FreeDV on Thursday!!

[VK2ZIW]

It's 6:25 and nobody heard here in Emu Plains

[VK2EIK]

vk2eik has been talking to vk3rv

[VK2ZIW]

We have myself and Hil VK2IUW transmitting now...

[VK2EIK]

Faintest of sigs but nothing decoding

[VK2DUX]

Gee a pretty bleak night sig wise this end, hi hi. Had a good QSO with Peter VK3RV ear;y on but after that nothing heard, and yes I did call cq quite a bit.

Guys FreeDV is not a good weak sig mode in my experience. I seem to need a sig well above the noise floor in order for me to copy. If the other station is above 4 on my SNR then I can decode 100%, below that the audio sounds like talking into a tin can with a piece of string, underwater LOL. Still all part of the fun.

So I will give it one more try next thursday, failing that I shall put FreeDV back in it's box in my shack.

de john vk2dux

[VK2AZ]

Would have to agree John.
Can't hear a single station at the moment anywhere on 40m.
Had a QSO with Alan VK2ZIW who is only 6K from me

Hilary
VK2IUW

[VK2DUX]

Hi;lary VK2IUW, 6km? I am impressed LOL. Seriously before tonight I have been working VK3, 4, 5, and 7 with reasonably sig quality, enough to have a qso with a bit of effort and reading between the lines. FreeDV is never going to be a replacement for SSB in it's present format, but a bit of fun can be had.

john vk2dux

[VK5RM]

No stations heard last night at all.

Called lots too...Maybe next week.

73 all de Phil VK5RM

[VK2BLS]

Last Thursday was hopeless here too, 40M heaps better tonight, vk3chn coming back nicely, go figure.

Darrell vk2bls

[VK2DUX]

Ok guys, well our final night of FreeDV, well with me leading the charge anyway LOL. From 6pm EST this evening on 7.1770 LSB, 1600 mode.
de john vk2dux

[VK2DUX]

Well that was quite a roll up tonight. I had qso's with VK5RM, VK7DIK, VK3CCR, VK3RV, and VK5ST. I know that VK7MA, VK4LHD, and VK2BLSW were also listening as well. I would just like to thank everyone that turned up this evening and in previous weeks. I think we all agree that communicating via FreeDV can be very challenging to say the least. This shall be my final evening of promoting this mode on a Thursday night.

de john vk2dux

p.s. it was fun!!

[VK4CLG]

Tonight was the first time I ever looked at free DV and with the signals so low I didn't really get a good evaluation of the mode but when the conditions came good even for the brief period of a few seconds it actually sounded good and even my deaf ears could pick out what was being said even if it was just a couple of words here and there. My HF station is not real great with only basic wire dipoles just above the roof of the house so I won't hear or be heard too well.
I will trying it again next week and see how I go but it is setup in RX only for now as the computer mic I have is not great.

Robert
VK4LHD

[VK2ZIW]

Hi all,

I've modified David's FreeBeacon code to be a repeater, store and retransmit.
I started in mid July 2018 but had problems with the Linux system crashing, running only a few hours.
(now fixed, Nov '18)

The Thursday nights on 7177 have obviously died out as I received nothing, nothing except the Sunday,
after broadcast VK3 and VK5 chit-chat.
Recordings available at:
www.unixservice.com.au/parrot

Anyway, it being Summer, it is running on 14.153MHz USB mode 700D, put my callsign in the text to trigger a repeat.

Is there ANY interest?

Great to find this VKLOGGER forum back up.

Alan VK2ZIW

[VK2ZIW]

Summer is over, so back on 7177 KHz LSB

Example activity:

bytes date, time, file
960 Feb 22 20:21 7177/2019-02-22-17_20_53_to_radio.700C
1280 Feb 22 20:25 7177/2019-02-22-17_24_56_to_radio.700C

Nothing since.

These files are the Codec2 700C data format. The decoded (.WAV) files are on:

www.unixservice.com.au/parrot

Alan VK2ZIW

[VK2ZIW]

Looking for a portable solution:

Have a look at "SmallDV", an implementation for a Pi with one audio USB dongle.
Note, ONE audio dongle with mono mic input so audio switching needs to be done externally, a relay.

I've found an available stereo mic input dongle, the Creative Sound Blaster Play! 3

So I "hacked" the above code, available at:
www.unixservice.com.au/parrot

Alan VK2ZIW