency purposes (probably good enough reason alone to get into it), and because I see the appeal of it as a hobby, but I almost never use it.
There is a ton of events and things people do “in the community”. There are competitions of all sorts, and meetups, and radio-related things. I haven’t done any, but I also didn’t see much in other comments so I’m hoping people with more knowledge can share.
There’s also related tech like packet radio which is kinda like “dial up over radio”. That’s what the original article linked would most likely be used for. There are emergency prep groups, including completely digital tech that doesn’t use traditional radios like SFWEM and AREDN (basically an emergency mesh WiFi network using special frequencies and commercial equipment).
The test was easy to anyone with a technical background (electrical, not software). To everyone else it’s still pretty doable with studying and prep. I was in school studying electronics, but I think I studied for like 3 total hours for the test. It’s a mixture of topics ranging from regulation to antenna information. IMO the test gives you a good insight into part of the hobby. If you enjoy studying for it you’ll enjoy the technical stuff.
I haven’t picked up my radio in years. Every time I move, I think “surely the Bay Area has a lot of hams, this is a good time to try it out again” and then never get around it it.
YMMV and I don’t want to disparage or discourage anyone from trying it out. There’s a ton of cool things to do. It’s just a reminder that it’s social.
The coolest thing I have seen is that people meet up on a pre shared frequency at a given time and take roll call. If that doesn’t sound exhilarating, it might not be a hobby for you.
1.) Absolutely, DIY aspect is still very strong (which is why I'm in in personally, I think it's pretty cool and interesting) Low Power modes (QRP) are magical. Recently increased solar activity has further enhanced these modes :)
2.) Plenty on YouTube nowadays (Ham Radio Crash Course, W2AEW, etc.), there are a few blogs here and there that you'll run into when you have specific questions. For exam prep, I loved the Gordon West books.
On a personal note:
Today actually marks my tenth year of being licensed :)
10 Years ago I took the tech and general class exams and passed, after studying some of the Gordon West books and using an Android app question generator at the time.
9 Years ago (at time of posting this in two days), I upgraded to Extra Class.
Like most new hams nowadays, I started out with a $35 Baofeng and $20 RTL-SDR dongle. It wasn't till after college and getting a full-time job that I finally invested into HF (Yaesu FT-991A, FT-818ND). For the past year, I've been building QRP rig kits, and learning CW.
Having a license definitely gave me some bonus points on job/internship interviews for electrical engineering jobs (Specifically RF/Mixed signal specialized positions).
Hamfests, especially the bigger ones like Orlando Hamcation and Dayton Hamvention, if you're very lucky like me can get some pretty good deals on test equipment and second hand rigs. I got very lucky last year in finding a Signal Hound BB60C Spectrum Analyzer for $400! (Current MSRP is pushing $3600+).
I've heard and seen a lot of negative stories about the hobby. Yes a lot of older folks (the "RF-Boomers" as I like to call them) tend to be pretty stubborn and hostile, try to avoid them. There are a lot of good folks that want to help (the True elmers of the hobby), spend a lot of time with them. I've been very fortunate to be a part of two clubs (Dayton Amateur Radio Association, and Platinum Coast Radio Society (Melbourne, FL)) that are very welcoming, friendly, and very active.
I can keep writing about all of the positive aspects of the hobby, but TL;DR I highly recommend it!
I got my license a few months ago. There are active repeater nets in my area, and several clubs. There's a whole variety of activities to do: DXing (trying to achieve long distance contacts), building and testing radio kits, contesting, and just generally talking to people.
As far as guides, we'd need to know what you're interested in. The ARRL handbook is a huge technical reference, but it's actually quite sparse in terms of setting up a station and making contacts. Although that's understandable, the process is different for many radios and you're better off reading the transceiver's manual
I enjoyed learning and tinkering with it for a few years but haven't been on much recently. Partly I just didn't try hard enough to learn more, but I was also a little disappointed omat how much the conversations are inevitably about antennas and contesting. Still, I met lots of fun interesting people through the local clubs.
You can rag chew, or control drones from afar. You can beacon your position and see your friends via aprs. You can check your winlink email or send some (yeah not the most exciting) and of course lots of digital modes for keyboard-to-keyboard over radio.
For the curious - I followed the "How to Fab" instructions to get pricing. Came out to $57.72 + tax/shipping for QTY 5 from JLCPCB.com . That includes making the PCB and assembly of the components besides the TRS connectors. Cheaper than I thought!!
This interfaces with four parts of a handheld radio transceiver:
* Audio In (mic)
* Audio Out (speaker)
* Push To Talk button
* Serial UART reprogramming interface.
It's useful because you can hook your computer up to a radio with a single device and use the cable both to reconfigure the radio but also for APRS (Automated Packet Reporting System), which is a really cool system by which standard digital packets containing arbitrary information are repeated through a network of ground stations worldwide. Think an "IOT mesh network" from before buzzword technology (and unfortunately with a much higher power requirement than the modern LoRa based systems).
This has always been possible using a sound card and some method to manipulate the PTT interface, and a separate UART cable swapped in for reprogramming, but having everything together on one cable is a nice convenience.
Where's the 'buy' button? For an ok price, I'd totally buy this, and then forget about it until it arrives, then be playing with it for a day, and then forgetting it in some drawer.
My father is an avid ham operator and unfortunately at his age, his health is declining.
Soon he will have to move from a remote location where he has all the antennas for various bands etc and I wonder if there’s some Internet to radio bridge so he could still use his equipment remotely?
For radios that don't have a network interface, RemoteRig sells a box that will network-enable most radios, either via PC control or using a detached control panel: https://www.remoterig.com/wp/?page_id=362
There's also no lack of ways to homebrew this using a RaspberryPi and the right cables: https://rigpi.net/
(FlexRadio also makes some very impressive programmable SDR radios that are entirely network controlled, if you were buying new equipment. Amazing gear, not cheap though.)
If any of his gear has CAT interfaces, a simple solution would be to use a PC with a CAT cable and the audio running to a soundcard. Flrig allows for remote control over the network and voice can be passed to the remote PC. He can do digital, voice, and CW all from the comfort of his bed with a laptop and headset. If he only has really old fully analog gear, this won't work and he'd be better off using KiwiSDR or buying him a "shack-in-a-box" type unit that would let him do anything from HF to UHF with his existing antenna and coax lines.
My dad is a ham radio operator and uses this to use his equipment remotely. Your can run your own server and connect to it or use ones that other people make public (though some of them you need to be part of a radio club for)
It boggles my mind. Many of the newer hand held radios are sdr based but they instead insist on providing only proprietary interfaces that only work with their shitty proprietary digital modes so if you actually want to use a radio to do interesting things in the digital space, you need to go antenna to ADC to DAC to ADC to your CPU to DAC to ADC to DAC to antenna with a gain control step at every translation using all these little ADC+DAC modems that are popping up.
This whole state of affairs is painfully stupid and holding ham radio back several decades. We need open source SDR handheld radios like the M17/OpenRTX folks are working on.
More than that, literally all of this is trivial to do over Bluetooth. Which also provides galvanic isolation. Every rig should just have this built in.
The fact that the industry hasn't figured this out, absolutely boggles me.
> Maybe integrate a TNC Modem with KISS interface? (I am not sure if that is worth the effort)
This makes me sad.
Several years ago, I ran a packet radio / AX.25 server, and used it to hop around Southern California, Mexico, Oregon, Nevada. It was super fun, but there were very few peers to actually chat with.
I used the KISS interface on my KPC-3 to also run a Zork server from a Raspberry Pi -- anyone could login and play Zork, and the state was persisted, so you could logoff and continue later. So much fun, so few visitors.
Yeah I miss packet also. We used to have long chats on the local BBS and in the monitor window sometimes. And I'd hop all over the country and sometimes even via satellites.
But APRS totally killed packet :'( Now it's just a dumb positioning service that nobody interacts with, they just leave it on auto mode.
I wonder if APRS hadn't happened, would faster packet modes have continued to be developed? The problem was that 9600 was fast enough for APRS so nobody cared about making a faster mode.
TIDRadio make something similar to this with a Bluetooth interface instead of the cable. It's a decent piece of hardware, but the app is pretty bad and limited.
There's a market in ham radio for a Bluetooth interface to replace the ancient programming cables and software we all use for both HT's and mobile transceivers.
One radio does this (the VGC VR-N7500), the interface for the entire radio is an app, but the app again is horribly designed. If it were some kind of open protocol, app developers could do some truly interesting things with it.
Last time I checked, APRSdroid reccomended not to connect your (handy) radio to your cellphone [0] via audio cable, among other reasons, due to lack of shielding that could stop any excesive voltage/current signal from reaching your phone. Does this design take this into account?
It should be slightly better than connecting it directly to sound card, as in "the chip might fry first", but doesn't look like there is any optoisolation in it
Now add something like the AT1846 “walkie talkie” transceiver chip and some RF switching and filtering, and we’d have a self contained “USB VHF adapter” sort of thing…
[+] [-] dylan604|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] anikom15|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] amatecha|3 years ago|reply
You could change the audio plugs to sockets so you can use the device with radios that have the speaker/mic plugs at a different gap (Icom HTs seem to have the plugs at 10mm apart[0] instead of the Kenwood/Baofeng/etc. spacing of 12mm[1].
[0] https://forum.digirig.net/uploads/default/original/1X/7e23c4...
[1] https://i.stack.imgur.com/BMmRJ.jpg
[+] [-] jkingsman|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Yhippa|3 years ago|reply
1. Is it still worth getting into? What kind of cool things can you do with it?
2. Are there any good or trustworthy guides recommended?
[+] [-] gamache|3 years ago|reply
A few hot things right now: * FT8 and other weak-signal digital modes are so good at long-distance communication that it almost feels like magic. * Software-defined radio (SDR) opens up a new world of cheap signal processing. This is why a $300 radio today can outperform a $3000 radio from a decade ago, or why you can buy a NanoVNA vector network analyzer for $65 and it fits in your hand, rather than paying $5000 for a used HP VNA that barely fits on your desk. * Near-field communications, like RFID and keyfob hacking. The Flipper Zero is a fun little widget for this.
Personally, I enjoy FT8, CW/Morse code with a straight key or bug, antenna design (wire antennas are cheap and endlessly tweakable), and portable operation. I'm interested in amp design as well, but that's mostly confined to reading circuits and daydreaming. :)
Hope you find something you enjoy in here.
-Pete K1QG
[+] [-] donniefitz2|3 years ago|reply
1) It's worth getting into for 3 reasons: emergency communications, learning about some very interesting technical things like how antennas work, networked repeater systems, and there's a social aspect to talking with others on simplex and repeaters. Radio is far more technical than I ever realized and it's a very deep topic.
2) There are some good YouTube channels that can give you a quick overview of what's possible (Ham Radio Crash Course, Ham Radio 2.0) I also have a podcast where I talk about GMRS (similar to ham but very limited) at gmrs.fm
You might be surprised at how interesting radio can be. I was.
[+] [-] jneumann004|3 years ago|reply
I got licensed about a year ago and I'm still having a blast with it. There is the standard ways of communication via radio, voice and continuous wave (morse code). Most modern radios are able to be connected to a computer to communicate with other radios digitally. Digital modes are generally better for low power.
I have a lower end 20 watt radio and I can regularly talk to all of the continental united states, but depending on conditions I have reached South America and eastern Europe.
[+] [-] MandieD|3 years ago|reply
I passed my exams, and while I paid close attention to all of the safety/legal things (and looked them up for Germany, where I live and later converted my license), I left fully understanding the technical parts for after I got licensed and was able to start doing. For example, I memorized a bunch of stuff about antennas to get the questions right on the exams; over the past few months, I've been modifying and scavenging the ones I bought early on and making my own.
[+] [-] gh02t|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dbcurtis|3 years ago|reply
Anyway.... there are an infinite number of other things that you can get into, depending on what mood strikes you. Satellites? Check. Digital television? Check. Remote control stations? Check. I tend to switch around. My guiding philosophy: "It's a hobby -- if you aren't having fun, you are doing it wrong."
As I mentioned above, the communities that you participate in, be they meat-space or on-the-air, will shape your enjoyment. Visit some clubs. You might get lucky on the first probe, but if that crowd doesn't resonate with you, try another. As I mentioned above, I belong to a contest club because the dominant personality type is a little competitive and a lot inquisitive, always looking for ways to improve station and operator performance. In contrast, there are public-service/emergency-communication oriented clubs, so if providing comms for a bicycle rally or participating in a severe-weather observation network is more your style, look for a group that does that. There are home-brew clubs where everyone is into scratch-building radios, if you are more the experimenter type.
The ARRL web site has license study material and other training material. Most places in the USA have local volunteer clubs that run license exam sessions.
[+] [-] DrAwdeOccarim|3 years ago|reply
You can talk to satellites on 20 and 70cm, which I haven't gotten into yet but seems really cool. I have just started playing with 10/20/40m with a little time spent listening on 80/160m. Just scanning through the EM spectrum with a waterfall showing a section of bandwidth is so interesting.
[+] [-] vineyardmike|3 years ago|reply
1. I got my license in college, since my advisor was a big radio guy. I never really could get into it because it’s inherently social (you have to talk to people over the radio). That’s not to say people were unfriendly- everyone really was welcoming. I just never built a “sticky” social connection to it. I was young and didn’t really need more socializing while in school, and didn’t try to make it work...
2. The best trustworthy guide is a person IRL. But others have listed great online resources too.
The technical stuff is super fun and you could spend a lifetime playing with the cool equipment and fiddling with your setup. BUT if you don’t make a social connection and interact with others, it gets old. I keep my radio for emergency purposes (probably good enough reason alone to get into it), and because I see the appeal of it as a hobby, but I almost never use it.
There is a ton of events and things people do “in the community”. There are competitions of all sorts, and meetups, and radio-related things. I haven’t done any, but I also didn’t see much in other comments so I’m hoping people with more knowledge can share.
There’s also related tech like packet radio which is kinda like “dial up over radio”. That’s what the original article linked would most likely be used for. There are emergency prep groups, including completely digital tech that doesn’t use traditional radios like SFWEM and AREDN (basically an emergency mesh WiFi network using special frequencies and commercial equipment).
The test was easy to anyone with a technical background (electrical, not software). To everyone else it’s still pretty doable with studying and prep. I was in school studying electronics, but I think I studied for like 3 total hours for the test. It’s a mixture of topics ranging from regulation to antenna information. IMO the test gives you a good insight into part of the hobby. If you enjoy studying for it you’ll enjoy the technical stuff.
I haven’t picked up my radio in years. Every time I move, I think “surely the Bay Area has a lot of hams, this is a good time to try it out again” and then never get around it it.
YMMV and I don’t want to disparage or discourage anyone from trying it out. There’s a ton of cool things to do. It’s just a reminder that it’s social.
[+] [-] birdyrooster|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hongseleco|3 years ago|reply
2.) Plenty on YouTube nowadays (Ham Radio Crash Course, W2AEW, etc.), there are a few blogs here and there that you'll run into when you have specific questions. For exam prep, I loved the Gordon West books.
On a personal note:
Today actually marks my tenth year of being licensed :) 10 Years ago I took the tech and general class exams and passed, after studying some of the Gordon West books and using an Android app question generator at the time. 9 Years ago (at time of posting this in two days), I upgraded to Extra Class.
Like most new hams nowadays, I started out with a $35 Baofeng and $20 RTL-SDR dongle. It wasn't till after college and getting a full-time job that I finally invested into HF (Yaesu FT-991A, FT-818ND). For the past year, I've been building QRP rig kits, and learning CW.
Having a license definitely gave me some bonus points on job/internship interviews for electrical engineering jobs (Specifically RF/Mixed signal specialized positions).
Hamfests, especially the bigger ones like Orlando Hamcation and Dayton Hamvention, if you're very lucky like me can get some pretty good deals on test equipment and second hand rigs. I got very lucky last year in finding a Signal Hound BB60C Spectrum Analyzer for $400! (Current MSRP is pushing $3600+).
I've heard and seen a lot of negative stories about the hobby. Yes a lot of older folks (the "RF-Boomers" as I like to call them) tend to be pretty stubborn and hostile, try to avoid them. There are a lot of good folks that want to help (the True elmers of the hobby), spend a lot of time with them. I've been very fortunate to be a part of two clubs (Dayton Amateur Radio Association, and Platinum Coast Radio Society (Melbourne, FL)) that are very welcoming, friendly, and very active.
I can keep writing about all of the positive aspects of the hobby, but TL;DR I highly recommend it!
73
KD8TUO
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] Manuel_D|3 years ago|reply
As far as guides, we'd need to know what you're interested in. The ARRL handbook is a huge technical reference, but it's actually quite sparse in terms of setting up a station and making contacts. Although that's understandable, the process is different for many radios and you're better off reading the transceiver's manual
[+] [-] acidburnNSA|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vorpalhex|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ryandotsmith|3 years ago|reply
- KN6LLA
[+] [-] dsalzman|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rvcdbn|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bri3d|3 years ago|reply
* Audio In (mic)
* Audio Out (speaker)
* Push To Talk button
* Serial UART reprogramming interface.
It's useful because you can hook your computer up to a radio with a single device and use the cable both to reconfigure the radio but also for APRS (Automated Packet Reporting System), which is a really cool system by which standard digital packets containing arbitrary information are repeated through a network of ground stations worldwide. Think an "IOT mesh network" from before buzzword technology (and unfortunately with a much higher power requirement than the modern LoRa based systems).
This has always been possible using a sound card and some method to manipulate the PTT interface, and a separate UART cable swapped in for reprogramming, but having everything together on one cable is a nice convenience.
[+] [-] ajsnigrutin|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MuffinFlavored|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Temporary_31337|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thrwawy74|3 years ago|reply
http://kiwisdr.com/
http://rx.kiwisdr.com
Your father could be anywhere and enjoy listening from... anywhere? :-)
[+] [-] tjohns|3 years ago|reply
For radios that don't have a network interface, RemoteRig sells a box that will network-enable most radios, either via PC control or using a detached control panel: https://www.remoterig.com/wp/?page_id=362
There's also no lack of ways to homebrew this using a RaspberryPi and the right cables: https://rigpi.net/
(FlexRadio also makes some very impressive programmable SDR radios that are entirely network controlled, if you were buying new equipment. Amazing gear, not cheap though.)
[+] [-] wildzzz|3 years ago|reply
http://www.w1hkj.com/W3YJ/Remote_Article.pdf
But you can use whatever old PC you can dig up rather than a raspberry pi.
[+] [-] Awmusic12635|3 years ago|reply
My dad is a ham radio operator and uses this to use his equipment remotely. Your can run your own server and connect to it or use ones that other people make public (though some of them you need to be part of a radio club for)
http://www.remotehams.com/help.html .
[+] [-] wkat4242|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] xxpor|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 7373737373|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] edrxty|3 years ago|reply
This whole state of affairs is painfully stupid and holding ham radio back several decades. We need open source SDR handheld radios like the M17/OpenRTX folks are working on.
[+] [-] myself248|3 years ago|reply
The fact that the industry hasn't figured this out, absolutely boggles me.
[+] [-] jacobmarble|3 years ago|reply
This makes me sad.
Several years ago, I ran a packet radio / AX.25 server, and used it to hop around Southern California, Mexico, Oregon, Nevada. It was super fun, but there were very few peers to actually chat with.
I used the KISS interface on my KPC-3 to also run a Zork server from a Raspberry Pi -- anyone could login and play Zork, and the state was persisted, so you could logoff and continue later. So much fun, so few visitors.
[+] [-] jmbwell|3 years ago|reply
https://www.richardosgood.com/posts/how-to-setup-a-raspberry...
https://www.kevinhooke.com/2021/04/12/running-an-ax25-netrom...
I’ll be surprised if anyone ever hits my node but me. Fun anyway!
[+] [-] wkat4242|3 years ago|reply
But APRS totally killed packet :'( Now it's just a dumb positioning service that nobody interacts with, they just leave it on auto mode.
I wonder if APRS hadn't happened, would faster packet modes have continued to be developed? The problem was that 9600 was fast enough for APRS so nobody cared about making a faster mode.
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] donniefitz2|3 years ago|reply
There's a market in ham radio for a Bluetooth interface to replace the ancient programming cables and software we all use for both HT's and mobile transceivers.
One radio does this (the VGC VR-N7500), the interface for the entire radio is an app, but the app again is horribly designed. If it were some kind of open protocol, app developers could do some truly interesting things with it.
[+] [-] toomuchtodo|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ajot|3 years ago|reply
[0] https://github.com/ge0rg/aprsdroid/wiki/Projects
[+] [-] ilyt|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jmbwell|3 years ago|reply
Now add something like the AT1846 “walkie talkie” transceiver chip and some RF switching and filtering, and we’d have a self contained “USB VHF adapter” sort of thing…
[+] [-] sflicht|3 years ago|reply
Was expecting a fine tuned version of ChatGPT that specializes in sounding like Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez.