[HN Gopher] Ham Radio All-in-One-Cable
___________________________________________________________________
Ham Radio All-in-One-Cable
Author : CTOSian
Score : 217 points
Date : 2024-12-06 21:43 UTC (6 days ago)
(HTM) web link (github.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
| LandoCalrissian wrote:
| Oh that is cool, I have a really janky setup to do packet radio
| with my handheld and this would be awesome for that.
| genewitch wrote:
| slick and useful. Probably won't work out of the box with
| repeaterbook software (android) because he firmwared his
| interfaces to report something that normal ones do not and i
| couldn't be assed to reverse it.
|
| I don't know that repeaterbook has anything to do with it
| actually, but there's android software that uses your GPS and a
| bluetooth module to control your VHF/UHF radios, you can use it
| to automatically change repeaters as you're driving or whatever -
| based on repeaterbook's database.
| kQq9oHeAz6wLLS wrote:
| That software sounds cool, what's it called and where do I get
| it?
| genewitch wrote:
| https://www.zbm2.com/BlueCAT/index.html is the hardware. the
| software is repeaterbook - there's a toggle in the app to use
| the blueCAT device - which is the one i never could find the
| time to reverse to figure out why i couldn't use any BT-
| Serial device!
| transcriptase wrote:
| Very neat! I'm consistently surprised with how the last 20 years
| of software and hardware improvement has only barely made it to
| amateur/cb radio.
|
| 8kb firmware limits. Noise reduction circuits that still do the
| same amount of nothing they did when implemented in the 70s.
| Flaky serial interfaces that need various cables and custom
| drivers for every make and model. CBs using the same 70s form
| factor and still costing $150-300 for the cheapest with SSB,
| which is currently the only modulation worth using unless you
| want to listen to a bunch of old guys in Atlanta yelling
| gibberish sunrise to sunset.
|
| You can argue there's no market, but put even a crappy CB into an
| enclosure that would fit most phone mounts, package it with a
| decent magnet antenna, and not price it as if you have no
| competition (because you won't)... and the sales would be
| incredible. The UVK8 has non-hams buying a bunch because they're
| cheap and only barely customizable, just to receive and not
| transmit.
|
| Cobra, Uniden et al haven't innovated since the 90s, but people
| are still buying them.
| Dalewyn wrote:
| The vast majority of the world's electronics run on 1960s and
| 70s technology, it's not just ham radio.
|
| Bloody nobody cares about bleeding silicon from Intel (or TSMC
| for that matter), everyone cares whether Analog Devices is
| still making that one chip they released to market 50 years ago
| (or if they have a drop-in replacement if not).
|
| And just so people don't get the wrong idea: It's not that
| improvements are shunned. It's that recertifying with new and
| improved advancements costs time and money that nobody wants to
| justify.
| Suppafly wrote:
| >The vast majority of the world's electronics run on 1960s
| and 70s technology, it's not just ham radio.
|
| Yeah it's crazy how little modern tech has made it to
| different niches. I was looking into metal detecting a few
| years ago, and there is basically no technology to any of
| them, even the expensive ones. You'd assume they'd have fancy
| android powered devices with gps and stuff, but no it's the
| same basic circuitry they've had for decades.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| The base circuitry for detecting metal probably hasn't
| changed much (at least not for amateur prices), but there
| are apparently modern metal detectors with app integration
| and gps and the like: https://apps.apple.com/be/app/go-
| terrain/id1419674707
| dzdt wrote:
| Huh. Now you are making me picture a metal detector design
| with an array of overlapping current loops and a fancy
| deconvolution software on top that gives you an image
| (probably very fuzzy but still an image) of what magnetic
| source its detecting. Could be pretty cool!
| dylan604 wrote:
| The new shiny hasn't be properly battle tested. When latest
| silicon from Intel/TSMC has been around for 50-60 years, we
| can talk. It's also much easier to repair analog equipment in
| the field with whatever you've got laying around than digital
| equipment. That's part of the charm/allure of steam punk
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > It's also much easier to repair analog equipment in the
| field with whatever you've got laying around than digital
| equipment.
|
| That... depends. Analog equipment tends to have much, much
| higher component counts than digital equipment, making it
| much more difficult to troubleshoot defective components
| (try measuring a capacitor with a resistor in parallel),
| and the skillset needed to troubleshoot analog vs digital
| is also massively different.
|
| On the other hand obtaining spare parts for analog circuits
| is going to be easier in a few decades than it will be for
| FPGAs and other semiconductors, and completely forget about
| ASICs.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| It's not even the big guys.
|
| I'm a one-dude-in-the-basement freelancer and about 5 years
| ago I was asked to build a device that would measure a slowly
| changing signal and use it to modulate a 5kHz input, and
| generate a differential, bipolar output. Basically, read the
| position feedback on a machine tool and generate output that
| looked like a resolver.
|
| I did it half in code, half in hardware. The hardware was
| pricy, but it was the easiest way to get it done in low
| quantity.
|
| Fast forward a couple years and it's now cheap enough to do
| 90% of all of that in code. I could probably cut my BOM by
| 60%, but at low production volumes there's no compelling
| reason to redesign the system. So, for as long as my customer
| wants these, I'll build them exactly the same way.
| ianburrell wrote:
| The one that annoys me is handsets using proprietary
| batteries and charging. I want them to have USB-C port for
| charging. This came up for me with disasters where it would
| be easier to use USB power banks than AC chargers or
| converting 12V.
|
| Some of the Chinese radios are starting to include USB-C port
| but all the mainstream manufacturers haven't changed. They
| should could out with new handsets, redesign old ones, or
| come out with batteries with USB-C ports.
| tejohnso wrote:
| I just acquired a Baofeng UV9R-PRO as my first semi-tweakable
| radio. Seems like a pretty good piece of kit one step up from
| fixed channel GMRS units. I've been able to learn some basics
| so far and managed to listen to some local repeater chatter.
| Also got a kick out of listening to one of our fixed channel
| GMRS units by looking up the channel frequencies. I haven't
| (deliberately) pressed the PTT once yet. Seems like just about
| anything outbound is technically illegal.
|
| Any suggestions as to what I should do next?
| damnitpeter wrote:
| Go ahead and get your tech license :)
| barkingcat wrote:
| If you haven't started studying for your license yet just
| start it now!
| nedrylandJP wrote:
| Get your tech! You can probably learn from the flash cards in
| an hour or less.
| MandieD wrote:
| Pay $4, install HamStudy on iOS or Android, and/or use the
| excellent HamStudy.org site for free, run through all the
| questions until you've been through them all and are
| consistently scoring 90% on the practice exams, then pay the
| $35 FCC registration fee plus $15 exam fee to take the exam
| online, supervised on camera by three already-licensed
| amateur radio volunteers who are looking forward to cheering
| your success.
|
| Take the Technician exam to be legal for most of the stuff
| you can do with your handheld, or if you're feeling
| ambitious, hit the General one right after that (you can keep
| going in the same session at no extra charge, but you're just
| wasting everyone's time if you've not studied at all for the
| level you're attempting) which will also get you into most of
| HF (1.8 MHz - 30 MHz).
|
| I eventually did all three (Amateur Extra) so that I could
| convert it into a full German license (even the German
| national radio club advised me, a non-German citizen, to do
| it that way)
|
| Good luck!
| oldnetguy wrote:
| They have but few people want to buy it. There are some nice
| SDR rugs but no one wants to spend the $1000+ for it. I am
| finding my now that tech people with more disposable income
| coming into the hobby is helping
| fortran77 wrote:
| Please don't conflate "CB" with amateur radio
| transcriptase wrote:
| When the only difference is regulatory there's nothing I said
| that's not true for both.
| kweks wrote:
| Most modern amateur rigs are now SDR based. The big brands
| (YAESU, ICOM etc) seem to lean into SDR as QOL improvements
| (large bandwidth real time spectrum analysers to see what's
| going on across the whole band, Digital Noise Reduction that
| really works, etc), while preserving the heavily appreciated
| look and feel of a classic rig.
|
| The Chinese SDR-based rigs have more unique interfaces, and
| there are many to choose from.
|
| It's worth bearing in mind that most "Classic" desktop rigs
| output 100W, across 1MHz - 50MHz for HF - this needs to be
| supported by components that take up place.
|
| Devices that operate at 10W are much smaller (and are typically
| chained with a larger independant amp..)
| astrange wrote:
| > which is currently the only modulation worth using unless you
| want to listen to a bunch of old guys in Atlanta yelling
| gibberish sunrise to sunset.
|
| What're they doing that for?
| dylan604 wrote:
| Just because I had never seen the ordering a custom PCB, I
| followed this steps on ordering one for this. Heavens to
| Murgatroyd! that's crazy cheap.
| Geezus_42 wrote:
| Not for long...
| ElectRabbit wrote:
| JLCPCB is super cheap for 100 years now. They are expanding
| for offering their crazy prices now even for 6 layers and
| higher.
| jjkaczor wrote:
| I think they are referring to the upcoming tariff
| implementation from the US...
| cruffle_duffle wrote:
| Which will never happen because it would be incredibly
| unpopular. It's all just political posturing.
| nemomarx wrote:
| last time around he did get tariffs on steel, and one of
| my favorite small US manufacturers stopped being able to
| make computer cases because input costs rose too much.
|
| I wouldn't get too optimistic basically. even some
| tariffs might cut off options.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| Even with 100% tariffs they will still be dirt cheap.
| jjkaczor wrote:
| Same - cheap enough that I bough 5 of these - and even hard the
| surface-mount components pre-mounted for me.
|
| My shame though - is that I haven't finished soldering the
| plugs... (Because I want to use pigtails instead of soldering
| them directly on the board)
| ethernot wrote:
| Yeah it's super cheap if you use the pooled service. Back in
| the 90s it was $1000 for 3 eurocard sized boards if you wanted
| them in under 2 weeks. This was a big problem for us so they
| built a PCB lab in house and it'd still take 3 days.
|
| Now I can get the same to my door in under 2 weeks for $60. And
| they actually test the boards!
| Chihuahua0633 wrote:
| What dimensions do you choose for the board? I do not see that
| detailed anywhere on the github page. First time doing anything
| like this.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Following the provided instructions in the README, I
| navigated the repo to find the ZIP package to upload. I then
| selected the recommended options in the same instructions. I
| have no idea what dimensions as they were never asked of me I
| assume because the site used the data from the drawings in
| the ZIP.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| It is truly insane how much prices have dropped over the past
| 20 years or so. It's like there was a step change around 2006.
|
| I'm old enough to remember hand-etching prototype boards at my
| first job out of college because commercial prototypes cost so
| much. At that time, the big deal was the PCB milling machines
| for companies that needed prototype same day.
|
| Stuff like this makes me feel old!
| AnarchismIsCool wrote:
| I don't mean to be a downer, but I'm so fucking tired of these
| things. We don't need yet another way of doing AF sound card
| injection into shitty walkie talkies, we need an open,
| accessible, quality SDR transmitter that can handle digital
| inputs directly.
|
| I've messed with plenty of systems like this, these antiquated
| radios are not designed for this and you have to spend a lot of
| time fiddling with the gain stages to get them to function at
| all. Even if you get it working, it'll still be _wildly_ less
| capable than something that can do direct encoding, you lose a
| ton of range when doing AFSK compared to basically any other
| encoding scheme.
|
| It's basically the equivalent of setting up a 3d printer gantry
| to hit the keys on your keyboard to send messages.
|
| And before anyone complains, yes, I'm actively working on an open
| XC7Z010/AD9363 based HT for this. Essentially a Silvus but not
| $20k for $100 in components.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > We don't need yet another way of doing AF sound card
| injection into shitty walkie talkies, we need an open,
| accessible, quality SDR transmitter that can handle digital
| inputs directly.
|
| You might want to look into the ADALM-PLUTO [1]. The ham club
| I'm in uses it together with a beefy PA to make TV broadcasts
| to the QO-100 amsat.
|
| [1] https://www.analog.com/en/resources/evaluation-hardware-
| and-...
| anthomtb wrote:
| Am I missing something or is that ADALM-PLUTO a really good
| deal? Its going for $195 direct from AD. Half the frequency
| range of a USRP but 15% of the price.
|
| I was going to hold off on my SDR hobby until a few more gray
| hairs and $$$ came into my life but might need to pull the
| trigger on that guy (yes I know you can get an rtl-sdr for
| like $30).
| mschuster91 wrote:
| It's only got 7 dBm / 5 mW worth of TX power. You'll still
| need a dedicated power amplifier or multiple - not sure,
| antenna/PA isn't my specialty - if you wish to communicate
| with anything more than a few feet away from you.
|
| Also, its frequency range officially begins at 325 MHz.
| That's usable enough for the 70cm ham radio range, but
| practically useless for anything on the longer bands
| without a hack [1] that will only give you the 2m and 4m
| bands.
|
| On the other hand... you don't want to go below the 2m
| range on a handheld anyway, antenna length can be a real
| pain.
|
| ETA: WiMo sells a transverter but it'll cost you about the
| same amount of money that you'd have to shell out for the
| Pluto... and still only 50 mW of TX power. Given that our
| club station has a PA stage that can blast out the full
| allowed 750W on 160m, that's quite a difference...
|
| [1] https://www.rtl-sdr.com/adalm-pluto-sdr-hack-
| tune-70-mhz-to-...
|
| [2] https://www.wimo.com/de/dxpatrol-charon-hf-transverter-
| for-a...
| wolrah wrote:
| I feel the same way, it's incredibly frustrating how many HTs
| exist these days that can charge off of USB-C PD but still
| require these janky headset jack adapters to even do serial
| data transfers. There hasn't been a good excuse for lacking
| full native USB support for over a decade at this point. I can
| not explain it in any good faith way, the only logical reason I
| can come up with is an intentional choice to keep people buying
| the adapters.
|
| I don't even care if it's just the USB-Serial aspect and not
| audio/SDR capabilities. Something more than just charging.
| ianburrell wrote:
| I had thought that it would be nice to have a data-only radio.
| Use the same SDR chip as Baofeng to make radio that has USB-C
| port on one end and BNC/UHF connector on the other.
|
| Handset would with USB-C data would be nice, but I think could
| save a lot of complexity making a radio with no UI.
| golem14 wrote:
| I really would like to have a simple re-implementation of ye olde
| TNC-2s that had a small eprom and a kiss mode TNC with a fricking
| BBS on ax-25 that worked like a charm. They existed I believe
| around 1988-1990ish.
|
| I mean, yes, this cable works with direwolf, but then I need to
| have a full linux system running, which I could do without for
| the purpose of an emergency comms system.
|
| I just found https://github.com/cheponis/KISS-TNC2, but I think
| this is just the KISS mode, not the AX25 stuff.
|
| I found https://www.ir3ip.net/iw3fqg/doc/wa8ded.htm which I think
| describes the TNC2S software I was running many years ago.
|
| Any other pointers would be great.
| justanother wrote:
| I have one of these in the garage. I think they're 6502-based
| with the OS on EPROM, or at least that's what I vaguely recall
| from last time I had mine opened-up about 20 years ago. I can
| dump the ROM if it'd help.
| kmbfjr wrote:
| Likely a Zilog Z-80 CPU with 28C256 eeprom.
| golem14 wrote:
| Many thanks for the offer! I have a few old ones, too. I'm
| sure I have seen .bin files with dumps. Maybe here:
| https://home.snafu.de/wahlm/tfdownload.html
|
| There was some bad blood between Wa8DED and NORDLINK/TheNET
| about copying, maybe best to contact WA8DED directly, or the
| NORDLINK guys.
|
| https://w5yi-
| vec.org/W5YI_Reports/1988/1988-06-01_W5YI_repor...
|
| Then again, maybe it would be better to jump on the LoRA
| bandwagon and make something similar work with meshtastic:
| https://github.com/TheCommsChannel/TC2-BBS-mesh
| ElectRabbit wrote:
| Great project!
|
| But in the name of god: let this awful old AFSK APRS sleep away.
|
| In Europe LoRa APRS is super popular and Semtech is flooding the
| market with super cheap radio ICs. They are extremely hobbist
| friendly.
| Hasz wrote:
| Someone build a bunch and sell me one. at $60 for 5, I would be
| happy to pay $30 for a single one.
| bnpxft wrote:
| NA6D has them for sale: https://na6d.com/products/aioc-ham-
| radio-all-in-one-cable Also as a kit for cheaper
| https://na6d.com/products/aioc-ham-radio-all-in-one-cable-un...
| tonymet wrote:
| I've been a HAM for 5 years and the hobby is constantly evolving
| and expanding. There are many HAM hackers like this who produce
| custom radios, antennas, tools . If you are a software engineer
| looking to tinker with hardware, HAM radio has many practical and
| social applications. It's also a tremendously broad hobby with
| many modes, bands, hobbies, tools, devices.
|
| Like most hobbies today it's up to us to take over and build the
| next generation.
| soupfordummies wrote:
| Weird kinda unrelated question but I bet someone in this thread
| has the answer:
|
| When I was researching the Flipper Zero a year or so ago someone
| mentioned, "I'm not sure about buying one, it seems like a cool
| gadget that I'll play with and then end up in a drawer like the
| [product x]"
|
| I looked up [product x] at the time and it seemed pretty neat.
| Like a USB or computer card that could get radio and TV signals
| and some other stuff.
|
| However, I can't find this [product x] again despite scouring
| bookmarks, reading through reddit/HN topics, etc.
|
| Any ideas?
| DrillShopper wrote:
| RTL-SDR?
| boneitis wrote:
| The HackRF usually comes to mind every time I mess around with
| my Flipper Zero.
|
| (Other items I often hear mentioned in the same conversations
| are the ADALM PLUTO and the pricey USRP line of radios. Or,
| "rtl2832u" might be a key term that helps you further narrow
| down a search more aligned with the sibling comment, though the
| rtl2832u is a cheap, receive-only device.)
|
| There are the units branded by Great Scott Gadgets (the company
| belonging to the guy that designed HackRF). And alternately,
| chinese clones were obtainable for significantly cheaper.
|
| I don't know what the climate looks like these days of getting
| a hold of these radios.
| ianburrell wrote:
| RTL-SDR is the basic SDR (software defined radio). RTL-SDR.com
| and NooElec are the best brands.
|
| There are better ones but they depend on what you want to use
| them for.
| ianburrell wrote:
| There is Open Headset Interconnect Standard, https://ohis.org/,
| for standard headset connection using RJ-45. But I can't tell if
| anyone uses it. I wonder if could make boards like this for
| different adapters.
|
| I sort of wonder if USB Audio would be a better way to connect
| headsets. Go from standard audio ports or headset ports to USB,
| and then USB with these connectors. The hard part is what to with
| the PTT pin. I guess the downside is power.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2024-12-12 23:01 UTC)