Free DV and Codec 2

[VK3MAT]

G'day all,

New to the forum so here we go,

Has anyone tried the new codec 2? It is designed to be a low bit rate open source communications quality speech at 2400 bit/s codec.
http://www.rowetel.com/blog/?page_id=452

Free DV is the program to use this codec (http://freedv.org/tiki-index.php) just wondering if anyone has had a try with this mode and any good results?

Matt VK3MAT

[VK3AP]

Keep us posted on that Matt. Interesting stuff.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[VK2AVR]

there are a few people experimenting, although I'm not sure how you'd go about organising a sked. are there any aussie mailing lists?

[VK3MAT]

I am currently un aware of any mailing lists?

The tricky part about the software is it requires 2 sound cards one for transmit and one for receive. they say that a simple USB sound card or USB 'gamers headphones' will work fine

http://files.freedv.org/Documents/FreeDV_QSG_v0_2.pdf

not sure if it is a ssb mode only due to there been not a lot of info out there?

[VK3AP]

Would like to know if it,can be configured to work with the Icom IC-7100? It has DV mode on HF too.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[VK5ZD]

not sure if it is a ssb mode only due to there been not a lot of info out there?

The PC produces audio which is fed to a radio and transmitted. At the receiving end the audio from the radio goes to the PC.
The radio can be in any mode suitable for transmitting audio. i.e. SSB, AM &, FM would all work.
In practice you'd have the radio in SSB or DIGITAL mode. Emission bandwidth limitation preclude using FM on the HF bands.
Also, using and mode except SSB (or DIGITAL) negates the narrow bandwidth advantage of this system.

[VK3ANZ]

Would like to know if it,can be configured to work with the Icom IC-7100? It has DV mode on HF too.
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

I think we need to be clear on what the various terms mean here or we will end up getting very confused.
"DV" stands for "Digital Voice" and refers to ANYTHING that turns voice into a digital form and then back again.
Now there are 2 separate and basically incompatible ways of doing that process (at least that are being discussed here). The first is the CODEC 2 approach which is "open source" and anyone with a fast enough computer can get the software and do the necessary encoding of the audio stream, pass that via their radio in some form of modulation, demodulate the result and the decode the data stream back to audio.
What is built in to the Icom radios is the "D-Star" equivalent process but at the heart of it is the AMBE2020 chip that encapsulates the encoding and decoding algorithm which is claimed as proprietary by DVSI.
Just because people see that the 7100 (and other Icom D-Star radios) can do "DV" does NOT mean that it is compatible with CODEC 2 (and vice versa) any more than it is compatible with DMR and the like technologies.
The key difference is that the algorithms used by DVSI are proprietary and you will need to pay a lot of money to get them (and even then probably not be able to do much with them unless you are a big manufacturer) and the algorithm for CODEC2 is available to anyone who can understand them but you are "on your own" in term of implementation.
I'm not going to argue the merits of D-Star vs CODEC2 as that will just lead to a "religious war" without end and also(in my opinion) without merit as both have their place and both can be used - just not by the same equipment (in general).
Susan

[VK2HRX]

Matt,

Yes I tried it about 12 months ago. Not that hard to get it to work and was interesting to try it out. I'd certainly call it a beta version at that time. I am sure progress has been made since then.

If you want to try a QSO, PM me.

Compton
VK2HRX

[VK3XPT]

Hello All,

I have FreeDV 0.96.6 Beta setup here with my FT817ND at the moment. I can TX/RX on 40m, 20m and 10m. I am keen to do some testing if anyone here is able to fire it up at your end?

I did manage to decode / receive VK2JN on 7.189LSB, in FreeDV 1600 Wide mode as soon as I hooked up the RX side (last Friday), but at that time I did not have my TX interface completed. Since then, I have not been able to find any more FreeDV transmissions on air. I am keen to do some testing if anyone here is able and interested.

Cheers,

Perrin VK3XPT

[VK3SMC]

Pez.

Give me a link to where i can get the software and i will set it up and do some testing with ya.

Cheers.
Simon VK3SMC.

[VK3XPT]

G'day Simon,

Thanks mate - that will be good. Here you go: http://freedv.org/tiki-index.php

Let me know when you have it ready to go.

FYI: I managed a QSO with VK2JN and VK2AKU yesterday afternoon on 7.198 with a very high noise floor (S8). It was hit and miss given the poor conditions, but still a surprising success everything considered.

Cheers

[VK3SMC]

No worries.

Will get that downloaded and installed and give it a go.

Will give you a Txt or Message when ready to go.

If anyone else wants to join in with the testing, just watch out here and we will let you know when its happening.

Cheers
Simon. VK3SMC

[VK3SMC]

Hello all.

I have the FreeDV installed and will be doing some testing tonight (28-5-14) from about 6pm for an hour or so. I will try to test around the know FreeDV frequencies, 14.236Mhz USB and 7.189Mhz LSB. May even see how it works on 2 / 70 even.

So if your intersted in tesing or playing with FreeDV, please pop in and give it a go.

Cheers.
Simon, VK3SMC.
QF22oc.

[VK2HRX]

Interesting. I just donwloaded the latest FreeDV version and it hangs when it goes to install in W764. So unfortunately I wont be able to join you tonight....

[VK3SMC]

I also had trouble installing it on Windows 7 64bit. Now running it under Windows 7 32bit with NO issues. Currently running a session with VK3XPT on 28.450 running 1400.

Cheers.
Simon. VK3SMC

[VK3SMC]

Some good testing last night. Was tested on 10m USB and FM and also 2M USB and FM. Have had some great results with some excellent audio with the small amount of bandwith this Codec uses.

It appears to be fairly easy to set up, i use a external Plantronics USB device as the second soundcard.
We even found that it runs OK on a EeePC (Netbook) with a 1.6 processor.

The testing was done between Perrin VK3XPT running a FT817 @ 2.5 watts and myself with a TS-2000 @ 5 watts, over a distance of about 12kms, so hopefully in the future we can get more onboard and try this over some greater distances.

Cheers.
Simon. VK3SMC.

[VK3XPT]

Hi all,

As Simon mentioned, it was a very successful test with some encouraging results. At one point I had a local noise floor or S9 caused by a Plasma TV. On SSB it was was extremely difficult to copy Simon, however in DV mode the codec did a great job and gave intelligible audio (not perfect - but it was understandable).

I did have some issues decoding Simon's audio "perfectly", I would probably score it 7/10. While the BER was very good (at times perfect), the codec was not giving me the same "sharp and clear" audio that Simon was decoding from me. This could be that Simon's TX input audio or RF was not perfect, or perhaps my EEEPC 1.6GHz laptop was having a hard time keeping up... I will try to get FreeDV running on a faster machine to see if there is any improvement.

I will be available to do some more testing later today / tonight. It's all good fun!

Perrin VK3XPT

[VK3MAT]

so after finally getting a hf antenna up i have tried to fire up free dv!

it appears that no audio is getting to the radio? when i change sound cards to my speakers i can here the tones but on radio nothing?

using a signal link usb.

seems to be growing fairly rapidly witch is nice to hear

Matt, VK3MAT