We're excited to report that the FreeDV project has joined the Software Freedom Conservancy! Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC) is a 501(c)3 organization dedicated to advocating for free and open source software (FOSS), including defending the right to repair, improve and reinstall software. Through this partnership, we hope to unlock additional resources that will help accelerate development of FreeDV and increase the adoption of open source speech codecs such as Codec2. As part of this effort, we have also formed a Project Leadership Team, consisting of the following individuals: * David Rowe (VK5DGR) * Mooneer Salem (K6AQ) * Wojciech Kaczmarski (SP5WWP) * Walter Holmes (K5WH) * Mel Whitten (K0PFX) * Brian Morrison (G8SEZ) More information about SFC (along with ways to contribute to them if desired) can be found on their website at https://sfconservancy.org/. Information about the FreeDV project can be found at https://freedv.org/ (with activity typically around 14.236 MHz).
FreeDV is a wonderful program. I don't have the antennas for long distance work on 20 meters, but I do enjoy working more local guys when I can find them. These development guys are great and FreeDV just keeps on improving!! Hey, I just found K0PFX in my log from a few years back!! Worked him on 20 meters with my cheezy dipole ... and got a good report!! Yay me!
I've used FreeDV in the past. Pretty cool, and the group of guys I met on 20 meters were very helpful in getting my audio set up properly. Good luck!
It's an interesting development and hopefully it will continue to improve. I too have found the voice quality to be pretty bad, about as bad as D-Star.
2020 mode in the FreeDV application does provide better audio quality, but at the cost of less resilience to poorer HF band conditions. Regardless, improvements are being made all the time so definitely keep checking back.
I found what audio modes I could get to work were difficult to use and understand. It does work, but there's too many modes. If it had one submode and was built in to hf radios as a modulation, I would expect it to take off like crazy.
The mcHF and RS-978 actually do have FreeDV built in. Additionally, if you're into SDRs at all, Quisk (which supports the Hermes Lite 2 among others) has it built-in too. But yeah, we're always looking for more integration on various HF radios.
I tried it many years ago. But it was a bit of a fight then. Enjoyed the people that was using it and helping people. In the end I did really did not see the benefit of it.
There have been many operational & voice quality improvements over the past few years so please join the group on the next FreeDV Activity scheduled for 12AM Pacific time (0800Z) on December 17 to 11:59PM (0759Z) on December 18 (48 hours). The FreeDV Activity Days are a great way to get things up and running. If you have difficulty, Help is just an Email, DMR or Zoom call away. If you have an IC-7300 I would be glad to share my configuration with you to help get you going. Here are the Suggested frequencies: 80 meters: 3.625, 3.643 or 3.693 MHz 40 meters: 7.177 MHz 20 meters: 14.236 MHz 17 meters: 18.118 MHz 15 meters: 21.313 MHz 12 meters: 24.933 MHz 10 meters: 28.330 or 28.720 MHz Thanks goes to K6AQ for putting this fun activity together.
Hi, I did my first FreeDV contact today with Walter K5WH..... Looking forward to do more contact soon. I'm using an IC-7300 with wire antenna only. @WA2TOP I would really like to have some tips with your 7300. My e-mail address is good on QRZ. Best 73 de Jeff | VA2SS
