Ham Radio / Off-grid communication

triforce9001 said:
I tried to talk about radio comms in general with an IRL friend of mine and all I get as response is "discord, internet, that sounds ancient, blah, not interested" -shit. So yeah, whatever then, it's like trying to argue with a wall.
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Ham radio has always been at heart an experimental hobby for nerds and I think the ARRL and other people/orgs trying to get new people into ham radio should pivot more towards that idea. When I was operating portable, I've had kids, genuinely interested kids, come up to me and ask what my "science fair project" was all about. You can very much get new blood into the hobby, but I think hams (and not blaming anyone or talking to you specifically) are gonna fail getting people engaged with "you can talk around the world" as a motivation, because in the age of the Internet, radio is a pretty antique way of communicating and people won't really get it unless they understand how unique of a communications mode it is.

Even the motivation of "you can help in an emergency" is starting to wither dry. I've heard on the grapevine that untrained hams looking to help during disasters are starting to get turned away because they don't know much about what they're doing and federal funding for EMCOMM classes has dried up. Plus, we have Starlink now, which IMO will likely be more convenient for people and coordinators.

Radio has and always will have a future, but to get people interested, we should say stuff like:
  • "I can talk to people using the moon"
  • "Want to see me talk to somebody in Nebraska using these jumper cables and a dumpster?"
  • "Ever wanted to say hi to astronauts?"
  • "You can help out your community with big events" (won't really work out with kids, but older adults would likely be interested)
  • "You'll learn a lot about how electronics work"
  • "It can get you to not just touch grass at a park or climb a mountain but have extra fun while doing it"
Stuff like that. Lean on the tinkering and diverse nature of ham radio and you'll naturally attract the curious. That's my two cents about this particular debate.
 
Channel Catfish said:
Radio has and always will have a future, but to get people interested,
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Honestly, I've carried around my crappy memefeng just to hear what's going on in the harbour or on the bus control channels and stuff to kill time when I go to pubs after work and no one's there yet. Just talking about radio, no one cares and it's understandably hard for them to appreciate or believe the use, but if you have a handset and someone can literally hear "Uhhh, Jaghpreet, you're late for your stop at #2053, status update please... // yaass sarry saar suspension is collapse many blinkenlight on dashboard!! // Alright Jaghpreet, we're dispatching a supervisor..." suddenly they're interested.

I think stuff like talking around the world or to a state over is probably not really interesting to them; why do they care what some hicks are doing 200 miles away? But if you can show them that there is real traffic around town that is relevant to them, a lot of people at least get curious.

It's sorta like guns, really; a lot of people who are ambivalent to guns cannot be made to become interested until you take one shooting. Give someone a shitty entry-level HT and they'll be like "wait, I can just push a button and talk to someone? It's actually that easy? This fucking rules"
 
Anyone familiar with the c1101 and similar transceiver modules? I'm just getting into RF tech and experimenting mostly in the Sub 1 Ghz range

I understand the c1101 is pretty outdated. I assumed these little $4 modules operated on a set single frequency. Then I noticed code for an Arduino paired with a C1011 allows for frequency selection with common stuff like 315/433.

Does such a component exist that can be controlled with Arduino or similar that is cheap and adjustable around the 300mhz to the 2.4Ghz range? If I'm understanding modules like the C1011 are limited to certain frequencies but able to switch. I want to be able to fine to tune and set to specific frequencies to broadcast/receive.

I see very cheap modules like these,

seems to be what I'm looking for but it doesn't provide info if the frequencies are infinitely variable as in if I input 5.5 volts will I be broadcasting a different frequency than 5VDC or 6VDC?

Can I just yank out the oscillator from a c1101 transceiver module and solder in another VCO and tune voltage till I hit the frequency I want? I see VCOs for dirt cheap like the

FVCO150 ?​

vco.webp


I understand the board operates on 3.3VDC and I will have to run another circuit for the power supplied to the VCO to get my ideal frequency.




I want to get into SDR and was looking at the Hack RF1. I saw much cheaper devices that appear to do the same thing using same software. For the moment I really just want to deal in around 300Mhz to 5Ghz common consumer battery operated devices and wifi.
 
CC1101 aren't really outdated. They are an older chip but they are still made and found in a lot of mass-produced stuff like smart meters and such. Sadly you cannot tune them to any frequency you want, they cover most of the ISM ranges around the world, that is 315/433/866/915 MHz. They have internal circuittry that is tuned to these ranges and changing the clock frequency will probably make it transmit at some very low power if working at all, and is generally not feasible. And most of the cheap shit runs in these bands, so unless it uses some fancy quadrature modulation or LoRa/ZigBee then a CC1101 can transmit and receive these packets. The main idea behind a CC1101 is that you stick whatever microcontroller on one side, an antenna on the other and you have a radio interface. The same idea applies to other chips like that, semtech makes a lot of SX- chips that have different features.

If you want something that can TX in the 300 to 2400MHz range then you should get an SDR. They will all be low power because it's hard, (if not impossible) to make an RF power amplifier that has that much bandwidth. And that won't cost $4 either. Getting an SDR is definitely a great idea if you want to experiment. If you get to tuning the clock on the CC1101 modules I'm curious how it goes.

The HackRF is OK but the Analog Devices Pluto is far better for the same price. It does not advertise the same frequency range but it uses a similar RF IC inside and can be set outside of the operating band. HackRF is really cheap stuff, it works OK but nothing special. The nice thing about it is that it's "only" $200 and if you decide it's not for you then you can sell it almost instant because it's the most recognizable, especially if you get the display board.
 
I've developed a frontend for accessing the KiwiFarms over HF radio and other low-bitrate networking devices.

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POV: It's 2030 - The capital I Internet is long gone, and you must shitpost



For HF radio links, it uses a software modem that's a wrapper around the codec2 raw data modes with an added ARQ and beaconing layer [under active development].

The Reticulum Network Stack provides full end to end encryption, perfect forward secrecy and handles the networking layer.
The Nomad Net client is used to serve page requests. Selenium and beautifulsoup4 is used to render the site's content into a lightweight markdown format. While the node serving page requests does need a standard Internet connection to access the site, it's more than possible to host content without it.


The full source code for both the HF software modem and KF node will be published soon.
 
That is super cool can't wait to see it released.
Shine on you fucking autistic Dimond
 
Does anyone know where I could get a fully threaded pvc/abs pipe. I want to make a adjustable loading coil for my 40m 1/4 wave antenna to load it on 160m-60m, preferably 2inches and above in width
 
Is there a good diy kit for interested tinkerers?

I'm still learning the basics but I thin i picked up a software defined one (the one that comes on a USB?) But would like to try my hand at building one to learn the ropes
 
Jimjamflimflam said:
Is there a good diy kit for interested tinkerers?

I'm still learning the basics but I thin i picked up a software defined one (the one that comes on a USB?) But would like to try my hand at building one to learn the ropes
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Depends on your budget and what you want to make. I don't do DIY myself yet (no soldering iron) but QRP Labs makes some nice kits for relatively low cost. Looks like this page here also have some links to other kit manufacturers. Once you feel like taking your skills and budgets up another notch, Elecraft is the gold standard, but you should be ready to cough up some thousands for those. It's more of a commitment thing.
 
888Flux said:
The full source code for both the HF software modem and KF node will be published soon.
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Version 1.0 of the KiwiNode has been published https://gitgud.io/xerox/kiwinode/

Additionally you can find the HF codec2 data interface for Reticulum here: https://gitgud.io/xerox/freedvinterface
Perm said:
Does anyone know where I could get a fully threaded pvc/abs pipe. I want to make a adjustable loading coil for my 40m 1/4 wave antenna to load it on 160m-60m, preferably 2inches and above in width
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Do you have access to a 3D printer? Something like that could be modeled with OpenSCAD, I have a file for doing inductance coils
 
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VIPPER? said:
It's sorta like guns, really; a lot of people who are ambivalent to guns cannot be made to become interested until you take one shooting. Give someone a shitty entry-level HT and they'll be like "wait, I can just push a button and talk to someone? It's actually that easy? This fucking rules"
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Silly little anecdote, but years ago I was handing out $25 baofengs to anyone with the slightest bit of interest. Got a couple people into it. One dude, an antifa loser type thats way too old for that kinda shit, came up to me a few days later all pissed off "I was talking to <so in so> and they said if I hit this button <transmit> I could go to jail, dude wtf why didnt you tell me that"

I told him that if he could reach anyone with a 5w baofeng inside his faraday cage of a bugman apartment I'd pay his bail and to give the radio to someone more deserving, like a child. We haven't spoken since.
 
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I may have gotten my hands on a pair of 38ghz backhaul antennas, similar to the above picture, as well as what appears to be some driver hardware for them. I don't have nearly enough radio autism at this point to use them so I wanted to ask here.
What could I do with these? Will the FCC come knocking on my door if i turn them on, or can I play around with them for a bit without a license? AFAIK they are highly directional so if I'm just going from one side of my property to the other I think I'd be fine.
Does anyone have experience with 38ghz microwave communication?
 
As a brand new fan of radios, the moment that made everything click for me was the end of an intro to radio workshop I took.

The guy in charge gave the whole class a roll of wire and some coax and nothing else and went "Ok go make some jungle antennas"

And we did. And they actually worked. After that point radios stopped being this weirdly intimidating thing.

Yes even YOU can into radios.

@888Flux That is cool as hell. I probably would think it was cooler if I knew how to access it. Its on my ever growing todo list.
 
888Flux said:
I've developed a frontend for accessing the KiwiFarms over HF radio and other low-bitrate networking devices.

View attachment 7745021
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View attachment 7745050

POV: It's 2030 - The capital I Internet is long gone, and you must shitpost
View attachment 7745339


For HF radio links, it uses a software modem that's a wrapper around the codec2 raw data modes with an added ARQ and beaconing layer [under active development].

The Reticulum Network Stack provides full end to end encryption, perfect forward secrecy and handles the networking layer.
The Nomad Net client is used to serve page requests. Selenium and beautifulsoup4 is used to render the site's content into a lightweight markdown format. While the node serving page requests does need a standard Internet connection to access the site, it's more than possible to host content without it.


The full source code for both the HF software modem and KF node will be published soon.
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@Null Do you have any idea of how God damn cool this is?
 
I have no idea how you did this, but holy fuck great job mate. I'll check back when I'm sober. Lol.
 
Time to get a license, I guess. New frontiers for shitposting.
 
I've been wanting to do more in Radio than SDR scanning from a USB dangle on an old laptop.

How do I into HF so I read shitposts using this genius' creation? Is there a website, book, or online guide someone could point me to?
 
I wanna learn HAM radio just for this. This seems absolutely wicked
 
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