Matt Gumbley

Had a short initial foray into #FreeDV yesterday- I only have a very low power antenna for 40m in the loft, so didn’t succeed with transmitting but the audio quality (on moderately high SNR signals) is impressive! The upper HF bands were empty, nobody listening, so didn’t try transmitting with moderate power there.

Wonder what the “it’s not real radio” blowhards will make of it? ;)

Dec 8 at 8:34amWeb
Show threadTA4KHRDec 8
@M0CUV
I've been monitoring 10m futilely, and 40m is pretty much closed for me. I really don't understand why it's just popular in the lower bands.
Show threadMatt GumbleyDec 8
@M0KHR Perhaps it’s just “early days” for the mode. I heard a couple of UK stations, and tried to reply to a pair of Netherlands stations- but with 10W from the loft, it’s not going to be great. 10m condx were moderate for me yesterday, nothing fantastic. Will persevere!
Show threadTA4KHRDec 8
@M0CUV Here, sitting at my veranda in KM36, I have a decent propagation to Europe on 10m FT8 and can hear the random far-east / OC station but it's not great. It's very busy though, right now there are 50+ stations TX'ing I'm hearing, the 3kHz is pretty much fully utilized!
Show threadTA4KHRDec 8
@M0CUV I would like to have the mode more popular, but it's the typical problem. "No one uses it therefore I won't use it either". Every time I try it out, it's the other side of the world busy on it with 40m - nothing I can reach :)
Show threadMatt GumbleyDec 8
@M0KHR I’ll have to put out some CQs on 10 whenever I’m in the shack. I have a modular T2LT vertical I can deploy in the garden so I can use a bit more power than usual.