Yesterday, a bunch of us brought some ham radio projects to the Ann Arbor Mini Maker Faire. The organizers did a great job this year. There were more people and more “makers” than last year, and I think that I speak for all of us who were there that a good time was had by all.
I brought my usual CW instruments and had kids send their names in Morse code. Instead of the touch paddle that I’ve had in years past, this year I showed off my Arduino Nano-powered keyer. A lot of the attendees knew what an Arduino was and thought that was pretty cool.
Dave, N8SBE, brought his K3 setup, and as usual, wowed a lot of the crowd. Joe, AC8ES, brought his Raspberry Pi WSPR transmitter. This project toggles a digital output at 10 MHz or so, and when connected through a low-pass filter to a dipole actually radiates a 30m signal that gets picked up and recorded by stations around the world.
Ed, KD8OQG, brought his Nooelec software-defined radio (SDR) dongle and demonstrated SDR. He even had one in a fancy aluminum enclosure. Prem didn’t bring anything to show, but he was a lot of help tearing down.
One of the coolest moments for me was when an older woman came up to me and told me that as a little girl she taught herself Morse Code, but couldn’t get any of her friends interested. You could tell that she was really disappointed that she never was able to actually converse with anyone in Morse Code. I encouraged her to try out my keys, but she demurred, saying that she forgotten the code by now.
I pressed one of my cards into her hand and told her that there are still lots of amateur radio operators that still use Morse Code and that I would be happy to help her get her license. I rather doubt that she will take me up on my offer, but I hope that she will. I think she’d make a great CW operator.
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