Also, the buzz surrounding the launch of OpenAI's ChatGPT5 did it live up to the hype?
Peter Marks, software developer and technology commentator from Access Informatics, joined Philip Clark on Nightlife to discuss the latest news in technology.
https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/nightlife/nightlife-tech-talk-with-peter-marks/105700240
Jack VK5KVA kindly tested analog single sideband against FreeDV RADEV1 at a series of reducing power levels. We are 560km apart and this was recorded in the middle of the day on 40m. You'll hear how much easier digital voice can be to listen to compared with analog radio.
I think we could go to even lower power levels and still have a good conversation on FreeDV RADEV1.
An entertaining FreeDV net here in south eastern Australia this morning. I had, unfortunately, changed my microphone from a desktop with a preamp to a cheap headset and got universal feedback that I sounded much worse. In the end I unplugged the headset and just used the microphone in the monitor and it was reported to be vastly superior!
Amazingly there were two stations running QMX QRP radios. They seem to work amazingly well transmitting (and presumably receiving) FreeDV.
Stations seen on air (not all transmitted) were VK5KVA Jack, VK3YV Tony, VK3BRT Barry, VK3KR David, VK3KEZ Bryan, VK3GTP, VK3AWA Daryl, VK5LN Michael, VK4APF Robert, VK6KR, VK2XOR Max, and VK5VC.
Note that I'll be away next Sunday so Jack VK5KVA has kindly offered to be net controller.
Later today, lots of activity in Australia:
Last week I had a chat with Ben, VK3TBS, from the popular Amateur Radio Channel YouTube channel. He's put what I said together with some illustrations of the use of the FreeDV app.
My thanks to Ben for all his work in putting this together.
VK3PCC, VK5KVA, VK5RM, VK2DWG, VK2HJW, VK2DWG, ZL2TJM (rx only), VK5LN, VK3BRT, VK2JXB, VK3KR, VK3RV, VK3YY, VK5QI (the famous Mark Jessop!).
Really great to talk with everyone.
The net begins each Sunday morning at 10:30 eastern time and Jack, VK3KVA hosts an evening net from 20:30.
Some people have used FreeDV in the past and are experiencing the sonic goodness of the new RADEV1 mode for the first time.
Just brought an unused old Intel iMac up from Melbourne. These feel very slow compared to the current M series CPU Macs but they do have a beautiful screen and it seems a pity to sell for just a few hundred dollars.
Anyhow, plugged it in, installed FreeDV and immediately heard a New Zealand station, ZL2TJM making his very first FreeDV transmission. I asked Rob what prompted him to try FreeDV and here is his reply:
Sounding pretty good on 40m from across the ditch from New Zealand. "You won't believe how good eighty meters is on FreeDV".
The iMac is 11 years old and was stuck on macOS Big Sur 11.7.10. While everything worked OK some software for the old OS is no longer being updated including the Chrome browser and, of course, tools like Xcode.
It's not for the faint of heart but after a few hours I got through the process and now have the configuration you see in the About this mac window shown on the right.
One, pretty major, problem I encountered is that it recommended Sequoia 15.7 but when it booted the software couldn't find the drivers and not much was working. It didn't draw the desktop properly and there was no dock.
A bit of searching and I found that one should go back a version to 15.6. I tried downgrading over the working system but that failed so I ended up doing a clean install of 15.6 which is now working very well.
A few small things don't work - I think. One is Watch unlock but that's a bit flakey in normal use. Overall I feel like this machine is getting a second life. It's a wonderful 5K screen and as you can hear from the FreeDV audio above, the speakers are very good.
An 11 year old computer being this good strikes me as excellent value. Congratulations to the good folks behind OpenCore. Make sure you back up your data before attempting this (I did).
