Ham Radio Village - The K0BAK Rover Van
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Pete (K0BAK)
et al.
Come see how Pete (K0BAK) is converting an old TV news station van, the kind used to produce and relay live TV reporting, into a mobile ham radio station!
 Okay, it's time for the Q&A. Let's get some questions up there. I got Pete here in Discord, so let's give a hand to Pete. Get some questions going. Pete, do you got your webcam on there? Yeah, I'm getting a repeat of your voice about 3-4 seconds. Are you watching the stream live in the background? Yes, I should not. Correct, go ahead and mute that. Okie dokie. Ok, now that we got that, it looks like we got a question. What measurements or experiments were done to evaluate the RF hash of the boost converter? It wasn't very sophisticated when I first got it, which is no longer, by the way, no longer obtainable at that amperage. It's a shame the ham hoop built that died, but anyway, I just had it connected to a battery in my basement, and I did a before and after. So I had the radio running with it and without it before I started mounting it. That's a great question because it brings up a larger point that most regulators, power supplies, anything that has to do with changing voltage, they're almost all a terrible problem with RF hash. You have to assume that components like that are bad until proven good. So great question, a great thing to watch out for whenever you're doing anything with power supplies or changing voltages. Very nice. We got another question from the Twitch here. Let's see. ArmoredDKrab says, thanks so much for sharing. Curious if you worry about security of the van, what was the microwave rack for? Sounds like two different questions. So the security of the van, I assume you mean physical security. I am a little worried about it. I should have better protection for it. Now when it's stored long term, it's in a garage with cars that are much more expensive than this van is for car collectors. So I've got good security when it's stored, but yeah, I'm a little worried about it when it's parked at a hotel or even at home. I don't have a good answer for that and I should have a better answer. The microwave rack, that was just by chance that a guy in our club was retired from roving himself and sold me his entire collection of microwave van. So I wanted to get into microwaves at some point and I just took that opportunity, which happens a lot in radio. You have equipment available now that you think you might use in the future and it's at a great price and hey, get it now. You might save hundreds or in this case thousands of dollars in the future. I mean, that rack that I showed with the microwave capabilities, if I got new equipment there, you're looking at at least $15,000 and I didn't pay anything like that. I didn't pay five figures for that equipment. So it's not on the air yet, but it's there and ready to go when I get the lower bands ready. Very good. We got another question from Deadpixel in Discord. How do you deal with your van's total payload weight? Yeah, it must be heavy. Are you over with all that equipment? No, it's the total payload rate. There's a lot of special things about this van to package those with things like TV bands. They also have a lot in common with ambulances. Ambulances have a lot of heavy equipment with AC requirements. So I don't know what the number is. I think it's well over 9,000 pounds. And I assume that even with my heavy batteries, that the whole van weighs a lot less than it did when it was used in the TV van. Although I have to admit that engineering-wise, I didn't compare the weights or even measure how heavy it was. I made a guess when I registered the van and I made a guess that's 6,000 pounds. I think it's below that though. So good question, but I don't have a really good, satisfying answer. Yeah, it's definitely got to be a beefy van, right? We got another question in Discord. Testing2 asks, whether seals and grommets and water intrusion on an old van was the rubber all crumbling? How much of that did you need to refurbish to make the old ship sea-worthy again? No, I didn't have to replace anything yet. There was some water infiltration through the connection on the roof to the satellite antenna. Real early in the presentation, I showed my buddy lifting that satellite antenna off. So that had some water infiltration on it. I put a 4-3.5-inch cover on it and it hadn't been a problem since then. As far as the seals for other cables or even the doors, the only moderate problem was some of the seals for the doors were coming off. But they weren't dried out, so I didn't have a real problem there. Now, I haven't done a lot of cables that run to the outside, especially through the roof, so that is a concern when I do start wiring. That's one thing I should say that I'm not using a lot of... I got a screwdriver antenna on the back for HF, but I haven't done a lot of work with getting the VHF antennas out. That's obviously involved a lot more cables and ones that run through the roof instead of the floor, so I do it. I'm not going to watch out for that. Very good. Another question from Twitch here. CalvinLuck asks, those are such densely packed racks. Are you able to get access to most of the connections without fully disassembling it? Yeah, luckily... I'm going to take a step back. Part of what I wanted to do was make a little video tour of the van, but I ran out of time with the tropical storm that ran up the east coast. He said, Mike, excuse... it's a good excuse. It's true. Anyway, it's really good accessibility to the back of the racks. The first three racks that are together, there's a back door where you can get access to the AC panel that is played and the box for the generator, and there's like a storage area back there. It's pretty good accessibility. I think the only problem I have in the driver side and rack number three, it's hard to get access to the screws to put the rack equipment in that I mount from the rear. But other than that, it's pretty accessible. Now, obviously, if there's interior connections that I have to fix, the racks have to come out, or maybe at least the racks on top have to come out. Pretty good accessibility on both the front and the back. That's good. Nothing like taking a full day to take stuff apart just because you forgot something. Oh, yeah. Okay, we got another question in Discord from Bunzel. In addition to the van you showed us, or the van, do you have anything else for airflow or cooling to prevent hardware from overheating? No, and I do worry about that because it gets pretty darn hot in the van. It gets less hot than it did in my minivan because there's less glass to let sunlight through. I do have one other fan that I put in the back, so I opened the back door when it's particularly hot. I opened the back door and I have a van fan that's powered with 12 volts to get a little bit of airflow in. I'm kind of surprised at how hot it's been that none of the equipment has failed so far just because of heat. I don't know what to say. They work better than I would have expected, that I have any right to expect. There are physical opportunities in the back, I would suppose, to get even more fans going. But so far it has been an issue and I've activated on HF at least up to like a air temperature of 95 degrees outside. So far so good. That's a great point though, great question. And I don't know if you remember at the beginning of the presentation, I emphasized that I can't have the van engine on. I can't have the AC system on because of RF hash. So while I'm operating I can't have any air conditioning on as much as I would like to. Oh wow, that's a bummer. Yeah, especially if you came to DEF CON with that thing, it would definitely be a sweaty situation. Someone's asking, are you going to do a video tour of the van? I want to do this time, but ran out of time. It would be especially nice I think when I get antennas on it though, because it's kind of limited to just the interior. It's not too much to see. It would be nice to see it in operation I suppose. I'd like to make a video when it's more exciting, when I can show the pneumatic mass in operation and the rotator rotating. I hope I'll do that someday. Very good. Do we have any other questions on Twitch or Discord for Pete here? K-O-P-A-K on his ultimate van life van conversion. I'm not seeing anything yet. We'll give him just a few more seconds to throw a question out. Okay, looks like that's it for the Q&A. Well thanks Pete for the presentation. Maybe we'll see some demos or some other content maybe next year at DEF CON. Oh, that would be great. I hope we get him an opportunity to get together live. Thanks for being a great host and holding my hand through this 62 year old getting used to Discord and Twitch and all the other stuff at one time was kind of overwhelming. You guys did a great job. Thank you. Thank you and we'll see everybody for the next presentation. Next up we have K8AMH with the National Traffic System and Radiograms. That will be coming up in about 20 minutes. We'll get going on that and we'll see you guys shortly. Thanks Pete. You're welcome. Thanks for watching.
 Okay, it's time for the Q&A. Let's get some questions up there. I got Pete here in Discord,  so let's give a hand to Pete. Get some questions going. Pete, do you got your webcam on there?  Yeah, I'm getting a repeat of your voice about 3-4 seconds.  Are you watching the stream live in the background?  Yes, I should not.  Correct, go ahead and mute that.  Okie dokie.  Ok, now that we got that, it looks like we got a question. What measurements or experiments were done to evaluate the RF hash of the boost converter?  It wasn't very sophisticated when I first got it, which is no longer, by the way, no longer obtainable at that amperage.  It's a shame the ham hoop built that died, but anyway, I just had it connected to a battery in my basement, and I did a before and after.  So I had the radio running with it and without it before I started mounting it.  That's a great question because it brings up a larger point that most regulators, power supplies, anything that has to do with changing voltage,  they're almost all a terrible problem with RF hash. You have to assume that components like that are bad until proven good.  So great question, a great thing to watch out for whenever you're doing anything with power supplies or changing voltages.  Very nice. We got another question from the Twitch here. Let's see.  ArmoredDKrab says, thanks so much for sharing. Curious if you worry about security of the van, what was the microwave rack for?  Sounds like two different questions. So the security of the van, I assume you mean physical security.  I am a little worried about it. I should have better protection for it. Now when it's stored long term, it's in a garage with cars that are much more expensive than this van is for car collectors.  So I've got good security when it's stored, but yeah, I'm a little worried about it when it's parked at a hotel or even at home.  I don't have a good answer for that and I should have a better answer. The microwave rack, that was just by chance that a guy in our club was retired from roving himself and sold me his entire collection of microwave van.  So I wanted to get into microwaves at some point and I just took that opportunity, which happens a lot in radio.  You have equipment available now that you think you might use in the future and it's at a great price and hey, get it now. You might save hundreds or in this case thousands of dollars in the future.  I mean, that rack that I showed with the microwave capabilities, if I got new equipment there, you're looking at at least $15,000 and I didn't pay anything like that.  I didn't pay five figures for that equipment. So it's not on the air yet, but it's there and ready to go when I get the lower bands ready.  Very good. We got another question from Deadpixel in Discord. How do you deal with your van's total payload weight?  Yeah, it must be heavy. Are you over with all that equipment?  No, it's the total payload rate. There's a lot of special things about this van to package those with things like TV bands.  They also have a lot in common with ambulances. Ambulances have a lot of heavy equipment with AC requirements.  So I don't know what the number is. I think it's well over 9,000 pounds.  And I assume that even with my heavy batteries, that the whole van weighs a lot less than it did when it was used in the TV van.  Although I have to admit that engineering-wise, I didn't compare the weights or even measure how heavy it was.  I made a guess when I registered the van and I made a guess that's 6,000 pounds. I think it's below that though.  So good question, but I don't have a really good, satisfying answer.  Yeah, it's definitely got to be a beefy van, right?  We got another question in Discord. Testing2 asks, whether seals and grommets and water intrusion on an old van was the rubber all crumbling?  How much of that did you need to refurbish to make the old ship sea-worthy again?  No, I didn't have to replace anything yet. There was some water infiltration through the connection on the roof to the satellite antenna.  Real early in the presentation, I showed my buddy lifting that satellite antenna off.  So that had some water infiltration on it.  I put a 4-3.5-inch cover on it and it hadn't been a problem since then.  As far as the seals for other cables or even the doors, the only moderate problem was some of the seals for the doors were coming off.  But they weren't dried out, so I didn't have a real problem there.  Now, I haven't done a lot of cables that run to the outside, especially through the roof, so that is a concern when I do start wiring.  That's one thing I should say that I'm not using a lot of... I got a screwdriver antenna on the back for HF,  but I haven't done a lot of work with getting the VHF antennas out.  That's obviously involved a lot more cables and ones that run through the roof instead of the floor, so I do it.  I'm not going to watch out for that.  Very good. Another question from Twitch here.  CalvinLuck asks, those are such densely packed racks.  Are you able to get access to most of the connections without fully disassembling it?  Yeah, luckily... I'm going to take a step back.  Part of what I wanted to do was make a little video tour of the van,  but I ran out of time with the tropical storm that ran up the east coast.  He said, Mike, excuse... it's a good excuse. It's true.  Anyway, it's really good accessibility to the back of the racks.  The first three racks that are together, there's a back door where you can get access to the AC panel that is played  and the box for the generator, and there's like a storage area back there.  It's pretty good accessibility.  I think the only problem I have in the driver side and rack number three,  it's hard to get access to the screws to put the rack equipment in that I mount from the rear.  But other than that, it's pretty accessible.  Now, obviously, if there's interior connections that I have to fix, the racks have to come out,  or maybe at least the racks on top have to come out.  Pretty good accessibility on both the front and the back.  That's good. Nothing like taking a full day to take stuff apart just because you forgot something.  Oh, yeah.  Okay, we got another question in Discord from Bunzel.  In addition to the van you showed us, or the van,  do you have anything else for airflow or cooling to prevent hardware from overheating?  No, and I do worry about that because it gets pretty darn hot in the van.  It gets less hot than it did in my minivan because there's less glass to let sunlight through.  I do have one other fan that I put in the back, so I opened the back door when it's particularly hot.  I opened the back door and I have a van fan that's powered with 12 volts to get a little bit of airflow in.  I'm kind of surprised at how hot it's been that none of the equipment has failed so far just because of heat.  I don't know what to say.  They work better than I would have expected, that I have any right to expect.  There are physical opportunities in the back, I would suppose, to get even more fans going.  But so far it has been an issue and I've activated on HF at least up to like a air temperature of 95 degrees outside.  So far so good.  That's a great point though, great question.  And I don't know if you remember at the beginning of the presentation,  I emphasized that I can't have the van engine on.  I can't have the AC system on because of RF hash.  So while I'm operating I can't have any air conditioning on as much as I would like to.  Oh wow, that's a bummer.  Yeah, especially if you came to DEF CON with that thing, it would definitely be a sweaty situation.  Someone's asking, are you going to do a video tour of the van?  I want to do this time, but ran out of time.  It would be especially nice I think when I get antennas on it though, because it's kind of limited to just the interior.  It's not too much to see.  It would be nice to see it in operation I suppose.  I'd like to make a video when it's more exciting, when I can show the pneumatic mass in operation and the rotator rotating.  I hope I'll do that someday.  Very good.  Do we have any other questions on Twitch or Discord for Pete here?  K-O-P-A-K on his ultimate van life van conversion.  I'm not seeing anything yet.  We'll give him just a few more seconds to throw a question out.  Okay, looks like that's it for the Q&A.  Well thanks Pete for the presentation.  Maybe we'll see some demos or some other content maybe next year at DEF CON.  Oh, that would be great.  I hope we get him an opportunity to get together live.  Thanks for being a great host and holding my hand through this 62 year old getting used to Discord and Twitch and all the other stuff at one time was kind of overwhelming.  You guys did a great job.  Thank you.  Thank you and we'll see everybody for the next presentation.  Next up we have K8AMH with the National Traffic System and Radiograms.  That will be coming up in about 20 minutes.  We'll get going on that and we'll see you guys shortly.  Thanks Pete.  You're welcome.  Thanks for watching.
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