Amateur Radio/Networking Ideas for Arch Reactor

[Sterling Coffey]

I'm a ham radio guy, but I live in an apartment downtown so my operation is limited to portable excursions. I also don't have a roof to put all my science projects on without getting yelled at by the property management. So I've been thinking about leveraging some resources at Arch Reactor in order to help me live out some ideas which might be a good foundation to spur interest and activity in things like amateur radio, mesh networking, shortwave radio, radiolocation and detection, etc, and connect the community of hams to the community of hackers through shared interests.

Here's my ideas:

1. Remote Ham Radio Station
2. Amateur Radio Mesh Node
3. ADS-B reciever
4. Networked TDoA Lighting Detector

Remote Ham Radio Station

I'd be willing to bet it wouldn't be too hard to have the STL Radio Club (SLSRC) help fund a base/remote station at Arch Reactor for either society to use. This would involve any HF/VHF/UHF transceiver, a wire antenna hung in the trees or on the rooftop, coax, a remote antenna disconnect relay (air-gap lightning protection) a control interface, and a PC connected to the internet, and registration on RemoteHams, and perhaps Broadcastify. Transmitting may only be performed by adequately licensed individuals, but anyone can tune around and receive.

A cheaper and less complex idea would be to install a remote recieve-only station, using USB RTL-SDRs or other PC-interfaced wideband Software Defined Radios like USRP, HackRF, softrock, etc.; a small antenna like a loop or active receive antenna, and registration on WebSDR or SDR.hu to allow users to tune through and listen spectrum, as well as give local hams something they can use to hear their own station for testing purposes.

Amateur Radio Mesh network node

I believe there is a WasabiNet node at Arch Reactor...or there was when it was at the old location. Is there anything like that up now? Whether or not there is one, I'd be interested in setting up an amateur radio mesh node for fun which might be able to reach the SLSRC "mesh" (I don't think it's a mesh, yet; it's still PtP) in an effort to experiment and expand mesh networking activities across STL, using HamWAN as a model to replicate, just like what Memphis has done. The caveat being amateur radio stuff must not be encrypted or for commercial use, so it can't have a pipe to the internet. However, this same equipment can be turned on for public meshing so long as it follows FCC Part 15, instead of Part 97. There's a lot of discussion and development on mesh protocols like BATMAN, Babel, Hyperboria/CjDNS, and more to be played with in this venue.

The two following ideas are not amateur radio related, but still are very cool things related to radio and networking.

ADS-B Receiver

Planes are now mandated to transmit information via ADS-B on 1090 and 978MHz, many of which transmit precise location (and others of which can be multilaterated). All it takes to receive those transmissions is an Raspberry Pi, a RTLSDR dongle, and an 1090MHz antenna, Pi-aware software connected to the internet. That data gets ingested by Flightaware, and you can also submit data to FlightRadar24, PlaneFinder, ADS-B Exchange. I'd be willing to donate and modify my fully-functioning setup (which only has a north-facing view) for Arch Reactor.

Networked TDoA Lightning Detector

Every lightning bolt is a discharge of energy, which not only results in a light and thunder, but also a pulse on the electromagnetic spectrum. Those pulses stick out of the RF spectrum like a sore thumb, and can be received with simple equipment - literally an antenna and an LED. With some fancier hardware, those pulses can be time-stamped and sent to a server for TDOA multilateration, often resulting in resolutions of 100m, appearing on the map less than 5 seconds after the lightning strikes. It's a big deal in europe, but needs some help in the Americas. http://en.blitzortung.org/cover_your_area.php

Just some ideas. Thoughts? Anyone interested? Anyone already doing stuff like this? I'm just putting the feelers out. And of course, all these things require internet bandwidth, albeit only a little.

Sterling, N0SSC

[Chris Weiss]

there's some HAMs in the group, I'm sure they'll have some input.

we no longer have WasabiNet, too far from anyone that might want to use it.

our internet is from a WISP, so roof access isn't impossible, but does require the building owner's permission.

all of these things sound cool

[eAddict]

"Networked TDoA Lightning Detector 

Every lightning bolt is a discharge of energy, which not only results in a light and thunder, but also a pulse on the electromagnetic spectrum. Those pulses stick out of the RF spectrum like a sore thumb, and can be received with simple equipment - literally an antenna and an LED. With some fancier hardware, those pulses can be time-stamped and sent to a server for TDOA multilateration, often resulting in resolutions of 100m, appearing on the map less than 5 seconds after the lightning strikes. It's a big deal in europe, but needs some help in the Americas. http://en.blitzortung.org/cover_your_area.php"

THIS is cool.  I'd love to learn how to do this and would be willing to join the reporting network!

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[Robert Ward]

I'd definitely pitch in to get an HF station at AR.  I've had my general license for over a hear now but haven't managed to get on the air yet.

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[Amberly Brown]

Mike and I are HAMs and part of SLSRC. More radio stuff is good :)

Amberly

General class KD0TOP

(Mike-extra class, WY0M)

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[Frank Kallal]

I used to be Licensed, but let it Expire some time ago just due to lack of use.  My Wife still maintains hers.

Frank

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[Jim S]

Interesting stuff.  I have kept  my extra license renewed but haven't been active in years.

[Ann Boes]

I'm interested in this but I'm not local and would only be a sporadic participant. I have a technician license which I got in order to track weather balloons but I haven't been on the air in ages. 

Ann 

KD0QCA

[Sterling Coffey]

I'm flabbergasted by the positive response! Awesome to see so many hams in Arch Reactor. I've been to a few meetings and met a few hams, but keep forgetting the hackerspace is a nearby resource with a lot of shared interests. 

I'd love to show up to some meeting or open house next month, and give a demo/talk if that's wanted, otherwise we can start talking about where to start...perhaps a RasPi Radio Class/demo involving an RTL-SDR for monitoring the RF space including an ADS-B decoder - that wouldn't be too hard to do. 

An HF station and/or mesh node setup would need a lot more effort, thought, support, and money, especially as for antenna considerations as building owners get picky about those sorts of things. HF transmitting antennas need to be very long at low wavelengths (an 80m dipole is 130' long, 40m is 66', 20m 33'), and also requires an HF transceiver (cheaply had for $200-300, new entry-level at $650-$1000), but for receive-only setups, good compromises exist like wideband small receive loops and active antennas like the one operating the 30MHz wide Univ. of Twente WebSDR, and all that's needed to receive is an RTLSDR and Raspberry Pi, and an HF Up-converter if HF listening is desired (RTLSDRs have a usable spectrum of 24MHz to 1700MHz) 

-Sterling

[Robert Ward]

I've got an SDRPlay V1 I'd be willing to donate if that would work for WebSDR, it'll do the HF bands natively and has a lot wider bandwidth than an RTLSDR.  I've had good luck with wire antennas up on the roof of my building, so I'm betting a simple wire or some other antenna on the roof of AR would be great.

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[Brad Tissi]

This is something that has always been on my list of "if I ever win the lottery and end up with a lot of time on my hands, I'm going to learn..." list.

If it were available to learn or even have classes on, locally, I would definitely attend.

[Amberly Brown]

Hi Brad,

I don't know that we have any classes scheduled at the moment, but check out the St. Louis and Suburban Radio Club, http://www.slsrc.org/. We host technician classes generally 3-4 times per year, and general and extra classes as demand dictates. There is a "back to basics" series that's pretty good and regular monthly meetings also have presentations. In the future, we may even host a class or two at AR if there''s interest :)

YIS,

Amberly

KD0TOP

On Thu, Dec 21, 2017 at 8:12 AM, Brad Tissi <bti...@gmail.com> wrote:

This is something that has always been on my list of "if I ever win the lottery and end up with a lot of time on my hands, I'm going to learn..." list.

If it were available to learn or even have classes on, locally, I would definitely attend.

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[Kyle Krieg]

If anybody is interested in amateur radio, our club website, www.slsrc.org has a lot of good info.  We've created a "new ham primer" to get you started.  There will be technician class this spring, usually in late March/April time frame that is a cram session over a weekend at MoBap hospital.  We highly suggest you study on your own.  Testing is on Sunday of the cram weekend.  More info can be found at the below website to get your started.

http://www.slsrc.org/new-ham-radio-portal/

Kyle

On Friday, December 15, 2017 at 10:56:34 AM UTC-6, Sterling Coffey wrote: