DPRG mailing list archives: [DPRG] Amateur Radio

Mon Mar 26 12:01:18 CDT 2007

On Mon, 26 Mar 2007, scott at lighthouse21.com wrote:

> yeah, except radio guys are known to be just as inventive with radios as
> we are with our robots.  One guy built a morse code key for his truck cab
> so he could key morse code by bumping it with his knee as he drove (guess
> he knew the code well enough to just understand it as he listened).
>
> Talking on the radio while driving is a little easier than trying to
> reprogram your micro while driving...
>
> Scott

although i didn't get my first license until college, i was interested in ham
radio from a young age and had a subscription to the main magazine. the knee
driven morse code key for use while driving is very old school, goes back to
before most of you were born.  perhaps the precursor to today's hands-free
cellphone setups? :-)

i agree with your observation about the inventiveness of those people. in many
ways, the modern day hobbyists in fields such as computers and robotics are
direct descendents of the spirit of amatuer radio operators. they had a very
strong sense of confidence in building it themselves, and just because some
company sold something for thousands of dollars was no reason for an
individual not to say "i'll make my own", and possibly doing a better job than
the store-bought version. sound familiar?

my current motiviation to renew my ham license is for disaster preparation. we
all saw how the formal structure fell apart during katrina. i live in san
francisco, and all of us know that a big earthquake is overdue. certainly all
land lines will be down, and with the big cellphone links often dependent on
critically calibrated microwave systems, we expect most of those to go out
too, with anything still up being overwhelmed. even local radio and tv depend
on multiple antennas on a single huge tower (Sutro Tower) - if that gets
damaged, much of those go down as well (*). ham radio is the perfect way to
communicate in this situation, and hams have a long tradition of practicing
for and helping out during disasters.

interestingly, instead of becoming irrelevant and dying out, ham radio
continues to evolve and is still highly relevant. there are many interesting
technologies linking ham radio and computers, and i read a fascinating article
by a guy who built a high altitute balloon and used a ham radio link to track
and communicate with it. i'm sure there are many applications to robotics, and
if any of you know of any, i'd love to hear about them.

sorry for the lecture - my morning coffee must have just kicked in!

regards,
michael

(*) i'm no expert, but that's what i've heard. don't quote me w/out checking
first!