Before internet the physical cards ware the proof that you had had that contact.
They ware needed for awards in in many countries to even advance from your license class upwards.
In Finland one had to have 300 confirmed (paper QSL card received) contacts with morse code before you could even attempt the tests for higher license classes that allowed voice and data.
Thankfully now abolished, along with the mandatory morse code requirement.
Internet Archive has begun gathering content for the Digital Library of Amateur Radio and Communications (DLARC), which will be a massive online library of materials and collections related to amateur radio and early digital communications.
The DLARC project is looking for contributors with troves of ham radio, amateur radio, and early digital communications related books, magazines, documents, catalogs, manuals, videos, software, personal archives, and other historical records collections, no matter how big or small. In addition to physical material to digitize, we are looking for podcasts, newsletters, video channels, and other digital content that can enrich the DLARC collections.
This is a mammoth task but an important one. I wonder if there's a way to collaborate with existing collections of historical Amateur radio data, such as the famous "QSL Collection" from Vienna: https://www.dokufunk.org/index.php?lang=EN
I think they have more material than probably anyone else in the world, but much of it is "offline" (partly digitized but not web accessible).
Another huge collection of historic QSL cards, bios of deceased radio amateurs and other stuff: http://hamgallery.com/
Amatuer radio seems full of little software tools to do calculations that are closed source. I hope the authors can be encouraged to publish source, or it will die with them.
Not just closed source but a completely black box, like the ROS and Pactor 4 digimodes. (To be fair, the latter is a commercial product so the blame is on ham radio operators, not the company who designed it.)
I've always been curious as to how they "got away" with being proprietary: encryption isn't allowed on amateur bands, but given its black box nature, the codec (?) might as well be a cipher.
At least in the US, the FCC largely ignores amateur radio and related services. Unless they start causing interference with other services. In general an amateur digital mode cannot have encryption (there are a few exceptions). A digital mode must have a published specification as well. PACTOR is not published to my knowledge.
The ARRL petitioned for an increase to the symbol rate on the HF bands almost a decade ago. The FCC never formally did anything with it.
It was a few years back, but at one point the FCC issued a 200+ kw license for a transmitter right at the top of the 20m band. Why? I have no clue. It isn't like the operator couldn't afford a commercial license.
The FCC barely does anything about interference coming from equipment that affects amateurs. I've had substantially more luck contacting manufacturers and constructors directly. Just google "solaredge RFI" if you want more info about this.
It took a commercial radio manufacturer years of professional lobbying to convince the FCC that the CB radio spectrum could in fact be with FM. The FCC is about 50 years behind on regulation for the CB radio. There is a huge amount of very valuable spectrum that could be used for citizen radio purposes with type accepted equipment very cheaply. But the FCC does not allow it.
The FCC approved DFS for Wi-Fi, but didn't actually specify what the equipment was supposed to do when it must mitigate interference. All the equipment I've seen just switches the AP to the first 5 ghz channel and leaves it there. Forever. Likewise the FCC approved a new 5 ghz band for WiFi and similar services and puts power limits on emissions, as they should. But none of the chosen channels have a power limit of something very low like 0dbmw or similar. I have neighbors who find it fit to run an AP on every single available channel in the WiFi spectrum. I would just like one I can use in my house comfortably without getting interference. If we're going to have all this spectrum, why not take one channel and put a very low power limit on it? That way residential customers could use it in their house knowing they aren't receiving interference or generating it.
The FCC regulation is almost always lagging behind reality for spectrum they aren't paid for. Cellular and stuff gets all the attention, since that is where the money is. The transition to ATSC from NTSC for broadcast television would be a good example. That happened quickly and without endless debate as to the merit of it.
The FCC regulations don't take "might as well" into consideration, they only prohibit "messages encoded for the purpose of obscuring their meaning". So, ACTUAL encryption, not EFFECTIVE encryption, however you want to define that.
Since PACTOR is not "encryption" in the sense that the algorithm may be generally known but the secret key is not, it doesn't run afoul of the regulations. There's nothing in the regulations saying that the modulation or encoding used must be open or publicly available somehow. At best, it might be a gray area if the person/company providing it selectively decided who to sell it to.
And according to wikipedia: "Pactor modes other than level 1 (P1) are not open source,[14][15] but are publicly documented[16] and can be monitored and decoded easily over the air by third parties using free Raspberry Pi software ("PMON for Raspberry Pi")[17] or PMON utility on the modem itself.[18]"
All of THAT being said, I would certainly be in favor of a rule change that only allowed fully-published non-patented codecs on the amateur bands. That would of course wipe out all of the existing VHF/UHF digital modes since (nearly?) all of them use AMBE which must be licensed.
Yeah or the other way around :( The developer of the excellent SP packet terminal committed suicide after years of bullying on the air (not sure what the exact story is there but I used this software at the time). https://www.bungi.com/sigi/index.html
Maybe they want it that way? Why do you always need access to someone else's work. Many of them build these apps to fund their hobbies or put a little food on the table.
amateur radio service means a radiocommunication service in which radio apparatus are used for the purpose of self-training, intercommunication or technical investigation by individuals who are interested in radio technique solely with a personal aim and *without pecuniary interest;* (service de radioamateur)
Pecuniary rules apply to operating radio services using amateur radio for business. It doesn't mean you are restricted from profiting from create equipment, tools, or training.
You can absolutely talk about these interests, your business, or your work building things (e.g. antennas) for the ham market. You just can't conduct business, such as hopping on 80M and advertising a sale on antennas, or taking payment for communications between parties, for example.
Not an amateur radio guy myself but from what I understand it's supposed to be a strictly non-commercial undertaking which means it's a bit churlish to keep your code closed-source.
PayPal has a micropayments account option that it doesn't publicize very well. If you set up a new account with their special micropayments link (google it) they charge 5 cents + 5%. Which makes it cheaper for transactions under $11.
I gotta say, it was weird for me to do my daily visit to Hacker News and see my own site on the homepage.
I run www.atariarchives.org and www.AtariMagazines.com (started that site in 1996. It has the full text of a bunch of old computer magazines including Creative Computing and Antic and more). I also run FlightSimBooks.com, full text of classic flight simulator books.
If you want to help out with this stuff, find me at www.savetz.com. Need reliable volunteers.
