Tag: ribbit

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Inner Circle Newsletter December 2024

Welcome to Open Research Institute’s Inner Circle Newsletter for December 2024. We have a lot to share with you!

Open Research Institute is a non-profit dedicated to open source digital radio work. We do both technical and regulatory work. Our designs are intended for both space and terrestrial deployment. We’re all volunteer. You can get involved by visiting https://openresearch.institute/getting-started

Membership is free. All work is published to the general public at no cost. Our work can be reviewed and designs downloaded at https://github.com/OpenResearchInstitute

We equally value ethical behavior and over-the-air demonstrations of innovative and relevant open source solutions. We offer remotely accessible lab benches for microwave band radio hardware and software development. We host meetups and events at least once a week. Members come from around the world.

Read on for regulatory, technical, and social articles. We close with a calendar of recent and upcoming events.

Want to subscribe to the Inner Circle? Sign up at http://eepurl.com/h_hYzL

Previous issues of Inner Circle can be found at https://www.openresearch.institute/newsletter-subscription/

Regulatory Work at ORI

Making Open Source Easier for Everyone

Past regulatory work at ORI can be found at https://github.com/OpenResearchInstitute/documents/tree/master/Regulatory

219 MHz Project

by Mike McGinty

Federal Communications Commission License DB (FCC LicDB) is a set of tools for exploring the FCC license database dumps. The tools are at https://github.com/tarxvftech/fcc_licdb

These database dumps are at https://www.fcc.gov/wireless/data

What you see in FCC LicDB is a way to download and then import most of the weekly database dumps to an sqlite database. Expect a couple gigabytes for uls.db, depending on how many services you import.

After that, the purpose of this repository gets more esoteric because it’s less about exploring and more about answering. (Answering what?)

There’s a problem with the 219-220 MHz amateur band. 47 CFR part 80 defines this band (among others) as for Automated Maritime Telecommunications Systems (AMTS), but that idea completely failed and so now there are no AMTS stations, just companies licensed for AMTS, usually through leases, that use the spectrum for other purposes.

The restrictions on Amateur secondary use of the band defined in part 97 were designed for a world where AMTS stations were on the coast. This, along with other circumstance, define the problem that exists today – it is nearly impossible to operate an Amateur radio on the band despite hams deliberately being given the spectrum.

See https://github.com/tarxvftech/47CFR for more details on this situation. I started this LicDB repo to figure out where these AMTS licensees operate, and what they are using it for. The ULS database interfaces available to the public are not sufficient for answering questions like this (details in W5NYV’s first talk “The Haunted Band”).

But where a generic system may struggle, a more targeted approach can solve.

What you see below is a functionality-first view of the FCC licensing system mapping as much of the AMTS stations licensed or operating in the 219-220MHz band as can be found in the database.

It’s not perfect – working on data from other people and systems that you have no control over never is – but it’s much better than all existing alternatives.

Other Projects

It’s expected this would be useful for redoing W5NYV’s exploration into the demographics of Amateur Radio operators in the US: https://github.com/Abraxas3d/Demographics

Similarly, it might be very interesting to plot ALL the LO, PC, and other entries, and then merge in the other data that isn’t in the FCC database, like ham radio repeaters, to try to make the radio services in the ether around you that much more legible.

Some entries are not easy to import into the database, or have data errors that make them difficult to plot on the map. Those entities are not presently accounted for.

Above, AMTS stations in the United States. Below, a few detail images from the map, which can be found at https://amts.rf.band (heavy data, be patient for first load).

An article from ORI called “Space Frequency Block Coding Design for the Neptune Communications Project” will be in the January-February 2025 issue of QEX Magazine, from ARRL. Thank you to ARRL for publishing open source work from ORI.

Article Summary

The article discusses the design and implementation of Space Frequency Block Coding (SFBC) in the Neptune Communications Project, a digital radio initiative operating at 5 GHz for amateur radio applications.


Key Concepts and Objectives:

SFBC is a technique used in digital communications to improve signal resiliency by leveraging spatial, frequency, and coding diversity. It is commonly implemented in systems using Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM), utilizing multiple antennas for diversity. The mathematics are explained step-by-step with diagrams and equations. Noise calculations worked out in an Appendix.


Amateur Radio Application:

The Neptune project focuses on transmitting robust digital signals in noisy environments, essential for drone and aerospace communications. SFBC increases the likelihood of data recovery by mitigating multi-path interference and improving signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). An open source OFDM modem is needed in amateur radio.


Technical Details


Implementation:

SFBC transforms transmitted signal samples mathematically before sending them via two transmit antennas. Multi-path and spatial diversity enhance signal integrity against environmental reflections and interference.


Operation:

Signals are transmitted using OFDM, where subcarriers provide frequency diversity. The encoding does not increase throughput on its own but makes it easier to achieve maximum throughput performance.


Coding techniques like the Alamouti scheme are explained, with diagrams, for creating and decoding signals.


Trade-offs:

SFBC reduces SNR by 3 dB compared to optimal techniques like Maximum Ratio Combining but avoids the need for channel state knowledge at the transmitter.


Practical Implementation:
SFBC was modeled and tested in MATLAB/Simulink, with plans for FPGA and ASIC implementations.


Future work includes:

Expanding to Space Time Block Coding (STBC).

Live demonstrations of SFBC/STBC performance differences.

Open-source release of HDL source code for hardware implementations.


Call to Action:

The Neptune project is a volunteer-driven, open-source initiative under the Open Research Institute (ORI). Community participation is encouraged, providing educational and developmental opportunities in digital communication technologies.

Watch Dr. Marks explain the RFBitBanger project and the SCAMP protocol in this video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fbgs_4QsKnE

And then… let us tell you that SCAMP is now in FLDigi!

SCAMP is now even easier to use. If you want to get involved with this new mode and also build your skills with a very special low power HF radio kit, please visit our eBay listing for kits at https://www.ebay.com/itm/364783754396

A Tale of Troubleshooting

Problem Solving our Minimum Shift Keying Implementation in the Lab
by Team OPV

Minimum shift keying (MSK) is the modulation used by Opulent Voice, our open source uplink protocol for our space and terrestrial transceiver. Unlike some other modulations, there aren’t a lot of documented and working examples of MSK, despite the many advantages of using this modulation for space and terrestrial channels. One of our educational goals at ORI is to provide exactly that, a documented and working example of MSK, that also delivers useful functionality to the amateur radio satellite service. 

In the process of writing down a description of what happens mathematically, so that software defined radios like the PLUTO SDR can transmit and receive our Opulent Voice protocol, there’s been quite a few troubleshooting sessions. One session solved a problem where the main lobe bandwidth was too large. Another session solved a problem where the processor side code didn’t properly configure the radio chip. Another session switched to the correct version of LibIIO, or Library of Industrial Input and Ouput routines. The wrong library meant that the radio was “sort of” working, but not completely. 

Troubleshooting and debugging systems is where most volunteer engineering time is spent. This is no different from professional development, where blank-paper time spent writing down routines may be a small fraction of the total development time of a project.

It can take multiple attempts to solve a problem. When this happens, it’s important to back up completely and recheck basic assumptions. Looking at the images below, one can see the desired MSK spectrum at the top. On the bottom is an example of an undesirable spectrum. The main lobe is bifurcated and the sidelobes have extra power. If you look at the graph, you can see that the sidelobes are higher in the “bad” example than they are in the “good” example. These are all clues, and there are several ways to go about attempting to solve the problem. The bad or “split” spectrum seemed to show up at random times, but it would go away when new PI controller gain pairs were written to the radio. 

Why were we writing new proportional and integral gains to the radio? We were trying to tune our PI Filter, which is in the Costas Loop, which is in charge of tracking the frequency and phase of our signal so we can demodulate and decode successfully. We wrote code to search through proportional and integral gain pairs, testing their performance both in digital loopback and in loopback over the air.

After reviewing the code, asking for help, getting a variety of good advice, and trying to duplicate the problem in MATLAB, the problem unexpectedly went away when the processor side code was updated to remove extra writes to MSK block configuration registers.

The lessons learned?

* Clean code that matches the design of the hardware may prevent unexpected behavior. Don’t be sloppy with your test code!

* Keep up to date on changes in register accesses and behavior. There was a change from setting and clearing a bit in a register to the bit being toggled. This was a change from the level being important to the change in the level being important. Do your best to match what’s in the hardware! 

Below, the “bad” spectrum as observed in the lab.

Below, the “good” spectrum, which returned after what we thought were unrelated code changes.

Opulent Voice at University of Puerto Rico

An Educational Success Story

by Michelle Thompson W5NYV with Oscar Resto KP4RF

Oscar Resto is an Instrumentation Specialist at the University of Puerto Rico’s Department of Physics. He also serves as the Principal Investigator for the university’s RockSat-X program. RockSat-X is a highly-regarded and very successful educational program sponsored by NASA and the Colorado Space Grant Consortium at the University of Colorado at Boulder. RockSat-X offers university and community college teams the opportunity to develop experiments for suborbital rocket flights, fostering innovation and practical experience in space-related fields.

Beyond his academic roles, Oscar is active in the amateur radio community, holding the call sign KP4RF. He has been involved in initiatives such as renewing the Memorandum of Understanding between the ARRL Puerto Rico Section and the American Red Cross Puerto Rico Chapter and has presented to a wide variety of audiences about amateur radio and emergency communications during and after major hurricanes. 


The University of Puerto Rico has actively participated in NASA’s RockSat-X program since 2011, providing students with hands-on experience in designing, fabricating, testing, and conducting experiments for spaceflight. UPR’s RockSat-X team has developed increasingly complex experiments over the years. In 2011, UPR’s inaugural RockSat-X project utilized mass spectrometry to analyze atmospheric particles and pressure. Subsequent payloads have continued to evolve and refine the investigation of the “middle atmosphere”, an often-overlooked layer in atmospheric studies. 

Oscar’s engineering design philosophy is to put the program in the hands of the students. The students are fully involved from the beginning of the process until launch. Oscar supports and enables consistent student success in two ways. First, by using the Socratic method of asking questions to lead the students through the many stages of design, test, documentation, and build. Second, by communicating clear expecatations about process and deadlines. Students source parts, build components using a wide range of manufacturing processes, and program all of the control and embedded devices. They carry out testing at the component, module, and end-to-end systems level. The student interface with NASA through meetings and regular reports.  


Recent missions included deploying sterilized collection systems into the space environment to gather organic molecules, such as amino acids, proteins, and DNA, from altitudes between 43 to 100 miles above Earth. To ensure the integrity of collected samples, the team implemented innovative decontamination procedures that were carried out in flight.

For the 2023 and 2024 UPR RockSat-X entry, Opulent Voice was included as a communications payload. That version was a 4-ary FSK modulation, voice only, and ran on a general-purpose processor. In 2023, the rocket experienced a failure. In 2024, the mission was a complete success, with Opulent Voice received on a student-built and crewed portable station near the launch site. For 2025, assuming UPR’s RockSat-X application is accepted by NASA, the Minimum Shift Key (MSK) version of Opulent Voice, implemented on an FPGA and deployed on a PLUTO SDR, will be used by the student build team. This MSK version is much more advanced and more spectrally efficient.

Review the MSK version at https://github.com/OpenResearchInstitute/pluto_msk
See an image of the student poster presentation about the 2024 UPR RockSat-X project below. 

Shipment was delayed, but a nice surprise for Ribbit has finally arrived. Below is the plaque for Ribbit’s 2023 Technical Innovation Award.

The metal surface has black lettering and an image of a laptop computer. The body of the plaque is a handsome hardwood.

The text reads “For developing the Ribbit app for Android and iOS devices. The innovative and open-source Ribbit app allows amateurs to utilize audio from amateur radio transceivers such as VHF/UHF handhelds to send and receive text messages across the devices. The Ribbit app leverages OFDM technology currently used in cellular 4G and 5G networks & WiFi.”

Below, the plaque hanging on the wall in Remote Lab West.

Remote Labs are test benches with spectrum analyzers, oscilloscopes, power and frequency meters, FPGA development stations, power supplies, and multiple SDRs. The equipment is supported by a computer running virtual machines with a variety of operating systems to support software, firmware, and hardware development. Remote Labs are available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year for open source development. 

Thank you to Pierre and Ahmet for all the extremely hard work to make Ribbit so successful!

Learn more about Ribbit and try out the web app at https://www.ribbitradio.org

Geometry Puzzle

Given a 3, 4, 5 right triangle, with an inscribed semi-circle, where the hypotenuse of the triangle bisects the circle to form this semi-circle, find the area of this semi-circle.

Spoiler! The worked-out solution by Paul Williamson KB5MU is below.  

The Inner Circle Sphere of Activity

December 17-22 2024 – Open Research Institute participates on the Federal Communication Commission’s Technological Advisory Council (TAC). Working groups composed of volunteers from industry, academia, and open source (ORI) meet weekly and debate and deliver advice to the FCC quarterly. This hybrid meeting is streamed on the FCC website. 

December 31, 2024 – Fiscal year ends for Open Research Institute. Work begins on filing 2024 IRS 990 returns, which are due May 15, 2025.

December 20, 2024 through January 6, 2025 – Holiday Break for all labs and teams. 

March 6, 2025 – Open Research Institute celebrates another birthday with parties planned so far in the US, Canada, and Europe. Sign up for a fun day commemorating open source volunteers around the world by writing hello@openresearch.institute.

Thank you to all who support our work! We certainly couldn’t do it without you. 

Anshul Makkar, Director ORI
Frank Brickle, Director ORI
Keith Wheeler, Secretary ORI
Steve Conklin, CFO ORI
Michelle Thompson, CEO ORI
Matthew Wishek, Director ORI

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Inner Circle Newsletter: Autumn 2024

A Harvest of Regulatory and Technical Updates

Open Research Institute is a non-profit dedicated to open source digital radio work. We do both technical and regulatory work. Our designs are intended for both space and terrestrial deployment. We’re all volunteer. You can get involved by visiting https://openresearch.institute/getting-started

Membership is free. All work is published to the general public at no cost. Our work can be reviewed and designs downloaded at https://github.com/OpenResearchInstitute

We equally value ethical behavior and over-the-air demonstrations of innovative and relevant open source solutions. We offer remotely accessible lab benches for microwave band radio hardware and software development. We host meetups and events at least once a week. Members come from around the world.

Subscribe to this newsletter at http://eepurl.com/h_hYzL

Ribbit Radio Update

It isn’t often that a completely new way of using existing technology in a truly innovative way on the amateur bands excites the community, but Ribbit consistently delivers.

What is Ribbit?

Ribbit is a novel digital text messaging mode for VHF/UHF communications for recreational and emergency use. It radically increases the density of information transmitted by spectrum used. Ribbit turns text into encoded audio, which can be played from your smartphone into the microphone of any radio, on any band, under even very noisy conditions. A smartphone with the Ribbit application on the other side can recover this message. Your information will get through.

Ribbit leverages the computing power of the modern smartphone to increase the capabilities of any Handy Talkie without requiring any additional hardware or cable.
Its redundant distributed nature allows it to function even when internet connectivity is lost during emergencies or just not available due to poor coverage.

Developer Updates

Project Lead Pierre W4CKX and Rattlegram Developer Ahmet Inan supported a transition of project development to Alex Okita KO6BVA in late 2023. Since then, Alex has made several big strides forward in both development and demonstration.

Alex’s most recent TO DO list included the following tasks.

1) Building a scheme to compact the header for Ribbit. The header is a bit long and could be shortened to save some bits using a raw bit stream of a simplified character map.

2) Add a keyEncoder to Code Witches as the keyboard input gets letters added. When the “Enter” key is pressed begin encoding/consuming the characters in the input area.

3) May also want to add in a sort of message queue above the input area.

4) Build a useful CW-Font for code witches and anything else anyone wants to use it for.

All of this work enabled a highly successful demonstration of Ribbit at DEFCON 32 in Las Vegas, Nevada, in mid-August 2024. A special thank you to RF Village for hosting ORI’s Open Source Showcase.

Visitors to the exhibit were able to see Ribbit work in a busy and noisy environment. DEFCON, like most other very large conferences, is acoustically noisy, but also very electrically noisy. Ribbit was demonstrated all weekend long in a very harsh environment, as the WiFi Capture the Flag competition was happening literally steps away from the Ribbit demonstration. The venue, Las Vegas Convention Center West, was full of conference attendees. Despite the background noise and substantial RF interference, Ribbit worked from Smartphone app speaker output, to Family Radio Service microphone input, over the air on a busy FRS channel, to the receiving FRS radio speaker output, to a Ribbit application microphone input on the monitoring smartphone. Being able to transmit and reliably receive accurate text data is a notable achievement.

Alex has integrated the Ribbit functionality into a web application. This makes Ribbit even easier to use than traditional native applications. The live web app demonstration can be found at https://badkangaroo.github.io/

Recordings of presentations about Ribbit, along with posters and diagrams, can be found at https://www.ribbitradio.org

The source code can be found at https://github.com/OpenResearchInstitute/ribbit_webapp

Practical Real World Use

The technical demonstration for Ribbit, called Rattlegram, got very positive reviews for utility in the field from Chile and Argentina mountain rescue groups. The challenge is supporting hikers and skiiers in places where cellular coverage is limited or not available. Ribbit functionality provided clear benefits with no downsides.

Carlos, our contact in Argentina who supports mountain rescue operations, described his experiences using Ribbit technology.

“Hi everyone, how are you? I’m just back from the mountains in Chile. We did some testing with Rattlegram, in very windy conditions (without any cables) and worked just great !
Send you a picture & video of one of the test we made. We were at this summit:”

In Argentina, Carlos reported:

“These past few months, we have been going out to the mountains, and been using Rattlegram with lot of success. In one of the ‘refugio’ we left an old cell phone with Rattlegram loaded besides the base radio, and we have been sending messages in all the backcountry ski outings and all the messages arrived without a problem.”

If Ribbit can work on the top of the mountains in Chile and Argentina, and if it also performs really well in noisy urban environments, then what can’t it do?

Ribbit Can’t Flourish Without Your Support

Ribbit is innovative, useful, and fully supported by Open Research Institute. But, it won’t realize its full potential without continuing development and community support. If you are excited about Ribbit and want to help, please join ORI at https://openresearch.institute/getting-started and let us know you want to get involved with Ribbit. We’ll make sure you get on the mailing lists and Slack channels.

ORI graciously accept donations for Ribbit development. Ribbit has a dedicated bank account, follows non-profit best practices, has an enforced code of conduct, and regularly reports to ORI leadership.

Thank you to everyone helping make Ribbit successful, useful, exciting, and fun to use!

Opulent Voice Comes to the PLUTO SDR
An Open Source Minimum Shift Keying Implementation

Opulent Voice is the native digital voice and data protocol for ORI’s open source satellite (or terrestrial) system called Haifuraiya. With high fidelity voice quality, seamless integration of data, keyboard chat, and authentication and control messages, amateur operators experience something truly new and enjoyable. As described by ORI Director Steve Conklin AI4QR, “Leave scratchy and harsh proprietary vocoders with clunky or incomplete data mode integration behind for good.” All source code at https://github.com/OpenResearchInstitute/pluto_msk

Things worth doing are rarely easy. The Minimum Shift Keying (MSK) implementation of Opulent Voice (OPV) on the PLUTO SDR is no exception. Challenges to the documentation, design, implementation, and test cycles have come up throughout the process. The response from the open source digital radio community has been solid, inspiring, and productive, with patient problem-solving winning the day every time.

Michelle Thompson, ORI’s CEO, described her perspective on OPV’s progress recently at an IEEE event, stating:

“I would like to thank everyone helping ORI achieve ambitious goals for our uplink protocol. It’s a real pleasure to serve this community and meet the needs of this project. It’s a privilege to be part of something so innovative and relevant.”

This feeling is reflected by the OPV volunteer team, who are actively involved around the world in promoting open source work and helping ORI projects like OPV succeed.

Successes Over the Past Quarter and Current Status

OPV was the communications downlink for a NASA RockSat-X mission executed by the University of Puerto Rico, one of the most consistent and successful teams participating in this competitive program. The mid-August 2024 launch from Wallops went flawlessly. The performance of OPV met all expectations and data recovered from the launch is being used to further develop and improve the communications protocol.

OPV presentations at HamCon:Zion and DEFCON during the summer of 2024 were extremely well received, giving positive educational value to the community. Amateur Radio deserves quality digital communications. OPV delivers excellent results and is well-documented.

There is still a long way to go. The physical layer work is currently focused on tuning the tracking loops in the demodulator. Once the physical layer is reliable, then the functions that integrate voice, data, keyboard, and channel control messages will be integrated into the PLUTO SDR build and tested. Application layer functions in HTML 5 have a head start, with some tests already completed. Parallel integration efforts from F5OEO and OpenCPI, both of which will expand the number of hardware platforms that OPV can use, are well underway.

Below, an example of bit-accurate simulation results for OPV, with signal names on the left and waveform values on the right.

Below, the spectrum of OPV, showing main lobe null-to-null span of 81 kHz, and signal sidelobes.

Haifuraiya and Modem Module Update

The work on Haifuraiya has broader appeal than just as a HEO/GEO satellite design. The “modem module” approach, developed by Matthew NB0X, is summarized at left.

At left is the most recent high level block diagram.

Haifuraiya – Open Source HEO/GEO Amateur Satellite Update

The multirate channelizer has been implemented in Remote Labs West on the zc706/ADRV9009 station. At left is a summary of the channel plan for the satellite receiver.

Regulatory Work at ORI
Making Open Source Easier for Everyone

Past regulatory work at ORI can be found at
https://github.com/OpenResearchInstitute/documents/Regulatory

A special Halloween season workshop about exorcising the Haunted Band of 219-220 MHz was held by IEEE and ORI on 29 October 2024.

The Zoom meetup was well attended with the majority of RSVPs participating on the call. The meeting was recorded for those that couldn’t make it. The video recording of the background session, followed immediately by the workshop, can be found at https://youtu.be/wGX__qcFrT4

219 MHz is a secondary allocation for amateur radio. It has excellent channel characteristics, is open to fixed point-to-point digital links only, allows 100 kHz bandwidths, has a minimum of 56 kbps data rates, and has had no activity for decades. It’s time to take this band back!

Why is there no activity? We believe this band is inactive because of the notification requirements in FCC part 97 and part 80. We assert that these notification requirements, which pull ARRL into the loop from two different directions, are impossible for both amateurs and commercial licensees to comply with.

What are these notification requirements? If you as an amateur want to operate on 219 MHz, you have to determine if there’s an Automated Maritime Telecommunications System (AMTS) station within 80 km of your amateur station. You then have to ask permission from the AMTS station(s) in order to legally operate with at least 30 days notice. If you are between 80 km and 640 km, then you have to notify the AMTS stations at least 30 days in advance of activating the band.

A publicly accessible database of amateur and AMTS stations on 219 MHz is supposed to be maintained by ARRL. This is a rule in Part 97 (for the amateur radio stations) and in Part 80 (for AMTS stations). This database does not appear to exist.

AMTS stations did not report their information to ARRL. Requests to ARRL for a copy of AMTS stations have not been answered. Requests for a copy of amateur radio stations that have notified the ARRL of intent to operate have also not been answered.

These requests were made by multiple amateur radio operators in the October – December 2023 time frame. This was before the cyberattack in 2024, which did sideline a lot of ARRL’s services and activities.

The 219 MHz band regulations need a serious overhaul. We believe a proposal for new rules for this band are a necessary step towards restoring amateur use of this band. We believe that rules can be proposed that will both promote modern and innovative digital activity, and at the same time, not endanger the primary licensees in any way. While the AMTS service no longer exists as originally envisioned, the AMTS licenses have been leased out to fundamentally different services, such as railroads. These primary licensees can share the band with amateur radio in, at the very worst, a mutually inoffensive way and, at the very best, a mutually beneficial manner. It’s up to us to make this better future happen.

In order to make an effective proposal to the US FCC for updated rules for this band, there are things that we need to sort out. We need to know what we want and we need to know what the primary users want. We need to anticipate and answer objections to dropping the onerous notification requirements, and we need to clearly state the value that an amateur radio allocation on this band brings to education, public service, citizenship, and technical advancement of the radio arts.

The workshop on 29 October was the first strong step towards sorting out a draft of proposed rulemaking for restoring amateur radio service use of the 219 MHz band.

Discussion during the workshop resulted in an outline for a draft rulemaking proposal. ORI sincerely thanks everyone that participated during the event and through email correspondence.

Draft Outline

1) Demonstrate that the current rules are not working. State our case that the notification requirements are impossible to comply with and are the reason that there is no activity on this band.

2) Cite 60m as an example of successful similar activity.

3) Assert, providing evidence, that amateur radio operators already know how to share spectrum with other services. We already know how to not cause problems for the services that we share spectrum allocations with. We do not need additional notification requirements or to sign declarations to the ARRL in order to be able to successfully operate on an amateur radio band as a secondary user.

4) Show, from a ULS database perspective, the current utilization of 219-220 MHz. Amateur activity does not threaten primary licensees.

5) Show, to the best of our ability, the actual use of 219 – 220 MHz. This will require a call for participation for sensing stations, such as WebSDRs, amateur operators, receiver enthusiasts, and distributed receiver networks such as SatNOGS, to monitor 219-220 MHz for some period of time, in order to measure primary licensee activity on the band.

5) We assert that AMTS no longer exists. The current primary licensees are not coastal stations. The rules assuming coastal activity do not reflect the reality of this allocation as it exists today. Old rules are hampering efficient use of the spectrum.

6) Propose specific deletions of rules. What exactly should and could be struck down?

7) What are the anticipated effects, repercussions, both positive and negative, of deleting the notification requirements.

8) Is there anything else that could or should be changed? We discussed the 100 kHz bandwidth requirement and it’s origins in specific equipment available to amateurs at the time. Current FCC thinking is to not have rules that hardcode in equipment requirements. Deleting the 100 kHz bandwidth limit in favor of no bandwidth or symbol rate limit had broad support at the workshop.

Thank you to all of you that support our regulatory work. It will take a lot of time and effort to draft proposed rules and to go through the proposal process. The FCC may or may not choose to entertain new rules for 219 MHz. If they do, then a public comment period will happen. If they do not, then the draft rules will still be of benefit, as they will record the point of view and consensus of digital mode amateur radio experimenters and enthusiasts.

Please join this effort at ORI by visiting https://openresearch.institute/getting-started

Sphere of Activity

July 12-13 2024 – ORI exhibited at HamCon:Zion in St. George, Utah, USA. We invited Deep Space Exploration Society (DSES) and QRZ.com columnist Dave Jensen to join our booth. We showcased their work alongside our technical and regulatory acheivements. Total staff was three for this weekend event at a very nice conference center. Some of the travel expenses were reimbursed by ORI. This collaboration was entirely successful. Our CEO gave a talk about AI/ML in Amateur Radio at HamCon’s forum, which can be seen at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgHUavf5Ddo

August 8-11 2024 – Our Open Source Digital Radio exhibit at DEFCON 32 in Las Vegas, Nevada USA was a big success. ORI hosted demonstrations from RFBitBanger, Ribbit, Opulent Voice, and our Regulatory team in the RF Village. A staff of four set up, staffed, and tore down the exhbit. Travel and lodging was funded by ORI. Our CEO gave an RF Village talk about Synthetic Aperture Radar and Amateur Radio, which can be seen at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiR4woe4O5Q

August 29 2024 – ORI participated in the quarterly Federal Communications Commission Technology Advisory Council meeting and presentation in Washington, DC. ORI is represented on the FCC TAC by Michelle Thomposn and Matthew Wishek. Open Source and Amateur Radio interests have been defended at the federal level. ORI Contributions to the Dynamic Spectrum Sharing and 6G Working Groups can be seen in the video at https://www.fcc.gov/news-events/events/2024/08/technological-advisory-council-meeting-august-29-2024 If you are interested in supporting regulatory participation and defense, please join ORI, support ORI’s work, and let us know how you want to help.

October 2-9 2024 – ORI organized a week-long event called Digital Update for Microwave (DUM) in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. There were 3 on site for this event and 9 participants virtually. Housing was reimbursed by ORI. The focus of the workshop was Opulent Voice and Iterative Receiver Theory technical work. We did not address the 10 GHz antenna questions posed from our outreach prior to the event due to time limitations. Better 10 GHz mobile radio gear is what people are looking for, and this will get attention from ORI over the next quarter. DUM is an event that provides opportunities for people interested in digital communications on the amateur microwave frequencies. The contributions to ORI’s GitHub repositories showed that DUM was well worth the effort. Should ORI have a DUMII?

Thank you to all who support our work! We certainly couldn’t do it without you.

Anshul Makkar, Director ORI
Frank Brickle, Director ORI
Keith Wheeler, Secretary ORI
Steve Conklin, CFO ORI
Michelle Thompson, CEO ORI
Posted on

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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Opportunities This Week at ORI

Greetings all!

What do you need help with this week?

Here’s some opportunities at ORI.

1) Pierre and Ahmet are looking for people to help with mobile app design on Ribbit. 

The Ribbit Radio app is in both Android and Apple testing. The updates to Rattlegram are incorporated and the app is functional on both platforms. We have had excellent response for test teams and things are moving forward.

To make the app as great as it can be, we could use some additional human resources for UX/UI/code development. If this sounds like something you are interested in, please join #ribbit on our Slack or write to me directly and I’ll get you in touch with the team leads. 

2) DEFCON volunteers for the booth/exhibit. We’ve got just enough people to cover it. It’s a great event. We have solid support from RF Village and we advertise to Ham Radio Village. If you have been sitting on the sidelines waiting for a chance to do something for ORI, this is the best event of the year. 

https://defcon.org/ for details about DEFCON 10-13 August 2023
https://wirelessvillage.ninja/ for details about our Village, RF Hackers Sanctuary.

3) FPGA designs for Haifuraiya and Neptune. Want to use MATLAB/Simulink, VHDL, and Verilog to make open source digital communications designs for aerospace, terrestrial, and drones? These designs run on updated FPGA stations in ORI Remote Labs, and everything is on the microwave amateur radio bands. When you see microwave frequencies mentioned, then it’s good to also say that “we use these bands or lose them”. We’ve got plenty to do. Get in touch on #haifuraiya or #neptune on Slack or to any ORI director. 

4) Meander Dipole construction phase. Project Dumbbell explores an overlooked HF antenna design. There’s been strong interest in these designs from multiple people (some of which are on this list), clubs, and organizations. We need to build the designs that MATLAB says look pretty good. Time to make it work over the air and write up some construction and measured performance articles. 
As always, there’s plenty more going on, but these projects have some specific needs, today. 

Thank you to everyone that supports our work. I’d like to especially thank the IEEE and ARRL for being excellent partners to ORI. 

-Michelle Thompson

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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

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Inner Circle Newsletter February 2023

Greetings all! Welcome to the February 2023 issue of the Inner Circle Newsletter from Open Research Institute.

Join the Inner Circle

Sign up for this newsletter at http://eepurl.com/h_hYzL

Thank you so much for your time, attention, and support. We appreciate you, we welcome your feedback, and we are dedicated to serving the community to the best of our abilities. You can get in touch with the ORI board of directors directly at hello@operesearch.institute.

A Puzzle Just For Fun

Here’s a puzzle. Chicken Nuggets have been on the menu at the international fast food chain McDonald’s since 1983.

If Chicken McNuggets are sold in packs of 6, 9, or 20, then what is the largest number of nuggets that cannot be ordered?

Answer is at the end of this newsletter!

Projects

Our volunteer teams have been busy and successful, and our project lineup has grown.

Regulatory Efforts: ORI works hard to promote and defend open source digital radio work. We do all we can to help move technology from proprietary and controlled to open and free. Our work on ITAR, EAR, Debris Mitigation, and AI/ML are where we have spent most of our time over the past two years. We were a member of the Technological Advisory Committee for the US Federal Communications Commission in 2022, and co-chaired the Safe Uses of AI/ML Subworking Group. We have received consistently positive reviews for all of our work, and there has been increasing use of the results.

Ribbit: this open source communications protocol uses the highest performance error correction and modern techniques available to turn any analog radio into an efficient and useful digital text terminal. No wires, no extra equipment. The only thing you’ll need to use it is the free open source Android or IoS app on your phone. Learn how to use this communications system and get involved in building a truly innovative open source tactical radio service by visiting https://ribbitradio.org

Join Ribbit mailing lists at: https://www.openresearch.institute/mailing-lists/

Amateur Satellite: ORI has the world’s first and only open source HEO/GEO communications satellite program, called Haifuraiya. We will demonstrate all working parts of the transponder project at DEFCON 31, where broadband digital communications and open source electric propulsion will be featured. Find out how to support or join this and other teams at https://openresearch.institute/getting-started

AmbaSat for 70 cm: We’ve redesigned the AmbaSat board to move it from 915 MHz to 70 cm and it will be flown on a sounding rocket this year. With increasing interest in LoRa for both space and terrestrial use, this has proven to be a popular and useful project. The design has been adapted for applications in India and Japan.

Opulent Voice: a digital protocol that seamlessly combines high fidelity voice and data, using modern forward error correction, authentication and authorization, and efficient minimum frequency shift keying modulation. Opulent Voice will be flown on a sounding rocket this year and it is the native digital uplink protocol for Haifuraiya. Completely open with the high quality voice we deserve to hear. Due to the bandwidth requirements of the 16kHz OPUS codec, Opulent Voice can be used on 70cm and above ham bands, or anywhere else where the modest bandwidth requirements can be met.

Remote Labs: We have two remotely accessible workbenches for FPGA development, with Xilinx 7000 and Xilinx Ultrascale+ development boards as the focus. We also have several SDRs and radio utility devices available through virtual machine access. The 7000 series development board has an Analog Devices ADRV9371 radio system attached, and that has enabled a number of open source FPGA products to be published. This is a unique resource that has produced a lot of good work and is constantly being improved and updated. In addition to the development boards, the laboratory has a network accessible spectrum analyzer, an oscilloscope with logic analyzer extension, power supplies, frequency and power counters, and dedicated human resources available to help students, volunteers, or professionals contribute to open source work. Help it be more useful by spreading the word about ORI Remote Labs.

Equipment available: https://github.com/phase4ground/documents/tree/master/Remote_Labs/Test_Equipment
How to get an account: https://github.com/phase4ground/documents/blob/master/Remote_Labs/ORI-New-User-Setup.md
Using FPGA Development Stations: https://github.com/phase4ground/documents/blob/master/Remote_Labs/Working-With-FPGAs.md

Versatune: amateur digital television next generation hardware and software product. It is open source and affordable. We have committed engineering resources to support Versatune and are very excited about how things are going. Some of the Versatune team will be at Hamvention 2023 in Xenia, OH, USA, and it will be represented at DEFCON in August 2023.

HF antennas: We have a novel foldable antenna design for space and terrestrial use. The hardware prototype will be demonstrated at DEFCON. This design manipulates radiation resistance to produce best-of-class results. Think you can’t do 160m without an enormous antenna? Think again.

HF QRP: Coming soon, an exciting HF QRP digital radio board and protocol. The hardware prototypes will be demonstrated at DEFCON. What might happen when we combine the HF digital radio with the novel foldable antenna? We think you’ll be delighted.

Battery Matching Curves: are you available to mentor a college student interested in learning how to match up charge and discharge curves from NiCd cells in order to create battery packs? These packs would then be tested and/or deployed in the field. Our student volunteer has collected the data and is looking to learn how to use Jupyter Notebooks to select the cells to create battery packs.

Logistics

We’re growing and adapting!

We will be changing our GitHub project name from Phase4Ground to Open Research Institute very soon. Phase4Space GitHub project will change to Haifuraiya, which is the program name for our HEO/GEO design. These changes better reflect the content and purpose of the 64 repositories that span everything from important historical archives to open source music to the most modern open source encoders available.

We have a very well-qualified applicant for our open board of directors position. We would like to invite interested community members to consider applying to ORI in order to expand the board beyond this filled position in order to take us from our current five members to seven. Given our continuing growth, a larger leadership team would ensure continued smooth operations. These positions are unpaid, engaging, and can be demanding. The most important skill set is a strong sense of ethics and service.

Fundraising and Grants

We’ve applied for the GitHub Accelerator Program (Remote Labs) and the IEEE Innovation Fund (Polar Codes in Ribbit). If you have a recommendation for ORI in terms of partnerships or collaboration, please let us know at hello@openresearch.institute

Support ORI financially directly through the website https://openresearch.institute. There is a PayPal donation widget at the bottom of almost every page. Donations can be directed to any project, or to general operations. ORI has a very low overhead, with most projects coming in under 5%.

Support our open source propulsion work and get a cool desk toy at https://us.commitchange.com/ca/san-diego/open-research-institute/campaigns/where-will-we-go-next

We’ve raised enough money to cover materials for machining the engine parts. The next step is to raise enough money to pay for the electronics. Please help spread the word!

Thanks to our wonderful community, we have employee matching in place at Microsoft and Qualcomm. If you have an employee matching program at your work, and you think ORI would fit in, please consider nominating us. Our EIN is EIN: 82-3945232

Events

Where can you meet up with ORI people?

QSO Today Ham Expo

We support and attend QSO Today Ham Expo, held online 25-26 March 2023. The theme of this event is “New License, Now What?” and focuses on people new to amateur radio.

Our page for QSO Today Ham Expo content is https://www.openresearch.institute/qso-today-ham-expo-technical-demonstrations/

IMS2023

Join us at the amateur radio social at the International Microwave Symposium (IMS2023) on Tuesday 13 June 2023 in San Diego, CA, USA at 6pm. It will be held in a beautiful outdoor venue with food and drink provided. The easiest way to register for this event is to purchase an exhibition badge and then sign up for the social. https://ims-ieee.org/ is the event website.

DEFCON

We are getting ready for our biggest event of the year. We have proposed an in-person Open Source Showcase to RF Village for DEFCON 31 in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA from 10 – 13 August 2023.

Our page for the event, with all the latest and greatest details, can be found at https://www.openresearch.institute/defcon/

Want to help at DEFCON? Please visit https://openresearch.institute/getting-started and let us know!

IWRC 2023

IEEE wants to bring together all participants to take full advantage of CHIPS Act funding. IEEE will have an Innovative Workforce Resources Conference in Little Rock, AR 13-14 September. There will be a reception at the Clinton Presidential Library, and attendees will enjoy the best BBQ in the country. The National Science Foundation requires that a certain percentage of funding has to be spent in states that don’t get their fair share of research money. The goal of this conference is to pull together small researchers from small business like ORI and do research, with Arkansas as a focus.

We couldn’t agree more. After all, we are putting a lot of time and energy into Remote Labs South, located just outside Little Rock, AR. Bringing innovative open source digital radio work to students, workers, and volunteers that need it the most simply makes sense. If you can attend IWRC 2023 and help represent ORI please get in touch. We will be reaching out to IEEE chapters in Arkansas as well.

Read about the CHIPS and Science Act here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CHIPS_and_Science_Act

Puzzle Solution

43 is the largest number of nuggets that cannot be ordered.

What is the largest number of McNuggets that you can’t buy with packs of 6, 9 and 20? After putting in their blood, sweat, and tears, the mathematicians found that the answer is 43. You cannot buy 43 nuggets with packs of 6, 9 and 20, but you can buy any amount larger than 43.

Please see Mike Beneshan’s excellent blog about this type of problem at https://mikebeneschan.medium.com/the-chicken-mcnugget-theorem-explained-2daca6fbbe1e

The other Non-McNugget numbers are 1,2,3,4,5,7,8,10,11,13,14,16,17,19,22,23,25,28,31,34, and 37.

Trivia: You can get 47 in two ways: 36+19+120 or 06+39+120.

We’ve used the McDonald’s version of the chicken nugget to present and frame this mathematical puzzle. Here’s a link about the history of this menu item: https://www.thrillist.com/news/nation/history-of-chicken-mcnuggets

Robert C. Baker invented the chicken nugget, among many other things. He was a true innovator of what can be fairly called “modern foods”. A brief wikipedia article about him can be found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_C._Baker

A song written about this remarkable inventor can be enjoyed at this link: https://youtu.be/OEa8wqv4QM0

Do you have an idea for an interdisciplinary puzzle for our next newsletter? We’d love to hear about it. Write ori@openresearch.institute

Until Next Time

Thank you so much for being part of our Inner Circle! You are the motivation for all of this work, provided to the general public for free. We believe it makes the world a better place.

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HamCation 2023: Call for Open Research Institute Volunteers (booth/housing provided)

Greetings all!

If you are not familiar with the US amateur radio vendor fair HamCation, then please visit https://www.hamcation.com/

ORI has a booth in a very nice location right in front of the prize drawing area.

We have shown at HamCation for many years. In the past, we’ve collaborated with and supported exhibits and presentations from Society of Amateur Radio Astronomy (SARA), Tucson Amateur Packet Radio (TAPR), M17, DEFCON, GNU Radio, SBMS Beacon Project, and more.

We’ve organized four all-day forum sessions, recruited talks from all over the world, and welcomed people and projects that needed space to present their efforts to the large crowd in Orlando, FL. We’ve done a lot of demos, given out thousands of dollars of prizes and swag, and hosted several contests. The organizers have been deeply appreciative and delight to work with.

Aside from ARRL, ORI has fielded the most diverse and successful set of exhibits at HamCation in recent history.

It’s not a bad hamfest, as ham events go. Out of all of the ones in the US, this has been the best one for us.

Our plans were to show the Versatune project, which is a fantastic upgrade to a beloved ham DVB product, show Ribbit and Rattlegram, demonstrate Haifuraiya satellite work, introduce our sounding rocket work, and more.

Ribbit project team members cannot attend due to work and time conflicts. We’ll show through IEEE and potentially at Ham Expo.

Versatune has run into insurmountable delays and supply chain issues with Raspberry Pis. We looked at every possible alternative to get Versatune done faster with alternate parts, including rewriting the codebase for some very different off-the-reel parts that were available. We decided this was not a reasonable or achievable course of action. The original design is excellent and making progress – just not fast enough to show at HamCation in February 2023.

Haifuraiya (Open source HEO/GEO satellite) will show at QSO Today Ham Expo in March and through IEEE.

Sounding Rocket students cannot afford to come to HamCation, and we have similar supply chain problems there with Opulent Voice.

So – What do we have at HamCation?

We have a four-bedroom AirBNB very close to the fairgrounds reserved. Each room has a king sized bed. It has a large kitchen and very nice living room.

We have a booth at HamCation that is now completely open for anyone from ORI to use. I will do anything I can to help you showcase our work at HamCation. Do a shift at the booth, enjoy the very nice house, and promote our work.

More about this will be on Slack in the HamCation2023 channel.

Get in touch with me (cell phone number below) to take advantage. Deadline is 1 February.

If we have no staff, then we cancel and attempt to get the money back or donate the housing and booth space to a worthy group.

Please forward to anyone you think might be interested. What sort of work do we support? It’s outlined here:

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

-Michelle Thompson
(858) 229 3399

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Inner Circle – September 2022

Greetings from Open Research Institute!

We hope to see you again at QSO Today Ham Expo this weekend, 17-18 September 2022. We have a booth, five talks, three project exhibits, and a lounge space for meet and greet.

To find out more about Ham Expo, visit https://www.qsotodayhamexpo.com/

Since the last Ham Expo, we’ve integrated the DVB-S2/X encoder into the downlink reference design for our open source broadband microwave transponder. We have started on the uplink receiver. We have published a specification for our high bitrate digital voice and data uplink protocol. It’s called Opulent Voice and it will be introduced and described at the Expo. Find the source code for a C++ implementation at https://github.com/phase4ground/opv-cxx-demod

We have two sounding rocket projects, an open source propulsion project, successful regulatory work, and we represent open source and amateur radio interests on the US FCC Technological Advisory Committee. We co-chair the “Safe Uses of AI/ML” subworking group.

Our open source HEO proposal Haifuraiya will be presented at the Expo this weekend and details will be in an upcoming JAMSAT Journal.

We do terrestrial communications as well! Ribbit is a digital emergency communications mode for VHF/UHF. No extra equipment or cables required. We have a poster about the project in the exhibit hall and a presentation. Get the free Android application at https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.aicodix.rattlegram

All video presentations will be available at our YouTube channel after the Ham Expo platform has closed in 30 days.

We have a mailing list for updates and discussion, a Slack account for engineering work, and all work is published as it is created to our GitHub account.

To join any of these resources at ORI, please visit https://www.openresearch.institute/getting-started/

If you’d like to get monthly newsletters like this one, then do nothing. You’re already part of the inner circle!

Our volunteers could not accomplish all of this wonderful work without your interest and support.

Thank you from everyone at ORI. We value your comment, critique, and feedback, and look forward to hearing from you. If you use social media, then a lot of what we do is published through the channels linked below.

Thank you from all of us at ORI!

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How Can Open Research Institute Help *You*?

Thank you so much for visiting with us at QSO Today Ham Expo! We hope you found it as enjoyable, vibrant, and inspiring as we did.

We presented five talks, had three project exhibits, and a booth. You can find a summary below.

Your interest in our work is appreciated. We want you to enjoy open source non-profit digital radio and amateur radio to the fullest. How can we help?

Here is how to get involved with what we do:

https://www.openresearch.institute/getting-started/

Here’s a roundup of what we brought to Ham Expo. All of what we do is published as it is created. Our work is free to the general public at no cost.

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Ribbit, a new digital text messaging mode for UHF/VHF emergency communications

Presentors: Pierre Deliou W4CKX, Ahmet Inan

Level: General Audience Category: Emergency Communications Time:

PDT: September 18, 2022, 10:00 am UTC: September 18, 2022, 5:00 pm

Ribbit is a novel digital text messaging mode for VHF/UHF communications for recreational and emergency use which radically increases the density of information transmitted by spectrum used. It leverages the computing power of the modern smartphone to increase the capabilities of any Handy Talkie without requiring any additional hardware. Its redundant distributed nature allows it to function even when connectivity to the internet is lost during emergencies. Ribbit is open source and currently in its early stages of development. Get the free Android app here: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.aicodix.rattlegram

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning and the Future of Amateur Radio

Level: Intermediate Category: DSP and Software Design, Future of Amateur Radio, SDR Software Defined Radio, Software and Services Time:

PDT: September 17, 2022, 1:00 pm UTC: September 17, 2022, 8:00 pm

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning are all over the news, taking over academia, getting billions of dollars of commercial investment, and will change both computer networking and wireless communications in fundamental ways. What does the future of amateur radio look like when radios use machine learning to operate? How does our relationship to the bands change with cognitive radio? Where are we in this transformation? What will happen next?A working group to produce an AI/ML Handbook for Amateur Radio is forming now. Register your interest here: https://forms.gle/4dZsLkmyxCkp8JiF6

Truly Excellent Digital Voice Quality: Opulent Voice

Presentors: Paul Williamson KB5MU

Level: General Audience Category: Digital Voice Mode, DSP and Software Design, Software and Satellites, Space and Satellites Time:

PDT: September 17, 2022, 9:00 am UTC: September 17, 2022, 4:00 pm

Digital voice on amateur radio to date has generally had terrible voice quality, due to both a perception of limited available bandwidth and the convenience (to manufacturers) of repurposing commercial protocols with their older, proprietary, low-bitrate voice codecs. We present and demonstrate a modern digital voice design that can be used on 222 MHz and above with truly excellent voice quality. Source code here: https://github.com/phase4ground/opv-cxx-demod

Haifuraiya – Open Source HEO Satellite Project Proposal

Presentors: Michelle Thompson W5NYV

Level: General Audience Category: Space and Satellites Time:

PDT: September 18, 2022, 9:00 am UTC: September 18, 2022, 4:00 pm

Haifuraiya is an open source highly elliptical orbit amateur satellite project proposal. This presentation will walk through the high-level project proposal. The project features a digital microwave multiplexing transceiver with a failover transponder mode, has an international volunteer team open to community participants, and complies with debris mitigation guidance from the United States Federal Communications Commission. Repository here: https://github.com/phase4ground/documents/blob/master/Papers_Articles_Presentations/Slide_Presentations/haifuraiya/README.md

User Authentication for Amateur Satellites

Presentors: Paul Williamson KB5MU

Level: General Audience Category: DSP and Software Design, Software and Satellites, Space and Satellites Time:

PDT: September 17, 2022, 8:00 am UTC: September 17, 2022, 3:00 pm

After a brief discussion of the reasons why user authentication is needed on an amateur satellite service system, we’ll cover a proposed system to implement reasonably secure user authentication on a P4XT digital multiplexing satellite transponder, within the bounds of the (United States) rules.

We had three project showcases in the Project Gallery

Each Gallery had a Q&A tab, a poster or document, links to any papers, and a link to any associated video presentations.

1) Ribbit, a distributed digital messaging platform

2) Opulent Voice – High Bitrate Digital Voice and Data

3) Open Source Satellite Work is Free of ITAR/EAR

Kumospace Lounge

Thank you to Ham Expo for providing fun and effective Lounges for interaction at the conference. We truly enjoyed visiting with everyone that dropped by! We hope you enjoyed our themed events and the extended Q&A in the Lounges.

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