[Announcement] FreeDV Activity Day - February 19-20, 2022

[Mooneer Salem]

Hi all,

Due to popular demand, we'll be doing another FreeDV Activity Day on Saturday, February 19, 2022! This event will bring together people interested in HF digital voice on the air for conversation and fun. Contacts usingthe official application as well as the SM1000 handheld microphone are welcome.

Event time: 9AM Pacific time (1600Z) on February 19th to 8:59AM (1559Z) on February 20th (24 hours)

Suggested frequencies:

80 meters: 3.625, 3.643 or 3.693 MHz

40 meters: 7.177 MHz

20 meters: 14.236 MHz

17 meters: 18.118 MHz

15 meters: 21.313 MHz

12 meters: 24.933 MHz

10 meters: 28.330 or 28.720 MHz

(Note that LSB/DIGL is used below 10MHz as per current convention for voice modes, USB/DIGU otherwise.)

As this isn't a contest, there's no pressure to make contacts or send logs, but you can always confirm QSOs via the usual means if you'd like (LoTW, eQSL, QRZ, etc.) Enabling PSK Reporter in the FreeDV application and joining theQSO Finderare recommended, however, so others can see that you're on the air and hearing them (for instance, here'sthe current map of listeners). :D

Feel free to spread this far and wide among your local ham friends and groups! :) Let me know if you have any questions about the event and definitely post here if you have issues getting the application working prior to the event.

Thanks,

-Mooneer K6AQ

[Mooneer Salem]

Oops! That should be 1700-1659 UTC as DST isn't in effect in February. Let me know if you have any questions.

-Mooneer K6AQ

[Mooneer Salem]

Hi all,

Just a reminder that there's less than a month until the next Activity Day! Feel free to post if you have questions on setting up or using FreeDV.

Thanks,

-Mooneer K6AQ

On Tue, Dec 14, 2021 at 1:40 AM Mooneer Salem <moo...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Mooneer Salem]

Hi all,

Another successful Activity Day as shown by PSK Reporter :)

A few questions:

1. It looks like May 28th-29th will be best for the next one as Dayton is the weekend prior and there seem to be a fair number of other contests across the rest of the month. Does that sound reasonable?

2. If you operated this one, how did it work out for you? Anything that can be done better for next time? (For me, FWIW, it turned out that 15 meters was the best band. The normal 14.236 MHz frequency didn't seem to have the same kind of propagation as during the last one.)

Thanks,

-Mooneer K6AQ

[wal...@k5wh.net]

Thanks for organizing the event again Mooneer.

 

We saw stations from all over the planet participating, even more than last time.

 

This has been a great way for others to give it a try, and hopefully have several more stay engaged with it.

 

All the best,

 

Walter/K5WH

 

From: digita...@googlegroups.com <digita...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of Mooneer Salem
Sent: Sunday, February 20, 2022 3:45 PM
To: digita...@googlegroups.com; freetel...@lists.sourceforge.net
Cc: ma...@ham-radio-tech-notes.groups.io
Subject: [digitalvoice] Re: [Announcement] FreeDV Activity Day - February 19-20, 2022

 

Hi all,

 

Another successful Activity Day as shown by PSK Reporter :)

 

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[Mooneer Salem]

Hi Alan,

I'm CCing to digtialvoice so you can get additional feedback. 

Re: separate frequency--one option is to simply make the "standard" freebeacon frequency 10KHz above the FreeDV frequencies (e.g. 14.246 MHz instead of 14.236). We'd have to see how much impact that'd have on anyone already using those, though.

As for the trigger string, it might be sufficient simply to enable PSK Reporter support in the FreeDV application. As that encodes in a manner different than the normal text string, I would think that would cause freebeacon to never match on any transmissions. However, if that's not actually the case, it's possible we can figure out a way for it to detect that encoding and auto-ignore.

Thanks,

-Mooneer K6AQ

On Tue, Feb 22, 2022 at 3:22 PM Al Beard <bea...@unixservice.com.au> wrote:

Thanks,

In the FreeDV Activity Day Announcement can we have an alternative frequency mentioned 

for "freebeacon" and perhaps to require the "trigger" string to have say "#", never found in callsigns.

My "freebeacon" here has never been set to have no trigger string.

But if it is triggered it's because it's received the string. That string is currently one character.

(and settable on the command line)

PSK Reporter

===========  I don't expect my transmissions from here QF56HG to go anywhere outside Australia

or New Zealand and as such I have regularly mentioned my presence on VKspotter under "HF".

https://www.vkspotter.com/?action=home

David here has acknowledged hearing my ident transmission so confirmed his Rx and decoding

the signal, is working.  That's what beacons are for.

Alan VK2ZIW

On Tue, 22 Feb 2022 13:03:50 +1100, David Grove wrote
> Hi David & Mooneer
>  
> First of all – thank you to both of you for all your work in advancing FreeDV/Codec2. It’s very much appreciated
>  
> I like the idea of having a three-monthly activity day that, where feasible, occurs just after other major activities (Hamventions etc)
>  
> On the activity day, I tried calling CQ on 7.177 MHz and 14.236 MHz on several different modes from my home QTH (QRN S3-5) a few times with no success.
>  
> I also happened to be monitoring QSO finder when David, VK5DGR and Mel, K0PFX were testing on 14.246 MHz. Unfortunately, nothing was heard at my end on that frequency at the time.
>  
> At the end of the activity day, I checked PSK reporter and was unable to find any reports of my callsign on FreeDV
>  
> I did however hear Alan, VK2ZIW’s parrot on a couple of occasions on the day. However, Alan is about 20 Km from me, so the 40m signal was marginal
>  
> Nevertheless, I’ll keep on trying to reduce the QRN levels at my place and I’ll keep installing the new versions of FreeDV as they’re released
>  
> I’m looking forward to the next activity day
>  
> Thanks again
>  
> Regards
>  
>  
> David Grove – VK2DWG

>  
> -----Original Message-----
> From: david <da...@rowetel.com>
> Sent: Tuesday, 22 February 2022 12:32
> To: freetel...@lists.sourceforge.net
> Subject: Re: [Freetel-codec2] Fwd: [Announcement] FreeDV Activity Day - February 19-20, 2022
>  
> > 1. It looks like May 28th-29th will be best for the next one as Dayton
> > is the weekend prior and there seem to be a fair number of other
> > contests across the rest of the month. Does that sound reasonable?
>  

> Every 3 months sounds good.  Like this time, I'll attempt to have a new experimental waveform/codec to try out in May.

>  
> > 2. If you operated this one, how did it work out for you?
>  

> I managed to receive Mel, k0pfx long path 20M here in South Australia, 1-4dB SNR on 700D.  I positioned myself in a campground 200km SE of Adelaide (Parnka Point, in an area known as the Coorong) with sub S0 noise on 20m.  Simple end fed dipole.
>  
> I also monitored/took part in a few VK QSOs and was pleased to see the modems handling the HF channel quite well.
>  
> Pretty happy about that :-)
>  
> Thanks for organising the event Mooneer :-)
>  
> - David
>  
>  
>  
> _______________________________________________
> Freetel-codec2 mailing list
> Freetel...@lists.sourceforge.net
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freetel-codec2


---------------------------------------------------
Alan VK2ZIW
Before the Big Bang, God, Sela.
OpenWebMail 2.53, nothing in the cloud.

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