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.
A terrific edition of the "On the Media" program from WNYC Studios about shortwave radio and what we've lost, not just from the cuts to the Voice of America but also, of course, previous cuts to Radio 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.
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".
Upgraded to macOS Sequoia 15.6 by installing OpenCore Legacy Patcher
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.
There is a thing called OpenCore Legacy Patcher that will take a macOS installer, modify it so it will install on the unsupported hardware and add the drivers needed to support the older hardware.
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).
Some GPs are using artificial intelligence to record patient consultations. Just how safe is our personal data? Also, Google is running an attack ad against Apple in the lead up to both companies announcing their next phones.
Peter Marks, software developer and technology commentator from Access Informatics, joined Philip Clark on Nightlife to discuss the latest news in technology.
Just bought a zBitx radio from HFSignals. The attraction is for portable use on digital modes without needing a computer as it has a Raspberry Pi built right in.
Mine arrived, unfortunately, without the microUSB OTG adapter. I've ordered one but thought I'd try to get it connected to Wifi without needing an external screen, keyboard, and mouse.
Following the disassembly instructions (which are excellent) I removed the battery compartment.
The micro SD card is visible and you'll need tweezers or pliers to pull it out (it's not a push to eject style holder).
I plugged the card into a mac and opened the boot directory. The trick is to create a text file called wpa_supplicant.conf in the following format:
Also, a file simply named "ssh" should be created to enable ssh. (I did this as a matter of course and am not sure if it was required).
After putting the SD card back and powering up, the device, named "sbitx" appeared on my network. I was able to ssh in as pi@sbitx.local:
The default password is hf12345
Once on the network the zbitx was able to synchronise its clock so FT8 works.
The web interface at http://sbitx.local is quite impressive. It streams audio to the browser so can be used remotely. Default password is 123
I really like that it runs on 2x18650 batteries attached to the side. I wish other QRP radios could work like this.
The radio has both a Pi Pico and a Raspberry Pi. The source code is here.
VNC was enabled by using the ssh terminal and we get the following view:
This is the most network connected radio I've ever experienced.
I am impressed by the quality assurance card that came with the radio. Great stuff!
One thing that I found disturbing is that I searched high and low for the off button. Being a linux computer I have a strong feeling about just yanking out the power chord but that seems to be the recommended approach.
