If everyone starts defederating instances just because there is a community they don't like, then eventually, every instance will be isolated.

Sure, there are good uses.

I use the RADE V1 codec in FreeDV. It is an AI vocoder that packs high quality audio into 1500 Hz of bandwidth. It sounds much better than traditional codecs like AMBE or Codec 2.

Another one I use is AI motion detection for my security cameras. It recognises a vehicle or a person and significantly reduces the number of false alerts.

That's a nice radio. It has memory banks, which are essential for managing the 1000 channels it holds. For some reason, Yaesu stopped putting memory banks in their newer radios. The US version is tri band, which is nice if you have any 1.25m repeaters nearby. The batteries are a bit expensive though.

You don't need any special equipment. A baofeng or RTL-SDR will work fine. The stock antenna on a baofeng will pick up the ISS on a high elevation pass if you hold it sideways. A handheld yagi can be built from some scraps of wire and wood.

APRS uses packet radio to send position reports or send short messages. DRM is used for digital shortwave broadcast radio. The DRM encoding is used in ham radio for sending digital SSTV pictures with software like QSSTV and Easypal.

No, you need an audio interface such as a Signalink or Digirig.

You could also make a simple interface with a couple of audio cables connected to your sound card. You will need an L pad to reduce the line level from the computer down to microphone level for the radio. For some modes like SSTV, you can use the VOX function on your radio to transmit, Many other modes will need some sort of PTT control because VOX will be too slow.

That's a good signal for an HT. Were you using a directional antenna?

Make sure auto slant is checked in QSSTV. It will help with the skewing.

It looks good. I was lazy and used one of those brush wall plates for mine.

For the grounding, you can get a small piece of copper flat bar. It's not that expensive and will give a good, solid ground connection to the bulkhead connectors passing through it. You can through bolt a ground lug to the copper bar to connect the ground cable to.

Also, a tip for installing old work boxes. There are 4 small holes in the corner. Hold the front of the box against the wall and poke a small nail through the holes, then use a straight edge to draw lines between them. That will perfectly mark the hole you need to cut out.

The Anytone 878 is one of the best DMR radios you can get for ham radio use. If you don't need DMR or APRS, then you could save some money and get a Yaesu FT-60.

Mine runs locally on the DVR. I wouldn't trust any cloud service with my video.

My old setup only had normal motion detection. I couldn't enable alerts with that because it would go off all night from the bugs swarming the IR LEDs on the cameras.

The Yaesu FT-60 is a good choice if you only want analog FM.

Keep the transmitting and receiving antennas a few wavelengths apart to prevent damage, farther if you're using an amplifier. You can transmit right next to the RTL-SDR with an HT if you disconnect the antenna from the SDR. It will still receive the signal from across the room.

The ISS is an easy one to start with. The signal is much stronger than most of the others.

I've still got mine somewhere. It's a newer one that has a solderless breadboard in it.

The FCC sets what parts of the bands can be used for phone and what's CW or data only. Apart from that everything is basically a gentleman's agreement. Since HF can go a long ways, there's no point making local band plans for it. VHF and up is shorter range and some areas have different needs than others. There are frequency coordinators that handle the band plans and repeater pair assignments. Some states have more than one frequency coordinator for different parts of the state. Some frequency coordinators only handle repeater pairs and don't publish a band plan.

For memory banks, I have one for my favorite repeaters at home and one for each area that I frequently travel to. I also have some banks for scanning like MURS/FRS/GMRS, airband and marine VHF. I have a Kenwood radio, so there are lots of memory banks, but you can't put one channel in multiple banks. That means I have to make some duplicate channels if I want them in more than one bank.

Chirp runs fine on Ubuntu as long as it's not too old. It needs GTK4 now. There are instructions on the Chirp wiki for installing it.

If you can save up a little bit more money, you could get a Yaesu FT-60. They are currently on sale for $140 through the end of January. It's an older model, but it performs much better that a cheap Chinese HT.

You can run a dipole between two houses, just be sure to do your RF exposure calculations and don't be surprised if you pick up a lot of RFI. You will need to use insulators between the antenna wire and the supporting rope. There is a lot of voltage on the ends of the dipole. If the dipole is less than 1/4 wavelength off the ground, most of the signal will go up. That's good for NVIS on the lower bands, but bad for DX.

You can put multiple dipoles on the same cable, it's called a fan dipole. The wires have to be spread out and can be a pain to work with, but you can get an antenna that's resonant on multiple bands.

But will the electric vehicle manufacturers fix their QRM problems or will they just provide radios that can only be used when not driving?

You will want an HF radio to make use of your general class privileges. The Yaesu FT-710 and Icom IC-7300 are good HF base station radios, but will cost around $1000 not including a power supply, antennas, and coax. If you want something cheaper, you can look at the Xiegu G90. It doesn't have as good of a receiver and it's lower powered, but it's half the price and more portable. None of these will do 2M or 70CM, so you will need another radio if you want to work local repeaters.