The Seattle-area MicroHAMS Amateur Radio Club held their 2021 MicroHAMS Digital Conference (MHDC) on Saturday April 24, 2021. Because of COVID-19 this conference was virtual, streamed live on YouTube. The individual videos are now available separately on YouTube.
Disclaimer - I'm a nominal member of MicroHAMS, but no longer active, and I had no role in the MicroHAMS Digital Conference 2021.
As I discussed in an earlier article, the advance publication of the speakers, schedule, etc. could have, and should have, been better.
Overall, MHDC 2021 was a good event with good information content. There were the inevitable glitches with any such production that has a lot of moving pieces operated by non-professionals. The format was that each presentation was pre-recorded and played live, and there was a brief question and answer period after each presentation. The questions were submitted via the YouTube chat option and were read by the emcee of the moment to the presenter.
My one major criticism of MHDC 2021 was that (in a break with previous MHDCs) the slide decks were not collected from the presenters and made available post-conference. In my opinion, that lack detracted from the overall quality of MHDC 2021.
Hyperlinks below are to the YouTube video.
FreeDV Digital Voice for HF - Walter Holmes, K5WH
A well-researched overview of the use of the FreeDV digital voice coder / decoder (CODEC) on Amateur Radio HF bands.
Testing Rig-In-Box (RIB) Technology in a DXpedition Environment - Gregg Marco, W6IZT / Hal Turley, W8HC
This was a fascinating presentation not so much for the stated topic (though that was definitely interesting) but rather how the "DXpeditioners"... let's just say, "go deep" on activating rare grid squares. What fascinated me wasn't the technology of an entire full-legal-limit HF station encased in a container, operated entirely remotely from a boat via a broadband wireless link... but rather the idea that the support boat was purpose-built and operated for the sole purpose of supporting DXpeditions.
APRS - Universal Digital Communication and Emergency Operations - Bob Bruninga, WB4APR
It was good to watch this overview of Automatic Packet Reporting System (APRS) from "Mr. APRS", the creator of the APRS concept. Bob didn't discuss anything new in APRS, but I did enjoy his discussion of the various satellites that incorporated APRS technology. Bob also talked quite a bit about alternative power. It was novel to hear him discuss buying used hybrid vehicles and treating them essentially as "standalone chargers for a 12 volt battery" - that you can drive to the gas station when you need to refuel.
From Buoys to Turn Island (systems) and back again! -- 'Drifting' Through Ham Technology - Paul Elliot, WB6CXC
This was an interesting technical exploration of communications concepts for "drift buoys". Paul carefully considered various communication techniques in Amateur Radio for his proposed buoys, including Weak Signal Propagation Reporter (WSPR), before concluding that he needed a mode that was capable of transmitting more telemetry data than WSPR, eventually settling on JS8Call.
Design Considerations and Communications Systems for HuskySat-1 - Paul Sturmer, KI7WLV
HuskySat-1 was a relatively short lived experimental satellite from students at the University of Washington (UW, or locally... U Dub) that is now non-operational. It was very interesting to hear the details of the novel "pop out" experimental K-band (18-27 GHz) antenna system, but also about the way the satellite was constructed almost entirely by UW students.
The Ultimate Packet Workstation - Bryan Hoyer, K7UDR
Bryan discusses an interesting concept of highly automated packet radio station that goes out and "pings" various packet radio systems on different frequencies to test whether various stations are reachable, and how reliable the various paths.
Thanks for reading!
Steve Stroh N8GNJ
Bellingham, Washington, USA
2021-05-05
Copyright © 2021 Steven K. Stroh