do you want to know what it is
control
these machines
these
ham radios
are taking our life energy by shackling
us in our hamshacks to turn our human
energy
into this
an entry
in a log book
today i offer you a choice
take the blue ibuprofen
stay tethered to your hamshack
keep enjoying your ham radio
but take the red fiber gummy
and i'll show you
how i did
this
kilo india 6 november alpha zulu
[Music]
kilo india 6 november alpha zulu 5 7.
[Music]
how's it going everybody i am josh ki6
naz thanks for
working through that whole opening but
today we're talking about virtual
reality at the end of 2021 i picked up
an oculus quest for those that don't
know virtual reality in most instances
is just
screens literally two screens that go in
front of your face or one big one that's
split in the middle that go in front of
your face and give you an immersive kind
of virtual reality experience but it
really isn't more than two screens
and the reason i picked up the oculus
wasn't to play games it's because i
learned that there is a push towards
productivity applications within the
virtual reality spaces and
app structures of the different
companies that produce applications for
them so to give you a nutshell view this
is my headset it is wi-fi enabled
meaning i don't have to be tethered to
anything i just have to have good
internet and to give you an idea of
what's possible i could be almost
anywhere that has decent internet and
can connect to the computer in my ham
shack which means every piece of
software that is running on my hamshack
computer like jsa call that i have
running in the background i can
visualize on my headset
with the software that is available
within this architecture oculus in this
case to get some of the simple details
out of the way first this is the 256
gigabyte oculus quest 2. this sells for
400 and it comes with
two controllers like these the thing
that's nice about the oculus is that for
some of the productivity apps again what
we're going to be using to virtual
desktop into my computer you can do hand
tracking and different controls with
your hands so you don't have to be using
these controllers although they are
pretty ergonomic and easy to use further
because the oculus is a bluetooth device
you can tether bluetooth keyboards to it
and bluetooth mice this is a k380 by
logitech this is a it's called like a
sofa keyboard it has a touch pad
for actual mousing and a keyboard that
is okay and it natively integrates into
the oculus so well that it'll actually
visualize it on the screen with some of
the applications we'll be talking about
today so to keep some of you in the
audience engaged you might be thinking
yourself this might be good for that
digital stuff but i only do single
sideband
this does too see the oculus quest has
microphones and speakers in it so when
you remote into your computer wherever
you are it will use the microphones and
the speakers built into this for doing
single sideband communications kilo
india 6 november alpha zulu
[Applause]
kilo india 6 november alpha zulu year 5
7 into cerritos california
india 6
[Applause]
the only thing i haven't really figured
out is morse code don't know where to
attach a key to this and i don't know
that they were thinking about that when
they built this thing now before i
explain how to make this work and
believe me it was actually pretty easy i
had this up and running in each of the
instances of applications i tried and i
tried three of them and they all work
pretty well there's a couple of things i
need to hit right up front for those of
you that may be thinking about taking
the plunge this is still an
entertainment device this is still fun
to play games on and all that stuff if
you already have one of these like your
kids may have one then you're kind of
already ready to experiment it's not
going to be that much more money to buy
the applications you need to make this
run but two caveats the first if you've
never used vr before a lot of people get
extremely motion sick using virtual
reality so you might want to try one
before you go drop 400 on the 256 gig
model or
300
for the 128 gig model there will be
links in the description though so you
can find them they're on amazon all that
stuff the next one and this is a big one
for a lot of people
this oculus oculus being the key word is
a brand that is owned by facebook
facebook which is now called meta why is
it called meta because of the metaverse
zuckerberg and all the folks over at
facebook think that virtual reality is
the future and they're trying to dive in
hard but for all you facebook not fans
you do need a facebook account to be
able to connect and use this
they are stepping away from that
facebook has said that they are going to
stop requiring a facebook account to be
able to use the oculus but for some of
you it's still a non-starter because
oculus is owned by facebook and
eventually they're going to rebrand to
meta so this is going to become the meta
quest 2 or some name in the future if
you are anti-facebook you probably want
to sit this one out at least this device
there are other vr devices that should
be able to do what i'm going to talk
about today but just keep in mind this
is
aimed at the oculus quest 2 i don't have
any other vr and i'm not really planning
on making this a future
endeavor of mine where i review vr
products i still just like to play him
radio third-ish caveat this may not be
for everybody because you kind of have
to get used to controlling this thing it
isn't just as simple as as
going around and touching the knobs and
all that stuff on your favorite radio or
even using a mouse and keyboard although
with the adaptation of the bluetooth
keyboard with touchpad it's a lot easier
there are three applications that you're
going to want to check out if you're
interested in doing this one of them is
a one-time purchase it's virtual desktop
and it's on the oculus quest store you
just download the app and you can get
started these all require some kind of
server to be ran on your computer that
you want to remote into and the process
is very simple and very similar for all
of them download a piece of software use
the code to sync them up you're done
the next two are v spatial and immersed
vspatial is 4.99 a month to connect to a
computer that is on the same network as
your oculus quest
it jumps up to
9.99 if you want to connect from
anywhere that you have a good internet
connection from your quest to your home
computer
this is something that you may want to
activate when you go on vacation and
then cancel the subscription i don't
know how much you would use this outside
of that but v-spatial is probably the
best in show as far as visual quality
for reasons i will show and the last
application is immersed now the prices
for immersed vary there is the free
version which i'm kind of unsure which
capabilities you can actually tap into
and if you start going a little hog wild
within the application you could find
yourself getting bumped into a
subscription tier you might not want to
be in the next level is 15 a month and
that gives you the ability to remote in
plus virtual desktop so it will actually
if i have two you know two monitors
behind me it will add two additional
monitors up to five if i wanted to do
that
immersed is the best at interface
control immersed will actually overlay a
virtual keyboard on top of the keyboard
you're using physically right and so
it's actually really easy to use if you
like to use a keyboard and a mouse it's
very easy to set up also it supports
hand tracking and hand controls which
makes it really easy to use when you're
in virtual reality instead of having to
grab one of the controllers and point
around that way the last level is thirty
dollars a month you don't need to mess
with this unless you have a team of
people that you all want to have connect
to your hamshack computer for some
reason
okay so the first one we're going to
look at is v-spatial v-spatial gives you
the most minority report vibes of a vr
application for interfacing your
hamshack computer okay so now i have a
proper bluetooth keyboard connected so
i'm going to hide this keyboard
i'm going to switch to the k830 which is
what i use
so this now uh this little trackpad you
may not see the the trackpad but i am
manipulating that little trackpad on the
right physically in space but um as i
type now
you can see the keys light up so when
you're in front you can see all that
goes there um and gets you know copied
to the buffer although that went nowhere
but if i go in here
and i click
and i say you know test or yes
this is actually something you have to
get used to it's it's not easy to do
typing without seeing the keyboard even
though if you are a touch typer it's
kind of an interesting
thing to do for the first time so i can
send high test if i wanted to or you
know i can just say no you know what i
don't want to do that we'll get out of
there and i'll just use the trackpad
here to send a heartbeat message
which we'll send right now in the
meantime i can
queue up a video well
while we're going on here
how
or along those lines so do keep that in
mind when you and all i did was again
get the v spatial software running
connected to my home computer and then
every application that was running at
the time within my computer was
accessible in vspatial then i simply
used my little controller here there's a
grip button on the side i would grab the
app i wanted and throw it onto my main
viewing space and it's a tiered system
there's a big viewing space a little
smaller viewing space and then little
icons on the top
i found that this was the coolest way to
show someone how you could virtualize a
desktop within virtual reality my wife
loved it when i showed her she thought
it was super cool and actually kind of
effective if you were going to do a
demonstration for ham radio the use
cases for this seems very simple to me
if you are someone that likes ft8 or
digital modes like jsa call among others
this is a pretty good effective way to
do it remotely maybe you don't want to
have a laptop that you carry around when
you're on travel or you're just
traveling light and you want a little
entertainment and you actually do enjoy
using vr then v spatial might be the way
to go and it's roughly nine dollars ten
dollars a month to be able to get that
remote access capability which may not
make it that useful for some of you
but it's definitely a cool way to go and
fully interfaces with your microphone
and speaker on your radio so yeah it
pipes in all the audio from your radio
into your ears and i did test this with
both win for icom and the rsba1 software
for running single sideband again
anything that you can run on your
computer
will run on the headset if you are
remoted into your computer a special
note needs to be said about vspatial's
interesting approach to applications
applications are treated like their own
little floating window all uh minority
report where you grab a screen and tom
hanks or tom hanks
tom cruise throw it into the space
you're working on you get a lot of those
vibes and it's actually a really
effective way to control ham radio
applications so i could sit down with my
headset on i could show grid tracker
ft8 wsjtx i could show my log and i
could have like youtube videos running
in the background or something else that
i was working on it's really effective
if you're kind of doing passive control
type stuff web browsing while doing ft8
web browsing while doing jsa call or
watching a youtube video it all
integrates pretty well for that it also
works pretty well for doing single
sideband so long as you have the
capability of controlling your logger to
type in the call sign that you want to
add there is one thing or one space
where these all fall apart and that's
using these to type and that's literally
what you do you feel like you're back
you know learning how to type for the
first time and you're hen pecking one
finger at a time for characters that's
not the fun part of this but again this
device is bluetooth and so you can
connect a bluetooth keyboard to it and
be able to control and type
you know whatever it is you're going to
be doing the next one on the list is
virtual desktop this is the most simple
and one time one pay application in the
entire bunch it's 20
off of the oculus quest app store
it is also very simple once you get your
remote server set up on your computer
you remote into your desktop and then
that's it you can change your
backgrounds of the room you're in the
virtual room and you can flip between
your two screens i haven't figured out
how to visualize the two screens next to
each other which would be really handy
so that i could actually do something on
one screen like watch youtube videos and
do ft8 on the other or have grid tracker
here in my logger whatever you want to
do you're generally locked to one screen
think of like a laptop screen that's
kind of right in front of you you can
move around a little bit but you have
very little control in this space but at
twenty dollars this is the cheapest way
to get started and so you may want to
start there
because once you own the app then you're
good to go you don't have to pay a
subscription fee um
where am i who am i oh we're in uh we're
going to do our next mobile station uh
plano texas
there is one caveat with virtual desktop
at least in my experience the keyboard
and mouse when i would bind them to my
headset it only seemed to work when i
was using the primary screen so my
bottom screen of my remote computer if i
tried to use the upper screen then this
stopped working and the mouse stopped
working and i actually had to use the
controller to switch to the lower screen
again most ham radio stuff can run on
one screen so this isn't that big of a
deal but if you want that whiz-bang cool
look you probably still want to be in
the v-spatial land now last is immersed
and immersed again has a really high
subscription tier but there is a free
service and the free service does give
you some interesting control
capabilities but you lose the capability
of adding virtual monitors which for
most of you again is not going to be a
problem particularly if you only have
one monitor or two monitors like i do
the advantage of immersed and this is
going beyond ham radio this is the most
productivity minded application
so it wants to sync with your mouse and
your keyboard in your bluetooth
environment where you're sitting with
your headset it wants to be adjustable
in that you can move monitors around on
the screen reposition lock them in place
and then get to work remember all these
applications and actually productivity
stuff in general on virtual reality is
designed for a future that we're not
quite there yet but what is here is
definitely set up to try and do office
type things so get in excel get in
microsoft word type some documents send
some emails that kind of thing the good
news is that ham radio applications are
so light and not processor intensive
that we can run a lot of ham radio
things in these virtualized spaces and
they generally work pretty well now the
reality here and i i've got to touch
base on this i don't think that this is
necessarily the right now of ham radio
it is not the slickest and easiest thing
to do further there are some people that
virtual reality just doesn't work for
and no matter which application you
download will this make you not get
motion sick there's just some people
that this isn't going to work for
there are some pain points as well for
how to control and get around the
screens
if you like this kind of thing and you
can get around pretty easy then it's
probably no big deal some of you may be
thinking yourself why wouldn't i just
bring my my laptop my toughbook my 300
toughbook right this is the same used is
the same as like the new oculus quest
right it's the remoting capability with
this one thing you can visualize
whatever it is you want to see on your
computer from pretty much wherever you
want to see it if you're outside of your
network or at your home network there
was a ham that
made a comment on a video that i posted
when i was experimenting with this on
the facebook group that said
their wife actually thinks this is kind
of cool because the ham shack right now
for this person is the kitchen table and
setting up multiple monitors and having
a big computer right there in the
kitchen is probably not a good idea but
in the future or what's capable now i
could see a world where we have more
headless computers or computers become
part of your radio which they already
are in the case of like flex radios and
some other sdr radios with my 7610 being
connected to the internet or my network
there is a future where maybe i only
need a headset to connect directly to
these type of radios and don't need a
computer necessarily i feel like that's
something that's future this is very
like futurist type stuff we're talking
about although it is now but the
capability of what's possible i think is
going to grow immensely over time now
because i also think this is important
virtual reality is is an enclosed system
right you are being displayed
the world
through the lenses of your virtuality
display literally it's like a monitor
that you wear on your head there is
another type of reality mixed reality
and it's called augmented reality
something like jerry ellsworth's tilt 5.
with an augmented reality system like
the tilt 5 the capability there is you
wear a headset but that headset can see
into your real world and the device
can put images or video on this screen
that you wear on your face so in the
future you could be walking around
remotely connected to your home computer
and see jsa call messages pop up win
link messages or be working live qsos
over single sideband without having to
be taken out of the moment of the world
that you actually live in so ham radio
then becomes something you take
everywhere with you particularly hf at
all times
that will definitely happen i know that
will happen it's just we're not there
yet largely because of software
integration the tilt five has this
capability with its augmented reality
mat and all that other fun stuff but
it's not truly to the place of where you
could just walk around town
and make things happen with a ham radio
that's in your shack so this was kind of
a tough video for me to make i
appreciate that there's a lot of hams
that this actually is off-putting to
them that the mere thought of me talking
about this is putting them over the edge
and they may be feverishly typing
comments as we speak
instead of getting upset tell me what it
is you don't like about this or for
those of you that kinda are okay about
this like what do you find interesting
about it because
ideally i would like to make my videos
10 minutes to 20 minutes and i could go
way down into the the deep end on this
kind of stuff but i don't know that's
what people want to see and i don't know
if that's actually interesting enough
for people or or i could go deep diving
into something that none of you actually
want to learn more about you're more
interested in making this other thing
work with virtual reality and your ham
radios so your comments here are really
appreciated if you take the time and
comment and tell me what you find
interesting what you don't find
interesting or
really important tell me what you'd like
to see more of talking about virtual
reality and potentially remoting your
ham shack i'll state again i'm not
recommending this replaces your portable
laptop i'm not recommending you don't do
poda or you take this outside and you
only do remote ham radio to your i'm not
saying anything like that i'm saying
this is cool i find it cool maybe you do
too i'd love to hear your thoughts on it
so take the time if you could comment
below it does mean a lot to me and if
you enjoyed this give me a thumbs up if
you're new here maybe you're a vr person
ham radio is great wireless technology
is where it's at and no it's not your
phone right you actually are in control
of this radio at t can't control you
when you're on ham radio anyway i am
josh ki6naz
really appreciate you watching this if
you got all the way through it and
73.
for those of you that stuck around to
pass the ending i'm thinking about
bringing this to hamcation next month um
so
we may do some live demos i don't know
yet but it packs up pretty small in fact
i didn't show the case
this is a little egg case that you can
you can get for this
i got to tell you this is uh this was a
fun one to make particularly to do the
research on i got a couple servers i got
to go uninstall now because i'm thinking
about down scaling to just immersed and
i've obviously paid for virtual desktop
so i'll probably just keep that and
sally fourth all right guys