We had a very productive and fun time this weekend during the 2025 Dayton Hamvention. The FreeDV project manned a booth where we demonstrated the benefits of Radio Autoencoder (RADE) to the people who stopped by. A HackRF One (acting as transmitter) and an Icom IC-705 (acting as receiver) were connected together via attenuators; using this setup, a pre-recorded QSO between Mooneer K6AQ and Mel K0PFX was retransmitted where both parties switched back and forth between analog and RADE. Visitors to the booth listened to RADE via the provided headset, while analog reception was accomplished by listening to the IC-705’s built-in speaker. Reception of the demo was overwhelmingly positive, with the majority of listeners praising the performance of RADE over analog SSB during challenging band conditions.
Mooneer K6AQ also gave a talk for the HF Digital Modes forum on Saturday, hosted by Mel K0PFX. The room where the talk was held was standing room only with people showing significant interest both in FreeDV as well as FreeDATA:
As with the booth, attendees of the forum overwhelmingly preferred RADE after listening to playback of sample analog and RADE transmissions during Mooneer’s talk. Some attendees visited the booth after the forum talk to ask additional questions that could not be answered during the allotted forum time, with several people who had previously tried FreeDV several years ago (or more) indicating that they intend on trying it again.
For those who were unable to attend Hamvention or the forum talk, slides (in PDF form) are below. Hope to hear you on the air!
Hi Mooneer, Kelvin W6KCV here in Palos Verdes, CA. Thank you for posting the slides on the Machine Learning presentation. Unfortunately I think the section discussing the actual use of machine learning is omitted from the slides.
Anyway, I keep hoping to get a QSO over FreeDV someday. Meanwhile I keep my system configures and once a day or so I actually leave FreeDV running for 5 minutes or so. I’ll get lucky someday.
Hi Kelvin,
Thanks for the feedback! Unfortunately time was more limited during the Hamvention forum than typically the case with hamfests, so some slides were removed or skipped. There should be a longer version of the presentation available elsewhere on this website if you’re interested.
As for contacts, FreeDV Reporter (https://qso.freedv.org/) is always a good resource. Just a reminder for anyone else who comes across this comment 🙂
Thanks,
-Mooneer K6AQ
Mooneer you did an outstanding job. It was pretty tough following up after your presentation. The Mic blocking my screen and my last minute adjustment to make the font bigger threw me off a little. Hope to see you again and have a little more time to speak. Best Wishes.
-Joe Brett K5YVY