
Building a speech recognition system for amateur radio communication - petethomas
https://towardsdatascience.com/make-amateur-radio-cool-again-said-mr-artificial-intelligence-36cb32978fb2?gi=c0da39b2ee89
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kawfey
I tend to agree with the many people that say that ham radio is a dying hobby
- both literally because it's practitioners are becoming silent keys by the
hundreds a day, and newcomers are in it only to meet the minimum requirements
for legally using cheap Chinese handheld radios (if they do so at all) and to
use high-power transmitters for drone control and video, or as "preppers," and
figuratively in that there are a lot fewer innovations in radio by radio
amateurs today than there were several years ago, when the science of radio
was primarily in the hands of hobbyists. Now it's in the hands of telecom
corporations, academic and research institutions, and the defense industry,
meanwhile ham radio is more or less still stuck in a bygone era, slowly coming
to the present time through grassroots innovations in software defined radio
technologies, the free and open source codec2, extremely robust synchronous
digital modulations for shortwave channels, which are slowly starting to be
recognized by the mainstream.

We don't have the kinds of technologies in a ham radio that we take for
granted in our cell phone - yet - and bringing ham radio up to speed really
hasn't been a priority of its licensees since a lot of them are members of the
aforementioned industries who take pleasure in antiquated pastimes, not unlike
maintaining and restoring historic vehicles. Younger people don't have really
have a good reason to join, and several are led astray by the large gap in
age. I got in it at 15, and since it gave me a lot of technical background, it
led me to a career. Now in my 20's, I'm finding less interest in it seeing
it's basically a bunch of people exchanging names over the air, and sending
proof of that exchange over the internet. A lot of youth cannot fathom why you
need the radio when you have the internet already. There are a million more
facets to ham radio than that, but it's hard to see the forest through the
trees.

A lot of the advances in ham radio merely tacks on a previous invention to the
face of the service, such as this one. It's pretty cool, nobody has done it
before and it might be a worthwhile and noble task to apply it to other forms
of radio communication, but it - and other recent innovations - kind of lacks
the "wow" factor ham radio needs to resurrect itself from it's path to
obsolescence.

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resters
Your argument is equivalent to arguing that because cruise ships exist,
surfing isn't fun.

Amateur radio is a way of interacting much more closely with the physics of
radio and radio wave propagation than it is simply a method of communication.

Just as a surfer will paddle out and wait for the perfect set to roll in,
amateurs look forward to the right combination of sunspots and low atmospheric
disturbance, and when it happens it's pure fun, just like catching a wave at
the beach.

The mobile phone and satellite networks are big budget designs that have
turned into mostly advertising funded infrastructure that provides a small
improvement over the entertainment of old fashioned TV. Due to the market
power of advertisers and carriers, we even have interruption ads and bandwidth
throttling.

Amateur radio is something so much more pure. It's more like camping than
simply mass-produced lodging... more like adventure travel than staying at a
Marriott.

If you look at ham radio and see deficiencies compared to the mobile and
satellite networks, I think you're looking for something very different than
what most amateurs have found.

Amateur radio lets you build the simple version of a lot of
things...everything from simple antennas, simple direct conversion or superhet
receivers, phased systems, etc.

Not only can you build it and use it, you can tinker with it and learn and
enjoy every aspect of the experience. Magnus Carlson was interviewed recently
and said that his biggest wish is that he could learn chess all over again as
a beginner. He's the best and yet the highest form of pure fun he's found is
in being a beginner and experiencing the joy of developing a mastery of
something rich and complex. Amateur radio lets you dig into the
fundamentals... the physics of passive components all the way to the most
advanced nuances of beamforming and coding theory.

The social aspect of getting on the air and having a chat or making contact
with a new country, etc., ads a social and human layer on top of the technical
foundation, which is an altogether different aspect of the hobby.

Contesting and DXing are fast and slow versions of a similar thing. They
include both flow state like video games and medium and long term strategy for
station building and skill enhancement.

When people ask why I like contesting I tell them "imagine if video games were
real". I don't need to pretend I'm an antisocial gangster or member of the
military to get a major adrenaline rush and do a flow activity that is using
real physics and where my success depends on my mastery of the real physical
world, not just some game developer's pretend version.

I think we're at a fascinating crossroads where amateur radio is more
appealing than ever... for the following reasons:

\- mobile phones are now just an obvious and ubiquitous piece of tech. Infra-
red remote controls used to get people excited when they first came out for
channel flipping. The latest and greatest smart phones are still getting that
kind of excitement, which is temporary.

\- Now, if my mobile phone doesn't get a good signal inside a restaurant or
elevator, it irritates me in the way that a flickering fluorescent bulb
irritates me. It's _supposed_ to work. Amateur radio is the opposite. When I
hear that bizarre sound of MSK144 as a meteor charges a tiny swath of the
ionosphere, suddenly communication exists where none had a moment earlier, and
then just as suddenly it's gone... it's a form of magic in the same way that
lighting tinders while camping on a damp or windy day feels like magic. In
that moment one relates to the many others who have felt that same magic, that
same wonderment.

Why do humans surf waves, climb mountains, sail the oceans in small boats,
explore jungles and rainforests, and aspire to explore the solar system and
universe? There is a human quality of being fascinated with the universe in
its raw state and encountering it without whatever luxuries or guard rails are
normally used to tame it and make it safe for everyone.

Also, we're currently at the beginning of a renaissance of hardware hacking.
You can download Eagle or Circuitmaker (altium) and built all kinds of
circuits and boards. There are so many great parts that the mobile industry
makes at volume that are useful for all kinds of fun tinkering, but the
usefulness and broader business applicability of the kinds of stuff we can
build these days goes far beyond what anyone could do during the 1960s and
1970s when many modern hams came of age.

So in a nutshell, RF is cool, radio wave propagation is cool, and building
stuff is fun and satisfying. Amateur radio is the most amazing physics video
game and it's actually real.

73

~~~
jonnydubowsky
I really enjoyed reading what you wrote. I've been dancing around the edge of
the ham radio community and your post felt like a warm invitation into the
realm.

~~~
resters
Do it. I'm curious what aspects have sounded interesting to you. It's a very
welcoming community, and many many sub-communities. Don't hesitate to ask if
there's anything you're wondering about.

Glad my post helped nudge you toward a fun and fascinating hobby!

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AWildC182
For anyone who thinks this is the most cutting edge thing happening in amateur
radio, there's some much more interesting development in the fields of SDR and
signal propagation. Take a look at FT8/JS8call for instance.

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resters
On the subject of the linked article, I've been wanting to try something like
this with SSB audio to see how well the algorithms can understand it. I could
provide a broadband SDR IQ recording of lots of SSB audio if anyone wishes to
give it a try.

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Animats
CQ Contest, CQ Contest...

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woodson
tl;dr: author describes the use of Google cloud STT on ham radio audio
recordings

