Tag: rfbitbanger

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Inner Circle Newsletter: Summer 2024

A Sizzling Summer Summary prepared just for you!

Read on for highlights from all our technical and regulatory open source digital radio work. ORI’s work directly benefits amateur radio, provides educational and professional development opportunities for people all over the world, and puts ethics and good governance first.

Opulent Voice Flying High

Opulent Voice is an open source high bitrate digital voice (and data) protocol. It’s what we are using for our native digital uplink protocol for ORI’s broadband microwave digital satellite transponder project. Opulent Voice has excellent voice quality, putting it in a completely different category than low bitrate digital communications products such as D-Star, Yaesu System Fusion, and DMR.

Opulent voice switches between high resolution voice and data without requiring the operator to switch to a separate packet mode. Opulent voice also handles keyboard chat and digital file transmission. Seamless integration of different data types, using modern digital communication techniques, differentiates Opulent Voice from any other amateur radio protocol.

Opulent Voice will fly on the University of Puerto Rico’s RockSat-X launch on 13 August 2024. It’s been a very positive experience working with the students and faculty at the University.

An implementation on FPGA for the PLUTO SDR is well underway, with a active international team delivering quality results. This implementation will not only turn your PLUTO SDR into an Opulent Voice transceiver, but it will have remote operation functionality.

Hear what Opulent Voice sounds like by following the links in an earlier update at https://www.openresearch.institute/2022/07/30/opulent-voice-digital-voice-and-data-protocol-update/

We’ve come quite a long way in less than two years! The FPGA implementation upgrades the modulation from 4-ary frequency shift keying to minimum shift keying, and increases forward error correction performance and flexibility.

HAMCON:ZION 2024 is This Week!

Please visit us at HAMCON:ZION 2024 this weekend, 12-13 July 2024 in St. George, Utah, USA.

The event website is https://www.hamconzion.com/

ORI will have a club booth at the event. We opened our space to QRZ.com (https://www.qrz.com/) and Deep Space Exploration Society (https://dses.science/). This combined exhibit is a one-stop shop for the best in community, technical, and citizen science amateur radio activity.

We have a volunteer presenting on Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in Amateur Radio. The talk opens with a brief summary of the history of our relationship with created intelligence and then explores case studies of the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning in amateur radio. Talk is 1pm on Friday in Entrada B.

Open Research Institute at DEFCON32

We will present an Open Source Showcase at DEFCON in the Radio Frequency Village 12-13 August 2024, with accessible exhibits and demonstrations. Here is the list of scheduled project demonstrations.

Regulatory Efforts: ORI works hard for open source digital radio work and moves technology from proprietary and controlled to open and free in intelligent and mutually beneficial ways. Our work on ITAR, EAR, Debris Mitigation, AI/ML, and Synthetic Aperture Radar will be presented and explained. Find out more at https://github.com/OpenResearchInstitute/documents/tree/master/Regulatory

Ribbit: this open source communications protocol uses the highest performance error correction and modern techniques to turn any analog radio into a digital text terminal. No wires, no extra equipment.. Learn how to use this communications system and get involved in building a truly innovative open source tactical radio service. Find out more at https://www.ribbitradio.org

Satellite: ORI has the world’s first and only open source HEO/GEO communications satellite project. All working parts of the transponder project will be demonstrated, from Opulent Voice to antenna designs.

The Dumbbell antenna: We have an HF antenna design based on a highly effective inductive loading technique first written about in 1958. Learn about this antenna and find out how to make your own. Repository can be found at https://github.com/OpenResearchInstitute/dumbbell

RFBitBanger: an HF QRP system and novel digital protocol called SCAMP. Kit information and updates will be available. Get your Batch 2 kit today at https://www.ebay.com/itm/364783754396

Radar: Our regulatory and technical work in synthetic aperture radar will be demonstrated. One of our volunteers will be giving a talk about open source synthetic aperture radar in the RF Village speakers track. Here is the abstract.

Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) is one of the most useful and interesting techniques in radar, providing high resolution radar satellite images from relatively small satellites. SAR is not limited by the time of day or by atmospheric conditions. It complements satellite photography and other remote sensing techniques, revealing activity on the Earth that would otherwise be hidden. How does the magic happen? This talk will explain the basics of SAR in an accessible and friendly way. That’s the good news.

The bad news? SAR is controlled by ITAR, the International Traffic in Arms Regulations, and is listed in the USML, the United States Munitions List. ITAR regulates the export of defense articles and services and is administered by the US State Department. This includes both products and services as well as technical data. Such as, catalogs of high resolution radar imagary. The articles and services regulated by ITAR are identified in the USML. If ITAR doesn’t get you, then EAR just might. The Export Administration Regulations (EAR) are administered by the US Commerce Department, and items are listed on a Commerce Control List (CCL). Commercial products and services and dual-use items that are not subject to ITAR could be regulated by EAR. Even if you are free of ITAR and EAR, you may still be regulated by yet another agency, such as the FCC.

Regulation of SAR chills commercial activity, creating costly and time-consuming burdens. But why does any of this matter to signals hackers? Because technology has overtaken the rules, and devices used by enthusiasts, researchers, students, and hackers are increasingly likely to have enough capability to fall into export-controlled categories. The penalties are harsh. Fear of running afoul of ITAR is enough to stop a promising open source project in its tracks.

Is there a way forward? Yes. ITAR has a public domain carve out. Information that is published and that is generally accessible or available to the public is excluded from control as ITAR technical data. That’s great in theory, but how can we increase our confidence that we are interpreting these rules correctly? How can we use and build upon these rules, so that our community can learn and practice modern radio techniques with reduced fear and risk? Can we contribute towards regulatory relief when it comes to SAR? We will describe the process, report on the progress, and enumerate the challenges and roadblocks.

RFBitBanger Batch 2 Kits Available

Kits are available at our eBay store at this link https://www.ebay.com/itm/364783754396

Be a part of the future with a prototype Batch 2 kit build of the RFBitBanger, a low-power high-frequency digital radio by Dr. Daniel Marks KW4TI. Presented by Open Research Institute, this kit is designed to produce 4 watts of power and opens up a new digital protocol called SCAMP.

SCAMP Is now available in FLDigi!

Source code and extensive instructions can be found at https://github.com/profdc9/fldigi

Your donation in exchange for this kit directly enables the further development of an innovative Class E amplifier based radio design. It has a display, button menu navigation, and keyboard connection for keyboard modes and keyboard-enabled navigation. This radio can be taken portable or used in a case. If you have a 3d printer, then Dr. Marks has a design ready for you to print in the repository linked below.

  • Built-in digital modes: CW, RTTY, SCAMP (FSK and OOK, multiple speeds)
  • Key jack supports straight keys and iambic paddles
  • Open Source hardware and firmware, Arduino UNO compatible https://github.com/profdc9/RFBitBanger
  • External sound-card FSK digital modes supported (including FT4/FT8)
  • Experimental SSB support
  • Serial port support (2400 baud) for send and receive in keyboard modes

SCAMP is a new protocol that allows keyboard-to-keyboard contacts with a digital protocol that has excellent connection performance. See Dr. Marks presentation about RFBitBanger at QSO Today Academy in September 2023 to learn more about SCAMP and the RFBitBanger project. Link below:

All surface mount parts on the main board are pre-installed at the factory. All the through-hole parts you need to complete the radio are provided for you to solder yourself.

Builder’s notes and photos of all the components to help you identify and install them can be found here:

https://github.com/OpenResearchInstitute/RFBitBanger-kit/tree/main/batch2

If you don’t know how to wind toroids or solder surface mount capacitors, this is an excellent kit to learn on. There are just six toroids on the main board, and two on each band pass filter board. You can build just one band pass filter board and operate on a single band, or you can build an assortment. We provide 12 filter boards, enough toroids to build any 9 filters, and a supply of capacitors that will let you build those 9 filters for 9 different HF ham bands. These capacitors are size 1206, which is the largest common size for SMT capacitors and the easiest to solder manually. All you’ll need is a pair of tweezers and your regular soldering iron and solder. We provide detailed instructions on winding the toroids and soldering the capacitors. You get spare filter boards to experiment with.

Friendly Support is provided through a dedicated Open Research Institute Slack channel.

Instructions on how to join this community are here:

Getting Started at Open Research Institute

https://www.facebook.com/openresearchinstitute https://www.instagram.com/open_research_institute/
https://x.com/OpenResearchIns

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400 Subscriber Milestone on YouTube

Thank you to everyone reading this that has supported ORI and how we publish our work on YouTube.

I know YouTube is not for everyone, but it is an effective way to communicate what we do, what challenges we face, and it lets people know there’s a community out there 1) doing things that they might find wonderful and 2) is worth hearing more about.

We have 400 subscribers, which is a bit of a milestone. This is a lot for a very technical all-volunteer organization that devotes its time supporting and promoting project work, while staying firmly in the background.

Our proudest moments are when projects succeed and are recognized on their own merits, under their own name, and under their own branding. Ribbit, RFBitBanger, Haifuraiya, a variety of published Open Source FPGA work, FPGA training, Opulent Voice, Versatuner, Dumbbell, actively participating in IEEE, FCC TAC membership, Remote Labs, our many regulatory successes, and our active and successful mentoring in professional and academic settings – these are all clear indications that we’re on the right track and doing a great job.

Not explicitly mentioned are the many places we’ve helped projects succeed behind the scenes, around the world.

We are committed to an altruistic approach that delivers clear value to project work. This approach has been abused only once, by one organization.

Being accountable, open, and successful is the cost of doing our type of business. This is a price happily paid.

Thank you for being part of it!

https://www.youtube.com/c/OpenResearchInstituteInc

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ORI at QSO Today Academy 9-10 September 2023

Open Research Institute presents two talks and an organizational showcase at the 9-10 September QSO Today Academy this upcoming weekend. https://www.qsotodayhamexpo.com/

This online event features a broad array of amateur radio talks. The speakers are engaging and inspiring. Q&A, connection, and conversation are a priority at QSO Today.

See Dr. Daniel Marks speak about the RFBitBanger project and the SCAMP mode at 1300 US Pacific Time on 9 September. Details of the talk can be found at https://wze95h.qsotodayhamexpo.com/sessionInfo/_the_rfbitbanger_an_off_the_grid_emergency and the repository for this ORI project is https://github.com/profdc9/RFBitBanger

See Michelle Thompson speak about A Shortened HF Antenna at 0900 US Pacific Time on 9 September. Details of this talk can be found at https://wze95h.qsotodayhamexpo.com/sessionInfo/22 and the ORI repository for this project is https://github.com/OpenResearchInstitute/dumbbell

Please visit Open Research Institute’s exhibit at QSO Today Academy from the main portal.

Thank you to everyone that supports work at ORI.

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RFBitBanger DEFCON31 Show Special has Sold Out

Thank you to everyone helping spread the word about the HF QRP digital RFBitBanger kit DEFCON31 Show Special. We sold out the 99 kits with 13 hours to spare.

Here’s the geographical distribution of this version of the RFBitBanger kit.

Main boards are in process at the manufacturer with final inspection expected today, 31 August 2023.

The bandpass filter boards, which have been upgraded from “three bands included and one spare” to “nine bands included and three spares” at no additional cost, are in process and expected to be complete no earlier than 4 September 2023.

Kitting is well underway with the machining of the heat sinks completed.

This DEFCON31 version of the board is black in color to distinguish it from potential future versions. Here is a rendering of the top side of the board.

The RFBitBanger team is discussing future builds on the #rfbitbanger channel on our Slack account right now.

The next opportunity for a show special is for QSO Today Academy, 9-10 September 2023, where Dr. Daniel Marks is speaking about the RFBitBanger and SCAMP mode. Find out more about this event here: https://www.qsotodayhamexpo.com/

This project would not be successful with your support, feedback, and advice. Thank you all for making this project, one of many at ORI, a big success. There’s been a lot of interest in this project and some very nice coverage from Hackaday and QRZ blogs, with more articles expected in the future.

Getting the word out about what we do is up to people like you. Do you know of any open source digital radio projects that need a friendly and supportive home? We can help with ethical, professional, and competent research and development support.

https://www.openresearch.institute/your-project-is-welcome/

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Inner Circle Newsletter – All About the RFBitBanger

Three Days Remaining for the RFBitBanger HF Radio Kit DEFCON Show Special

Be a part of the future with a prototype kit build of the RFBitBanger, a low-power high-frequency digital radio by Dr. Daniel Marks KW4TI. Presented by Open Research Institute, this kit is designed to produce 4 watts of power and opens up a new digital protocol called SCAMP. Your donation in exchange for this kit directly enables the development of an innovative Class E amplifier based radio design. It has a display, button menu navigation, and keyboard connection for keyboard modes and keyboard-enabled navigation. This radio can be taken portable or used in a case. If you have a 3d printer, then Dr. Marks has a design ready for you to print.

  • Built-in digital modes: CW, RTTY, SCAMP (FSK and OOK, multiple speeds)
  • Key jack supports straight keys and iambic paddles
  • Open Source hardware and firmware, Arduino UNO compatible https://github.com/profdc9/RFBitBanger
  • External sound-card FSK digital modes supported (including FT4/FT8)
  • Experimental SSB support
  • Serial port support (2400 baud) for send and receive in keyboard modes

SCAMP is a new protocol that allows keyboard-to-keyboard contacts with a digital protocol that has excellent connection performance. See Dr. Marks presentation about RFBitBanger at QSO Today Academy in September 2023 to learn more about SCAMP and the RFBitBanger project. Information about that event is here: https://www.qsotodayhamexpo.com/

All surface mount parts on the main board are pre-installed at the factory. All the through-hole parts you need to complete the radio are provided for you to solder yourself. If you don’t know how to wind toroids or solder surface mount capacitors, this is an excellent kit to learn on. There are just six toroids on the main board, and two on each band pass filter board. You can build just one band pass filter board and operate on a single band, or you can build an assortment. We provide 12 filter boards, enough toroids to build any 9 filters, and a supply of capacitors that will let you build those 9 filters for 9 different HF ham bands. These capacitors are size 1206, which is the largest common size for SMT capacitors and the easiest to solder manually. All you’ll need is a pair of tweezers and your regular soldering iron and solder. We provide detailed instructions on winding the toroids and soldering the capacitors. You get spare filter boards to experiment with.

Support is provided through a dedicated Open Research Institute Slack channel.

Instructions on how to join the ORI community are here:
https://openresearch.institute/getting-started

Delivery is no earlier than late August 2023. Will be posted here and on the ORI website at https://www.openresearch.institute/rfbitbanger-project/

If you missed this sale, check out the upcoming show special at QSO Today Academy.

Want to Learn More About RFBitBanger?

Project lead Dr. Daniel Marks will give a presentation about the RFBitBanger at QSO Today Academy 9 September 2023 1300 PDT, 0800 UTC.

Daniel Marks, KW4TI, is a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering, having graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2001. His fields of speciality include optical engineering, computed imaging, and signal processing. He has made dozens of open hardware projects including many for amateur radio.

https://wze95h.qsotodayhamexpo.com/sessionInfo/_the_rfbitbanger_an_off_the_grid_emergency

The recent shortage of semiconductors, parts important for electronics, shows us that supply chains can be fragile. What does this mean? It means if we have a big problem for a long time, our advanced radios might be tough to keep working, which could be a problem in an emergency.

To solve this, a new kind of radio called the RFBitBanger has been created. It’s a type of low power, long-distance radio that is easy to build from basic parts using simple tools. It uses a new digital language, called SCAMP, made specifically for this radio.

All the signal work is done by an Arduino processor. What’s cool is that the radio has a small screen and buttons or you can even attach a keyboard. It’s a full text communications system all by itself. SCAMP is pretty special too. Even though it only needs a simple 8-bit microcontroller, it can do lots of things that digital modes like FT8 can do using small bandwidth and something called forward error correction.

The RFBitBanger radio has other helpful features. It can support CW (which is Morse code), RTTY (another way of sending text), and SSB phone (voice communication).

We hope that the RFBitBanger can serve as an easy-to-build and easy-to-maintain emergency radio. It can also be a great educational kit. And, it can be a lifesaver when there’s a big shortage of parts.

Media for RFBitBanger

Thank you to Hackaday and QRZ forums for covering the RFBitBanger project. Here are the links to the articles.

https://www.hackster.io/news/daniel-marks-rfbitbanger-is-a-qrp-radio-kit-for-the-end-of-civilization-or-for-fun-6ee3b5956eb7

https://www.qrz.com/articles/node_1692683709

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RFBitBanger Kit DEFCON31 Show Special

Be a part of the future with a prototype kit build of the RFBitBanger, a low-power high-frequency digital radio by Dr. Daniel Marks KW4TI. Presented by Open Research Institute, this kit is designed to produce 4 watts of power and opens up a new digital protocol called SCAMP. Your donation in exchange for this kit directly enables the development of an innovative Class E amplifier based radio design. It has a display, button menu navigation, and keyboard connection for keyboard modes and keyboard-enabled navigation. This radio can be taken portable or used in a case. If you have a 3d printer, then Dr. Marks has a design ready for you to print.

Receive a kit for your donation here: https://us.commitchange.com/ca/san-diego/open-research-institute/campaigns/defcon31-rfbitbanger-show-specpeial

  • Built-in digital modes: CW, RTTY, SCAMP (FSK and OOK, multiple speeds)
  • Key jack supports straight keys and iambic paddles
  • Open Source hardware and firmware, Arduino UNO compatible https://github.com/profdc9/RFBitBanger
  • External sound-card FSK digital modes supported (includes FT4/FT8)
  • Experimental SSB support
  • Serial port support (2400 baud) for send and receive in keyboard modes

SCAMP is a new protocol that allows keyboard-to-keyboard contacts with a digital protocol that has excellent connection performance. See Dr. Marks presentation about RFBitBanger at QSO Today Academy in September 2023 to learn more about SCAMP and the RFBitBanger project. Information about that event is here: https://www.qsotodayhamexpo.com/

Surface mount parts are pre-installed. You will need to have through-hole parts installation skills to complete the kit. If you don’t know how to wind toroids, this is an excellent kit to learn on. 80, 40, and 20 meter band pass filters are included. More will be available soon.

Support is provided through a dedicated Open Research Institute Slack channel.

Instructions on how to join are here:

Getting Started at Open Research Institute

Delivery is no earlier than late August 2023. Updates will be shared here in the news section as well as on the RFBitBanger page at https://www.openresearch.institute/rfbitbanger-project/

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Inner Circle Newsletter March 2023

March 2023 Inner Circle
Welcome to our newsletter for March 2023!

Inner Circle is a non-technical update on everything that is happening at ORI. Sign up at this link http://eepurl.com/h_hYzL

Contents:
FPGA Workshop Cruise with ORI?
ORI’s Birthday 6 March – Celebrate With Pins!
RFBitBanger Prototypes
Announcing the ORI App Stores
QSO Today Ham Expo Spotlight
Jay Francis in QEX
Pierre W4CKX Declares Candidacy for ORI Board of Directors

FPGA Workshop Cruise with ORI?
Want to learn more about open source FPGA development from experts in the field? Want to get away? How about something that can give you both? We are looking at organizing an FPGA Workshop Adventure Cruise. Be part of the planning and write fpga@openresearch.institute

ORI’s Birthday – Celebrate With Pins!
We celebrate our 4th birthday on 6 March 2023. Thank you to everyone that has helped ORI grow and succeed in so many different ways. To commemorate our anniversary, we have a limited edition acrylic logo pin. They will be available for a small donation at all upcoming in-person events. Where will be be? We’ll be at DEFCON 31 and IEEE IWRC in Little Rock, AR, USA 13-14 September 2023. Want to include us at your event before then? Let us know at hello@openresearch.institute

RFBitBanger Prototypes
Interested in high frequency amateur (HF) bands? Want to learn about Class E amplification? Excited about open HF digital protocols that aren’t just signal reports? Well, we have a kit for you. Here’s a walk-through by Paul KB5MU of all RFBitBanger modes. This project is lead by Dr. Daniel Marks, is enthusiastically supported by ORI, and will be demonstrated at DEFCON in August 2023. We are doing all we can to have kits available for sale by DEFCON, or sooner.

Announcing the ORI App Stores
Open Research Institute can be found in the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store. That’s right – we are in both app stores delivering open source mobile apps. Thank you to everyone that has helped make this possible. The Ribbit app will be available on both platforms as our initial release. Do you know of an open source application that needs a home? Get in touch at hello@openresearch.institute and let’s talk. We want to share our platform and support applications that help open source and amateur radio.

QSO Today Ham Expo Spotlight
We hope to see you again at QSO Today Ham Expo, 25-26 March 2023. If you haven’t gotten a ticket yet, please visit https://www.qsotodayhamexpo.com/
This is a wonderful event that showcases the best parts of amateur radio. The theme for this Ham Expo is “New License – Now What?” Recordings will be available on the Ham Expo platform for a month, and then will be available on YouTube for anyone to view. ORI will volunteer at the March 2023 QSO Ham Expo session and will have technical presentations, a booth, and poster sessions at the Autumn 2023 QSO Today Ham Expo.

Jay Francis in QEX
Please see page 20 of the March/April 2023 issue of QEX magazine for an article co-authored by Jay Francis, our AmbaSat Re-Spin team lead. Excellent job, Jay!

Pierre W4CKX has declared his candidacy for ORI Board of Directors
We welcome Pierre’s interest in being a member of the board. Pierre is the Ribbit project lead. He brings broad industry knowledge, experience in Agile project management, a commitment to ethical leadership, and innovative energy. Learn about all our directors at https://www.openresearch.institute/board-of-directors/

Are you interested in supporting work at ORI? Consider being part of the board. We’d like to expand from 5 to 7 members in order to better serve our projects and community.

We’ve got lots going on with Opulent Voice, Haifuraiya, AmbaSat Respin, and regulatory work. We support IEEE in many ways, one of which is logistics support with technical presentations such as “Advances in AI for Web Integrity, Ethics, and Well Being” by Srijan Kumar PhD. Video recording of his talk can be found here.

Thank you from everyone at ORI for your continued support and interest!

Whatever will be do for our April 1st newsletter?

Want to be a part of the fun? Get in touch at ori@openresearch.institute