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Dave Marshall

Wed Jul 05 2006, 12:18PM

Registered Member #16 Joined: Thu Feb 02 2006, 02:22PM
Location: New Wilmington, PA
Posts: 554

All you ham radio operators out there...

Chris R and I have discussed collaberating on a new Ham Radio website. As of this point its going to be a stand-alone website, and may have an attached forum of its own, or we may just encourage site visitors to join 4HV and use the RF board. I'm not positive on what Chris' plan is on that front. Right now we have a fuzzy idea on the actual content of the site. So far we have set down the following features and purposes:

1) Focus on the technical aspects of the hobby, and recruiting of youth. All this code/no code, bandwidth/mode, whiny politics crap that goes on in most of the ham radio forums will be strictly forbidden. We will possibly touch on some controversial things like BPL, but its likely be in a technical sense. Flaming would be met immediately with a swift kick in the pants.

2)Streaming HF receiver. We're working on this. Thus far we have the PC, and the bandwidth, now we have to figure out how to actually make said receiver work on a schedule, so we can keep the receiver on active frequencies day and night without adjusting by hand. I suspect Chris has some ideas on this, but we have to procure a suitable receiver first. It sounds like we'll be capable of sending a 24kbit stream to up to 40 users at a time.

3)Extensive VLF/ULF section. We'll include audio captures, schedules, interesting frequencies, tutorials for antennas, etc.

4)Sound Library. I want to do an audio capture of strange/unusual things like number stations, the various digital modes, "whistlers", lightning induced static crashes, anything other than regular voice transmissions that a newbie might hear on the radio and ask "wtf?"

5)Cool frequency list. Things like military and commercial data transmitting freqs (10.130 LSB is a well known data broadcast sharing a ham band), numbers stations, jamming stations, etc. Anything that might be interesting to listen to.

6)Contact/Reception Log. Some means for atleast the participating site moderators to upload logs of received broadcasts or contacts made. This could be especially interesting for VLF and HF if we had a large number of people uploading contacts. Could be interesting to track propagation conditions via such a system.

7)Antennas. Lots of them. I've already got 4 antennas constructed and tested that I intend to publish, and i have atleast two more in the works. LF/HF/VHF/UHF whatever. We might have a particular focus on space efficient/inexpensive antennas for newbies and people in apartments and other space constrained areas.

8)Recruiting page geared towards youth. This is something that is seriously lacking on the web. While there are recruiting sites, they are invariably maintained by older hams who really aren't in touch with the trends and attitudes of youth today. They're idealistic at best, and sometimes downright condesending. The 4HV community has a built in youth audience, and they're virtually all tech savvy, intelligent kids that are likely to really enjoy the hobby. Approaching youth with a more technical, curiousity tweaking sales pitch is likely to garner better results than "We do this cause its fun, and you talk to people, and its a tradition". Kids hate tradition.

So lets hear it, what else would you like to see on this new site. It doesn't have to be unique or revolutionary, or follow the features that I've detailed above. Even if its being done somewhere else, if its pertinent to our goals, its worth doing just so resources are centralized and available.

73s de
Dave, AB3I

Avalanche

Wed Jul 05 2006, 01:11PM

Registered Member #103 Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 08:16PM
Location: Derby, UK
Posts: 845

That sounds awesome!

The frequency list sounds interesting. Would there be any way of maybe showing transmitter locations for large stations (like the lincolnshire poacher) in the same way the members map works? It would probably be a lot of work and would require some kind of database, but it would be seriously cool to enter a frequency range/mode (like 12-13Mhz AM) and see pointers to all major worldwide transmitters. It's just an idea, and probably would be too much work, but I would spend hours on something like that finding and tuning into stations!

A photo gallery would be good, theres's something cool about photos of antennas and the views around them...

WaveRider

Wed Jul 05 2006, 01:18PM

Registered Member #29 Joined: Fri Feb 03 2006, 09:00AM
Location: Hasselt, Belgium
Posts: 500

This sounds like an outstanding idea... With the rise in popularity of WiFi and other radio-based digital gadgets, it could be easy to attract young people to the more varied world of amateur radio..

Damn..should have not let my licence lapse!

ragnar

Wed Jul 05 2006, 01:36PM

Registered Member #63 Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 06:18AM
Location:
Posts: 1425

This is a plan! =-D

Great way to find those younger hams (piglets?), too. I look forward to the BPL discussion ^^

Dave Marshall

Wed Jul 05 2006, 01:56PM

Registered Member #16 Joined: Thu Feb 02 2006, 02:22PM
Location: New Wilmington, PA
Posts: 554

Avalanche, I like the idea of the map. I dont think it would be an unreasonable amount of work, and when coupled with a realtime MUF map and past reception reports from other stations, it would make for an interesting activity seeing how many you can bag over the course of a day or week.

I'm really hoping that Chris R will continue with the balloon project he shelved some time ago. He's done some really cool work with telemetry for a high altitude balloon experiment.

I was thinking about a 'featured project' sort of thing, where every week or two a new project is featured, complete with schematics, parts lists, everything someone would need to replicate it. Projects could range from something as simple as a pocket RF receiver, to full HF transceivers, to antennas and accessories. It could be accompanied by a thread in the forum where questions could be fielded.

An online license course and practice test materials have been discussed, but that would be a real bugger to maintain. Maybe we can work a partnership with the aa9pw practice test site or something.

Dave

Steve Conner

Fri Jul 07 2006, 11:01PM

Registered Member #30 Joined: Fri Feb 03 2006, 10:52AM
Location: Glasgow, Scotland
Posts: 6706

Meh, attracting youth to ham radio. I got my first licence at about 14 but in my late teens I gave it up because it "Wasn't cool." I took my licence out again last year (at a grandpa-like 27 years of age) because Tesla coils gave me the taste for playing with RF power again.

I don't know how you would preach to kids nowadays. Thanks to Wi-fi, bluetooth and cell phones, they probably see radio communication as another everyday commodity that you consume like twinkies with no desire or need to know how it works. The whole idea of being interested enough in anything that you would sit an exam to get a licence seems so last century.

I'd love to see some younger folk come and prove me wrong though.

I must admit that since I got my licence back, I've yet to speak to anyone remotely interesting on the air. I could just about summon up the enthusiasm to bag a couple of the German World Cup stations on HF. But I do have a lot of fun building and playing with antennas and other gear.

Steve, GM0TET

Dr. Who

Sun Jul 16 2006, 01:49AM

Registered Member #326 Joined: Sat Mar 18 2006, 01:12PM
Location: Glasgow, Scotland
Posts: 66

A great idea! I've been looking without success for this sort of site for quite a while. I'd like to broaden and deepen my RF knowledge, and I just haven't found anywhere to get decent discussions going.

I agree it's critical to keep the negative amateur radio politics which has ruined many other ham sites out of it.

It'd be good to have a section devoted to digital voice modes - it seems a bit strange to me how, what with GSM, TETRA, DECT, DAB, DVB-T, Wi-Fi etc. , most other radio comms are rapidly going digital, ham radio is stuck resolutely with old-fashioned analog technology, with the exception of some low-bandwidth data modes. OK there is D-STAR and the G4GUO protocol, but hardly anyone has actually adopted them.

A section on converting non-amateur gear, particularly private mobile radio/business band, to ham bands, would be a nice idea too.

Another question is how to vet new members, if at all. I'd suggest allowing anyone to join to start with, as you'll need a reasonable number of people on the site to get good discussions going and have a reasonable knowledge base available. Vetting is a lot of work and may put off genuine applicants.

A how-to-get-a-licence section covering different countries would be good, with an overview of the facilities available with each type of licence, training requirements and, to obtain appropriate books and training, and where to sit the exam.

Steve, if you read your BR68 licence document carefully, you'll see that it's actually much less restrictive than most people would have you believe. You can discuss politics, religion, etc. as long as you don't send messages on behalf of political/religious organisations. If you want to see interesting conversation on the radio, the go out and start some interesting conversations. Gandhi said something along the lines of living the change you want to achieve.

Edited to add: Just to be clear, I think a forum on the site would be essential.

Moderator(s): Chris Russell, Noelle, Alex, Tesladownunder, Dave Marshall, Dave Billington, Bjørn, Steve Conner, Wolfram, Kizmo, Mads Barnkob