Zero Retries 0065

Zero Retries is a unique, quirky little highly independent, opinionated, self-published email newsletter about technological innovation in Amateur Radio, for a self-selecting niche audience. It’s free (as in beer) to subscribe.

About Zero Retries

Steve Stroh N8GNJ, Editor

Jack Stroh, Late Night Assistant Editor Emeritus

In this issue:

• Pseudosponsor - AMSAT Space Symposium and Annual General Meeting
• Request To Send
• Digital Communications Conference 2022 Recap
• N8GNJ Update on Digital Library of Amateur Radio & Communications
• Anytone BT-01 - New “Radio without the RF” Device
• Data Communications Adapter for TYT TH-9000D Radio
• Zero Retries Sponsorships
• Join the Fun on Amateur Radio
• Closing The Channel

Pseudosponsor - AMSAT Space Symposium and Annual General Meeting

This issue of Zero Retries is pseudosponsored by the 40th AMSAT Space Symposium and Annual General Meeting on Friday 2022-10-21 and Saturday, 2022-10-22 in Bloomington, Minnesota, USA.

Request To Send

In a sense, I’m “recycling” the themes of Zero Retries 0064 in discussing DCC 2022 and Digital Library of Amateur Radio & Communications again.

Despite it being a beautiful Fall weekend here in Bellingham, Washington, USA and the temptation of the Washington State QSO Party (aka The Salmon Run) which a lot of Amateur Radio friends here in Whatcom County participated in, I spent much of last weekend indoors watching the live (YouTube) stream of Digital Communications Conference 2022. Fortunately the DCC was held in the Eastern timezone, so when it ended around 16:00 Eastern, I still had hours of Bellingham sunshine remaining. Thus I didn’t feel too guilty for not being outdoors all day for one of these last few dry weekends before the Western Washington wet season begins.

I’m also getting excited about readying my personal donations of Amateur Radio (and some “communications” material) to the Digital Library of Amateur Radio & Communications - see below.

de Steve N8GNJ

Digital Communications Conference 2022 Recap

This is a highly subjective recap from my perspective, not a comprehensive review.

My kudos to the entire team that put on Digital Communications Conference (DCC) 2022. It was one of those rare hybrid in-person and online events that seemed to work equally well for the in-person participants and the online viewers. I really enjoyed watching all three days of DCC 2022, and I learned a lot.

You can catch up on the fun - currently the Youtube livestreams for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday are available. I’m told each of these will be edited into individual presentations, and the Saturday evening banquet talk by Rosy Schechter KJ7RYV, Executive Director of ARDC, is now available. If you’d like to hear a bit about the behind-the-scenes of the video production for DCC 2022, see HamRadioNow’s 2022-09-18 episode.

The DCC is a fantastic example of Technological Innovation in Amateur Radio. There is a video record, hopefully TAPR will post the slide decks for the presentations, and there is also the DCC 2022 Proceedings for posterity in both PDF and paperback book. My book arrived this week, and it’s an annual treat that I look forward in taking my time reading through the proceedings papers. Not all presentations make it into the Proceedings, and not all papers in the Proceedings (like mine) had a corresponding presentation.

Some highlights after looking over the schedule as a recap…

• I look forward to the next issue of the TAPR PSR Newsletter to see what was discussed at the TAPR Board meeting on Thursday preceding the DCC.
• Most of the Friday talks were associated with Amateur Radio Citizen Science Investigation (HamSCI), and they were all good. It is great that the DCC provides opportunities for deep-dive talks and for students to gain valuable experience in publishing papers and doing presentations in front of a technical audience.
• TangerineSDR Prototype Hardware and MagnetoPI Production Status by Scotty Cowling, WA2DFI was a great technical presentation about TAPR’s progress on the TangerineSDR (TSDR). At the moment, it’s a Software Defined Receiver, but there are plans to implement a transmitter. To me, if you look at the website, it’s a bit underwhelming - developing (yet another) Software Defined Radio. But diving deeper, the TSDR is focused on scientific investigation rather than Amateur Radio operating or generic receiving. In this presentation, I learned that there’s a fundamental difference with TSDR - they’re using a large enough Floating Point Gate Array (FPGA) that TSDR will receive 100 kHz through 54 MHz. OK… lots of Software Defined Receivers can do that. But TSDR receives all of that 53.9 MHz simultaneously - not tuning to a portion of that range like conventional SD receivers do. That… gets interesting! It was pointed out to me that’s not a unique capability, there are other radios that do the same thing, but this one is open source hardware, open source FPGA code, and open source software. At the moment TSDR production is constrained by unavailability of their chosen FPGA, but there’s hope that shortage will soon ease. I suspect the approach pioneered by TGSDR will be the basis for most Amateur Radio HF activity by the end of the decade - receive the HF band - all of the HF band, and let the computer sort out what it is you want to receive. The more compute power you can make available, the better the receive capability.
• Claude Shannon's Radiotelegraphy: Progress in Coherent CW by David Kazdan AD8Y was interesting. I had heard of Coherent CW but had not taken the time to understand it. Like I’ve mentioned here in Zero Retries, AD8Y feels there is potentially a lot of value in revisiting older technologies, projects, etc. that were abandoned or surpassed and take a fresh look at them through the lens of “is this practical now with current technology”?
• Similarly, Amateur Communications Below 9 kHz: The Dreamer’s Band and The New EbNaut Digital Mode by Jonathan Rizzo KC3EEY was a subject I’d heard of, but had not taken the time to understand, and now I understand it a bit better.
• During the Lightning Talks, Phil Karn KA9Q did a presentation about an interesting use of his ka9q-radio software - FM Repeater with Multiple Inputs. He explained that AMSAT’s use of linear transponders on Amateur Radio satellites have not been able to solve the problem of transmitted power imbalance - if one signal is significantly more powerful than other transmissions in the passband, most of the transponder’s transmit power is used for the loudest signal. KA9Q proposes that listening on multiple discrete frequencies simultaneously might solve this power imbalance problem. This is yet another “old problem potentially solved with current technology”.
• Tom McDermott N5EG’s presentation Starlink AREDN, and Networking was a masterclass in understanding the issues involved in trying to use Internet via Starlink if you wanted to host servers, such as AREDN via Starlink. Starlink uses “Carrier Grade Network Address Translation” (CGNAT) and the problems that creates for anything other than typical Internet access.
• Sunday was devoted to the stories of five recipients of ARDC grants - University of Scranton ARC W3USR, Bridgerland ARC, National Radio Astronomy Observatory, M-17 Project, and ARISS. All of these were compelling stories about how ARDC grants made a profound difference such as creating clubs and programs from scratch, paying for development equipment, and in the case of ARISS, ensuring stable funding for five years and developing new programs to enhance the ARISS experience in the classroom.

Again, I think that DCC 2022 was a great success and I look forward to DCC 2023 and possibly attending in person. As is always the case, TAPR needs local hosts to help host in-person DCCs. Hopefully next year TAPR can return to their cooperation with GNU Radio Confernce and those two complementary events can be held back to back in the same venue.

If you agree that the DCC is valuable for Amateur Radio, the best way you can support the continuation of the DCC is to simply join TAPR as a member for $30 annually (as I have). One strong recommendation I can offer for TAPR membership is that TAPR, unlike other membership organizations, does not hold its newsletter hostage behind a paywall only for the benefit of paid members. It was a leap of faith for TAPR to publish PSR without a paywall, and I think that is laudable and should be rewarded.

N8GNJ Update on Digital Library of Amateur Radio & Communications

As far as I’m aware, the first truly public pronouncement that Internet Archive’s Digital Library of Amateur Radio & Communication (DLARC) is accepting donations of material was a video clip by DLARC’s Kay Savetz K6KJN which was played during the Lightning Talks at DCC 2023 on Saturday.