This month I worked on:

• Re-planning RADE V2 development. I updated a live project planning document with current status and next steps, including an outline for test, release, and ways to gather useful feedback from release. This is worth consideration as in general feedback from end users is from ad-hoc testing and anecdotes, which limits it’s value. Adding some structure and guidelines to the test results we seek could greatly improve it’s value.
• Further work and completion of the FreeDV-060 RADE V2 Test Report. Most algorithms have now been developed, and tested in simulation and with stored file over the air tests, with good results. The exception is streaming text support, which requires an external library to be written for framing and FEC.
• The FreeDV project was invited to write an article for QST Magazine on RADE. I worked with a representative of the ARRL to set the technical scope and decide on figure formats, then wrote and submitted the article which is currently under review.
• Documentation and review of key RADE V2 algorithms. There is quite a lot of new work in V2 that was complex and difficult to develop. Documentation is also a useful way to self-review.
• Planning around resolving our disparate FreeDV source code and document repositories,, which have multiplied at a rapid pace over the last few years. The general idea is to reconcile these to a single repository. Also a good opportunity for a spring clean.
• Merging the large RADE V2 PR into the RADE main branch, in the process catching a subtle bug that had been lurking in the Python code for 12 months with the help of Claude. We now have RADE V1 implemented in Python and C; this bug was found by reconciling the test results between the SNR estimators of the two implementations. Catching bugs is a hidden benefit of implementation in two languages. I also pulled on a few threads (such as checking the band pass filter implementations) that resulted in further verification of the V1 C Port.

In  HF data news, Rhizomatica are now using the FreeDV data modes combined with their own custom ARQ protocol to send data over low SNR HF channels. This is a pleasing outcome from the HF data work package (WP6000) of our ARDC grant, where we developed several new HF data waveforms in conjunction with the FreeDATA developers. Great to see another project embracing those waveforms, and spreading the use of open source in HF Data.