 So, hey everybody, I'm Ryan Sear. I'm also known as two Echo zero Romeo Yankee Sierra and also November zero Romeo Yankee Sierra that was This is actually a war be this this call sign was awarded to me just today It's an American call sign, but strangely enough. I actually took the test in Cambridge So and you can do that. You're entitled. You don't have to be American Despite my I am American, but I've lived here since 2008 and so it's kind of it's fun and Actually, I'll give you a little bit about history kind of like why did I actually get interested in this now? There is a talk on Vimeo with the same Same title this of amateur radio original nerd hobby Jim Bryce's talk is much more technical in nature. It's much more of a technical introduction to amateur radio Now the content of my my presentation is a little bit more of the cultural Nerdology and I actually make kind of a loose argument as to establishing with the advent of Electricity and using electricity for communications. That was really the genesis of where nerddom started So it's a little bit more of a cultural discussion. There will be other talks that I'll talk about Amateur radio overall and so if you want to know about packet radio or whatnot You can come see me and we can talk individually This is more of kind of a cultural talk and kind of like what does it mean? What is it? What exactly this is but you know interesting a lot interestingly enough Jim Bryce? He had the Vimeo talk. I also have this Kind of this mentor and there's this terminology in ham radio of an older guy now. I'm burping out sorry guys The idea of a mentor somebody who kind of guides you through the process of understanding it That's that seemed to be an Elmer and the term Elmer is not used very much in the UK but In one of the sets of classes to learn amateur radio Dr. Blaney Roger. He was really fantastic and really had a lot of spirit He was a new ham and he didn't necessarily have kind of some Some of the cultural hang-ups that I think some of the old guard has he really brought in some enthusiasm Into that into the environment and then of course various people contributed Into giving me a little bit more info on kind of the history of the nerddom of Hamming around so I mean, what is it nerd? Anybody self-identify as a nerd? Yeah, sweet. That's great guys. You're in good company I mean the really really the basis of this and this is from I think either wikipedia witch Wiktionary there's a site all I saw it all of my sources in the comments So if you ever want to copy this for yourself, you'll have it for information that way But the idea is that we're either highly technical or that we're kind of living a life of fantasy and this life of fantasy You might think of it as sci-fi you might just think of it as head in the clouds, but I also think of it as Creating things imagining things of what could be not necessarily what things are and so sometimes as nerds are kind of Maybe we're social outcasts or I'm getting frustrated and we're going I hate the world the world should be a better place I wish that the world could change in this direction And that's what that's the beauty of nerddom because we actually help Revolutionize we help change the world and we make the world a better place And it's very strange to see this kind of romanticism of of nerds in the media you see Facebook You see that you say your Facebook me Facebook movie. You're seeing Silicon Valley Halton catch fire really kind of this strange romanticism in the media of nerds and they've realized that yeah We we do kind of make the world better. It's it's it's an interesting thing. So That's the idea of nerd But in the context of this once a amateur radio, so I would show radio really this is a lot of words But I'll give you give you the key thing it is people that are interested in the concept of radio So that be be playing with propagation that be that be possibly using radio to be able to control things to be able to Communicate there's lots of different elements of this, but it's just kind of people that are fascinated by this This is not low-power FM. So this is not broadcast This is actually just trying to be trying to have a conversation with people and interestingly enough if you ever feel like you're a bit anti social One of the great things, you know, we're inherently social creatures, but we still kind of like to have that comfortable distance Amateur radio is great because we can turn on the radio We can call out cq and see if someone's out there they'll respond They'll talk with us and then the beauty of it is that if you're done, you know being social You just turn the radio off and that's beautiful because for for somebody who has I mean I'm outgoing guy and I talk a lot, but There are times when it's nice to just say I just want a little bit of socializing and then I'm done But the really really the key thing with amateur radio is that you have to go through a licensing process In order to kind of vet and prove yourself and the the early licenses They're very reasonable people People oftentimes get a license here in the UK within a weekend in the States It's actually self-study most of the time so oftentimes people will cram cram cram Sometimes the night before and actually get get a license pretty immediately Licenses are actually granted through volunteer coordinators volunteer examinators and Invigilators here in this country and they make sure that everybody you know Has the credibility to hold the license, which is fun All right So what about CB radio everybody goes amateur radio? That's like CB. That's a breaker breaker 123, right? Not exactly. This is probably So any of you Canadian in the audience now Alright, so I sound really enthusiastic. So most times people confuse me for being a Canadian Many times if a Canadian is tired or maybe just a little bit further just depressed when they speak They're oftentimes confused for being American and so you go, ah, hey, man What's life like as an American living here and they will get very offended. They will say I am not American I'm Canadian and it's very offensive But to to to an American if you say hey, man, you know, you seem pretty positive. Are you Canadian? You say, no, I'm not I'm not I'm not Canadian. I'm American. That's okay. That's a nice compliment that you gave me It's kind of similar to CB radio a lot at a lot of hands. They've worked so hard to study the study their tests They study the information. They're really focused on, you know signal propagation and wavelengths and and Wanks of antennas and they go ah Ah, how dare you how dare you confuse me with CB radio and and really I mean back in the day before cell phones CB radio was kind of this wonderful free world, but it is unlicensed at this point and a Lot of people this is this is an editorial comment But it really attracts the dregs of society if you really if you're really into Trucking and prostitution and drugs at services stops outside the motorway go for it go to town go to CB radio You're gonna love it. We won't even have to you won't even need a license But talking to CB it drives me to drink so you guys can listen a little bit more Yeah So so all right, so sorry Sorry, sorry snowman. Sorry. Sorry, mr. Bandit the era of 1970s breaker-breaker one two three How many pounds am I hitting you with it's kind of gone so you have to you have to put that in the perspective So all right, so and then and then somebody else said hey, wait, wait, we're Ancient greats the original nerds I mean here's Pythagoras with his six pack kind of pontificating about triangles and stuff and He and I would say no no no no because these guys were socially valued They said we like the idea of you dreaming and philosophizing and exploring this unknown world And so we're gonna give you the respect that you deserve So were they nerds now and besides glasses and pocket protectors and you know There wasn't invented until the 50s So yeah, so a little bit more of a contact so Marconi. I like to think of Marconi so Marconi He's Italian he he emigrated throughout throughout Europe And I like to imagine that he was growing up and maybe they said hey Marconi That sounds a lot like macaroni And it drove him to say oh there must be a better world somewhere And so he he saw the research of Hertz and he was like wow, this is great Ah, what I should do is maybe I can use this electricity and be able to communicate using a spark gap Transmitter was a spark gap transmitter. It really is it's this thing that just creates a lot of static There's a buzz buzz buzz. It's like turning on your vacuum cleaner And picking it up on your radio somewhere else. It was a spark gap transmitter So it actually didn't really have a tunable dial. It didn't have any kind of frequency. It just threw some noise out there And if you used Morse code you use the telegraph then you could actually start to communicate wirelessly so I I actually say that Guillermo Marconi was the I would say the grandfather of Nardum and you know Of course, we couldn't go back in time to see whether he was picked on for his macaroni sounding name But maybe maybe that was that was that was enough inspiration enough push to go into that That so one more thing is he was a bandwidth pig I mean he just he used all the bandwidth possible But I guess there was nobody else to complain about that so yeah, but interestingly enough These guys all over the world were kind of like wow. This is interesting. Let's start playing with this And so they started building their own a building their own radio equipment building on their own stations and by the time I mean, it's not that long We you know the first cross-atlantic communication going going into finally having amateur radio stations an actual book saying here all these people participating on on on the bands and So I would say between 1910 1930 that was really the genesis of really the enthusiasm of the hobby Where people got into so there's the spark gap Everybody knows who Hedy Lamar is. No, she's a she's a beautiful actress. I She was very prolific, but she actually contributed to helping win the war and Her co-invention is this this frequency hopping is spread spectrum Concepts which really is the beginning of what actually enabled us to be able to use mobile phones Because as we use mobile phones were kind of we're bouncing between a strong tower that we're connecting to and a weak one And so if we move somewhere else, we you know We moved to that spectrum that that other tower is going to and then we're able to to work quite well So Hedy Lamar, I would say the most beautiful original nerd People might dispute that but I'll have to see pictures to really see whether that's true But yeah, I mean she was she was amazing and she started exploring this idea and so during that time And you can see kind of this evolution where we had spark gap technology where spark gap was was just throwing a bunch of White noise out into the out into the atmosphere and picking it up somewhere and then we're kind of going into a little bit more of Better oscillation so very low frequency then low frequency and then high frequency and we're we're actually starting to experiments a little bit With very high frequency communication. So yeah, it was cool stuff So after after the war nerd the word nerd actually came about so it came from a came for me it came from a dr. Seuss book and The dr. Seuss book it was just basically this just kind of Sussian Sussian gibberish, but somebody actually gelled on that nerd word and they went ah, okay I'm going to use that in lieu in substitution of the of the word for square and oftentimes Sometimes square was cool, but square became square and so and maybe it's hip to be square now So I don't know where square is but nerds pretty obvious what it is. But the idea is is nerds nerds started Leveraging this kind of communication technology and we were able to get a lot of post-war equipment to be able to just Just make stuff because they weren't you know World War two wasn't going to come back in theory So there was all this great stuff to be able to just hack on and see how it works and how to make it work So really really cool it and and this this world actually led to the very Very impressive modern inventions. I'll I'll I'll give you some of my favorite nerds that That way dealt with so Steve Wozniak very prolific ham He actually got his is ham license when he was in the sixth grade So that was probably like 11 years old There are I mean there are stories about people getting their ham licenses at four or five That's really really super aggressive, but you know hey if you've got you've got nerd blood churning through your veins It's it's a great outlet Everybody knows Nolan Bush now. Yeah, no in the he was the co-founder of Atari And so you know the Atari Atari system He actually worked with Steve Jobs who Steve Wozniak actually built some stuff for for Nolan So it's there's a little bit of nerd incest in there Robert Moog the musician or the the gentleman who made the MOOG synthesizer You could you would imagine that the oscillations that you're creating through radio frequency would be very similar to the Oscillations the tones that you're creating on us on a synthesizer. So MOOG was really really I would imagine that this was very Complementary and got him to thinking all right. How do I make this electric piano makes some amazing sounds? Bruce parents any any Debian hackers out there? Yeah. Yeah, so Bruce parents was huge I mean, he's he's very significant in terms of the open source community in addition to that Bruce parents I Don't know if he really hates Morse code or if he just feels it's obsolete But he helped actually take away the requirement to learn Morse code in the late 90s And now we can just focus on digital modes or focus on the actual purity of radio Rather than half to learn Morse code in order to be qualified to use this A couple more Jack Kilby this guy invented the the integrated circuit So in Jack Kilby was very significant. He worked with Robert Noyes, and and it was it was quite significant a couple of British Signifiers Maurice Wilkes Maurice Wilkes actually he is the guy. So how many software folks over here? Couple program. Okay, so he is the guy that actually invented the concept of microcode the concept of subroutines the concept of Symbolic labels and macros I mean this guy just did some amazing stuff for For computer science to understand, you know, look what is possible is really really what's here And then Helen Sherman. She was the first Britain space although the British government really didn't like her because she went to the Russian space station instead of the the The international space station and then a couple of celebrities they had some internet in them And so they wanted to kind of release that interestingly enough Marlon Brando. He was almost Bedraggled by his his celebrity and so he would actually call himself Martin sometimes over the air just because and they actually Spelled Brando B. R. A. N. D. A. U. X Because he was like, oh gosh You know, I want people to know me for me. I don't want people to just be seeking me out as a as a thing I'm gonna take another drink. I hope you don't mind Yeah, okay And if you sell a Any any Bollywood fans. It's like the biggest Bollywood actor. I'm a top back-chan. He's also a big ham too So yeah, little little little more little more context as far as like cuz you know There's a whole variety a whole spectrum of nerddom and I like to think of you know something for everyone and no It's not related that the different hamming for different different nerding. It's not a relate It's not a reference to forward error correction not Robert hamming. So But the idea is that really the prime prime feeling is that we want to create some international goodwill We want to reach out and actually talk to people and so the first time that I I actually rocked up on Wimbledon Common and I set up my antenna and I set up set up the battery and everything and I could hear people talking and conversing and then You know, I heard somebody call out and I responded. I was like, hey, hey, you know, this is me and That was a thrill that was a thrill to hear somebody that I don't know. I have no idea I don't know what their background and I'm learning about them. You know, what is what is it that you're about your culture? How did I mean, what is the equipment that you used to actually reach me? You're you're thousands of miles away and it's quite fun. So it's it's it's a little bit more of like a cleaner social network because People know that they're being exposed and they're using their call signs. So they're being honest with who they are and And it's just an exploration. It's a social exploration But as far as the other things de expeditions That's the idea that you might go on a boat and the boat wants to be able to make Make contacts with the different countries as you're in the middle of international waters People will actually welcome you onto these yachts and say, oh, you're a ham. You're you're you're an amateur radio person You can be our comms person and you can get free free travel to lots of exotic locations just by having this credibility of having a call sign and saying hey I'm willing to come along There's all sorts of cool stuff software to find radio. I think that that's super super awesome. There's actually going to be a talk On software to find radio and what that really is is that's that we've gotten we've had chips communication chips That have become so fast that it can sample pretty much all of the spectrum that we can listen to and then we can process All of that spectrum into you know single channels or whatnot And so there's some some really really cool tools that are coming about because software to find radio has replaced a lot of the Transistors and a lot of the discrete logic that that's required of it and then yeah There's all sorts of crazy stuff If you like satellites if you want to if you want to bounce signals off of the moon I mean come on if you're doing DND and you're you're stuck between you know the person who's who's supposed to roll the die is Is out out to have an early break, you know, we'd be cool to say hey, you know I've communicated using you know bounce the signals off the moon That's nerd credibility right there. So there's fun. There's lots of fun stuff. So there's there's there's something for everybody and You know really what's what's the modern world? I mean, why are we doing this and and interestingly enough work? We're kind of in this modern era modern world of tinkering kind of exploring things to to really build things again. I think that probably Maybe nineteen ninety five to maybe two thousand five It was kind of a dark time to be a tinkerer because we didn't really didn't have these platforms these tools And now this is really kind of the commonality. There's beautiful stuff Art and we know raspberry pi all these networks all these cool stuff I mean people are hacking on quadcopters and throwing on all sorts of augmentation to create their own drones and whatnot And it's it's cool We are living in this new world and really that this tinkering mindset is the same thing as What the old guys know years and years and years ago? We're doing with the radios. It's just that we have so many more things to play with so this is very much a Augmentation of the existing call of the of the culture that's that's here today One thing that I have to emphasize as well. So communication should be free We don't have to pay for an internet connection in order to communicate and have international goodwill We don't have to do that Well, you know the the airwaves are ours and if we don't use the airwaves ourselves Then we're going to lose out, you know the government will say okay, you know these amateurs They're not playing with the spectrum. This is you know We allotted all of the spectrum for them, but we're not going to we don't see them using it We don't see them exercising their license and they will they will take it away They will give it to the highest bidder. They will give it to Vodafone. They will give it to to Telefonica O2 and We will have to cry in our nerdy beers somewhere else will cry You know, oh, it'll be terrible all the salt from the tears burning up the circuits on the Raspberry Pi's under us It's just horrible horrible. We don't want to go there, but I think that they were actually encountering a resurgence there aren't there aren't really recent numbers in terms of people getting their licenses in the UK but in the US it's actually gone up again, and I think that that's good We're gonna explore stuff. We're gonna have fun with that, right? all right So if you're curious if you if you want to if you want to a little know a little bit more we have an amateur Radio village which is nearby. We were gonna have a giant mass, but the giant mass kind of fell apart the last Well, at least it wasn't on the motorway, but it fell apart and so we we don't have a giant mass But it'll be pretty obvious because we'll have a fair amount of antennas but yeah, come on over we'll chat and we actually have a Festival station called GB2 EMF and if you want to listen in or or suggest, you know Hey, you know ask this question ask that or even play around with the dials a little bit Obviously we're happy to share with the experience. So come on over We'd love to share we'd love to say hey, this is the cool stuff now Okay, so if you're one of the if you were one of the types of nerds that is You're like, oh, I am too shy I'm too shy to actually go up and ask about amateur radio. I'll watch them But I don't want to I don't want to touch anything because I might get yelled at instead of instead of that You can actually explore this from your from your laptop. Just go to web s dr. Lurg and I have two favorites. There's one in University of Twente in The Netherlands the other is is hack green Which is in the north of the UK and I like clicking on that because it is basically a software to find radio But it has a web interface You can actually see the the spectrums and very interestingly enough you can actually you know You can see the waveforms and you can go. Oh, okay That's voice and you see the on-off waveforms and you go Oh, that's going to be Morse code and you can actually go in and click and you can you can see the beautiful waterfall images And it's it's really quite exciting because you know if you're listening to that you'll listen You'll hear a call sign you'll go like hmm I wonder if that if that person actually has a website, you know giving a little more background And so if you heard me talking and I was using 2x 2e0 RYS you could look up on the internet just on Google 2e0 RYS you'll see my little bio and you'll see a little bit a little bit of information about me So you might be hearing my voice But you also know a little bit more about who I am behind the scenes and oftentimes other hams They'll have their computers nearby. So I'll call up and I'll say hey hello hello And talk to them and they'll go hey, that's a beautiful cat that you have or oh, hey This is this is really fun and I use the cat image because that was that was on my QRZ profile, so yeah, is anybody um I can we have a little bit of time Does it does everybody want to hear about ham stereotypes? There's always nerd stereotypes. All right, all right, all right Okay, okay, I'll get that and I'll go back to that to questions I I kind of I kind of love just kind of the humor of stereotypes Like I work within the IT industry and there's a stereotype that most DBAs are assholes So let's anybody DBA here. No, I make fun of DBAs on stage. It's really fun So, uh, yeah, the DBAs usually just raise their hand really slowly So, okay, yeah, so nerd hamlet bonus time Oh, and the reason why they call it ham is because they were professional radio operators That were insulted that there were enthusiasts of the of these of radio So they were like oh these guys are just Ham radio guys and the ham radio guys they were like I mean maybe they were insulted for a little while But then they re-appropriated the term so you could think of it as nerd pride or ham pride saying I am a ham How dare you? So, okay, all right, so so the the cultural stereotypes here So 200 Russian watts so 200 Russian watts is is really really gets back to this this this idea of when you have a license You have a limitation of how much power that you can pump into the atmosphere and the Russian limitation was 200 watts But interestingly enough after you know various wars and and police actions and whatnot within Russia They had a lot of amplifier equipment and Russia's a huge country So they do want to pump out a lot of power in order to communicate with people all over the world So most of the ham radio are mostly amateur radio regulators They were also hams and so they would have you know, they would show their their their They would show their amplifiers and they would say 200 watts, but really it was probably 10 times that so 2000 watts and yeah, you know if you're if you're lonely in Siberia, and you're pumping out 2000 watts You'll be able to communicate and talk with people so that's cool Yeah, ah anybody. Hey, we've had one at least one Italian here any other Italians. Yeah now just all right So we've got one Italian here There is a stereotype amongst at least European amongst European operators that Italians also do not Respect the wattage limitation So when you're and it's very interesting It's more more, you know mega mega radio mega radio It's just it's and very interestingly enough you'll you'll you'll actually see that brightness of signal on the str So if you're going on the web str And you see you know like normal kind of purpley Images and then you see something that's like white hot and you click on that It's going to be an Italian accent speaking. It's just it's just to be given in addition to that There's these competitions these radio sport competitions where people are trying to make as many connections as possible and Oftentimes the Italians they won't follow the rules and they'll just do whatever they want Interestingly, and I'm not trying to pick on the pick on the Latins here, but Cubans also They they have a signal, but it's all oftentimes over modulated So what it is is instead of having this amount of bandwidth? You're basically just splattering across lots and lots of frequencies and and people on the US East Coast they They'll look at their spectrum, and I'll go oh, it's Cubans again. So it's kind of a crazy thing Yeah, the Japanese very courteous very very courteous kind. They're like oh, yes. Hello. That's interestingly enough They're the most licensed they have They have 1.3 million licensees, which is a which is a lot and and that's actually kind of symbolic of the fact that the majority of Radios high-quality radios are Japanese You know we're starting to see some Chinese kind of stuff popping up my radio is a super cheap 32 quid handheld radio that's Chinese, but Japanese are still very enthusiastic Yeah, so I talked about kind of the grumpy guys You know these guys had to go through Morse code not because they like it But because they had to do it in order to get the license so they're they're kind of there's there's kind of some technical ham but hurt about Hey, hey, you know what? You don't know Morse code You don't know dick and and did and didn't are are the two You know the the short and long tones and Morse code so they're just trying I mean Everybody likes a little fiefdom and so if somebody's coming in and changing the rules of the game You know, how dare you remix my Elvis song or something like that. It's just it's just people just not adapting with change Yeah, oldsters old people. Holy crap. There's this there's this whole band called 80 meters It's it's about 3,500 at 4,000 kilohertz and usually just old guys just talking about yeah I was in the garden and the and the fence fell down and So so these old guys are just you know, they're just getting too yeah, sorry, so some people joke Yeah, I was transmitting on the back pain network Were you talking about your your visit with the with the GP? Yeah, oh, yeah, yeah, so so my boss I actually came out of the closet as an amateur radio enthusiast to my boss and my boss said he's German So I could maybe simulate his voice, but he said the first he first they said I'm into ham radio He says he goes no, and I'm like oh shit. Did I offend him? You know what amateur radio and he said, oh, no, actually I I am a world radio sport champion I was like wow, well sweet Maybe you've made a contact with my uncle who does that as well Um, interestingly enough these guys are very passionate about racking up the points based upon You know how how much of an exotic locale that they've made a connection with and how many connections that they make in 48 hours These guys don't sleep during the contesting but to the other hams that are just wanting to talk about back pain and just kind of Chill out and say hey, you know, what color? Do you have any dogs or other pets? You know these guys these guys are all offended because they're like Oh the contesters they're just trying to make as many contacts as possible And they're not even they're not even socializing So there's there's a little bit of There's a little bit of umbrage between different cultures But really they're they're kind of the jocks of the band because they're really competing against you know Oh, I got to make these all these points and whatnot and and Strangely enough I used to work for a company who where the ceo was a world radio sport champion. So, uh, I I don't know he's kind of jockish Yeah, and then finally, ah, this is actually really positive Positive stereotype that women operators are typically very very good and I don't know if it's just because it's so male dominated and like all eyes are on the girls but All of the contacts all of the qsl that I have heard Very articulate there and maybe it's because the Maybe the tone is a little bit higher. So it's so super super clear very very nice So it's actually a very positive stereotype to have women hams and so Hey, you know come on in the water is fine if you want to want to explore that. Um Yeah, I'm mindful of time, but I think that we have a little bit of time for questions. So Does anybody have any questions is that uh He'll he'll come around with the with the microphone if you ask me too many technical questions, you know I'm under the influence. So watch out It's a great talk Where are the radios or where are the radios like where's the village? Yeah, um I think it is that a way But I got here about uh 40 minutes ago. So I actually haven't had the chance to go to Um, the amateur radio village, but if you if you follow me around, uh, you you'll see me eventually get there I'll I'll serve for antennas. Yeah So any uh any other questions dumb comments really dumb jokes No All right. Hey, hey, do you have dumb jokes? He's egging you on. So if you have really dumb jokes to say you should No, okay. All right fair enough Well, uh Hey everybody, thanks for grinding through it. Uh, we'll get through it Some other time and uh, if you want to more know more about the uh, the technical aspect Or want to know any of the aspects come see me later later on I will I I am wearing this Intentionally so you can find the guy with the orange jacket and uh, I'm happy to be the ambassador to help you out So yeah, all right. Thanks everybody