Announcing the spectrum24 conference "Making Waves"
The Conference for Creative Use of the Radio Spectrum in Open Systems
On the 14th and 15th of September 2024, the first ever "spectrum"
conference, dedicated to amateur radio, will be held.
The spectrum24 conference is the result of the "amateur radio and SDR"
devroom at the FOSDEM conference[1] earlier this year in Brussels.
Seeing its great success, it was obvious that there is quite some
interest in open source development in the amateur radio community. This
led to the conclusion that a dedicated conference on these topics surely
had its place, and - to make the conference even more interesting - we
decided to expand the scope of the conference into other amateur radio
related fields.
* Spectrum24 has three main fields of interest:
- Amateur radio developments: ranging across SDR receiver and
transmitter hardware and software, novel antenna-design, amateur radio
infrastructure, new modes of communication, alternative ways of
accessing amateur radio spectrum, etc.
- Amateur radio non-technical aspects: spectrum-use, promotion, bridging
amateur radio and other technical communities such as the maker
community, FOSS[2] and OSH[3] developer communities, amateur radio
IT-infrastructure, etc.
- Open source applications and access to non-amateur radio-spectrum:
SRD-band[4] users (such as 433 MHz, 862-870 MHz, 2.4 GHz and 5.8 GHz),
radio-astronomy, amateur satellite spectrum-users.
As the name of the conference implies, spectrum24 is aimed at anybody
interested in fostering open systems that provide access to all
available radio spectrum.
* Background information and Conference format
You can find an interview with two of the conference organisers on the
goals and background of spectrum24 in this episode of hacker[5] public
radio: https://hackerpublicradio.org/eps/hpr4122/index.html
The spectrum24 conference is the ideal platform to promote your project
that will further amateur radio and open access to radio-spectrum and
show it to a large international audience.
The open format of the conference, with plenty of time between
presentations, is aimed to allow you to talk to other people with
similar interests, set up cooperation, or even hack together on your
project while you are there.
* Spectrum24 has opened a Call for Presentation.
If you are interested in presenting at the conference, or set up an
info-booth at spectrum24, you can make a proposal via this link:
https://spectrum-conference.org/24/cfp
The deadline for proposals for presentations is the 15th of July.
The deadline for proposals for info-booth is the 15th of August.
* Fees, Location and Sponsorship
The conference is held at SmartCity Campus in an old radio factory in
Rambouillet near Paris.
Access to the conference is free.
The Spectrum24 conference is supported by the IARU-region 1.
https://www.iaru-r1.org/events/spectrum24-making-waves/
* Social media
You can follow spectrum24 on mastodon:
https://mastodon.radio/@spectrumconf
Or join the discussion on matrix:
https://matrix.to/#/#spectrum-conference:matrix.org
You can follow spectrum24 on X: https://twitter.com/SpectrumConf24
See you in Rambouillet!
[1] FOSDEM or Free and Open source Software Developers' European Meeting
is a non-commercial, volunteer-organised European event centred on free
and open-source software development. It is aimed at developers and
anyone interested in the free and open-source software movement.
[2] Free and Open Source Software
[3] Open Source Hardware
[4] Short Range Device-band
[5] Hacker Public Radio is a podcasting platform that allows anybody to
distribute podcast content related to hacking-culture. The term "hacker"
relates to the original meaning of the word: somebody interested in
technology beyond being a “mere” user. More info:
https://hackerpublicradio.org