Participants Guide
Code of Conduct, Help, and Support
How can I log into my account in a second browser?
How can I talk directly with someone?
How do I ask a question to the presenter?
Will Workshops be recorded and available?
How to make the most out of the discussion rooms?
Introduction
Thank you for attending GNU Radio Conference 2021 (GRCon’21).
The event will take place Monday, September 20 – Friday, September 24. It takes place in-person in Charlotte, North Carolina, but is available online for the Main Talks and some workshops.
Please visit our website: https://events.gnuradio.org/e/grcon21.
The detailed schedule is here.
The Conference is operating in the Eastern Daylight Timezone (EDT), or UTC-4. Timezones are being specifically noted as frequently as possible, but any unspecified time should be assumed to be in EDT.
Time Conversion Link for Conference: https://www.worldtimebuddy.com/
Registering
We request that all attendees register so that we’re able to send important updates during the conference.
https://tickets.gnuradio.org/grcon21
Code of Conduct, Help, and Support
In the interest of fostering an open and welcoming environment, we as contributors and maintainers pledge to making participation in our project and our community a harassment-free experience for everyone, regardless of age, body size, disability, ethnicity, sex characteristics, gender identity and expression, level of experience, education, socio-economic status, nationality, personal appearance, race, religion, or sexual identity and orientation.
Full Code of Conduct: Code of Conduct - GNU Radio
Email: conduct@gnuradio.org (for questions or to report a potential CoC violation)
Participating
For this year’s hybrid event, we will have in-person and virtual attendees, talks (pre-recorded), and workshops. All of the talks are being live-streamed publicly to YouTube. Visit the GNU Radio YouTube channel and you can set reminders to be notified when each day’s stream is starting, see Main Track Talks below for a link to each day's livestream.
In-Person
Additional details can be found in the In-Person Venue section on the GRCon21 website which also includes a venue layout. In-person participants are also encouraged to join in on virtual events and activities like Matrix chat.
Virtual
Virtual attendees will have access to our livestreams and Matrix chat for Free. Additional access to Virtual Workshops is available for those who purchase an “Online Workshop Pass” here. There will be various GNU Radio leads and core devs hanging around the chat channels, ready to answer questions or discuss a topic, see Chat Rooms for more info.
Additional details can be found in the Virtual Event section on the GRCon21 website.
Main Track Talks
The virtual portion of questions and answers for each talk will happen on in the conference Chat Rooms, specifically in the #grcon21-talks room. Register ahead of time and join this channel while watching to see and participate in the discussions.
Youtube Livestream
GNU Radio Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/GNURadioProject/
Chat Rooms
Much of the value of the GNU Radio Conference is in the interactions between all participants of the event. In moving to include virtual participation one of our core focuses was on supporting these interactions as much as possible.
The conference will make heavy use of the “Matrix” chat system which is used year-round for GNU Radio development and community discussions. There are rooms for general chat, discussions and Q&A for main track talks, individual sponsors, and topical breakouts.
We strongly recommend that you join in the chat where possible.
Once you have logged in you should see the main GRCon discussion page. The full list of GRCon rooms are located at:
https://chat.gnuradio.org/#/room/#grcon21:gnuradio.org
The GNU Radio Code of Conduct also applies to GRCon Chat Rooms.
Chat Sign-up
Go to https://chat.gnuradio.org and create a new Account. No information other than username and password are required, though an email address is helpful for password recovery.
Matrix does support chat encryption and will ask you to make a backup of your private key information in case you lose access to your existing login.
Chat Clients
A pretty comprehensive list of clients can be found here along with comparison charts here.
Many current members of the GNU Radio Chat community have mentioned the phone apps are a quick and easy way to communicate, as well as the web-app client that https://chat.gnuradio.org brings you to.
The homeserver of the GNU Radio Chat is https://gnuradio.ems.host. See below for an example of how to create an account using the GNU Radio homeserver on the Element Desktop Client (to sign-in you click “Sign in instead”).
Conference Chat Rooms
We have several chat rooms setup for interaction during GRCon. All chat rooms will be monitored/moderated during the event. Many chat rooms will remain active until 1 week after the conference, and some will persist beyond the conference.
Main Chat Rooms
We will host the following chat rooms during GRCon. In addition, each sponsor will have a separate chat room, see below for more information.
The easiest way to see all the rooms is to visit https://chat.gnuradio.org/#/room/#grcon21:gnuradio.org
Room | Summary | |
GRCon Announcements #grcon21-announce:gnuradio.org | GRCon Organizers will post announcements here. Posting permissions are limited to GRCon organizers and GNU Radio Leadership. | |
GRCon Talks #grcon21-talks:gnuradio.org | GRCon Main Track discussions and questions. The attendees and presenters will have the opportunity to interact and ask questions during talks. | |
GRCon Discuss #grcon21-discuss:gnuradio.org | General GRCon related discussions including off topic and general social topics. | |
GRCon Helpdesk #grcon21-helpdesk:gnuradio.org | Chat room specifically for asking questions or making suggestions to the GRCon Team. Will be monitored daily from 1000 to 1800 EDT. | |
GRCon CTS #grcon21-cts:gnuradio.org | This year we are doing a virtual Capture the Signal (CTS), full of mysterious signals and deviations - all levels welcome! Join this chat to discuss CTS and talk to organizers. | |
Radio Resilience Competition #grcon21-radio-resilience-competition:gnuradio.org | The Radio Resilience Competition is a virtual CTF at GNU Radio Conference 2021! Check out the main competition website and join the chat for discussion. | |
GRCon HamRadio #grcon-HamRadio:gnuradio.org | The intersection of Amateur Radio and GNU Radio | |
GR Docs #docs:gnuradio.org | Documentation chat room that supports the wiki among other documentation efforts for GNU Radio. This room operates year round but will be monitored during GRCon. | |
GR Educators #edu:gnuradio.org | Discussion related to using GNU Radio in education. | |
Chat/Matrix FAQ
How can I log into my account in a second browser?
The GNU Radio chat includes strong encryption between users (disabled on the public channels). When you first log into your account on a second computer or browser the website/app will prompt you to verify your login using another verified session. Here is a video demonstrating the process:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZUWmGQrbBQ
How can I talk directly with someone?
A direct message can be sent to a user by searching for them under “People”.
How to join Rooms?
For the GRCon specific rooms, the rooms are listed on the main GRCon Community page[1] after the description or on the side panel using # icon:
https://chat.gnuradio.org/#/room/#grcon21:gnuradio.org (requires account)
https://chat.gnuradio.org/#/group/+grcon21:gnuradio.org (if above doesn’t work)
https://app.element.io/#/group/+grcon:gnuradio.org (guest view)
For other GNU Radio Chat Rooms, click on the Explore Rooms icon () to see a room directory list[2]:
Other Questions
A #grcon21-helpdesk channel has been set up as a way of quickly addressing any questions, concerns, or suggestions you may have during the event. Several conference organizers and volunteers will be monitoring that channel during the event.
Workshops
GRCon21 is offering in-person, virtual, and hybrid (in-person and virtual) workshops this year. Please see the listing of workshops on the events site for more details.
This is our first year doing both in-person and virtual workshops. We expect a few issues to arise and appreciate your patience and understanding as we work through this process.
Virtual Workshops
Most virtual workshops will be conducted via Big Blue Button, an open source web conferencing system for online learning. Links will be provided to attendees who sign-up prior to the workshop’s start.
To ensure that Q&A is possible and that the virtual workshop platform gives a good experience, each workshop is currently limited to 100 attendees (except the OpenCPI talks which are limited to 20 due to hardware limits). Waitlists are enabled and we will be tracking demand for each workshop.
You can preview the workshop platform and check that it works for you at http://test.bigbluebutton.org
Obtaining Workshop BBB Links
All in-person attendees and virtual attendees who purchased an “Online Workshop Pass” will receive links to attend the virtual workshops.
The process has been simplified. The links provided will give you access to any of the workshops. We are not planning to limit virtual attendance as we believe BBB will handle our expected participant numbers.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I ask a question to the presenter?
Join the #grcon21-talks chat room on Matrix. Presenters will be in this room during their talk to answer questions in real-time.
Will the talks be recorded?
Yes, all the talks will be available on the GNU Radio YouTube channel after the conference.
Will the slides be available?
Slides are being collected and will be posted onto the conference website after the event. Unfortunately we don’t have them in-place during the event.
Will Workshops be recorded and available?
It's up to the individual workshop instructors if they would like to share a recording of their workshop. If the workshops recordings are shared they will be publicly accessible.
How do I ask for help?
For real-time assistance during conference hours please feel free to stop by the GRCon Registration Desk (In-Person) or GRCon Help Desk Chat room on chat.gnuradio.org (Virtual). Another option is email, but responses may be slower.
GRCon Help Desk Chat Room: https://chat.gnuradio.org/#/room/#grcon21-helpdesk:gnuradio.org
If you have a specific question or comment you can use @organizers in your chat to alert the organizers to your message.
Email Organizers: grcon@gnuradio.org
How to make the most out of the discussion rooms?
Start at the GRCon Community page and look over the rooms.
https://chat.gnuradio.org/#/room/#grcon21:gnuradio.org
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[1] Community descriptions may not be viewable in all clients
[2] Not all rooms are listed in the directory, including many of the GRCon Community Rooms