Tuning around on 40m today just after noon I heard a digital mode and soon figured out that it was a FreeDV contact between two VK5 (South Australian) stations. I'm in VK3 so they're about 600km away.
A great thing about digital voice is the lack of band or interference noise. You can see quite dramatic selective fading but the speech is perfectly readable.
FreeDV is under active development and the new RADE mode is a big step up on past modes. It's wonderful to see quite a lot of activity at times but we have a long way to go. You can see who's on at https://qso.freedv.org/ which is also visible in the GUI app.
Here's a capture from over the weekend:
You need version 2.X to get the new RADE mode. It's available built for Windows and macOS on the releases page.
If you're on Linux, including Ubuntu and Redhat, there is a build script by Barry Jackson which downloads all the dependencies and does the build with hardly any intervention.
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