AmateurRadio.com

Ham Radio Deluxe has announced that the final free version of HRD will be removed from their servers September 1, 2013.  After the HRD freeware product was sold by its author, it was converted to a commercial software product.  The current owner, W4PC, has stated that the freeware 5.x version will continue to be free, however they will no longer host the files for download and there will be no further development on the 5.x version.  Others may host the files for download free of charge.

I hate to keep sounding like a broken record, but the situation with HRD, and in particular with the 5.x freeware version, illustrates just why freeware is a problematic software model and ultimately a technological dead end for a hobby like amateur radio.  Luckily with HRD, development is continuing with the commercial product.

Do you use other freeware amateur radio programs?  Ask your favorite program authors if they would consider open sourcing their software.  If they don’t, ask them why not and what do they have to lose.

There’s an interesting BBC article involving Hiram Stevens Maxim, the father of Hiram Percy Maxim who was the founder of ARRL and a mover and shaker in the nascent world of wireless back in the early 20th century.  Both Hiram junior and senior were inventors.  Hiram senior invented several items but was known most for the Maxim machine gun, the first portable firearm of its kind.  Outside of the radio work we know him for, Hiram Percy Maxim also invented a silencer for firearms and what was essentially a muffler for car exhaust systems.

A contemporary firearms engineer and inventor in Europe named William Cantelo mysteriously disappeared in the 1880s when he went on a road show to sell his new invention to investors and manufacturers, a repeating firearm.  Cantelo, his body, or evidence of foul play was never found, however rumors of him being in America were circulated.

To add to the mystery, the resemblance between Hiram Stevens Maxim and William Cantelo is quite striking.  The similarities in appearance along with their common talents in firearm inventions led to claims that Maxim was really Cantelo.  This has never been proven, and it’s been written that Hiram Stevens Maxim was not interested in engaging the Cantelo family’s questions about his identity.

The Mystery of the Vanishing Gun Inventor

Did you ever hear a DX station calling KQ, all stuck together like a prosign, instead of calling CQ?  I’ve heard this several times in recent years and I’ve wondered what’s up with that.  Is it too difficult to throw the extra dit in there?

But I digress….

Here’s a cool little video from HowToLou.com (I’m guessing this guy is named Lou) with a third prototype of a homemade engine made strictly from hardware store parts.  It’s not quite working yet, but it’s rather interesting and I think he’s on the right track.

I’m more electronically inclined than mechanical and have some ideas on how to make the timing of the spark and the exhaust valve better, using electronics.  But I probably couldn’t do it with just hardware store parts, unless perhaps the hardware store sells radios that I can scrounge parts from.

One of these homebrew engines coupled with a homebrew generator connected to a QRP rig would make a nifty little project to show at your local ham club or field day.

The Drone It Yourself is a kit to take ordinary objects and turn them into flying remote-controlled drones.  The concept is simple: clamp four electric motors with propellers and a control unit onto whatever object you desire, and fly it around the neighborhood.

While it may be fun to terrorize the XYL or spy on the neighbors with this, I see this possibly having some useful real life applications in amateur radio.  I’m not sure of what kind of battery life this unit has, but imagine hovering a remote controlled HT at 80 feet for an ad hoc repeater.

A guy could really get into some trouble with one of these :-)

Fresh from the Unless You’ve Been Living In a Cave, You’ve Heard of This department, there’s been much ado over the FCC Petition for Rulemaking seeking encryption for emergency communications.  I won’t go into the details of the petition as you can read that several places elsewhere.  Technically encryption on amateur radio bands is illegal.  However, in reality the FCC has been letting it happen for years and the ARRL has turned a blind eye to it.  D-STAR uses a proprietary vocoder that takes an analog voice signal and converts it into a data bitstream.  The algorithm isn’t publicly documented and you can’t decrypt it, unless you buy a proprietary chip.

Some may quote § 97.309 (4)(b) which basically says one can transmit an “unspecified digital code” as long as the digital code is not intended to obscure the meaning of the communication.  Presumably the people who created and use D-STAR don’t intend to obscure the meaning of the communication, so perhaps it is within the law.

So, say I create a new digital communication mode.  It features a compression algorithm and I just happen to XOR the data stream with a 10 million bit pseudorandom bitstream to randomize it so a long stream of zeros or ones won’t screw up a modulator.  I document the algorithm and the 10 million bit key on some corner of the Internet.  It’s technically publicly documented, but in practice no one will go to the trouble of attempting to build a decoder.  I’ve achieved encryption in a roundabout way.  Whether my intentions were to obscure the meaning of the communications or make a modulator-friendly bitstream is anyone’s guess.  But with the inaction over the D-STAR vocoder and the wording of § 97.309 (4)(b), intention rules the day.  So while this debate over the petition is being framed in a discussion of encryption, it’s really the intent to obscure communications that’s at the heart of this.

I don’t have a horse in this emcomm race, but I’m not in favor of allowing obscuring messaging.  If the FCC does allow it, others are going to want to use it for their noble causes, like preppers under the guise of “homeland security”.

(D-STAR is a registered trademark of Icom, Inc.)

Google has announced Project Loon, an experiment to use balloons aloft at about 60,000 feet / 20 km to provide broadband wireless Internet service to the hinterlands.  The Loon moniker is somewhat of an admission that the project is a bit crazy and a play on the word balloon, but it does have a sound technological foundation.  The technology is much cheaper than satellites and naturally easier to launch.

The experiment is beginning this month with the launch of a handful of balloons from New Zealand which will orbit about the 40th parallel and navigate around New Zealand using varying direction and magnitude air currents at various levels.  Beta testers have been selected in New Zealand to try out the system.

The idea of using aircraft to provide wireless services isn’t new, and radio amateurs have been launching experimental balloons with radios for quite awhile although recently there has been an upshot in interest.  Google is known for using open source software and contributing open source technology back to the community.  I’m curious if Google will open source the hardware, perhaps enabling amateur radio to benefit with its own balloon network similar to this someday.  Current typical amateur radio balloon missions last only a few days.  Having several balloons aloft could perhaps be an alternative to satellites which are becoming increasingly expensive and difficult to launch.

The Project Loon site has a nice video detailing the project here.