Store and Forward episode 5 — Admiral Hopper

Store and Forward

Video version of this episode: https://archive.org/details/store-and-forward-5

Kay and Steve were prepared to tell each other about a great, newly released video of US Navy Rear Admiral Grace Hopper’s 1982 talk to the US “No Such Agency”. In these videos, the late Admiral Hopper was in great form, with lots of humor and history about her career in the US Navy. She begins the talk reminding everyone that the first electronic computer was built by the US Navy. Title of the talk was “Future Possibilities: Data, Hardware, Software, and People”. Both Kay and Steve highly recommend these two videos.

Grace Hopper on Wikipedia – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Hopper
Part One – https://archive.org/details/youtube-si9iqF5uTFk
Part Two – https://archive.org/details/youtube-AW7ZHpKuqZg

Kay played a newly found 30 second Public Service Announcement by Pernell Roberts and Gregory Harrison, stars of the TV show “Trapper John MD” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trapper_John,_M.D.)

ARRL Emergency Communications PSA – https://archive.org/details/205220-emergency-communications-dlarc-3674-master

Kay discusses another portion of the ongoing DLARC project, the Bob Cooper Archive https://archive.org/details/bob-cooper

Steve discusses the main story in Zero Retries 0166 (published 2024-08-23), the new Masters Communications DRA-Pi-Zero, a new Amateur Radio data communications interface (essentially, a modem for radios) – https://www.zeroretries.org/i/147797445/the-new-dra-pi-zero. This unit is just another option for using the very cool software called DigiPi created by Craig Lamparter KM6LYW – https://craiger.org/digipi/.

Steve discusses another trend he is tracking in Zero Retries – the messaging capabilities built into Automatic Packet Reporting System (APRS) – http://www.aprs.org/aprs-messaging.html. APRS Messaging has been available and usable for years, but generally poorly implemented being built into radios where you can only input text with the buttons on the radio’s microphone. The Meshtastic app (https://meshtastic.org/), used on unlicensed bands like 902-928 MHz in the US, is showing how “messaging” can be… and should be… much more usable. Example apps in Amateur Radio are RadioMail – https://radiomail.app/ and VarAC – https://www.varac-hamradio.com/. Steve will be “encouraging” the development of “Messaging First” apps for APRS messaging in future issues of Zero Retries.

Steve mentioned a cool new press release from the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) and Amateur Radio Digital Communications (ARDC):

Unlock the Secrets of the Invisible Radio Universe with SuperKnova®
Funded by a grant from ARDC, the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) has developed two no-cost, self-paced online courses on SuperKnova, an online educational platform accessible to learners of all ages: the Technician Amateur Radio License and EMS Course and the General Amateur Radio License and EMS Course. These courses introduce the fundamentals of the electromagnetic spectrum (EMS), which will not only help learners get their amateur radio license, but will also contribute to the longevity of the amateur radio community. In addition to applications in amateur radio, these concepts taught in the courses are also applicable in many career paths.
https://www.ardc.net/wp-content/uploads/218-nrao-superknova-ardc-joint-press-release.pdf
https://public.nrao.edu/news/unlock-the-secrets-of-the-invisible-radio-universe-with-superknova/

One of the NRAO facilities is the array of big dish antennas in New Mexico that was a primary location in the movie “Contact”.

Steve’s big task in the next few days is to assemble his thoughts and comments in preparation for filing comments by the deadline on the “Spectrum Grab” currently in progress for the US 902-928 MHz band. The deadline for those comments to be filed by the FCC is next Thursday 2024-09-05. He plans to do a special mid-week issue of Zero Retries just on this topic.

ARRL’s announcement and discussion with instructions on how to file – https://www.arrl.org/news/arrl-urges-protecting-the-amateur-radio-902-928-mhz-band

FCC Public Notice on WT Docket No. 24-240 – https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-24-776A1.pdf

FCC Electronic Comments Filing System for 24-240 – https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/search/docket-detail/24-240

Click Search for Filings button

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Digital Library of Amateur Radio & Communications (a project of the Internet Archive) – https://archive.org/details/dlarc
Zero Retries Newsletter – https://www.zeroretries.org