Goodwatch – A Ham Radio Wristwatch (2020) • Hacker News Board

Re: Goodwatch – A Ham Radio Wristwatch (2020)

#31

Post by contingencies » Thu, Jul 04, 2024, 7:59 AM UTC

xavierstein wrote: post #2

This is delightful. I would love to start working on a project like this. Side note, as someone who works adjacent to the RF and electronics industry, getting my Ham license was the best thing I could have done to help my CS brain understand the radio and electronics side of what we do. If you’ve ever been curious about getting your license, I highly recommend it!

Thanks for your enthusiasm. I'd been thinking about it and heard there's a group nearby, I've just reached out to them to begin the process and they have a training event in a few weeks' time. Looking forward to it!

Re: Goodwatch – A Ham Radio Wristwatch (2020)

#32

Post by bigjimmyk3 » Fri, Jul 05, 2024, 4:45 PM UTC

ianburrell wrote: post #7

api wrote: post #3

What's Ham radio like these days? My grandfather was a ham and I have fond memories of him teaching me about radio waves (and early computer programming!) as a kid in his den. I still remember that he was W4LMU, and searching on it finds this: https://www.qsl.net/kq4pl/skeys.htm His gear was huge, still used vacuum tubes (already retro in the 1980s but he was a Ham), and consumed enough power to run a small neighborh…

One big thing recently is POTA and SOTA where people go to parks and mountain summits to make contacts. The latter requires small radio, putting up your own antennas, and using Morse code. People talking on the radio is sort of dead. HF is still popular. There is FT8 digital mode that let's make contact with low signal. I've reached Australia, Chile, and Russia from west coast. There is a lot of hacking, but it doesn…

POTA seems to be pretty active -- I managed to make a couple of voice contacts a few weeks ago on a 5W rig, so voice work isn't out of the question.

Re: Goodwatch – A Ham Radio Wristwatch (2020)

#33

Post by contingencies » Sun, Jul 14, 2024, 8:23 PM UTC

contingencies wrote: post #31

xavierstein wrote: post #2

This is delightful. I would love to start working on a project like this. Side note, as someone who works adjacent to the RF and electronics industry, getting my Ham license was the best thing I could have done to help my CS brain understand the radio and electronics side of what we do. If you’ve ever been curious about getting your license, I highly recommend it!

Thanks for your enthusiasm. I'd been thinking about it and heard there's a group nearby, I've just reached out to them to begin the process and they have a training event in a few weeks' time. Looking forward to it!

Followed through and passed! Call-sign pending. Commencing splurge on radio gear...