Podcasts about freedv

Foundations of Amateur Radio Over the years I've talked about different ways of using our license to transmit. I've discussed things like modes such as voice AM, FM, and SSB, and digital modes like FT8, WSPR, RTTY, FreeDV, Hellschreiber, Olivia and even Morse code. Recently it occurred to me that there is something odd about how we do this as a community. Now that I've realised this it's hard to unsee. Let me see if I can get you to the same place of wonder. Why is it that we as amateurs only use one such mode at a time? Let me say that again. With all the modes we have available to us, why do we only use one mode at a time, why do we get our brain into the mindset of one activity, stop doing that in order to move to another mode? It's weird. Amateur radio is what's called "frequency agile". What I mean by that is we are not restricted to a fixed number of channels like most, if not all other radio users. We can set our transmission frequency to whatever we want, within the restrictions imposed by our license conditions, and start making noise. There's agreement on what mode you can use where, but within that comes a great deal of flexibility. We have the ability to find each other. Call CQ and if the band is open and your station is transmitting a signal, the chance is good that someone somewhere on planet Earth will respond. We change frequency at will, almost without thought, but why don't we do this with modes? The closest I've seen is local VHF and UHF contests where you get different points depending on which mode you're using, and even that seems hard fought. It's weird. We have an increasing range of Software Defined Radios, or SDR, where your voice, or incoming text, can be transformed to a different mode at the touch of a button, but we rarely if ever actually use this ability. In case you're thinking that the restriction relates to the availability of SDR in the average amateur radio shack, most amateur modes fit within a normal audio stream and that same flexibility could be applied to the vast majority of transmitters scattered around the globe, but to my knowledge, it isn't. Why is that? Better still, what can we do about it? Can we develop procedures and processes to make us more, let's call it "mode agile", giving us the ability to change mode at the same ease as we change frequency? What would a "mode and frequency agile" amateur look like? What processes would you use? Right now the best we have is to QSY, or announce that we're changing frequency, but I've never heard anyone use that to describe a change of mode. Of course it's possible that I've led a sheltered life and not been on-air enough, but if that's the case, I'd love to hear about it. So, what is stopping us from becoming even more flexible? Do we need to practice this, develop better tools, teach new amateurs, have multimode nets, invent new modes that share information across different modes simultaneously, build radios that can transmit on different frequencies, or something else? I'm Onno VK6FLAB

Foundations of Amateur Radio Recently I received a lovely email from Michele IU4TBF asking some pertinent questions about the Bald Yak project. If you're unfamiliar, the Bald Yak project aims to create a modular, bidirectional and distributed signal processing and control system that leverages GNU Radio. The short answer to how I'm doing getting GNU Radio to play nice with my computer is that I have bruises on my forehead from banging my head against the wall. When I get to success I'll document it. To be clear, I'm not sure what the root cause is. I suspect it lies between the GNU Radio developers, the people making packages and the manufacturer of my computer. I'm the lucky one stuck in the middle. A more interesting question that Michele asked was, for Bald Yak, what is the A/D and D/A requirement for making GNU Radio talk to an antenna? This is a much deeper question that meets the eye and I think it serves as a way to discuss what I think that this project looks like. Ultimately in the digital realm, to receive, an analogue antenna signal needs to be converted to digital using an Analogue to Digital or A/D converter, and to transmit, the reverse uses a Digital to Analogue or D/A converter to make an electrical signal appear on your antenna. The specific A/D or D/A converter determines what you can do. The sampling rate of such a converter determines what frequencies it can handle, the sample size determines the range of signals it can handle. You can compare it with a video screen. The sample rate determines how many pixels on the screen, the sample size determines how many colours in each pixel. The sample rate of an A/D converter is measured in samples per second. If the device only has one channel, you could think of this as Hertz, but if there are multiple channels, like say a sound-card, the sample rate is likely equally divided across each channel. You might have a sound card capable of 384 thousand samples per second, or kilo-samples, but if it supports simultaneous stereo audio input and output, only 96 of those 384 kilo-samples will be allocated to each channel and only half of those will actually help reconstruct the audio signal, leaving you with 48 kHz audio. In other words, the advertised frequency response might not have a direct and obvious relationship with the sample rate. At the moment I have access to a few different A/D and D/A converters. The simplest one, a USB audio sound card, appears to do up to 192 kilo-samples at 16 bits. The next one, an RTL-SDR tops out at a theoretical rate of 3.2 million or mega-samples at 8 bits. The Analog Devices ADALM-PLUTO, or PlutoSDR handles 61.44 mega-samples at 12 bits. Now, to be clear, there are other limitations and considerations which I'm skipping over. Consider for example the speed at which each of these devices can talk to a computer, in this case over USB. I'm also going to ignore things like mixers, allowing devices like the RTL-SDR and PlutoSDR to tune across frequency ranges that go beyond their sample rate. Each of these three devices can convert an analogue antenna signal into bits that can be processed by GNU Radio. All of them can also be used to do the opposite and transmit. Yes, you heard me, several amateurs figured out that an RTL-SDR can actually transmit. Credit to Ismo OH2FTG, Tatu OH2EAT, and Oscar IK1XPV. The point being that whatever Bald Yak looks like, it will need to handle a range of A/D and D/A converters. As I've said previously, I'm aiming for this to work incrementally for everyone. This means that if you have a sound card in your computer or an $8 USB one, this should work and if you have an $33,000 NI Ettus USRP X410 lying around, this too should work. Also, if you have an X410 lying around not doing anything, I'd be happy to put it to use, you know, for testing. So, kidding aside, what about the rest of the Bald Yak experience? GNU Radio works with things called blocks. Essentially little programs that take data, do something to it, then output it in some way. It follows the Unix philosophy, make each program do one thing well, expect the output of every program to become the input to another, design and build software to be tried early and use tools rather than unskilled labour. Amateur radio transceivers traditionally use electronics blocks, but if we move to software, we can update and expand our capabilities as the computer we're using gets faster and the GNU Radio blocks evolve, and because it's all digital the computer doesn't actually have to be in the same box, let alone the same room, it could be in multiple boxes scattered around the Internet. So, the idea of Bald Yak is a collection of blocks that allow you to do radio things. You might have a separate box for each amateur radio mode, AM, FM, SSB, RTTY, CW, WSPR, FT8, FT4, Q65, but also modes like Olivia, FreeDV, SSTV, Packet, PSK31 or Thor. Instead of having to figure out how to wire these modes into your radio and your computer, the infrastructure is already there and you just download another block for a mode you want to play with. We'll need to deal with variables like which A/D and D/A converter is being used and what their limitations are. We'll also need to build a command and control layer and probably a few other things. I'm considering a few other aspects. For example, GNU Radio is mostly run with text files. We might distribute those using something like a web store. GNU Radio is proving hard to install, perhaps a LiveCD is the way to go. We'll need to come up with a base level of functionality and the documentation to go with it. I'm still contemplating how to best licence this all, specifically to stop it from being exploited. Feel free to get in touch if you have ideas. I'm Onno VK6FLAB

PODCAST: This Week in Amateur Radio Edition #1341 - Full Version Release Date: November 9, 2024 Here is a summary of the news trending This Week in Amateur Radio. This week's edition is anchored by Tammy Walker, KI5ODE, Denny Haight, NZ8D, Dave Wilson, WA2HOY, Don Hulick, K2ATJ, Will Rogers, K5WLR, Eric Zittel, KD2RJX, Marvin Turner, W0MET, George Bowen, W2XBS, and Jessica Bowen, KC2VWX. Produced and edited by George Bowen, W2XBS. Approximate Running Time: 1:32:32 Podcast Download: https://bit.ly/TWIAR1341 Trending headlines in this week's bulletin service 1. AMSAT: AMSAT AO-7 To Celebrate 50th Anniversary 2. AMSAT: Voyager 1 Spacecraft Phones Home With Transmitter That Hasn't Been Used Since 1981 3. AMSAT: Satellite Shorts From All Over 4. WIA: Broadcast Radio Towers Continue To Fall 5. WIA: Singapore's 4300 KiloMeter Undersea Transmission Line With Australia Clears Regulatory Hurdle 6. WIA: China Discovers That Starlink Satellites Could Un-stealth Stealth Aircraft 7. Arecibo Science Education Center Opening Is Delayed 8. IEEE Honors Educator For Using Wireless Signals In Weather Data Collecting 9. Scientists Find A Possible Cause Of The Arecibo Telescope Collapse 10. Amateurs In Spain Provide Communications For Deadly Floods 11. A Satellite Made Of Wood Is Launched By Japan 12. Alaskan Island Gets A New Connection Via Amateur Radio 13. Radio Independence Is The 2025 HamVention Theme 14. ARRL: Amateur Radio Activated For Late Season Hurricane 15. ARRL: 2024 ARRL Field Day Results Published 16. ARRL: Rare California Island To Be Activated For Armed Forces Day, First Time In 53 Years 17. Court Debates FCC's Power Over Net Neutrality 18. ARRL: YouTubers raise funds for ARRL Teachers Institute 19. ARRL: Upcoming contests and conventions listing 20. AMSAT: Reflect Orbital To Sell Sunlight Using Space Mirrors 21. WIA: New edition of FreeDV now available 22. ARRL: $47K raised for AR Stem Education through ARRL online auction 23. ARRL: 2025 ARRL Foundation Scholarship program now accepting applications 24. HamSci program receives $1.8 million dollar grant from the National Science foundation/HamSci solar eclipse win 25. Planned changes to the UK amateur licensing system is delayed by Ofcom 26. ARRL: Monthly Volunteer Monitoring Report Plus these Special Features This Week: * Working Amateur Radio Satellites with Bruce Paige, KK5DO - AMSAT Satellite News * Foundations of Amateur Radio with Onno Benschop VK6FLAB, will tell us how amateur radio has many Unexpected Miracles. * The DX Corner with Bill Salyers, AJ8B with news on DXpeditions, DX, upcoming radio sport contests and more. * Weekly Propagation Forecast from the ARRL * Will Rogers - K5WLR - A Century Of Amateur Radio - This week, Will takes us all aboard The Wayback Machine to the early days of amateur radio to witness the first radio regulations, as a process forms around the new 1912 law, in an episode entitled, Regulations and Enforcement, Both Hard and Soft. ----- Website: https://www.twiar.net X: https://x.com/TWIAR Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/twiari YouTube: https://bit.ly/TWIARYouTube RSS News: https://twiar.net/?feed=rss2 Automated (Full): https://twiar.net/TWIARHAM.mp3 (Static file, updated weekly) Automated (1-hour): https://www.twiar.net/TWIAR1HR.mp3 (Static file, updated weekly) ----- This Week in Amateur Radio is produced by Community Video Associates in upstate New York, and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. If you would like to volunteer with us as a news anchor or special segment producer please get in touch with our Executive Producer, George, via email at w2xbs77@gmail.com. Thanks to FortifiedNet.net for the server space! Thanks to Archive.org for the audio space.

Foundations of Amateur Radio The hobby of amateur radio is one of experimentation and change. For decades this came in the form of circuit diagrams, components and scrounged hardware from anything that wasn't bolted down. New functionality came with the aid of a soldering iron. More recently, functionality comes from participation in the global electronics market where you can buy any radio you like and have it shipped to your door within hours at an unbeatable price. Mind you, buying all those unbelievably cheap radios does start adding up and if you want to use more sophisticated hardware, that too is possible, at a price, somewhere between $50 and a new Porsche. Whilst that's an option for some, for the rest of us, there are better and cheaper ways. Of course it doesn't stop there. If you connect any radio to a computer, you can use whatever software you like to encode and decode any signal you can imagine. With a traditional radio connected to a computer you can make it participate in hundreds of different so-called digital modes. Before I continue, let's look at radio in a slightly different way. Consider an antenna as a continuous source of voltages that are amplified, filtered and demodulated in some way by a radio. You can think of the combination of antenna, radio and computer as a stream decoder. To decode a signal in a new way requires a new decoder, which you could build from components or as I've said, buy online. During the week I've continued experimenting with GNU Radio. If you're unfamiliar, it's a toolkit that allows you to build so-called flow graphs that can process a signal stream. Think of it as a box of Lego that you can put together to build any type of decoder. Let me say that again. Imagine that you want to decode or transmit a mode like FreeDV, M17, APRS, Olivia, Contestia, or Hellschreiber. With the GNU Radio toolkit, all of this is possible and you won't need to buy new hardware or bust out the soldering iron every time you want to experiment with a new mode. If you have been playing with digital modes already, you'll likely point out that you can already do this today by using software running on a computer, and that's true. What that doesn't tell you is that this comes with a very specific limitation, namely that all those modes require that they fit inside a single audio channel because all those digital modes you might be familiar with are essentially using an SSB or FM signal with the audio generated or decoded by a computer. Even if you have a modern radio like for example an ICOM IC-7300, you'll still be limited in what modes of transmission you can make. ICOM limits the transmit bandwidth to 2.9 kHz. Flex Radio appears to double that to 7.9 kHz, but numbers are sketchy. The point remains, most current amateur radio technology is based around the notion that a mode essentially fits within a single audio channel and a very narrow one at that. So, why does this matter? If you run out of FT8 space on a band, right now you need to change to an alternate frequency to play, but you'll only be able to see the stations that are using the same alternate frequency, as long as they fit within the bandwidth of an audio signal. If you wanted to check out the main frequency, you'd have to change frequencies and keep switching back and forth. Using this idea, monitoring all of FT4, FT8, WSPR and all CW beacons, all at the same time becomes unimaginable, not to mention costly if you needed a radio for each band and each mode. What if you wanted to use another mode that took more than about 4 kHz, like say a 5 MHz wide DVB-T signal which you could be experimenting with on 70cm? Or, what if you'd like to compare a repeater input with its output at the same time? Or compare two repeaters together? Or find the best band to operate on right now? The point being, that there are things that simply don't fit within a single audio channel that you won't be able to play with using a traditional radio. As it happens, that too is a solved problem. Remember that I mentioned that you can think of an antenna, radio, and computer combination as a stream decoder? What if I told you that an SDR, a Software Defined Radio, is essentially a device that translates antenna voltages into numbers which you can process with GNU Radio? Whilst that does imply replacing your radio, you don't have to jump in at the deep end to start playing and even if you do decide to buy new hardware, you can get your toes wet with all manner of self build or commercial kits. Even better, you can start with the gear you already have today and become familiar with GNU Radio and when you're ready to expand your station, you can add in an SDR and continue to use the same tools to experiment. Not only that, you can do interesting things by combining what you already have. Consider for example the idea of using an RTL-SDR as the receiver with a traditional radio as the transmitter. You could decode all of the FT8 signals on a band and transmit where there was space to do so. The point being that you can do this one step at a time. Every time you download or build another GNU Radio flow graph, you can have a new decoder and as time goes on, you'll be able to decide what hardware you might want to pair it with. To be clear, I'm talking about the gradual change from component based radio using audio interfaces into software based radio. It's not like we haven't done this before. Anyone recall spark gaps, or valves? The future of experimentation is bright and it's filled with bits. I'm Onno VK6FLAB

In this episode, we join Martin Butler M1MRB, Dan Romanchik KB6NU, Caryn Eve Murray KD2GUT and Edmund Spicer M0MNG to discuss the latest Amateur / Ham Radio news. Colin Butler (M6BOY) rounds up the news in brief and in the episode's feature is Hamzilla 2023. We would like to thank  ICQPodcast 400 Club Member Winston Lawrence, KD2WLL, one-off donors Michael Rosenberg (N9YB), Gary Bridges (WA0VMV) and our monthly and annual subscription donors for keeping the podcast advert free. To donate, please visit - http://www.icqpodcast.com/donate Echo of BBC's first broadcast in Scotland 100 years ago is heard from centenary event at Pacific Quay Steubenville-Weirton Amateur Radio Club Donates Books to Library System Is there a Better Way to Safeguard Vital Repeaters? In the Car, Podcasts and Online Audio Continue to Grow FreeDV Aims to Bring Open-Source HF Digital Voice Into the Mainstream Astronauts from UAE Taking on Space Education Getting Serious About Sat-Phone Service Essex Ham Annual Survey Connecticut Governor Proclaims Amateur Radio Recognition Week

Hello and welcome to the 501st episode of Linux in the Ham Shack. In this episode, we talk with Mooneer Salem, K6AQ, primary developer on the FreeDV team. After a …

PODCAST: This Week in Amateur Radio Edition #1255 Release Date: March 18, 2023 Here is a summary of the news trending This Week in Amateur Radio. This week's edition is anchored by Terry Saunders, N1KIN, Dave Wilson, WA2HOY, Bob Donlon, W3BOO, Will Rogers, K5WLR, Don Hulick, K2ATJ, Eric Zittel, KD2RJX, George Bowen, W2XBS, and Jessica Bowen, KC2VWX. Produced and edited by George Bowen, W2XBS. Approximate Running Time: 1:59:13 Podcast Download: https://bit.ly/TWIAR1255 Trending headlines in this week's bulletin service: 1. U.S. House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee Advances Five Satellite Related Bills 2. The International Space Station Dodges Commercial Imaging Satellite 3. The QSO Today Virtual Ham Expo Returns Next Week 4. Amateur Radio Emergency Service News Briefs 5. A Brief History of Amateur Radio EmComm Organization 6. Saint Patrick's Day Radio Event 7. Upcoming Tornado Season and Amateur Radio 8. Volunteer Monitor Program Cautions against Operating Beyond License Privileges 9. Rule Changes Announced for 2023 ARRL Field Day 10. Dayton Amateur Radio Association Leader Ron Cramer, KD8ENJ, Silent Key 11. QRP Basics – 3rd Edition Is Updated 12. Remote DXpeditioning Is Tested During Two Year Adventure 13. Severe Weather Striking Both Coasts Underscores Amateur Radios Vital Roles 14. Amateurs Interested In The Millimeter Bands (Microwave) Prepare For An Upcoming Conference 15. Quarter Century Wireless Association Officer Gary Kimball, WB2SER, Silent Key 16. Four Astronauts From ISS Crew Five End Mission With A Successful Splashdown 17. National Hamfest Is Cancelled For 2023 In The United Kingdom 18. FCC: Radio Impacto in New York Faces $2.3 Million Pirate Radio Fine, Largest Ever 19. Australian Amateurs Prepare For Special Event Called "Antennapalooza" 20. Amateur-authored Book About World Science Day Launches 21. Shortwave Broadcaster RUV In Iceland Shuts Down Transmitter - Drops Tower 22. National Vietnam War Veteran's Day Special Event has been announced 23. Upcoming Hamfests, Contests and State/Regional Conventions 24. ARDC gives a major grant to FreeDV who aims to bring open source HF digital voice into the mainstream 25. RF Interference from low earth orbit satellites is threatening radio astronomy 26. QSO Today Virtual Ham Expo to feature a presentation on Creating Your First Workbench 27. Three new amateur radio astronauts, AKA Crew Six, arrive on board the International Space Station 28. President Biden's nominee to the FCC, decides not to pursue confirmation 29. Vandals cut the guy wires to an emergency communications tower in Nebraska causing it to fall 30. The addition of the FM mode to 11 meter transceivers brings all mode operations to Citizen Band Plus these Special Features This Week: * Our technology reporter Leo Laporte, will talk about mobile apps that spy on you and the European General Data Protection Regulation and how effects the United States, Leo also takes a look at how we are now living in the world as predicted in the novel 1984. * Working Amateur Radio Satellites with Bruce Paige, KK5DO - AMSAT Satellite News * Tower Climbing and Antenna Safety w/Greg Stoddard KF9MP, will have some suggestions about what tools and items you should bring with you on your tower climb. * Foundations of Amateur Radio with Onno Benschop VK6FLAB, will answer the question, now that you have constructed a new antenna, either homebrew or commercial out of a box, what should you expect when antenna testing day rolls around? And, he will take a look at Acronyms in Amateur Radio. Like what is SHF or THF, Tremendously High Frequency. He will have the explanations. * Weekly Propagation Forecast from the ARRL * Bill Continelli, W2XOY - The History of Amateur Radio. Bill returns to begin his series, The Ancient Amateur Archives, this week, in a special extended edition, Bill takes a look at the 3rd ever radio conference that was held in Cairo in 1938. How did amateurs fare at this conference? And, Bill will give us an overview on what it was like to be an amateur in late 1930's. And he will also take us back to the early 1940's and looks at FCC General Order 72 restricting amateurs ability to contact foreign amateurs, as the government takes over a few of the ham bands for World War II ----- Website: https://www.twiar.net Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/twiari/ Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/twiar RSS News: https://twiar.net/?feed=rss2 Automated: https://twiar.net/TWIARHAM.mp3 (Static file, changed weekly) ----- Visit our website at www.twiar.net for program audio, and daily for the latest amateur radio and technology news. Air This Week in Amateur Radio on your repeater! Built in identification breaks every 10 minutes or less. This Week in Amateur Radio is heard on the air on nets and repeaters as a bulletin service all across North America, and all around the world on amateur radio repeater systems, weekends on WA0RCR on 1860 (160 Meters), and more. This Week in Amateur Radio is portable too! The bulletin/news service is available and built for air on local repeaters (check with your local clubs to see if their repeater is carrying the news service) and can be downloaded for air as a weekly podcast to your digital device from just about everywhere. This Week in Amateur Radio is also carried on a number of LPFM stations, so check the low power FM stations in your area. You can also stream the program to your favorite digital device by visiting our web site www.twiar.net. Or, just ask Siri, Alexa, or your Google Nest to play This Week in Amateur Radio! This Week in Amateur Radio is produced by Community Video Associates in upstate New York, and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. If you would like to volunteer with us as a news anchor or special segment producer please get in touch with our Executive Producer, George, via email at w2xbs77@gmail.com. Also, please feel free to follow us by joining our popular group on Facebook, and follow our feed on Twitter! Thanks to FortifiedNet.net for the server space! Thanks to Archive.org for the audio space.

Mooneer Salem, K6AQ,  discovered that amateur radio provides plenty of opportunities for hams who also love computers and computer programming.  K6AQ loves open source, contributing to HF digital voice development in the Free-DV Project, and improving on WinLink HF digital email gateways.  Combine all this with Software Defined Radio and you have an active 21st century ham.  K6AQ is my QSO Today.

In this episode, Martin Butler (M1MRB) is joined by Chris Howard (M0TCH), Martin Rothwell (M0SGL), Frank Howell (K4FMH), Bill Barnes WC3B and Leslie Butterfield G0CIB to discuss the latest Amateur / Ham Radio news. Colin (M6BOY) rounds up the news in brief and in the episode's feature HamPi. We would like to thank Daryll McCathery (VK6DMC ), Mr D Renton, Appledore and District Radio Club and our monthly and annual subscription donors for keeping the podcast advert free. To donate, please visit - http://www.icqpodcast.com/donate Rye Man Convicted for Making Racial Remarks over Amateur Radio Networks Foundation Online Training Course Statistics Parks on the Air Radio Ham in the Press FreeDV Activity Day Pilots Fault Electronics "Spoofing" of GPS Signals Platinum Jubilee NoV Now Available Beijing Winter Olympics Special Event Station BY1CRA/WO22 is Active ARRL Announces New World Wide Digital Contest GB100 2MT marking the Centenary of British Broadcasting Inventor of APRS, Bob Bruninga W4APR is SK

GB2RS NEWS Sunday the 11th of April 2021 The news headlines: RSGB Patron, Silent Key Friendship on the Air RSGB online AGM It is with great sadness that we heard that the Radio Society of Great Britain’s Patron, His Royal Highness, The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, KG, KT, died on Friday the 9th of April. He was the RSGB’s Patron from 1952 and joined the Society on several occasions. These included special event stations, anniversary events and exhibitions. In 1988, he attended the 75th Anniversary Convention at the NEC. After touring the display of amateur equipment through the ages, he exchanged a short greetings message with Windsor Castle. His opening address was included in a special edition of GB2RS that was carried live from the NEC. The Duke of Edinburgh’s continuing commitment to help young people to develop new skills were demonstrated through the message he sent on the occasion of YOTA 2017: “I am delighted to have this opportunity to welcome everyone who is participating in The Radio Society of Great Britain’s youth event ‘Youngsters on the Air 2017’. The skills involved in amateur radio are a valuable foundation for careers in science, technology, engineering and maths. I hope that all those taking part in this event will gain valuable experience for their chosen career. I wish all participants a very enjoyable week, and trust that the friendships formed will last long after the conclusion of the camp.” Our thoughts are with Her Majesty The Queen and the whole Royal family at this sad time. The RSGB has launched the Friendship on the Air Award to support the radio amateur community as restrictions lift over the coming months. There will be monthly and annual awards for individuals, clubs and the highest-scoring club in each region. The points system is simply an encouragement to get on the air, represent your club and have a proper chat with radio amateurs across the airwaves. The award is part of the RSGB and NHS ‘Get on the air to care’ campaign, and links with the chosen theme of ‘Home but never alone’ for this year’s World Amateur Radio Day. To find out how to take part, visit rsgb.org/friendship-award. The RSGB is holding its AGM online this year on Saturday the 24th of April. The event will include both the formal AGM business and a presentation by John Rogers, M0JAV on the new EMF licence regulations. If you are an RSGB Member you can submit written questions for Board Directors in advance through a form on the AGM web pages at rsgb.org/agm. We are saying farewell to a couple of our long-standing newsreaders. Tony, G1JPV has decided to stand down and we would like to thank him for his dedication to GB2RS. We’re also saying goodbye to Colin, G3ISB/DJ0OK, a stalwart of the 40m broadcasts from Germany alongside Günter, M0DXM/DJ2XB. Thank you Colin for your work on behalf of other amateurs. We wish both Tony and Colin well for the future. Two new GB2RS news broadcasts begin this weekend. Mick, MI0HOZ will transmit over the Brandmeister DMR network using talk group TG2354, time slot 2, at 12 noon each Sunday. The transmission is being made via five interlinked DMR repeaters in Northern Ireland. Thank you to the repeater keepers who have kindly granted permission for this. George, MM0JNL is starting a new service for the Scottish Borders and north Northumberland, from his station near Berwick-upon-Tweed. The broadcast starts at 12 noon using FM on 145.525MHz. A reminder that Tonight @ 8 will be at 8 pm this Monday, the 12th of April. Alan, W2AEW will give an introduction to VNAs and the NanoVNA. You can watch and ask questions live on the RSGB YouTube channel. For more information about all the Tonight@8 webinars see rsgb.org/webinars. The MicroHAMS Digital conference 2021 will be held on Saturday the 24th of April. There are plans for a section on FreeDV by Walter Holmes, K5WH. Please check microhams.com for updates on the programme and how to join. World Amateur Radio Day is on the 18th of April and EDR, Denmark’s National Society is sponsoring the 5P0WARD Award. Stations in Europe qualify for a gold award by contacting 12 different 5P0WARD/xx stations on at least four different bands. The xx denotes a different extended suffix to the main callsign. For silver, it is 10 different 5P0WARD/xx stations on at least three bands, and for bronze, contact six different 5P0WARD/xx stations on at least three different bands. You have until the end of the year to apply. More at QRZ.com under 5P0WARD. Now the DX news Joe, 9H5JO will be on the air at weekends during April from Malta. Between 1200 and 1300UTC each weekend he will listen specifically for Foundation licensees on, or very near to, 14.268MHz. This could be a really good opportunity to get Malta in your logbook. Ruud, PG1R will be active as PG96WARD until the 30th of April to celebrate World Amateur Radio Day. He operates RTTY, PSK and SSB. QSL via PG1R either direct or via the bureau and Logbook of The World or logsearch on Club Log. Members of Radio Club Henares will be active as EH4WRD between the 12th and the 18th of April to celebrate World Amateur Radio Day. QSL via EA4RCH. JW1I is the club callsign for the Meteorological Station on Bear Island, EU-027, Svalbard. The operator is Erling, JW/LB2PG, who is expected to stay there until the 15th of May. QSL via the bureau. Now the Special Event news Celebrating the 83rd birthday of Antonio, CU8AS, special callsign CQ83AS will be aired between the 13th and 19th of April from Flores Island, EU-089, in the Azores. QSL via HB9CRV. Between 0600UTC on the 14th and 2200UTC on the 17th of April, two special call signs will be operating in Israel. 4X73xx and 4Z73xx will be on the air, where xx will include the two last letters of the callsign for each operator. QSL cards will be uploaded to Logbook of The World. Now the contest news With different parts of the UK having different lockdown restrictions, please make sure you follow the appropriate rules. Several contests now accept portable entries, so please check the contest rules. Above all, please follow relevant national and local restrictions. Today, Sunday the 11th is a busy day for contests. The First 50MHz contest runs from 0900 to 1200UTC and uses all modes. The exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. The UK Microwave Group second Low Band contest runs from 1000 to 1600UTC. Using all modes on the 1.3 to 3.4GHz bands, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. Running from 1000 to 2100UTC, the Worked All Britain Data Contest uses the 3.5 to 14MHz contest bands. The exchange is signal report, serial number and WAB square. Note this contest has two sessions. Also today, the first RoLo Contest runs from 1900 to 2030UTC using SSB only on the 80m band. The exchange is the signal report and the locator received. On Monday, the CW leg of the 80m Club Championships takes place between 1900 and 2030UTC. The exchange is signal report and serial number. On Tuesday, the 432MHz FM Activity Contest runs from 1800 to 1855UTC. It is followed by the all-mode 432MHz Activity Contest from 1900 to 2130UTC. The exchange for both is signal report, serial number and locator. On Thursday the 70MHz UK Activity Contest runs from 1900 to 2130UTC. Using all modes, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. Now the radio propagation report, compiled by G0KYA, G3YLA & G4BAO on Friday the 9th of April. We had yet another week with poor sunspot numbers. Although we started the week with a sunspot number of 11, representing one spot in one group, it didn’t take long for this to decline and we were back to zero spots again and a solar flux index of 76. What we did have, however, were the effects of a high-speed stream from a coronal hole, which sent the Kp index up to five during the afternoon of Wednesday the seventh. This was relatively short-lived though and the Kp index was back to one by Thursday morning. A pre-auroral event enhancement saw MUFs climb above 21MHz on Wednesday, which saw some DX being worked via FT8 on 15 metres. Otherwise, the DX attention has been on the Russian C92RU DXpedition to Mozambique. This has been worked by UK amateurs on all bands from 160m to 15m and the propagation prediction engine at predtest.uk shows that your best chance of working them is from 1600 to 1800UTC on 30 metres, 20 metres and 17 metres. They have also been worked on the low bands in the late evening and early hours. They are currently due to dismantle their station on Tuesday the 13th of April so don’t delay if you want C92 in the log. Next week NOAA predicts the solar flux index will remain around 70-72, with a maximum Kp index of two. As of Thursday, there were no obvious coronal holes rotating into view, which bodes well for HF propagation over the next few days. Let’s hope it continues until the end of next week. And now the VHF and up propagation news. This weekend we start the period with a wintry theme to the weather, especially in the north, and a longer period of rain sleet or snow over the Downs in the south. This means it's a rain scatter story for the GHz bands again. The models diverge after midweek, when one evolution brings an area of high pressure in from the west, while others stick with the unsettled showery theme. This means that the coming week is largely a rain scatter option, with an outside chance of a new high in the second half of the week for a hint of Tropo. The tropo.F5LEN.org maps show no tropo over the UK until this coming Friday when conditions look promising over the sea path from the North of Scotland up to the Faroe Islands. As mentioned last week we are getting closer to the next Sporadic-E season, so as usual the message is to check 10m and 6m for signs of activity, especially on the digital modes. Moon declination is positive again so peak Moon elevations and visibility windows will increase as the week progresses. The Moon reaches apogee on Wednesday so path losses will begin to fall from then. We are slowly coming out of the annual meteor activity minimum, with the April Lyrids starting to ramp up to their peak on the 22nd. Already there are signs of more meteor reflections being reported. And that’s all from the propagation team this week.

Foundations of Amateur Radio When you start playing with radio your first interaction is likely to be voice. It could be SSB, AM, FM or something more recent like FreeDV or DMR. Your next challenge is likely going to be a digital mode like Morse Code, Radio Teletype or my recommendation for your first adventure, WSPR or Weak Signal Propagation Reporter. I've previously discussed WSPR, today I would like to look at Radio Teletype or RTTY. It's a digital mode that allows you to send and receive free-form text. It's a mode with a long and illustrious history and it's a good next step after WSPR. The way it works is that using an alphabet made up from two tones, information is transmitted, one character at a time at a specific speed. The code that describes the alphabet is called the Baudot code, invented by Jean-Maurice-Emile Baudot in 1849. In computing terms it's a 5-bit alphabet and in amateur radio it's traditionally sent at 45.45 baud or bits per second, in case you're wondering, named after the very same man. The two tones have names, a Mark and a Space and they're a set distance apart. In amateur radio, they're separated by 170 Hz but there are plenty of other frequencies and speeds in use. In amateur radio the standard Mark and Space frequencies are 2125 Hz and 2295 Hz. In a traditional RTTY capable radio the two tones are generated by transmitting a carrier whilst switching the transmitter frequency back and forth, called Frequency Shift Keying or FSK. Think of it as having a Morse key that sends dits on one frequency and dahs on another, having the radio change frequency whilst you're keying. If you use this method to create and decode RTTY by switching between two frequencies, your radio can generally only deal with one RTTY signal at a time, just the one you're sending and just the one that's being received. Receiving is generally achieved by showing some indication on your radio how close you are to the Mark and Space frequencies that you're trying to receive and decode. Another way to make a RTTY signal is to use sound. If you alternately whistle at 2125 Hz and 2295 Hz and you do it at 45.45 bits per second, you're also generating RTTY. This technique is called Audio Frequency Shift Keying or AFSK. Think of it as using audio to simulate the shifting of frequency by transmitting two alternating tones. There is a fundamental difference between the two. Before I explain, permit a diversion. It's relevant, I promise. If you've ever spoken on the radio using SSB you might have noticed that if two stations are transmitting at the same time you get both signals. With a little practice you can even understand both. This isn't true for every radio mode. If you use FM, the strongest signal wins and if you use AM, you get a garbled beep from two stations being on slightly different frequencies. As an aside, this is why aviation uses AM, so any station not transmitting can hear that two stations doubled up. Back to RTTY. If you use audio to generate the two RTTY carriers, rather than shift frequency, you can deal with as many as you can fit into an SSB audio signal, as long as the Mark and Space for each station are 170 Hz apart you can have as many stations as you want, overlapping even. As long as your software knows what to do with that, you'll be able to decode each one at the same time, since they're essentially multiple SSB signals being transmitted simultaneously. An added bonus is that you don't have to invest in an SDR to play with this. You can use an analogue radio, like my FT-857d, and use software to generate an audio RTTY signal with all the benefits I've just mentioned. The magic is in the software you use to do the decoding. As it happens, I'm about to do a contest using RTTY and I'll let you know how that goes using my radio, a computer and a piece of software called fldigi. I'll be following in the footsteps of the first ever RTTY contest, held in the last weekend of October in 1953 and organised by the RTTY Society of Southern California. In as much as I'm following in the footsteps of Morse code by spark-gap. Wish me luck. I'm Onno VK6FLAB

ハムのラジオ第378回の配信です。 (2020/3/29放送) 今回の特集は「FreeDVってなんだ？」」です。 「FreeDV」聞いたことある、という方多いと思います。「FreeDV」は、最新技術を数多く盛り込んだ、H […]

GB2RS NEWS Sunday the 1st of March 2020 The news headlines: Guidance for limiting exposure to EMF US amateurs respond to 3.4GHz threat Ofcom’s policy on two-letter callsigns Following last week’s launch of an Ofcom Consultation on EM Field exposure, the RSGB has released a briefing paper for all UK amateurs. This gives more details as the proposals involve a change to licence conditions for any station operating with greater than 10W EIRP. The Society has formed a team to prepare a considered response to Ofcom’s Consultation and will be offering further guidance ahead of the 15th of May deadline. The briefing paper is available at www.rsgb.org/emc-papers. A proposal by the FCC in the USA to remove the entire amateur 3.4GHz allocation without compensation has seen strong opposition as ARRL, AMSAT and hundreds of individual amateurs have filed comments in response to a current consultation. The ARRL highlighted decades of active usage and experimentation including mesh networks, amateur television, weak signal long-distance communication, Earth-Moon-Earth or moonbounce communication, propagation research and emerging amateur satellite developments. In its comments, ARRL argued that it would therefore be premature to remove the current secondary amateur radio allocation. The FCC is also inviting comments on changes to the 5.9GHz band that has an amateur allocation in the USA. Ofcom has recently updated its website to clarify its policy relating to the issuing of callsigns with two-letter suffixes. The notes can be found at tinyurl.com/gb2rs-ofcomcall and selecting Amateur Radio Callsign Allocation. The first lecture as part of the Marconi Centenary 2020 has been announced by the Chelmsford Civic Society. Professor Danielle George has kindly agreed to speak at Anglia Ruskin University, Bishop Hall Lane, Chelmsford, CM1 1SQ on Tuesday the 31st of March at 2pm. The lecture is free to everyone but must be pre-booked. Go to https://tinyurl.com/eventbrite-marconi. The coronavirus has impacted a couple of DXpeditions due to a requirement to spend 14 days in quarantine in Hawaii or Guam before entering some of the smaller Pacific island nations. Swains Island, OC-200, and T30ET from Tarawa Atoll, OC-017, are postponed until the autumn, and planning for Pulap, OC-155, and Satawal, OC-299, both new Islands in Micronesia is on hold. The next section in the 2020 SOTA Challenge is the Digital Voice and will take place in the first week of March. All SOTA QSOs completed on DMR, C4FM, D-Star or FreeDV will automatically attract scoring credit in the Challenge. As repeaters and gateways are not valid for SOTA contacts, all QSOs will need to be simplex. There is substantial C4FM activity planned in the Shropshire Hills today, the 1st of March, and in the Clywydian Hills on Saturday the 7th of March. On the evening of Monday the 2nd of March, there is a SOTA DV activity night. Several activators will be out on the summits with DV modes and will be supported by Stockport RS and Macclesfield & District RS, chiefly on C4FM mode on the 2m band. On the evening of the 4th of March, another SOTA DV activity night takes place, this time supported by the Lancashire-based North West Fusion Group. This will be mainly on 70cm C4FM. For more information about Summits on the Air please visit www.sota.org.uk. And now for the details of rallies and events for the coming week Today, the 1st of March, the Exeter Radio & Electronics Rally will be held in America Hall, De la Rue Way, Pinhoe, Exeter EX4 8PW. Doors open at 10.30am, 10.15am for disabled visitors, and admission £2 with under 16s free. There will be trade stands, a Bring & Buy and catering is available on site. Details from Pete, G3ZVI on 0771 419 8374 or by email to g3zvi@yahoo.co.uk. The Pencoed ARC Table-Top Sale scheduled to take place on the 8th of March has been cancelled. The next rally in the diary is the 35th Wythall Radio Club Hamfest on the 15th of March. Please send details of your rally and event plans as soon as possible to radcom@rsgb.org.uk – we give you valuable publicity online, in RadCom and on GB2RS, all for free. And now the DX news from 425 DX News and other sources Rudi, DK7PE will be active as CP6/DK7PE from Santa Cruz, Bolivia until the 6th of March. He will operate CW with a focus on the low bands. QSL via his home call, direct or via the bureau. Yuri, R2DY, Pavel, R2DX and Eugene, RW3FB will be active as EX0QR from the southern shore of Lake Issyk-Kul in Kyrgyzstan between the 6th and 17th of March. They will operate CW, SSB and digital modes on the 160 to 10m bands. QSL via Club Log's OQRS, or via R2DX either direct or via the bureau. Hans, DK8RE, Wolf, DL1CC and Wies, SP1EG will be active as MH0ESP from Jersey, EU-013, between the 7th and 16th of March. QSL via SP1EG. HP1DAV, HP3AK, G4BVY, G4CLA and GD4XUM will be active as H33K from Volcan in Panama between the 2nd and the 13th of March. They will operate CW, SSB and FT8 on various HF bands. QSL direct to HP1DAV; the log will be uploaded to Logbook of The World and Club Log. Phil, N2HX will be active holiday style as PJ4/N2HX from Bonaire, SA-006, between the 1st and the 15th of March. He will operate SSB, RTTY and FT8. QSL via his home call. Now the special event news We have received no details of special event stations operating this week. Please send special event details to radcom@rsgb.org.uk as early as possible to get your event publicised here on GB2RS, in RadCom, and online. Now the contest news On Monday, the 80 Club Championships take place between 2000 and 2130UTC using datamodes only. The exchange is signal report and serial number. On Tuesday the 144MHz FM Activity Contest runs from 1900 to 1955UTC, using FM only. It is immediately followed by the all-mode 144MHz UK Activity Contest from 2000 to 2230UTC. The exchange for both contests is signal report, serial number and locator. The UK and Ireland Contest Club 80m contest runs from 2000 to 2100UTC. This is the SSB leg and the exchange is your 4-character locator. Next weekend the ARRL International DX contest runs for 48 Hours from 0000UTC on the 7th to 2359UTC on the 8th. Using the 1.8 to 28MHz bands the exchange is signal report and transmitter power. US stations also send their State and Canadians their Province. The 144/432MHz contest takes place between 1400UTC on the 7th and 1400UTC on the 8th. Using all modes, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. The UK Microwave Group’s Low Band Contest takes place next Sunday, the 8th, from 1000 to 1600UTC. Using all modes on the 1.3 to 3.4GHz bands, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator. The Worked All Britain 3.5MHz contest takes place next Sunday, the 8th of March, from 1800 to 2200UTC. Entries need to be with the contest manager by the 18th of March. The exchange will be RS plus serial number plus WAB square. Full details of the rules and methods of entry may be obtained from the WAB website www.worked-all-britain.org.uk. Now the radio propagation report, compiled by G0KYA, G3YLA and G4BAO on Friday the 28th of February. Interest in the VP8PJ DXpedition to the South Orkney Islands remains high. The team has now been on the island for one week and many UK amateurs have worked them. At the moment, it looks like beams and linears are the norm for a reliable contact, although they have been heard in the UK on 17 and 20 metres FT8 at -10dB SNR in the afternoon using just loft-mounted dipoles. As they work their way through the pile ups more opportunities to work them may become available. They are currently due to remain on the island until the 5th of March. As always, the point-to-point facility at rsgb.org/predtest will give you an indication of the best times to work VP8PJ from the UK. Conditions have been quite settled with the Kp index moving between one and zero. The Sun continues to remain spotless with a solar flux index of 71. As this report is being prepared there are two small coronal holes on the Sun that are rotating into an Earth-facing position. If these develop, they could cause the Kp index to rise this weekend due to their associated high-speed solar wind streams. This may result in a pre-auroral HF enhancement. Otherwise, NOAA predicts the Kp index may rise again to four on March the 4th and 5th, presumably due to a returning coronal hole. We are now heading towards the Spring equinox, which is a good time for north-south HF contacts. With the Commonwealth Contest on Saturday the 14th of March this may be a good time to try as you won’t have any competition from continental contesters. And now the VHF and up propagation news. It feels like 'groundhog day' for the VHF/UHF propagation prospects with another week of unsettled weather on the way. There are likely to be several occasions when low pressure systems pass by northern Britain, thus bringing strong winds to Scotland again, but with some windier spells in the south too, though mostly not as strong. The principal outcome of this weather pattern is that it leaves no room for high pressure to develop over the UK and therefore no chance of Tropo for yet another week. As before, that means that potential exists for some rain scatter activity on the GHz bands using the heavy rain, hail and snow as good scatter points. Sometimes individually from fast-moving small shower clouds, but also from larger areas like active weather fronts making it easier to latch onto the scattering area. The upper air patterns continue to show strong ‘winter’ jet streams nearby or over the country, so this leads to the slim chance of ‘out-of-season’ sporadic E on 10m and 6m, especially if using the digital modes and, if forced to pick a favoured direction, it would probably be south towards EA and CT. Moon declination reaches maximum mid-week and path losses are falling with perigee a week on Tuesday, so a good week for EME. 144 MHz sky noise reaches 500K on Tuesday but is generally low for most of the rest of the week. There are no meteor showers peaking in the coming week, so keep looking for random meteor scatter QSOs around dawn. And that’s all from the propagation team this week.

Smitty is back to talk to us about the new M17 Open Source Digital Radio System Project - an all encompassing 100% open source design that aims to implement digital radio communications similar to DMR but built on 100% open technology. PERMALINK - https://www.HamRadioWorkbench.com/podcast/M17-Open-Source-Digital-Radio-System Our Website - http://www.hamradioworkbench.com/ Follow us on Twitter - https://twitter.com/hamworkbench Contact us for feedback and ideas - http://hamradioworkbench.com/contact Connect with us on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/groups/hamradioworkbench/ BrandMeister Talkgroup 31075 - https://hose.brandmeister.network/group/31075/ Smitty’s github - https://github.com/SmittyHalibut/ Smitty’s Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbqAVJZju972nkt06BshQqQ?view_as=subscriber Smitty on Twitter - https://twitter.com/smittyhalibut?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor M17 Open Source DMR-Like Hardware and Software System - https://teletra.pl/M17/blog/summary M17 Forums - https://teletra.pl/forum/index.php#c2  M17 Github - https://github.com/sp5wwp/M17_spec/blob/master/M17-Protocol.md M17 IRC - http://www.geekshed.net/  The #M17 channel. KB6NU Blog Post on M17 - https://www.kb6nu.com/m17-an-open-source-dmr-like-system/ Travis Goodspeed’s MD380tools - https://github.com/travisgoodspeed/md380tools Codec 2 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codec_2 FreeDV - https://freedv.org/ Bruce Perens’ “HT of the Future” - https://perens.com/2019/05/23/ht-of-the-future-new-design/ Bruce Perens on Open Radio on QSOToday Podcast - https://www.qsotoday.com/podcasts/k6bp Amateurs and Pactor - https://hackaday.com/2018/11/26/fcc-gets-complaint-proposed-ham-radio-rules-hurt-national-security/ Pactor and the FCC - https://ecfsapi.fcc.gov/file/10808597817982/ExParteCommunicationAug8.pdf

Foundations of Amateur Radio Today I'm going to go sideways to move forward. In amateur radio we consider circuits, components such as transistors, inductors, capacitors, crystals and how they're connected to each other. The framework in which that exists is embodied by the field of electronics and how these components can be mixed together to shape a radio that you can build or buy. In a software defined radio there are electronics and components to be sure, but the bulk of the work is done in the field of software and today I'm going to look at that. Computers surround us, in our work place, in our home, on the street, in our hospitals, across our society. Each of these devices is running a thing called software, as opposed to hardware - a physical thing, software is intangible, in much the same way as your date of birth is intangible. You cannot hold your birth date in the air and point at it. You could write it down onto a piece of paper and point at the piece of paper that has the date on it, but you'd be pointing at a piece of paper, not your actual birth date. Computers work in much the same way. You cannot point at software, nor can you hold it in your hand. You can print it out onto paper, and point at that, but you'd end up with a deforestation problem that far exceeds the stripping of all the trees in the Amazon rain forest. To make matters more complex, there are at least two types of software, human readable and computer readable. You can translate human readable source code into a computer readable executable with a tool called a compiler, but doing it in the other direction is much harder. Think of the ink on the paper that describes your date of birth. You can put the ink on the paper, but putting it back into the pen is more complex. All this is leading somewhere, I promise. A little while ago I started digging into how Software Defined Radios work and if you've been following along on my journey, there'll be parts that you can follow, parts that you sort of get, and bits that seem like black magic. This will be different for each person. My black magic is not going to be the same as yours and the things I understand without thinking might make your head explode. If that's not enough, the goal posts keep moving. As I said, I started digging, much like peeling an onion, removing layer by layer, I've been exploring and learning and hopefully sharing my excitement along the way. The other day a mate of mine came by with a new toy. A QRP or low power HF radio. The device itself is entirely driven by software, that is, it's a Software Defined Radio. It has some knobs and buttons, a display, a power socket, a plug for a microphone, an antenna, a speaker port and some other bits and pieces, but underneath all that is software. What's special about this radio is that the software is Open Source, that is, you can peek inside and see what the code looks like before it becomes ink on the page, the human readable source code, rather than the computer readable executable. I've touched on Open Source before and perhaps I should spend some time on that soon, but for now, think of it as a set of rules that dictate how you are allowed to use source code. As any self-respecting IT geek, I went to the website where the software is available and downloaded it. What struck me was that it was much simpler than I had expected. Don't get me wrong, this is a complex piece of software, not something I'm expecting to pick up in an hour or even a week, but it's simple - as in digestible. I can point at different bits and understand what they do. This part does Morse Code, that does FM, over here is RTTY and look, over here is FreeDV. If you're wondering, I'm describing the UHSDR, or Universal Ham Software Defined Radio project. Built originally by Chris M0NKA and Clint KA7OEI and sporting an impressive list of contributors, this software offers insight into receiving and transmitting using an SDR across a variety of amateur radio modes, including SSB, AM, FM, Synchronous AM, FreeDV, RTTY, CW as well as CAT or Computer Aided Transceiver, sometimes referred to as rig control or remote control, a way of using an external computer to control a radio. The beauty of this software lies in its simplicity. Unlike many other projects, there is no code dealing with Windows, or with Mac OS, there is no mouse, touch screen, or any other complex user interface. There is a limited set of buttons, a few dials and a screen for output. The end result is that the level of complexity is much lower than you'd find if you were to start digging into something like PowerSDR or some other code-base. The point is that the UHSDR project is a really accessible way to start digging into the software behind a software defined radio and another path into this magical hobby of amateur radio. I'm Onno VK6FLAB

In this episode, Martin M1MRB is joined by Chris Howard M0TCH, Martin Rothwell M0SGL, Frank Howell K4FMH and Dan Romanick KB6NU to discuss the latest Amateur / Ham Radio news. Colin M6BOY rounds up the news in brief and this episode’s feature is the WOLFWave Audio Processor by Martin Butler M1MRB. ICQ AMATEUR/HAM RADIO PODCAST DONORS We would like to thank Chuck Chivers (VE3VSA) and Bill Hester (N0LAJ) and our monthly and annual subscription donors for keeping the podcast advert free. To donate, please visit - http://www.icqpodcast.com/donate - Amateur Radio Club Lends a Hand to Firefighters - Arduino and RF from kHz to 1 GHz - RM-11828 Technician Enhancement - Update - First on-air test of FreeDV 2020 - Radio Experiments by Colonel Dennis EI2B - Dayton Hamvention Providing Information Radio Station on 1620 AM

Foundations of Amateur Radio In the past I've talked about a weekly net I run, called F-troop. It's intended to be a place where new and returning amateurs find their feet, have a chat, test their gear, meet new friends, ask questions and sometimes get answers. If you want to come and join in, you're welcome to and I'd love to meet you. This net came about because I was new to the hobby and didn't find anyone running any on-air activity for people like me. I asked around and with some encouragement I decided to start an activity. Just like that. My point is that you can do the same. You can keep looking for that elusive group of people who share your interest, or you can get on-air and start a conversation. There's no forms to complete, there's no rules about how it has to happen, no expectations about how you run your net, just have at it. F-troop today looks nothing like it did on day one. On the first day I was on a simplex frequency and nobody could hear me. The next week I moved to a different day and to a local repeater at a different time. After doing that for a little while, we changed day and repeater again, because we kept running into other activities. I'm mentioning this because what you start today may look nothing like what it turns into tomorrow. Your idea might fail, or it might succeed beyond your wildest dreams. You may find new friends or find a different activity that sparks your interest. You could inspire another amateur to join the community, or encourage someone to get on air and make some noise. All around me there are nets, not in name, but in action. There's a group of people who get together during the week at 6am or so for about half an hour to chat on the way to work. There's a group who are learning Morse, another testing FreeDV, another chatting during the morning breakfast, another in the afternoon. There's a net for the emergency communications team, one for the local repeater group and there's a locally hosted net that attracts interest from all corners of the globe. I'm sure that there are others. I know from personal experience that you'll get callers who might not have much to say, but your presence gives them a reason to turn their radio on and participate, to get out of their house and talk to the world. They might not say much, but your being there might be a comfort. While F-troop is semi-organised, with a website, an advertised time and location, a dedicated host and regular callers, your net doesn't need to be any of those things. It can start as a regular chat that can grow, or it can fade away if there is no interest. Your hobby, your rules. One thing I can tell you is that hosting a net is very rewarding. I've seen amateurs start with very little to say, very unsure of themselves, grow into their license, expand their horizons, become skilled and find a new community to make their own. You don't need permission to start a net, you just need to decide to. I'm Onno VK6FLAB

Welcome to Episode 242 of Linux in the Ham Shack! In this episode, we bring back a guest to the show we haven't talked with in almost five years. His name is David Rowe, VK5DGR. He is the creator of the open source sound codec known as Codec2. He is also co-creator and maintainer of [...]

Welcome to Episode 231 of the most terrific podcast on the Internet. In this edition, the hosts discuss the latest edition of FreeDV and its new mode, advancements with the uBitX, the latest kernel release, the GDPR and much more. Thank you for tuning in! 73 de The LHS Crew [...]

Foundations of Amateur Radio The topic of how radio evolves and embraces available technology is one that describes the hobby itself. From spark-gap through AM, SSB and FM our community picked up or invented solutions to make communication possible. When the internet came along it too became a tool ripe for picking and in 1997 a connection between a radio and the internet was made with the Internet Radio Linking Project or IRLP when Dave VE7LTD, a student at the University of British Columbia, joined the UBC Amateur Radio Society. Using a radio, some hardware and a computer, you could send audio between radios across the internet. Since then this field has exploded with D-STAR, Echolink, DMR, AllStar, Wires, CODEC2, System Fusion and Brandmeister. At a glance they're all the same thing, radio + internet = joy. Looking closer there are two distinct kinds of internet radio contraptions, those where the radio is digital and those where it's not. IRLP is an example of an analogue radio connecting to hardware that does the encoding into digital and transmission across the internet. At the other end the reverse process, decoding, happens and another analogue radio is used to hear the result. This encoding and decoding is done by a piece of software called a CODEC. If we continue for a moment down the analogue path, Echolink, AllStar and Wires do similar things. In 2002 Echolink made its way onto the scene, similar to IRLP, but it didn't need any specialised hardware, any computer running the Echolink software could be used as both a client and a server, that is, you could use it to listen to Echolink, or you could use it to connect a radio to another Echolink computer. AllStar, which started life in 2008 went a step further by making the linking completely separate. It uses the metaphor of a telephone exchange to connect nodes together, which is not surprising if you know that it's built on top of the open source telephone switching software Asterisk. In 2012 or so, Yaesu introduced Wires which is much like Echolink and AllStar. There are servers with rooms, not unlike chat rooms, where you connect a node to and in turn your radio. Blurring the lines between these technologies happened when you could build a computer that spoke both IRLP and Echolink at the same time. Now you can also add AllStar to that mix. Essentially these systems do similar things. They manage switching differently, handle DTMF differently, use a different audio CODEC and handle authentication in a variety of ways, but essentially they're ways of connecting normal hand-held radios, generally FM, to each other via the internet using intermediary computers called nodes. Before you start sending angry letters, I know, there's more to it, but I've got more to tell. While Dave was busy in Canada inventing IRLP back in the late 1990's, in Japan the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications funded research, administered by the Japan Amateur Radio League into the digitisation of amateur radio. In 2001 that research resulted in what we know today as D-STAR. Two years later, ICOM started developing D-STAR hardware which resulted in actual physical radios less than a year later. Today you can get D-STAR hardware from ICOM, Kenwood and FlexRadio Systems. Unlike the other technologies where the audio was converted at a central place, in D-STAR the audio is encoded in the radio and a digital signal is sent across the airwaves. That in turn means that the software that does the encoding, the CODEC, needs to be inside the radio. Since the information is digital right from the point of transmit, you can send other information, like GPS locations and messages along with the audio. In 2005 DMR started life as a group of companies, now up to around 40, agreeing on some standards for digital audio in much the same way as D-STAR. Mostly in use by commercial users, DMR has the ability to have two users simultaneously on-air using alternate channels by having separate time slots for each channel, alternating between the two of them. They agreed to use the same CODEC to ensure compatibility. Formal interoperability testing has been happening since 2010, but because DMR allows manufacturers to build in extra features many brands cannot actually work together on the same network. For many years D-STAR and DMR-MARC, the DMR Motorola Amateur Radio Club World Wide Network, were the main digital radio systems around in amateur radio. That changed in 2013 when Yaesu introduced System Fusion. It too made digital audio at the radio, but it added a wrinkle by making it possible to have both analogue and digital audio on the same repeater. Depending on how the repeater is configured, analogue and digital radios can coexist and communicate with each other. The Wires system that Yaesu rolled out was upgraded in 2016, renamed to Wires X and now also incorporates digital information to allow the linking of their System Fusion repeaters. In 2014 at the Ham Radio Exhibition in Friedrichshafen in Germany, Artem R3ABM planned to make an alternative master server for DMR+ and DMR-MARC and the result was a German wordplay which we know today as Brandmeister. It acts as a network for digital radios in much the same way as DMR, but it's run as an open alternative to the commercially available options made by Motorola and Hytera. The story isn't complete without mentioning one other development, CODEC2. It started in 2008 when Bruce Perens K6BP contacted Jean-Marc Valin, famous for the SPEEX audio compressor and David Rowe VK5DGR about the proprietary and patented nature of low data use voice encoders such as those in use in D-STAR, DMR and System Fusion. David had already been working in this area a decade earlier and started writing code. In 2012 during Linux Conference Australia, Jean-Marc and David spent some time together hacking and managed to make a 25% improvement and CODEC2 was well under way. Today CODEC2 forms the basis of several projects including FreeDV in software, the SM1000 FreeDV adaptor in hardware and the roadmap for the future of open and free digital voice is bright. I should mention that this information is specifically brief to give you an overview of the landscape and hopefully I've not made too many glaring errors, but feel free to drop me a line if you do find a problem. Digital radio and the internet, it's not just a single mode, a whole cloud of modes, and I haven't even started with WSPR, FT8 or JT65. I'm Onno VK6FLAB

From the archives of Amateur Radio//Video News... Digital Voice for Amateur Radio was the most complex of the three documentaries that HamRadioNow's Gary Pearce KN4AQ produced for DVD, before starting the online show. In 2007, Gary traveled to Alabama and Dallas in one trip, Chicago and St. Louis in another, and Washington DC in a third to gather interviews and footage of what was then just emerging as Digital Voice systems for Amateur Radio. The program was edited and released on DVD in 2008. The DV modes included an HF mode called WinDRM (which evolved to today's FreeDV), and VHF/UHF modes D-STAR and P-25.  Of course, these modes have evolved since this program was produced, and newer modes like DMR, Yaesu System Fusion, and NXDN have been developed. Consider this program a snapshot in the early history of Amateur Radio Digital Voice. It's certainly not a current tutorial on operating those modes today. Radio Rating: C- at best. This was a video documentary, and while there is a lot of talking, most of the pictures you're missing are equipment in operation, locations, and a few graphics. You'll miss a lot, but since there's so much information, you'll learn a lot, too. [The Radio Rating is our estimate of how much you'll get from the program audio without the video. It's not a rating of the overall program. Those are always A+]

David Rowe, VK5DGR, has been a guest target since QSO Today episode 16 with Bruce Perens, K6BP because of David’s seminal work with audio codecs for digital audio on HF.  David has a strong background in digital voice, a technology that is now the foundation for all of the telephony and voice over IP that we do.  As an advocate of open source and the consummate teacher, David shares all of his work while educating us with his blog, rowetel.com.  VK5DGR is Eric, 4Z1UG’s  QSO Today.

This is a Digital Voice Modes Forum, recorded at the Dayton Hamvention 2017. We get to hear from Carl at RTL-SDR.com, then from Uli with Wireless Holdings, then finally Mel, K0PFX, about the FreeDV devices and applications for digital voice over HFhttp://livefromthehamshack.tv

This is a Digital Voice Modes Forum, recorded at the Dayton Hamvention 2017. We get to hear from Carl at RTL-SDR.com, then from Uli with Wireless Holdings, then finally Mel, K0PFX, about the FreeDV devices and applications for digital voice over HFhttp://livefromthehamshack.tv

In this episode, Martin M1MRB / W9ICQ is joined by Ed Durrant DD5LP ,Martin Rothwell M0SGL and Matthew Nassau M0NJX to discuss the latest Amateur / Ham Radio news. Colin M6BOY rounds up the news in brief, and this episodes feature is The Humble Capacitor RSGB Takes Over Radio Exam Management LilacSat-2 – Linux Live CD for Telemetry Decoding Amateur Radio Society and CB UK Shipping Forecast on LW to End? Proposed German SDR Network QRO Club - Free DXpedition Travel Amps Fox Telemetry Decoder Software Version 1.0 FreeDV Fortnightly Europe-wide Net / Test Session Lundy DX Group 2015

In this episode, Martin M1MRB / W9ICQ is joined by Ed Durrant DD5LP and Matthew Nassau M0NJX to discuss the latest Amateur / Ham Radio news. Colin M6BOY rounds up the news in brief, and this episodes feature is a review of a Microphones in ham radio   Secondary School Students Decode ISS Images South African 40 MHz (8m) ham radio contact FreeDV digital HF Voice Mode QSO Party Senator Thanks Radio Amateurs FCC Considering Proposal to End Modification of IT devices Expected September Release of 5 MHz in Netherlands Outcome for 5 MHz at WRC-15 Remains in Limbo Improving Amateur / Ham Radio Club Websites

Welcome to Episode #148 of Linux in the Ham Shack! In this installment, your hosts discuss Art Bell and the radio of kooks everywhere, free newsletters, Linux terminal utilities, FreeDV, FlexRadio, loggers and a whole bunch more. Thanks for listening, and enjoy all the information we cram in your earholes. 73 de The LHS Guys [...]

How about that: It's the first episode of Linux in the Ham Shack for 2015! We hope everyone is having a great new year so far. In this episode, we talk with David Rowe, VK5DGR, of Adelaide, South Australia. David is an audio engineer, Ph.D. scholar, inventor of Codec2 and co-author of FreeDV, among his [...]

Hello, everyone! We are back again with another fun and informative episode of Linux in the Ham Shack. In this episode, your hosts discuss solar flares, lots of space weather, stable and easy-to-install Linux distributions, H.R. 4969, Quentin Tarantino, dinner rolls and the amazing and fun new transmission mode for HF known as FreeDV. Don't [...]

  Bruce Perens, K6BP, is a self described evangelist for amatuer radio. As the creator of the Open Source Definition used for the free exchange of software code, Bruce has appled this to amateur radio towards the development of Codec2 and FreeDV, digital modulation schemes for HF and VHF.  Through his new company, Algoram, Bruce hopes to create the ultimate open source handheld software defined radio.  As an evangelist, Bruce founded No Code International, where he successfully eliminated the Morse code requirement for amateur radio licenses Worldwide.

George looks at FreeDV, Digital Voice for HF. Peter operates JT65 for weak-signal communications. Tommy builds a Raspberry Pi file server. And a Major Award, the ALTV 8th Anniversary Giveaway… We give away the ultimate mobile setup from Icom, GigaParts, Diamond and MFJ to one very lucky viewer. 1:13 of AmateurLogic Goodness

George looks at FreeDV, Digital Voice for HF. Peter operates JT65 for weak-signal communications. Tommy builds a Raspberry Pi file server. And a Major Award, the ALTV 8th Anniversary Giveaway. We give away the ultimate mobile setup from Icom, GigaParts, Diamond and MFJ to one very lucky viewer. 1:13 of AmateurLogic Goodness

Relay of this national news broadcast using FreeDV on 7.190 Mhz. - VK0 Mawson in Antarctica to be activated. - MORE 2012 YASME EXCELLENCE AWARD WINNERS ANNOUNCED.