AmateurRadio.com

I’ve been watching all of the innovative work going on in the smartphone and tablet arena and wondering how we could get more of that going in ham radio. To be sure, there are always radio amateurs developing creative technology. Some examples are adaptations of D-STAR, IRLP, improvements on APRS and sound card modulation modes. However, amateur radio is missing a standardized platform for handheld communications. Such a radio platform could open up lots of software innovation in this space.

What I have in mind is a dualband (2M/70cm) handheld transceiver that is built on top of the Android operating system. (Sorry Apple Fan Boys, iOS is a non-starter based on Apple’s walled garden philosophy.) This radio would have some of the hardware features we now take for granted in smartphones: GPS, WiFi, USB, maybe even a camera. I’d also include APRS hardware built-in, similar to the Yaesu VX-8GR or the Kenwood TH-D72A. I’ve hacked together a concept photo shown on the left of this post (click to enlarge). We would probably want to maintain some of the most important direct hardware controls such as PTT, volume and channel select. The rest of the user interface would be done via a touchscreen display, where the power of the Android OS comes into play.

While this hardware configuration is exciting, the real power comes from having a software developers kit (SDK) with a stable Application Programming Interface (API). This would unleash the creativity of all those software-oriented hams out there and a plethora of apps would emerge. There are plenty of ham radio apps available on the Apple and Android platforms…it’s just they are missing the radio as part of the package. An obvious area for innovation would initially be in APRS or maybe D-STAR. We could actually have the equivalent of SMS text messaging on ham radio, backed up via the WiFi connection. (Yeah, this kind of exists already but it is really cumbersome to use due to the braindead menu-driven user interfaces of current radios.) Just think how easy programming the radio would be with a touchscreen approach.

This is the type of product development that requires significant investment, but the technology is readily available. I suppose a garage shop operation could get this done but one of the big radio manufacturers could easily pull this off. Maybe one of those upstarts from China might want to take this on. Whoever does it, just send me $5 per unit and I’ll be happy .

That’s my best idea for this morning. What do you think?

73, Bob K0NR

Even though my day job is completely centered around Information Technology I still miss changes and shifts in technology that happen practically under my nose. As much as I hear vendors speak about “The Cloud” I haven’t had much time to investigate and discover if this “new technology” is something I can put to use.

If you already know what “The Cloud” is then you can skip the following paragraph, otherwise please read on:

The easiest way to understand the cloud is to think of it as a utility, like electricity. When you plug a device into a wall outlet, electricity flows. You didn’t generate the electricity yourself. In fact, you probably have no idea where the electricity was generated. It’s just there when you want it. All you care about is that your device works. Cloud computing works on the same principle. Through an internet connection (the equivalent of an electrical outlet), you can access whatever applications, files, or data you have opted to store in the cloud–anytime, anywhere, from any device. How it gets to you and where it’s stored are not your concern (well, for most people they’re not). 

There is no end to the stream of interesting projects that are being developed “in the cloud” and its hard to keep track of them all. Some projects have turned into things that we’re all familiar with; Flickr, Facebook & Twitter are a few examples. Some appear and vanish like the proverbial “Flash in the pan” and, since you generally lose access once they run out of steam, it can be disappointing if you have invested any time in those applications.

I’ve collected a few cloud based applications/services here that might be of interest to the radio amateur and/or experimenter. They look like they should stick around for a while and have already reached a fair level of maturity:

circuits.io: Described as a free circuit editor in your browser, it is actually a lot more. You can not only design practically any kind of circuit using just a web browser, you can turn that circuit into a printed circuit board and then BUY that PCB board online. Several different technologies had to come together to make this into an effective tool. This tool is fairly new but is becoming very popular. Hopefully it will stick around and continue to mature into something great.

WebSDR: While arguably not a “cloud application” it does allow you listen to software defined radios, using a web browser, from anywhere you have internet access.
There are multiple sdr receivers located across the globe using a variety of receivers and antennas. Some are tuned to the HF bands while others cover VHF & UHF bands.
This is an invaluable free service provided by institutions and individuals at their own cost.

APRS.fi: The distributed network of Automatic Packet Reporting System stations, repeaters, clients and map servers could be considered to be “of the cloud” before the cloud even existed. With an APRS equipped radio you can log your position from a GPS, over the air & through another ARPS receiver. This is then sent out (usually) across the internet to other systems which in turn can map your location or update other APRS clients or radios. APRS has also been extended to include the ability to text message which is particularly useful in locations where cell phone SMS messages or email are not possible!

Echolink: Like APRS, Echolink links the Internet to amateur radio. However Echolink links the audio and PTT (push to talk) signals from a radio or software client to a radio in another physical location. If you’re stuck in a hotel room or another location without access to a radio you can still “get on the air” using an Echolink client on your Windows, Linux, iOS or Android computer & handheld device. Most Echolink connected stations are VHF/UHF but there are HF stations connected as well. Echolink is not designed to replace radio to radio communications but instead increases the connectivity of amateur radio operators and allows hams, who otherwise would not be able to operate, the pleasure of getting on the air.

As you can see, some of these “cloud apps” pre-date the idea of cloud computing by quite a while. Just another example of amateur radio folks being ahead of the curve without even realizing it.

I have been itching to try venturing further afield and thought we might go down to the river Derwent at Papcastle. I carried the Kenwood TH-D72 on my belt to track the walk using APRS and see how far we got. When we reached the path down to the river we saw a paper sign saying “Derventio.” Olga thought – wisely with hindsight – that it would not be a good idea to walk down to the river as we would then have to climb back up again. We walked a bit further along the road and looked down towards the river where we could see substantial excavations were taking place. This looks like being a major archeological site. One day when I’m just a bit fitter we will go down and take a closer look.

We continued our walk with a loop through the village of Papcastle, then returned home the way we had come. On the way I heard and worked Richard G1JTD portable on the summit of Great Calva, and Liz M6EPW on my local SOTA summit of Watch Hill. That will undoubtedly be the first summit I will attempt but at the moment it is still too far – about 3 miles from our front door.

I was pretty tired and very sweaty by the time we got back to Cockermouth but I resisted Olga’s suggestion that we finish the excursion by taxi. Although what we had done was an easy walk by normal standards this was my most ambitious outing since finishing my treatment.

When we got home I could see that our track had been perfectly recorded by APRS. I was happy with that – and with the two contacts I made. I had only been using one of those stubby antennas about 5 cm long which are a couple of dB down on a rubber duck.

I saved the track as a GPX file and then produced a report using one of the online GPX report generators. According to the report we had walked exactly 4 kilometres. 1.5km of this had been climbing for a total ascent of 87m. To me it felt as if I had just climbed Scafell Pike!

A couple of days ago Chris, HB9DDF sent me an email asking how to configure APRSIS32 to work with the SCS Tracker / DSP TNC. Digging through my configuration files to get the information he needed I thought: why not put the 30m APRS gateway back online? It had been off since I went into hospital last year and the K2 and magnetic loop were hardly ever used.

SCS Tracker DSP TNC and Elecraft K2 at G4ILO

I don’t know if propagation is lousy or whether things have changed since I was last on HF APRS but there seemed to be a lot less activity on the 30m APRS frequency today. An hour went by without my receiving anything. I did, however, hear quite often the “whooshing” sound of Robust Packet Radio (RPR) stations a few hundred Hz down. So I decided to configure the TNC to work in RPR mode.

Robust Packet is a mode obtainable in 300baud and 600baud versions that has been designed to take advantage of the capabilities of digital signal processing (DSP) in order to obtain reliable communication over a normal less than perfect HF path. To anyone who has experience only of traditional 300baud FSK packet RPR has too be seen to be believed. Packet after packet was decoded and displayed by APRSIS32 while conventional packet transmissions on the adjacent channel just flickered the DCD lamp and were discarded due to errors.

Robust Packet is a proprietary mode developed by SCS and is only supported by SCS TNCs. As far as I know no description exists that would enable someone to develop a PC implementation that uses a sound card. In that respect it is pretty much like Icom and D-Star. I would much rather use an open standard.

G4ILO-10 joins the Robust Packet Network

But RPR works where the old-fangled 300baud FSK invented to work on the analogue modems of 30 years ago doesn’t. I think it is in keeping with the spirit of ham radio to use state of the art technology where it provides clear benefits to communication.

So G4ILO is now part of the Robust Packet Network.

If you like APRS and cheap Chinese radios you might be interested in this Spanish balloon project which will launch tomorrow (Sunday) from Madrid. The helium balloon will carry aloft two Baofeng UV-3R transceivers connected as a transponder with a 435.450MHz downlink and a 145.840MHz uplink, an APRS module on 144.800MHz beaconing the SSID EA1RCS-11, three cameras, a radio ionosonde and a parachute. The team anticipates that the balloon could go as high as 30km, making operation or reception possible over a large area of Spain and neighbouring countries.

For more information see the project website http://cienciactiva.com/.

You can follow the progress of the Olympic torch using APRS. The name of the torch is TORCH2012. The screenshot below shows it being tracked by APRSIS32.

If you don’t have an APRS client you can follow the torch at aprs.fi by going to http://aprs.fi/?call=TORCH2012.

A couple of years ago we changed our broadband Internet service provider. The new provider did not support a static IP address. I have a QNAP network attached storage device which is primarily used for backup. However, it’s actually a Linux box that runs the LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP) software which I occasionally use as a web server for experimentation. I sometimes need it to be accessible from the internet. So I opened a free account with DynDNS in order to access the server using a host name.

Some time last year after I came out of hospital I started to receive emails from DynDNS informing me that my account was being disabled due to abuse and inviting me to open a paid account. As far as I could tell, the only “abuse” was that my script to inform DynDNS of my current IP address was running more than the number of times DynDNS permitted. I had no idea why it should start misbehaving like that and cynically thought it was just a ploy to convert free users to paid subscriptions. I was in no frame of mind to deal with the problem, nor to dig into my wallet, so I simply closed the account and had done with it. This would have had the effect of breaking some APRS-related functions on my site but I had other things of greater concern to think about.

A few days ago I decided to look into why the CDGVHF ANSRVR group was not sending any messages. ANSRVR is an APRS tool used to send APRS messages to groups of interested people. CDGVHF stands for Cumbria Dumfries and Galloway VHF group and it is intended to disseminate alerts about VHF and UHF openings in the Cumbria, Dumfries and Galloway area (grid square IO84.) It’s essentially a filter that acts on emails sent out by DX Sherlock and converts them to APRS messages addressed to ANSRVR. I could, of course, just have the emails sent to my smartphone. But it’s more fun to make use of ham radio!

I looked for an alternative free service to DynDNS and decided to try No-IP Free. As far as I can tell, No-IP won’t accuse you of abuse for updating your IP address too frequently, in fact its client software appears to do this every few minutes which seems like plenty. It does have a requirement that you confirm your account is being used once a month, which could be a bit annoying, but I’ll see what happens at the next update.

In the meantime, CDGVHF is now sending out propagation alerts again. To receive alerts of VHF and UHF openings in the IO84 area just send an APRS message to ANSRVR with the text CQ CDGVHF. You’ll need to repeat this from time to time as the server unsubscribes you from the group after 8 hours of no activity, unless you are using KJ4ERJ’s APRSISCE software which can maintain your subscription for you.