Basically I love HAM radio... since I was a youngster I was in to electronics and I use to use my grandpas shortwave radio and modified analog uniden scanner with antennas to listen to cells and cordless phones back in the 90s.
I somewhat forgot about RF when in the 8th grade when I got a copy of RedHat 6 and and a student edition of visual studio. A few years back I got back in to electronics now being old enough to understand them better I did it to get a good footing in digital electronics and understanding assembly launguage along with the fundamentals of how a PC works. I always new writing VB or C wasnt something a computer could understand but couldnt comprehend how an if or loop was just a binch of off or ons.
Well after a few homebrew micro based computers, robots, and z80 goofings I realized I really liked RF and RADAR too, even LIDAR and laser. Then comes along the RTL dongle in my life 2 years ago totally renewing my intrest in HAM radio.
Im not one who wants to rg chew on HF, I would however like to work 80m CW at some point. I think the coolest stuff is digital and space related. Once apon a time phreaking was hacking it was a way to learn and exploit the phone system for good or bad, then came the PC and the Internet giving way to a new system to learn and stretch!
Today I see RF as todays phreaking, who doesnt want to intercept information from the voyagers or learn to inject false temps in to your neighbors weather station! There are plenty of wireless devices out there with no security who need the white hats who need to call companies in checks making wireless deadbolts with no security.
I have taken the last 8 months or so to learn a lot about how SDR's work on the hardware level, and how to build add ons for them to clean them and up/down convert them. Even how to get the small bandwidths from a hallo detector to ADC in to a smaller micro like a PSoC.
I feel it is time to stop reinventing the wheel and to start using modules and and powerfull SBC's wherever possible. I would like to know a whole lot more about DSP and how the OSmocom drivers work, whats the driver difference between a hackrf and a dongle. Im at the point where I need to start writing systems level software to handle SDR functionality and I cant find a lot of web articles on the topic.
I am a member here, QRZ, Radio Refernce, RTLSDR.com Forums (no one rights here). None of these places feel right I would like a group of like minded RF hackers to learn from and talk with. People who share the same ideas as people like Micheal Osman. There is great info out there on analog designs and working of RF hell theres more Vacuum tube discussion than SDR home brew. I do like the analog side of things and enjoy things like Soldier Smoke, im currently trying to build an overly complicated 80M Michigan Mighty Might that can transmit CW, digital, AM, and has and amplifier, the reciver is a softrok lite designed for 80M.
Does anyone know of any groups like this, eithe on the internet or in maybe clubs in the So-Cal area? My club sucks as a stated many times its for hardware consumers on the repeater! Funny enough I dont even know how to get on the repeater, Ive been thinking of getting a baofeng just to see what its all about.