Howdy all,
New user here. Just installed Wfview on my MAC (not a truck) laptop.
Also installed VB-Cable and already had FreeDV installed and was using it via a USB connection.
Using Wfview and VB-Cable I was able to get FreeDV to connect to Wfview so I can now use digital voice with the IC705 over my LAN via wifi!
It was a tad frustrating to set up but once I “got my head on straight” it’s actually working quite well.
Anyone else out there using WfView with the IC705 and FreeDV?
73/Rick
WA6III
Hi Rick,
I haven’t tried that but it sounds really neat!
I hat is your experience like with FreeDV overall? Is it difficult to find people that also have it?
—E
de W6EL
Hi Elliot!
Thanks for the interest! I have been using FreeDV since around 2010 or so when they first started developing it.
There’s really good info @ https://freedv.org/ And there a bit of interesting history @ FDMDV - Frequency Division Multiplex Digital Voice
I started using FDMDV until they said the original MELP voice codec was originally owned by someone (Motorola?) that didn’t want it being used on amateur radio (or maybe it was considered proprietary etc)
More history here: https://melp.org/
In any Case, A Phd ham in Australia wrote a new voice codec (Codec 2) that is completely open source to replace MELP and another group of smart ham-developers rewrote the FDMDV GUI and FreeDV was sort of born of all of it!
The newest version of FreeDV has a built-in “FreeDV Reporter” that shows who is operating RX/TX in real time. The web based site is https://freedv-reporter.k6aq.net/
The above info is also incorporated into the latest version of FreeDV so you can see who’s actually on and when you transmit, you can see in real-time the SNR they see from anyone transmitting etc.
It’s VERY cool.
Last month, I had a QSO with a friend in Oregon about 50 miles east of Portland (I’m about 15miles E of Tacoma, WA)
We operated on 75m down on 3750 kHz. I was running 1W and he was running 5W
It was about 8:30PM and the lightning static was nearly unbearable and it would have been literally impossible to operate using SSB at such low power levels.
We held a solid copy (no noise) QSO for about 45 min!
We’ve also tried it on 160, 40, and even 6m!
On 6 I was using my IC-705 driving a Mercury III LDMOS amp to about 500W with a 5element CushCraft A-50-5 antenna.
He heard me (readable) but he was not running enough power for me to detect anything! Healso said he could barely tell the signal was there! and couldn’t copy me on SSB at the same power level.
Running the FreeDV 700D mode, the signal is about 1.2 kHz wide. so you can really clamp down the receive bandwidth which reduced the noise respectively.
I originally started using it with a SignaLink USB audio device and an ICOM IC-736 but I sold that set up around 7-10 years ago. I didn’t get back into it until I got the IC-705.
FreeDV will work on ANY SSB transceiver with sufficient frequency accuracy and stability.
And now, with WIFI capability, it’s really cool because I can wander around the house with either the Winblows HP Laptop I have. I like it better on the MAcBookPro though.
I haven’t gotten it working on my other MacBook Pro running Tumblweed yet but I did have it working on my main Desktop that runs OpenSuSE Leap 15.5 x64 Linux.
I bought my wife a new Mac Mini so I got the “Hand-Me-Down” early 2015 Macbook Pro to play with!!
Anyway, have a look at the FreeDV website and reporter site. A note of caution though…You might become addicted to FreeDV!!
I hesitate to say it (YET) but I think FreeDV could become like SSB when SSB “replaced” AM
73/Rick
WA6III
Hi Rick,
That’s interesting that you tried it with a 736. That radio’s stability, even with the high stability crystal oscillator option, is not all that impressive due to the two other not-stabilized crystals in the loop. (I have a 736, I think it’s a nice radio anyway!)
Yes, we need more completely open source codecs on ham radio. Of all places, this is surely the place for open source codecs.
Personally I find the sound of these digital voice codecs difficult. Yes, no static, but plenty of artifacts and digital hiccups. It’s fascinating nonetheless. I really enjoy digital modes for data (and text), such as THOR or PSK31 though.
73,
—E
de W6EL
Yeah,
Now that you mention it, I believe I did install the high stability osc in my 736. It worked just fine with FreeDV. I also tried it on 6m.
And, you’re quite right. The voice quality is definitely not Hi-Fi! And sometimes there are definite artifacts and “garbles” , but it has gotten much better over the years.
It’s of course, not “perfect” (yet)…But I do think they have quite a bit of room to improve!
If it’s compared to very low signal SSB however in a high noise environment it does perform.
I have also tried ICOM D-Star on 75 and 40m with fairly good results but there’s so few people using D-Star on HF I rarely find anyone willing to even try it even if they have a 705 or 7100 or capable 9100.
And it’s as wide or wider than an AM signal making it not very spectrum efficient for HF
I also have SDR-Control but I think WFView seems to work a little better. Although I think it may be due to the better WIFI connectivity of my laptops vs my IPAD. (I seem to get a LOT of errors with the IPAD that I don’t get with WFView on either the Win10 HP laptop or the MAcBook Pro)
I too would like to see more open source in amateur radio for the same reasons you mention. Linux is very well suited for it but I find very few hams that are even willing to try anything other than Windows!
I also tried THOR, PSK31, Olivia and others several years ago(with the 736) and I thought they worked pretty well. It appears that FT8 is rage these days. It’s pretty much taken over on 6m.
I actually made a “contact” using FT8 on 6m last Summer but I use the term “contact” pretty loosely! Any mode that you cannot ask name, location, weather, rig, or talk about transmitter, receivers, antennas or even politics!..Isn’t really a Contact at all!
73/Rick
So, we don’t have contact with the voyagers. Damn…
I tried freedv, as well as d* and I always had to make skeds first…
Anyways, good to hear this stuff.
The new version with the FreeDV reporter makes finding contacts a LOT easier.
Not only that, if you see someone you want to talk to and they’re on another band or frequency, you can send them a “frequency change request” right in the software.
Using the “Reporter” feature requires the computer running FreeDV to be also connected to the internet.
There’s really interesting features coming I suppose as people make suggestions.
It’s REALLY nice to be able to use WFView to interface other digital programs with my 705 via WIFI.
Well, Rick, I may have to give it a try.
Catch you on the air some time,
—E
de W6EL
Howdy all,
Well, I have a little more experience using WFView now and currently have it running (along with FreeDV ) on both of my Linux computers. https://freedv.org/
My main desktop runs OpenSuSE 15.5 with an AMD 6-core CPU.
My other Linux “box” is a (Mid-2012) MACbook Pro running an Intel Core i5 and SuSE Linux Tumbleweed
I used Flatpak to install the WFView packages on both.
So now I have WFView running on WIN10, MAC (Monterey) , Linux OpenSuSE Leap 15.5 and Tumbleweed. All working with my ICOM IC-705 using LAN WIFI
Many thanks to W6EL and M0VSE for an outstanding software package!!
73/Rick
W4XA