Regurgitated Intelligence [034]

Greetings from the shack...

HERE

I’m in the shack. It’s a lovely day. A good day to head out on the motorbike so I’ll keep this brief. ;-)

And no that’s not me above. I asked Midjourney to draw a picture of an A.I. (Or R.I. Regurgitated Intelligence) operating amateur radio while writing a poem.

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THERE

At first I asked the A.I Poe made by Quora to write me a poem about amateur radio and it came back with this…

Amateur Radio, a hobby so grand,

A world of communication at your command.

With just a transceiver and mic to hand,

Connect with others from sea to land.

A world without wires, a world without walls,

Amateur Radio, answers the calls.

From stormy seas to mountaintop halls,

It brings people together, as one and all.

A hobby with purpose, a hobby with pride,

It serves the community, never hides.

In times of need, it's by your side,

A lifeline to safety, when others have died.

So raise your antenna, and tune in the bands,

Discover the magic, with a mic in you hand.

A world of friendship, waiting for you,

A world that's waiting, for the call of CQ.

I then asked the ChatGPT bot to do the same. This was it’s take...

Amateur radio, a hobby of pride, A way to connect, across the wide, An endless sea of voices heard, A passion that can never be deterred.

From far and near, signals come alive, With stories shared, to friends we arrive, Each conversation, a journey new, A bond that's formed, pure and true.

It's more than just a simple call, It's a way to help, when others fall, In times of need, the airwaves light, Amateur radio, shines so bright.

It brings us closer, in every way, To people, places, far away, It brings the world, within our reach, With endless opportunities to teach.

So let us raise our antennas high, And send our signals to the sky, For amateur radio, will always be, A source of joy, and unity.

There are some interesting similarities between them but I think Poe pips it for me.

If you fancy having a play with Poe it’s iOS only at the moment. It’s pretty data-grabby and will ask for your phone number. I used this phone number generator to bypass that.

I then wondered what would happen if I asked the AI Midjourney to draw itself operating an amateur radio and writing a poem and this is what it came up with.

Notice that Midjourney is ambidextrous and able to write a poem and fill in a logbook simultaneously. That is one smart cookie. I’d better get myself a headset mic so I can do the same.

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GEAR

If I was to get a headset mic I would go for this… NTH100-M. Mainly as I already have the headphones and would just need to plug the mic in.

I’d then need some kind of adapter, box or custom cable that would take the lead.

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You may have noticed that I have not reviewed any radio gear recently. That is because I’m skint. I spent all my money on a new motorbike. Although as some use a mast to get height, I have ridden motorbikes to more than a few hills in order to chat on a radio. So it’s loosely ham related gear.

If I hadn’t bought the bike I might have stumped for the FT-710 from Yaesu. In my opinion (and others) it’s more featured than the iCom 7300. But now I’m back to saving i’m hoping iCom bring out a 4M enabled shack-in-a-box to replace the 7100.

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ONAIR

There are good days and bad days when it comes to tuning the 80m sky loop and i’ll be honest I’m lacking the umpf to drop the mast and sort it out. I have a feeling that the patch lead might be too short and I’m getting some extra reflected power.

As a result i’d not done any HF for an ages and when I should have been doing something else I finally decided to use the LDG tuner sat on my desk instead. Obviously receiving is not a problem and I often find a wall of sound on 40m. On this occasion it was the weekend and it was rammed with contesters.

Never the less I put out a shout on a slither of free space and immediately got a reply from Howard G3XVX. It was as if we were the only two on the band not collecting numbers. As a result we had a lovely QSO, and with only 60 miles between us we were able to pop up above the noise.

I’m not sure if you do what I do, but I tend to pop onto QRZ to see what other information is available for the person I’m chatting with. But with a sparsely populated page I had to paint my own picture of Howard. He had a polite well spoken young sounding voice and I had him as casual radio operator in his 40’s or 50’s.

I love being proved wrong. Howard was one of those people who reminded how little you can and should assume from the sound of a voice. He got licensed at 15 years old a few years before I was born and after not having the money to buy a radio built his own top band radio. He told me he used the 6BW6 and fell in love with top band. After a whopping break of 43 years he is back with a vengeance and now runs a 7300 into a doublet. In fact he swears by his doublet. Just as I have a lot of respect for my ZS6BKW.

As some big powered stations slipped into the frequencies either side of us it was QRM that ended the QSO but we managed to sign off and get a couple of seven threes in.

At least I know the neglected sky loop is still working.

And on 80m I found myself chatting with G0HDH from the Isle of White. If you remember I had little chance to chat when I was cycling there recently but did spot a couple of houses with antenna. When I checked his QTH on the island I realised that i’d cycled past his house and had the feint recollection of spotting a house with antennas on. When I cross referenced the Strava map from my ride I can clearly see that not only was it his house that I had spotted. I had riden around to get a better look before heading on.

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ELSEWHERE

• Taiwan ham radio amateurs civil defense

• Not heard the word Sami-ily before :-) A small article from the Indian press.

• Spy radio stations that still broadcast today.

• Seventeen off grid communication options

• This is my other more regular email newsletter.

• UK rallies and events news. Plus Foxton is on 16th April 2023

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FINALS

Thanks for reading and I hope subscribing.

A short one as I really am about to head out on the Triumph. Let me know if you happen to have an antenna farm as I’m keen to grab some photos for a series I am doing. Obviously I’m more likely to get out to radio stations in the UK but you never know.

If you have a personal radio project or story you would like to share in this email, reply to this post and let me know.

At time of writing there are 187 subscribers to 73 from G5DOC. So please share this wherever you think it might resonate and you never know we might get to 200.

All these posts are free for all but supporting subscribers will assist me in purchasing new kit and spur me on to write more regularly. You can also tip me via PayPal and I will be sure to give you a shout out for your QRZ page, project or whatever you choose to share.

Don’t forget that you can like or comment. You might even find it fun.

You are some of the more curious people in radio ;-) And I thank you.

Over

73 de Christian G5DOC

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via M1NER

if the Aztecs had radio