John Goerzen
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This is an interesting idea - I might come on occasion, though the
logistics are difficult.
How about a virtual update...
I'm still as excited about Linux and Open Source as ever. My 5-yr-old
and I built his first computer, and he already knows how to join
commands together in bash with the semicolon. It's a lot of fun
watching him learn.
Lately I've been having a lot of fun with ham radio, marrying it with
Linux. Ham radio is, you might say, the ultimate open source hardware
hobby. People do all sorts of things from running transmitters putting
out more than 1kW to Arduino control boards to people talking across
continents with 5W and everything in between. I've had some run running
long-distance TCP/IP radio protocols (in this case, AX.25 frames).
Linux, as it turns out, has the world's most complete long-distance
packet radio stack. It's pretty sweet to be able to telnet into
computers and BBSs (yes) over nothing but a radio link that might be 50
miles away. This has nothing to do with Wifi, BTW. I've run
dist-upgrade on a Linux machine that I have rare physical access to by
using telnet over a 15-mile radio link.
Even more fun, and yes a little trying at times, is to do this with
people in different states or continents. So far, I believe the
farthest packet radio contact I have made using packet radio on my
homebrew antennas is California. It was 300bps, but it DID work. (If
you're getting a shudder at the thought of a TCP frame at 300bps...
well, your instinct isn't far off. Suffice it to say that our MTU is a
lot lower than 1500 at that speed.)
I can explain how, if anyone's interested (it was a direct radio
connection; no cell phone, satellite, or ground line involved) - due to
propagation of HF radio signals. Just talking of general contacts -
which are considerably easier than packet radio - I've spoken with
people in all 50 states and nearly 80 countries using my homebrew
antennas, and keep track of it all and control the radios using Linux.
-- John