Getting to know GNURadio

Make a working receiver and more on your computer

At our January 2024 monthly general meeting (held via Zoom) Kevin McQuiggin VE7ZD/Kn7Q presented on GNURadio,

What is this GNU?

Aside from the wild beasts of Africa, GNURadio is an open-source software toolkit that provides signal processing blocks to implement software-defined radios (SDRs) and other digital signal processing systems. It allows users to design, simulate, and deploy radio systems in software, enabling the development of a wide range of radio communication applications.

Here are some key aspects of GNU Radio:

Software-Defined Radio (SDR): GNU Radio is widely used in the field of SDR, where radio functionality is implemented in software rather than hardware. This provides flexibility, allowing users to modify and experiment with radio protocols, waveforms, and processing algorithms.

Signal Processing Blocks: GNU Radio provides a collection of signal processing blocks that users can connect to create custom signal flow graphs. These blocks perform functions like modulation, demodulation, filtering, frequency shifting, and more. Users can combine these blocks to create complex radio systems.

Wide Range of Applications: GNU Radio can be used to develop a variety of applications, including but not limited to:

• Communication Systems: Design and implement various communication protocols, such as AM, FM, SSB, LTE, Wi-Fi, etc.
• Radar Systems: Create radar signal processing chains for applications like target detection and tracking.
• Radio Astronomy: Process and analyze radio signals from space to study celestial objects.
• Wireless Sensor Networks: Implement communication protocols for distributed sensor networks.

Extensibility and Customization: Users can extend GNU Radio by creating their own signal processing blocks, allowing for customization and the integration of specialized functionality.

Graphical User Interface (GNU Radio Companion): GNU Radio comes with a graphical tool called GNU Radio Companion (GRC), which allows users to visually design signal processing flow graphs. GRC simplifies the creation of complex radio systems by providing a drag-and-drop interface for connecting signal processing blocks.

Active Community: GNU Radio has a vibrant and active user community that contributes to its development. This community-driven approach results in continuous improvement, updates, and the sharing of knowledge and resources.

GNU Radio is widely used in academia, research, and industry for prototyping, experimenting, and implementing various radio communication systems. It plays a crucial role in advancing the field of software-defined radio and empowering individuals and organizations to explore and innovate in the domain of wireless communications.

You can watch Kevin's presentation on YouTube;

Kevin has included several links at the end of his presentation

Further Information:

In September 2023 Our Communicator journal included an excellent article by Kevin titled: "The  “What’s It?” Of WSPR" that touched on many of the same principles as GNURadio. 

Another of Kevin's articles, titled: "Introduction to Digital Radio" was published in our January 2024 edition. Both of these will provide excellent supporting information for Kevin's GNURadio presentation.

 

~

SARCBUZZ News - October 2023

 SARCBUZZ

Monthly News and Announcements
Celebrating 50 years of service - 1975-2023

September 30, 2023

• CQ WW DX Contest (SSB)
  October 28/29 Don’t miss out on your chance to compete in the largest Amateur Radio contest in the world. Over 35,000 participants take to the airwaves on the last weekend of October with the goal of  making as many contacts with as many DXCC entities and CQ Zones as possible. Both seasoned SARC DXers and GOTA newbies are invited to participate as a VE7SAR team. Coaching will be available to those who request it. Whether we operate two radios as Multi-Two (Low Power) or one radio as Multi-One (High Power) will depend on the number of operators signed up. Both Larry (VE7LXB@gmail.com) and John (brodiejb@shaw.ca) will collect names of those who wish to participate, and prepare a schedule. The team already has the September CQ WW RTTY contest under its belt and is looking forward to this next challenge.

• Soldering Workshop
  October 21 8:30 am - Noon. FULL This workshop is for those new to soldering or wishing to refresh their skills. As presented by Dino (VE7XDT) and John (VE7TI) the workshop includes an introduction to soldering, types of soldering irons and stations, and  the construction of an xmas tree circuit board (agenda attached). This workshop is FULL but if you wish to be put on a waiting list or have interest in the next workshop you may contact John VE7TI or Larry VE7LXB .

• Delta ARS Comfest

Sunday October 15 10am - 1pm The long tradition of the ComFest Amateur Radio Swap Meet continues. It is a great venue to meet fellow hams, buy and sell gear and or simply discover what the world of amateur radio has to offer. 1720 56th Street Tsawwassen. General admission $5. Major door prizes.

• SARC Monthly Meeting
  Wednesday October 11th 7pm - 9pm. Location: Surrey Fire Hall Training Centre. The guest speaker for the next meeting is Halden Field VE7UTS. Halden is a member of the North Shore ARC and a past contributor to their newsletter and to The Communicator. Halden has presented at several west coast Ham Fests including at Seaside Oregon. He will be speaking on some of his favourite amateur radio construction projects.

• Saturday Morning Breakfast and OTC
  SARC Meets informally for breakfast at Denny’s Restaurant 6850 King George Boulevard in Surrey, between 7:30 and 9:00am each Saturday morning. We’d love for you to join us. Following breakfast, the OTC will be open from 9:30 until noon. You are invited to come down to the OTC with your equipment and any ham-related issues and our Elmers will try to assist you. You can also reach Elmers by email at elmers@ve7sar.net.

Thank you for being a SARCBuzz reader.

gota@ve7sar.net

Calendar of Events

Our COVID Policy

Resuming semi-normal activities

We have developed the attached COVID policy in preparation for our resumption of meetings, classes and activities.

SEPAR - SARC COVID Policy

Members, students and guests are expected to adhere to these guidelines when attending our events.

~

Fox Hunting

Also known as Amateur Radio Direction Finding (ARDF)

Another Great Meeting Presentation

Amateur radio direction finding (ARDF, also known as radio orienteering, radio fox hunting and radiosport) is an amateur radio sport that combines radio direction finding with the map and compass skills of orienteering. It is a timed race in which individual competitors use a topographic map, a magnetic compass and radio direction finding apparatus to navigate through diverse wooded terrain while searching for radio transmitters. The rules of the sport and international competitions are organized by the International Amateur Radio Union. The sport has been most popular in Eastern Europe, Russia, and China, where it was often used in the physical education programs in schools.

ARDF events use radio frequencies on either the two-meter or eighty-meter amateur radio bands. These two bands were chosen because of their universal availability to amateur radio licensees in all countries. The radio equipment carried by competitors on a course must be capable of receiving the signal being transmitted by the five transmitters and useful for radio direction finding, including a radio receiver, attenuator, and directional antenna. Most equipment designs integrate all three components into one handheld device. (See Wikipedia and HomingIn for additional details) 

Receiver equipment

No radio license is required. The radio equipment carried on course must be capable of receiving the signal being transmitted by the transmitters and useful for radio direction finding. This includes a radio receiver that can tune in the specific frequency of transmission being used for the event, an attenuator or variable gain control, and a directional antenna. Directional antennas are more sensitive to radio signals arriving from some directions than others.

Most equipment designs integrate all three components into one handheld device. On the two meter band, the most common directional antennas used by competitors are two or three element Yagi antennas made from flexible steel tape. This kind of antenna has a cardioid receiving pattern, which means that it has one peak direction where the received signal will be the strongest, and a null direction, 180° from the peak, in which the received signal will be the weakest. Flexible steel tape enables the antenna elements to flex and not break when encountering vegetation in the forest. 

On the eighty meter band, two common receiver design approaches are to use either a small loop antenna or an even smaller loop antenna wound around a ferrite rod. These antennas have a bidirectional receiving pattern, with two peak directions 180° apart from one another and two null directions 180° apart from one another. The peak directions are 90° offset from the null directions. A small vertical antenna element can be combined with the loop or ferrite rod antenna to change the receiving pattern to a cardioid shape, but the resulting null in the cardioid is not as sensitive as the nulls in the bidirectional receiving pattern. A switch is often used to allow the competitor to select the bidirectional or cardioid patterns at any moment. ARDF receiver equipment is designed to be lightweight and easy to operate while the competitor is in motion as well as rugged enough to withstand use in areas of thick vegetation.

Les Tocko VA7OM has designed a top notch contest grade ARDF 80m receiver that has now gone into production. It is hoped that it will be available for our annual SARC FoxHunt in May. Once sufficient quantities are in stock they will be available for general purchase. Inquiries may be sent to VA7XB@rac.ca.

Les presented a club meeting program on ARDF and the receiver on March 11, 2020, along with his cohorts Amel Krdzalic VA7KBA and Dave Miller VE7HR. He has shared his presentation slides and two videos.

Les' Slides on ARDF (PDF 5Mb) or Les' Demo with Video (PPS 170Mb)

Les' ARDF Video: Fox Placement and Strategy

A video on the use of the receiver

Our 2019 SARC FoxHunt video

Update!

Our next Fox Hunt was scheduled for May 9th, however it was postponed due to the COVID crisis. The new date is Saturday, August 29. Here is the poster:

~ Updated 2020-08-12

The March-April 2020 Communicator

Over 70 Pages Of Projects, News, Views and Reviews... 

Amateur Radio News from the South West corner of Canada and elsewhere. You will find Amateur Radio related articles, profiles, news, tips and how-to's. You can download it as a .PDF file from:  

http://bit.ly/SARC20MarApr

As always, thank you to our contributors, and your feedback is always welcome. The deadline for the next edition is April 21st.

If you have news or events from your Vancouver area club or photos, stories, projects or other items of interest from elsewhere, please email them to communicator@ve7sar.net

Keep visiting our site for regular updates and news: https://ve7sar.blogspot.ca    

73,

John VE7TI
'The Communicator' Editor

Internet Security For Amateurs

Yes, we're susceptible to malware with all these new connected gadgets!

At our February 2020 general meeting we had a guest speaker who is an internationally regarded expert on Internet security. For the past 20+ years, Hardeep Mehrotara has worked for the military, law enforcement and news organizations. He has co-
authored several books on critical controls and security benchmarks, and has participated in hacking operations to test system security. Best of all, he is also a Ham operator as VA7HKM.

The discussion points from the presentation covered

• What is cyber security?
• Importance of cyber security in amateur radio
• evolving cyber security threats
• practice basic cyber hygiene

He covered the importance of Ham radio and internet, our modern digital technology, which more and more is connected to the Internet. Many transceivers and their accessories have some type of Internet connection, particularly remotely controlled radios.

Cyber security refers to combination of people, process and technology designed to protect inter-connected networks (e.g. Internet), devices, programs, and data from attack, damage, or inappropriate or unauthorized access. 

Cybersecurity consists of three key pillars:

Importance of cyber security in amateur radio

• Denial of service on ham radio networks.
• Hacking of Software defined radios.
• Malicious control of remote devices.
• Impact on Internet-Of-Things (IoT) devices.

Threat actors

Evolving cyber threats include

• Phishing
• Third party email compromises
• Ransomware
• IoT based attacks

Phishing and Third party compromised email. ARRL warned about this to their members with an xxx.arrl.net forwarding address

Ransomware 

Also a real threat and you should keep a separate backup as a precaution.

Practicing basic cyber hygiene

• AVOID OLDER OPERATING SYSTEMS!  For example, Windows 7 is no longer supported.
• ALL operating systems are at risk, including Mac and Linux
• Install a reputable anti-virus and firewall
• Patch your systems regularly
• Use strong passwords and do not re-use passwords
• Use multi-factor authentication where possible
• Encrypt your sensitive information
• Backup your information
• Be cautious when you click on links on websites, emails, social media

Cyber Threat Predictions

As technology progresses, so will the threat.

See Hardeep on a news presentation on cyber security threats
https://globalnews.ca/video/5974584/protecting-small-businesses-from-cyber-security-threats/ 

The slides of Hardeep's presentation are at:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1iT93R0G3jCyuJllQ7eGFCek2g6sBQhWC/view?usp=sharing 

'Get On The Air'

'Improve Your Signal' Presentation

Our first SARC General Meeting of 2020 was Wednesday, January 8th. 

One of our best attended presentations ever

As a result of feedback from our Basic courses, we planned a presentation and panel discussion around the basics of getting started in Amateur Radio. This was intended not only for new Hams but also those looking to improve their station capabilities.

We covered primarily VHF/UHF gear, antennas, power and accessories. Based on the interest in this session we will host a similar topic focusing of HF later in our meeting schedule.

We asked our SARC members to bring along any good used gear for sale and a few items showed up.

By request, here is the slide deck from the presentation:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TkZWzDsznMV1hbcq69Jwtn9AxSp3MCXW/view?usp=sharing

We hope to have an accompanying guide available here shortly.

~ John VE7TI

Brasspounders

A History Of Telegraphy Presentation

On Wednesday, September 11 at 7pm, at our first monthly meeting of the 2019-2020 season, Surrey Amateur Radio Communications will host Lavina Shaw as guest presenter. She will speak on the history of telegraphy. Visitors welcome.

See the video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFRjn6q39Ig&t=30s

We meet at the Surrey Fire Service  Training  Centre, 14923 - 64  Avenue, Surrey, BC 
Map link: https://what3words.com/markers.addiction.ozone

Follow-up:

Lavina completed her excellent and interesting presentation and shared a video about her experiences and the nature of telegraphy as a means of communication. 

You can watch it HERE.

The Arduino

VE7ZD's Presentation 

At our January meeting, Kevin McQuiggin VE7ZD spoke about the Arduino and the many interesting possibilities for Amateurs to use this low-cost board.
Kevin's presentation is included here. A Saturday workshop is being planned to work on an Arduino project, most likely a TNC for messaging.

Click HERE for a link to the presentation

Another Fascinating SARC Monthly Meeting

At the May meeting, Alex VE7ADA (formerly IZ7FMM) offered a presentation on building an easy SDR transceiver system using a standard HF radio as a transmitter along with an Afedri SDR board and an Ameco PT-3 Preamplifier.

Read the full story in our June newsletter available at https://goo.gl/8HVHlN

Its another example of Radio Amateurs experimenting and contributing to the advancement of communications technology worldwide.

The German World War II Radar Presentation

by Adam Farson VA7OJ

Adam Farson, VA7OJ presenting the topic about the German World War 2 Radar used in land-based, naval and airborne systems

The German World War 2 Radar slide presentation

Adam Farson, VA7OJ discusses the German land-based, naval and airborne radar systems used during World War 2

Adam Farson, VA7OJ receives the token of appreciation from John Brodie, VA7XB

Compact HF Antennas

Presented by John White, VA7JW

Click Here For John's Presentation

Lightning - Characteristics, Grounding and Suppression

John White VA7JW

At our 13 April, 2011 monthly meeting, John White VA7JW gave a talk on Lightning - Characteristics, Grounding and Suppression Device

See the Powerpoint presentation

SARC General Meeting April 2011

A Talk on Lightning

John White VA7JW


At our 13 April, 2011 monthly meeting, John White VA7JW gave a talk on Lightning - Characteristics, Grounding and Suppression Devices.

See the Powerpoint presentation