Episode: 4225
Title: HPR4225: Chewing the rag with Kristoff and Ken
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4225/hpr4225.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-25 21:44:46

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This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4, 225 for Friday 11 October 2024.
Today's show is entitled, Chewing the Rag with Christoph and Ken.
It is part of the series Ham Radio.
It is the 230th Show of Ken Fallon and is about 53 minutes long.
It carries a clean flag.
The summary is, Christoph Bonn and Erf and Ken Fallon
are taking Chad about Ham and Hackers.
I am Christoph, and I'm Ken Fallon.
Yes, according.
Christopher Collins, absolutely.
Yes.
Yes.
What do you want to talk about?
Yeah, okay.
Wait, we're talking about the second text, I guess.
I'm about my text.
Yeah, about your text.
Okay.
So, some background.
Okay.
So, I'm Christoph Bonn, I'm at the radio.
Okay.
And I do promotion, make a fair gigant I did, I do post them.
We have been back to post them, yes, correct?
Yes.
I do workshop time times and Hackerspaces, etc.
Where I do hard-fucking, etc.
My main interest is trying to get,
well, the amateur radio community and Hackers slash makers,
slash developers, slash science clubs, slash hobby clubs,
slash what else do you have?
Kind of a bit more together.
It's kind of, I noticed that there is people out there
who are interested in radio.
We're using more radio now than we ever did before.
Radio technology, I mean, wireless.
It's all wireless.
Okay.
So, we noticed that a lot of people actually are interested
in how it works.
For, if I talk to my tea people for them, radio is what?
It's as if you have this metal box on the left side of the room
that has a knitted jack and it's kind of an antenna
or something metal, which, apparently,
is a metal box.
It's a metal box.
It's a metal box.
It's a metal box.
It's a metal box.
It's a metal box.
It's a metal box.
It's a metal box.
It's kind of an antenna or something metal,
which, apparently, is called an antenna.
And you have another box,
a metal box on the right side of the room,
but also has that metal thing standing out,
which is an antenna.
You stuff your bits into one box and it comes out the other box.
In some way, and this magical thing happens in between.
Yeah, but it depends on the person you're talking to.
Some people are, if you put a cable between them,
there would go lots of magical boxes to them.
But there are certain people who will go,
that's going on on that cable,
or one of those going on between those wires.
And it's those type of people who are charging away.
Yes.
So they don't know the VR,
that type of people.
Yes.
But I do notice that.
People are interested to actually understand how to work.
So, yeah.
A lot of technical oriented people
or they could be just a needed,
because, I don't know,
they're scientists and they do environmental science
and they want to have a sensor network in the city
to measure their quality.
And they heard about this thing called Laura,
one and the things network.
And that kind of stuff.
So, they're interested in radio.
And kind of, we are the amateur radio community
and we're supposed to be the experts in this.
You know, an amateur radio is about radio, right?
And the strange thing is that for you
actually send those people to a radio club
there's a pretty good chance that.
And press record of that mic with me.
Okay.
I hope this one recording?
Yeah, it is.
Okay.
You haven't said anything interesting yet.
I don't know this one.
Okay.
Okay.
I hope it changes.
I have to buy a beer tonight.
Okay.
So, that's the goal.
So, that's the idea.
So, the thing is that we do notice
that the, well,
a lot of radio clubs are not really prepared for this.
Yeah.
So, I may be, well,
it's no problem promoting amateur radio
showing what we kind of geek hobby we are.
We do, we are a technical scientific hobby
that deal with everything that's radio in radio technology
and radio propagation.
We cannot explain a lot of stuff.
We can do a lot of things not just making connection,
but also how stuff works, how it works under the hood,
how the signal processing work,
how high there's a signal bounce over the air,
how there's a work bound between two layers of the atmosphere,
how there's actually come back over the ionosphere,
geeky things like bouncing,
radio signals over the trail of a meteor,
all the things that we do kind of like,
okay, we do that because we can.
That's the mandala.
We do a lot of stuff,
but then you send those people,
well, okay, we're interested.
How do you work?
When they have to send them to the local radio club
and then that's the problem starts.
Yeah.
So, okay, sorry.
No, no.
I can't, I can't.
Okay.
And I know where you're going as well.
Okay.
So, the kind of this,
the question is how do we actually kind of meet them?
So, I kind of have written a text kind of,
which kind of explains a bit of what's happening and why it is.
There's a bit of history in that.
I think somewhere in the 80s and 90s,
where radio clubs would say,
we don't do computers,
that's computer clubs,
we're radio clubs.
We don't do digital,
we don't do software,
that's not our thing,
but now in 2020,
everything is digital and software and computers.
Our radio has become a computer,
so we kind of have an issue with that.
And things have become very complex.
And there's another thing that actually comes to play with it is SDR.
SDR is software, sorry, software defined radio.
So, software defined radio is,
well, a novel,
well, ten years now,
it's a way to do radio these days.
So, everything is done and software.
The problem with SDR is,
it's the wrong name.
So, it's called software defined radio,
but actually it should be called MDR,
it should be defined radio.
How?
The thing I have to understand,
how does SDR actually work?
The idea of SDR is that you take an analog circuit.
You have simple, like, an amplifier,
you know, those things with transistors,
amplums and that kind of things.
Next week sound louder.
Yes, that's true.
So, you kind of,
what you need to do is you define,
or you determine a mathematical function
that describes the behavior of that device.
So, an amplifier is
y of t as x of t multiplied by a.
That means your,
y of t is your output of your circuit.
As x of t,
your input of your circuit,
multiplied by a,
and then plus a is your amplification factor.
So,
so that means the way is two,
then your input,
your output will be twice as large as your input.
If a is a half,
then your output will be half as large.
If a is minus one,
then your output will be inverted.
You take an analog,
another circuit,
like a low pass filter,
then you take your,
your output is your,
yes, that's,
sorry, yes,
sorry, yes.
I have one job.
Okay.
Low pass filter, actually,
the output of your output filter is
your current input sample,
plus your previous input sample,
divided by two.
So, you take the average of your current
and your previous input sample.
Now, this is how,
mathematically,
a low pass filter works.
If you do two samples,
take three,
you can have values and big,
etcetera, etcetera.
So, the idea of SDR is that
you do everything actually,
you define as a mathematical function.
And then you implement
a mathematical function
in whatever technology
could be a computer,
could be a process,
could be microcontroller,
could be anything,
that's digital,
and FPGA, etcetera.
So, the thing is,
to understand SDR,
the fundamentals of SDR,
you kind of have to need
to have bit of a mathematical background.
A bit of an idea of actually
how to do it,
have a way of thinking
mathematically.
And that is,
is that difficult?
No, it's just different.
It's just different
about most people do.
Now, if you haven't
have an engineering background,
that's not a problem,
because engineers do everything
mathematically.
That's what they do.
Yeah, I,
yeah, I can't,
I'm an engineer,
but I have,
I have issues with what you're saying.
Okay.
Well, I take somebody who's,
with this science,
physics is a mathematical
modeling of reality.
The problem I have
with forcing everything
to be maths is,
it's such a useful tool,
that people who are good with maths
or understand maths
or don't have an issue with maths.
Yeah.
Fall back in it,
like a crutch.
I can't explain it
on the other way,
so I'm gonna have to do it with maths,
which is grand.
Okay.
But if you have this calculator,
which I have,
maths is hard.
Yes.
Always is hard,
when you're four
and you're six,
swap.
Yeah, I know.
But this is possible.
Always, I will,
always challenge people.
Always possible to explain it
in another,
something in another way.
And there are ways to explain
something in another way.
Correct.
But that's just me.
Okay.
But what you say,
there's still lots of people
who are good at maths.
Okay.
But the thing that you have to understand
is that,
what the 95% majority
of our material community
does not have the background,
actually,
to think in mathematical way.
Yeah.
But what are you asking of them?
I'm not asking anything.
Just a conclusion that you see
is most of the amateur radio people,
are people who,
someone who have an electronic background,
and most of them are people who just say,
I'm interested in radio.
But what are you asking of them?
I'm not asking them.
It's a,
it is the...
Can you understand software
in the final radio?
And you're saying,
you have to understand maths.
And I'm saying,
no, you don't.
Okay.
You have to understand software in the final radio.
Do you need to understand that?
You need to have a little bit of
mathematical background
to understand how it works internally.
Or you can look at a good animation,
or some of you can give you a better analogy
of other phase signals.
There are some,
this is why I'm searching
for food,
material that's freely grown open source
are the critical elements
that we can use,
that show intrinsically
in a diagram
or an audio for those who don't have
who aren't new.
To build up that crop of some knowledge.
Yeah.
Exactly.
But I don't think you need to
fall back about that.
Having that there for people
are good maths,
you will talk to the maths stuff.
But for people to get an intrinsic
understanding,
then you can do that.
It's a problem.
Yeah.
It's a problem.
It's not an easy,
not crack.
Well, it's crackable.
Yeah.
Okay.
Did I think about it?
The problem that I had is,
for instance,
the tool for most,
the most well,
a tool for as the artist can do radio.
Right?
So there's blocks and blocks you've filled.
The problem is,
those things have parameters.
Yeah.
And to understand what these parameters
actually do,
that's,
you kind of need to have a little idea
of what actually the block actually does.
And that's usually based on mathematics.
So you could go on the internet
and say, okay,
I know what to have.
This filter,
what parameters do I have to fill in
GNU radio and says,
three, five, seven, etc.
Fill in the values,
it works until it doesn't.
And then you stock.
Yeah.
But that isn't,
that's the whole thing
about getting your amateur radio.
Exactly.
Yeah?
There's easy stuff.
And there's always going to be stuff on there.
That you get it and stuff that you're not going to get.
And some people are good at math.
Some people are not.
Yeah.
But what I really found interesting
about doing the amateur radio was,
I'm here coming to this conference today,
where that's been coming for, by the way.
This is a way,
we're waiting for the pub to open for five.
Right?
Yes.
The part is that the amateur radio exam
sets a bar base level of knowledge
that everybody gets.
Yes.
And if you're up at that level,
and it was a joy to see today,
because people could jump into that level
on their presentation and expand from that.
But you can't make that assumption.
Like, when you're with HBR,
you can't make that assumption.
Everybody's at that level.
You have to assume that nobody's at that level.
Okay, I understand.
So, it is our challenge.
You said to me,
you said to the community,
explain as to your,
without having to resort to maths.
Okay, what would be,
they would be an interesting one.
Yeah.
That's a plus to topic now on the lecture.
Okay.
We don't have to do it all ourselves.
Okay.
Okay.
Please, somebody.
So, try to get back a little bit.
So, the thing is that,
there is a problem with knowledge.
But there is a,
technology has,
radio technology has become
signal processing.
It's a large degree.
Yeah.
You have your analog front end,
and you have your back end.
A lot of that is a signal processing.
It's a stuff that we need today.
It has been a signal processing.
And so, that is not easy to go into
if you do not have this.
Yeah, they did the other stuff as well.
Yeah, they did.
Okay.
I had more, like the,
the software defined some,
and I just agree,
because the software defined the QR thing
was developed back in the 1920s.
Yes.
I am a radio guy,
so I'm just sitting on the shelf.
And if there's anything,
there's about the innovation thing he's told me,
is what goes around,
comes around,
the weird amount of all this,
analog stuff will be back
for some reason or another.
Yeah, that's true.
So,
it's good,
the basic knowledge that everybody should have.
Even though you might not know it,
that's confusing.
Ah.
One thing I do,
counter-argumented us,
if I look at what the exam,
the hard-earned exam in Belgium,
ask about SDR,
I think there's one question.
Yeah.
What's the difference between
the FR filter and the R filter,
and the rule they have,
is kind of what it teaches us.
If you see a line going back
from the exit back to the entrance,
to the input,
then it's R filter,
otherwise it's a FR filter.
That's,
okay,
that's the answer to the question.
Doesn't, of course,
doesn't say anything.
That's, of course,
that's kind of...
There's never been a,
like,
here's my search,
bears my life.
Okay, but,
the problem is that,
these kind of things are never taught
in the classes.
Yeah.
Okay, that's,
that's one of the problems
that I think we have.
Is that,
there's a lot of stuff that is new,
and we kind of have this,
okay, we have a,
kind of a whole,
with knowledge.
Yes, but I think you're all
into harder yourselves.
Yeah, probably.
There is nothing,
there,
there's still teaching,
handwriting,
what we've had the keyboard for years.
Yes.
Who likes anymore?
Yes,
don't teach typing.
It's only a very few
countries who teach typing.
Yeah.
So, as far as the amateur radio
syllabus is concerned,
it's way up there.
You have this moment.
Again,
education,
and it just takes a long time.
But the education system
in most countries
is set up for,
is the use of,
of guys,
filling out papers,
doing forms,
in the old stuff.
Yeah, okay.
Okay.
Pointing.
But the century,
the one before.
Okay.
Who?
Oh.
I love being dealt with that,
can you?
No, no, no, no, no,
maybe you have a very good point.
That's not the point.
I don't use a can,
or not,
but use a can.
So,
the thing is,
the thing is that,
okay,
go anyway.
If I look at the current
audience of amateur radio
clubs,
love them,
actually, are,
well,
they,
there's a problem.
That's,
that's,
do you also feel
a social aspect?
Yes, that's correct.
But,
I mean,
the problem is that,
the social aspect,
you can't find on Facebook,
or you just can find on any,
but,
I have no clubs
that actually are just more
a pub than actually
a radio club.
Yeah.
Okay.
So, in essence,
I am not the one
who will tell,
okay, you have to recognize
your club that way.
That is not the thing.
I think people
have to do that myself.
But, there is,
if,
I know there are,
in some clubs,
probably,
more,
most, I guess,
there are individual people
who actually are interested
in going beyond,
what is the typical amateur radio
environment of,
what is amateur radio
usually do,
making contacts,
online games,
and doing videos,
FDA,
blah blah blah blah blah blah.
So, okay.
We're going to do some other
levels.
I know,
the club,
the way you have members
who are into,
I don't know,
science,
because they are interested
in astronomy
and they do radio astronomy
or something,
people who are
into hacking,
because they want
a member of a local hacker club.
Something like that.
So, it,
kinda,
we try to find a way
to,
get those people
more interested,
I mean the other thing, that's not the thing, that's what the people's a club is made by the people who are in that club.
Not for me, I'm not here, it's not my place to tell you have to do it this way.
But there has to be something where if people are interested actually in expanding amateur radio, outside the normal boundaries of what is amateur radio,
and to hacker community, make a community to develop community, science community.
So it's with the result that if somebody comes in like the example I gave the environmental scientist,
and he talks about Laura one that the guy says, I heard about it, I know perhaps I could help.
Not that the guy comes in a radio club and everybody goes, that's not amateur radio, we don't know how to do that.
So that's a bit what the goal.
Now the goal is not to change every club, I think the goal is to think things will change by themselves.
There will be people interested in this, I've just talked to some guys here who actually are a radio club inside a hacker space here in Paris area.
So it exists, you could do that, you could have some amateur radio guys, we just do that thing in three or four of them in a local hacker space.
Yeah, you could think they have things like that, you could say, you know what, another idea would be that, I don't know,
you have a club which has sort of the radio guys into R&2, the normal club where you have your shakka, your bar,
and some people are into another thing, they have a club with two sides of it.
And I guess you do need to make sure that if you want to be a club that you do things together.
So if there is a field there or contest, etc., that you do stuff together.
But you could have multiple people in different, well, same club, just ideas.
Some other ideas would be simply to say, okay.
What is the problem that you're saying?
The amateur radio clubs tend to be, say it, I think they are too much in their own bubble.
And the club as a whole, I mean, there's a general speaking.
In the real people...
We're talking specifically about this club, definitely not your club.
Well, we're talking specifically about a club in Farrakistan, who are there and...
Inside their own bubble.
And they have views on certain things.
They have certain things, but they also...
Same way that people have views on GPL and BSD.
Yeah, like anything else.
But I said that being in your own bubble is the result of actually...
Of not knowing that there are other technologies, not being familiar with them.
Thinking that you're good at radio, and then all of a sudden you get meet other people
who do other stuff like radio astronomy or radio actually.
They use a hacker F2XV and a Wi-Fi tool as a radar.
And you kind of...
That's not real radio.
And then you fall back to your own bubble.
Yeah, that's not real radio.
Yeah, but that's...
So it kind of tried to...
But, in essence, I mean, I don't...
It's not for me to say what people should do.
That's not the point. If they fall back to your own bubble, they're happy.
I mean, that's good. That's okay. That's their point.
But if there are people who actually are interested in making it, expanding it,
then we should have ways to expand it.
I think my feeling on this...
And I'm speaking as Ken now.
My feeling on this will be that if they've got a club, it's their club.
Yeah.
Does that...
But, if you're coming in, you're also...
If you're also representing...
...then I'm radio commuting.
So, yes, I'm doing what you're all about.
I'm thinking that they won't style all the rest of us.
That's one thing, but there is a responsibility, as well, to the hobby.
To the albers who will perform here, who passed on that knowledge team.
And even if you don't have the knowledge yourself, you should not be hindering the next generation.
That would be my argument to these guys for, like, here's a folder.
If we see the guy coming in with a Metallica t-shirt,
or with a free sulfur foundation t-shirt,
here's what you do.
Yeah.
I think there is a couple of things.
First of all, I think most...
...hams, most people are...
...they don't know...
...no, that's the other communities exist.
I've been...
...ask radio club to come together and go to a maker.
There was a makerspace, I think, or a faplop.
I don't know what it was, but actually they're kind of...
...okay, there's exists.
3D printing, CNC milling, that kind of stuff.
Okay.
It was a problem they didn't know it existed.
It's kind of strange.
Attention, we'll be doing outreach to the ham guys.
If you want the ham guys to be...
...well, I don't know.
The way I see the ham guys as a resource that's available to the African community.
And vice versa.
What you're saying, if they're going to feel this and stuff doing their orders,
surely then we.
If you want to change the mind and convince them that...
...all the things they say, surely the hackerspace guys...
...should be going to the field as well.
Yes.
Sorry, but didn't...
One of the things I know is fun.
We had a field day where I lived a couple of years ago.
I got people asking visitors, just people passing by.
What is this?
So the other guy, yes, it's a field day blah, blah, blah, blah.
I'm saying, okay.
And I think somebody come up to me and say,
I said, yes, we've just been attacked.
And GPS not worked one down.
And we're trying to do some emergency communication,
thinking where it is.
And it says, oh, what?
And you try to explain what actually field day is.
The problem is we have a tendency to explain to much what we do.
But we do not explain why we do it.
And what actually is the reason behind it.
And we try to...
We have a very big problem of explaining big picture.
Thank you so much.
This is the thing.
Okay, but I mean, if you get somebody coming by,
you can explain at the field day.
You can explain what the field day is.
I mean, you can explain what the goal of the amateur radio is,
having your knowledge as a resource you could use
for the community if something goes really down.
Yeah.
Okay, so that is something else I'm just doing.
I don't...
Well, not to do this really.
I'm here with you anyway.
One of the other things I do is sometimes visit hacker spaces.
I think it was some in Germany and small sand.
And I was a guy saying, okay, they had the opposite problem of ours.
Yeah, members were too young.
I mean, so they had...
I have a family and a lot of stuff.
So I come to the space to do my thing.
And I'm not really interested in all the other really stuff.
And we had a little discussion about how to promote the hacker space.
And I told them, you know what?
If you compare to how you do with things,
you have to say if you have a cultural event.
You do not have to say, we do this, we do that.
You say, we provide a service, a hacker space, as a space
where you provide a place for people who are interesting to come together.
I think you have to not to tell what you do.
They have to do what I actually...
What service are you providing?
What is actually the goal of what your purpose of your club?
And we have the same problem in amateur radio.
We just talk to somebody.
I've been had some guy who helped me out on the info booth at MakerFair.
And for somebody else in question, you start out with 20 meters
and all kinds of technical stuff as things...
Oh, come on.
Try to explain at least explain why we're doing amateur radio as a technical
scientific hobby that deals with amateur radio.
We try to explain and understand technology.
You don't have to start explaining what 20 meter blah, blah, blah is.
The guy went, okay, okay, see you next week.
But I also think some of the moon moon stuff
and the 40 meter and 20 meter moon scatter and all the emergency stuff
is also, it drives me away from it.
What I want to hear is what practical.
So, it'll help me debug Wi-Fi signals.
I can understand Wi-Fi more so I can position my Wi-Fi around.
I can understand why my click-on-click-out system doesn't work.
I can understand how microform works.
I can understand the technology around me.
That, to me, is more like a local thing.
Yeah, that's true.
In this whole amateur radio journey,
very little of it is actually there, you know, the 4 meter or 2 meter of work.
A lot of it is learning the units, doing the basic electronic stuff.
Okay, fundamentals of talking about what frequency is,
what a wave is, wave.
Actually, if you do promotion,
I know that one of the ways you can get people really interested
or actually saying, why? Wow, sorry.
Yeah.
Is that meter scatter.
First, you can't explain a bit what we do.
That's radio thing is bound something.
What is a meter? You know, that's a falling star.
Actually, a piece of metal, a piece of stone, that comes in the air,
comes from the atmosphere, comes into the atmosphere, from space.
It heats up, and the air around that gets ionized,
and ionized gas reflects radio waves.
Picked up, picked up, picked up by the way.
It's bands the radio waves, but I don't get it.
The real fact is that what you could do is say,
okay, I'm here, I think, was in Gantawards.
I'm here in Ganta.
I send out the signals somewhere in the direction of some fronts.
I send it out to space,
because it's standing in the way.
They're just standing to ET.
Now, something goes in, and you'll meet your comes down,
and you get a 10-second burst.
So, there's somebody else on the other side listening,
and just hearing nothing, because my radio signal goes into the air.
Then I have the 10-second burst, and the 10-second burst contains my call sign, etc.
After two minutes, I stop, and the other one starts over,
and if I'm lucky, I get another second.
And why do you do that?
Because you can.
That's the best reason of everything.
Everybody has a hacker space.
That's the best reason you do it, because you can.
You're talking about a hacker space, because I can't.
Yeah, absolutely.
You have to target your audience.
Yeah, but this one's also a maker space, so you kind of have makers.
That stands perfectly fine.
So, there is this aspect of doing things just because you can.
Absolutely.
That is also an understanding.
Here at HPR, we can clearly understand that we're on board.
Well, I don't think we're selling enough.
Is the boring parts of the fact that everything's turned...
No, so you have a presentation.
You've got the parents in the background.
The kids have been bought by the amateur radio scatter.
We need to be talking over the kids' shoulders at the parents' school.
You do realize that everything's gone wireless.
There's a distinct lack of wireless engineers around.
There's a fundamental lack of girls' river diversity in this.
That's a good career for you to be here.
Okay, thank you for that.
Yeah, then you have the parents' school.
Hold on.
I'm all they need to do.
Well, you do the amateur radio stuff.
It gives you a very broad thing.
Not only that, but you're in touch with a huge network of people around the world
who are motivated to help you along in your career.
That's a well, well.
Okay, that's a good one.
Sales pitch in it and think of that.
Sales pitch at the parents.
That's what they say about the future.
Come on, who cares?
Yeah, but you've got it.
It also, if the kids are not motivated by science,
stems subject.
It's a good way to get them motivated.
Because now for the teachers you go,
all right, you want them to be do a pass under STEM exams.
Yeah.
Well, get their attention if you do a meter scan.
Yeah, one of the things, actually,
because that's not just the making the hacker community.
One of the other communities,
we would be interesting to talk,
our code of dojos.
Yes.
So, I don't know, people know,
code of dojo is kind of a coding classroom.
I think eight, seven to eight, seven to eight.
Seven to eight.
They start with scratch.
Scratch, yes.
Scratch, which is kind of gooey thingy that you have.
It teaches you things basic coding for loops,
well, et cetera.
From there on either they go Arduino.
Yeah.
They do either Python or I think some do JavaScript
and go website.
There are people who want to go to Arduino
because it turns out it's physical.
It's not just on a computer screen where you see something moving.
You actually see something physically going on.
Yes.
You have a light blinking.
You blow in it.
Okay, the thing goes up, whatever.
And what is interesting, if you go from there,
say, you know what, we have this Arduino thingy here,
and it has a sandwich sensor,
and I have the other Arduino with the screen.
I'm going to make something that your temperature sensor
on the left, your Arduino with your temperature
on the left,
actually transmit your signal to the other,
and you could screen on the screen.
So, you could actually use that as a way
to introduce radio concepts.
Absolutely.
The thing is, I know some people,
actually, they are amateur radio people.
They are a member of a club.
And they are teacher at a code of dojo.
And they're really interested, actually,
in using those ideas, like, okay, we do start with that.
We give them some ideas.
Not going to be all radio, right?
Just doing subs and concepts, electronics,
bit of pinky temperature sensors.
Ta-da-da-da-da-da.
You start off from there.
And you start to use something like, okay,
you have a radio module.
And you know what, fun,
we're going to do the same thing,
but we're going to make our own antenna.
And you know what to be more fun is,
the other team is going to be blocking our signals.
Yeah.
And things like that.
And then you could say, you know what,
we're going to do something where I lift five kilometers from here.
I'm currently transmitting a signal like that
and it's up to you to actually try to capture it.
Or find out where it is.
And then you can use that to introduce concepts of radio.
Yeah.
And it's kind of fun.
It is one of those things where you can.
And the thing is that the guy is,
the person now is asking, okay, I want to do that.
I want some help.
But it's kind of stupid because now he has to do make a course.
But probably somebody else who was also interested in this.
I was wondering if there was a...
There we go.
Good.
Okay, can you write this?
And actually, you feedback a minute, right?
So I guess you want the art community to write your course for you.
No, no, no. I don't want the community.
But I mean, it's the kind of...
It would be interesting if they would...
No.
The repository of...
Well, it doesn't really mean...
I mean, it's kind of logical that those things happen.
But the thing is, it would be nice to have something like that.
So just the people who really want to do that say,
okay, I take this exercise
and I just translate it from English to whatever local language
of your kids because you don't want your 10-year-old kids to have to learn English.
Of course.
And these are the typical kind of small things that can make a difference.
If you are people who are interested in actually doing that.
Yeah.
Either things we could do.
For instance, like, as I said, there's a problem with...
Well, if you go to a radio club and the guys don't know what is Laura one
for some thing that worked.
If you have a member of your local club who is aware of those things.
Try to explain some non-amateur radio...
Radio technology in your local club.
Give it, talk on Laura one or on IoT networks
or on what's how they have ZB,
or on six-low-run with trash.
No, it's trash.
And something else, I think.
So we see a lot of this.
We go to radio and the amateur radio people,
they...
Well, that kind of sounds negative.
The radio amateurs, right?
They know amateur radio technology,
but there are a lot of stuff that they do not know.
They haven't really seen or noticed somebody explained.
And that's something you could also do.
I mean, it's not that difficult to actually try to introduce,
okay, how does radio astronomy work?
What do you actually need?
Explain radio astronomy in the radio club.
Yeah.
So that the...
I could try explain certain things.
And how does... I don't know.
They RSGB, that now in the house.
Small presentations of various...
And that's one of those things that...
That's currently...
Well, at least from my experience, kind of lacking,
as people are...
We are amateur radio. We do our amateur radio thing.
We do Morse code.
Single-cyband.
Yeah.
10 different digital modes where we only do use one of them.
Not gonna mention the name.
Everybody knows what it is.
But used to be PSK31, so it's kind of okay.
Oh, it's another one.
But we have those amateur radio things
and everything that is not that we don't know about.
We're not really coming to contact with it.
We don't really know what it is.
We don't know how it works.
And we have to get more people into contact with...
It's a different zone, yeah.
Well, it's a good thing.
Well, at least inform people that there exists...
There are mass networks.
Giving here was not...
Today we had a talk on Mastastic, which is kind of combined.
Can I call you back?
Bye.
Well, today we had a talk on Mastastic and on Mashcom.
But there's a guy here from BattleMash,
which is not actually a radio amateur.
And he's gonna give a bird of a feather talk
because it was not really planned.
He's gonna give a talk on half an hour on BattleMash,
which is actually Wi-Fi, sorry, Mash Networks over Wi-Fi.
And strictly speaking, I saw Wi-Fi, the six slowest channels
are actually a radio spectrum.
And there is some stuff that is interesting
because the difference is that
Mastastic and Mashcom are based on Laura.
They have limited bandwidth.
Yeah.
If you do on Mashcom, you want a Wi-Fi.
You have more bandwidth, you can actually run
Mash protocols on product of that.
Where you do actually routing all this RR and stuff.
So there's stuff that you get to meet some other things
that are not really inside your conference.
And there are actually scenarios
where Wi-Fi based Mash networks are useful,
something like emergency communication,
where you say I just want to need something.
It's the biggest ubiquity, easy for me today,
of Wi-Fi in your devices.
You don't need specialized devices for the reception.
Yes, so that things are possible.
But I think that is not really
not covered in the amateur radio community
because...
What I'm really happy with this conference
is that this is the first crack in the ice
to bring the two communities together
to get people out of the conference room
to get people learning additional stuff
and meeting and greeting.
It is a good conference.
Yes.
And that is the goal of trying to
just a bit analysis of what can we do
without being too pushy.
I don't want to be pushy.
I need you to be pushy.
No, I'm not.
You come to Paris.
You should be in Paris.
You should be in Paris.
I mean, it's not my job to tell how
people actually just want to support
the people who are interested in this.
And there are people interested.
I guess we just need to help them.
Provide tools for instance, like,
make sure there's one mailing list
of people, radio parameters
in a country that actually
are active also in a makerspace
and kind of, oh, you do that
and kind of make a kind of extra community
and it's not competition of a local club.
I don't think the thing I have to understand
that a local club has its function.
It's not only for the people
who are not interested in the other stuff
but also, as I said,
in essence, if you want to do a field day
you need physical...
Well, things need to be done
and that's something you can only do
in a local club because that's where
the thing happens.
One interesting, by the way,
is that the DRC, which is the German
amateur radio society.
Yes, they have a district called
District 23.
Do you know what is District 23?
It's called, now my German,
throwing the DCCC.
The Friends of the Chaos
Computer Club. And actually,
it's targeted, oriented,
very specific towards
members, actually, who are
not members of a local radio club,
but members of a hackerspace.
DCCC, right? The computer class,
computer club.
And it's kind of, well, if you are
having a local unlock, if you want,
that you live in a city as a hackerspace
but a local radio club is not really
completely not interested in what you do.
You can become a member of that
virtual local club.
And those people, they do not communicate
with the community resources,
and they go come together when
there is a hacker event somewhere.
But I talked to some of the people
in there, and he says,
we do have people who come in
from a radio club,
or someone from a hackerspace,
and they go to T-23.
But we also have people who go
to a local radio club because they
want to have local support
with people that they can talk to.
So it's not a black and white
themselves will probably decide,
well, I don't have to tell them, they probably
will do it anyway.
Decide, what is best for me?
And based on that, they will say,
okay, I'll do that.
But we have to provide the opportunity
to the resource to actually do that.
What do you want?
What is it that you want?
Look at how we can set up
supports for this.
Support.
The goal is to provide tools
that people who are interested
in looking beyond the book
that you're talking about.
What is the actual goal?
You want to...
Get more people to get people
talking to each other, seeing what
resources can be set up, mailing lists, blah, blah, blah.
What are you talking about?
What is the goal?
The goal is...
More people who are interested in
get more people too.
No.
No, no, no.
Sorry.
Sorry.
It's my job.
No.
Recently, in history, we had a
soul searching thing.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
Another Belgium.
First, he was...
Yeah, I have had to look at history.
What is this what we're doing
and how are we going to do it?
So you're starting a project.
A big project.
I started out...
First of all, it could be that the goal would exist.
Yeah. I know the goal exists.
I know there could be
organizations that actually do that,
or people who will do that.
Yeah, but you often told me what the goal is.
The goal is...
What is your goal of your organization?
My goal is to...
Provide resources.
So that...
So that more...
So that more people on the Amhert Care Radio community
and Hacker community talk to each other
getting people into the hobby
and spreading the knowledge of radio.
Yeah.
Spreading the knowledge of radio.
That is...
Okay.
It's like an exam I have to...
I have to have this language in the exam.
Spreading the knowledge of radio.
Okay, but that's what I'm as radio is about.
I mean...
I'm a radio, because I talk to an Amhert Care Radio guy.
It's about providing emergency services.
Yeah, okay, true.
It's about sports and stuff.
Okay, that's for me what Amhert Care Radio is about.
I get it.
And that is a lofty goal.
And to be honest with you,
the majority of hands that I've spoken to
are actually doing that goal.
Yeah, I mean...
As I said, we're using more and more radio these days.
And kind of...
It's...
What agreed actually the thing is far-fetched.
A couple of months ago,
we had to use you in Estonia
and I think other countries
and Poland on GPS jamming.
Yeah.
There we had these...
Well, the war thing going on.
And they had GPS jamming.
And now they find out,
hmm, hmm.
Only being dependent on only GPS kind of
quite it's always very easy for me to say.
But...
That is a little logical
if you know how radio works.
Yeah.
That is those things that you...
You have to need...
One of the things I notice is that
why do you need to have technical background on stuff
is if somebody tells...
We'll see. I don't know if you can see.
Yeah, we're happy.
Okay, now...
Now the episode is marked as...
I already see this in the morning.
My mother.
So, if somebody is telling crap
and kind of...
Or just telling things that you think...
That's okay.
But now that it's just the stuff you get
because you have some background on things
and radio...
I think radio is important.
It will probably be more and more important.
I...
One of the talks I gave is
the award in Ukraine.
I think you understand how important the radio
technology is these days.
They have...
A lot of money for doing just jamming
the other things.
And having a basic understanding
of what actually it is,
that's one of...
I give my workshop that I do.
I give a workshop where I...
I record the radio signal of a remote control
and we don't do a playback attack on that.
But the goal is to explain to people
what actually data looks like,
what actually, how data that is transport,
what it is, why you have sync patterns
in there, what timing does,
what signal to noise, kind of a little bit of background.
So, the interesting thing is that
you have a couple of visual tools on that.
But the goal is to get people
an understanding of what actually it is.
It's not that magical thing
that goes from the metal box on the left
to the metal box on the right
where some Harry Potter thing
happens that...
actually something happens
it's magical by itself.
But at least you give an idea of what it is.
It's so fundamental.
It's doing the amateur radio exam.
Completed more. Maybe it was just
poor education that I got out.
Maybe it was all explained to me.
It just was nasty.
But it really just
all came together
after doing the study for the exams.
And even today I'm still seeing stuff
where I want to
on a RF network cable
and how am I going to explain what's going on there.
Oh, hold on.
A YouTube video of
STR waterfalls.
And this is an FM signal.
This is an AM signal.
And people have never seen it before.
Never seen a waterfall.
They understood that
it's like an inspectorum.
And the problem is that
a lot of those things are now automated.
So we don't even see it.
That's one of the things that I have
getting here against FTA.
Not the fact that it's automated.
But I know when I was
a couple of years ago
you had a waterfall.
You actually were looking at your signal.
You see this is a PSK signal.
This is not TTY because you see those two lines.
You see visually what a radio signal looks like.
We interface.
You don't really see a lot
actually what it does.
We had
during COVID people
who are using video conference
and doing things together.
It's quite interesting.
It was good.
A couple of guys doing FTA.
I was also looking at it.
Look at some other
jamming signal just next to it.
Because you can see those lines you see
the little corner bubble.
Perhaps it's more striking than it is.
And it is actually
I had an expo which kind of
I was doing experiments
well experiments.
I was trying out digital modes.
And this is digital mode called Olivia.
I don't know if you have it done it.
So Olivia is thing where you actually
sounds like a movie was
in some fiction movie where the AI
is kind of a taxi.
And I was in contact with somebody.
I think it was in Germany.
I think it was having a Q-Zo.
So I typed my over.
And he was applying back to me.
So we have on your waterfall
your lips going on on your Olivia.
And the middle of that
somebody else pushed the PSK.
And the flag in the middle of
Okay, there it goes.
And continue working.
Yeah, of course,
because Olivia has
a question, you actually
doing sped spectrum.
That was a visual example
of how sped spectrum actually works.
You were seeing visually
where you actually have your
I don't know how much kilohertz
it was.
Five and a hertz or two kilohertz
black your FDA.
You have your other senior flag in the middle of it.
And continue working.
Why? Because of sped spectrum technology.
Because the fact that you spread out
the way of seeing what a radio
senior looks like.
The problem is that more and more people
go into FDA.
You don't see it anymore.
Yeah, but that's people are people.
No, no, no. I mean, that's the problem.
Because you kind of see
those typical things that you see
visually where you see this is
actually okay, you see sped spectrum
and work how they actually
actually does this thing.
Yeah, but some people are not interested.
There are no people anymore.
Guys, guys, everybody.
Wait, wait, I'm not going to kill the FDA.
Okay, that's not the point.
But the educational aspect
of being seeing a waterfall
and looking at a radio signal
and actually seeing what this radio
senior looks like.
And he's seeing behavior where you,
okay, so I have this light. This is my PSK21.
And the disappearing and coming back
and disappearing. Oh, you see fading.
You really see fading physically.
You see a wide disappearing?
To me, you find it.
And it's interesting.
You see, this is actually,
you know your theory that you learn how
your M works, blah, blah, blah.
Yeah.
This is actually physically how it looks
how it looks like.
And when we're doing the Q&M module
on our correct course,
we will be sure to include that.
Yeah, these are the things that actually
provide knowledge from something.
You really see it.
You see it physically what it does.
It's not just some magical thing
or some explanation or
some mathematical formula. What else?
Doesn't really matter.
So, what is the plan?
The plan is first to get the word out.
Yeah, it does.
And...
The word out does.
I'm interested in...
Okay.
Get the word out that there are people
also interesting in this.
I guess, not the only person on the
planet thinking that way.
So, if there are other people who have already
doing this in their areas of the world,
can you add a comment to this show
or better yet record your own podcast
and send it in hackable quality?
What other ideas would people have
about breaking down the barriers
and cross-pollination of those?
That's for them to tell, I guess.
The goal is to...
What?
And that was the word.
I'll send it to your presentations today.
I was going...
Yeah.
It was fun and interesting with the
I already reported.
Sorry, I can't remember.
I can't remember.
The first one about the
teacher who set up the restaurant.
Okay.
Anthony, thank you.
He was asked how many people have passed
the exam. I didn't find that interesting.
But I wanted to know, as many people
turned up for his course.
I'm around two.
How many seeds have we set?
Because they might pass the exam.
Excuse me, guys.
I'm going to check the lights that the lights are
closing the room and I will leave.
No, no, no, no.
It's recording.
Okay.
And then we will leave.
So you will be the last one in the building.
I'm sorry, because in the old, my colleague
was checking the place,
leaves here.
I just have a drop-in message.
Okay.
We need to go restaurant called.
Landistry.
Landistry, probably fine.
I hope my hippie has found it.
Oh, we can just go.
It's very clear, very near to the...
You go the same direction than yesterday but
instead of turning right, you turn left.
I mean, you walked up down to the street,
then you had an option. You had to turn right.
Yeah?
This street with the stones on the floor.
Pavi.
Really? Okay.
You remember that?
In fact, you have the street where you have the hotel where we were.
Wait, wait, wait. You have going down.
You have the railway station, I guess.
And then where am I going to do for?
It's...
Just turn left.
Not the cheapest one.
I don't know.
800 meters from here.
But...
Yeah, really?
Okay, that's pretty simple.
Yeah, you are here.
We are here.
Okay, I'm just making sure that I don't miss that.
That's the castle.
Bye-bye.
That's the castle. The castle is here.
That's the park of the castle.
Yesterday we were here.
And you have this street along the park here.
And we go here.
Just let me just...
Okay.
This one.
Press the hold.
And then I will add it to favourites.
Okay.
And then you can change it and save it.
And now we have it.
Take a screenshot.
And then I will share that into the matrix room.
Like the group.
So you have...
Save it.
Spectrum 24.
Not editing.
So we're looking for people who are already doing this.
Or people who have ideas about cross-colonation.
How do you get rid of this stagnation?
And if people want...
The stagnation is fine.
Because it's their club.
Their friends.
And they've been doing it for years.
But yeah, a little bit of a business.
Maybe...
And I have ideas.
I do have ideas.
Answer.
No, no, I don't have the solution to everything.
And the knowledge of all.
So I'm kind of really interested
of how people are the people who do that.
And I can't be a mature man.
Mix and match.
Yeah, the real problem will not be one size fits all.
No.
So that works too.
Okay.
Tune in tomorrow for another exciting episode of Hacker.
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