Ham Radio Village - OSTWERK Initiative
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Transkript: Englisch(automatisch erzeugt)
02:03
Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining me for my presentation about the Ostwerk initiative here at the DEFCON 28 safe mode. I would like to thank you all for giving me an opportunity to show you the presentation I put together. And if you have a passing interest in amateur radio, I hope you find it interesting.
02:21
A quick heads up, most talks or presentations like this are usually an expert lecturing about a topic they are very familiar with to an interested audience. This is kind of the opposite, where today I'm an amateur radio enthusiast presenting more of a concept to people who know much more than I do. A concept that's very fluid and open to change right now depending on community input.
02:45
All right, let's begin. Please keep in mind that this is my first DEFCON, so this is a learning experience, especially for me. If you have any questions during this presentation, feel free to ask them in the appropriate moderated channel in the DEFCON Discord server.
03:04
And at the end, I hope to have not necessarily a Q&A, but more of like a moderated roundtable style discussion about your thoughts about this project, its strengths, and what it needs. And I've never been part of something like that before, so I'm interested to see how this goes.
03:24
I'm willing to take a gamble that many of you know what a lightsaber is. For those that don't, it's basically a laser sword from a popular movie franchise. In the stories, with rare exceptions, if you wanted a lightsaber of your own, you had to build it to your own exacting specifications.
03:41
So where the switches are, the way it fits in your hand, the weight and the balance, it's all perfectly attuned to the builder. Well, what if Ham Radio could have their own version of the lightsaber? Right off the bat, what I hope to accomplish with this presentation is a way to simplify and encourage the planning and construction of amateur radio kits.
04:04
If that doesn't interest you, then you are free to duck out now. It won't hurt my feelings, I understand your time is valuable, and we'll both be happier if you are spending your time by doing something that interests you. So, to those of you who already have an enthusiasm for amateur radio, you're probably not going to learn anything brand new,
04:23
but I want to keep some of the principles here in mind when you're Elmering a new ham that wants a radio of their own. All right, enter the Open Source Tactical Wireless Emergency Radio Kit, or TWERK, or TWERKstation.
04:40
A TWERK is a custom kit built by a radio enthusiast to operate in times of an off-grid situation. So you can build one for relaying voice messages into or out of a disaster zone, or you can set up a data network node, or keep track of contacts during a contest, or you can administer a TWERKstation parliament.
05:00
Each kit is custom built by the owner to be dependable, not just for casual use, but especially for emergency situations as well. And it's my hope that this presentation motivates you to create a TWERKstation of your own, or assist someone in the creation of their own TWERKstation.
05:21
I'd now like to walk you through a sample TWERKstation. It is a voice TWERKstation that I built that has data capabilities on board. It can't broadcast or receive data, but you could use the computer on board for a contest logging or local networking.
05:41
This TWERKstation is sealed up in a durable plastic case, and it's extremely water-resistant and dust-proof with the lids closed. There's no external access ports, so you have to open the kit if you want to charge it or hook up the antenna. Here it is open but undeployed. The keyboard, the microphone, and the mouse kind of float around in there loose.
06:06
The switches and thumb screws in there do a good job of keeping them from sliding around, but I still would like to add some kind of cushioning in there to avoid rattle damage. So flipping that blank panel that was in the lower part over, you'll see that there is a remote faceplate for an iED4100.
06:26
Also under that panel is the fuse box and the cables that feed into the Raspberry Pi. And the lower left is the power controller, which switches automatically between external power and the lead-acid batteries that are on board. And then on the right are the pass-throughs that route pass-through the microphone.
06:45
There's pass-throughs that go for the USB and the audio cable into the Raspberry Pi. And there is USB ports that are not pass-throughs, they're just charging ports.
07:00
The top left of the panel has the power controls and the power display. The switches engage the battery, the red one does, and then the black switch below selects between the main battery and the on-board backup. There's a power display that shows the voltage and amperage used by the kit, so it's easy to estimate the remaining power at current use.
07:26
And here's the fully deployed torque station. Just to let you guys know, the monitor on the right is being powered off of AC power that goes to a USB-C cable, so it's not being powered off the kit right now. That would be pretty trivial to do, I just need to find a reliable USB hub that is powered enough to keep all the hardware on board powered up.
07:53
So my prototype kit is done, for the most part, but it's actually not. The kit has a few issues. For one thing, it's really heavy.
08:03
I want a long battery life, and sealed lead-acid batteries are cheap, but the kit can't be carried for more than a minute or two. The radio I have is a decent radio, but I want to switch over to HF bands. The kit has a big clunky antenna switch that I'm not going to use very often. And I discovered some new power pole mounts I want to incorporate into the design.
08:23
So now I know what to improve, I can budget to get new batteries and a compatible charger, ditch the auxiliary battery in favor of bringing a solar panel, and upgrade the radio to an HF radio. I'll also need to design up a new mounting panel for all of these new parts.
08:44
So that was version one of the kit, and some of the challenges that I'll need to overcome. Now, after I go over the three pillars of the Austwork initiative, I'll demonstrate the operation of the upgraded torque station at the end of the video, which may give some of you ideas for the kit you may want to build.
09:05
The Austwork initiative has three pillars that I think would make it successful. One is enthusiasm for the construction of torque stations. A second pillar is the online platform torquebench.org, where a torque station constructors or torque smiths can compare notes.
09:20
And the third pillar is the torque smith code of conduct. And let's get into these in detail. First off is the kit open source. Are there schematics or diagrams or a bill of materials available online somewhere so that I can build my own copy of the kit and put my own spin on it?
09:43
Second, the kit should be tactical. It should be constructed to work with other torque stations in the event of an emergency. The kit should also have some degree of durability. Just think about how many tiers are going to roll down your cheeks if the kit fell down off a table or a tailgate. The kit should be wireless.
10:01
Six hours of operation is a good ballpark, and more is always better, but more means either more weight or more cost, so balance your options carefully. The kit can be used for emergencies or everyday use. If you plan on using your kit every day, be aware of heat buildup and have proper ventilation.
10:23
Or better yet, just invest in a dedicated base station maybe. The guideline is actually a pretty loose one, and it was added mostly because the acronym needed a vowel. Next, the kit should have a radio in it. Usually a mobile rig, a 12 volt kind of mobile rig, but it's encouraged to throw a cheap HT or other
10:43
kind of walkie talkie style radio into a power or utility kit just to have one on hand just in case. The final guideline is that everything is conveniently located into one single package. The kit has everything it needs built in by the owner, and delicate components should fold into the kit for protection during transport.
11:08
All right, now let's get into the major types of torque stations you might see. These are by no means all-encompassing, but should act as a starting point when designing a torque station. First off is the voice torque, a very common, easy to make kit.
11:24
It can be made from like a used radio and a sealed lead acid battery in some kind of durable case. It's accessible for get on the air and tech licenses. Second up is a data kit, and those are similar to the voice kits, but they have some kind of computer on board to take advantage of digital radio modes.
11:43
The computer can be a Raspberry Pi or a laptop or a Surface tablet, whatever, just some way to decode digital information and to get it out onto the air. SATCOM kits are designed for satellite interfacing, and they're usually paired with a special antenna.
12:02
And there's CWHF or weak signal kits, and you want to be considerate of the weak signal kits because they're pretty sensitive to the EMF noise. Those are some of the main types of kits that you're probably going to interact with or build. And let's take a look at some of the support kit ideas, some of the advanced level kits.
12:25
The auxiliary power kits supply power to your torque stations. You also need to think of a way to replenish power if there's no grid. Solar is a pretty popular option. Next up, antenna kits provide masts, feed line, and the antennas necessary for broadcast and reception.
12:44
Some kits are as simple as a spool of wire, and others have complex folding mechanisms. Troubleshooter kits are stocked with all the tools, adapters, duct tape, zip ties, everything you need to keep everyone on the air and happy. And remember to always thank your troubleshooter.
13:04
And if a torque station parliament gets too cumbersome, someone can step up as net ops to take care of the administrative side of things during a crisis. They can act as one point of contact and direct the appointment of a power comptroller to oversee the power consumption in a multi-day grid down situation.
13:22
So lots of coordination options available if you'd like. Finally, we have a few rare torque stations. These are a couple torque stations that you won't see in the wild that often. First off is the Llama. Big and heavy, the Llama is for the person that overpacks for every trip.
13:41
It tries to do too much and doesn't tend to do anything very well. The rarest type of kit is the Mi- Alright, so those were the torque stations. Let's move on to Pillar 2, or the online platform. This is kind of the weakest pillar for me. I am not a web expert at all.
14:01
I have a lot of ideas based on stuff that I've seen online, but I don't really have a way to implement them. So this is where I am going to need the most help. But here are some of the ideas that I've got. The website should have a link to their own forums, hopefully. A place people can submit photos and designs to be featured in the gallery.
14:24
A place where people new to the hobby can stop in and have any questions answered. The website will also have a feature similar to PC Part Picker. Where you can pick out and design your own torque station. And have it tell you approximately how much power you'll need.
14:43
The website will also hopefully feature a regional map. That assists torque smiths to find each other. And maybe display power levels and capabilities of a particular registered region. So if you want to compete against nearby towns as to who's got the most power standing by in the event of an emergency, that would be kind of fun.
15:05
One additional item would be a portal where student radio groups could design an ideal torque station. And find a place to get help with fundraiser or grant writing or sponsorships. A few more website ideas.
15:20
Again, I have no idea how to implement these, so this is all wishful thinking right now. The website might have a torqueathalon information, and I'll discuss what that is later. The site would have not just a kit builder, but a kit panel builder. Where people could design custom panel for their kits.
15:41
Drag and drop pre-sized holes or pre-sized cutouts for parts that they know they want in their kit. In the same vein, the site could have a maker space locator where torque smiths could find a local maker space to help with tools, or 3D printing, or laser cutting. Anything for constructing torque stations.
16:01
Maybe we could make some arrangements for partnerships or sponsorships or discounts or something. Finally, the site could have an online marketplace where you could buy patches, stickers, small custom trinkets that could make your kit stand out. You won't be able to buy torque stations, because that defeats the purpose of the whole initiative.
16:22
If you want a torque station, you gotta build one yourself. The third and final pillar is one that I'm sure people will gloss over. The torque smith code of conduct. Just a handful of principles that I hope people will live by if they want to build their own torque station.
16:44
A good torque smith is courteous. If you build your torque station properly, it should attract a little attention from people who may have a passing interest in our hobby. So be ready to be peppered with a few questions every once in a while when you're using your torque station. A good torque smith is competent.
17:01
A torque station is built to the exacting specifications of its creator, and any shortcomings of the kit lie with the builder. So know how to operate your kit, and know about how much power you have left at all times in an off-grid situation. Also know how to budget your remaining power responsibly. A good torque smith values their community, both online and offline.
17:22
Ideally you would know a couple nearby torque station owners and agree on a schedule to make contact should the worst happen in a grid down situation. Also see what you can do in a disaster to supply comfort and relief to those negatively affected. A torque smith values their own personal honor.
17:42
They would never cheat a contest and would never reveal the contents of the mystery box. A torque smith shows their work. There are people out there who are interested in seeing what you've made. I know I am. What makes your kit special? How does it fit into your lifestyle? Finally, a torque smith knows that there is always room for improvement.
18:02
Whether it's cheaper components, or farther range, or better battery life, whatever. A torque smith knows that their kit is never finished, and it's just a jumping off point for better things. So those were the three main pillars of the OS Torque initiative.
18:24
And here are some bonus slides at the end. I'm going to go over something I came up with called the Torquathalon. And then we'll take a tour of a torque station that I built, a llama class. So what if there was a competition where teams could show off their ingenuity and hustle?
18:43
Basically a small course is set up with obstacles to climb over or struggle through. That would resemble maybe a post-disaster situation. And teams of torque station owners would try to race against the clock to carry their stations any way they want through the course. And then when they get the finish line, they use them to relay some traffic through a remote judging station at the end.
19:05
Costumes and theme teams are encouraged. And a reminder should go out beforehand saying that public intoxication of all types is frowned upon. All right. So here is my latest kit.
19:23
There's a little red patch on the top where I adhere a suction cup antenna. There's about four latches on the kit that keeps the kit airtight, watertight, dustproof. I still don't have a decent solution to keep everything from sliding around.
19:44
I've got the keyboard here. And I've got the microphone to uncoil.
20:01
Check for product shifting during transport. Everything looks good. I'll get ready to mount the software radio antenna. Just onto the lid onto that red square of vinyl that I put on there. Because the suction cup doesn't adhere to the coarse plastic of the kit.
20:24
So I need something smooth to stick the suction cup onto. A little GPS antenna. A little USB GPS antenna sticks to a metal clip for locking the kit shut. Antenna connector. I'll get that screwed on.
20:51
All right. Let's get ready to hook up the external power. I've got my Shanktronics power brig in, supplying all the power I need for the kit.
21:00
Turn it on. And I can see the display on the kit turns on. All right. Let's get the Raspberry Pi fired up. I've got the power switch there next to the pass-through for the USB and the audio for the Raspberry Pi. I've got the dual monitors hooked up.
21:21
And, oh well, I've got this USB switch was powered on, or the USB hub there was powered on. So now that the computer's booted up, I'm just going to control it with the Logitech keyboard here. I'll fire up my FL rig.
21:50
And I'm going to boot up my radio data software package WSJ-TX.
22:04
And unfortunately, the kit is not cooperating with me. The radio is receiving, but it's not putting audio from the radio into the Raspberry Pi. And that's a problem I really need to troubleshoot here.
22:25
Moving along, I can fire up GQRX, which I have pre-programmed to decode the local classical radio station. But the cool thing about the SDR is that I can program any channel I want to into here.
22:47
Any channel that the SDR is able to decode. Alright, now for the moment you've all been waiting for. A closer look into the Snaxcess panel.
23:02
So we remove the panel. And inside we have an array of snacks. We have a post-snack treat. We have some crunchy snacks. We have some sweet snacks.
23:20
And we also have some more salty snacks. And then all the snacks get tucked right back away into the Snaxcess compartment. And we replace the Snaxcess panel. I hope to incorporate some kind of magnets or maybe 3D print a latching solution for it sometime in the near future.
23:42
Alright, let's power down the kit. I'll log off the Raspberry Pi and then flip off the power switch here. That terminates power to the monitors and the Pi.
24:02
Turn off the radio. And then disconnect the battery. We've been running off battery power this whole time. Battery power disconnected. And as a safety measure, I'm going to turn it from battery power to external power. So in case the switch gets bumped, for some reason it doesn't drain the battery.
24:25
And for those of you who are interested, here is a kind of a blocky wiring diagram for how the kit works. I've got the two ports, a solar port for power input and a 12 volt port for external power input.
24:41
And then it goes, the solar goes into the PowerWorks solar charge controller and then that charges the battery. And then I have the big red battery cutoff switch. And then that goes down to a selector switch that selects between the battery and the external power. And then that feeds into the fuse block. And then the fuse block shoots out the 12 volt leads to all of the hardware in there that runs off of 12 volts.
25:05
Alright, you've made it to the end of the pre-recorded portion. If you're still interested, you're welcome to visit the website twerkbench.org to see what we have so far. And if you want a voice in the direction this project goes, you can join the Discord community by visiting our Discord server online.
25:22
The link there is on our website at twerkbench.org. And I'm going to do a live Q&A now and hopefully a demo if my equipment cooperates to round out my presentation time. So please stick around and we can hopefully have a moderated discussion where we can share ideas and where this initiative should go moving forward.
25:51
Cool. So we have Swiss Ninja here and I'm live on video feed and I think he's ready to give us a nice demo. Before you start, though, I do have a starting question.
26:01
Is there any sort of mod or thing you've made that you've tried to make and just messed up so bad that you just said, nope, this is going in the trash. I have to start over. No, but leading right up to this presentation, the audio input that goes from my HF transceiver to the Raspberry Pi won't detect the audio signal.
26:24
Like, I know that the other signal exists, but it's not going into the Pi. I want to show off a couple of data modes that were able to be received on the Raspberry Pi, but that won't be done today's presentation. I was curious if anyone had any quick questions or anything that maybe I didn't cover in
26:45
the video or any suggestions, because it looks like the chat topics are a little empty right now. Did anyone have anything to ask or add? So I'm curious if anyone, does anyone have any experience with working with a volunteer software team or web development team?
27:07
Because a big part of the pillar of the initiative here is the website. And the website we have right now is very basic and I'm learning web stuff as I go along, but I wouldn't mind supercharging it with a couple of team members.
27:22
Has anyone worked with a volunteer team in the past to get something like this done? I'm not aware of any personally. I mean, I'm curious, are you also releasing all these like plans and open source stuff like on something like GitHub as well?
27:43
Oh, absolutely. Yes. Yes. So I hope that other people can join in. And like I said, copy plans like they can take a look at the torque station I built. That's kind of what this stemmed from was I saw kits online. I would say that, oh, those are so awesome, but I could never have one of those.
28:00
And then one day my I decided to put a kit together for my father at the behest of my mom. She was curious how we could all get together in the event of an emergency. And I said, oh, well, ham radio. And I wanted to get like an all in one solution that they could use after getting their ham radio licenses to get on the air with me in the event of a grid down situation.
28:27
And so so I would see the kids online and I would say, oh, those are awesome. And then I decided to just build one myself and it was surprisingly easy. And I just want to let people know that I want to remove the barrier to entry to making kits for themselves.
28:44
Like, a big one is the panel of the kit. Like, I can actually start moving stuff around here. Like, being able to laser cut, I have a laser cutter in my garage and being able to laser cut a panel whenever I need a new one is a huge blessing. But I want other people to be able to have that access to, like, to
29:03
a nearby maker spaces places where they would be able to download plans for a panel. And then be able to have them cut out. So, that would probably be a portion of the website would be being able to coordinate people. To to be able to make their own things, or this, this panel that the radio is in set in is 3D
29:25
printed. I've got my own 3D printer. I know a lot of people that's a barrier to entry. They don't have their own. I'd like to be able to connect people that want to have their own inset panel mount things like I've made. Or that they've designed their own, I want to connect them with with online resources to be able to get them printed out.
29:47
Cool. We do have a couple of questions here from the audience. One is, what if you need more room for snacks? I'm assuming there's going to be some sort of like snack expander box or something like that. Yeah, there's always you can get extra kits to put extra snacks in. You can always sacrifice extra battery power, get a smaller radio.
30:07
Right now, this design of the 3D inset panel for my radio face is just kind of basically a prototype. So, it's kind of, there's a lot of wasted space around the edges. You can see, so it still needs refinement.
30:20
I hope to post to the plan files online so that people can download and print them. It's actually this panel itself is on Thingiverse. If you Google, or if you use the search for Gee Goo Gee 90, it should pop up as one of the. One of the 3D printable items, and then I also hope to have sticker templates. I like the industrial style of stickers, so that's my kit.
30:47
Some people might have something less colorful or more colorful, more informative, maybe more minimalist. So, I hope to have vector files online available for stickers if you want to download them yourself.
31:01
Great. It's great to hear. Some more questions coming in here. What type or brand of case do you use in this kit? This is a Harbor Freight Apache case. I hope to put a, once I've done some upgrades to the kit, and I hope to have a completed bill of materials done once my presentation.
31:23
I've been prepping for the presentation here for a while, and I hope to have a completed bill of materials done, but the case itself is an Apache Harbor Freight case. They're very affordable. They're very similar to Pelican cases. They come with a foam block that you can pick apart inside for cushioning parts.
31:47
I took the foam out so that I had greater airflow through the kit, and I guess here as a DEF CON exclusive, I usually don't show off the inside of my kits, especially when they're under construction.
32:01
But if there's interest, I'd like to show off kind of what's inside the kit. Normally, I would have thumb screws on the side that I would undo, but I haven't gotten around to those yet. I'll remove the Snaxess panel, and the wires are still kind of a mess. I've got
32:20
a battery, a lithium iron phosphate battery that I just put in the kit last week. I have a USB hub that comes out of a Raspberry Pi underneath, and I need a better solution, maybe some kind of little shelf to build in here to separate everything out so there's better airflow. And then the radio here is in the back. I have an RTL-SDR software radio that goes into the Raspberry Pi.
32:44
And of course, I have the Snax off to the side and a fuse block that the 12 volts come off of. Cool. We got a question about maybe using magnets to hold down on the
33:02
panel on the keyboard, like the rare earth magnets. That's something you've looked at. Yeah, that would not be a bad idea at all. The keyboard has a weird kind of curve to the back, so I would have put like a Velcro or something maybe on there that would snap down. But magnets would be a good idea too. I just need a way to either epoxy or anchor the magnet
33:25
to the keyboard or maybe to the box and then maybe put a plate on the back of the keyboard. See, these are all great ideas that you could post to the Twerks station Discord or the forums if we ever get them up and running. Absolutely, absolutely. A question here on the chat about have you considered
33:43
using solar for power? And maybe there might be some interference to that. Oh, so that was another thing that was brought up in our Discord chat a few days ago was someone had a question about solar controllers and noises and if anyone had experience with expensive versus cheap ones.
34:03
I actually have a solar panel on the way. It's going to be here tomorrow. Someone posted a bargain online for one of them and I snatched up a nice folding one. But yeah, so I had a couple batteries in my version one of the kit so that I'd have a lot of
34:23
power. And in this version too, you saw the one lithium iron phosphate battery in the back that was about 1500 amp hours. And I labeled a switch with 1500 milliamp hours, excuse me, and then I have
34:42
the switch labeled 14 amp hours so that I have a little cushion left over. I'd love a 15,000 amp hour battery. Yeah, that would be great. So we have a question here about, you mentioned no selling Twerk Benches, but what about individual parts?
35:04
I would like to have in the bill of materials links to parts that people use, or when I built my computer a few years ago, the PC part picker website would continually scan other websites.
35:21
Would scour for prices and tell you who had the lower price and if there were any sales going on. Ideally, there would be some kind of functionality that's like very, very, very far down the road. But for parts, ideally, like I would just put my Amazon links for where I got all the parts, basically all the parts of the kit. What kind of kicked off the kit plan design was this red kill switch that I installed.
35:46
I've always loved these growing up and being able to buy them by a five pack was incredible. Like, I love being able to buy stuff like that online. These power connectors are 3D printed. Those were made by, I found them on Thingiverse.
36:07
Yeah, most of the stuff was I was able to source online, which I wouldn't have been able to do about 10 years ago. So being able to source stuff online is a great, great benefit to the ham radio hobby.
36:22
Great question from Twitch. What are the temps inside the case when everything is powered on and running? It depends. I haven't used a heavy duty cycle. I can't imagine it's very warm with just the Raspberry Pi running.
36:41
If I was broadcasting a lot with the radio, the temps might get pretty warm. I thought about putting active cooling in. I've got empty space up here above the display panel. If I wanted to put a couple of case fans up here just to move air through, I could move some of the air slots around. So this is basically the prototype version of this panel.
37:00
It's made out of MDF wood that I spray painted black. I hope to source a plastic panel from the local plastic store. They make a nice textured plastic, a black textured plastic that I think will look really sharp. But it's going to be more expensive than the MDF. I want to make sure that the layout is done before I get the final panel cut.
37:25
Yeah, great. That sounds pretty awesome. We've got a question here about when it comes to selecting components, what part do you suggest that people don't skimp out on when it comes to parts? And what parts do you think people can maybe buy the cheaper version of?
37:42
That is a very good question. And that's actually part of the reason I kicked off the Ostwerk initiative was to help answer that question for me so that I'd be able to select parts for my kits. I know a lot of people out there have bought parts and they know what works and what doesn't. This is a learning experience for me, but it's kind of an expensive one.
38:02
So before I pull the trigger on an expensive solar charge controller, which I imagine if you want low noise, like on the HF bands, you probably don't want to skimp on your charging controller. I've noticed a little bit of noise running the Pi.
38:23
I don't know if I'm going to be able to shield that if I'd be able to build a little shielded shelf, maybe around the Pi where airflow could go, but RF noise can't. So there's lots of ideas for improving the kit and they can always be improved. But I don't have any suggestions right off the bat.
38:41
But I would imagine probably your charging controller, especially if you use expensive batteries or... And that's another thing you want to consider when picking parts is make sure your charging chemistries are compatible. When I made the first version of this kit, I used lead acid batteries and then they were super heavy, but I had to upgrade to...
39:02
Well, I didn't have to upgrade, but I wanted to upgrade to lithium iron phosphate batteries, which are lighter, a lot more expensive, but they also use a different charging chemistry. I can't use the lead acid charging system that I had in the old kit in this new kit. So I had to budget for a new charging system for the kit that was compatible with the lithium iron phosphate batteries.
39:28
Great. Yeah, there's a couple of comments here on Twitch. One person talks about, you know, if you don't want to take a charge controller, taking a lot of space, maybe have a different, a torque station that's like a power module, you know, power type torque station does all that just in its own separate box.
39:46
Yeah, that was an idea, like one of the power torque stations, like I want to have a power interface kit. So people would be able to tap into different powers or different like electric vehicles or solar, wind,
40:02
water, like a kit that would be able to convert a variety of voltages down to the kit voltage. And so, yeah, that's something for people to consider whether they want to build it into their kit or whether they want to carry an external kit that would house that functionality. But the kits would hopefully be functional or be compatible not only with each other, but with other torque stations as well.
40:28
Yeah, I've also started to see a rise in popularity of the, you know, battery generators, quote unquote, where it's just basically a battery box with a bunch of power distribution that you can now buy off the shelf, which is kind of nice for like, hey, I just need power.
40:41
I need lithium power and off grid. We're going to question. Yeah, go ahead. Oh, no, I was going to say, yeah, those are great. Yeah, I have not splurged on one yet, but hopefully soon. A question here, could you talk a bit more about the antennas and or connectors used for the antennas to hook up to this kit?
41:01
Yeah, I use just the standard UHF antenna connector. I've got actually probably easier if I just took off my here. So, this is a nano V and a, I have a kind of Velcro to the kit. It's used as an antenna analyzer.
41:20
And I use this type of connector. Do I'm going to embarrass myself here? P L two fifty nine or two thirty eight or two thirty nine. I mean. But it's just this standard type of antenna connector and then I have a few I have a box around here with different adapter connectors for the antenna.
41:41
But the antenna that I like to use right now is I got from my brother a B and W AP ten a. I don't have the whip on it right now. There's a whip that extends off the top that I can raise and lower. And it also has a tunable loading coil that I can adjust for the H.F. frequencies to get a better reception or better broadcast on those frequencies.
42:08
But that just has the same type of screw the screws onto the the screws onto the kit there. The bulkhead connector. Very nice. You can always just say UHF connecting.
42:24
You're good. Yeah. Specific. I think that's an S. I think it's S.O. is socket and P.L. is plug. I think is what it is. Oh, OK. So I think that's all we have for questions right now in the chat. Is there anything else you guys want to show or talk about. No.
42:44
Just curious if anyone had thought of any like if this is this has inspired anyone to make their own kit or if anyone has any ideas. Actually, here's an idea. So for in-person the ham radio village. What if we could maybe start a fundraiser to make three or four torque stations for a get on the air station.
43:05
And then at the end to give them out to school groups. So we'd have like a fundraiser kind of thing to make the stations and then and then after they're used for people to get on the air, they can just be donated out. Like, would that be something people are interested in?
43:23
Yes, I'm not to take the pulse on, you know, just also completely off the cuff. Pop in my head and you could have a potentially even prior to DEFCON. OK, well, build your best, you know, torque station and come during the competition. Yeah, yeah, that's that could be part of the torque kathlon maybe if we if that if that ever takes off.
43:44
I mean, it's not DEFCON if there's no soldering irons involved. Maybe a build one within like an hour competition or something, maybe. Cool. Well, thank you for putting this presentation together and hanging out and chatting with us.
44:02
I thought this is a. Oh, yeah. And you even get a comment in the chat. Someone says it's very inspiring. So that's great to hear. Thank you for coming. I thank you all for joining me and thank you to the staff for putting this on.