Re: [Discuss-gnuradio] GNU Radio Conference

[Tom Rondeau]

On Fri, Jan 21, 2011 at 8:32 PM, Jago Pearce <address@hidden> wrote:
> A very good idea.
>
> I recommend having a Google map where you can place markers (doesn't
> have to be your real position). That way we can see where is most
> central to host this. I'm in the UK for example.

That might be a good idea for a future conference location selection.
There were many reasons that we selected Philadelphia as the location
of the first one, though. First, I'm based out of Philadelphia and am
visiting faculty at the University of Pennsylvania. This means that
I'm both local and well-placed to get University support and space for
a project like this. Having been involved with the planning of other
academic conferences, being on-site is a huge help in coordinating and
making sure things are done properly.

The other reasons include that, in the US, the East coast has a large
amount of users and GNU Radio enthusiasts, making their trip shorter.
Plus, Philadelphia is a major airport and easy to get to from almost
anywhere in the world (having traveled from Philadelphia to many
places, I know the convenience of living here). I know that there are
many users around the world and that the East coast of the US isn't
necessarily the hot spot of GNU Radio activity, but it's hot enough.

If this is successful and people want to continue, we would likely try
different locations in the future. But for getting the first one set
up, the locality was key.


> Incidently,
>  I've got to be honest. I don't have the depth of knowledge about
> radio as most people have on this list. I've been lurking on this list
> for a couple of years because I find the idea of GNURadio a very
> compelling, _hands on_ way to learn about radio, which is something I
> find facinating. There are subjects that are somewhat offtopic for
> this list if the use of hardware is not involved I'd love to ask
> questions and chat about but I really wouldn't want to interfere with
> GNURadio development which I see as very important... subjects such as
> idiots running around with Trimeters on ghost hunting TV shows, static
> electricity and so forth, finding straightforward books like the Body
> Electric (Robert Becker) to tell the difference between fact and
> fiction, which is becoming increasingly hard as misinformation gets
> more common with the proliferation of small radio devices (the cell
> phone, bluetooth, wireless power and so on). There are few places I
> can think of where someone can talk with people who have both the
> expertise and tools ready to try things out in radio than this list.
>  As I say, I find GNURadio facinating but I haven't dare post to the
> list for many years and I've held off on buying the hardware as I know
> it could be well beyond my capabilities to do anything truely
> interesting with it.
>
> Is there somewhere for more informal chat, that is, other than the IRC
> which I expect to be very quiet most of the time.
>
>  -j


Part of GNU Radio development is work on new signal processing
capabilities or improving current capabilities. These are areas that
are not discussed very much on this listserv, but I would encourage
people to ask questions about them.

Tom


> On Fri, Jan 21, 2011 at 7:35 PM, Ben Hilburn <address@hidden> wrote:
>> A GNU Radio conference is an awesome idea, in my opinion, and I think
>> the September time-frame is a good one.
>>
>> I like points 1-5 a lot, and I'll second your idea of some sort of
>> hacking session. I've heard of companies/communities holding
>> 'hack-a-thons', where a large group of developers marathons for 6-8
>> hours to close as many tickets as possible / add new features / etc.
>> If there are sponsors of any type, you could hold occasional drawings,
>> provide caffeine, food, etc., to keep the devs going.
>>
>> If we are going to have that many developers in one place, it might be
>> a fun way to make a lot of progress on GNU Radio very quickly.  Just a
>> thought =)
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Ben
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Jan 21, 2011 at 12:59 PM, Tom Rondeau <address@hidden> wrote:
>>> On Fri, Jan 21, 2011 at 12:14 PM, Scott Johnston
>>> <address@hidden> wrote:
>>>> Tom,
>>>>
>>>> Can you give a brief sample agenda for the conference? I just want to know
>>>> if this is intended to be a forum where all the contributers talk about GNU
>>>> Radio or is it going to be tutorials and demos? If it is the latter I would
>>>> be interested in attending.
>>>>
>>>> Thanks
>>>>
>>>> Scott
>>>
>>>
>>> Excellent question, thanks! Nothing certain right now, but I imagine
>>> there is going to be a bit of a mix of both. I imagine these will be a
>>> few of the tracks that we will have:
>>>
>>> 1. Introduction and Tutorial to GNU Radio
>>> 2. Applications - paper session on how people are using GNU Radio
>>> 3. Hardware for SDR - come show your wares.
>>> 4. An open spaces session - open discussions about what people want
>>> from GNU Radio and what projects people might want to purseu
>>> 5. Advanced GNU Radio - discussion and showing some advanced features
>>>
>>> Anything that I might call a "paper session" is just the standard
>>> wording from other conferences; I don't expect people to submit papers
>>> and we will definitely not have a proceedings or anything (for this
>>> one, at least). These are just presentations, and hands-on / live
>>> demos should be encouraged.
>>>
>>> We might also try to set aside some room and time for hacking. Maybe
>>> get some like-minded people together to start a new project or
>>> application while we're all there.
>>>
>>> Any suggestions?
>>>
>>> Tom
>>>
>>>
>>>> Tom Rondeau wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> I want to have a separate thread for discussing the GNU Radio
>>>>> conference details. Here is what we have so far:
>>>>>
>>>>> When: Sometime in September, 2011
>>>>> Where: Philadelphia, PA, USA – probably on the University of Pennsylvania
>>>>> campus
>>>>> How long: 2.5 – 3 days
>>>>>
>>>>> The first thing I would like to do is nail down the exact dates. There
>>>>> are two ways we can go with this, and I'm polling the community here
>>>>> to try to figure it out. We can either hold the conference during the
>>>>> week or over a weekend. The weekend would look like (probably): Friday
>>>>> afternoon, all day Saturday and Sunday. If we held it during the week,
>>>>> I was thinking something like: all day Wednesday and Thursday and
>>>>> Friday morning.
>>>>>
>>>>> There are certain people who will find either time better than the
>>>>> other depending on your work/life situations. So we want to make sure
>>>>> that this happens during the most convenient time for the most amount
>>>>> of people. Once we figure this out, I will work on securing a location
>>>>> to host the event. A show of hands for how many people think they can
>>>>> attend would also help me determine what size we need to account for.
>>>>>
>>>>> Thanks,
>>>>> Tom
>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> Discuss-gnuradio mailing list
>>>>> address@hidden
>>>>> http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss-gnuradio
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Scott Johnston
>>>> MIT Lincoln Laboratory
>>>> 244 Wood Street, Lexington, MA 02420-9108
>>>> (781) 981-8196
>>>> address@hidden
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
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