Abstract
Amateur radio operators were the original hackers before computers came around and have a long history of sharing new ideas and communication. The Open Radio miniconf has been a popular stable of the Linux.conf.au program for a number of years and this year we are proud to present a schedule of talks and activities that has us definitely 'looking up' as well as some introspection.
We have some talks about open source projects such as Hamlib, HPSDR and SatNOGS. If you are interested in radio we also have a session to explain how easy it is to get your license and then gain a huge amount of additional spectrum to play with. We are finishing off the day with a talk by Rex Moncur (VK7MO) on his interest bouncing radio transmissions off the moon.
In the afternoon we will also have a discussion panel with audience participation on the future of amateur radio and it's future with open source. We would love to hear from amateurs who are coming to the conference but also anyone interested in radio technologies to come along and join in. Ad hoc lightning talks are welcome!
Presented by
Ben Short
Ben is a IT Systems Administrator working within the Tasmanian Government and much of his spare time is taken up with the hobbies of amateur radio and electronics. With great changes occurring to the hobby with the commodotisation of electronics modules and compute such as Arduino and Raspberry Pis, Ben has a keen interest in how the hobbies and technology meet, and the importantance of Open Source Software in making this happen. Ben is the President of the Radio and Electronics Association of Southern Tasmania, representing the amateur radio and electronics enthusiasts in southern Tasmania.
Scott Bragg
Scott spent his formative years running Linux and looking very hard for a 'forced' daemon that should be checked whenever starting up after an unclean shutdown of hard drives. It wasn't until 2000 that he reluctantly agreed forced did not exist and has been facepalming that ever since although the exploration into the kernel and Linux systems has led to a successful career as a sysadmin and developer.
Scott runs the local Tasmanian Linux Users Group meetups in Hobart and likes to promote libre and open source products and projects wherever he can as it's usually the right tool for the job. He is currently working as a developer for automated aquaculture systems, which are usually deployed in harsh marine environments.