Welcome to a spotlight on various project and explorations that local amateurs have come across or are engaged with which might serve as conversation starters for on-air nets or eye-ball QSOs.

For April a couple of items - at least new to me are reflected below:

1) FreeDV (https://freedv.org/)

From: Bob N4CD by way of Curt VE3ZN

If you operate in the SSB parts of the band, and hear some strange noise on the following frequencies: 1.997 3.730 3.817 5.403 (5.355 daily DV and SSB from 1500 UTC) 7.177 7.190 14.236 14.240 18.119 21.313 24.933 28.720.

Then you may have come across some of the FreeDV suggested frequencies. FreeDV is a Digital Voice mode for HF radio. You can run FreeDV using a free GUI application for Windows, Linux and OSX that allows any SSB radio to be used for low-bit-rate digital voice.

FreeDV is being developed by an international team of radio amateurs working together on coding, design, user interface and testing.

2) Meshtastic - An open source, off-grid, decentralized, mesh network built to run on affordable, low-power devices (https://meshtastic.org/)

There are now several amateur radio operators in the Ottawa Valley who have purchased and installed these devices to support text exchanges among operators. As a mesh network these devices together can extend the reach of any individual operator. There have been casual reports among local operators of ranges up to 30km for messages. Apparantly the record is around 160Km. Part of the appeal is the relatively low cost of around $55 for these boards which may be effectively used when coupled with an existing outdoor antenna, a battery and smart phone software.

I ordered the 433Mhz and soldered OLED version of the LILYGO board depicted below found at: https://www.lilygo.cc/products/t-beam-v1-1-esp32-lora-module?variant=42204034891957

Now that I have just recently received my Lilygo board, I may have more to report once it is configured and up and running.

73, Alan VA3IAH

Appears in: Rambler Vol 65 Issue 8, April 2023