The United States Trade Representative invited comments from the public this past month to assist them in making recommendations about how to address so-called “unfair trade practices by other countries” and “non-reciprocal trade relationships”. This is the public comment I left today on the USTR docket. I have also submitted similar comments to my senators and representative in Congress.

“I am deeply alarmed by the Trump administration’s decision last week to impose tariffs on Canadian and Mexican goods, as well as further increase tariffs on imports from China. As the CEO of Great Scott Gadgets, a small Colorado-based business that designs, manufactures, and distributes open-source computer hardware to domestic and international resellers, I am directly impacted by these policies. The total tariff on the goods we import from China has now skyrocketed to 45%, placing an unsustainable burden on our company.

Our business relies on a stable global supply chain, free trade, and strong relationships with resellers and suppliers worldwide—relationships that have taken over a decade to build. The imposition of these tariffs jeopardizes our company as well as countless other US businesses that depend on international trade. Tariffs will not only damage the U.S. economy but have already deeply strained our relationships with our closest allies and trading partners.

The reality is that technology companies like ours depend on China’s well-established supply chain, advanced manufacturing infrastructure, and specialized technical expertise, resources that are in critically short supply in the U.S. The Section 301 tariffs imposed in 2018 have already harmed our business, yet they did nothing to create viable alternatives. Raising these tariffs further will not miraculously generate the resources needed to shift manufacturing away from China; it will only worsen the damage.

The administration attempts to justify more tariffs on Chinese goods by pointing out the U.S.-China trade deficit, but this deficit is not China’s fault—it is the result of decades of inadequate U.S. investment in technical education, supply chain infrastructure, and domestic manufacturing capacity. If the U.S. wants to compete, we are going to have to commit to long-term, strategic investments in these areas, as China’s government has been doing for a generation. The CHIPS Act was a step in the right direction, but its benefits will take many more years to materialize. In the meantime, businesses like ours are being pushed to the brink.”

We’ve recently published the second video in our Cynthion training series, so if you want to go deeper into exploring and experimenting with USB, this is for you. In this video, Martin explains the basics and evolution of Facedancer and demonstrates how to use Cynthion and Facedancer to emulate a PS5 controller. If you haven’t already, check out the first video- Sniffing PS5 Controller Packets with Cynthion.

The belated September 2024 recipient for the Great Scott Gadgets Free Stuff Program is Allen Paschel of Orlando, Florida in the United States. Allen is the president of The Maker Effect Foundation which exists to inspire everyone to create! The Maker Effect Foundation is a non-profit organization that runs a maker space and teaches classes at schools, libraries, and events. The maker space has CNC machines, laser etcher/cutters, 3D Printers, vacuum forming equipment, welding tools, electronic tools, and other arts tools. Soon they will be able to add software-defined radio to that list of tools as we are sending them a HackRF One! Once received, The Maker Effect Foundation will use their HackRF One to develop interest in software-defined radio in their community.

The belated August 2024 recipient for the Great Scott Gadgets Free Stuff Program is Murat Sever! Murat teaches a Communication Systems Laboratory course at TOBB ETU University, Ankara, Turkey. In his labs, Murat uses two HackRFs to transmit signals of interest, which students receive via RTL-SDRs. Murat has requested an Opera Cake so his students can study Pseudo Doppler direction finding and to teach students about antenna switching and spectrum monitoring. For more information about Murat’s course, his and his students’ research projects, and their outreach programs, please check out their website (https://ele361l.github.io/).

This application for the Free Stuff program stood out to the team here at Great Scott Gadgets because Murat demonstrated his knowledge of RF and digital signal processing in his application. We know that he’ll be able to make excellent use of the hardware that we send him. We look forward to getting updates from Murat soon!

The belated July 2024 recipient for the Great Scott Gadgets Free Stuff Program is Scott Carter from Ontario, Canada! Scott operates a SETI station that uses a radio telescope he built using software defined radio. He says the radio telescope has been in operation for six and a half years, and it needs a receiver upgrade to allow scanning of frequencies above 2 GHz. We are sending Scott a HackRF One so he can make his radio telescope upgrade! Scott’s long-term goal is to make his SETI station accessible remotely for educational purposes so more folks can learn about radio astronomy.

One story Scott shares with us about his SETI station is that he helped two young astronomy students in the Philippines do drift scans of the sun using his system, which he had configured for 1420 MHz. At the time, the telescope was remotely accessible via a web page and command line tools, which worked pretty well, although it was limited to changes in elevation only. Since that experience, Scott has begun modifications for azimuth control, and he will be upgrading to a 10-foot dish. We are also happy to see that the software he uses for digital signal processing is being rewritten and will be available as open source.

This application for the Free Stuff program stood out to the team here at Great Scott Gadgets because it focuses on radio astronomy, which we’d like to see HackRF One be used for more often. We also really appreciate the work Scott is doing to support astronomy fans from all over the world. Free Stuff applications like this that describe specific projects in detail really stand out. We look forward to getting updates from Scott soon!

The belated June 2024 recipient for the Great Scott Gadgets Free Stuff Program is Evan Metzinger. Evan is the president of the Cybersecurity club at Mt. San Antonio college in Walnut, California in the US. We will be sending Evan a HackRF One so he and his club can get some hands on experience with signals processing and participate in wireless capture the flag competitions.

The belated May 2024 Free Stuff recipient for the Great Scott Gadgets Free Stuff Program is Anik Mahanta from India! Anik is a student who is part of the CyRaksha Cybersecurity Club of Kolkata. CyRaksha is a free-to-join club that hosts their meetups both in-person and online. They will be using the HackRF One we are sending them to create CTF challenges, host informal meetups about RF technologies, and to create open access materials on how to use HackRF One safely while respecting Indian law.

Like every open source company, Great Scott Gadgets thrives with support from you, our community. The most direct way to support us is to buy our hardware, but for folks who already have our hardware, are more interested in our software, or just want to see us grow, we have a few other options. For example, we appreciate contributions to our GitHub repositories, documentation edits, and hearing your use cases and feedback for our products and projects. If you want to know other ways you can get involved, check out our “Support our Work” page.

The belated April 2024 Free Stuff recipient for the Great Scott Gadgets Free Stuff Program is Necati Sari! Necati is a radio amateur who is looking to build a single board computer (SBC) with HackRF One. Necati is developing this SBC to help support his local amateur radio community, TRAC Kadikoy in Turkey, in bringing in new members and to make software-defined radio more accessible to folks that are just starting in this discipline.

This application for the Free Stuff program stood out to the team here at Great Scott Gadgets because it focuses on community support and it proposes a project that we would like to see become reality. Free Stuff applications that describe specific projects in detail really stand out. We look forward to getting updates from Necati soon!

In our latest training video Martin uses Cynthion to sniff PS5 controller packets. The video guides you through how to set up Cynthion, how to use Packetry, and what PS5 controller packets look like. If you are just getting started with Cynthion or learning about USB, we suggest checking out this video.