I'm old enough to remember hand-etching prototype boards at my first job out of college because commercial prototypes cost so much. At that time, the big deal was the PCB milling machines for companies that needed prototype same day.
Stuff like this makes me feel old!
My shame though - is that I haven't finished soldering the plugs... (Because I want to use pigtails instead of soldering them directly on the board)
Now I can get the same to my door in under 2 weeks for $60. And they actually test the boards!
I wouldn't get too optimistic basically. even some tariffs might cut off options.
I don't know that repeaterbook has anything to do with it actually, but there's android software that uses your GPS and a bluetooth module to control your VHF/UHF radios, you can use it to automatically change repeaters as you're driving or whatever - based on repeaterbook's database.
Like most hobbies today it's up to us to take over and build the next generation.
I've messed with plenty of systems like this, these antiquated radios are not designed for this and you have to spend a lot of time fiddling with the gain stages to get them to function at all. Even if you get it working, it'll still be wildly less capable than something that can do direct encoding, you lose a ton of range when doing AFSK compared to basically any other encoding scheme.
It's basically the equivalent of setting up a 3d printer gantry to hit the keys on your keyboard to send messages.
And before anyone complains, yes, I'm actively working on an open XC7Z010/AD9363 based HT for this. Essentially a Silvus but not $20k for $100 in components.
You might want to look into the ADALM-PLUTO [1]. The ham club I'm in uses it together with a beefy PA to make TV broadcasts to the QO-100 amsat.
[1] https://www.analog.com/en/resources/evaluation-hardware-and-...
I was going to hold off on my SDR hobby until a few more gray hairs and $$$ came into my life but might need to pull the trigger on that guy (yes I know you can get an rtl-sdr for like $30).
Also, its frequency range officially begins at 325 MHz. That's usable enough for the 70cm ham radio range, but practically useless for anything on the longer bands without a hack [1] that will only give you the 2m and 4m bands.
On the other hand... you don't want to go below the 2m range on a handheld anyway, antenna length can be a real pain.
ETA: WiMo sells a transverter but it'll cost you about the same amount of money that you'd have to shell out for the Pluto... and still only 50 mW of TX power. Given that our club station has a PA stage that can blast out the full allowed 750W on 160m, that's quite a difference...
[1] https://www.rtl-sdr.com/adalm-pluto-sdr-hack-tune-70-mhz-to-...
[2] https://www.wimo.com/de/dxpatrol-charon-hf-transverter-for-a...
An SDR that can transmit down to the 160m band (1800 kHz) however... that would be practically the end of ICOM, Yaesu, Kenwood and other high-price brands.
I don't even care if it's just the USB-Serial aspect and not audio/SDR capabilities. Something more than just charging.
One of the answers is cost. The chips in those radios lack usb. The USB-serial adapters are not cheap - 30c even for clones. So there’s 30c that can be cut from BOM. That’s huge when the radio sells for $20. You also need a little more circuitry around them (xtal,esd,caps), plus they consume non trivial amounts of power.
But wait it gets worse! Now that you have an interface you need to write code for it. Which is more work/time/aka $$$.
Sure, but demand isn't there :(. It requires a bunch of programming/work, and for maybe couple thousand users?
Handset would with USB-C data would be nice, but I think could save a lot of complexity making a radio with no UI.
A Pluto sdr would also work if not for micro USB. The problem is you'd need a bunch of modulation/demod software, power amp and TX/RX switch, hence the project.
I mean, yes, this cable works with direwolf, but then I need to have a full linux system running, which I could do without for the purpose of an emergency comms system.
I just found https://github.com/cheponis/KISS-TNC2, but I think this is just the KISS mode, not the AX25 stuff.
I found https://www.ir3ip.net/iw3fqg/doc/wa8ded.htm which I think describes the TNC2S software I was running many years ago.
Any other pointers would be great.
There was some bad blood between Wa8DED and NORDLINK/TheNET about copying, maybe best to contact WA8DED directly, or the NORDLINK guys.
https://w5yi-vec.org/W5YI_Reports/1988/1988-06-01_W5YI_repor...
Then again, maybe it would be better to jump on the LoRA bandwagon and make something similar work with meshtastic: https://github.com/TheCommsChannel/TC2-BBS-mesh
When I was researching the Flipper Zero a year or so ago someone mentioned, "I'm not sure about buying one, it seems like a cool gadget that I'll play with and then end up in a drawer like the [product x]"
I looked up [product x] at the time and it seemed pretty neat. Like a USB or computer card that could get radio and TV signals and some other stuff.
However, I can't find this [product x] again despite scouring bookmarks, reading through reddit/HN topics, etc.
Any ideas?
(Other items I often hear mentioned in the same conversations are the ADALM PLUTO and the pricey USRP line of radios. Or, "rtl2832u" might be a key term that helps you further narrow down a search more aligned with the sibling comment, though the rtl2832u is a cheap, receive-only device.)
There are the units branded by Great Scott Gadgets (the company belonging to the guy that designed HackRF). And alternately, chinese clones were obtainable for significantly cheaper.
I don't know what the climate looks like these days of getting a hold of these radios.
There are better ones but they depend on what you want to use them for.
I sort of wonder if USB Audio would be a better way to connect headsets. Go from standard audio ports or headset ports to USB, and then USB with these connectors. The hard part is what to with the PTT pin. I guess the downside is power.
But in the name of god: let this awful old AFSK APRS sleep away.
In Europe LoRa APRS is super popular and Semtech is flooding the market with super cheap radio ICs. They are extremely hobbist friendly.
8kb firmware limits. Noise reduction circuits that still do the same amount of nothing they did when implemented in the 70s. Flaky serial interfaces that need various cables and custom drivers for every make and model. CBs using the same 70s form factor and still costing $150-300 for the cheapest with SSB, which is currently the only modulation worth using unless you want to listen to a bunch of old guys in Atlanta yelling gibberish sunrise to sunset.
You can argue there’s no market, but put even a crappy CB into an enclosure that would fit most phone mounts, package it with a decent magnet antenna, and not price it as if you have no competition (because you won’t)… and the sales would be incredible. The UVK8 has non-hams buying a bunch because they’re cheap and only barely customizable, just to receive and not transmit.
Cobra, Uniden et al haven’t innovated since the 90s, but people are still buying them.
The Chinese SDR-based rigs have more unique interfaces, and there are many to choose from.
It's worth bearing in mind that most "Classic" desktop rigs output 100W, across 1MHz - 50MHz for HF - this needs to be supported by components that take up place.
Devices that operate at 10W are much smaller (and are typically chained with a larger indépendant amp..)
You're already carrying a device with a big touchscreen and a big enough CPU to run a very flexible and customizable UI. Let the software people handle this, and turn the RF stuff into a dongle.
I suspect the existing radio firms wouldn't like that. Even if the Icom or Yaesu dongle performs better than the Baofeng one, it would be difficult to gatekeep expensive products by user interface design and capabilities anymore. The $30 radio is no longer limited by having to cram everything into a 2-line, 12-character display and having to scroll through 40 menus.
Bloody nobody cares about bleeding silicon from Intel (or TSMC for that matter), everyone cares whether Analog Devices is still making that one chip they released to market 50 years ago (or if they have a drop-in replacement if not).
And just so people don't get the wrong idea: It's not that improvements are shunned. It's that recertifying with new and improved advancements costs time and money that nobody wants to justify.
That... depends. Analog equipment tends to have much, much higher component counts than digital equipment, making it much more difficult to troubleshoot defective components (try measuring a capacitor with a resistor in parallel), and the skillset needed to troubleshoot analog vs digital is also massively different.
On the other hand obtaining spare parts for analog circuits is going to be easier in a few decades than it will be for FPGAs and other semiconductors, and completely forget about ASICs.
I'm a one-dude-in-the-basement freelancer and about 5 years ago I was asked to build a device that would measure a slowly changing signal and use it to modulate a 5kHz input, and generate a differential, bipolar output. Basically, read the position feedback on a machine tool and generate output that looked like a resolver.
I did it half in code, half in hardware. The hardware was pricy, but it was the easiest way to get it done in low quantity.
Fast forward a couple years and it's now cheap enough to do 90% of all of that in code. I could probably cut my BOM by 60%, but at low production volumes there's no compelling reason to redesign the system. So, for as long as my customer wants these, I'll build them exactly the same way.
Some of the Chinese radios are starting to include USB-C port but all the mainstream manufacturers haven't changed. They should could out with new handsets, redesign old ones, or come out with batteries with USB-C ports.
You can squarely blame Japan for that hellscape of a mess.
Nowadays we like egging Apple for their proprietary shenanigans, but they are actually nothing compared to how much hate Japanese companies have for universal, intercompatible standards and how much that mindset has affected electronics at-large to this day from Japan's outsized influence in electronics during the 70s through 90s.
For example, if you have a ham radio transceiver from ICOM you absolutely require ICOM handsets, microphones, speakers, and other accessories for it. Equivalents from another brand like Yaesu or Kenwood will not work, even if the physical connectors are the same because the individual wiring is proprietary.
Some people here might recall Sony only supporting MemoryStick and telling SD cards and CompactFlash to fuck off, ham radio is that but exponentially worse.
Yeah it's crazy how little modern tech has made it to different niches. I was looking into metal detecting a few years ago, and there is basically no technology to any of them, even the expensive ones. You'd assume they'd have fancy android powered devices with gps and stuff, but no it's the same basic circuitry they've had for decades.
Any suggestions as to what I should do next?
Take the Technician exam to be legal for most of the stuff you can do with your handheld, or if you're feeling ambitious, hit the General one right after that (you can keep going in the same session at no extra charge, but you're just wasting everyone's time if you've not studied at all for the level you're attempting) which will also get you into most of HF (1.8 MHz - 30 MHz).
I eventually did all three (Amateur Extra) so that I could convert it into a full German license (even the German national radio club advised me, a non-German citizen, to do it that way)
Good luck!
What're they doing that for?