[CQ] Pacificon 2011

[Bruce Perens]

Pacificon is soliciting for speakers for their October conference. See 
http://pacificon.org/
The papers chair is John Ronan jtronan at aol.com

I didn't submit a talk on our 900 MHz network, as I don't have any 
results yet. As I write this, I am rebuilding OpenWRT from source for my 
routers.

I will be doing three talks:

*Codec2 - The next-generation Digital Voice Codec for Amateur Radio*

The one problem with D-STAR is its AMBE+ voice codec - it's algorithm is 
a black-box, protected by patents and trade-secret law. Amateurs aren't 
/allowed/ to duplicate it in software.

A Group of hams set out to fix that by creating a new digital voice 
codec as Open Source software that Amateurs could copy and modify as 
they wish. That codec works today. On the way, the Amateurs explored 
voice compression algorithms, forward error correction, and digital 
signal processing.

*HT of the Future - Building Leading-Edge HTs with Smartphone-like 
Processing Power*

Why are Smartphones so smart, and HTs so dumb? New microprocessors 
provide high processing power and low battery drain at excellent prices, 
opening a broad horizon for mobile software-defined radio. Smartphones 
have shown the power of mobile applications. What will we be able to do 
when we combine those things into the HT of the future?//

*The Open Hardware Revolution - new design tools, manufacturing within 
the reach of individuals.
*
Open Hardware is similar to Open Source software, in that all plans are 
made available under a liberal license for anyone to duplicate. It is a 
rapidly expanding field, with many devices available. Arduino is perhaps 
the most popular Open Hardware device. It is a simple, inexpensive yet 
powerful embedded CPU with a standardized means to plug in extender 
boards of all kinds. It comes with an Open Source development platform 
supporting several languages. But perhaps most interesting is the new 
generation of tools designed by individuals and then manufactured for 
the masses, like the /Bus Pirate,/ a dirt-cheap universal digital 
prototyping device, and the /DSO Quad,/ a pocket-sized digital 
oscilloscope that can be custom-programmed by the Amateur. There's even 
a new wave of "3-D printers" for individuals, that can produce solid 
objects from software models.
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