Ham and Software - Communities of Creativity?

lgreco asks: "I've been thinking about the similarities between the community of early ham radio operators and software developers. Both communities produced a lot of useful technologies that found applications beyond the scope of a 'just a hobby'. Ham radio operators built their own equipment and experimented with modulation and propagation techniques. The results of their efforts today are used in a variety of radio communication applications, from cell phones to marine radios. Similarly, hackers developed concepts of computing that are now universally accepted tools of productivity. Both communities share an enthusiasm for technical creativity and up until recently there was even some overlap between the two groups. Are there any interesting stories about the creativity of either groups (that relate to the other group perhaps) that should be recorded and documented?"

Comments

Perhaps a little off the mark

[spyrochaete]

Ham is to pirate radio stations as hacker is to hacktivism (e.g. defaced web sites)

Re:Out of the loop

[n8ur]

Yeah, that struck me as ill-informed.

There are more than a few well-respected hackers (in the good sense of the word) are hams, and there's a lot of software development going on in ham radio.

In particular, ham operators are doing lots of work with new digital modes made possible by using the sound card + PC as a powerful DSP platform. There's a lot of good stuff going on there.

Blatant plug -- I'm president of TAPR, which is a group that's promoting computer-related R&D in the ham radio community. Along with the ARRL (the US national ham group), we sponsor an annual Digital Communications Conference where papers are presented on all sorts of new uses of technology in ham radio.

PS -- for the hams here who may not be familiar, TAPR is not significantly focused on packet radio these days; we're doing lots of other stuff related to digital communications.

Still lots of overlap

[Anonymous Coward]

Check out the gnu-radio project
http://www.gnu.org/software/gnuradio/
Th e TAPR group (not just packet radio anymore all sorts of digital communications topics)
Eric and Matt from the gnu-radio project were at the TAPR digital communication conference again this year.
http://www.tapr.org
Here's some more linux ham software listed:
http://radio.linux.org.au
Also check out The Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation (AMSAT):
http://www.amsat.org
The next major sat project named Eagle will use as much open source software and open hardware as possible.
There are also many notable hams who are also linux hackers, just to name one Bdale Garbee, former Debian Project head and CTO for linux solutions at HP, whom I met at the TAPR DCC this year, he is very active with both TAPR and hardware design on AMSAT satellites.
Also check out the June and September issue of Linuxjournal for gnu-radio and a psk article (Sept).

73, w0uhf

Re:Hopes

[lostchicken]

Amateur Radio isn't at all relegated back to a hobby without development.

Go pick up a copy of QST (the ARRL's magazine). Flip through it. You'll see all kinds of articles on people developing more and more transmission and encoding techniques. Pretty much all of the development focuses on digital (packet) radio systems, and since power outputs are limited, (sometimes by law, but usually just because it's fun to be challenged) amateur radio operators have developed pretty much the best ways of dealing with interference and robustness in transmission of data.

Today's ham tech is 2007 commercial tech.

XASTIR

[n1ywb]

Best. ham. radio. software. ever. I wish every application was so great.

http://www.xastir.org/

Fun Stuff

[leighklotz]

I've been a ham since I was 7, but was inactive from the college years until recently. There's a tremendous number of things to do, from building your own low-power and medium-power equipment to computer-connected stuff, to Microwave (10 GHz is popular, and the 3.5 GHz band is getting more interesting these days too) and VLF (how about a signal on 176 KHz?).

Personally, I've ejoyed the following lately:

• PSK-31 -- a cheap soundcard-based text-to-text mode that uses only 31Hz of bandwidth and goes around the world on 5 watts
• XML for Ham Radio -- I've started a consortium to develop XML standards for ham radio, starting with an extensible logging format, and working with everyone from QRZ and eQSL.cc on the server side to xlog for Linux and Ham Radio Deluxe for Windows and others.
• RPSK -- a TCP/IP based protocol for remote operation of a PSK station with a Java applet client and a hiptop client. (The antenna is not hooked up right now so don't expect the applet to work.)
• HFPack -- portable and picnic table operation with HF radio; I talked to Estonia with an Elecraft KX1 and about 4.5 Watts
• An RSS feed for APRS -- working with APRSWorld I developed an APRS to RSS converter to help HFPackers let people know where and when they are operating, so people can listen for them.
• Kit building -- I have built an Elecraft K2, one of the most sensitive ham transceivers in the world, their KX1 (one of the smallest and most featureful), a Small Wonder Labs PSK-20 specific to PSK on 14.070 MHz, and a variety of American QRP Club and Four-State QRP Club kits. For more power, I built an 50 Watt HF Amplifier in a group project and am working on a 100W one.
• CW -- I learned Morse Code at 5 so it was easy to pick back up after a couple (ok, a few) decades of disuse, and it's been a blast as well.

Check it out and take a look at my Ham Web Log for more stuff.