Raspberry Pi Ham Radio Kits

UK Licenced Amateur Radio Operator Jenny List G7CKF, has made available an RF Breakout kit and a Pi-HF direct conversion radio kit for the Raspberry Pi 

The breakout kit provides a breakout board to use the Raspberry Pi clock generator as an RF source or simple amateur radio transmitter. The Raspberry Pi has a built-in clock generator, a powerful frequency synthesiser which can generate frequencies up to 250MHz. This is enough to provide a useful RF signal source for experimentation, or given suitable filtering and antennas to allow the Pi to be used as a low-power amateur radio transmitter.

The Pi-HF is primarily for frequencies between 130 kHz and 30 MHz, however it has a bandwidth over 100 MHz and so will also perform at higher frequencies including the 50 MHz (6m) and 70 MHz (4m) amateur bands with reduced performance. It is not a software-defined radio, instead it is a traditional direct conversion radio receiver with software control.

Raspberry Pi RF Breakout Kit (video) - 
http://www.geeky-gadgets.com/raspberry-pi-rf-breakout-kit-video/

Language Spy - Amateur Radio and Raspberry Pi kits - 
http://shop.languagespy.com/products/rf-breakout-kit-for-the-raspberry-pi

New Raspberry Pi “Zero” Launched

The Raspberry Pi foundation has launched a new edition to the successful Raspberry Pi range, the Raspberry Pi Zero.

The new device, made in Wales, UK, is the smallest most cost effective device the group have manufactured.

Priced at just $5 / £4, the specs are in line if not better than a high end laptop from ten years ago.

• A Broadcom BCM2835 application processor
  • 1GHz ARM11 core (40% faster than Raspberry Pi 1)
• 512MB of LPDDR2 SDRAM
• A micro-SD card slot
• A mini-HDMI socket for 1080p60 video output
• Micro-USB sockets for data and power
• An unpopulated 40-pin GPIO header
  • Identical pinout to Model A+/B+/2B
• An unpopulated composite video header
• Our smallest ever form factor, at 65mm x 30mm x 5mm

Many amateur radio and technology enthusiasts have spotted the new device as a “free gift” on the cover of the MagPi magazine.

More information - https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/raspberry-pi-zero/

Electricity from Air

Entrepreneur and former UK Science Minister Lord Drayson has unveiled a technology call Freevolt that can be a power source for Internet of Things (IoT), powering such devices as wearables and sensors, without the need for a connection to a wall socket.

Lord Drayson, demonstrated electricity from Air - Freevolt

Freevolt harvests energy from radio frequencies from existing wireless and broadcast networks.

Demonstrating the technology at  the Royal Institution, Lord Drayson used the radio frequency energy within the presentation room to power a loudspeaker!

The technology has already been harnessed into a product. The CleanSpace is a personal air pollution monitor created by Drayson Technologies. The aim of the product is to improve air quality and to highlight the extent of pollution. Freevolt technology harvests power for the built in battery.

“It doesn’t require any extra infrastructure, it doesn’t require us to transmit any extra energy, it’s recycling the energy which isn’t being used at the moment.”

— Lord Drayson

The technology, which has been patented, could now be used by organisations such as supermarkets which are preparing for the next phase of the internet, where billions of small cheap sensors are online providing data about their operations.

Drayson Technologies - http://www.draysontechnologies.com/