Toilets on the Air @ HOPE_16
Toilets on the Air (TOTA) is an amateur radio contest organized by Georg DH5GH for the Chaos Communication Congress (C3) hacker conferences in Germany. Similar to other "-OTA" activities like Parks and Summits, you "spot" yourself on the web to share your location and frequency. Then, others attempt to contact you on the radio for points and awards. Only in this case, the locations are outside of conference restrooms.
Georg offered a presentation on TOTA in 2018. One of my takeaways (with the help of an auto-translation tool) is that Georg wants to keep the amateur radio spectrum a public commons, out of the hands of commercial interests. Any contest can breathe life onto unused frequencies for a weekend. But a silly and fun contest at a hacker conference can inspire a whole new group of explorers, builders, and experimenters to get on the air in a lasting way.
Here in the states, the hacker conference I'm most familiar with is HOPE. HOPE 2022 opened my eyes to the exciting world of RF in two ways. I learned of the RTL-SDR: a $30 device (originally a TV tuner dongle) hacked to tune to everything from shortwave to satellites, all on a "waterfall" display on your computer:
I also met David Goren, audio producer and creator of the Brooklyn Pirate Radio Sound Map:
He arranged FM transmitters around a room and invited participants to borrow a radio. As you wandered around, you could hear recordings of pirate FM stations, complete with station IDs and ads for local restaurants. They faded and interfered with each other, just as they would if you were riding around in a taxi.
We talked and he gave me more to explore: the HF Underground forums, The SWLing Post, online tuners around the world to listen to, Fldigi to decode digital modes, local amateur radio clubs, and "keydown" competitions on CB.
Since then I got licensed and have become active on Mastodon. I saw how much fun people were having at the 38C3 TOTA and knew the contest would be perfect for the hackers at HOPE. With the help of my club N2YCR, we're making it happen.
With Georg's blessing and Tobias DC1TC's technical guidance, I've made a few small modifications to the open-source xOTA software to adopt it for the U.S. I've also implemented custom awards like "Worked All Toilets" and the "Straight Flush":
Don't miss your chance to activate a toilet! See you at TOTA @ HOPE_16.
