[Ground-station] MUD 2024 - call for speaker support and advice

[James Morris]

Yes, that was what I suspected, I have not started building it yet, and
that will likely take a while. It may need some kind of GPS locking input,
which is probably getting out of scope for the original project, but I am
interested in having a standalone microwave radio rather than depending on
an entire IF rig and connecting it etc. Just one box which you plug into an
antenna and power supply, like a normal radio :)

I love the idea of a hackable radio generally, where we're not dependent on
some proprietary & complex commercial product. This seems to be kind of
missing in amateur radio currently, outside of SDR products?

As usual, I have a long list of projects to complete before getting to any
of this, so don't be surprised if it takes a while to get anywhere.


James W7TXT


On Sun, Feb 4, 2024 at 10:42 AM Michelle Thompson <
mountain.michelle at gmail.com> wrote:

> Thank you James - we will do our best to get there and show all work as of
> early October.
>
> Good question about RFBitBanger suitability as an IF radio. I'd expect
> that the clock would have to be upgraded. There's an optional upgrade path
> to a crystal. This would be a really good thing to ask on
> #rfbitbanger-talk.
>
> -Michelle Thompson
>
>
>
>
> On Sun, Feb 4, 2024 at 10:26 AM James Morris <morrisjl at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I'm hoping to see ORI there.
>>
>> btw, I just received an RF Bitbanger kit and I'm interested to see if it
>> can be useful for microwave experiments as an IF radio or similar.
>>
>>
>>
>> James W7TXT
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Feb 4, 2024 at 9:24 AM Michelle Thompson via Ground-Station
>> <ground-station at lists.openresearch.institute> wrote:
>>
>>> Thank you to everyone giving feedback about this. It's very helpful.
>>>
>>> Waiting on confirmation we can get into a demonstration area. That will
>>> male things work out very well.
>>>
>>> -Michelle
>>>
>>> On Tue, Jan 30, 2024, 09:53 Michelle Thompson <
>>> mountain.michelle at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Greetings all,
>>>>
>>>> I was approached by several folks to submit something about ORI work to
>>>> MUD 2024, which will be in Vancouver, Canada in early October. They were
>>>> all very convincing and very complimentary about what we do and they all
>>>> wanted us to get more visibility.
>>>>
>>>> *Thank you* to those that encouraged this! It would be so nice to come
>>>> back to MUD, where ORI demonstrated working 122 GHz circuits very early on,
>>>> and this had a large positive effect on band kits. I have presented about
>>>> 3d printing in general, 3d printed 10 GHz horns, and 122 GHz metallized
>>>> antennas in the past. I had a follow up article just last year on PLA model
>>>> 3d printed prototypes, and how they deteriorate.
>>>>
>>>> We followed through for 2024, and submitted a technical program summary
>>>> of all our microwave band projects.
>>>>
>>>> After some back and forth, we have a slot.
>>>>
>>>> However, the feedback was "I would hope that it is not just a "sales
>>>> pitch" for the ORI" and "That Neptune YouTube presentation is NOT something
>>>> I would want you to present at MUD ! Hopefully much higher level" with a
>>>> laughing emoji, and "Haifuraiya sounds interesting....Ribbet not really"
>>>> (They meant Ribbit).
>>>>
>>>> I was confused by this, and a bit disappointed. Our recent Neptune
>>>> videos include a high level summary of the project from Leonard Dieguez,
>>>> and a slow walk-through of the Simulink model and HDL creation from the
>>>> technical team. I'm not sure how much slower or simplified we can make this
>>>> stuff. It isn't easy work, but it is explainable. Our YouTube videos
>>>> wouldn't be duplicated as a presentation in person, but the work captured
>>>> in those videos would be referenced and highlighted in a technical
>>>> overview.
>>>>
>>>> Ribbit has *demonstrated* success on VHF/UHF/microwave bands with
>>>> significant humanitarian and emergency communications applications on three
>>>> continents. It is one of the first amateur radio applications using Polar
>>>> Codes. It won the 2023 ARRL Technical Innovation Award.
>>>>
>>>> And it's "Not really" interesting?
>>>>
>>>> The rest of 2024 MUD lineup better be more impressive than Ribbit, in
>>>> order to justify this three-word toss-off of a submission review.
>>>>
>>>> The "sales pitch" question really stood out to me.
>>>>
>>>> At MUDs dating back to 2010, I've sat through what can only be
>>>> described "sales pitches" for DSES, AREDN, microwave contesting clubs,
>>>> SBMS, 50MHz and Up, North Texas Microwave Group, and many other projects
>>>> and groups, some of which are no longer active.
>>>>
>>>> I did not mind this *at all* because these projects and organizations
>>>> are part of the community and doing good stuff. How else are they going to
>>>> get the word out? (How else would we?)
>>>>
>>>> Our submission was technical in nature. It did not include an
>>>> organizational promotion "sales pitch" component. I mean, we have to
>>>> explain who we are when we give a presentation, but we're not "sales
>>>> pitching" anyone when we do this.
>>>>
>>>> Even if it was some sort of "sales pitch" (which I interpreted to be
>>>> "bad" and not "good" from the email), a "sales pitch" would actually fit in
>>>> with many other MUD talks in the past.
>>>>
>>>> Maybe this is a recent change at MUD, where promoting clubs and
>>>> organizations is discouraged, I don't know? Can anyone give some advice
>>>> here, who is more of a "member" of MUD?
>>>>
>>>> I replied to the questions about the submission that we don't do
>>>> "sales", don't have paid memberships, and we give away everything we do for
>>>> free. This got an acknowledgement, but took more communications to get a
>>>> rather tepid go-ahead.
>>>>
>>>> Given the unexpected extra scrutiny and emoji giggle about our work, I
>>>> think that those of us drawing up presentations could use some help here
>>>> with reviewing potential presentations for this community. Laughing is
>>>> really not what I want to get in response to a (volunteer, self funded)
>>>> talk submission. When we present, we want it to be really good.
>>>>
>>>> So, please be ready to help impedance match what we do to Microwave
>>>> Update. I know a lot of people on this list have been in the past and are
>>>> familiar with the type of work that is presented at MUD. Just tell us how
>>>> it really is.
>>>>
>>>> Also, we don't have to continue with the talk/presentation. There's
>>>> also the proceedings, where we can submit a paper and slides and not have
>>>> to work so hard to tailor a live presentation. If we don't fit into the
>>>> talk line-up, then we don't fit in.
>>>>
>>>> I trust our community members to help figure this out. For example, if
>>>> we are talking to a community that literally does not know what OFDM is (is
>>>> that the case?), then I think we have to start from there?
>>>>
>>>> Can we make this a fun event for us by carefully tailoring the
>>>> presentation? I really do not want it to end up as a slog or chore, where
>>>> after a bunch of work and expensive travel we're ridiculed for being "too
>>>> technical" for amateur radio or get weird or abusive interactions at our
>>>> booth, like what happened at Hamvention and Hamcation from AMSAT, ARDC, and
>>>> ATV.
>>>>
>>>> Talking about how totally cool OFDM is, is most of a speaking slot
>>>> alone, and that doesn't even get to the good stuff that is brought to bear
>>>> in Neptune. Let alone the polyphase filter and DVB-S2 encoder work in
>>>> Haifuraiya, which we also wanted to bring. Should we simply do a talk on
>>>> the basics of OFDM and multirate?
>>>>
>>>> The event isn't until early October 2024, but it will be here before we
>>>> know it.
>>>>
>>>> I asked about a demonstration room and have not heard back about that
>>>> yet. Over the air public demonstrations are our (very strong) preference,
>>>> for a variety of reasons. The most important of which is that no one can
>>>> really argue with a recorded demo of working code or circuits, and working
>>>> links delight everyone that loves radio. Maybe we just ask for a bunch of
>>>> tables in the demo room and that's where we share our work?
>>>>
>>>> If we need to simply wait until we have something that can be bought by
>>>> non-technical people commercially off the shelf, then we should consider
>>>> halting participation in all these ham events on all these continents all
>>>> together. Is it really the case that the "average ham" only cares about
>>>> what they can buy and put on the air as an appliance? If this "average ham"
>>>> is the true constituency of ham radio technical conferences, then we're
>>>> showing up with our work too early and caring too much about what is a huge
>>>> mismatch in expectations.
>>>>
>>>> We do not have any of these issues with DEFCON RF/Aerospace Village
>>>> participation. We have speaking slots available to us, and a generous
>>>> amount of free floor space for demonstrations. The 5,000 or so folks that
>>>> come through the RF Village are technical, receptive to our technical work,
>>>> and provide a lot of feedback and constructive criticism. The review
>>>> process for talks is rigorous and the detailed feedback from the organizers
>>>> is specific to the submission. I've never felt like we don't belong there.
>>>> I'd really like to feel like we can belong at a conference like MUD as
>>>> well.
>>>>
>>>> I look forward to your opinions and advice, either on this thread or
>>>> privately expressed to me or any other ORI board member.
>>>>
>>>> https://www.openresearch.institute/board-of-directors/
>>>>
>>>> -Michelle Thompson
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
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