For those of you practicing with your FLDIGI, you’ll be able to tune in this weekend to Voice of America. They’re broadcasting on shortwave this weekend, mixing voice and digital communications. There will be four broadcasts lasting 30 minutes each. Get your laptop out and fire up your digital commo software. Remember, you don’t have to be a ham operator to use these modes when simply receiving (listening/monitoring). This will be great practice for all of us. Below is the email I received from an AmRRON operator in occupied America.
JJS,
Below is a paste of the latest email regarding ‘testing’ of Fldigi on the AM Shortwave Bands.
They have been testing this for a while now and it works great. This weekend the transmissions will originate in the US so any in the Redoubt area would likely hear.
Follow the link for information on modes. Unless those receiving have considerable practice with Fldigi they would likely be best to monitor for ONE of the ‘multiple’ modes. MFSK32 will be a small picture, a bit different than text but automatic in that mode. There will be more of this in the future.
XXXXX Tango-XX
VOA Radiogram, combining voice with digital text modes via shortwave broadcast, will “soft launch” this weekend.
The half-hour program will be transmitted four times during the weekend via the BBG/IBB/VOA Edward R. Murrow transmitting station in North Carolina.
Transmission schedule (all days and times UTC):
Saturday 1600-1630 17860 kHz
Sunday 0230-0300 (1930-2000 Pacific) 5745 kHz (Saturday evening in North America)
Sunday 1300-1330 6095 kHz
Sunday 1930-2000 15670 kHz
UTC conversion chart: http://www.flyafa.com/files/ZULUTOLOCALTIMECONVERTER.pdf
UTC is also known as Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) or ZULU Time
More details here:
http://voaradiogram.net/post/45287954494/soft-launch-of-voa-radiogram-this-weekend
The weekend’s program will include multiple modes transmitted simultaneously. After the “hard launch” (probably March 23), only one mode will be transmitted at a time.
Kim
radiogram(at)voanews.com
VOA Radiogram
VOA Radiogram is a Voice of America program experimenting with digital text and images via shortwave broadcasting.
VOA Radiogram: how to decode the modes
You can also practice decoding a psk31 message on your fldigi software using the audio file from Radio Free Redoubt, below (click to play):
PSK-31 Message
What would be nice is someone using Youtube to do a tutorial(s) on getting up and running with FLdigi. My shack is located at my retreat – a mighty long way from anyone being able to help me out getting set up. I have an IC7000 with signal link – but that’s about as far as I’ve gotten. Youtube would help bring current and future new users along in an organized syllabus tailored to our AmRron mission.
You can find some great fldigi and flmsg tutorials here. Dave is a great guy and was with fldigi from the beginning and is on the team
http://www.youtube.com/user/davekle38sp/videos
73
Just make an audio recording of the ‘multiple mode’ transmissions and play back later with different Fldigi mode selected. The different messages may not be identical.
There are some with plans to disseminate information in such a way, it can be very effective compared to voice.
PRACTICE!
Listened at 1600Z. Not super strong in S. Fla. on 17 MHz at noon local from NC, about 5X8. Pretty much what I expected. Copied the PSK-31 no problem. Some of the other modes not so great. Didn’t record it so it was one shot trying to copy.
Will try again.
Thanks for the tip and thanks to Tango xx for letting you know about the test.
flidigi, Kenwood TS-489SAT, 15 meter dipole at about 15 feet. Not much antenna but able to work Europe regularly. 🙂
Tango-04
Experiment and transmission report @ 1600Z and 0230Z on VOA transmissions.
copy:
VOA News, asteroid’s spin intrigues astronomers. susan presto….con’t.
1600Z Ham Radio Delux software with DM780, only mode copied PSK31
Limited support for other modes in HRD-DM780
PSK copy 80%
0230Z transmission received with fldigi, PSK 100%, all modes copied, with copy rate dropping with faster transmission modes to PSK1000R being received at <50%.
note: splattering occurred with some overlap particularly with the higher rates.
IC-7000 SignaLink, 80m di-pole @ 20m hgt., fed through tuner
73
keeper, Central NC
If anyone was able to record the audio for any of these broadcasts, and you can email them to me, please do so.
Also, if anyone was able to copy/paste the text from any or all of the transmissions, please email those to me as well, for a follow-up.
Reviews of your experiences are also greatly appreciated. Thanks everyone!
3/17 at 1300Z
Lots of QSB on signal, hard to copy voice but able to copy BPSK-31 100% on first transmission. QPSK-31 and PSK-63F copied over 95%. PSK-125R copied at 99%. Didn’t try other modes.
Same setup as yesterday. Unable to record it for you JJ. Tried but it just didn’t work. Sorry.
Tango-04
[…] Radio Free Redoubt reports: Voice of America tests transmitting on digital mode. […]
This weekend (Mar 23) VOA will try more digital, hopefully with better propagation than last weekend. More info found here
http://voaradiogram.net/post/45846389802/modes-menu-for-voa-radiogram-march-23-24-2013
Great practice for us all, looking more like we will need that practice.
Outside the wire,
Etech
JJS,
VOA is transmitting another exercise the weekend of March 23/24.
Here is the planned schedule for anyone whom wishes to practice skills on receiving PSK with their radio and cpu software.
http://voaradiogram.net/post/45846389802/official-launch-of-voa-radiogram-teaching-old
VOA Radiogram
VOA Radiogram is a Voice of America program experimenting with digital text and images via shortwave broadcasting.
VOA Radiogram for March 23/24 will be similar to the past weekend’s “soft launch” in that it features the PSK modes. Much of Kim’s script will be the same from the previous week’s program.
In this weekend’s broadcast, however, only one mode at a time will be transmitted. This should improve the signal-to-noise ratio and ability to decode each mode.
Each will be centered on 1500 Hz:
( )is the time length of the transmission.
BPSK31 (1:00)
PSK63F (1:00)
BPSK63 (1:00)
PSKR125 (1:00)
PSKR250 (1:00)
PSKR500 (1:00)
PSKR1000 (1:00)
PSKR125 (3:45) Plain text
PSKR250 (2:40) Flmsg* formatted (with html)
MFSK32 (0:55) Image
*Install Flmsg. Then, in Fldigi: Configure > Misc > NBEMS > under Reception of flmsg files click Open with flmsg and Open in browser, and below that state where your Flmsg file is located.
If decoding performance is still not satisfactory, VOA Radiogram in future weekends will feature more robust modes, such as MFSK, MT63, and Olivia.
See VOA Radiogram: how to decode the modes.
VOA Radiogram transmission schedule
(all days and times UTC)
Sat 1600-1630 17860 kHz
Sun 0230-0300 5745 kHz
Sun 1300-1330 6095 kHz
Sun 1930-2000 15670 kHz
All via the Edward R. Murrow transmitting station in North Carolina.
Can someone please record the audio from these and send the audio file to me? I won’t be in a position to do it myself until Sunday afternoon, when I’ll be prepping for the show. Please? =) Thanks!
I had good experience with this test. The 17.XXXMHz daytime transmission is too close for strong signal from North Carolina to Virginia, but even then, most of the digital came through fine.
The night transmission was quite good, with a little static and fading, but impressive results, including FLmsg LAUNCHING AN HTML page on my laptop – automaticall as received. This was fun.
Haaaaar!
Popeye
For those who have opportunity to listen in the near future –
Future programs will feature…
March 30-31: MFSK
April 6-7: MT63
April 13-14: Olivia
First program (for me) had very poor reception. At best 35% copy of the digital slower modes. Less on the faster… Maybe the next band (session) will be a lot better.