[K3CAL] FreeDV

[Eric H. Christensen]

A friend of mine (Kevin N8VNR) pointed me towards digital voice on HF using a piece of software named FreeDV (http://freedv.org/tiki-index.php).  I'm just starting to play with it myself but it looks interesting.  I worked Kevin last night on 40m, briefly, as the band was shutting down.  This morning I tried working with it on 20m with a bunch of guys and had mixed results (mostly not being able to decode the other stations).  

If you're setup to do soundcard data (like PSK-31 and OLIVIA) then you're probably setup to use FreeDV.  The software requires two soundcards: one for the radio and one for your audio.  I'm using a SignaLink USB for the radio side and the regular soundcard in my laptop for the local audio.

I'd like to test this out in this month's Sprint (in addition to SSB, CW, and other digital modes like PSK).  I think we'll repeat it on 10m as everyone seemed to have fun with that last time.  If anyone doesn't have 10m capability but would like to participate maybe we can open up the club house or I can go mobile and we can do some rover action!

If anyone would like to play ahead of time just let me know as I'd like to see what this will do on a local level.

73,
Eric W4OTN