I love Tindie for the interesting electronic products that surface there such as 70cm Power Amplifier (PA) for New Packet Radio:
What makes it special?
It has high power RF switches, a VOX trigger and digital input switch. For the lowest packet error rate you should use the digital 3-5V line connected from the NPR and auto switch the PA.
...
As any experienced Amauteur Radio data communications geek knows, the transmit / receive turnaround time is a critical factor in the overall data rate of a data communications system. If you have to waste time waiting for the transmitter to be up to power, settled on frequency, you are wasting valuable channel time. Ditto for an external amplifier, unless you can signal it just as fast as the native transmitter, which is the "digital 3-5V line" the builder refers to.
New Packet Radio is a very interesting area of experimentation for me (I have several but haven't yet started experimenting). From their page:
NPR (New Packet Radio) is a custom radio protocol, designed to transport bidirectional IP trafic over 430MHz radio links (ham radio frequencies 420-450MHz). This protocol is optimized for "point to multipoint" topology, with the help of managed-TDMA.
Bitrate is 50 to 500kbps (net, effective bitrate), depending on the RF bandwidth chosen.
The radio modem is cheap (~80$) and home-made, with a 433MHz ISM module inside (flexible enough to be tuned over the whole 420-450MHz band). The modem is connected locally with Ethernet, therefore no specific software is needed on PC.
The modem is easy to build and reproduce.
You can add a DMR radio amplifier in order to achieve 20W radio power or more.
The main usage is an extension of HSMM - Hamnet - AREDN networks.
All the project is open-source : hardware, software, protocol specification.
...
Slightly bad news about this new amplifier - its power output of 38 dBm is 6.3 watts.
Worse news - apparently the builder has no plans to ship to the US.
More on New Packet Radio in the coming months, including my personal experimentation at N8GNJ.org.
Thanks for reading!
Steve Stroh N8GNJ
Bellingham, Washington, USA
2021-03-23
New web page - A Brief Survey of Technological Innovation in Amateur Radio
This is a paper I wrote for the ARRL and TAPR Digital Communications Conference 2022.
A Brief Survey of Technological Innovation in Amateur Radio
By Steve Stroh N8GNJ1
ARRL and TAPR 2022 Digital Communications Conference Charlotte, North Carolina, USA 2022-09-16 thru 18
Abstract
In recent decades, the perception of Amateur Radio within the general public has shifted from Amateur Radio being useful, innovative, and an interesting technical activity, to Amateur Radio being perceived as an anachronism and largely irrelevant (except in the direst of communications emergencies). Summarized: “Ham Radio – that’s still around?”
Amateur Radio’s service to the public for emergency communications is being supplanted by improved commercial and government communications capabilities such as improved Iridium2 satellite phones, the FirstNET3 public safety cellular system, and most recently, the nomadic capability of the Starlink4 broadband satellite system.
Amateur Radio has continuously developed unique technological innovations in radio technology, and that has not only continued in the modern era but has accelerated. However, that ongoing, unique contribution to technological society is, increasingly, unrecognized. That is unfortunate. If regulators, lawmakers, industry, the general public... and the Amateur Radio community itself understood the unique contributions to technological innovations in radio technology that Amateur Radio continues to develop, perhaps such recognition might improve Amateur Radio’s perception that it remains a valuable part of society, worthy of continued access to portions of the electromagnetic spectrum.
Keywords
Amateur, Radio, Operator, Ham, Wireless, Technology, Innovation, Spectrum, Digital, VHF, UHF, SHF, Microwave, Communications, ARDC, Techies, Makers, Hackers, Zero Retries Newsletter, Experimentation, Research and Development, FlexRadio, Steve Stroh N8GNJ
Background
For decades, I have been an admirer of technological innovation in Amateur Radio. Not just new technologies like Packet Radio emerging in the 1980s, but new techniques for old problems such as digital techniques enabling reliable communications via unreliable mediums such as the High Frequency (HF)5 (aka Shortwave) portions of the electromagnetic spectrum.
Amateur Radio’s unique culture, the varying characteristics of various portions of spectrum allocated to (or shared with) Amateur Radio operations, and the many highly capable and skilled Amateur Radio Operators, have resulted in a fertile, and welcoming “experimental zone” for technological innovation in radio technologies. Until recent decades, that culture of technological innovation was widely recognized, and encouraged. In the last few decades, the recognition of
1 Email – [email protected]
2 https://www.iridium.com/network/
3 https://firstnet.gov/network
4 https://www.starlink.com/rv
5 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_frequency
A Brief Survey of Technological Innovation in Amateur Radio
Amateur Radio’s utility and contributions to technological innovation have been deprecated to near irrelevence... at least in popular perception... by ubiquitous Internet access, mobile phones, caricatures of Amateur Radio as “Grandpa sitting in the basement tapping on a Morse Code key”, and most notably, the removal of old barriers to individuals communicating across international borders.
A primary reason that this is a concern for society is that it has become irrevocably dependent on radio technology as the primary method of communications for mobile devices, most notably cellular technology, wireless local area networks (Wi-Fi), and most recently, direct-to-user satellite communications. For many people, their mobile phone is their only method of communications and media consumption. Much of that technology has been developed and manufactured in China. Dependence on China for such a critical infrastructure function is proving to be fraught with peril. To counter that peril, the US and other Western nations must quickly develop additional expertise, and personnel, “in nation” to better develop and support this now-critical wireless infrastructure. Amateur Radio can be a “training ground” for developing familiarity and expertise with radio technology, leading to careers in developing and supporting radio technology... but only if Amateur Radio is recognized as a useful and interesting.
The rise of technology specialists, especially those trained in Information Technology (IT), the “Maker culture”6, and the “Hacking Culture”7 have breathed new life into Amateur Radio. “Techies” have discovered Amateur Radio as an enabling technology for supporting experimentation with Information Technologies (such as building hobbyist / not-for-profit wide- area microwave networks). Makers have discovered that there are incredibly interesting things that they can add to their personal knowledge base and practical projects based on capabilities Amateur Radio has long taken for granted, such as long-range communications via VHF / UHF repeaters. Hackers have discovered Amateur Radio as a fertile “playground” for their experiments and expansion of knowledge about radio technology, such as Software Defined Receivers... and Transmitters (with an Amateur Radio license).
I started the Zero Retries Newsletter8 in July, 2021 out of frustration that the totality of technological innovation in Amateur Radio wasn’t being recognized by the Amateur Radio community, its regulators, and especially the public at large. Specifically, I was worried about the growing public perception that Amateur Radio is irrelevant, or worse, an anachronism. Such a perception, if it is to continue for much longer, may prove catastrophic to Amateur Radio, most notably in the loss of Amateur Radio access to various portions of spectrum. To date I’ve published more than fifty weekly issues of Zero Retries, and each issue highlights some aspect of technological innovation in Amateur Radio.
Literally, Amateur Radio is a license to experiment with radio technology and a welcoming “innovation zone” to develop new and exciting technological innovations in radio technology. I hope to make that point with the vignettes in this paper.
6 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maker_culture
7 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_culture
8 https://zeroretries.substack.com (will eventually migrate to https://zeroretries.org)
...
Read the rest of the paper at:
https://www.superpacket.org/n8gnj_dcc_2022_final_for_web.pdf
Posted by Steve Stroh on September 16, 2022 at 06:30 AM in Amateur Radio Future, ARDC, AREDN, ARRL and TAPR DCC, Conferences, D-Star, General Commentary, Growing Amateur Radio, Internet, Microwave, New Packet Radio, Packet Radio, Presentations / Talks, RadioMirror, Radios, Regulatory, Satellite, Software Defined Transceiver, SuperPacket Web Pages, TCP/IP, WSJT Modes | Permalink