Amateur Radio

I have an Ethernet cable running PoE+ to a wifi access point outside my shack that is very close to my radios. It exhibits the typical QRM pattern, with birdies at regular intervals making a warbling sound when the rig is on SSB.

I've eliminated this problem before using chokes, but this cable is thicker (meant for outdoor use) and much closer, it runs along the same cable runway as my antenna feedlines.

I'm pretty sure the cable isn't shielded. I just bought the cheapest thing I could find on Amazon. I wouldn't trust it if it did say it was shielded. Anyway, would getting a higher category of cable help the issue? Should I try choking the cable at a different point? I did it at the switch end, not the AP end.

The other day I went for a walk, I know, shock-horror, outside, daylight, nature, the whole thing, in a local national park, for the first time in too many years. Almost immediately I noticed that this would be an excellent location for an activation. If you're not familiar, it's an amateur radio excuse to set-up a portable station in a new location, in this case, potentially something called POTA, or Parks On The Air, but you don't need to find a formal activity with rules to get on air and make noise.

I commented on how easily accessible it was, that it had picnic tables, gazebos for shelter, nearby toilets, free BBQs, ample parking, lots of open space, and no overhead power lines. I saw one solar panel on a pole and no evidence of any other electrical noise sources.

It wasn't until later that I realised the act of noticing this, in that way, with those details, is not something I would have done before becoming a radio amateur. I'd have looked at the same location, considered its beauty and serenity and perhaps in passing considered that we could have a family gathering, or a place to come back to when I wanted some peace and quiet, or a place where I might have a BBQ with friends. Not that those things went away, just that I noticed other things, now that I'm an amateur.

It made me consider just how much this hobby has irrevocably changed me.

I know I've mentioned this before, since becoming an amateur I cannot walk down the street without noticing TV antennas pointing in the wrong direction, but this change in me is not limited to that. Now I cannot help discussing the best place to put a Wi-Fi base station in a building, or thinking about and checking on solar activity, wondering about battery capacity, RF interference, trees to potentially use as sky-hooks for wire antennas, power company substations, pole-top transformers, random weird and wonderful antennas and probably more.

The point being that this hobby opens the door to a whole new way of looking at the world and I don't think I've overstated, if I say that amateur radio has literally changed my world view.

In considering this, I suspect that it's related to a cognitive bias known as the Frequency Illusion, where you notice a specific concept, word or product more often after becoming aware of it.

You might for example have experienced this with the brand or model of radio you use and suddenly discovered that there's lots of other amateurs talking about that particular piece of equipment.

I've seen this with recurring topics during the past fourteen years of the weekly F-troop net. For example, every couple of years someone discovers magnetic loop antennas and starts talking about how they've built or bought one. The conversation inevitably goes past variable capacitors, through air variable capacitors, on to vacuum variable capacitors and then the conversation generally stops. While it's happening, multiple people come on the same journey, only to follow the exact same path. Several years later, the cycle repeats.

Don't misunderstand, I welcome the discussion, point people at relevant resources and help them on this journey.

I'm commenting on the recurrence of the journey, not the nature of it because it's easy to take this example and hold it up as "there's nothing new in this hobby", but nothing could be further from the truth.

In my opinion, the level of complexity associated with radio communications is infinite and anyone, including you and I, can contribute to the discovery associated with it.

So .. what things have you noticed that were caused by this somewhat eccentric hobby and perhaps the phenomenon of Frequency Illusion?

I'm Onno VK6FLAB

I just discovered the QRP Labs QMX+ 160-6m transceiver. It's about the size of a deck of cards, and not all that expensive at all.

I suspect this is going on my must purchase list.

https://shop.qrp-labs.com/qmxp

I've owned a Yaesu FT-857d radio since becoming an amateur and at the time I was absolutely blown away by how much radio fits inside the box. It's smaller than most of the commercial radios I'd seen when I bought it.

I came across a video by Michael KB9VBR, the other day showcasing a wooden cigar box with a complete, well, almost complete POTA, or Parks On The Air, activation kit. I say almost, since Dave KZ9V, the owner of the kit, points out that the box doesn't contain an antenna.

It made me wonder how small is small?

According to RigPix, the lightest transmitter on an amateur band, in this case, the 5 GHz or 5cm band, is an Amateur TV transmitter. Weighing in at 3.9 grams. The Eachine TX-06 is capable of FM with about 18 MHz of bandwidth with an audio sub-carrier.

Of course, that's not a transceiver, but I thought it worth mentioning in case you needed an excuse for something tiny in your shack, besides, as far as I can tell, there's never too much Amateur TV in the world.

I've built a crystal radio on a breadboard which is tiny, but it doesn't transmit, so to set the stage, I think we need to limit ourselves to transceivers, that is, a device capable of both transmitting and receiving, on amateur bands.

Before continuing I'd like to express my thanks to Janne SM0OFV, for the rigpix.com database that he's been maintaining, in notepad, since 2000. Without the invaluable information documented for the currently 7,512 radios, I'd be spending an awful lot of time hunting for information.

Moving on, the FaradayRF board is a transceiver, capable of using 900 MHz or the 33cm band. It comes in at 30 grams, but without a computer it's a circuit board with potential.

The PicoAPRS by Taner DB1NTO, is a 2m transceiver specifically for APRS, weighs in at 52 grams and similar in look and a third of the weight of an Ericsson T18 mobile phone. Speaking of mobile phones, the PicoAPRS does WiFi and Bluetooth, can pair with your phone and act as an AX.25 modem. I'll confess, I'm drooling.

Moving right along, for 70cm there's a Rubicson Walk 'n' talk, weighs in at 65 grams. Mind you, the RigPix database puts this under the "License-free / PMR446" section which comes with a sage warning, check your local laws before transmitting.

There's a few Alinco DJ-C models for different markets that operate on 2m or 70cm, weighing in at 75 grams.

The ADALM Pluto weighs 114 grams, but you'll need a USB power supply of some sort to make it do anything. It can operate between 70 MHz and 6 GHz, but the user interface is limited to a single button and LED, so if you want to interact with it, you'll need some external technology.

Moving on to HF transceivers, weighing in at 199 grams, without the bag, but all the options, is the Elecraft KH1. Transmits on 40m, 30m, 20m, 17m and 15m and receives between 6 and 22 MHz. It's CW only, but you can receive SSB.

If CW isn't your thing, RTTY and PSK can be used on the 40m band with a Silent System Handy PSK 40. Presumably the Handy PSK 20 runs on 20m. Both weigh in at 250 grams.

The Zettl P-20xx SSB does SSB, AM, FM and CW, transmits on 10m, 11m, 12m and 15m as well as the MARS frequencies and receives between 14 and 30 MHz, weighs 300 grams. Even comes with CTCSS.

Another Elecraft model, the KX2 weighs in at 370 grams, does 80m to 10m and the WARC bands, does SSB, CW and data. Mind you, you'll also need to add the weight for the microphone and paddles, and factor in a computer if you want to do more than PSK and RTTY.

The Expert Electronics SunSDR2 QRP does 160m to 10m, the WARC bands and 6m. Weighs in at 500 grams, has a network port and two independent receivers. Operates at 5 Watts. There's no user interface, unless you count the reset and power buttons, so I'm not sure if it can operate on any mode with just a microphone, but given the "Depending on software" disclaimers throughout, I'm going to guess you'll need to bring a computer to make it sing.

The Risen RS-918SSB does all HF amateur bands between 160m and 10m, has a user interface and display, even a big tuning knob, has built-in FreeDV and does FM, SSB and CW. I'd hazard a guess that this is the lightest self-contained transceiver that you can take out on a POTA mission to a park. Weighs 623 grams and comes with an internal battery.

The Elecraft KX3 also does 160m to 10m, and 6m, with a 2m option. Weighs in at 680 grams, but that doesn't include any options.

And finally, we pass 1 kilogram and hit 1,100 grams and discover a radio that does all bands and modes, the Icom IC-705 with a battery, but no antenna.

The Yaesu FT-817, FT-817dn and FT-818 weigh 70 grams more, but that weight includes both a battery and antenna.

Of course there are other options.

For example, there's the (tr)uSDX by Manuel DL2MAN, and Guido PE1NNZ, does 80m, 60m, 40m, 30m and 20m, CW, SSB, AM and FM. Comes in a kit, weighs 140 grams. It's not on RigPix, so I only know about it because it was mentioned by Dave KZ9V.

Similarly, I bumped into, wait for it, a single transistor transceiver called the Pititico, in case you're wondering, Pitico means very small in Portuguese and Pititico means very very small. Designed by Miguel PY2OHH, it comes in various revisions, including one by Ciprian YO6DXE, also known as DX Explorer on YouTube, complete with a circuit board design, and with some modifications can do AM in addition to CW. It's also not in the RigPix database and I have no idea what it weighs.

The point being that this rundown is intended as a starting point to explore how small you can really get and still activate the Park or Peak you intend to.

While you're contemplating weight, remember to account for power, control, and most importantly an antenna or six.

Again, big thank you to Janne SM0OFV, for the rigpix.com website. Also, thank you for the memories of the Spectravideo SV-318 and SV-328, the last time I bumped into one of those was in 1980-mumble when I was working in a computer shop on the Haarlemmerstraat in Leiden, Mr. Micro Zap, if you're curios.

What lightweight adventures are you looking for next?

I'm Onno VK6FLAB

Over the past nine months or so I've been working on a project that I've called Bald Yak. If you're unfamiliar, the Bald Yak project aims to create a modular, bidirectional and distributed signal processing and control system that leverages GNU Radio.

One of the, admittedly many, challenges I've set myself is getting data from a radio receiver into GNU Radio across the network, preferably the Internet. Today I can report a small step in the right direction and frankly I can't contain my excitement.

Now, I need to acknowledge that I'm geeking out here. It's hard to contain excitement when you find something that seems to speak your language. It also means that I realise that I run the very real risk that I'm going to lose you before you get to why this is a milestone, so let's put that up front before I explain why.

To whet your appetite, yes, you can access a KiwiSDR across the Internet and record raw data from it and control the process externally. This is a very big chunk of the problem I've been working on and turns out to actually be live and ready to play with.

Fair warning this is technical, there are moving parts. I'll do my best to explain, but if I miss any, feel free to get in touch, you have my address, cq@vk6flab.com.

In passing, recently I made mention of the KiwiSDR community and tools that could potentially allow access to a remote receiver, although at the time I pointed out that I wasn't sure if the tools I found could access remote receivers, or if they were intended to access hardware locally.

KiwiSDR is one of a group of so-called Web SDR tools. Essentially a website where you can access a remote receiver and tune to the radio signals it can hear. SDR, or software defined radio, is a way to convert incoming antenna signals into the digital realm where computers, and in this case, the Internet, live.

Turns out that a tool called "KiwiClient" takes a hostname and a port as a parameter, so much so that the in-built help shows this as the first example. What this means is that you can essentially run a copy of KiwiClient on your own computer and use it to access a KiwiSDR across the Internet.

The first commit was on the 8th of May 2017 and thanks to the efforts of about 14 developers, KiwiClient is the software equivalent of a KiwiSDR multi-tool. This is exciting all by itself, but this gets better.

You can specify more than one server. This means that you can record two, or more, signals from across the globe, and capture these simultaneously.

You can set the decode mode, which I immediately used to tune to a local broadcast station and recorded it from two different receivers across the Internet, allowing me to not only compare the difference in delay between the signals, but also the reception differences. It's fascinating to hear the same station from two receivers, one in each ear, all manner of different propagation artefacts become apparent.

Then I got a little more adventurous and discovered that one of the supported modes is I/Q, which means that I can, and did, download raw sample data across the network, which can then be used within GNU Radio. This is important because the aim for Bald Yak is to process the signals separately from the receiver.

It gets better.

There is a radio fax receiver that automatically saves pages as they are processed, something that you could use to access weather fax services.

Then there's a tool you can link to "WSJT-X", which you might recall is an application that can decode weak signals. Not only that, the tool supports "fldigi", a digital radio mode application. Both those applications can control the radio using Hamlib rigctl, which means that KiwiClient supports changing frequencies of the receiver, across the Internet, though truth be told, I haven't yet tested that .. my available computing resources are still strictly limited.

Oh, the software also has the ability to record waterfalls, do scanning, and provides tools to analyse waterfalls in jupyter notebooks.

Getting this to work wasn't too hard. The instructions on the KiwiClient GitHub repository are pretty good. I've made an initial Dockerfile on my own GitHub repository to download and install the software. It's unimaginatively called "kiwiclient-on-docker". I've yet to discover a good way to add or update Dockerfile functionality to existing projects, feel free to make suggestions.

Now I absolutely understand that this level of excitement might not universally translate and that's fine. It's yet another example of how rich and diverse our amateur radio community really is.

What gets your excitement levels going?

I'm Onno VK6FLAB

Hello! I just got an SDR and decided to start listening. As a teen, I bought a scanner from someone and used to fall asleep listening to all the various different conversations. I decided I should probably start again and get my license (for which I am studying).

The SDR I got is "RTL-SDR Blog V4 R828D RTL2832U 1PPM TCXO HF Bias Tee SMA Software Defined Radio with Dipole Antenna Kit " and I'm able to pick up some things (various shortwave, FM, AM, nearest airport, etc.), however I can't seem to get the IBP beacon nearest me. This could be in part due to literal mountains between us, I suppose (Japan problems), but I hear no beacons on any of the listed frequencies.

I am using the di-pole antenna included in the kit, fully extended, attached to the east side of my house (about 3km away from the pacific, but I have mountains west and some taller hills north and south). "2x 23cm to 1 m telescopic antennas." is what it says so I suppose It's a bit over 2m tip-to-tip oriented vertically.

Should I be able to receive any of the IBP beacons with my antenna, position, and orientation? Am I doing something obviously wrong? I'm happy to go fish if you point me in the right direction, but my searching hasn't turned up anything useful so far (probably user error in that I don't know exactly what to search for).

Thanks very much!

Added several more "On The Air" activations:

• Historical Sites On The Air
• Inland Waterways On The Air
• Mills On The Air

If you know of others not in this list, please let us know.

The other day I stumbled on a random post by Gary N8DMT which caused me to view the world in a different way. The post outlined combining a PlutoSDR and an application called SATSAGEN to measure the frequency characteristics of a coupler.

Aside from a detailed description, the post includes a couple of excellent photos showing the PlutoSDR connected to the coupler and the output piped back into the Pluto.

Before I continue, a PlutoSDR is a Software Defined Radio or SDR, officially it's called the ADALM Pluto Software Defined Radio Active Learning Module. It's essentially a full-duplex radio and computer in a box. It runs Linux and connects to the world via USB, and of course radio, unofficially between 70 MHz and 6 GHz. I've talked about this device before. When I say full-duplex, I mean that it can transmit and receive at the same time.

Gary's post triggered something unexpected in me. The notion that you could use two patch leads, one connected to the transmitter, the other connected to the receiver, joined together by a device that you might want to test.

It immediately reminded me of another device that was given to me, a NanoVNA, a device that's specifically designed to measure things like impedance, frequency response, generate Smith charts and all manner of other characteristics.

Not only that, it also reminded me of another device, a TinySA, specifically designed to analyse spectrum and to generate signals.

Both the NanoVNA and TinySA are lovely tools, but in looking at the post it suddenly occurred to me that their functionality, at least superficially, appears to mirror the PlutoSDR, in that you can create a signal and then measure that signal.

Turns out that I'm not the first to make this observation. For example, the YouTube channel "From Concept To Circuit" goes through the process of describing precisely the concepts behind both a spectrum analyser and a network analyser while showing the programming code in Python. The channel also provides that code in a GitHub repository, which includes several other very interesting examples, like a beamforming transmitter as well as a beamforming receiver, also covered on YouTube.

Another example is a tool I already mentioned, SATSAGEN, by Alberto IU1KVL, which implements a wideband spectrum analyser. Although it's Windows only, Alberto includes information on how to run it using Wine under Linux and MacOS. As a bonus, SATSAGEN in addition to the PlutoSDR, also supports RTL-SDR dongles, HackRF, USRP, RSP1, AirSpy, and many others.

If text is more your thing, "retrogram-plutosdr", shows a spectrogram in your terminal window. Check out the "r4d10n" GitHub repository belonging to Rakesh VU3RGP, who says that the "retrogram" project is "hacked from" the "RX ASCII Art DFT" example, which you can find on the Ettus Research GitHub repository.

One thing to consider is that the various GitHub repositories I've pointed at, will give you access to the moving parts of how all this works.

I will mention that my favourite tool in this space continues to be GNU Radio, but I understand that you might not want to roll your own tool from parts. That said, rolling your own is in my experience a great way to discover precisely what you don't know and to come away learning more, but then, that's just me.

Regardless of your chosen tool, I think the takeaway should be that when you try something new, even if it's only new to you, the idea of writing down what you discovered and sharing it, is a fantastic way to grow our community. Remember, just because something is old hat to you, doesn't mean that it is to the person you share it with.

Besides, based on the current global birth rate, there's at least a thousand babies born during the past four minutes, some of whom will become radio amateurs, so, share.

Said differently, if you come across a person who has never heard of the "Diet Coke and Mentos" thing, it's your job to immediately drag them to the nearest grocery store and introduce them. In case you're wondering, xkcd 1053.

Now, I'm going to update the firmware on my PlutoSDR and have a play, I already know about the Mentos, but if you don't, you're in for a treat.

What are you going to do next?

I'm Onno VK6FLAB

Bring ChatGPT AI to your Meshtastic mesh network with a simple Python bot. One internet connected node serves the whole mesh, enabling instant answers for survival, field ops, education, and more showcasing just how flexible and extensible Meshtastic can be.

I’m going to try and hop on 20m in my high-noise floor area (lots of EMI) and try to QSO on 10-12W.

I suppose I should practice Morse code, too.

How about you?

E: Fediverse PSA: Getting your (US) license has never been easier—there is no Morse code requirement! Just memorize the answers to the questions (perfectly legal) and take the test, I did all three of mine online, one of which was from a beach on a Pacific island during the pandemic!

I bought a Radtell RT-880G HT from Amazon. I want to upgrade the firmware, but Chrome and Firefox flag all the firmware versions as malware. Now I'm used to Windows whining about unsigned software. No, Bill, it's not dangerous, the vendor just didn't feel like forking over the dough to get your precious certificate. But when two different browsers raise a red flag I take notice.

What's the deal here? I went to the address in the instruction manual (radtel.com) although it redirects to radtels.com.

I also can't get the radio to communicate with the programming software, which is what prompted me to try and update the radio firmware to begin with.

cross-posted from !Brussels:

Old radio pagers sometimes surface in the 2nd-hand market. So the question is, are they strictly nostalgic ornaments, or can we still get service for them?

In principle, emergency response services /should/ still be using pagers because SMS is unreliable, while 1980s radio pagers are far more robust. But OTOH Belgium seems to be increasingly disregarding robust availability to bow down to digital transformation, which pushes us toward fragile novelty of all things digital.

If Belgium was wise enough to keep pagers in play, the next question is whether just anyone can get service, or only ambulences? I vaguely recall hearing about Belgacom pulling the plug on pager service, but that could potentially just be in terms of the general public.

It’s also theoretically possible that Ham radio folks could be supporting a POCSAG service, but then it would be interesting to know whether old commercial pagers can be easily modified for ham frequencies.

Recently I discussed the idea of listening to the radio spectrum across the internet for the purposes of getting signal into your shack when radios, or in my case, antennas are causing you challenges.

I continued to explore and discovered a project by Jacobo EA1ITI, called "radioreceiver". Behind that unassuming name lies a tool born in 2014, that allows you to plug an RTL-SDR dongle into your computer, open up your web-browser, and listen to the radio signals that your dongle can receive.

In case you're unfamiliar, an RTL-SDR dongle is a small USB device, looks a lot like a USB thumb drive, jump drive, data stick or flash drive, basically a hunk of plastic with a USB connector on it. An RTL-SDR dongle generally also has some form of antenna connector. It's typically sold as a digital radio and digital television receiver, but websites like rtl-sdr.com sell purpose built ones. They can be found starting at about $15.

I realise that this is using a local receiver, with a local antenna, but it's inside a web browser, which is half of what I expected. When you hit the play button in the bottom of the screen, you'll be prompted by your web browser to give permission to access your RTL-SDR dongle and the fun starts. You'll see a live waterfall, hear audio, and have the ability to tune to any frequency you can reach. Depending on your dongle, typically somewhere between 500 kHz and 1.76 GHz.

The application consists of seven files, a total of 352 kilobytes that you can store on any web server and run, with one caveat, in order for your web browser to talk to your dongle, it needs to be served using HTTPS. Jacobo has set-up radio.ea1iti.es and I've set-up sdr.vk6flab.com, both showing the same tool. You'll find the code on my VK6FLAB GitHub repository, and of course on Jacobo's.

There are some things you need to know. You will need to use a web browser that supports WebUSB, currently that's Chrome, Edge, Opera and several others, sorry, Safari and Firefox don't .. perhaps it's time to talk to Apple and Mozilla. All is explained if you click on the little question mark at the bottom of the screen, it will even tell you if the browser you're using to read the help is compatible or not.

If you have an Android phone, you can run this tool too, although you will need to find a way to connect your dongle to your phone. I'm currently limited in my ability to test this and you may need to install some drivers on Windows and Linux, but MacOS and presumably Android, works out of the box. The software also supports offline operation, so you can load it as a Progressive Web App, or PWA, and use it in the field away from the internet.

Did I mention that all the decoding is happening inside the web browser, so you can see which code is doing what .. and before you ask, yes, it's minimised in the browser, which you can make into human readable code, but when you look at the source, it shows precisely what is happening, all written in Node.js, TypeScript and JavaScript.

It supports CW, SSB, AM, Narrow and Wideband FM and decodes stereo, something which none of my amateur radios do.

You might be able to tell that I'm excited. It's because this is providing the basic functionality of a radio inside a web browser, and I didn't need to install it to get started. On the Macintosh I tested this on, I literally opened the web page, plugged in a dongle and hit play. Just so we're clear, just because this is using a web page on a web server, you accessing it will only give you access to your radio not mine.

This of course opens the doors to all manner of other fun stuff which I'm expecting to play with for the next little while, and yes, this is also Bald Yak adjacent, I'm aware.

In the meantime, you can play with this right now, sdr.vk6flab.com is the place to go. Word of warning, it's addictive and easy to forget it's a radio with an antenna plugged into your computer, so take precautions when electrical storms are about.

Look forward to hearing what you discover.

I'm Onno VK6FLAB

I get the impression that shortwave is a relic of the pre-internet age. But I wonder what's the least implausible scenario that would make the medium attractive again.

Foundations of Amateur Radio

One of the many challenges associated with being a radio amateur is actually being able to listen to weak signals. If you're like me and more than half the planet, you live in an urban area, which comes with the benefits and pitfalls of having neighbours.

From a radio perspective, there's plenty of noise that drowns out weak signals, so more and more amateurs are finding new and interesting ways to deal with this.

Over the years I've talked plenty about so-called web-sdr, or internet accessible software defined radios. Essentially a radio receiver, preferably in a radio quiet area, hooked up to some software that allows you to listen in using a web browser. There's thousands of internet based services across the globe, the most popular of those are websdr.org and kiwisdr.com.

As a new amateur you might have visited one or more of these and tuned around to listen to various radio stations and QSOs or contacts between amateurs, on bands that you can't access because you don't have the gear, or frequencies that are drowned out locally by your neighbour's pool pump, air conditioner, LED lighting, solar power inverter, television, motor home, cycle, or whatever else they seem to have an endless supply of behind closed doors.

As a crusty amateur, and after about 15 years, I'm probably one of those, you might have started experimenting with building your own, or you might be blissfully unaware of these internet marvels.

Either way, one restriction you run into is the ability to do anything other than listen. You might get the option to pick between Upper and Lower Side Band, or AM, sometimes even FM, but generally that's your lot.

This means that trying to use such a tool to decode WSPR, or FT8, or RTTY, CW, PSK31, or whatever else takes your fancy becomes a challenge.

It occurred to me that if you're able to capture the raw signal from a web browser, you could feed that into your decoder of choice. It would also mean that you wouldn't need any local hardware to start playing.

Before you get all hot and bothered like I did. This is a non-trivial process that several others have attempted to wade through with varying levels of success. Much of the documentation I've discovered revolves around virtual audio cables and loop back software, and even the idea that you physically plug your computer's speaker output into your line input, or even hold a microphone up to your speakers.

Aside from the lack of elegance associated with such contraptions, they require that you install all manner of weird software, and in many cases deal with permissions, since microphones are generally locked for good privacy reasons.

Prompted by the webserial tool by Phil VK7JJ, it occurred to me that if we can talk to actual physical hardware within a web browser, then we can probably use a web browser as an audio source for local decoding software. Before you start hunting for the source code, there is none. I've spent the past few days playing around and although I made a waterfall display inside GNU Radio that used the audio from websdr.org, the results were not amazing, and I created a proof of concept by using a tool called BlackHole on the Macintosh I was using at the time. It's essentially doing shenanigans with audio mapping, not something which I really want to do, but it gives me a pretty picture, or not, as the case may be.

More interesting is the progress being made over in the KiwiSDR community, where there is already an I/Q button, in other words, the raw data needed for processing further down the line. I came across projects that link the KiwiSDR to other tools, but it's unclear if that's the hardware, or the web client, I suspect it's the hardware, but I might be mistaken.

If you're not sure what this might mean, think about listening to the same frequency at the same time across the globe using multiple web browser tabs, and comparing the signals in real time, or decoding them, or using them for comparing signal strengths, or propagation, or any number of things that are currently only possible with a vast network of radios under your own control.

If you need to nerd out on the technicalities, the idea is that if you can access an SDR via a web browser, it would be cool if we could decode the stream coming back without needing to install software on the computer. There appear to be tools that do this kind of thing to get the audio into "ffmpeg". If that's gobbledegook to you, ffmpeg is a tool that allows you to do all kinds of cool stuff with audio and video. Using something called WASM, or webassembly, it's possible to link web browser audio to ffmpeg. I suspect it's possible to use the same mechanism to send audio to GNU Radio, or any other decoder, for processing. There also appears to be a thing called a Web Audio API AudioBuffer where the raw audio gets sent to, so perhaps that's accessible in some way. The point being, that I think this is doable, so much so, that I suspect that someone already did this.

If you know of anything that fits the bill, let me know.

In case you're wondering, this is tangentially linked to the Bald Yak project I've been working on, mainly because I need incoming RF into my shack and my HF antenna situation at present is really not up to the task, urbanite and all.

I'm Onno VK6FLAB

Every single radio amateur has come to this hobby with an itch to scratch. Time and again I've seen amateurs around me pursue that particular purpose, only to come out the other end with a look of bewilderment writ large across their face. For some amateurs it means the end of their involvement in the hobby, for others it starts a new journey into the unknown.

One of the ways we explore our community is by travelling out of our shack into the big outdoors in whatever form that takes. Popular activities include setting up a radio in a location and talking to others, known colloquially as an "activation". We do this all over the planet. Perhaps the most recognisable of these is IOTA, or Islands On The Air, where a station is erected on an island and contacts are made. As amateurs we cannot help ourselves and seem to have an insatiable need to measure our prowess. We do this by counting how many contacts, callsigns, countries, grid-squares, or in this case, islands, we've managed to put in the log.

If an island represents a new callsign, a new country, and a new grid-square, the contact making will turn into a feeding frenzy that can last for days, especially if the station offers multiple bands and modes, making the effort all the more tempting.

We don't stop with islands. Summits, with Summits On The Air or SOTA are popular, as are Parks, POTA, and even over a weekend, the International Lighthouse and Lightship Weekend, or ILLW.

Some of these activations follow rules set out by amateurs like you and I, who thought it would be fun to track such activations and encourage others to participate. For example IOTA World publishes a four page document outlining what's required for those on the island, activators, and those trying to make contact, or chasers. This raises an important point. Rules require documentation, which leads to discussion and disagreement, and versions. I can show you two versions of the IOTA World rules, neither is dated, of course both are different, so if you're going to publish rules, make sure you add a date or version, preferably both, to the rules document.

Disagreements aside, sometimes there are multiple programs with the same name or aims. Two groups came up with the same idea and didn't know about each other, or, a group in a different country wanted to run the show in a different way and a new group was formed.

I'm mentioning this because sometimes these groups are antagonistic towards each other and have forgotten that the whole point of this is to have fun.

So, what else can we activate?

Well, there's Castles and Stately Homes, Bunkers, Beaches, Museums, Walmart Parking Lots and even Toilets On The Air, mind you, Slow Scan Television, or SSTV is discouraged as a mode.

The other day the power was off for maintenance in my street and I planned on escaping to the local library, which caused me to search for libraries across Perth. It seems there's pretty much one in every suburb and I considered the notion of activating a library or three, comes with easy access to public transport, a car park, and even toilet facilities, what's not to like? I wondered what might be a suitable exchange so it could incorporate the library itself, promoting amateur radio and libraries, two birds and all.

I made a comment on mastodon.radio and it turns out that Frank K4FMH beat me to it, several years ago. Libraries On The Air, or LiOTA. I've been hunting for a dataset of libraries in Australia to give to Frank, but it's been slim pickings, despite there being over 10,000 of them, apparently around 10% of those public.

It raises another question, is there a directory of activation types anywhere? I couldn't find one, so I started a list on my GitHub repository. Feel free to add any I missed.

Toilet jokes aside, consider that TOTA is being held during the annual Hackers On Planet Earth conference and it will introduce new people to our amateur community, which ultimately might be the best reason to have fun, get on-air and make noise.

I'm Onno VK6FLAB

Amateur radio operators love to make contacts with other amateurs, seeking any excuse to get on-air and make noise.

This is an unordered list of programs and sites which facilitate such activities. Note that some activities have cross-over, parks, peaks, summits and flora & fauna for example.

If you'd like to update the list, login to GitHub, click the pencil at the top of this document and suggest an update.

Remember, the purpose of this is to have fun!

73 de Onno VK6FLAB