Inverted L for 160m

At the recent deceased estate sale of Graeme VK3NE's gear I purchased a 160m AM transmitter. Crystal locked to 1832kHz. Turns out it's a Drew Diamond VK3XU design from 2006. Rather nicely put together but missing the audio power modulation stages. Anyhow, step one is a suitable antenna.

There's a big dead tree near the shack so I put up an inverted L. Basically as much wire as I could find. Up the tree then horizontally over to another tree. Using a nano VNA to sweep SWR it was much too long and resonant below 1Mhz. After a series of cuts it looks really nice.

I hear a lot of noise on this antenna, S9. When I transmit I can hear myself on the Strathbogie SDR so I know it's getting out.

An audio amplifier is on the way so I'm looking forward to getting on the air. AM on 160m - what memories.

FreeDV Sunday net - many on 2.3 some issues

A good net this morning after yesterday's release of version 2.3 of the FreeDV app. Two reports of Windows users having audio trouble with 2.3 that led them to roll back but others are finding it good.

Stations heard included VK2AWN, VK2BLQ, VK2CJB (portable VK4), VK2VCO, VK3KEZ, VK3KQT (On Android),    VK3ZD, VK3UBK, VK3ZTR, VK4DKW, VK5AG, VK5FD, VK5KVA, VK2KO and me VK3TPM.

FreeDV 2.3.0 released! - an important step forward

The FreeDV project has just released version 2.3 of the FreeDV GUI app for Linux, macOS and Windows. There's also support for running it directly on a compatible Flex 800 or Aurora series radio. 

The 0.1 increase in version number rather understates the change in this release. FreeDV RADEV1 has, until this version, been implemented in Python. It worked well but required the app to have an embedded python interpreter and the required libraries (numpy, scipy, etc).

Version 2.3 drops all the python requirements and uses a C port of that code. As a consequence of this change, the apps are one tenth of the size, start the modem faster, use less CPU and memory. 

Aside from the move from python to C, Mooneer has been very busy with many enhancements listed in his latest update.

The availability of the C port means that FreeDV RADEV1 is starting to appear in other apps.

Tech talk on ABC Radio - Can police be tracked by the Bluetooth in their tasers?

This week on the ABC Nightlife program we discuss the rather extreme claim on Four Corners this week that police can be "tracked" by hackers using the Bluetooth in their tasers and body cameras made by Axon. I think this is an over-reach. 

Where we are being spied on is when visiting Microsoft's LinkIn site which, if you're using the Chrome browser, probes for the presence of hundreds of plug-ins. This happens even if you aren't logged in and the amount of information they can derive is surprising. 

Finally, OpenAI is taking action to fight goblins. https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/nightlife/nightlife-tech-talk-with-peter-marks/106645068 

FreeDV Sunday net - now with Android participant

We started an hour earlier, at 9:30am eastern time, but still had a good roll up. This morning was notable in that there were several stations on early builds of version 2.3 and also we had David, VK3KQT, who was running on an Android version. He sounded good even though he said he was in speaker phone mode.

Lots of rain here and a bit of lightning but FreeDV gets through all that nicely.

Participating were VK5RA, VK5KVA, VK5AG, VK3KQT, VK3KEZ, VK3FC, VK3DHI, VK3CCR, VK2KNC, VK2GMH, VK2BLQ, VK2CJB, VK3KQT (Android), VK5FD, and me, VK3TPM.

Here's the app in action (not from the net).

I made a screen recording but it didn't pick up the audio so went for the shakycam version.

Nanoleaf Matter and Thread finally working

As an early adopter of home automation I've suffered over the years from a collection of incompatible devices each requiring a proprietary app to control the one brand of light or switch or whatever.

When Apple, Google and Amazon got together to standardise Matter and Thread I jumped in and purchased some bulbs from Nanoleaf. Matter is the protocol which can run over different transport including Wifi and Thread is a mesh radio system that works in Wifi black spots and seems quicker.

Apple has been shipping Thread border routers built in to devices such as the Apple TV and HomePods so I have a few scattered around already. Thread devices also act as mesh relays so it's easy to cover the house thoroughly. It's also in some phones which greatly helps with configuration.

When I got the bulbs I took advantage of the ability to use Apple's Home app for configuration thinking it would be smoother than the dodgy proprietary apps. Big mistake.

I've had a rough time until this weekend. Setting up new bulbs was frustrating and often took several goes at it and often lights, which I had set to come on at dusk, would often come on very dim and purple, requiring manual intervention.

This weekend I got a notification that there was a critical software update to do. It was actually two updates in a row. It didn't go well and I ended up deleting all the devices and setting them up again using the Nanoleaf app which then did the firmware update.

Only some of my bulbs support Thread. You can see the little icon on those ones above. The Thread devices definitely work better than the Wifi only ones.

I'm afraid we're not free of proprietary apps but at least things are working reliably for me now.

My advice:

• Choose Matter & Thread capable home automation devices
• Do use the manufacturer's app and apply the software updates
• After all that add the devices to Apple's Home app (or Google's equivalent)

There was a feature I wan't too keen on, it makes the light warmer in colour as the night goes on, but having lived with it a bit I quite like it now.

Coding with an Agent - productive but exhausting

Claude Code has been my helper for a few months now. Others have observed that while it can help a non-programmer to create software it can be even more help to an experienced programmer.

Knowing what to ask for, being able to evaluate the generated code, and thinking up tasks are things that a seasoned coder can employ to get fantastic results.

In February 2026 I had the bright idea of asking Claude to port the python in FreeDV RADEV1 over to C. To my amazement it did that daunting task in under a day of prodding. This has saved our proper programmers months of tedious work and has led to a trickle of other FreeDV applications. I made one myself that is a simple native application in SwiftUI for macOS. Here it is receiving Anthony VK3YSA. Download here to try it out.

Another app is a simple client that talks the excellent digital chat mode Olivia 8/250, again native SwiftUI for macOS. Download here to try it out.

In the shack I run Linux and have been getting Claude to make little utility apps using GTK+3. (They will also build on macOS but look rather out of place).

Presumably because of the extensive amount of open source software to train on for Linux and GTK, it's particularly good at whipping up little apps.

The job of the programmer has changed probably for ever. I'm dreaming up projects that I never would have considered before. I wake in the night with ideas and have anxiety about not using the available quota for the day.

FreeDV Sunday net - moving to an hour earlier

A good net this morning from 10:30 on 7.177.

It was proposed that we move to an hour earlier for improved propagation and with a few exceptions this was fine with everyone. I'll update the list on the freedv.org site to reflect this change.

Two of us were running an early build of version 2.3 which has the C port. It seems solid to me and Leighton, VK3FC, and I look forward to it being released as it's smaller and faster.

Stations included VK1RF (Running the Flex AppImage!), VK2KNC, VK2BLQ, VK3CCR (welcome to the net Brian), VK3FC, VK3GTP, VK3JCO, VK3KEZ, VK3ZD, VK4EV (not heard), VK5AG, VK5KVA, VK5RA, VK5ST, VK2AWJ and me VK3TPM.

macOS disk full? - move home to an external drive

It's amazing to me that a 500GB disk can get full but that happened to me on the Mac Mini yesterday. I have a lot of large developer tools including Xcode and Android Studio. Like any unix system, macOS doesn't do well when disk space is low. I've long had an external drive and store source code there but a lot of space was taken up inside my Home directory in ~/Library so I thought I'd try putting home on the external drive.

Doing this is pretty easy:

• Go to Settings > Users & Groups
• Control Click on your username and you see an "Advanced Options..." menu item
• Scroll down to Home directory and Choose.. the disk you want to use

You'll be prompted to reboot and when the machine comes up it will be like a new user setup with all the Apple ID login etc. Once all that is done you can copy over files from the old home directory, things like Documents, Developer, Movies, etc.

I left it to iCloud to sync over my music and pictures.

Perhaps there's a way to move over the old home but I decided not to risk it.

All is working well now but the external disk is noticably slower than the fast internal SSD but Applications, which are still on the boot disk, still launch quickly.