[Ground-station] January 2024 Engineering Reports from ORI - Good news!

[Michelle Thompson]

Greetings all!

Here's a high-level summary of the R&D work going on at ORI.

First, the most important thing. *Thank you to everyone that supports our
work* and has stuck up for us out there in the communities we serve. It
makes a big difference all across our organization.

Here are recent highlights from our largest projects.

Haifuraiya: Our open source GEO/HEO communications system. Current work
includes the following.
1) Stitching the Theseus Cores polyphase filter bank into the HDL reference
design for the ADRV9009. This is receiver side work and will involve
incorporating additional blocks from Suoto's excellent fpga_cores
repository.
2) Porting the ADRV9371 transmit side DVB-S2 encoder to the ADRV9009. We
will transition from synthesized frames to live data.
3) Weekly (recorded and published) meetings have resumed. These are
currently held at 1000 US Pacific, but we are looking at moving it back 2
hours to 0800 Pacific for more time zones to participate. These meetings
are in the Weekly Reports playlist at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOaKTacd-DY&list=PLSfJ4B57S8DkZry2dr5tS0YVff1opWZjA&ab_channel=OpenResearchInstituteInc
.
4) We welcome two new volunteers, Ed and Shankar, to the team. On-boarding
is ongoing and we look forward to their feedback on improving this process.
5) OSSAT Open Source Satellite Team from the UK has reached out about a
presentation from ORI on our open source satellite work. We strongly
support OSSAT's work. If you are unfamiliar with them, please visit
https://www.opensourcesatellite.org/
6) ORI is an AMSAT-CA (Canada) technical partner and fully supports
AMSAT-CA's efforts with ESA to explore an amateur GEO satellite that serves
ESA countries. We are included in AMSAT-DL's planning. We have excellent
communications with AMSAT-UK, who cited us in their ESA communications. We
continue to support JAMSAT and have excellent communications and deep
mutual respect.

Neptune: open source OFDM based physical layer link for drones and
aerospace. Current work includes the following.
1) Weekly meetings (recorded and published) began in early January 2024
with an introduction and overview from team lead Leonard Dieguez.
2) Video series about how Neptune is using MATLAB HDL Coder to create HDL
from Simulink models began in early January 2024. These designs are
verified against Python models written by Andreas Schwarzinger, who wrote
the Neptune physical layer specification (FlexLink). All work is published
in the Neptune repository https://github.com/OpenResearchInstitute/Neptune
and videos can be found at the playlist
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCTNW-q8Ud0&list=PLSfJ4B57S8DkV6_8IXzupoHfUlM8xC_Hp&ab_channel=OpenResearchInstituteInc
.
3) We welcomed a new volunteer, Ed, to the team. If you'd like to work on
Neptune, get in touch with Leonard Dieguez or any ORI board member.

RFBitBanger: open source HF QRP kit with resilient BOM and a new digital
mode called SCAMP. Current work includes the following.
1) 100% of Batch 2 components have been received. See
https://youtu.be/t9a_Egh-grw?si=W0vcVG57pH6PCVLN for what unboxing of kit
components looks like.
2) Kit build documentation has been updated.
3) Kitting has commenced and will rapidly progress to shipping.
4) Batch 2 extra kits will be on ORI's non-profit eBay account immediately
after donors receive their direct mailed kits.
5) Skeds, recommended frequencies, and active discussion of SCAMP and the
kit versions is on ORI Slack channel #rfbitbanger-talk.

Ribbit: resilient and reliable digital communications over any radio
without wires or extra equipment. Current work includes the following.
1) Development team is working towards a PWA release with a defined header
for every message.
2) Very positive reports of successful use in the field for humanitarian
and recreational traffic.
3) Rattlegram accepted to the Apple App Store.
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/rattlegram/id1664526096

Aquaphage: open source bacteriophage to fight antibiotic resistance in fish
farms.
1) A resumption of outreach to IPATH at UCSD was rebuffed (again), as IPATH
is only interested in human subjects. However, they did recommend getting
in touch with a particular professor that has published about
bacteriophage. We will continue to (gently and persistently) try to get
advice and activity going with IPATH while developing connections with
researchers. Fish farming is extremely important to meeting nutritional
needs worldwide. Improving fish farming directly benefits humanity.
2) There's growing interest at ORI in sequencing DNA for plants and
publishing the results. Plants of little economic value are overlooked for
DNA sequencing. We suspect there's tremendous potential here for some
valuable basic research.
3) Aquaphage is actively looking for leads for projects in any area of
biology. Get in touch with any board member to learn more about how to be
involved.

https://www.openresearch.institute/board-of-directors/

FCC TAC: Open Research Institute served on the Federal Communications
Commission Technological Advisory Committee when it resumed in 2022.
1) Keith Wheeler nominated Michelle Thompson to represent ORI for an
upcoming 2 year term, to begin in 2024. MIchelle is currently in the
vetting process.
2) ORI can nominate additional people to serve on FCC TAC. If you are
eligible to serve, can commit to at least one working group (must be
different from any other ORI representative's working group), and can
attend weekly hour-long working group meetings, and are willing and able to
participate in a collaborative recommendations process from your working
group, then get in touch with Keith Wheeler (keith.m.wheeler at gmail.com) to
be nominated to the FCC to represent ORI. We represent the interests of
open source. We are also seen as representing amateur radio and amateur
radio satellite services.

There are many other smaller projects at ORI and we celebrate their
successes over the past year.
1) The Dumbbell compact HF antenna video at Ham Expo sparked a large amount
of interest. This video summarized the prototype design, simulation, and
build. Deployment of more antennas and an article is next steps.
2) Our regulatory work helped six projects in 2023 get past significant
hurdles. Projects included teams in academic, commercial, and open source
fields. A special thank you to YASME Foundation, who is reviewing a funding
request so regulatory work can continue. ORI works with and recommends
Thomsen and Burke law firm in Washington DC.
3) AmbaSat respin has been used in educational projects and pull request
for updating to amateur bands and improving the power distribution on the
picosat submitted to AmbaSat. This project successfully concludes under
budget, so a decision about what to do with the excess funds will need to
be made by the board.
4) Battery Curve analysis resumes in a few weeks with a student intern from
a local high school. We are very much looking forward to publishing these
(delayed) results. This project is an attempt to document the successful
NiCd battery pack construction and selection process from early AMSAT
missions.

DEFCON: Our next major demonstration and exhibit will be at DEFCON32 held
8-11 August in Las Vegas, NV.
1) We need additional volunteers to staff the tables and run
demonstrations. This will be in RF Village, a founding village at DEFCON.
RF Village attracts many thousands of people over the course of the
weekend, has its own speaking track, and its own contests. RF Village has
been very supportive of ORI's open source showcase since ORI was founded
nearly 5 years ago.
2) Aerospace Village is also interested, and we may split Neptune off to
demonstrate there. This is entirely dependent on additional volunteers
being available to staff an exhibit in parallel.

We believe that ORI is one of the most active open source digital radio
organizations in the world. We do technical and regulatory work with very
high returns of both investment and increased community capabilty. Amateur
radio is  a primary beneficiary of what we do. Our style is quick, quiet,
and competent support.

However, there are things we do not do well: self-promotion, greed, and
unethical behavior.

Believe it or not, a commitment to being supportive, collaborative, and
ethical can put you at a big disadvantage when compared to individuals and
organizations that cut corners, refuse to share credit, lie, cheat, bribe,
bully, or steal. We believe that long term, ethical and kind behavior will
win. Kindness really is contagious - it just has a long incubation period.

If you would like to see ORI continue to succeed, please share your
opinions, help get coverage of what we do, and support our work.

Comment and critique welcome and encouraged.

(Looking forward to our "birthday" celebrations on 6 March 2024!)
-Michelle Thompson
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