Them That's Doin' - Refactored v2

Update - The information in this post is now a web page that I will maintain and enhance - Interesting and Advanced Projects / Products in Amateur Radio.

... Interesting stuff in "Advanced" Amateur Radio (Refactored)

(Update - I keep adding and tweaking this; I think today's update will be it, in this form. This needs to be a web page on this blog rather than a blog post, and future blog entries will expand on each point.)

Two good friends commented that my previous post was... a bit scattershot. Point taken - thank you Bill and Steve. I've reorganized this information to be a bit less scattershot and add some detail.

Last updated 2021-02-21.

General

• 219-220 MHz Amateur Radio band (US, Americas) - The 219-220 MHz band was allocated to secondary Amateur Radio usage when 220-222 MHz was reallocated. Its arcane usage rules means that it's never been used (to my knowlege) and there's no activity (to my knowlege) to change that status.
• 222-225 MHz Amateur Radio band (US, Americas) - The 222-225 MHz band in the US is underused. It's an ideal "playground" for data communications, but is hampered by few 222-225 MHz radios currently in production (see below).
• 1240-1300 MHz Amateur Radio band (US, Americas) - The 1240-1300 MHz band in the US is underused. It's an ideal "playground" for wideband data communications, but is hampered by only one Amateur Radio available for this band.
• Laurel Volunteer Examination Coordinator (VEC) - Taking your Amateur Radio examination with a Laural VEC team is a superior exprerience. They do not charge a fee for an Amateur Radio examination, and they upload the license application electronically so you have your callsign much faster than other VECs. 

Organizations, Conferences, Websites Doing Interesting and Useful Things
Some of these have a hardware or software component, but are included here because there's an additional element of organization beyond just their software or hardware.

• 44net - Static IPv4 addresses (and routing) are available for Amateur Radio experimentation.
• aprs.fi - aprs.fi is the "public face" of Amateur Radio APRS activities. For example, world-circling balloons carring Amateur Radio beacons can be followed by anyone, including school kids. aprs.fi is just an amazing project.
• Amateur Radio Digital Communications (ARDC) - ARDC has two missions. Their origina mission was to operate 44net / AMPRnet (44.0.0.0/9, 44.128.0.0/10) which they continue. Their new, additional mission is providing philanthropic grants for Support and Growth of Amateur Radio, Education, and Technical Innovation.
• Brandmeister - Brandmeister is the worldwide "backbone" for Digital Mobile Radio (DMR) repeaters used in Amateur Radio. What's laudable about Brandmeister is that they're open to experimentation and evolution of DMR usage such as position reports (like APRS), data, and other experimentation. Other DMR networks, including two here in the Pacific Northwest, are run essentially as commercial networks - no experimentation, only certain types of conversations allowed, and much "regimentation". Anything I'm directly involved with in DMR will use Brandmeister. 
• Hackaday.com - I love Hackaday because they treat Amateur Radio, especially data modes and projects (like New Packet Radio) as interesting wireless experimentation for techies. Hackaday makes Amateur Radio look cool to techies, which we desparately need more of.
• HamWAN - HamWAN is a vision for building an Amateur Radio Wireless Internet Service Provider. It began as a project in the Seattle area and has since been replicated in other areas.
• Highspeed Amateurradio Multimedia Network (HAMNET.EU) - A Europe-wide high speed wireless TCP/IP network for Amateur Rado. Best explained in a video presentation. 
• IRCDDB - IRCDDB is the "non-official" network of D-Star repeaters; anything I do with D-Star will use IRCDDB.
• MicroHAMS Digital Conference - MicroHAMS is an Amateur Radio club based in Redmond, Washington, USA. What makes it special, in my opinion, is that it sponsors an excellent Digital Conference in the Spring, on par (in my opinion) with the ARRL and TAPR Digital Communications Conference (DCC).
• Open Research Institute (ORI) - ORI's genesis was developing a ground station system for a potential Geosychronous Earth Orbit (GEO) satellite payload that would have been accessible from the North America. The satellite didn't happen, but ORI continued and morphed into a more generalized organization.
• RadioID.net - Digital Mobile Radio (DMR) wasn't designed for Amateur Radio with support for callsigns, only "ID numbers". For DMR to be usable in Amateur Radio, someone had to provide a "translation table" of DMR ID numbers to Amateur Radio callsigns, and RadioID.net took on that task and, in my experience, does it well.
• Repeaterbook.com - In my opinion, Repeaterbook.com and its apps is the best director of Amateur Radio repeaters. Its data is crowdsourced and usage is free.
• Reverse Beacon Network - Hams are incredible creative; this is a network of receivers connected to the Internet. See where your signal is being heard around the world.
• TAPR - TAPR didn't create the Terminal Node Controller (TNC) or Packet Radio, but they made it accessible to average Amateur Radio operators. TAPR has done many interesting things since the TNC-1 and TNC-2. Their most important mission now (in my opinion) is the annual Digital Communications Conference.
• Signal Identification Guide - an open sourced (Wiki) compendium of various modulation types. When you receive something you don't understand, look it up here.
• SMSGTE - A gateway between Amateur Radio APRS messages and Short Message Service (SMS) messages.
• Winlink - Winlink has made "last mile emergency email" plug and play. Within their paragigms, it works well. I think every Amateur Radio operator should support Winlink for emergency communications.

Interesting Hardware / Projects

• Alinco DR-235 MkIII 222 MHz Radio - A 222 MHz radio currently in production that has a "data" connection for flat audio, suitable for higher speed data communications such as VARA.
• Analog Devices ALADM-PLUTO - A friend directed me to this device for getting started with GNU Radio. This device is different because it's a software-defined transceiver, not just a receiver.
• BridgeCom Systems Systems BCM-220 - A 222 MHz radio currently in production that has a "data" connection for flat audio, suitable for higher speed data communications such as VARA.
• Crowd Supply - Acts as an incubator (similar to Kickstarter) for small projects and a storefont. They feature a fair number of RF projects / products.
• F5OEO rpitx - It doesn't get any cooler than a software defined transmitter that's just a Raspberry Pi with a wire connected to a GPIO.
• Flex Radio - I've been impressed with Flex Radio since their founding as they are "all in" on Software Definied Radio for Amateur Radio HF like Tesla is on electric drive vehicles. I just wish they did the same thing for VHF/UHF radios.
• Inductive Twig HamShield: LoRa Edition - This is the only vendor / project that I'm aware of that attempts to make the very popular LoRa hardware into compatibility with Amateur Radio. I think LoRa has great potential in Amateur Radio, especially if it can be made into a mesh network.
• Kenwood TM-V71A Radio - In my opinion, this is the best VHF / UHF radio for data communications available at this moment. It features the 6-pin MiniDIN standard "data" port for easy interfacing, 144 / 440 MHz, 5 / 25 / 50 watts transmit power, and its settings can be controlled via RS-232.
• KiwiSDR - A software defined receiver designed specifically for the Beaglebone series of single board computers. The combination is specifically designed to be used as a web-based receiver, accessible locally or (preferred) accessible from the Internet.
• LimeSDR - This is a capable software defined transceiver. What impressed me is that the manufacturer decided to do an Amateur Radio front end for it called LimeRFE - power amplifier, etc.
• M17 Project - Developing a new Digital Voice standard, and hardware, for Amateur Radio. They have some interesting sub-projects such as mvoice (Linux soundcard client for use on the M17 reflector system) and building your own M17 receiver.
• Mobilinkd TNC3 - Folks I respect really like this TNC. It's built around DSP, can handle 9600 bps FSK, it's battery powered, and communicates via Bluetooth.
• NANOVNA - This came out of nowhere a few years ago - an inexpensive, handheld, open source Vector Network Analyzer. These are just amazing. It's a bit of a learning curve to understand how to use them, but they're very powerful.
• New Packet Radio - Packet Radio reimagined as higher speed and native TCP/IP.
• Nexus DR-X - This is a project that's local to me for a capable, multipurpose digital interface, with great software support.
• NW Digital Radio DRAWS - The DRAWS is my favorite built-for-purpose sound card modem for Amateur Radio, mated with a Raspberry Pi. I was particularly impressed that it was engineered with higher speed modes in mind such as 9600 bps (and faster) FSK and has no bandwidth-damaging transformers.
• Packet Radio Users Group (PRUG) FX.25 KISS TNC - FX.25 to date has only been implemented in Dire Wolf software (needs a host like a Raspberry Pi and a sound card). An "appliance" like this could make FX.25 and Forward Error Correction more widely used.
• Raspberry Pi - The Raspberry Pi ecosystem of products, projects, support, and software, and of course the inexpensive price, to me makes it the preferred computer platform for Amateur Radio. For as little as $10, "just throw a computer at it".
• Red Pitaya - This is the most capable software defined transceiver that I know of. It's so sophisticated and capable that it wasn't originally a platform for radio experimetation. As I understand the story it was created as a multifunction radio test set. As it's evolved, it seems to be the favorite Amateur Radio software defined transceiver of those who can write digital signal processing software.
• RTL-SDR.com - They make good quality inexpensive software defined receivers, and their website is the best "heads up" about anything in the software defined receiver / transceiver field.
• SDRPlay - This is my favorite manufacturer of software defined receivers. In my opinion their products are a good balance of receive performance and reasonable cost. They have very capable software for their products for Windows, and a plug and play image for a dedicated Raspberry Pi.
• TCP/IP over LoRa Radios - LoRa radios are a "fertile area for future development".
• Terrestrial Amateur Packet Radio Network (TARPN) Nino-TNC - This is a new KISS TNC with a USB interface capable of 9600 bps and a new Forward Error Correction (FEC) protocol.
• TNCPi9k6 - This is a 9600 bps KISS TNC for a Raspberry Pi designed by John Wiseman G8BPQ, originally produced by Coastal Chipworks (which has ceased operations).
• Unsigned.io OpenModem TNC - What can I say... I'm a fan of TNCs, especially ones designed and produced in the 21st century. OpenModem has a unique capability of logging AX.25 packets to an SD card for later analysis. 
• Unsigned.io RNode LoRa Radio - Another LoRa Amateur Radio for experimentation with LoRa technology.

Interesting Software / Projects

• Amateur Radio Emergency Data Network (AREDN) - Flash selected Wi-Fi radios with AREDN firmware to create standalone mesh networks.
• Dire Wolf - software based Packet Radio. It's simply amazing how much better Dire Wolf works than hardware modems. I can't offer enough kudos to WB2OSZ for Dire Wolf.
• Dragon OS - A plug and play Linux image of just Software Defined Radio packages.
• HamPi - Amazing integration of much Amateur Radio software for the Raspberry Pi, already compiled into a plug-and-play image.
• F6FBB FBB - Very capable Packet Radio Bulletin Board System (BBS). Yes, BBS' are still useful.
• fldigi - A suite of software data modes. FSQ is particularly robust.
• G8BPQ Software Suite - G8BPQ's suite of software is Packet Radio Networking - Bulletin Board Systems, Chat Bridges, and much more.
• GNU Radio - GR is open source software defined radio. GNU Radio Companion is a graphical interface that makes it possible to create software defined radios by dragging modules around in a into graphic layout. In addition to the software and support, they sponsor the GNU Radio Conference.
• JNOS - JNOS is the swiss army knife of Amateur Radio packet radio networking. It's a multi-mode router, including basic AX.25, Net/ROM, TCP/IP (including encapsulation), and BBS routing. Yep, it's still going after all these years.
• JS8Call - The one thing that the WSJT software suite doesn't have is a keyboard-to-keyboard chat mode. JS8 is an independent project based on the WSJT technologies that implements a very robust chat mode.
• multimon-ng - Good example of obscure projects for Amateur Radio. This one decodes various obscure data modes, including POCSAG (paging). Imagine the robustness of paging used in Amateur Radio now that we all have access to high resolution timebases and flexible data transmission modes.
• OpenRTX - Open source firmware enabling new capabilities for selected DMR portable radios.
• OpenWebRX - web based multiple user sotware defined receiver.
• OpenWRT - Open source firmware for routers and Wi-Fi access points. It's the basis for AREDN and many other interesting projects.
• PiGate - Imagine you're at a mass casualty shelter and people have phones that don't work on (saturated or down) cellular networks. PiGate is an appliance that combines a Wi-Fi access point, web server, form for sending email, and integration with Winlink, so that non-hams can send brief emails, via Winlink, under supervision of an Amateur Radio operator.
• PiSDR - Raspberry Pi image of a wide range of software defined receiver software for a variety of software defined receiver hardware.
• SDRServer - Streaming data to multiple users from a software defined receiver device.
• SV2AGW Packet Engine - Software that operates as a packet radio TNC that can be connected to multiple applications.
• UZ7HO software Packet-Radio TNC - UZ7HO was one of the first to offer TNC capabilities (mostly) in software.
• VARA-FM - Vara is a "clean sheet of paper" approach to high speed data over Amateur Radio. It offers impressive speed on VHF/UHF with improved reliability. One impressive feature is that it can be used effectively over ordinary voice repeaters, even if there's a CTCSS tone used for access.
• XASTIR - Open Source APRS do-everything software.
• WSJT - Dr. Joe Taylor W1JT has revolutionized Amateur Radio data communications by creating entirely new communications methods using advanced digital signal processing made accessible to Amateur Radio operators.

Space / Satellites

• AMSAT-DL (Germany / Europe), AMSAT-NA (North America) / AMSAT-UK (UK) - Satellites built, operated, and used by Amateur Radio Operators.
• Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) - ARISS supports the Amateur Radio equipment and activities on the International Space Station.
• Earth - Moon - Earth Communications (EME) - AMSAT started a tradition of naming Amateur Satellites Oribiting Satellite Carrying Amateur Radio (OSCAR) follwed by a sequential numeric designator. The first AMSAT satellite was named OSCAR-1. EME enthusiasts sometimes refer to Luna as "OSCAR-0". I just think EME is uber-techie cool.
• Othernet - Very cool project to do "datacasting" from satellite. Not entirely a new idea, but a new approach.
• Phase 4B Payload for North America GEO Satellite - (Thank goodness for the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine!) This was a well-conceived, well-scoped realistic project that seemed realistic. Apparently the host satellite was canceled. It would have been great for data communications.
• SATNOGS - There are a lot of research (micro)satellites in orbit now from various institutions such as college engineering classes. The problem is that they only realize their potential when the data that they generate can get transmitted back. SATNOGS is a network of open source, inexpensive ground stations that use commodity hardware, 3D printed parts, and the Internet to receive data from these small satellites and get it back to the satellite's sponsors.

Speculative Ideas
Includes legacy systems that might be instructive for future projects or potentially revived with current technology.

• APRS as A Hailing Channel - This was an intriguing idea by Bryan Hoyer K7UDR. All Amateur Radio services in an area - Winlink, etc. should advertise on APRS.
• Coastal Chipworks TNC-X - This was a great TNC - KISS so it was really stable.
• Data over Digital Mobile Radio (DMR) - It occurred to me a few years ago that all the Amateur Radio DMR repeaters that are being built are, at their core, data repeaters. The DMR specification makes provisions for data, but no one seems to know much about how to do data over DMR. These Maxon DMR data radios deserve some experimentation.
• Doodlelabs Radios - These were a brief experiment in combining a Wi-Fi chipset with a transverter to use Wi-Fi protocols in the Amateur Radio 420-450 MHz band. 802.11 uses a 22 MHz channel, and transverted to 420-450, it barely fits. Other not-quite-Wi-Fi variants can have a channel size as small as 5 MHz. I have some of these radios and need to find some supporting documentation. Yet again, it's an interesting idea for reimplementation with current technology.
• (Faster) Data over D-Star - Despite the fact that D-Star (as implemented by Icom) is the only digital voice mode that cleanly implements data along with digital voice, the data implementation is (in my opinion) at best an afterthought. In D-Star, 3600 of 4800 bps is hard-coded to voice, and ~300 bps are used for "overhead" (callsign, etc.) and the remaining 900 bps of the payload is data. Icom kind-of fixed this in some later models of their D-Star radios by creating "DV Fast Data Mode" which Icom describes as By using data in place of voice frames, the ID-5100A can transfer data 3.5 times faster (3480 bps) than in the conventional DV mode (with voice). The beauty of DV Fast Data Mode is that (I'm told) it is compatible with any D-Star repeater. I don't yet have a radio (or two, that I'll need to conduct a test) to verify this, but it's on my agenda. 
• David Rowe VK5DGR - His most famous project is Codec2 and FreeDV, open source digital voice modems. He is also working on a "radio", and other projects.
• DFQF2 T7F Data Radio - Like the Kantronics D4-10, this radio is now out of production and mentioned here as inspiration for a hoped-for new generation of data radios for Amateur Radio. The T7F was more advanced than the D4-10, including frequency agility. There were several excellent data radios for Amateur Radio made in Germany, but none remain in production (that I know of).
• D-Star Digital Data Mode / ID-1 Radio and "Repeater" - The Icom ID-1 was the fastest (that I'm aware of) data rate for an Amateur Radio product (that wasn't a kit / science project) at 128 kbps (half duplex). It also had the distinction of being of operating on the forlorn Amateur Radio 1240 - 1300 MHz band. While the ID-1 is out of production now, the D-Star Digital Data (DD) mode lives on in another Icom radio, and a planned successor to the ID-1 repeater. It would be a very cool project to create a new radio with the ID-1's data capabilities.
• Flexnet - Was advanced packet radio networking, that fixed many of the issues of digipeating, mesh networking (Net/ROM). It is reportedly still in use in places, and deserves more research. This discussion and this discussion is helpful. Another technology that should be trivial to reproduce and advance using current technologies.
• IPv6 over Amateur Radio - One of the valid criticisms of IPv4 over Amateur Radio is that the headers were very large, consuming considerable airtime just for the headers. While there were some implementations of header compression in the original TCP/IP over Amateur Radio packages, header compression wasn't standard. In IPv6, header compression is standard, so perhaps IPv6 over Amateur Radio is a "fertile area of research".
• Kantronics D4-10 Data Radio - It's sad that in many ways the long-discontinued Kantronics D4-10 was a high point in packet radio radios. It featured a wide bandwidth that could do 19,200 bps (and faster), 10 watts transmit power, minimal design (no fancy faceplate), and best, was designed for data, not a radio designed for voice that kind-of does data. Because it uses crystals for frequency setting (which are near-unobtanium now) it's not that useful now, but it is a benchmark for what a data radio for Amateur Radio could and should be - minimalist, stable (with the mods mentioned in the link), and reasonable power output (though 25 watts would be better). I include it here as an inspiration for a new generation of data radios for Amateur Radio.
• Networking Over HF - Interesting project!
• NW Digital Radio UDRX-440 Software Defined Transceiver / Data Radio (PDF) - This was a project that came agonizingly close to becoming a product. I profoundly wish it had, even with many rough edges. It was to be a 25 watt multimode data radio with all the features we wanted - flexible modems, full software control of transmit bandwidth, frequency, power, etc. There were good, valid reasons that it didn't quite make it. It's listed here as an example of what Amateur Radio needs as tools to make great leaps forward in becoming relevant again in the minds of most techies.
• Radio Mirror - I cannot find an online link to this, but it's a simple but profound concept. A transmitter spits out blocks of files. When it has finished transmitting all the blocks, of all the files, in the "to be transmitted" directory, it starts over. (Many) receivers save each block (if it passes a validity check). If it misses a block, that file is kept in a buffer until the block is retransmitted and then the file is assembled and stored in the receiver's "has been received" directory. The idea is that a shared set of files is kept synched. Examples are code plugs, maps, directories of local hams, photos, etc. If a new file is added, eventually everyone receives it. If a file is removed from the transmitting queue, the receivers move the file to an "old" subdirectory". My twist on this is that it could use unused airtime on repeaters in the wee hours of the morning, when no one will mind that the repeater is transmitting data.
• Single Channel Repeater - Single Channel Repeaters have been done, but only as a "record for seconds, then play back for seconds. Instead of that, think receive for 5 mS, then transmit for 5 mS.
• Wildernets - It's hard to grok Wildernets at first, but it's an amazing piece of software. It provides a web server, Voice over IP (VOIP), mesh networking, and more. It was ported to a now hard-to-find Wi-Fi router, and it's hoped that the developer will be able to find more time to work on it.
• WA4DSY 56 kbps Modem - This was groundbreaking in its day and implemented in several areas, including repeaters in Vancouver BC and Atlanta, GA. It's still a fantastic achievement; it should be "easy" to implement this using current RF and DSP technology.

What We Need (In My Humble Opinion)

• Don't fossilize the Amateur Radio spectrum with repeater coordinations. We need more repeaters, especially for data, not the privileged few that the exalted grand poobas of repeater coordination groups deign to give their blessing to. There was an FCC letter once that said (paraphrased) that repeater coordinations give preference to a channel pair, not exclusive usage. So when that repeater isn't transmitting, the frequency pair is accessible to other uses.
• Fix the silly FCC rule that regulates maximum data rate. As Lyle Johnson WA7GXD once famously said (paraphrased) about what the FCC rules on this topic should be: "Here's your frequencies and the maximum channel sizes. Have a nice day."
• An amateur radio payload on a geosynchronous satellite for North America. Europe and Africa have Es'Hail 2. North America came maddeningly close.
• A data radio designed in the 21st century:
  • Operates on 144 MHz and 440 MHz. 50 MHz and 222 MHz would be ideal. Single band units would be acceptable.
  • No display, knobs, speaker, microphone, etc. Just flat audio input and output. Just basic LED indicators to verify power, PTT, etc., and a power switch.
  • Full remote control of operating parameters such as frequency, channel size (25 kHz, 12.5 kHz), CTCSS frequency*, etc.
  • Modern I/O interface - Ethernet preferred, but USB would be acceptable
  • Transmit power selectable 5 watts / 10 watts / 25 watts / 50 watts. There should be (at least optional) big heat sink for longer transmit duty cycles.
  • Fast transmit / receive turnaround time would be ideal.
  • Could even be simplified to be purely a transmitter; we have ample good software defined receivers available now.
• A fully software-defined transceiver for VHF/UHF. One reason I admire Flex Radio is that their products are entirely software-defined; I wish there was an equivalent radio for VHF and UHF.
• A publication that focuses on interesting stuff like the above. I'll be working on that.
• A wideband data radio that operates in the 1240-1300 MHz Amateur Radio band, with reasonable output power.
• A series of companion amplifiers (with filters) for VHF and UHF bands, including 50 MHz for the Analog Devices ALADM-PLUTO to achieve output power of at least 25 watts. If we had such a device, there would be a lot more experimentation with GNU Radio in Amateur Radio. (The problem with existing amplifiers is that the drive level requirement is much higher than what the ALADM-PLUTO can produce.)

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