Video Games Meet Amateur Radio?

 

I always talk about "convergence" between other interests and amateur radio.  There are many hobbies that I personally find more enjoyment or motivation from by including some form of wireless communication with other things, like hiking or just finding ways to be prepared for adventures.

But what about going the opposite direction? As a long time gamer,  I made a short video to showcase the interesting form factor of the Icom IC-705 radio that may help shed an image that "ham radio" is still just about old vacuum tubes, elderly people and late nights spent in a basement tapping out Morse Code to someone around the world. Please, do not shoot your in-game missiles at me for saying that dear reader.

What is Pip Boy?

This was a fictional device featured in the very popular video game series called "Fallout". It was a wrist worn  "Personal Information Processor", manufactured by RobCo Industries.

As part of a promotional effort, many video games spawn many different real life products to engage with fans. The Pip Boy 2000 Mk VI is one example and there are even other versions that let you put a smartphone inside to offer real functionality, but in an interesting wrist mounted enclosure.   

This product even came in a special storage case when not using PipBoy. This storage case is what inspired this article and video actually.

Is is possible to put the 2 pound (1.1 kilogram) Icom IC-705 on my wrist like a PipBoy?  I guess if I got tired of my Samsung Gear watch, that could be handy to have HF and above communications while walking around. My wrist would get awfully sore though. I can keep my Icom IC-705 safe inside of a really cool case though as you will see.

A better option for wrist based communications might be KK4VCZ Travis Goodspeed's "GoodWatch" project, which I have some PCB's ready to populate with SMD components I have yet to order. 

It was easy to make the PCB's by sending the files to OSHpark and let them make the circuit boards for a few dollars. Eventually I will get around to making my own GoodWatch....

For those that may remember, Travis is the guy behind what we owe a lot to for making DMR a popular digital voice mode in amateur radio thanks to his "hacks" on the popular TYT MD-380 radio that improved its functionality greatly in such a cheap radio.  

And, the also super famous AC2SN Limor Fried who founded Adafruit has also spent time making use of Travis's interesting work made DMR super popular too. 

You could even receive signals from your Pi-Star Hotspot using the GoodWatch since Pi-Star also supports POCSAG, an open paging standard which DAPNET brought to amateur radio.

Could the Icom IC-705 with its Wi-Fi,  Bluetooth, GPS, color touch display and all mode 1.8 to 450 MHz 10 W transceiver be the next big thing that "hackers" start to experiment with?   Could it even find its way into a cosplay scenario at the next big Comicon? Maybe even getting some of the #DEFCON crowd interested too! 

And now without further ado, I present my video that most video game fans may appreciate......

Prepping for SOTA: Field Report and Gear Dissection

Live from high on top of Sam's Point (W2/GC-020) were brothers Jonathan Gong KC2BNW and Michael Gong KC2BNX at the 35:00 minute video mark of this great interview focused on how to integrate amateur radio into outdoor activities or find ways to take your "ham radio hobby" with you as part of "Summits On The Air" or SOTA for short.

Steve Bossert K2GOG shares some background about radios that might be good for "prepper" or other emergency communications for the first show segment and then Jonathan shows them in real life use.

Later on in the show, Carlton made Steve empty a few of his packs to talk about some of the non-ham radio things to consider when out in the field.

Major topics were staying hydrated, organized and illuminated along with communication tips.  Not covered in this episode are details are anything related to staying warm.

Video below starts at about the 90 minute mark, so if you like what you hear, go ahead and jump backwards for the full video.   Even a brief mention of BlackHat and #DEFCON as a way to tie together hiking, cyber security and ham radio come up via a special "Ham Village" Velcro patch courtesy of Joe Cupano NE2Z.

Please follow "The Farmacy Seeds Network" for future videos with Jonathan, Mike and Steve.  You can even buy a really cool TFSN mug for home use to help support the channel.

Planting Digital Voice Seeds with TFSN & HVDN

 

The Farmacy Seeds Network invited Steve Bossert K2GOG back to its YouTube channel for a discussion about digital voice radio.  CJ KD2IIN asked great questions during the interview to keep it moving along. 

Highlights include:

• What is the most popular amateur digital voice mode today?

• What should you invest in when thinking about digital voice?

• How to find activity on DMR?

• What are common DMR specific terms you need to know?

• How to program your DMR radio with just the basics?

Talking all things SBC with Aaron KC2NDA

Long time friend and fellow Overlook Mountain Amateur Radio Club member, Aaron KC2NDA has been keeping busy with his day job and still managed to find some time to design an interesting data acquisition device discussed for about the first 30 minutes of the latest Comrades in Farms episode on the Farmacy Seeds Network

His journey in learning about KiCad and circuit design was covered on CJ KD2IIN's YouTube channel over a two hour interview.

What is a SBC?

Aaron also got into discussing the evolution from moving from basic Arduino like hardware and coding, then into Raspberry Pi 4 plus the new  Raspberry Pi Compute boards followed by the FPGA evolution in the next segment.  

These are all known as SBC or single board computers. There is even a nice related  news feed here on the HVDN website worth taking a look at too tucked under the "embedded computing" tab.

Some of what he talks about, especially when it comes to analyzing massive amounts of data will impact some of what makes locator.hvdn.org possible and some new features that will be rolling out soon that will make use of TinyML.

There is so much information in this two hour long interview, so feel free to give it a listen/view and share some comments and be sure to give it a thumbs up on CJ's channel 

Virtual HVDN Field Trip: The Farmacy Seeds Network & Making the HV Green

CJ KD2IIN of The Farmacy Seeds Network had Steve K2GOG of HVDN on as a guest for his live stream back on December 29th, 2020 and was only interrupted by paranormal activity once during filming, no thanks to a famous occultist visitor from 100 years ago who heard us talking about him!  

Be sure to check out this informative two hour long interview partially related to our upcoming special event on Bannerman Island this spring. Date for that is still TBD.  Sign up for news to get more details.