If you would like to be a ham, go to this page and fill out the form. The folks at ARRL will send you information on becoming a ham. Also, read this part on getting licensed.
There is a lot more to it than CB, and a lot of the stuff you hear on CB shouldn't ever be done on ham radio. And ham radio is not a gift. Expect to do some work to become a ham.
I don't think so. Red Cross asked for people who had experience with digital modems over HF radio, and VHF digital for shorter range. The satellite is usable, and we are indeed building a satellite that is geosynchronous (not geostationary) and designed for emergency communications, but satellite is probably not a major part of that operation.
The real requirement was that the satellite not transmit on those frequencies. There isn't any problem with receiving. A satellite with this size and cost is often built without ROM, simply because of the cost of space-qualified ROM which must be rad-hard for decades of operation. It loads its computer program into RAM using a completely hardware implementation driven by ground control with the CPU reset line asserted for the whole time. Once the program is loaded, the CPU is allowed to start. The CPU may be horribly antique by today's standards due to the need for silicon-on-sapphire for rad-hardness. Satellites of that age could even be using the 1802, as that was one of the few CPUs we could get in silicon-on-sapphire and AMSAT-DL (Germany) wrote an embedded OS for it.
So, the big switch from Air Force operation was likely a reload of the software, and AMSAT is probably now in control of that software. It is likely that the satellite can be reloaded from multiple frequencies, and the "encryption" used to do that is rudimentary. A computer system designed this way is harder to kill than one that requires the CPU to load a program.
AMSAT does handle orbit control for its own satellites, but in general no ham radio satellite is designed to de-orbit or to require periodic orbit maintenance. Rather, they are designed to operate with indefinite lifetimes in slowly-decaying orbits, and AO-7 has operated, with interruptions, for 43 years. Most Amateur satellites are passively stabilized, and magnetic stabilization systems have been used often.
You might be surprised. It only requires the Technician class license, which is no big deal to pass. A hand-held crossed 440/146 beam antenna will make it and costs less than $100, you don't really need an azimuth-elevation rotator. You learn how to point this by hand and wave it around until you hear the satellite. The required radio power would work with a walkie-talkie but a mobile/base radio is more likely to have the input and output that works with 9600 Baud modems. I am not clear whether a 9600 TNC works or whether you just use sound cards and a software modem.
The voice birds require that handheld antenna and a dual-band walkie-talkie, and that's all.
There is not currently any operating partnership between SpaceX and AMSAT. This might be more about AMSAT than SpaceX, though. I don't think they have satellites ready to go when an opportunity comes up. They generally get an opportunity years ahead and then build the satellite. I am peripherally involved with a geostationary satellite they are doing with FEMA.
AMSAT on the bottom of this page specifies 3 programs as "Software for operating via the Packet BBS". But I see that at the moment it is open for live QSOs but not automated ones.
Did I say otherwise? It's been operated by AFIT people in recent time, but was built mainly by 3 hams and I accept that they were with Air Force Academy.
Receivers are de-sensitized by close-by transmitters on the same band. Having the uplink and downlink be in a separate band avoids this. Terrestrial repeaters use a big piece of RF plumbing to avoid this, which would increase the weight of the satellite.
I have a Bluetooth LE crypto token that's not much larger than a Yubikey. But your point about NFC supporting powering the device from the receiver is valid. I find NFC rather difficult to use, though. There is a specific point on the phone that you need to hit, and a specific point on the card, and some card-phone combinations are picky.
Selling the phone is important to achieve those other missions. So, the phone has to have features that users desire. NFC unlock is a pretty nerdy feature, and the vast majority of the user community probably don't know that it exists or care.
Google marketing was more enthusiastic about NFC when they first deployed it than its user community ever was. Eventually, Google got the message.
I think this had so few users that there wasn't a good reason to keep it going in the face of the other unlocks offered. Android can use a place, the sound of your voice, a look at your face, the bluetooth MAC ID in your car, etc.
Bitcoin is only deflationary when viewed alone, as if no other cryptocurrencies existed or could exist. Cryptocurrencies are not deflationary because there is no limit on the creation of the next one.
I agree that the value of shelter and food is different in different places, but that is a matter of definition. Regarding who would provide it, it has naturally so far been nations that back their currencies. Although this has fallen out of fashion. After nations, there are international organizations such as the EU.
Although a health-and-welfare based currency has its issues, surely they are not greater issues than a fiat cryptocurrency. Basing on a variable and somewhat problematic thing of value beats basing on nothing other than confidence.
Having the another country printing is own fiat currency does not really affect the price of the USD.
But in that case, they are other countries. Cryptocurrencies in contrast are linked to no particular nation. There are a number of alternative cryptocurrencies that are currently somewhat liquid, such as Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, Ripple and Litecoin.
While bitcoin implements an internal limit on the creation of more bitcoins, that limit does not control the creation of alternative cryptocurrencies to bitcoin. So, you get the same effect as that of nations rushing to print more national currency.
All of this points toward a time in the future at which confidence in currency that does not represent real value will collapse as confidence in it erodes.
That should say "All of this points toward a time in the future at which currency that does not represent real value will collapse as confidence in it erodes.
Bitcoin is a demonstration of the absurdity of fiat currency, taken to excess. Its basis is already-performed work on a computer to come up with a number based on previously-computed numbers. The numbers generated have no practical value except in reference to each other.
Some people are, absurdly, willing to exchange such numbers for things of real value. But this odd behavior is far from guaranteed to persist.
Similarly US dollars are based upon the faith in, and credit of, the government of the United States. Said government currently has a head of state who engages in behavior that does not inspire faith, and repeatedly threatens to renege on agreements - thus not providing any operational basis for credit.
All of this points toward a time in the future at which confidence in currency that does not represent real value will collapse as confidence in it erodes.
A valid currency would be one that has a non-negotiable value based on provision of food and shelter, these being things essential to human welfare that can not be changed into data or made from data.
All other currencies are fictional things. That people have faith in them today does not mean they will tomorrow.
See the Wikipedia page on Rotor Ship. This is a 1920's invention, and a relatively large ship was built in 1926 and is documented in the German Wikipedia. Even if you don't translate the page, the photo is clear.
If you have to enlarge the frame by grabbing different widgets at different places, and manipulating them differently, good luck with filing a bug report to developers who aren't using the same theme as you.
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If you would like to be a ham, go to this page and fill out the form. The folks at ARRL will send you information on becoming a ham. Also, read this part on getting licensed.
There is a lot more to it than CB, and a lot of the stuff you hear on CB shouldn't ever be done on ham radio. And ham radio is not a gift. Expect to do some work to become a ham.
I don't think so. Red Cross asked for people who had experience with digital modems over HF radio, and VHF digital for shorter range. The satellite is usable, and we are indeed building a satellite that is geosynchronous (not geostationary) and designed for emergency communications, but satellite is probably not a major part of that operation.
The real requirement was that the satellite not transmit on those frequencies. There isn't any problem with receiving. A satellite with this size and cost is often built without ROM, simply because of the cost of space-qualified ROM which must be rad-hard for decades of operation. It loads its computer program into RAM using a completely hardware implementation driven by ground control with the CPU reset line asserted for the whole time. Once the program is loaded, the CPU is allowed to start. The CPU may be horribly antique by today's standards due to the need for silicon-on-sapphire for rad-hardness. Satellites of that age could even be using the 1802, as that was one of the few CPUs we could get in silicon-on-sapphire and AMSAT-DL (Germany) wrote an embedded OS for it.
So, the big switch from Air Force operation was likely a reload of the software, and AMSAT is probably now in control of that software. It is likely that the satellite can be reloaded from multiple frequencies, and the "encryption" used to do that is rudimentary. A computer system designed this way is harder to kill than one that requires the CPU to load a program.
I broke the ARRL web site :-). Try the AMSAT site instead.
- K6BP
AMSAT does handle orbit control for its own satellites, but in general no ham radio satellite is designed to de-orbit or to require periodic orbit maintenance. Rather, they are designed to operate with indefinite lifetimes in slowly-decaying orbits, and AO-7 has operated, with interruptions, for 43 years. Most Amateur satellites are passively stabilized, and magnetic stabilization systems have been used often.
You might be surprised. It only requires the Technician class license, which is no big deal to pass. A hand-held crossed 440/146 beam antenna will make it and costs less than $100, you don't really need an azimuth-elevation rotator. You learn how to point this by hand and wave it around until you hear the satellite. The required radio power would work with a walkie-talkie but a mobile/base radio is more likely to have the input and output that works with 9600 Baud modems. I am not clear whether a 9600 TNC works or whether you just use sound cards and a software modem.
The voice birds require that handheld antenna and a dual-band walkie-talkie, and that's all.
There is not currently any operating partnership between SpaceX and AMSAT. This might be more about AMSAT than SpaceX, though. I don't think they have satellites ready to go when an opportunity comes up. They generally get an opportunity years ahead and then build the satellite. I am peripherally involved with a geostationary satellite they are doing with FEMA.
AMSAT on the bottom of this page specifies 3 programs as "Software for operating via the Packet BBS". But I see that at the moment it is open for live QSOs but not automated ones.
Did I say otherwise? It's been operated by AFIT people in recent time, but was built mainly by 3 hams and I accept that they were with Air Force Academy.
Receivers are de-sensitized by close-by transmitters on the same band. Having the uplink and downlink be in a separate band avoids this. Terrestrial repeaters use a big piece of RF plumbing to avoid this, which would increase the weight of the satellite.
I have a Bluetooth LE crypto token that's not much larger than a Yubikey. But your point about NFC supporting powering the device from the receiver is valid. I find NFC rather difficult to use, though. There is a specific point on the phone that you need to hit, and a specific point on the card, and some card-phone combinations are picky.
Does Bluetooth LE obsolete NFC? If so, NFC won't be in new phones and that's a good reason to stop writing code for it.
You could look through CERT disclosures regarding NFC, for supporting evidence.
Selling the phone is important to achieve those other missions. So, the phone has to have features that users desire. NFC unlock is a pretty nerdy feature, and the vast majority of the user community probably don't know that it exists or care.
Google marketing was more enthusiastic about NFC when they first deployed it than its user community ever was. Eventually, Google got the message.
I think this had so few users that there wasn't a good reason to keep it going in the face of the other unlocks offered. Android can use a place, the sound of your voice, a look at your face, the bluetooth MAC ID in your car, etc.
Currencies will collapse. IMO Bitcoin was created to crash national economies, by a national actor.
Food and shelter in a particular place, with particular limits, are indeed a commodity. Futures of food and real estate are traded.
Interesting that you should cite the stock market, and particularly in tech companies. This is driven more by hysteria than anything else.
Bitcoin is only deflationary when viewed alone, as if no other cryptocurrencies existed or could exist. Cryptocurrencies are not deflationary because there is no limit on the creation of the next one.
I agree that the value of shelter and food is different in different places, but that is a matter of definition. Regarding who would provide it, it has naturally so far been nations that back their currencies. Although this has fallen out of fashion. After nations, there are international organizations such as the EU.
Although a health-and-welfare based currency has its issues, surely they are not greater issues than a fiat cryptocurrency. Basing on a variable and somewhat problematic thing of value beats basing on nothing other than confidence.
But in that case, they are other countries. Cryptocurrencies in contrast are linked to no particular nation. There are a number of alternative cryptocurrencies that are currently somewhat liquid, such as Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, Ripple and Litecoin.
While bitcoin implements an internal limit on the creation of more bitcoins, that limit does not control the creation of alternative cryptocurrencies to bitcoin. So, you get the same effect as that of nations rushing to print more national currency.
That should say "All of this points toward a time in the future at which currency that does not represent real value will collapse as confidence in it erodes.
Bitcoin is a demonstration of the absurdity of fiat currency, taken to excess. Its basis is already-performed work on a computer to come up with a number based on previously-computed numbers. The numbers generated have no practical value except in reference to each other.
Some people are, absurdly, willing to exchange such numbers for things of real value. But this odd behavior is far from guaranteed to persist.
Similarly US dollars are based upon the faith in, and credit of, the government of the United States. Said government currently has a head of state who engages in behavior that does not inspire faith, and repeatedly threatens to renege on agreements - thus not providing any operational basis for credit.
All of this points toward a time in the future at which confidence in currency that does not represent real value will collapse as confidence in it erodes.
A valid currency would be one that has a non-negotiable value based on provision of food and shelter, these being things essential to human welfare that can not be changed into data or made from data.
All other currencies are fictional things. That people have faith in them today does not mean they will tomorrow.
See the Wikipedia page on Rotor Ship. This is a 1920's invention, and a relatively large ship was built in 1926 and is documented in the German Wikipedia. Even if you don't translate the page, the photo is clear.
If you have to enlarge the frame by grabbing different widgets at different places, and manipulating them differently, good luck with filing a bug report to developers who aren't using the same theme as you.