HASviolet: Here's a Story about a Lovely Project

In the beginning . . .

It all started with a member of HVDN sharing the following idea with Steve, K2GOG and I

"I've been wanting to do a "communicator" for a while. Something that someone could use over relatively short distances to send text messages back and forth. I have been looking for others to work on a project with too!"

After some investigation LoRa was something to consider since it "should play well with the hacker/maker crowd and possibility the IoT/computer science area." From this point we thought it was a good idea to take forward and started developing a concept around it.

Yet another LoRa project?

We sifted through a number of existing published LoRa projects using Raspberry Pi and various microcontrollers. GitHub sites with code, libraries, and recommended hardware but most of them were just "proof of concepts" with no demonstrations of use cases are sharing of lessons learned whether as a "lone eagle" or part of a team.

Since there were going to be a number of skills we were going to develop along the way including building new skillsets our differentiator with this project would be sharing the journey through articles, videos, and (hopefully) good documentation.

Our Story and Hope

There were skill gaps to overcome but we were driven by the same desire.

• Do an open source RF project that bridges the maker/hacker and Amateur Radio communities
• Learn new or build existing skills along the way
• Inspire others to do the same

Inspiring others is not about contributing to this project (though it is welcome) it is about inspiring people to take big steps in making your ideas real and not be intimidated by any skills gap you or your compatriots have. Lot's of discussion and breaking progress down in small steps or sprints is what will keep the learning feel organic.

By emphasizing the project journey through a series of blog posts here, we hope to inspire you to chase your passion and through caution to the wind in developing skills you think are hard to build. You just need to find something you have a passion for and other like minds.

Finally, we would like to thank Joe N1JTA for the initial idea and taking time out of his busy schedule for early testing.

All the best,

- Joe, NE2Z