Two excellent talks at this month’s meeting at Woodend.
Despite a foggy and frosty morning there was a good turnout at the monthly meeting. The large flat TV screen works well for showing images during presentations.
Joe began with a greeting to all and mentioned that if anyone needs help with ham radio things around the house other members are ready to help. We don’t want any more members falling off ladders!
First speaker was Dallas, VK3EB, visiting specially from Shepparton. He talked us through their project to install a web accessible SDR receiver at a quiet site near Strathbogie. The receiver site doesn’t have power or internet so it will be run from a solar charged battery and is connected to the internet via a 4G modem.
Dallas talked about the efforts to reduce noise at the site. Replacing switch mode power supplies with DC regulated supplies. The receiver, computer and 4G modem are housed in a well-shielded case of a microwave oven. They have tried a few different SDRs but have now ordered a KiwiSDR which will be used as it has the capacity for up to 12 simultaneously connected users.
Second speaker was Peter, VK3TPM, who talked about the AI revolution which is coming to all parts of our lives including Amateur radio.
Peter Talked about the new release of FreeDV version 2.0 which includes the Radio Autoencoder (RADE) which uses machine learning to transmit, receive and generate voice. Several real QSOs were played showing how RADE compares with Single Sideband over the same SNR radio links.
Finally Peter showed how to set up the FreeDV application and connect it to a radio. An actual off-air IQ recording was played on a HackRF and decoded.
After the meeting many of us went for lunch at local cafe Milko. Here we had an impromptu meeting of members named Peter.
