Peter Marks, mobile software developer and technology commentator from Access Informatics joined Philip Clark and listeners to Nightlife with a comprehensive discussion. https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/nightlife/nightlife/105786510
Wednesday, September 24, 2025
Tech Talk on ABC Radio - Mobile Phones
Sunday, September 21, 2025
FreeDV Sunday net 10:30 eastern time 19 stations
Another well attended Sunday morning net. Seen were VK3AWA, VK3KEZ, VK3SRC, VK3YV, VK5KVA, VK3PCC, VK2KNC, VK6KR, VK3AMO, VK3BRT, VK3SPX, VK7DIK, VK5APR, VK4WGR, VK5IS, VK2TTL, VK2BLQ.
FreeDV reporter was experiencing some issues but I decided to work from a list in my log book which saved my bacon.
Thanks to all those who tuned in.
Peter, VK5APR, (a net regular) has sent the following useful links for new users:
FreeDV User Manual, which is very comprehensive
Ham friendly introduction to the concepts of RADE:
https://github.com/drowe67/radae/blob/main/doc/rade_intro_waveform.pdf accessed from https://freedv.org/davids-oct-2024-update-real-time-rade-bbfm/
Davids presentation to the AREG ( areg.org.au ), a local amateur radio club in Adelaide, March 2025 meeting:
https://youtu.be/LxjcAF7Vy0Y accessed from https://freedv.org/rade-ham-club-presentation/ on the FreeDV blog dated March 22, 2025
For the technically inclined:
https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.06671 accessed from https://freedv.org/david-july-2025-waspaa-paper-papr-rade-v2-snr-bbfm-otc-demo/
As always the main site is https://freedv.org/ and also keep an eye on the blog posts.
Thursday, September 18, 2025
Enjoyed the Radio Old Timers Club lunch in Melbourne
Always a pleasure to attend these lunches. An efficient annual general meeting (I've joined the committee). Lovely to catch up with many old friends.
Wednesday, September 17, 2025
The multi-talented VK3YE was on tonight's ABC TV news
Watching the local TV news tonight and was pleasantly surprised to see a familiar face, home brew hero, Peter, VK3YE:
Seeing him described as "Bus Expert" leaves too much unsaid. Here's my touched-up version:
The story showed a chart of expendature on buses by each state with Victoria coming last.
I'm told that VK3YE was also active on 774kHz AM in the morning running very high power.
Great stuff Peter.
Morning walk in the Australian bush with a DJI Neo drone
Almost every morning I go for a walk in the state forest opposite my house. It's very peaceful. This week, I purchased a little drone for antenna hanging activities and it turns out to have a "follow" mode where it will fly along behind you recording video.
Later in the day I got my 40m dipole suspended higher in the trees. I tied flourescent bricklayer's string around the drone and flew it right over a near by tree and used it to pull a heavier rope over.
The Neo drone is better for this than my normal drone as the propellers have guards around them so the string doesn't get caught up when decending on the other side of the tree.
Monday, September 15, 2025
Installing FreeDV on Linux
In this video I walk through downloading, installing, running and doing the initial configuration of FreeDV on Linux. In this case I'm using Ubuntu 22.04 but it will be similar on derived distributions and I know it also works on Fedora based distributions.
Sunday, September 14, 2025
FreeDV Sunday net - 19 stations
VK2DWG, VK2KNC, VK3AWA, VK3JF, VK3KR, VK3KEZ, VK3PCC, VK3SRC, VK3YV, VK1EJ, VK5LN, VK4BAP, VK5RM, ZL2TJM, VK2BLQ, VK3KVA, VK7DIK, VK3IK.
Great to talk with everyone and sorry I'm such a clutz at running the net. I need to figure out a better to run it than working through a changing list.
Friday, September 12, 2025
Installing FreeDV on macOS
To help newcomers I've made a video showing download, install and initial configuration of FreeDV on macOS.
My plan is to make a similar video for Linux but it would be wonderful if someone else could make the equivalent video for Windows users.
Wednesday, September 10, 2025
Tech Talk on ABC Radio
Founders Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar financed the startup of Atlassian with $10,000 of credit card debt. Today, their market capitalisation is $45 billion US dollars.
Peter Marks is a software developer and technology commentator from Access Informatics, joined Philip Clark on Nightlife to discuss the acquisition and other tech news. Listen here: https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/nightlife/tech-talk-with-peter-marks/105755424
This morning, after the Apple announcements I had several requests for comment including ABC Radio Darwin. My bit starts at 1hour and 6 minutes here. Host Adam Steer is a bit of a skeptic and has nostalgia for his old Nokia tradie's phone.
Sunday, September 07, 2025
FreeDV Sunday net - 14 stations
7177 was busy so we moved to 7197 which caused a bit of confusion for a few minutes.
Stations on the frequency included VK2ATW, VK2TTL, VK3AWA, VK3BRT, VK3KEZ, VK3SRC, VK3YV, VK5GY, VK3KVA, VK5LN, VK5QI, VK5RM and ZL2TJM just listening but said "hi".
Thanks everyone for participating.
Tuesday, September 02, 2025
Is high octane fuel worth it in a Toyota Corolla Hybrid?
I was wondering if high octane petrol was worth the extra price. I asked two car oriented friends recently and they both said “absolutely - wouldn’t not use it”. Another friend said it has no effect except on high compression engines which modern cars are not.
Anyhow, I’ve been doing an experiment. I let my Toyota hybrid run very low on fuel and filled it with 98.
Here's what I see after a tank of Unleaded 91 fuel:
Here's what I'm seeing after a fair amount of a Premium 98 tank:
Normally I get 4.3 l/100 km. On high octane I’m getting 4.1 l/100 km. So it seems to make a small difference but not enough to justify an extra 20c per litre.
Here is where I fill up locally:
As is normal for a headline that is a question, the answer is no.
FreeDV with VK3SRC and VK3CKY
Just a little off air recording of some local stations talking with FreeDV RADEV1.
Joe VK3SRC asked about those "wings" (as he called them) on either side of the main carriers. He hypothosised that they were extra error correction signals. In fact they are an unwanted side-effect of the current RADEV1 code that will be removed in a future version.