Talk:HamRadio

Notes about the video meetings

Saturday 17 October 2020, 20:00 UTC

Subject: Simulation example of FSK

Presenter: Barry Duggan KV4FV

After some technical difficulties with Big Blue Button, we moved to Zoom and succeeded in doing the planned agenda:

• Brief walk-through of Simulation example: FSK
• Presentation of gr-RTTY-basics package
  • https://github.com/duggabe/gr-RTTY-basics
    
  • https://github.com/duggabe/gr-webserver
• Audio loopback demo
• Live Over-the-Air demo

The time (20:00 UTC) proved to be too late for participants East of Greenwich, and we did not capture a recording, so a repeat was scheduled for 7 November.

Saturday 7 November 16:00 UTC

The meeting followed the agenda above. There was a minor audio difficulty with the loopback, but I proceeded to present the Over-the-Air demo successfully.

View the presentation on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HmbRk-UG8Q

Saturday 12 December 2020 16:00 UTC

Subject: Transmit / Receive switching and station control
Presenter: Gavin Jacobs VE7GSJ
Agenda:

• Requirements for TX/RX switching
• VE7GSJ Solution (hardware & GNURadio Companion)
• Demo on 2m repeater

Files:

• GRC flowgraph: Media:Nb-fm-voice.grc
• Presentation slides: Media:2020DEC12.pdf

Thanks to Gavin for an excellent talk. It can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTp6vQk5MqE

16 January 2021 16:00 UTC

Subject: Using GRC to build radios: Make the flow graph work for you

Presenter: John Petrich W7FU

Agenda:

• Getting started with GRC
• Basic flow graph workspace organization
• Flow graph details
• Data flow problem solving
• Practical odds and ends for real radios
• Group discussion

Files:

• Media:Using_GRC_to_Build_Radios.pdf
• Media:HF_VHF_CW_SSB_transceiver_GRC_3.7.grc
• Media:NBFM_Transceiver_GRC_3.7.grc
• Media:SSB-CW_receiver_DSP_-_GRC_3.8_(annotated).grc
• Media:SSB-CW_transmitter_DSP_-_GRC_3.8_(annotated).grc

Thank you to John for a very informative presentation. It can be seen at https://youtu.be/j8OeK7c_zAU

27 February 2021 16:00 UTC

Subject: A Look at Project 25 (P25) Digital Radio

Presenter: Aaron Rossetto, NI

Agenda: In this presentation, I will introduce Project 25 digital radio, with a strong emphasis on its use in North American public safety trunked radio systems, and to describe experiments monitoring and decoding P25 traffic using GNU Radio code.

• What is Project 25?
• A brief introduction to trunked radio
• Diving into the P25 protocol
  • Modulation
  • Packet framing and encapsulation
  • Packet types
• GNU Radio and P25 decoding experiments

Presentation slides: Media:A_Look_at_Project_25_(P25)_Digital_Radio.pdf

Thank you to Aaron for an in-depth presentation. The video can be seen at https://youtu.be/9_Bb7g3_-7E

20 March 2021 16:00 UTC

Remember that Daylight Saving Time will have started in the U.S.

Subject: Ground Station Test Transceiver

Presenter: Ray Roberge WA1CYB

Agenda:

• What is this Ground Station Test Transceiver ?
• Architecture – Three Sections
  • Receiver flowgraph
  • Transmitter flowgraph
  • Telemetry flowgraph
• GUI displayed with a ADALM Pluto SDR
• Over the Air results as received on a ETTUS B205mini on SDR-Console software
• Discussion on finer points of Packet telemetry
• Same flowgraph modified for UHD, Ettus B205mini and why you need to modify it
• QT display , GRC 3.8.2 / 3.8.0 minor issues noted
• Discussion

Files:

• Ground Station Test Transceiver.pdf
• Media:Ground_Station_Xcvr_Pluto.grc
• Media:Ground_Station_Xcvr_Uhd.grc
• These and other supporting files can be found at [1]

See the video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_F0DG03ij9k

8 May 2021 16:00 UTC

Subject: "Using GNU Radio during the 2017 Solar Eclipse"

Presenter: John Ackermann N8UR

The total solar eclipse in August, 2017, was the first opportunity for the "HamSci" community to get crowdsourced ionospheric data, looking for propagation changes as the eclipse occurred. There were several HamSci activities that weekend, including an Eclipse QSO Party. A number of hams monitored the bands looking for changes in frequency or amplitude as local totality approached and went.

I used SDRs and GNU Radio from my location in northern Michigan to record the entire 80, 40, 30, and 20 meter bands, as well as the entire AM broadcast band, for 8 hours. The result was nearly 1 TB of data.

I'll show the equipment configuration, some of the GNU Radio tools used both to capture and post-process the data, and some results of the experiment.

Thanks to John for a very informative presentation. The video can be seen at `https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9yyXW_kmgs`

24 - 26 June 2021 European Radio Days

The European Radio Days event will be 24 - 26 June and will have several programs of interest for amateur radio. Registration is free; registrants will receive the links to the videos. See https://gnuradio-eu-21.sciencesconf.org/program for details.

26 - 27 June 2021 Software Defined Radio Academy (SDRA)

In conjunction with European Radio Days, SDRA had two days of programs. See https://2021.sdra.io/pages/programme.html for details.

The YouTube stream is available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8a6W577ZNk&list=PL6D0CPBQoIVoeilEVUhHAQrvveMdvitkm

Directly related to our Amateur Radio group are two sessions:

26 June 14:35 UTC

Subject: "Understanding ZMQ Blocks"

Presenter: Barry Duggan KV4FV

Based on the Understanding ZMQ Blocks tutorial.

Agenda: Media:Understanding_ZMQ_Blocks.pdf

See the video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPjZaOmNfxc

26 June 16:30 UTC

Barry Duggan KV4FV, Derek Kozel K0ZEL, Daniel Estévez EA4GPZ, and Josh Morman will hold a moderated panel discussion with questions from the participants. The agenda will be:

   new GNU Radio releases - Josh
   new SDR support - Josh
     gr-soapy
     gr-iio
   SETI/ATA - Derek
   gr-satellites - Dani
   getting started in GNU Radio - Barry
   tutorials on modulation methods for hams - Barry

See the video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vQqtpFi_HI

10 July 2021 16:00 UTC

Subject: "Using gnuradio for amateur radio measurements"

Presenter: Tom McDermott N5EG

Outline:

1. Receiver Noise Figure
2. Exploring Receiver Dynamic range measurements
3. FFT scalloping error considerations.

Files: Media:GNU_Radio_Amateur_Radio_Meetup_VER_0.3.pdf

Thank you Tom for a very educational presentation. The video is on

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIQcP-UMYFQ

20 - 24 September 2021

GRCon21 in Charlotte, North Carolina (Also virtual)

See https://events.gnuradio.org/event/8/ for details.

Friday Sept 24 13:00 EDT - (1 hour): Amateur radio breakout session.
The video will be posted soon.

The Future of the Monthly Video Meetings

We have come to point where we need people to step up!

• Finding presenters is becoming more difficult.
• Attendance is declining, although there are many YouTube viewers.
• Barry would like someone else to take over the lead / hosting. For that, we need:
  • a coordinator/scheduler
  • a host/moderator
  • contributors

Questions and Suggestions

Questions

• The Ham Radio chat room on Matrix is available for follow-up and continuing discussion.
  • server: https://chat.gnuradio.org
  • If you are using an app that asks for the Matrix homeserver URL, gnuradio.org should work. If that doesn't work use: gnuradio.ems.host
  • room: #HamRadio:gnuradio.org

• Questions about meetings also can be sent to "bduggan@gnuradio.org"

Suggested topics

• Transmit hardware to operate below 50 MHz.
• amateur radio satellites
• FreeDV
• Contact ISS
• EME - moon bounce communications
• How to implement JS8, JS8-Call, and FT8 in GR
• An in-depth walkthrough of GQRX
• Spread-spectrum
• video-chat troubleshooting session
• FM repeater with ctcss tone squelch