September 20, 2020
I’ve been getting more into Ham Radio recently, and it has been super cool.
The license exam itself is kind of useless for someone like me that is using a low-tier handheld radio, as the questions are geared towards older enthusiasts who have amples amounts of money to build radio towers on their property, with a $500 to $1000 radio to match.
However, once you kind of get past the somewhat useless exam which encompasses a good majority of high school level physics, its not too bad.
Would recommend “hamstudy.org” for anyone interested as it has the SAME exact question pool as what’s on the test, and it is what I used to study for the exam: https://hamstudy.org/
The possibilities of using packet radio, BBS’s, and Echolink (via QTel) has been really fun to play with. So far, I’ve received a ton of support from Ham’s in the Echolink based net calls, since the Ham’s near me don’t really do much packet radio. Most people online kind of dismiss packet radio as a “fad from the 90’s”. I, however, see it differently as the potential of using a mesh network to connect devices such as computers across the world without having a centralized ISP dictating everything is MIND BLOWING.
Of course, a lot of these kind of mesh networks are limited to Hams, but hey, just get the basic Technician level license, and you’re set.
I’ve expanded to the world of VoIP over Echolink, which allows you to basically to anyone throughout the world that has a Ham radio license via the internet. It might sound like Skype to some people, but is way less proprietary or invasive privacy-wise. Though you might be thinking, “Yeah, isn’t that kind of dangerous?”, I honestly have not heard nothing but positive people that are super encouraging. The ham radio hobby attracts very tech minded individuals, so its not anything weird like in a strange internet chat room or something since its FCC regulated.
Also, you have to keep in mind that although you are accessing these radio towers via the internet, a lot of them are PHYSICAL radio towers which are repeating your same radio signal throughout a PHYSICAL region. With this in mind, people aren’t as open as you would think, and are pretty polite with each other as a result. Plus, most of the topics discussed are pretty much centered around the hobby itself. Honestly, a good chunk of the people I spoke to so far are just retired individuals that are looking for positive conversations throughout a given day. I’ve heard it all from what people are doing at a given moment, such as errands, fishing, etc, to just talking for minutes about a given topic, which is called “rag chewing” in Ham lingo.
Echolink can be found here, but NOTE: You NEED to have a callsign registered with the FCC in order to use it, so you CANNOT use it unless you are a licensed Ham: http://echolink.org/
It’s primarily aimed for Windows users, but you can also utilize “QTel” if you have a Debian based Linux computer via your “apt” package manager: https://pkgs.org/download/qtel
I learned that there are “net calls” which are basically group calls that occur once every week on a given topic. I was pretty surprised that there are several net calls around very specific medical based ailments on certain frequency bands, so that was something I never knew people actually did with ham radio.
For example, one guy was going on about how there’s a stomach based net for ham’s who suffer from stomach ailments, so its kind of like mini-support groups for given topics. However, though I mentioned medical based topics, net calls span a whole range of topics. For example, I listened into a Raspberry Pi based net call, and learned SO MUCH more about Linux with radio than even on IRC. I absolutely will tune in next week at the same time slot, since I want to learn more and more to expand my base knowledge on the topic.
In terms of this website, I’ve taken care of a few minor things, including:
- Revised my GitWeb site to include a dark theme CSS stylesheet:
- I’ve been able to make two of my existing project sites work again after the
recent NGINX backend upgrade: https://musimatic.net/pythonprojectwebsites/Bandcamper/tags.html https://musimatic.net/pythonprojectwebsites/ScriptureOfTheDay/output.html
The remaining goal would be to maybe get some of these other project websites running.
However, projects like my “ExpressOrLocalApp”, though cool when I first made it, wouldn’t benefit anyone since everyone’s leaving NYC nowadays anyway, so it might not even be worth it to get that specific project website working again.
The cooler thing would be to start running a BBS or something, and roll with it. That and run a “Searx” instance, run a “UnrealIRC” instance, etc.
Or maybe, even get the page looking like an old Geocities or Angelfire site like this for example (without the dreary gothic theme, but you get the point): https://gothicnight.com/login.html
I’ve been working on getting the “ISS Location” page running, so that’s been fun, so far I’ve been working on making sure the JSON request saves properly so that I can run an AJAX request with the push of a <button> tag on the page to pull the latest JSON response that’s downloaded to the same directory via a crontab job: https://musimatic.net/radio.html
I’ve been toying with the idea of possibly creating a “Lode Runner” game but based on someone else’s game, change out the sprite sheet, and have it running on a JavaScript based engine so I can run it in browser on a page, and across multiple devices.
That alone would be pretty cool imo.
You can play Lode Runner for free on Internet Archive (archive.org) on multiple old-school computer emulator platforms IN BROWSER: Mac Version: https://archive.org/details/mac_Lode_Runner Apple II Version: https://archive.org/details/a2_Lode_Runner_1983_Broderbund_m_mod_keyset_Nut_Cracker_Ace_Mechanic DOS Version (Sequel): https://archive.org/details/LodeRunnerTheLegendReturns
I’ve also been trying to get Retropie working to use Amiga, Macintosh, and DOS based emulators.
So far, I’ve been able to boot Retropie without a problem. However, if I try to run any Amiga games, even with the necessary “kick” (BIOS) roms present in the proper directory, it boots into a black screen.
However, it’ll be pretty dang sweet when I get some cool Amiga, Mac, and DOS software running on the old Raspberry Pi 3 I have, since its been a while since I used it. I really do like the Retropie menu a lot. I think the last project I tried doing with that box was “DietPi” which was ok, but I’d rather get some kind of old desktop computer, put a super lightweight Linux distro on it, and run it as a Desktop computer with just a TTY prompt without running X.
Now THAT would be a cool challenge.
I’ve been trying to find a cool old broken Macintosh from the 80’s to house my Raspberry Pi 3 in, but I can’t find a good deal for one on eBay or locally since every older dude knows EXACTLY what they’re selling, regardless if its broken or not. The idea would be to just remove the guts of the old PC, fit in a new monitor in the front panel of the Mac, and get a glorious BBS running or something.
THIS is what I would love to do, but don’t really have the kind of eBay money to do so: https://www.instructables.com/id/Making-ApplePi-Merging-a-Vintage-Macintosh-Plus-Wi/
Looking forward to possibly installing Gentoo in a VM, but I STILL am unpacking boxes from the move (go figure), so I would need to find the screws for the video card so I can remount it to the Desktop machine I have.
Staying positive, and still doing my thing (which is, having fun :D).
Stay well,
Sam