This episode of HamTalk Live is brought to you
by Tower Electronics. For connectors, cables,
and more, call 920 -435 -2973 or visit pl -259
.com. And by ICOM, heard it, worked it, logged
it. Visit www .icomamerica .com slash amateur
for more information about ICOM radios. With
Neorep, here we go Welcome to Amtoply Calling
Let's Stop, Neil's your guy Amtoply Hello everyone,
it's time for another episode of ham talk live.
It's episode number 290. Sore satellite optimized
amateur radio. We're recording this on February
24th, 2022. I'm your host, Neil Rapp, WB9VPG.
Thanks for tuning in to this episode of ham talk.
Not so live. Tonight we're joined by Mark Smith,
N6MTS, and on the last episode Jocelyn, KD8VRX,
Mark, K3POE, and Peter in for PVH. We're here
to talk about the 80th anniversary of the Voice
of America's first broadcast special event. So
I hope you're able to enjoy that. I was on W8O
on 40 meters for a couple of hours. on the first
day of the special event. So if you missed that
show, you can listen anytime at HamTalkLive .com
or on your favorite podcast app or over on YouTube.
And don't forget, HamTalk Live is rebroadcast
over on WTWW Shortwave. They're 5 -0 -8 -5 on
your AM dial. Saturday afternoons at about 3
.30 p .m. Eastern time, so make sure to check
us out over on WTWW. All right, well, I'll be
back with Mark right after this word from ICOM
America right here. on HamTalk Live. Now is the
time to spice up your ham shack with ICOM's new
ID52 handheld. Now shipping. This radio is perfect
for staying in or venturing out and working your
favorite bands this winter season. The ID52A
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ICOM radios go to icomamerica .com slash amateur.
The early bird may get the worm, but the second
mouse gets the cheese. You're listening to HamTalk
Live with Neil Rapp. Welcome back to HamTalk
Live. Tonight, Mark Smith at N6 MTS joins us
on the Orlando Amateur Radio Club and hamcation
Zoom line. Mark is the head cheese of Halibut
Electronics and Mark's secret project was recently
announced that we'll be talking about tonight
and I don't know. Mark, does cheese go with halibut?
Well, I don't eat either at this point actually
the cheese or big honcho I couldn't really decide
between the two so Okay, we'll go with head cheese
for the time being. All right. Okay. Well, there
we go Maybe maybe we throw in a tortilla and
we got a fish taco. So so there we go. Well mark
Well mark welcome the am talk live and and I
before I even saw this on Twitter It came through
my email like three times. Oh my gosh, you have
to go check this out. And, you know, so I go
to it and look at it and then, you know, and
then I get on Twitter and then it's like, oh,
here it is. And so there's a lot of excitement
about this project. And this project, you have
given the acronym SOAR. So let's talk a little
bit about SOAR. What does a SOAR stand for? And
what does this neat little gadget do? So SOAR
stands for satellite optimized amateur radio
It was kind of the working title that I came
up with when I came up with the idea of four
years ago or so And I haven't come up with anything
better. So we're rolling with SOAR. What is it?
It is an appliance for working FM satellites
There doesn't really exist Anything right now
that does all the things that it could do to
make working a satellite Trivial and I don't
I don't say trivial but make it take all of a
lot of the complexities and the automation that
isn't really part of you know Talking to another
amateur radio operator and just kind of automates
it and does it all right? Why cold holding two
handhelds while you're pointing the antenna?
and trying to do it with a tripod and have a
headset on and try to record everything and watch
and watch all the past predictions all the same
time while you're making the content. Yeah, so
all those things and you can definitely hack
together a system that does that and many people
have and that's kind of the way you do satellites
at this point is you take the radio and you hook
up a Headset to it and a push to talk either
like a handheld mic or a button on the boom of
your antenna or You know a foot switch or whatever
And then you also route the audio over to a recorder
because it's really convenient to record the
pass so you can log after the fact. But then
you still have to keep in hand on the tuning
knob because Doppler shift is a thing. Or you
can bring another device that is a computer or
a tablet or something that's controlling your
radios, but not if it's an HT. So now you're
talking about big radios. It's definitely not
impossible to do this, but... It seems like the
kind of thing where there should be a radio designed
with all of these use cases in mind. And there
wasn't, there isn't. I haven't been able to find
one. And so I decided to make one, I guess. Yeah.
Well, some of them have a lot of those functions,
but like you said, I don't know that any of them
have every one of those functions. So this could
make things a whole lot easier. So how did this
idea come about? You said it was about four years
ago you kind of came up with this. What inspired
the idea for this project? Well, I follow a lot
of people on Twitter who do satellites, who do
FM satellites. And I wanted to get into it and
I started looking into what was the gear I needed.
I'm like, oh my gosh. This is such a kludge.
There should be a device that just does all of
this for you. Specifically, the one thing that
really seems to be missing is the Doppler compensation
automation. And you can get a full duplex radio.
Full duplex is one of the other things that you
can't get anymore. There are very few radios
that do cross -band full duplex. You can do it
in a mobile rig or in a desktop rig. I think
the ICOM 9700 does it. But there aren't any HTs.
There aren't anything lightweight, battery -powered,
self -contained that do it. There used to be...
And those radios are becoming unobtainium. You
know, it's really hard to find a D -72 anymore
or the old, what was it, the FT -530, the old
Yesu from the 90s did full duplex. And they just,
there isn't really anything that does that anymore.
And so I, the four years ago thing was that I
needed to bring, I needed, I was going to Maker
Faire up in San Mateo. And I was invited to the
bring a hack party afterwards and I'm like, I
don't know. What do I have? And I was thinking
about this at the time. I'm like, all right.
I'll hack something together really quickly,
and I bought a couple of DRA818 modules. I got
a microcontroller off the shelf. I got a small
display off the shelf. I laid out a board in
an evening, I think, with a little bit of audio
routing and some WS2812s, because everything's
got to have bling, and an encoder, and just a
basic layout of stuff. And I sent it off to Oshpark
to have it fabbed, got it back, hacked it together.
got it all built and found out that I had all
kinds of problems with my layout. That's what
happens when you lay something out this complex
in an evening and don't really get it reviewed.
But I had enough to bring a hack to the party
and I took a bunch of notes on what I wanted
to do next time and then it squirreled off of
my brain and I went on to something else. And
that little project has been sitting on a shelf
for four years. Earlier this year, or excuse
me, last year, 2021, my employment situation
changed. Let's summarize it thusly. And I needed
a break. And so I left the world of IT and planned
on just taking some time off and kind of unburning
out. And while I was doing that, I was planning
on working on some projects. And this was one
of the projects that I wanted to work on. And
a few weeks into the process, I'm like, I could
turn this into a business. This is a thing. that
people would want. And I thought about how much
it would cost for me to make it and how much
I could probably sell it for. And I'm like, this
is a business idea. And then I started thinking
about all of the other projects that I do. I'm
like, I've got a lot of other ideas that I could
turn into products that I think would help people
enjoy the hobby. And so I'm doing it. I'm starting
it. I've started Halibut Electronics and we're
gonna see how it goes. All right. Well, let's
get into a little bit of the design process.
So, you know, you said you just kind of put it
together in one night and then, you know, obviously
you've made a lot of modifications since then.
So, tell us a little bit about that process of
designing it, laying it out and getting the board,
you know, and putting this all together. I use
a board layout package called KiCad. It's an
open source product that's free and it's gotten
a lot of very active development. It's in really
good shape at this point, a really good package.
I've been doing electronics not as a day job,
but as a hobby for decades at this point, since
the early 90s. a lot of projects for in onesie
twosies quantities right you know like i want
a thing so i would go off and build the thing
and i'd make one of them and yeah it's done it
works and and i move on with life uh i mean that
process is you know you think about what the
problem is you're trying to solve you think about
what technologies you know about that you already
know how to how to use and you figure out whether
any of those can solve those problems and if
there aren't you go research some other technologies
that you may not already know and learn about
them and figure out whether they will solve the
problems. And eventually you come up, you know,
you start thinking about, you're like, okay,
I can do this to solve that problem. I can do
that to solve this other problem. I don't know
whether this will solve that problem, but there's
a pretty good chance of it. Let me go build something
and test it and see whether it solves that problem.
And you just kind of iterate on this. And eventually
you have all the pieces. It's just a matter of
putting them together and packaging them in a
convenient way. That's what I've spent the last
five months -ish doing for SOAR. I knew what
a lot of the technologies were, but not all of
them, so I had to go learn some new things. I'm
still learning new things. It's just a matter
of packaging it all together in a way that will
actually address the use cases. All right. Well,
let's talk a little bit about When you think
this might be ready to go, you know, and I know
that that can change and parts and yep Yeah,
yeah all that fun. Oh, yeah, but let's talk a
little bit about that and then then maybe we'll
kind of get into You know how it works or at
least so far Sure. So when will it be available
that I I can't commit to that my goal is to have
the first batch ready to sell at Hamvention.
And I don't think I've announced that anywhere,
so I think you're getting an exclusive. Oh, wait
a minute, wait a minute. We have to play the
breaking news music here, so. Okay, there we
go. So breaking news, the goal is Hamvention.
The goal is to have a batch to bring to Hamvention.
Now, I'm not committing to that, but I'm hoping
that I'll be able to do that. What I bring to
Hamvention will be usable, but early revisions.
people who are going to be buying these the first
time around, I'm going to be strongly encouraging
them to be the type of people or to learn the
skills to be able to flash firmware on their
devices. I'm pretty confident the hardware will
be there. It's the firmware that's going to continue
to get new features over time and bug fixes and
improvements and all that fun stuff. Anyway,
I'm hoping to have it by Hamvention. Later in
the year, I'll be doing more and iterating on
fixing little bugs and improving the firmware
and selling more as I'm able to manufacture them.
The first batch I'm going to manufacture myself,
but if this goes as well as I hope it will, then
I'm going to quickly outstrip my ability to...
manufacture these things and I'll find a fabrication
house to do all the final assembly as well as
the board assembly okay so so give us kind of
an idea of how it goes and this is radio not
not video so we can't see a whole lot. If you
looked on social media, you saw the one little
snapshot picture of, you know, and you saw the
dual frequency display and the little target
there for, you know, seeing where the satellite
is. So just kind of walk us through what's the
process of going through and making a contact
with this thing. Yeah. So the hardware is relatively
small. It's about four inches by five inches
by about one inch tall, a little over one inch
tall. So it's relatively small and lightweight.
This version does not have batteries in it. So
you will need to provide your own DC power. It's
got a switching power supply on it. So anywhere
between seven and 40 volt input will be fine,
right? So, you know, any of your quote unquote
12 volt batteries or 13 .8 volt batteries will
do just fine. But otherwise, the radio is internal.
Both the VHF and UHF radios are completely internal.
All the microcontroller is in there. It has a
USB port, so you connect it to your computer.
And when you connect, like once, well periodically,
you download the TLE data. So TLE, for listeners
who may not know, stands for two line elements.
It describes the orbit. of a satellite. And so
if you know the TLE data, if you know the numbers
that are in the two -line element, and you know
where you are on the planet, and you know what
time it is, what day and time it is, with all
of that information, you can calculate exactly
where the satellite is and where it is relative
to you. All of that is in SOAR. So SOAR has a
built -in GPS, so it knows where it is and what
time it is. It has built -in flash storage that
you can access over USB. So you download the
most recent TLE data off of Celestrak or NORAD
or wherever you get it, and you copy it onto
the internal storage over USB. And now it knows
where the satellites are. And then it can do
all of the past prediction for you. So once you
have all of that data loaded onto SOAR, From
there, there are three main modes. I'll talk
about four modes called views in SOAR. The first
view is just standard HT. So it operates just
like a normal radio. You can key up the repeaters
with standard offsets and CT, CSS tones and all
that fun stuff, right? So it's got to operate
as a normal radio as well. So it's got that in
there. That's one of the views. The second view
is called past prediction. And this is the view
where it operates like the app on your phone
that tells you, you know, here are all the satellites.
It knows where it is, what time it is. You can
program in a different location and a different
time if you want to say what are the satellite
passes going to be when I'm on vacation a thousand
miles away in two weeks. So, you know, you can
do that sort of thing. But it does all the standard
pass prediction stuff. And then there's the pass
operation view. And that is where you've selected
the satellite. It knows where it is and when
it is and it can do all of the Doppler compensation
for the satellite pass automatically So you don't
have to control the frequency of the radio And
it also calculates the azimuth and elevation
of where the satellite is at any given time and
it displays that on the screen Since it also
knows when it comes up over the horizon and when
it goes down Past the horizon it automatically
opens up the squelch when at AOS, acquisition
of signal, when it comes up over the horizon
and closes down the squelch when it goes down
below the horizon. It's also got a whole lot
of internal storage. So it will record the audio
of the pass. It records the downlink and the
uplink separately. So it comes out as a stereo
dot wave file that's on the internal storage.
And there are two things you can do with that.
I'll talk about the first one in a second, but
the other thing you can do with it is that when
you hook it up to your computer over USB, you
can copy those files off onto your computer and
then encode them as MP3 or FLAC or whatever you
want to do with the files once you get there.
But the first thing you can do with those files
is a fourth view, which is pass playback. Once
you've done a pass and you've recorded it, it
records all the audio for that pass. It also
records what the TLE data was at the time and
the timestamps and all of that. And with that,
it's able to play back the pass. And so you can
listen to the audio from the pass and see on
the screen what was on the screen at the time
the pass happened. And so that should help with
You know logging or or brag rights or whatever
you want to do with that Yeah, my my my experience
on satellites is mostly okay. I've got the mobile
rig I stick the antenna out the sunroof I throw
my iPhone and record mode and lay it there next
to the speaker and you know adjust the frequency
every once in a while, but every time I started
recording it's like Okay, I'm on A091, it's 1632
Zulu, and I'm sitting in the Walmart parking
lot in Florence, Kentucky. So I'm talking to
myself, so already it's getting weird. And then
you turn the squelch down and you hear squelch
for like 10 minutes, and then all of a sudden
the pass shows up and you get it, and then you
probably forget to stop the recording, and so
you hear, you know, listening to talk radio while
you're driving down the road. And then, you know,
you finally remember to turn it off. If you're
not lucky, you forgot to start the recording.
Start it. Exactly. Exactly. And then, you know,
and then so I come home and I play it back and
I sit here on TQSL and punch everything in and
log it. And it's like, you know, There's gotta
be an easier way to do this. That's exactly what
led to SOAR, that thought process of, boy, what's
with all of these cables and the audio routing
and the recording and the, you know, and then,
yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, as soon as
you said it will automatically open the squelch
up for you, you know, when you get to a certain
point, I'm like, ooh. Ooh, that would be nice.
Right? It's the simplest. That is literally two
lines of code. One to turn it on, one to turn
it off. But that's one of those features that
people are like, oh my gosh, why does nothing
else do this? Yeah. Yeah. That could get me out
of a lot of trouble with the XYL on vacations.
It's always when the squelch is open that's,
turn that thing down. When there's voices on
there, yeah, okay, it's not so bad, but when
it's just full squelch, it's like, how do you
stand that? Well, I'm a ham radio operator. My
ears are... Damaged, let's go with. Anyway. Well,
this just, you know, it sounds like a really,
really cool project and we're going to talk about
it some more. We're going to take a couple of
questions that we got ahead of time, but right
now we're going to stop and take a break and
we'll be back with Mark right after this word
from Tower Electronics. Right here on HamTalk
Live. Jerry, what's up, man? I haven't seen you
at Sunbuck's in a while. I used to see you every
morning getting coffee. What's up? Well, I can't
afford Sunbuck's five days a week anymore. I
had to spend my money on PL 259s. You know, those
antenna projects I've been meaning to do. I had
to do them before my HOA finds out I have antennas.
That's too bad, Jerry. I miss seeing you and
catching up over coffee. You should get your
PL -259s from Tower Electronics. They have great
stuff. Jerry, you're back! Oh, QRM Heterodyne
Frappuccino. That's a good choice. How's it going?
Did you get all those antennas up before the
HOA police showed up? Yeah, I got them all done.
Thanks for telling me about Tower Electronics.
Now I can have my coffee. I just saved a bunch
of money on my PL259s by switching to Tower Electronics.
Don't get caught without PL259s. Visit Tower
Electronics online at pl -259 .com or at a ham
fest near you or give them a call at 920 -435
-2973 and be sure to pick up some power poles,
adapters and cables too. Coming up on the HamFest
calendar for Tower Electronics, March 5th they'll
be in Cave City, Kentucky or you can visit them
anytime at PL -259 .com. Oh yeah, you're talking
ham radio baby. You're listening to Ham Talk
Live with Neil Rapp. Welcome back to ham talk
live or ham talk not so live as it is these days
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now it's time for the N9GSU Ham Radio Joke of
the Week. Now it's time for the HamTalk Live
Ham Radio Joke of the Week, the part of the show
where Rick tells us a ham radio joke. The HamTalk
Live Ham Radio Joke of the Week is brought to
you by QRM Labs. Now here's Rick Garrett in 9GSU
with today's HamTalk Live Joke of the Week. I
decided I wanted to do some winter POTA activations,
so I went to the outdoor store to buy some long
johns. The clerk asked me how long I wanted them
and I said, well, probably November through March.
This has been the Ham Talk Live Ham Radio Joke
of the Week with Rick Garrett in 9GSU. Tune in
again next week for another joke from Rick. Alright,
so... Alright, Mark, let's change gears here.
Let's talk a little bit about FM satellites for
a minute because, you know, we've had some satellites
that haven't exactly worked out, you know, the
way everybody hoped and so, you know, there are
some beacons and some stuff out there, but as
far as functioning FM satellites that you can...
access with a handheld and talk through, it's
kind of limited. And, you know, some of them
are having some issues with batteries and that
kind of thing. So are you concerned about that
with your product coming out? No, is the short
answer. I mean, it's Really, AMSAT is always
putting up more satellites. I mean, not as fast
as we would like and some of them are, you know,
little CubeSats that are only going to be up
there for a few years and then they'll come back
to Earth the hot and exciting way. But I don't
think we'll ever not have FM satellites. And
to say that... SOAR is only an FM radio is technically
true, but remember that there are other modes
that can be encoded on top of FM. For example,
packet. You know, packet radio is AFSK, audio
frequency shift key modulated, meaning it's an
audio signal that is sent over an FM radio. So
there are packet transponders or APRS transponders
that are on satellites. I think ISS may be the
only one, but that's the one that I know of.
There's also SSTV, slow scan television, which
is again, an audio signal put on top of FM. So
there's more than just the FM repeaters in orbit
that SOAR will work natively with. Now, here's
more speculation that I cannot commit to. I am
doing everything in my power to make the audio
frequency response of SOAR as wide and flat as
possible in the hopes that we might be able to
use it to do some GMFSK modulation. For example,
M17 is a free and open digital audio codec that's
coming up. It's kind of like DMR or System Fusion
or D -Star, but all of those are patent encumbered
and belong to a particular manufacturer. D -Star
technically is an open standard, but it still
uses the Ambi codec. And so M17 was a project
that was started by a bunch of amateurs, mostly
in Europe, I think, although a lot of people
have taken it up in the U .S. as well, to come
up with a free and open source, non -patent encumbered,
hackable, playable protocol. And underneath the
hood, it uses GMFSK encoding. And this is kind
of like 9600BOD packet. 1200 bod packet you can
do through any old radio but 9600 bod packet
you need to have a special connection to the
radio One that doesn't do pre -emphasis and doesn't
have the frequency filtering the audio bandpass
frequency filtering that FM normally puts on
a radio and so I'm Hoping I haven't tested this
yet that the FM modules that I'm using when I
turn off all the filters that they have in software,
and as long as I'm not additionally filtering
anything, that I will have enough bandwidth to
the FM modulator in this module that will be
able to do any constant amplitude modulation.
like GMFSK or any of the other FSK modes, we
will not be able to do single sideband, we will
not be able to do CW, we will not be able to
do PSK, because all of those are not constant
amplitude. But the other constant amplitude digital
modulations like FD8 or what is it, MST -40.
or 144, can't remember exactly what the acronym
is on those. These are a lot of encoding techniques
that might be possible with SOAR. And I'm doing
everything I can to not rule it out on my hardware,
but there are some potential limitations in the
RF modules that we have to live with. Sounds
like you're trying to put everything in here.
Well, let's get to a question here from a listener
on Twitter Chris W6YBW wants to know is this
a full SDR radio or is it an external controller
to use with separate radios? So we've kind of
talked about that but why don't you elaborate
a little more on that? Sure Thank you for the
question Chris. It is neither Technically, it's
more the first than the second, though. It is
not an SDR. I do not have arbitrary control over
the waveform, like I was just mentioning. I can
send audio into an FM modulated radio. Having
said that, the radio modules are part of SOAR.
They are built into SOAR. This is not just a
controller for another radio. So, you don't have
to provide another radio for it. But at the same
time, I don't have full SDR control over it.
However, it will have, not at launch, but these
are features that I intend to add. Remember earlier
when I said I want people to be able to update
firmware? This is one of those things that you're
going to get with updated firmware. It's going
to be connected to a USB, or if you connect it
to your computer over a USB port, it will show
up as a sound card. the FM audio you get to and
from the radio will be available on that sound
card. So it's a lot like the modern HF rigs,
you know, the ICOM 7300 or the 9700, which is
a VHF UHF radio, where the audio can come in
and out of your computer, but it is still FM
under the hood. It is not sideband or arbitrary
IMQ waveforms or anything like that. All right,
very good. Well, you know, this is this is just
kind of The the beginning of this there's a little
more to it So so fill us in on a little more
of the depth here into sore Sure. So when most
people work FM satellites or a lot of people
they use a handheld antenna and so one of the
challenges you know, and I say challenge in the
it could be fun sort of way as well is to know
where to point it and that's one of the reasons
why you're looking at your satellite tracker
app on your phone is to know where to point your
antenna and then of course once you get it close
enough you can kind of hear the signal strength
change as you're moving the antenna around and
you rotate it to match the phase or the polarization
excuse me and fun things like that but SOAR calculates
the azimuth and elevation data if you or I, as
the case may be, and I'm planning on doing this,
make a tiny microcontroller that can mount to
the boom of the antenna that has an accelerometer
so it knows which way down is, and a magnetometer
so it knows which way north is, and a serial
connection back to SOAR so it knows what the
azimuth and elevation is for the satellite, and
then put a little tiny display, or not a tiny
display, but put a display on this microcontroller
with a SkyMap, or like a targeting computer,
or a targeting display. So I'm calling this the
targeting computer, and it's gonna be another
product that I'm going to sell, I'm gonna make,
develop and make and sell after Sora gets out
there. It will... help you point the antenna
or know where to point the antenna using an accelerometer
and a magnetometer and the azimuth and elevation
data from SOAR. Well, so that's the accessory.
And wow, what an accessory. You can just tell
where to point the thing and you're good to go.
Yep. So like I said earlier, it's a matter of
thinking about what the problems are, what the
challenges are. What technologies do you have
in your toolbox that you could use to address
those problems and then figuring out how to package
it? I know how to talk to a display. I know how
to talk to SOAR. I know it's possible. I've never
done, used a magnetometer and accelerometer,
but I know that technology is out there and I
could go learn it. You put all of that together
you do a little bit of vector math and you can
display on a screen Mounted to the boom of the
antenna, you know move it up a little bit move
it to the right the things moving through the
sky move You know, and it just kind of helps
tell you where you should be pointed at any given
time That's just a really cool idea well Anything
else that you want to you want to talk about
this before we kind of venture off into? Maybe
some other things that are coming up No, but
if anyone's got any more questions about SOAR
or what it does, hit me up on Twitter, and I've
also got a groups .io group that I've started
recently. The subscription box for that is on
my website, and we'll provide all of those links,
I assume, in the show notes and maybe at the
end here. Yep, absolutely. You know, this was
the secret squirrel project. So are there other
secret squirrel projects coming up? Yes, lots.
But the one that I'm talking about already is
at QSO Today Ham Expo in August of 2021, the
fall of 2021 QSO Today Ham Expo. i gave a presentation
about measured completely unrelated to sore sorry
let's let's let's break here uh... i gave a presentation
there about measuring common -mode current jokes
or what people will often refer to as a one -to
-one balance or a flying isolator these are all
kind of the same thing uh... and there's lots
of literature about how to uh... how to design
them and how to make them but i didn't find any
literature about how to measure them or there
there was some but not a lot and it was it was
anyway the presentation I gave was let's go build
a rig use this snazzy device that everyone's
got in their pocket now called a nano VNA and
there's one piece of test rig that you need to
build to be able to use a nano VNA to measure
how effective a common mode current choke is
And so I described that test rig in this presentation
and then I measured a bunch of different common
mode current chokes or balance and presented
the data and showed how to use those measurements
to design your own to meet the requirements.
Or you can just trust my data and use the designs
that I showed. But I had a lot of people asking
me after the presentation, where can I buy that
test rig? And I'm like, All right, I don't, you
know, this was back in August before I started
Hallibut Electronics. I'm like, I'm not in the
business of selling these things. Well, guess
what? I am in that business now. And so I designed
a kit that is that test rating. It's got a couple
of SMA ports out to the VNA and then it's got
SMA, BNC, PL259 and N connectors on the other
side. So you can hook up just about any kind
of RF cable to it. And it will put the signals
in the right place to be able to measure your
common mode current chokes. So that's actually
probably the first product that Halibut Electronics
is going to sell just because it's so much simpler
than SOAR. And I'm going to use that as kind
of my hello world product to get a online shopping
cart up and running and get all the bugs figured
out before trying to do the same thing with SOAR.
So that's one that's coming up. I've talked on
the ham radio workbench about this kind of contesting
audio console where when I do field day, the
club I do it with, we usually have one person
operating the radio and another person logging
the conversation. And so you got two people wearing
headsets and they both want to be able to hear
it, but they also want to be able to talk to
each other. But only one of them audio should
go to the radio. And so I kind of designed this
like three input, three output. Oh, you're reading
my mind. Mixer console. Exactly. Right? Yeah.
Like how many people have looked at this and
gone, why doesn't this thing exist? Well, guess
what? I've already had one of these things. Wow.
I built this several years ago. I built one of
them, just like I said, right? Like I described,
I built one for my use. And as I describe it
to other people, they're like, that's really
cool. I want one of those. Well, guess what?
I'm in the business to sell that kind of thing
now. So that is going to be a product that I
will start putting together and selling. Hopefully
later this year, maybe early next year, we'll
see how much of my time SOAR takes up. But, you
know, those kinds of projects. I've thought that
for so long. It's like, if there were only a
way, and there you go, you read my mind. So I'm
sold on that one. So put me down for the first
order. All right. Well, Mark, thank you so much
for being here. Let's make sure everybody knows
where to find you on the web and on Twitter and
all that stuff. And maybe even, well, I don't
know if you've reserved anything for Hamvention
yet, but whatever you got out there. Go ahead
and fire it out there and I'll get it in the
notes as well. As well as we will put a link
to the announcement of SOAR, the video that you
had on YouTube, we'll put a link to that too.
So if you want to see some things and get a little
bit more on it, you can watch that. But tell
everybody where to find you. Sounds good. Yeah,
so on Twitter is the place that I'm most active
publicly I am at Smitty halibut SMI TTY H a li
but How a bit like I said, it's been my been
my brand for several decades So I got Smitty
halibut, you know as soon as I could That is
my personal account and there will be more than
just ham radio stuff going on there. If you're
just interested in the ham radio stuff, then
you probably want to follow Halibut Elec. Halibut
electronics was apparently too many characters
for Twitter. was is the twitter handle for hell
of an electronics and i'll be talking about sore
there uh... i don't have much of a web page right
now the u r l response but i don't have any content
there uh... the website is going to be electronics
dot halibut dot com But if you are interested
in signing up for the groups .io, that's where
to go to do it. The groups .io is halibut -electronics
at groups .io. There's a subscribe box on the
webpage, which is electronics .halibut .com.
That's pretty much it, I think. All right. Then
I'm going to be looking for you at Hamvention
because, you know, the reason why you end up
with. The reason I was chuckling about that is
I'm going to go to Hamvention no matter what,
even if I've only got a couple of prototypes
to show off. Right now I'm trying to coordinate
with George Zaforofoulos from the Ham Radio workbench
because I want to get a booth as immediately
next to his as possible. And the Hamvention reservation
system is weird because it says everything's
reserved already, but nothing is confirmed or
very little is confirmed. I'm like, okay, well,
how do I ... I don't understand. So anyway, there's
an email thread that needs to happen there between
George and me and the Dayton club to go figure
out exactly how all of that's going to work.
Yeah. Just was through that hamcation with, you
know, trying to do double duty and can you put
us next to this, you know, so, so we can have
somebody watch both at the same time. Yep. So
that'll, that'll be good. And, uh, And we'll
have to harass Jeremy that lives down the road
here, who I still have only seen at Amvention
for one minute. But we'll have to get that done.
But anyway, Mark, thanks so much for coming on
the show, talking about this project. It sounds
very exciting, as well as your other ones. And
I look forward to seeing, you know... the final
product and get everything going and look forward
to seeing you at Hamvention. Yeah, perfect. Thank
you so much, Neil, for having me on. This has
been a lot of fun. All right. Thanks, Mark. Appreciate
it. Well, that is a wrap for this edition of
HamTalk Live. Thanks to my guest, Mark Smith
in 6MTS and everybody out there in cyberspace
for listening tonight and some writing in. And
invite you all back next time when Tim Duffy,
K3LR, will be here to talk about Dayton Contest
University 2022, a new chapter. So we're going
to talk about some changes that are going to
happen with this year's Hamvention version of
the Contest University. And for a list of all
of our upcoming guests, just go to HamTalkLive
.com. So for now, this is Neil Rapp, WB9VPG,
saying 7 -3. 7 -5 and may the good DX be yours.
I've been taught for hours and hours I've completely
forgot you're a ham I don't know your power or
the height of your tower Frankly, I don't give
a damn So 73's, to you and your family I'll be
seeing you further down the line Your 73's, to
you and your family I'll be seeing you further
down the line