End Fed Half Wave for the "house" antenna

The radio shack is away from the house which helps it to have fantastic low noise reception. During winter, it' gets cold out there in the metal shed so I've ended up running a cable through the wall of the main house so I can have a transceiver next to my computer. The antenna has been a 40m dipole. It works OK but not as good reception as the shack antennas. I thought it might be fun to have multiple bands so strung out a half wave cut for 80m and above. Here's the sweep done with NanoVNASaver:

The shaded areas are the ham bands so it's perfect at 80m but a little off with some of the other bands. I'm currently using the Xiegu X6200 with Open 6200 software so it has a tuner built-in.

Over night I ran frequency hopping WSPR and 40m is still my best band.

WSPR (and friends) are amazing.

Image from WSPR Watch.

JTTY Sydney - Melbourne 1W each way.

Stephen, VK2BLQ, and I have been chatting with JTTY between Melbourne and Sydney. It's before 3pm in the afternoon and we can reduce power to 1W and have perfect copy.

This is a new mode in WSJTX. I've Claude coded a simple app for Linux and another version for macOS. Stephen's using the Linux flavour and I'm using the macOS spin.

Works well and a nice way to chat.

From the WSJTX user guide:

"JTTY is an entirely new digital mode designed for fast RTTY-like contest exchanges and other keyboard-to-keyboard communication. Its operational feel is similar to standard RTTY, but it has much better weak-signal performance and far lower error rate. JTTY transmissions can start at any time and typically last a few seconds. Error-free throughput is about 30 words per minute for arbitrary text and 60 WPM for the short, fixed-format messages generally used in RTTY-style contesting."

We are just using the "arbitary text" mode.

Tech Talk on ABC Radio - Apple reverses view on touch screen laptops

Apple appears to have had a change of heart, embracing touchscreen technology in its latest high-end MacBook – something Steve Jobs once famously argued against. 

Also, a look at a staggering cryptocurrency theft involving billions of dollars, and a major security vulnerability that has put millions of websites at risk. 

Peter Marks, software developer and technology commentator from Access Informatics, joined Philip Clark and listeners to Nightlife with the latest tech news and information. 

 https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/nightlife/nightlife-tech-talk-with-peter-marks/107342826 

Harvesting ESP8266 from old smart plugs

I've been upgrading all my smart plugs to Matter compatible devices which are much easier to set up and manage in a single app. As a result I have a box of older devices each of which needs a different app.

This one opened up easily with some standard screws. The ESP8266 chip is on a little board that was easy to remove.

The two pins in the top right of the image above are serial TX and RX. The two pins on the bottom right are 3.3V and GND on the right edge.

On the back is an 8 Mbit memory chip giving 1MB of storage.

The pin marked 0 is GPIO 0 used to get to boot mode. G is ground.

I did a google image search of the front and found this helpful site describing the pins.

I used a USB serial board set to 3.3V and hooked Tx and Rx lines as well as +V and Ground.

This board also exposes GPIO4, 5 & 12 which could be handy.

To put the chip into boot mode you connect the GPIO 0 pin (simply labelled 0) to ground and plug in the power - in the form of the USB serial device.

ls /dev/tty.* to find the serial device. ESPTool was able to confirm the size of the flash memory.

esptool --port /dev/tty.usbserial-A50285BI flash-id

esptool v5.6.0

Connected to ESP8266 on /dev/tty.usbserial-A50285BI:

Chip type:          ESP8266EX

Features:           Wi-Fi, 160MHz

Crystal frequency:  26MHz

MAC:                cc:50:e3:67:04:66

Stub flasher running.

Flash Memory Information:

=========================

Manufacturer: 85

Device: 6014

Detected flash size: 1MB

Hard resetting via RTS pin...

I downloaded the 1MB version of Micropython. And flashed it to the chip.

esptool --port /dev/tty.usbserial-A50285BI --baud 460800 write-flash --flash-size=detect 0  ESP8266_GENERIC-FLASH_1M-20260824-v1.29.0.bin

Unplugging, remove the link from GPIO 0 to ground and re-connect to USB serial.

I used putty to talk to the serial device at 115200 and up came the python REPL.

Not sure what I'll do with these microcontrollers but it's better than putting them in the bin. Mains smartplugs also have some other useful bits including a relay that might be worth harvesting. 

Update: Here's a couple of other boards harvested from smart plugs.

Above is an ESP8285.

This one looks like a Tuya Smart (utilizing the Beken BK7231T ARM Cortex-M4 wireless SoC).

I removed the metal shield to reveal an RTL8720CF.

It looks like there are tools around to program these with a serial interface.

Flying saucer end fed half wave antenna

A big fan of end fed half wave antennas, particularly for portable use. Purchased a Flying saucers antenna from AliExpress for AU$56 and tried it out today.

The case is a clever design, easy to draw out the wire and easy to wind back in with an index finger.

I ran a rope over a tree branch using a drone and pulled the end up to test.

The wire it came with was a bit long - certainly that's better than it being too short - so I had a few down and up cycles to bring it up to the 40m band.

The unit has an SO-239 in the centre which is convenient. The toroid is burried inside the middle of the winder and when the wire it all out I can see that it is very small. They claim 25W SSB but I'd hesitate to run more than 10W in to this little thing. After shortening the wire a bit it gives a good match on 40 and related bands above.

Reasonable value for the money considering you get an Unun, winder, wire and socket. I've made many ununs myself but the wire winding is always the most annoying thing and this kind of winder prevents twisting the wire.

Diversity reception of FreeDV RADE

On Sundays from 9:30am local time I conduct a FreeDV RADE net on 7177kHz or similar. There are stations from VK3 (local to me), VK2, VK5 and sometimes VK7. Recently conditions have been such that local stations can't hear each other but remote stations have a good signal.

It's always been possible to pipe audio from a WebSDR in to apps like FreeDV to use a remote receiver but recently I added a feature in to my FreeDV implementation for macOS that lets me configure two receiver audio channels. A RADE modem runs on the second receiver and monitors SNR. 

The fact that the RADE decoder produces an SNR measurement makes it possible to easily compare two signals.

If the SNR of the other receiver is 3dB better for a few seconds the app switches to that input. Here it is in operation using RX2 (you'll need to click to enlarge).

The key bit is the status line which shows the currently used receiver in bold.

There's a bit of a bump when switching decoder pipelines but it works well enough. One weird thing is that my transmit signal is good to the remote SDR so I sometimes hear my last words and I do decode my EOO callsign frame.

The fatal flaw in this is that it's not much good running a net where I can hear people who can't hear me.

The one important piece of the puzzle is the audio routing. I use LoopBack for macOS I'm not sure how you'd do this on Linux or Windows but presumably there's ways.

macOS morse code decoder using machine learning - port of DeepCW

I've been eagerly awaiting someone clever to apply machine learning to decoding morse code and I just stumbled upon this excellent project by e04 called deep-cw-decoder.

As I'm inclinded to do, I asked my friend Claude to port it to Swift for macOS and this is the result:

It's the best morse decoder I've ever tried. Here's a video of it in action:

My port is freely available here and I've made a downloadable app for macOS 27 here. 

Amazing Open firmware for the Xiegu X6200

Icom radios are great but the firmware rarely gets updated. I've been making my own user interfaces by making software that talks to them but this morning I grabbed some amazing open firmware for my Xiegu X6200 from https://openx6x00.org

Amazing improvement over the stock Xiegu software. A great thing about this is it lives on a microSD card and if you remove the card the radio boots up as it was.

I joined the MRARC 80m net using the radio and got good reports running 10W when normally I run 100W. Just goes to show it's all about the antenna. Here's some bits of the net including another Xiegu station running a G1M that sounds excellent.

This video was made using the built-in screen recording feature. I then connected to the radio over it's built-in web server and downloaded the video files.

Icom-Control - a new macOS app to control some Icom radios over a network

On a bit of a roll here with SDR style user interfaces. I've been working on macOS 27 software to connect to some Icom radios. 

So far only tested on IC-705, IC-7760 and IC-7300 Mk2 (Thanks VK2AWN for the last one).

It works fine over ethernet and Wifi. There's also USB connection but, understandably, the spectrum display is much slower.

This software is still under development so there will be bugs. Check out the built-in help for more info.

Transmitting you'll need to go into Menu, Set, Connectors, MOD Input and set it to LAN (or USB).

More info, download link and updates here.

Feedback and bug reports most welcome.

Joined our club net using a Hermes Lite 2

My local club, the Macedon Ranges Amateur Radio Club (MRARC), has a weekly net on 80m and this week I joined using a Hermes Lite 2 driven by my new macOS software HermesNeo. It was a very noisy night on the band due to storms but reports of my signal were good.

Richard, VK3LRJ, kindly loaned me a 100W Elecraft amplifier but I only get enough drive out of the Hermes to get about 40W out. That was clearly enough to be heard by everyone. Earlier in the afternoon I had contacts with ZL and VK7.

All of this software work is, of course, elaborate procrastonation to avoid working on home brew radio hardware.

Tech Talk on ABC - Can Microsoft turn this ship around?

Apple gave Windows a run for its money when it switched its Macs from Intel processors to its own Apple Silicon chips, delivering big gains in performance and battery life and leaving many PCs struggling to keep up. 

Microsoft is fighting back with new Nvidia processors, improvements to Windows 11 and a push to run AI directly on our computers. Can Windows finally close the gap? 

Peter Marks, software developer and technology commentator from Access Informatics, joined Philip Clark and listeners to Nightlife with the latest tech news and information. Listen here.

Incidentally, I note that Philip has been presenting Nightlife for ten years. There's a nice write-up here.

Bargain 5000mAh 21700 Li-ion battery

Heath, VK3TWO, spoke about Meshcore at the latest Macedon Ranges Amateur Radio club meeting and mentioned a low cost way to get extra batteries to charge solar powered devices. These Click brand USB-C phone powerbanks are $6.98 at Bunnings.

They are a bit hard to get in to. The top has strong clips and, I assume, glue. I used a Dremmel cutting wheel to reveal the contents. It's pretty much all battery. I've seen similar 21700 batteries for $37 on their own.

It looks like a proper charging circuit with a temperature sensor. One thing to watch for is that these were in a big bin near the service desk and one of the four I purchased turned out to have lightning output rather than USB-C - that's the one I cracked open.

The other great tip Heath had was for building solar powered Meshcore repeaters, by buying a decent solar powered garden light and replacing the light with your radio gear. The good ones have one or two 18650 batteries inside them. They are also designed to be left outside.

HermesNeo - macOS software for Hermes Lite 2

I've had a Hermes Lite 2 on the bench for some time but couldn't find SDR software that I liked. This is very early software so it's not ready for prime time but is working for me on the bench here. You'll note that FreeDV RADE is a first class mode in this application.

Here's an over the air test of FreeDV RADE 1 and 2. The audio you hear is what is decoded by FreeDVNeo connected to an X6200.

 

Note sure how common the Hermes Lite 2 is, and of those owners, how many have macOS. I believe other radios are somewhat compatable and I'd be interested to hear if any others just work - as they say.

More info and download link here.

HackRF Transfer GUI for macOS

hackrf_transfer is a command line tool for getting a HackRF to capture and replay IQ files. I often use this for testing software such as FreeDV RADE and digital modes. Playing back a slab of a band full of SSB contacts is a great way to demonstrate receivers such as my Soldersmoke Direct Conversion receiver.

This GUI looks for hackrf_transfer which I install with homebrew but if you have the binary somewhere else you can choose it manually in settings.

The main window has two main parts. Capture and Transmit. Here's capture, showing the level monitor which is handy for setting the gain to an optimum point for recording.

It can also play back .c16 files captured in the field on a HackRF portapack.

I've put a page about the app with a download link here.

JTTY Traffic increasing

I've been monitoring JTTY traffic on 40m. (As an aside, 7090 USB is a poor choice of frequency here in Australia as there's a lot of 7100 LSB activity here).

I'm just on a small dipole near the house but here's what I logged using my JttyChat app over night.

RX Hello this is A test from VK3TPM 2026-10-16 18:33:23 +10 dB

RX H%</A 2026-10-16 18:56:10 -15 dB

RX 1135 0110 2026-10-16 19:10:24 -16 dB

TX CQ DE VK3TPM 2026-10-16 20:22:08

RX CQ 2026-10-16 20:27:26 -13 dB

RX Avy QSL 2026-10-16 20:27:42 -10 dB

RX JW4MFL 2026-10-16 20:46:18 -16 dB

RX JTTY slice netw ... E N2A ... Eck ins please K## 2026-10-16 20:47:39 -8 dB

RX DE N2AVY web page HTTPS://MUSE.AI/S/THE-OUTER ... -SLICE-NETWORK-ZD6IB8ZGGX0V an 2026-10-16 20:48:05 -5 dB

RX ://MUSE.AI/S/TH ... Er-jtty-sl ... K-ZD6 ... GX0V 2026-10-16 20:48:39 -9 dB

RX CQ the outer JTTY slice network DE ...  N2AVY ... Ins pleas 2026-10-16 20:49:18 -5 dB

RX Net open N2AVY web page HTTPS://MUSE.AI/S/THE 2026-10-16 20:50:53 -8 dB

RX Net open N2AVY web page HTTPS://MUSE.AI/S/THE-OUTER-JTTY-SLICE-NETWORK-ZD6IB8ZGG 2026-10-16 20:53:23 -6 dB

RX CQ the outer JTTY slice N ... K DE N2AVY N2AVY check ins please K 2026-10-16 20:54:08 -6 dB

RX CQ CQ the outer JTTY slice network ...  Avy N2AVY check ins please K # 2026-10-16 20:55:44 -6 dB

RX All stations please standby for net control DE N2AVY K## 2026-10-16 20:56:24 -4 dB

RX DE N2AVY standing by ... Any S ... Eck in che ... Use netlogger and check 2026-10-16 20:56:58 -7 dB

RX CQ CQ the outer JTTY slice network DE N2AVY N2AVY check ... Please K # 2026-10-16 20:58:03 -6 dB

RX CQ CQ the outer JTTY slice network DE N2AVY N2AVY check ins please K # 2026-10-16 20:58:37 -6 dB

RX CQ CQ the outer JTTY slice network DE N2AVY N ... Check ... Please K # 2026-10-16 20:59:45 -6 dB

RX DE N2AVY the net controller for todays the outer RTTY slice network. 2026-10-16 21:00:18 -6 dB

RX The outer JTTY slice network DE N2AVY check ins please K# 2026-10-16 21:01:57 -6 dB

RX CQ the outer JTTY slice network DE N2AVY N2AVY ... Ins please K# 2026-10-16 21:02:27 -4 dB

RX The outer JTTY slice ... E N2AVY check ins please K 2026-10-16 21:03:52 -7 dB

RX Pen N2AVY web page HTTPS: ... E.AI/ ... -Outer-jtty-slice-ne ... -ZD6IB8ZGG 2026-10-16 21:04:33 -6 dB

RX DE N2AVY W ... Ge HTTPS://MUSE.AI/S/THE-OUTER-JTTY-SLICE-NETWORK- ... 8ZGGX 2026-10-16 21:05:04 -7 dB

RX The outer JTTY slice network DE N2AVY N2AVY ...  Ins please K 2026-10-16 21:05:56 -7 dB

RX JSN CQ DE ...  In check in K 2026-10-16 21:07:37 -6 dB

TX CQ DE VK3TPM 2026-10-16 21:08:23

RX Q DE N2AVY check in check in K# 2026-10-16 21:08:33 -7 dB

RX CQ tojsn CQ DE N2AVY check in check in K# 2026-10-16 21:08:58 -7 dB

RX Net open N2AVY web page HTTPS: ... E.AI/S/THE-OUTER-JTTY-SLICE-NETWORK-ZD6IB8ZGG 2026-10-16 21:09:23 -5 dB

RX DE N2AVY the net controller for tod ... He outer RTTY slice network. 2026-10-16 21:10:28 -6 dB

RX CQ N2AVY N2AVY CQ 2026-10-16 21:11:23 -7 dB

RX CQ N2AVY CQ 2026-10-16 21:11:39 -11 dB

RX CQ N2AVY CQ 2026-10-16 21:12:23 -8 dB

RX CQ N2AVY CQ 2026-10-16 21:12:33 -9 dB

RX DE N2AVY QSL 2026-10-16 21:12:57 -7 dB

RX CQ N2AVY CQ 2026-10-16 21:13:06 -8 dB

RX Net open N2AVY ...  Age HTTPS://MUSE.AI/S/THE-OUTER-JTTY-SLICE-NE ... -ZD6IB8ZGG 2026-10-16 21:13:29 -7 dB

RX SL 2026-10-16 21:14:10 -11 dB

RX CQ N2AVY CQ 2026-10-16 21:14:17 -9 dB

RX CQ N2AVY CQ 2026-10-16 21:14:27 -9 dB

RX CQ N2AVY CQ 2026-10-16 21:15:19 -8 dB

RX CQ N2AVY CQ 2026-10-16 21:16:14 -6 dB

RX DE N2AVY Q 2026-10-16 21:16:19 -8 dB

RX CQ N2AVY CQ 2026-10-16 21:16:26 -12 dB

RX CQ the out ... TY slice network DE N2AVY N2AVY check ... Please K# 2026-10-16 21:17:14 -6 dB

RX CQ the outer JTTY slice network DE N2AVY N2AVY check ins ...  E K# 2026-10-16 21:17:38 -4 dB

Scoring Apple's Knowledge Navigator against Siri and ChatGPT

Earlier this year I posed the question Apple Knowledge Navigator - are we there yet? I was very pleased to see that SmartFriend™ Tony has done the hard work, now that xOS 27 is out with Siri AI, to test and find out.

Check out the Rambling Rows post "Scoring Apple's Knowledge Navigator against Siri and ChatGPT".

SiriAI is vastly better in many ways but, as a caller to my ABC Nightlife talkback spot last night observed, it's got worse at basic tasks like flipping lights and setting timers. I guess it's over-thinking simple tasks.

Binaural receivers can receive double sideband

Talented home brewer Stephen, VK2BLQ, mentioned that - unlike a direct conversion receiver - a binaural receiver can be used to listen to a double sideband transmitter. He sent some pictures and a sample recording.

I think this is promising in that it could be used to make a relatively simple transceiver comprising a double sideband transmitter and binaural receiver that could talk to another instance of the same design.

Here's Stephen's circuit notes:

 

Binaural receivers are useful for CW operators working with a busy part of the band as they spread signals out across the soundstage between your ears.

A beautiful day for the Bendigo Hamfest

Richard, VK3LRJ, and I drove up to Bendigo for the excellent BAREC Hamfest. 

There was a good crowd and a decent amount of stuff on sale although I thought some of the prices were a bit optimistic. I bought an old Radio Shack condenser microphone and stand for $20. I had one back in the 80s and it was amazing quality at the time. This one didn't work when I got it home but the problem was that the body had turned so many times that the little power wire had broken. I fixed that but the mic doesn't sound good - it's had a hard life. 

Mostly it was a social event and great to catch up with a bunch of friends. Hugo VK3HUG, Colin VK3XW, Dallas VK3EB and Dave VK3ASE.

Great job by the organisers - it must be a big job putting something like this together.

Simple JTTY app for macOS

The JTTY application I made for Linux uses the QT6 framework. I could have built this for macOS but thought it would hurt my eyes so I've made a native macOS version.

There's a page for it here and the source code is available here.

It does depend on hamlib for rig control. I install it with homebrew. At the moment this is left as an exercise for the reader - as they say.

Thanks to Zero Retries (an excellent ham radio newsletter) for the warm mention in the latest edition.

"Macs, thanks to developers like VK3TPM are rapidly becoming “first-class citizens” in Amateur Radio!" - golly, I'm blushing!

Simple JTTY app for Linux

Stephen, VK2BLQ, and I have been playing with the new keyboard chat mode that's in the next release of WSJT-X. It seems to work very well but the user interface there is a bit daunting.

It occurs to me that it could be as simple to use as one of the phone instant messenger apps and so, with most of the work done by claude, I created JttyChat that you see on the right here.

Very simple. Choose Settings under File and configure audio to and from your transceiver and the hamlib configuration to control transmit.

There's a Frequency menu with the list of suggested upper sideband frequencies taken from WSJT-X.

We've been chatting in the middle of the day between Melbourne and Sydney without any trouble. I've also had reports from Michael VK2TMC.

The Linux app is packaged up as an AppImage. You download it, uncompress, set properties to make it executable, and it should just work. Because I'm using QT6 the AppImage file is rather large as it bundles all the dependencies including hamlib.

Download here.