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Turn your Android phone into a modern ham radio transceiver

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Re: Turn your Android phone into a modern ham radio transceiver

#151

Post by grobbyy »

caseyy wrote: post #139
0xEF wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> soldering skills It's...not that hard. Unless we're dealing with SMDs, soldering takes about a weekend to learn correctly. Most DIY kits involve through-hole components that you can master after you take a cheap iron to a couple dozen header pins or something equally banal. SMDs, on the other hand, take a bit more finesse, but can be achieved with a wee bit of time and patience. I work in industrial controls and it…

It’s not necessarily about how hard it is, but what’s the ROI on learning a skill. If soldering was something I did at work or if I often repaired my own electronics, then it could even be worth learning it if it took a month of evenings. But as I’d not have many of the tools and schematics to do component level repair on today’s electronics and I almost never need to solder anything at my software engineering job, s…

Honestly, learning things and doing projects together brings memories too. If that wasn't the case, your family was doing it wrong.

Plenty of kids jam together in a garage, have awesome memories from the school band, or otherwise. Great memories are formed. Or sitting around a camp fire playing a harmonica or a guitar.

If you're learning "instead of" rather than "as a means to," well, there's your problem.

Re: Turn your Android phone into a modern ham radio transceiver

#152

Post by caseyy »

ifyoubuildit wrote: post #141
caseyy wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not necessarily about how hard it is, but what’s the ROI on learning a skill. If soldering was something I did at work or if I often repaired my own electronics, then it could even be worth learning it if it took a month of evenings. But as I’d not have many of the tools and schematics to do component level repair on today’s electronics and I almost never need to solder anything at my software engineering job, s…

Respectfully, you're over thinking it. In the time you took to write this post (what was the ROI on that?), you could have soldered your first thing. Unless you're really not interested, you should just do it.

Touché

Re: Turn your Android phone into a modern ham radio transceiver

#153

Post by thatguy288 »

icepat wrote: post #149
f1shy wrote: post #124

Clickbait: Turn your phone into X: 1) Start with a phone and X-module-w/o-UI. 2) Make an app with the UI 3) put them together

Can you explain what in this particular explanation is clickbait?

The phone doesn't become a transceiver, it becomes a(n) HMI to the transceiver.

Re: Turn your Android phone into a modern ham radio transceiver

#154

Post by olyjohn »

7402 wrote: post #98
runjake wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd recommend something like a couple $25 Quansheng radios instead. More reliability, more range, less finicky, more durable and about the same size as this add-on. (For some reason the radios are showing as $30 right now) https://www.amazon.com/QUANSHENG-200Three-Frequency-Receivin...

I think it's poor practice for the seller to advertise those simply as a "Walkie Talkie," as that Amazon link does, without making it clear that it is an amateur radio transceiver that requires a license with an FCC-issued call sign to operate. I wonder how many people buy a pair of those and then just start transmitting without quite knowing what they are doing.

Using GMRS requires a $15 license that has no test and is good for 10 years. But nobody ever gets the license. GMRS is constantly full of chatter everywhere you go. Nobody ever mentions needing to get a license. You see YouTubers constantly using and promoting "Rugged Radios" which are just rebadged Baofengs. They are sold by the thousands.

Re: Turn your Android phone into a modern ham radio transceiver

#155

Post by etskinner »

numpad0 wrote: post #147
caseyy wrote: post #117

I wish this was for sale assembled. I know probably about 50% about printing PCBs compared to what I’d need to know, don’t have a 3D printer, and I expect that the firmware and apps probably have at least one or two quirks to take into account. All together, this makes it a big difference in accessibility between being able to buy an assembled item and tinkering oneself. I know tinkering is fun for many people, but h…

You have to get a ham radio license and a callsign to lawfully make bodily contact with a ham radio device. Reading through textbooks and taking tests on a sunday and shaking hands with cellular clones of Gabe Newell and all that. Allegedly that's easier for some or unbearably gross for some in comparison with soldering.

You only need a ham license for transmitting, not for working on radios or listening

Re: Turn your Android phone into a modern ham radio transceiver

#157

Post by bigfishrunning »

jMyles wrote: post #97
bigfishrunning wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doesnt seem to be click bait to me... A battery free ham radio I can keep in my glove box seems really useful

I agree that it is an interesting configuration, but I also agree that it is click bait. The clickbait part is the "Turn your Android phone" bit. Of course you can turn your Android phone into , where is a USB-powered device, for approximately the price of .

The build cost of this (about $35) is very cheap for a ham radio with the features that it has, so "approximately the price of " is what i'm taking issue with here

Re: Turn your Android phone into a modern ham radio transceiver

#158

Post by floatrock »

caseyy wrote: post #117

I wish this was for sale assembled. I know probably about 50% about printing PCBs compared to what I’d need to know, don’t have a 3D printer, and I expect that the firmware and apps probably have at least one or two quirks to take into account. All together, this makes it a big difference in accessibility between being able to buy an assembled item and tinkering oneself. I know tinkering is fun for many people, but h…

> may be in the thousands if we take the hourly rate of a tech worker. Flawed comparison, I know, but you get the point.

I get what you're trying to say, but if "tech worker hourly rate" is your metric and "putz around with ham radio" is your goal, honestly, the answer is go buy an off-the-shelf radio for 1-3 TechWorkerHourlyBuckaroos [1]

If the goal however is "tinker with electronics", the relevant metrics are precisely "counting up the mistakes" and "tallying up the opportunity cost wasted at the workbench".

"Why buy this for x when I can build it for x^n" is the motto of any sufficiently-respectful building-shit hobby in the era of global drop-shipping.

[1]: +/- the "ham spectrum requires a test and a license before you can touch it" legaleese

Re: Turn your Android phone into a modern ham radio transceiver

#159

Post by hn72774 »

dekhn wrote: post #63

how the turntables. Back in the 80s my grandfather (N4MDB RIP) had a ham radio in his car and used something called an "autopatch" which could dial phone numbers. He'd call my grandma and say we were going shopping or whatever. Everybody from the shack could listen in with their radios. He tried to get me interested in ham radio but at the time I was exploring the internet and ham seemed... boring? Overly fussy with…

No more morse code on the exam. Hamstudy.org is a great study aid.

Re: Turn your Android phone into a modern ham radio transceiver

#160

Post by quesera »

capitainenemo wrote: post #86
quesera wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> not, you know, physical address White pages had physical address too. In practice, even today without published phone directories, lookup from name to address is readily accomplished from public records. If you have put in the effort to avoid all of those vectors, then it's equally possible to use a safe address for your FCC registration.

Sometimes yes, not always, and practice decreased as privacy concerns increased. The old one for our city that was still printed up to about a decade ago did not have them. And yeah, could probably find some way to spoof. And yes, people can find things, just makes folks here uncomfortable that it would be readily available to a random nut in a short list linked to a "pseudo" one might be using routinely. Anyway. It'…

Agreed -- I'm with you 100% on the opsec hygiene regiment.

But FWIW, I think "Firstname Lastname Postal_Address" has never been easily kept private (indeed, the winning strategy is subterfuge), and that adding "Callsign" does not change that equation.

Of course it does mean that you shouldn't use your callsign as a pseudonym online. And I am not a person who is comfortable with the idea of a ham vanity plate! :) But with proper hygiene, your callsign is just an arbitrary alphanumeric string that is attached in exactly one place, to another instance of your name/address in the wild.

One thing getting a license would do, is give you an idea of how to maximize your tx/rx options. Understanding RF propagation in varied terrain could be valuable in an emergency situation.

If you already know this stuff, then the license exams are very easy.

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