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

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