07-13, 21:30–22:30 (US/Eastern), Tobin 223 (Workshop 3)
You want to play with wireless communications? You heard that getting an amateur radio license expands the spectrum available for you to transmit on? That’s great, but experimenting is all you want to do, and you would like any communication with another “ham” to be kept “short and sweet,” and kept to the experiment at hand. This is what will occur in this workshop. Playing with the various digital modes of communications used in amateur radio can be a good starting point to ease into the hobby, both cheaply and at a comfort zone of human interaction desired. This workshop will introduce various digital mode communications used in amateur radio using a simple setup you can build with a laptop, open-source software, and around $65 USD in hardware.
Joe Cupano is thankful for what he calls “an accidental career” in technology that started with component level repair of early microcomputers (as in, with a soldering iron) to turning technology tricks in three piece suits for globally recognized companies. His first fusion of his amateur radio and computer interests was around 1983 when he successfully sent an auto-run computer program acoustically via VHF radio from one Sinclair ZX81 to another messing with a thermal printer. Joe has served roles in the amateur radio community that include the ARRL HSMM Working Group - which helped spawned the mesh networking popularity of today.
