ChatGPT and Amateur Radio (Ham Radio)

ChatGPT and Amateur Radio (Ham Radio)

After a Twitter chat with my Twitter contact Guy Fernando (Radio Amateur with call sign M0OOX) who told me that “ChatGPT is a neural network designed to hold conversations with humans”, I thought of initiating a ‘Ham QSO’ (conversation) with ChatGPT to see how it would fare as a Ham QSO partner. After the usual registration with email and phone verification, I just typed ‘ChatGPT, this is VU2JO’.

The reply came as ‘Hello VU2JO, How can I help you today?’ I was a bit disappointed as I had expected ChatGPT to reply like a Ham on the other end. I pacified myself saying that after all, ChatGPT is not a trained Radio Amateur, to speak like a Ham Radio operator! Then I searched the web to find out how Amateur Radio operators have tried to use ChatGPT.

One person had used speech to text conversion to communicate with ChatGPT and get an answer. After that the answer was converted to speech using text to speech converter and finally transmitted on VHF [1]. The question was on what was the easiest way to get an Amateur Radio Licence. It was a fairly generic reply which could be used by anyone in any country.

Another person had asked about 2 m FM antenna and advantages of software defined radio (SDR). The answers to both were good, though the blogger felt that it was not up to the mark, being a bit generic [2]. The day may not be far when you may find a bot on other end, participating in DX Contests on behalf of Ham Radio operators. In fact it may already be there without we being aware of it!

Web references:

1. https://hackaday.com/2023/01/28/the-voice-of-chatgpt-is-now-on-the-air/
2. https://www.kb6nu.com/chatgpt-doesnt-really-live-up-to-its-hype/