| HN Mirror

ham radio and makers share a common problem where its too big of a hobby to come up with a simple definition. Almost by definition if you think you know the limit of the hobby, its only because you haven't done enough research, in both fields.

Something I've noticed about maker movement is to maintain the cultural pool cohesion or whatever they don't socialize with existing clubs, teams, groups in other hobbies, leading to, at best, reinventing the wheel, at worst, safety situations. Starting with zero person-years in a makerspace is probably unwise if the local ham radio club meets across the street on a different day and has person-millennias of combined RF experience. Not to mention online groups, podcasts like the soldersmoke guys...

Its hard to come up with something strictly ham radio that isn't more widely applicable to electronics in general. But possible...

Generally the hams are extremely talented at metalworking and trad carpentry for cabinets and RF component structures. I'm sure that could be 3-d printed and laser cut plywood and who knows what else. Imagine printing out a new custom plastic case for a field radio. Could you print out a power distribution panel, its just an array of rectangular holes, perhaps designed specifically for powerpoles to snap into. Could you print out low/medium power coil winding forms? For high power use you could remove the PLA if the copper wire is thick enough to self support. I've been fooling around with printed temporary antenna components. Fooling around with, as in "breaking" but eventually I'll print something that works. I (very briefly) talked to a guy who sewed a vest thing for his goat and his goat carries radio gear to the top of a mountain where he operates just for fun. I'm sure thinking outside the box someone could laser cut a wood backpack antenna support for backpack mobile people. Microwave waveguide work has been traditional metalworking and brazing, but maybe 3-d printing fixtures and things? There's some waveguide stuff on thingiverse but I'd be happy starting out with just WR-42 standard flange dust caps to snap on the unused end. (WR-42 size waveguide is for 24 GHz ham band, others are also useful). Alignment jigs and things? 3d Printed mounting brackets to attach standard microwave horn antennas to tripods? Basically anywhere you'd see a ham using 2x4 wood cutoffs and duct tape, a printer and lasercutter could do better.

Most of the above is "in my infinite spare time I plan to..." who knows how many ideas you'd get from a large club.

The ham radio construction / homebrew group is "probably" larger than the group of makers specifically into electronics. The hobby is big enough that it should be easy to find an existing spot to extend.