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Excellent fun. So happy that everything worked out today. Not got it yet?
So, I made arrangements with Bob N4XAT beforehand, and had him install a piece of software on his Windows computer. Then he plugged in a computer microphone. That's it.
At this end in Burgess Hill, I created a login for N4XAT on a dedicated Yaesu hardware box that lives in my shack - on top of my Yaesu FTDX10.
When Bob starts the software on his computer in New Jersey, it logs him into my radio in Burgess Hill. The software he sees looks very similar to the front of my actual radio, and directly operates all its functions. Bob changes frequency, my radio changes frequency. No discernible 'lag'.
It has an on-screen PTT button, which when pressed, does exactly what it says on the tin.
Bob G/N4XAT, live and direct on the MSARS lunchtime net, using my radio and my antenna. Real radio. No phone patch, no Facebook Messenger, no Zoom, no intermediaries.
And when I say that, I'm not knocking what Dick has done in the past, because that was excellent, I'm just once again trying to demonstrate what we can have as a club in the near future.
So to make this clear, this is nothing to do with the WebSDR or any other SDR. This is completely separate. In a perfect world, the WebSDR would be somewhere other than the shack. Somewhere far away from any transmitter, and preferably from all QRM, but that's another quest, and I'm all quested-out right now.
This is the Yaesu equivalent of a FlexRadio system. Icom have a similar offering, though in my opinion it's probably the poor relation. Neither really stack up to the Flex offerings, but they do work in a similar way. Today's demonstration shows exactly what we need to get done in the shack and why. This is what's behind my fundraising efforts and why I keep banging on about all this stuff so much.
Totally wonderful to hear the joy in old friend's voices.
Thanks Bob if you're reading this, and I hope you found it fun. We'll definitely do this again, when both Bob and I are around to set it up (which is only really about our availability, and not the effort). I think we're going to be doing some more testing tomorrow (Wednesday) so jump on the 15m net if you want to say hi.
Berni M0XYF
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Quick note to advise you all that Stella has now booked the Royal Oak pub in Barcombe for our annual skittles bash (literally) on Friday 30th September at 7:45pm.
Keep your diary free for that one, as it's probably one of our best social nights of the year, and in a beautiful setting.
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Today I get to tell you all about something I've been working on in the background for a few weeks now, and I'm extremely excited that this day has finally come.
Mid Sussex Amateur Radio Society is going to get a full-blown professional online training academy.
Various parts of the jigsaw have been coming together in the last few days, and now I can start to imagine what it's going to look like and how it might work.
I make no apologies for thanking several people as part of this announcement, and I must start with the person who has made it possible, and that is Jon Hudson of SDRplay - a man known by some of you and by the wider amateur community as someone who has done so much to stimulate and support innovation and education in the field of radio communications.
Jon has very kindly given us access to a full training course, including all the individual educational elements required to deliver it. More detail will follow on exactly what it covers, but it's a modern course teaching modern radio practice and technology.
It's the first course that will be offered on a new MSARS platform, and I'll be rolling it out in stages - firstly to my ever helpful and willing friends Chris M7VJE and Merv M0WVE. They have volunteered to walk through the course as guinea-pig students to see how it teaches and how best to deliver and tailor it for the future.
The first part is down to me however, and that's the physical building of the new training environment. As part of that, I'm also very pleased to tell you that our web-hosting provider, an unsung and valuable friend to the society, has once again donated server resources to support an entirely new Learning Management System known as Moodle. Thank you sir.
Some of you may already be familiar with this system. It's widely used by schools and universities worldwide. It's a beast of a package and contains all the elements required to deliver first-class training programmes, though the learning curve for me is huge and it will take me some time to get to grips with it.
The LMS is already up and running on the MSARS webserver, and is being configured as we speak. This won't be a quick process however, and the phase after that will be the loading of the new course material - also a time consuming effort.
So a very sincere thanks to Chris and Merv for helping me out with finessing the course delivery side of things. It's no small undertaking, and I couldn't do this without their help. It'll be a lot of fun though, and we can run it in a flexible, bite-sized on-demand manner, as the course itself is an 11 week affair consisting of 11 one-hour 'lessons'.
Once everything has been properly bedded-in (and I suspect that this won't be until early 2023) I'm going to roll the programme out to a much wider audience.
That will involve me in actually teaching and supporting the course, though I'm hoping that some of you will be willing to help out with some ad-hoc student support on the in-built Moodle forums from time to time.
Once the platform itself is in place and tested, any course can be hosted on it. In the future, we can create introductory courses, RSGB-style courses and informal, lightweight one-hour courses on any topic - whatever we want. That's a lot of work, and probably enough to keep me busy for a couple of years, but I'm looking forward to the challenge.
Berni M0XYF
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Phil G4UDU this morning posted a link to a tremendously useful Web resource called sigidwiki.com.
Translated back into English from Nerdish, this is a radio signal identification Wiki, something I'm sure all of us would potentially be interested in. We know that a Wiki is an online information resource built and maintained by its own user base, and so it's usually up to date and accurate because the curators are often passionate if not fanatical about managing certain information for the wider community.
This particular site is clearly dedicated to identifying radio signals of all types, and the Wiki is well organised by both frequency range and usage type.
I'll let you go and have a play with it, but it really doesn't take very long to (for example) identify the horrible Russian Over The Horizon radar signals currently splattering roughshod over not just our amateur bands, but all HF frequency ranges, without regard for any other spectrum users.
Usefully, you get to see a sample of what the signals look like on your spectrum waterfall, and also hear an audio sample. The audio is surprisingly helpful in differentiating similar-looking signals, often highlighting differences that are not immediately visually discernible.
Here you can see the entry for the 29B6 Russian 'Kontayner' radar:
https://www.sigidwiki.com/wiki/29B6_%27Kontayner%27_OTH_Radar
which looks quite similar to the UK's very own PLUTO II OTH radar (based in Cyprus):
https://www.sigidwiki.com/wiki/PLUTO_II_OTH_Radar
but you can clearly hear the difference. For political balance, it has to be said that it doesn't take much to find an awful lot of PLUTO II activity up and down the bands at the moment either, for obvious reasons I guess.
Military radar aside, there is an amazing collection of signal data in this database, so next time you see something unusual on the bands, why not screen grab it and go and look it up. It's particularly good at resolving digital signal types.
Berni M0XYF
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As some of you may be aware, I've been away on holiday for a couple of weeks, hence the lack of rambling emails and fresh website content.
My absence has also meant the temporary suspension of the WebSDR trial, which has now been restored and is once again available for you to use.
I did see that the club successfully ran its first RDF event of the year yesterday evening, and four teams turned out to hunt down the Foxy Peter G4AKG, Tony G3XQM and Mike G8KMP, so well done to everyone who took part and I hope you all had a good time. If anyone has any pictures from the night, I'd be very happy to post them up on the website. I'd particularly be interested in any photos of Peter buying the first round of drinks, because they'll be quite valuable one day. Sorry Peter :)
This week I'll be putting together a simple proposal for the committee on the future of the WebSDR and associated antenna installation after having had a brief chat with Phil last week. I'll post this in the members section, so check that out in a few days. If anyone has any contributions on that front, or any constructive opinions to opine, then please contact me directly ASAP. No point moaning after the event if you don't engage at this point.
I also have some exciting news on the training front. It's training, but not as you know it! Watch this space while I finalise the details and work through the practicalities.
In the meantime, take care of yourselves in the next few days as we all prepare to roast in the ridiculous heat that's coming our way, and if any one of you should need anything in an emergency, you are more than welcome to reach out to myself or any other club member. I mean that - 40 degree heat is no laughing matter, and we should all look out for one another.
Stay safe, cool and Covid-free.
73
Berni M0XYF
