That’s actually a pretty slick idea not gonna lie. If I ever de-Google, that might be the way I go.
I like to travel with a Chromecast and a mini router so I can do TV stuff away from home.
Now I’m wondering, I know that USB stick computers have existed for awhile. I’m wondering… Does something similar in size to the Chromecast exist? Something just powerful enough to stream whatever I want to a TV with whatever software I can load on it? Hmm…
That’s a bummer, but makes sense.
That’s cool. Is there an option for “casting” type software to emulate a Chromecast? I like choosing stuff on my phone and sending it to the TV
Oh that’s fair, yeah especially on Linux
Well I think of the people who have 4K stuff (I don’t), there’s probably a lot of gamers who have 4K monitors by not TVs? Just guessing, IDK 🤷♂️
Do you not have a TV? I’ve watched stuff on my monitor, sure, but sitting on the couch watching TV is what the vast majority of people do.
Unless you mean connecting your computer to your TV? I did this for awhile, there are ways to make it work, but I much prefer using a Chromecast or similar device to simplify the whole interaction.
I was reading along like, that’s dumb but at least I could craft something in my password man-… Oh… oh no…
Would this include things like the contents of messages?
I know it’s not end to end encrypted, but if they’re just gonna search the whole database for keywords, and then decide I’m of interest because I joked about abc or admitted to xyz in a private chat, then that’s a load of crap.
Amateur radio is fun. Cheap to get into, but gets a bit expensive pretty fast.
But, you can talk to people all over the world with nothing but a bit of wire strung up in a tree. No million dollars worth of computers and infrastructure between you, no. Just two people, two radios, two pieces of wire in two trees. It’s crazy that it works at all but it does!
Getting a license costs something like $30-40 bucks I think. Used to be free even just a few years ago, but now they’ve added fees to get it.
You can get into a handheld radio that’ll let you talk to your local group of people for $20-30, that’ll get you say… 50-100 miles with repeaters. More if they are linked.
If you wanna go further, you’ve gotta go to lower frequencies. A low power HF radio can be had as cheap as $80-100 ish. You can technically talk around the world with it, but at only 5 watts, it’ll be tough to do unless conditions are just right. People do it all the time, but it’s a challenge, a skill to learn.
$300-400 ish gets you into a 20 watt HF radio, that’ll do significantly better, and actually that’s the radio I use most the time when I go out hiking with a plan on operating in the woods. For this price you could also get an older tube or hybrid radio that is 100-130 watts, but the learning curve can be a little steep, they are big and heavy, and even if you know what you’re doing, they can be a but less convenient than modern radios. Not that there’s anything wrong with them, one of my first radios was one of this type, I bought it broken and fixed it, I still own it.
$800-1000 gets you all the radio most people ever need. Modern digital HF radio, 100 watts, plenty of bells and whistles, practically operates itself. People can and do talk all around the world on 100 watts all the time. Though at this point I have to admit, even with this amount of power, it can be a challenge to talk to the furthest people unless conditions are just right.
Ok, so more power, right? Well, yes, you can do that. The legal limit in the USA is 1500 watts. But there’s a few things to consider about that.
First, yes, more power will make your signal go further. That’s true. But when you’re trying to reach the furthest people, often times it’s your ability to hear the other person, that’s more important. In the hobby they say you don’t want to be an alligator, all mouth, no ears. It doesn’t matter how well the other guy hears you, if you can’t hear him, then you aren’t communicating.
The answer? A better antenna. That wire in a tree does wonders. Honestly, one of my first and most memorable long distance contacts was from lower Michigan to Japan, with 100 watts and a wire in a tree. Almost 7000 miles. Honestly, it was amazing. But later I would make similar contacts semi-frequently, by using a directional antenna called a yagi.
They cost about $500-1000 for the smaller ones, bigger and better gets into the thousands, not counting the minimum 30 foot tower to put it on. Thankfully mine was gifted to me, it was in bad condition, stored in a crawlspace under a house. But I cleaned and repaired it with 3d printed parts. And I had an old TV tower that I put it on, instead of buying and building one. All free.
The way it works is by taking the radio energy and focusing it all one direction. Kind of like how the lightbulb in a cars headlamp is very bright by itself, but put inside the special housing in the car, it gets focused so you can see further down the road. It’s the same energy, just focused.
My antenna had a gain of 8dB. What that means is that whatever direction I was pointing it, it took the 100 watts from my radio, and essentially focused it into a 600 watt beam of radio waves. (There’s more to it than that, but I’m fudging some of the details here for ease of understanding).
Now the beauty of this is that it works in both ways. So if I’m pointing it at Japan, and the guy over there is only pumping out 100 watts, then from my perspective, it’s almost like he’s using 600 watts. See how that’s better? Now we’re both louder! (Again, details fudged here).
Now if you take an antenna like that, and pump 600 or 1200 watts into it (those are the sizes of the two amplifiers I have), then your effective output in that one direction is more like 3800 or 7500 watts! That kind of power really does make a difference, a lot of the time. So, why not even more!
Well, here’s where we come back to earth a bit. Yes more power is better. But there are diminishing returns. Radio signals are like sound waves, in the sense that the decibel scale is logarithmic. Twice the power does not get you twice the loudness.
This is too hard to explain without you having a frame of reference, but… basically, the improvement in signal you get by going from a 5 watt radio to a hundred watt radio, well, it’s pretty significant, right? It takes something difficult to hear, and makes it much easier.
Well, the increase between those two powers, is over 13 decibels. Now, in order to get that same “Wow, now that’s much better!” Improvement? You’d need another 13 decibels. But to do that, you’d need to go from 100 watts, to, well, an illegal output of 2000 watts. The next 13 decibels would require jumping up to 40,000 watts! Decidedly illegal. And you wouldn’t want to stand next to it haha.
So while amplifiers do help, especially when paired with good antennas. Most people don’t bother using them because they usually cost around and over a thousand dollars, or more, for the 600-1000 watt ones. The 1500 watt ones are even more expensive. And you have to upgrade everything else in your equipment to handle the extra power. And for what? A bit better signal?
Don’t get me wrong, I use them. But, not always 🤷♂️ and I have no desire for a legal limit amplifier, not unless I had money to burn.
A good antenna is a much better investment, though doing that right can get very expensive very fast.
Anywho, sorry for the long post, guess I kind of got carried away. I didn’t even cover half the stuff we do. POTA, SOTA, Field Day, email and SMS, GPS tracking, satellites, moon bounce, meteor scatter, the role of the sun and ionosphere. Grey line propagation. Fox hunting (not actual foxes), including TDOA. Digital modes like FT8 and APRS, FreeDV, SSTV. Morse code is alive and thriving. Building and fixing radios, building and designing antennas. All that and so much more.
If you have any interest in technology at all, do yourself a favor and at least look into ham radio. It’s literally a license to play with science stuff. And while a lot of it can be expensive, as I’ve described. A lot of it really isn’t, and most of the fun I have is with stuff I’ve made, not bought.
Thanks for the suggestion, I may go for this, that sounds much more simple than manually setting each one up, while still being just manual enough to remain customizable. And thanks for the offer of help.
I did buy a hexos license over black Friday. Mostly just to help a thing I think should exist, but I was also gonna give it a try when it got out of beta.
Always use two fuses! Need to fuse the ground lead as well because the antenna is bonded to frame of the car!
That’s good. A big thing people forget though, is practice. If you’ve only ever used them a few times, it can be hard to remember the details of how they work or if they work, and what to expect from them when they’re working.
That’s what makes ham radio so great, you practice at least semi regularly, or as much as you want. Plus the distances you’re capable of are much larger, if that’s important to you. Sometimes local is more important.
POTA is fun. Everyone is so chill. I only get out a few times a year these days, but I love setting up in the woods. I should do it more.
To add to that, if you learn Morse code, you can use the lowest license level to use all the bands, and talk around the world with quite low power. The radios for this are cheaper, and the whole thing can be made even cheaper with things like 3d printing.
Now I know most people aren’t gonna do that. But it’s interesting that Morse code not only still exists, but is thriving. Right now, as you read this, people are having conversations with Morse code. Literally 24/7 around the world, over radio. Pretty cool stuff.
It’s hard to learn, I’ve technically learned it, but I never got super proficient, and now I’m rusty haha. There are apps for keeping sharp, I should do that.
Do it! It’s great fun. Dipoles work well. I’ve found verticals to be even easier to set up, and perform good enough for POTA
Are you able to go to a park outside the city and operate? With low noise, you’d be surprised how far you can go with QRP. There are plenty of inexpensive ($100-150) rigs that can do that. Paired with a bit of rope, wire, and coax, you can rig up a cheap antenna pretty easy 👍
Have you heard of the truSDX? It’ll do 5 to 8 watts ish, depending on the band and how you power it.
I bought a big group buy kit and have some left over, if you want one for the cost of the parts plus shipping I can send you one, just DM me. It came to like $50 per unit. In fact if anyone reading this wants in on that just message me, I have a few that I really don’t need to keep holding on to 👍
Edit: additionally, if you want more power, you can try buying something broken and learn to fix it. That’s what I did for my first linear amplifier, an SB 200. Then later I bought a Kenwood TS-530, broken, no transmit. Paid $200 I think? Turns out the switches were just dirty 🤷♂️
The amplifier needed more work though. Probably came out a little behind on that, after upgrading some parts too. But now it’s mine, and I’m never getting rid of it.
Don’t know why you’re getting downvoted. This makes perfect sense to me. Overkill? Maybe. Maybe not. We don’t know what this guys needs are.
Perfectly valid points,imo.
Came here to say Mariners revenge. Love that song.
Somewhere between 4 to 8, depending on how productive we are in the morning.