Playing Radio for a Living

Since I'm working full-time on the new Shacktopus system, a sort of Microship-in-a-pack also known as Shack To Go, I'm going to start keeping a running commentary here. Eventually, when this all stabilizes, it will have a proper set of static html pages.

The past few weeks have seen the acquisition of a lot of new communications gear. Over the last 3 days, I've assembled the exquisite miniature Elecraft T1 antenna tuner kit, and just gave it a test today between the Yaesu FT-817 and the Cushcraft R-8 (still clamped to a cart at ground level). I didn't make any contacts during the awful geomagnetic conditions, but the tuner did its thing quite smartly... latching relays configuring an L-C filter network in response to band changes (via a direct interface to the radio) or in response to a pushbutton request. This thing is tiny, and also manages to tune during SSB voice peaks instead of requiring the traditional steady carrier.

When I first went outside to test today, I was horrified at the hash and birdies all across the spectrum... then remembered that I hadn't turned off the worst broadband noise generator I have seen since the days of diathermy machines: the Sony DRN-XM01 receiver for XM satellite radio. The music service I like, but that particular unit is loud in all respects: a fan that's worse than a typical tower PC, and RFI that completely trashes the HF spectrum anywhere within a hundred feet or so. But it was a gift that got me into XM out here in the RF hole of Camano Island, and is thus appreciated... though of course I'm now lusting after the little My-Fi even with all its strange modalities and UI quirks!

Speaking of cute bits of radio gizmology, another component in the new pack system is the Tenna Dipper. They're not currently shipping, but watch for the next round of kits if you're looking for a very cheap and effective little antenna analyzer. It's only $25, and reports the frequency via Morse code after you tune a bridge to null (as indicated by an LED going dark).

More soon; I'm going to crank this blog back up again, now that I'm actually working on the project and have things to say other than vague reports on what I'm thinking about. At the moment, we're trying to choose the embedded Linux platform, juggling trade-offs of power management, size, I/O, and cost. And in my next installment, I'll report on the suite of antennas...

The Shacktopus

Yikes, it's been a while since I've posted here, though I've been doing "daily updates" with fresh photos 2-3 times a week. That's the place to look when you find yourself gripped with the urge to find out what I'm up to; I'm reserving this blog for project reports and maunderings that justify a bit more persistence than the fleeting updates over in the other venue (they are not archived).

So, after all that build-up, what justifies this update? A couple of things.

First, we've solved half of the networking problem here... a decent LAN connecting house and lab (the other half of the problem, getting a connection to the world that's a bit less leisurely than the half-speed dialup that has been hobbling my online life for years, seems about to be solved with a rumored cable connection). To link the buildings, about an eighth of a mile apart with Wi-Fi attenuating forest in between, we connected a pair of Efficient Networks (Speedstream) 5851 SDSL routers back-to-back via an extra "dry pair" in the telephone cable I buried 7 years ago. After much fiddling around with router configurations, we settled on bridging instead... quite adequate, as the LANs don't have enough separate traffic to bog each other down. The net effect, so to speak, is a single LAN that incorporates the two buildings, with a dedicated Linux box in the lab acting as server/firewall and the original Airport Base in the house acting as a local AP.

Works beautifully.

The other news, which is substantial enough that it's about to get its own web site, is Shacktopus. I'm not quite ready to do a full brain-dump about this (mostly because parts of the design are still a moving target), but basically it is the "ultimate" philosophical manifestation of the technomadness that has driven my projects for 22 years. The idea is simple in principle, but challenging in practice: incorporate ALL communication, sensing, telemetry, and communication tools into something that stays with the human... instead of requiring said human to be aboard a complex substrate to use the geek goodies (and at all other times suffering without them, unless connected via a remote UI whose bandwidth is stepped inverse function of distance).

With this simple re-mapping, the relationship between human and technomadic substrate fundamentally shifts: Microships, yachts, kayaks, bicycles, labs, and houses merely represent additional resources... ranging from the trivial (a source of shore power) to the elegant (navigation and environmental sensor suite). But what's important is that the "system" is something that can stay with me, instead of only being available when I'm in the midst of an expedition. And we know how often THAT is.

Also... I'm trying something different this time. My "business model" for the past two decades (if I can be said to have had one at all) has been to do fun things, generate media coverage, attract sponsors, and extract cash from related writing and speaking projects. It's been a rather ad hoc approach as careers go, but I've survived... though never really far from the hand-to-mouth level.

This time around, I'm going to try productizing. The intent is to eventually market the full system, but in the near term there are some very interesting components (all the custom stuff) that will be of use to other technomads, mobile hams, and road warriors in general. I'm exhibiting and speaking at the SeaPac Convention (Seaside, Oregon) in June, so this is on a fast track... and I'll tell you more than these lofty abstractions Real Soon Now.

In the meantime, it feels good to get my hands on some new gizmology, dust off my creaky embedded system design skills, and take on a high-density packaging project!