Zero Retries

Tina Stroh KD7WSF, Business / Conference Manager

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In This Issue:

I-Frame

Paid Subscribers / Founding Members Update

Amateur Radio Drivers Removed From Linux Kernel
Steve Stroh N8GNJ

The Perceived Irrelevance of Amateur Radio Networking
Steve Stroh N8GNJ

Announcing Project Argus
George Zafiropoulos KJ6VU

The Quiet Resurgence of RF Engineering
Anthony Templeton

FCC Approves Limited Emergency Use of 70 cm Band by AST SpaceMobile Satellites Outside the US

I-Frame

By Steve Stroh N8GNJ

Brief notes about this issue of Zero Retries.

Paid Subscribers / Founding Members Update

My thanks to Prefers to Remain Anonymous 72 for one year of being a Paid Subscriber to Zero Retries as of this past week!

My thanks to Prefers to Remain Anonymous 125 for becoming a new Annual Paid Subscriber to Zero Retries this past week!

Financial support from Zero Retries readers is a significant vote of support for the continued publication of Zero Retries.

Amateur Radio Drivers Removed From Linux Kernel

By Steve Stroh N8GNJ

Drivers for Amateur Radio Packet Radio and various Amateur Radio Packet Radio hardware (generally no longer used) have been included in the Linux kernel since the early days of Linux. Unfortunately, those drivers have not been maintained, and thus were slated for removal.

That there are multiple perspectives about this situation is yet another example of my humorous explanation to those outside Amateur Radio that three hams could get together to discuss something, and emerge with five different opinions.

See next article for my analysis of the bigger picture of why this happened and a proposed solution for that situation.

Article - Linux Kernel Drops AX.25 and Amateur Radio Subsystem Support

Amateur Radio Daily - April 24, 2026:

Earlier today Linus Torvalds merged a pull request to remove AX.25 and hamradio subsystem support from the Linux kernel. While the headline sounds ominous, most modern AX.25 implementations occur in software at the user level without relying on the kernel level implementation. Direwolf, for example, does not require kernel level AX.25 support. Other software relying on AX.25 may take advantage of dedicated AX.25 Python libraries.
The change comes as a result of AI based bug detection services capable of identifying critical issues among code that may no longer be maintained or utilized by end users. Torvalds stated that the amateur radio related code in the Linux kernel no longer had any active maintainers:
Amateur radio did have occasional users (or so I think) but most users switched to user space implementations since its all super slow stuff. Nobody stepped up to maintain the kernel code.
According to typesense the last Linux kernel commit related to AX.25 was 6 years ago.
Additional code removed includes ISDN support, bus mouse support, and various network drivers including support for old 3Com devices.
Source: Phoronix

Article - Farewell ISDN, Ham Radio & Old Network Drivers: Linus Torvalds Merges 138k L.O.C. Removal

Michael Larabel in Linux Networking on phoronix:

Linus Torvalds did it! He merged the pull request to rid the Linux kernel of the old Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) subsystem and various other old network drivers largely for PCMCIA era network adapters. This was the code suggested for removal given the recent influx of AI/LLM-generated bug reports against this dated code that likely has no active upstream users remaining.

It's been a fast-paced week with the patch series to remove old network drivers due to AI-driven bug reports now making these drivers for outdated network hardware a burden. Drivers for old/obsolete hardware has remained in the upstream kernel as long as there are active users and keeping the code around hasn't been a burden on developers or there are developers actively interested in maintaining the code. But now with the large language models and increased code fuzzing finding potential issues with these drivers for obsolete hardware, it's easier to just get rid of these drivers if no one is actively using the hardware from decades ago.

Yesterday the pull request was submitted to remove the old drivers and today Linus Torvalds went ahead and merged it without any fuss.
This merge lightens the kernel by 138,161 lines of code with ISDN gone and numerous old network adapters and also getting rid of legacy ATM device drivers as well as the amateur ham radio support. The main networking drivers removed affect the 3com 3c509 / 3c515 / 3c574 / 3c589, AMD Lance, AMD NMCLAN, SMSC SMC9194 / SMC91C92, Fujitsu FMVJ18X, and 8390 AX88190 / Ultra / WD80X3.

Linux 7.1 also has removed the long-obsolete bus mouse support as well as beginning to phase out Intel 486 CPU support and removing support for Russia’s Baikal CPUs.

In the ARDC community discussion (linked below), this is attributed to Linus Torvalds:

Old code like amateur radio and NFC have long been a burden to core
networking developers. syzbot loves to find bugs in BKL-era code, and
noobs try to fix them.

If we want to have a fighting chance of surviving the LLM-pocalypse
this code needs to find a dedicated owner or get deleted. We've talked
about these deletions multiple times in the past and every time
someone wanted the code to stay. It is never very clear to me how many
of those people actually use the code vs are just nostalgic to see it
go. Amateur radio did have occasional users (or so I think) but most
users switched to user space implementations since its all super slow
stuff. Nobody stepped up to maintain the kernel code.

We were lucky enough to find someone who wants to help with NFC so
we're giving that a chance. Let's try to put the rest of this code
behind us"

Modules Removed

Specific deletions from the merge request (manually parsed by me for recognizable Amateur Radio drivers / hardware / utilities, etc.):

Documentation/networking/6pack.rst
Documentation/networking/ax25.rst
Documentation/networking/device_drivers/hamradio/baycom.rst
Documentation/networking/device_drivers/hamradio/index.rst
Documentation/networking/device_drivers/hamradio/z8530drv.rst
drivers/net/hamradio/6pack.c
drivers/net/hamradio/Kconfig
drivers/net/hamradio/Makefile
drivers/net/hamradio/baycom_epp.c
drivers/net/hamradio/baycom_par.c
drivers/net/hamradio/baycom_ser_fdx.c
drivers/net/hamradio/baycom_ser_hdx.c
drivers/net/hamradio/bpqether.c
drivers/net/hamradio/hdlcdrv.c
drivers/net/hamradio/mkiss.c
drivers/net/hamradio/scc.c
drivers/net/hamradio/yam.c
drivers/net/hamradio/z8530.h
include/net/ax25.h
include/net/rose.h
include/uapi/linux/baycom.h
include/uapi/linux/netrom.h
include/uapi/linux/rose.h
include/uapi/linux/scc.h
net/ax25/Kconfig
net/ax25/Makefile
net/ax25/af_ax25.c
net/ax25/ax25_addr.c
net/ax25/ax25_dev.c
net/ax25/ax25_ds_in.c
net/ax25/ax25_ds_subr.c
net/ax25/ax25_ds_timer.c
net/ax25/ax25_iface.c
net/ax25/ax25_in.c
net/ax25/ax25_ip.c
net/ax25/ax25_out.c
net/ax25/ax25_route.c
net/ax25/ax25_std_in.c
net/ax25/ax25_std_subr.c
net/ax25/ax25_std_timer.c
net/ax25/ax25_subr.c
net/ax25/ax25_timer.c
net/ax25/ax25_uid.c
net/ax25/sysctl_net_ax25.c
net/netrom/Makefile
net/netrom/af_netrom.c
net/netrom/nr_dev.c
net/netrom/nr_in.c
net/netrom/nr_loopback.c
net/netrom/nr_out.c
net/netrom/nr_route.c
net/netrom/nr_subr.c
net/netrom/nr_timer.c
net/netrom/sysctl_net_netrom.c
net/rose/Makefile
net/rose/af_rose.c
net/rose/rose_dev.c
net/rose/rose_in.c
net/rose/rose_link.c
net/rose/rose_loopback.c
net/rose/rose_out.c
net/rose/rose_route.c
net/rose/rose_subr.c
net/rose/rose_timer.c
net/rose/sysctl_net_rose.c

Amateur Radio Reactions

I’ve seen a number of reactions to this news on various email lists ranging from:

“Without those drivers, x can no longer work”…

“No big deal, no one used those drivers anyway”. A similar opinion is “They were useful in the day, but no longer needed.”

The most substantive, insightful discussion thread (that I’ve seen) about this issue seem to be on the ARDC community email list:
Linux Kernel Drops AX.25 and Amateur Radio Subsystem Support

David Ranch KI6ZHD:

The code deletion is probably final but a lot of other elements in that post is just wrong. The primary reason the code was because there wasn't any active maintainer giving guidance and a Q/A blessing and secondarily because many people felt that protocols like this shouldn't have been serviced by the kernel in first place and should have been in userland. That typesense tool is wrong as there have been plenty of patches over the recent years coming from other contributors to deal with clean ups, fix race conditions, etc. It's not about any landslide of AI-based reported bug and there are plenty of in-Linux AX.25 users. What didn't happen in time is anyone with kernel development expertise willing to take on the real maintenance and enhancements to cover this rather premature revocation patch being submitted before there was a real consensus.

The other code that has been ripped out here is at https://github.com/linux-netdev/mod-orphan where you can see what was ripped out in that one commit:

- All ATM network drivers
- All ISDN network drivers

I'm personally very disappointed here as this marks the end for tools like the FBB BBS, the FPAC node with ROSE support, the Linpac terminal program, a Linux native Winlink server and many more. I've been chatting with some people over at the ARDC to see if a new grant could be considered to rewrite the libax25 library to redirect I/O from the kernel and send it to something like an AGW interface but it's very early days there.

Marius Petrescu YO2LOJ:

The good question is if there is a real need for such an effort.
The main reason the ax.25 stack needs to be at kernel level is the fact that it was intended to allow using ax.25 as the L2 transport layer for TCP/IP, while integrating with other L2 protocols.
As we stand now, that specific application has lost its usefulness, since basically nobody uses it for that.
The other use, together with Netrom and Rose, are mainly supported by userspace stacks, like the xNOS packages, with the most outstanding exception of node softwares, like uronode & other similar applications.
Since the decisions related to Linux kernel support are quite unilaterally and tend to be final at the moment of their publication (I have never seen any of them ever reversed), there are not many options available to us in this regard.
We will loose the classical ax, netrom and rose interfaces, and the use of (mostly obsolete), and hardware drivers (like baycom and scc cards, but I don’t think that there are to many of those in use anymore).
But the big problem is the KISS line discipline, which would prevent the creation of virtual ax25 interfaces, even if it would be implemented in userspace.
So IMHO, what needs to be done is a complete rewrite of the ax25 library to allow the same upper level API for the applications, while implementing the whole low level part as a server component, and this is not a trivial effort (I would estimate such an effort at around 1 man-year, with all the needed documentation and testing), without even trying to port the existing hardware drivers to it.
Or, as a second option, we can let go of the kernel support completely, and switch exclusively to NOS for native AX.25 usage.
What should be noted is that the most popular applications using ax.25, more specifically APRS, is not impacted at a significant level, since most implementations can already work in userspace only while also being able to use the original kernel support (direwolf, aprsd & family).
So we need to make a decision here. Support a complete userspace stack implementation, or just let it slide into history.
Decide wisely, since this is a thing that really needs ARDC support to be successful.

Jonathan Naylor G4KLX:

I agree that we don’t need a kernel level AX.25 (or NET/ROM or ROSE) stack these days. When I wrote it back in 1995-97, I wanted to create something akin to BPQ but for Linux. A way to share a KISS TNC with multiple applications without problems, and the sockets interface was chosen. The alternative would have been even more abuse of the ioctl system call.
It worked well in those days, and I’m still rather proud of what I, and others, achieved. You could create some pretty wild system by judicious use of pseudo-ttys and other mechanisms.
If we’d had decent middleware available at the time, something like MQTT, then I would probably have developed it outside of the kernel, and developed a set of libraries to interface to the middleware in a transparent way.
If I were to write it now, I would have the protocol stacks as a separate unit communicating with the chosen middleware, and on one side a library that mimics the socket interface to make porting of open source programs relatively easy. The other side would be another interface that would allow the AX.25 packets to be encapsulated to whichever physical hardware that you have. This would be clean and free of too much legacy code and general bloat.
It’s not rocket science, and would be quite a fun little project. I wouldn’t mind doing it myself…..

and later…

I’m not too worried about my work dying. In its prime, the kernel AX.25 code was used extensively, and the linux-ax25 mailing list was very active indeed. I was happy to be a part of that.
However that was then, and this is now. Looking at the kernel code, I still see a lot that is recognisable from its original development.
I would recommend people who want to run full fat AX.25 and NET/ROM with some great enhancements, then I would point them to LinBPQ which is both open source and fully maintained. You would lose ROSE, but that was always a minority interest compared to the other protocols. If there was enough interest then I am sure it could be added to LinBPQ.
Running in kernel space has the one advantage of making the protocols to numerous user level programs simultaneously, with the downside that even a small bug could cause a spontaneous reboot. I have the mental scars from those days.
So let the kernel code die. I’m not a huge fan of repurposing NOS to replace it, it’s good at what it does for sure, but a user level implementation should be done differently I believe. As for AGW, it’s an abomination of a protocol.

Another discussion thread was on Bpq32 email list was informative (despite misquoting the source1 of the story) - Linux Kernel Drops AX.25 and Amateur Radio Subsystem Support:

David Ranch KI6ZHD:

That one ARDC Linux Packet Radio grant back in 2022 was returned as the person who accepted the grant later rescinded the project and evidently returned the money. The only person I know who was doing any real work on repairing some of the random kernel commits that broke the AX.25/NETROM/ROSE kernel code was Bernard Pidoux F6BVP and some additional assist from Lee Woldanski VE7FET on the libax25/ax25-apps/ax25-tools repos at https://github.com/ve7fet?tab=repositories .

I think it will take a few days for any serious pushback to happen but it's really not clear if that's going to happen. If this is permanent, we're all going to lose the very powerful glue for AX.25 being Linux. :-( NOSes like Linbpq can do a lot of the same things but I'm not familiar enough with it to know if the same level of flexibility is possible.

The ARDC grant in question was Fixing the Linux kernel AX.25:

Date: December 2021
Amount: €179,690
Changes to the Linux kernel over the years have improved and modernized the kernel, but have also made existing AX.25 implementations incompatible and turned preexisting issues into bugs. This can make systems unpredictable or even unusable. Linux kernel development is complex, requiring deep specialized knowledge, and bugs are hard to trace. This may be one of the reasons, why the Linux kernel AX.25 stack is currently in such a bad state.
This ARDC grant funds will allow the Deutscher Amateur Radio Club to hire software developers who can create a stable Linux AX.25 implementation and prevent Linux distributions from dropping pre-compiled AX.25 support. The fixed and functional Kernel-AX.25 stack will improve global amateur radio infrastructure. Professional kernel development can bring Linux AX.25 back to life.
Update
After careful consideration, the Deutscher Amateur Radio Club (DARC) decided to return the total grant amount of $150,445 to ARDC. This decision was made as the project encountered unforeseen difficulties that prevented it from being carried out. However, the club did make some progress on the AX.25 kernel as part of the effort before ultimately concluding that they would not be able to complete the project.
Learn more at https://www.darc.de/home

From the more active software developers of Amateur Radio software I’ve talked to over the past few years is that they made no use of the Linux Amateur Radio utilities. One reason I’ve heard for that is many developers wanted their software to be as cross-platform as possible and so embedded AX.25 functionality into their software. I’ve also heard that the only hardware interface of any importance for Amateur Radio in this era is KISS for TNCs and audio adapters.

Amateur Radio Linux Distributions

This development seems to be the moment to shine for the various distributions of Linux that are optimized for Amateur Radio use such as:

Hibbian (mentioned last week in Zero Retries 0248)
Andy’s Ham Radio Linux
ArcOS
HamPi (Raspberry Pi)

All of which could (re) provide these drivers as standard.

But… Maintenance…

Even if the Amateur Radio distributions were to re-incorporate the Amateur Radio drivers into their distributions… those drivers are apparently not being maintained, and they were (apparently?) designated as a security threat (attack vector) for Linux systems that are connected to the Internet, which is more common than not (in my observations).

In an email discussion with David Ranch KI6ZHD, I asked him about the maintenance issues:

My understanding is that the Amateur Radio utilities were added into Linux very early in the life of Linux, when vetting such additions wasn’t so rigorous… nor were the stakes as high as they are now with Linux sometimes being life safety critical. I think an accurate measure of this situation is whether in the Linux update processes of 2026, would the maintainers be willing to add Amateur Radio utilities into Linux?

My guess is no.

I think if it were to be done properly and securely, I don’t know why they would say no. The biggest issue I see here by moving the stacks out of kernel space is the loss of flexible routing. Linux is VERY powerful and you can basically configure anything you want and if it’s not there, you can code it up yourself if you have the skillset. I know external userland programs like BPQ are quite powerful too but they are their own vertical solution (NOS or Network Operating System) and aren’t Linux.

Any of the big issues have come in over the years have been created by random kernel developers trying to modernize / fix some aspect of the code but they don’t compile it, they don’t test it, yet the code gets committed. It’s been an eye opener to see how some of this open source code is developed. I suppose you can call it “fail fast” but the problem is, some Linux distros might branch their release on a bad kernel and then it takes months or even quarters to get things fixed. It’s really annoying (to be polite).

There are a couple of repositories where there is some work being done:
“Official AX.25 userland” code at https://linux-ax25.in-berlin.de/wiki/Main_Page (but it hasn’t seen any work in over four years).
Most people focus on the VE7FET repo that does get a little love at https://github.com/ve7fet/linuxax25 but it’s still very slow.

Another factor is, that as I understand it, the “fix something in the kernel” administrative process is so onerous that few Amateur Radio Operator (as in inexpert) coders are willing to do the rigorous work to get all of the Amateur Radio code fixed. There are those that CAN fix it - they just can’t get their (inexpert) fixes through the kernel vetting process.

I’ve asked and asked different people if there is a place to setup a regression testbed so when commits come in, the code could be tested in an official way. I’ve never heard a single response.
…
I do get that the kernel continues forward and old kernel mechanisms need to be phased out but this isn’t the way to do it.

In a concluding email, KI6ZHD said:

I don’t agree with all of your perspective. For example, to exploit a kernel bug in say the AX.25 could be very convoluted, etc. Maybe the technical risk is present but I personally didn’t think it warranted the outright removal of all this code. I’ve also heard they have ripped out a bunch of PCI nics like the 3Com 3c905, etc. I know that there has been recent efforts to remove 486 code along with these other recent removals of ISA and PCMCIA drivers but I fee removing PCI drivers is going too far.

I understand KI6ZHD’s sentiment, but in my opinion, “Amateur Radio” had ample warning that “it might come to this” (excising Amateur Radio drivers from the Linux kernel) for years now, and no one, no group stepped forward to put in the effort required to maintain these drivers, or to “speak for Amateur Radio” that drivers for the deprecated hardware were no longer useful and could (gracefully) be removed from the Linux kernel.

Another correspondent said:

Well, now it’s done [Amateur Radio drivers removed from the Linux kernel] and there’s no ambiguity or uncertainty about the situation. Now we have the opportunity for a reset and a do-over. If we collectively want Amateur Radio capability back in Linux, we’ll have to do it right. That includes up-to-date, vetted code, including the current AX.25 [Version 2.2] and KISS as you mentioned recently in ZR. Almost certainly we’ll have to have an active maintainer, if not a group. It will be interesting to see who steps up to that challenge, if any.

Conclusion

Now it’s time to see if the collective, worldwide community that’s interested in having standardized support for Amateur Radio networking in Linux steps up and organizes to “fix” this problem and modernize Amateur Radio drivers for potential (re)inclusion into “mainstream” Linux. In my opinion, this effort will fail unless there is a substantial effort to create an organization, even if informal and virtual, to coordinate such work.

I agree with YO2LOJ when they said:

Decide wisely [about whether to start work on modernizing the Amateur Radio kernel drivers], since this is a thing that really needs ARDC support to be successful.

In the thread, Bdale Garbee KB0G (ARDC President) said:

What I think is missing from the discussion so far is an inventory of programs and their user communities actually using these kernel capabilities in 2026, if any.
The best path forward and what role, if any, ARDC can play to “fill the gap” depends a lot on that information.

In this potential involvement of ARDC for this issue, it might be useful to revisit its stated mission (emphasis mine):

Amateur Radio Digital Communications (ARDC) is a California-based foundation with roots in amateur radio and the technology of internet communication. Our mission is to support, promote, and enhance digital communication and broader communication science and technology, to promote amateur radio, scientific research, experimentation, education, development, open access, and innovation in information and communication technology.

Please direct comments / feedback about this article to the Zero Retries email list with the #ZR0249 hashtag.

The Perceived Irrelevance of Amateur Radio Networking

By Steve Stroh N8GNJ

I believe that there’s a bigger picture perspective of the removal of Amateur Radio drivers from the Linux kernel - the widespread lack of knowledge of Amateur Radio networking.

I posit that promotion of Amateur Radio Networking is a reasonable and defensible proxy for the relevance of Amateur Radio in the 21st century. The capacity to build and operate radio-based networks (that are higher capacity, more capable, and more scalable than Meshtastic, MeshCore, MeshCom, etc.) that are independent of other infrastructure is a significant and defensible reason of the relevance of Amateur Radio, and its continuation in the 21st century.

One of the most interesting aspects to this development (see previous article) is how many people rose to the defense of maintaining the Amateur Radio drivers in the Linux kernel, indicating that they are in active use for Amateur Radio networking. For example, several mentions of the Amateur Radio ROSE Network protocol, which I had not heard of any active use in decades.

And that basic issue, writ large, is fundamentally at the heart of this issue…

No organization, no publication is talking about… promoting… evangelizing, in a substantive way about Amateur Radio networks that are in active use in the 2020s. Thus it’s completely understandable that the overwhelming perception is that “no one uses these drivers any more” and thus there’s no reason to continue them in the Linux kernel”.

The Torvalds Statement

The statement by Linus Torvalds explains this situation well:

It is never very clear to me how many of those people actually use the code vs are just nostalgic to see it go. Amateur radio did have occasional users (or so I think) but most users switched to user space implementations since it’s all super slow stuff. Nobody stepped up to maintain the kernel code.

That perspective is completely understandable. In my experience, Torvalds’ perspective is typical of the vast majority of techies in this era. They know that Amateur Radio still exists, that there are some people active in it, but aren’t aware2 about what Amateur Radio is actually doing, especially “modern” networking over Amateur Radio spectrum.

AREDN is the Shining Exception to Lack of Promotion of Amateur Radio Networking

The sole exception to the lack of recognition and promotion of the relevance of Amateur Radio networking in the 21st century is AREDN - Amateur Radio Emergency Data Network. Commendably and consistently, AREDN does a great job of developing (and maintaining) Amateur Radio networking technology that’s relevant in the 21st century.

Techies can look at what AREDN is doing and immediately grasp what AREDN is:

Real mesh networking via radio that works
Reasonable range - miles
Reasonable speeds - 10s of Mbps
Minimizes frustrations - manages complexities of IP address assignment
Easy to get started

More commendable is AREDN’s consistency at promoting AREDN as relevant and interesting networking via radio. Kudos for this are owed to AREDN Evangelist Orv Beach W6BI, and to one of the AREDN Lead Developers Tim Wilkinson KN6PLV.

Promotion of Amateur Radio Networking in ARRL’s New Book Digital Networking for Ham Radio

This book, released earlier this year, is a a welcome treatment of networking in Amateur Radio in the 2020s. I am a supporter of this book - see Impressions of ARRL’s New Digital Networking for Ham Radio Book in Zero Retries 0240.

But, as I detail in that article, it has some significant omissions, such as no coverage of Amateur Radio Packet Radio. Thus this book doesn’t offer any authoritative reference (that could be quoted to the Linux community) to the importance of Amateur Radio drivers in the Linux kernel. While the book does cover AREDN (and HamWAN), it can be argued that those systems are “Amateur Radio overlays” on top of microwave communication units developed for microwave networking in unlicensed spectrum.

Thus it’s unfortunate that networking systems that are unique to Amateur Radio, such as New Packet Radio, Icom’s D-Star Digital Data (DD), and other network systems unique to Amateur Radio weren’t discussed in the book.

But AREDN and the new ARRL book, laudable though they are, don’t make a substantive enough case for Amateur Radio networking to techies, the general public, or regulators.

The Need for a Substantive Publication, Reference of Record, or Organization to Promote Amateur Radio Networking

There is no substantive publication3, reference of record, or organization that techies can reference to learn about modern Amateur Radio technology, especially Amateur Radio networking. There is no Amateur Radio equivalent of, for example, The Internet Protocol Journal:

The Internet Protocol Journal (IPJ) is a quarterly technical publication containing tutorial articles (“What is…?”), as well as implementation/ operation articles (“How to…”). The journal provides articles about all aspects of Internet technology. IPJ is not intended to promote any specific products or services, but rather is intended to serve as an informational and educational resource for engineering professionals involved in the design, development, and operation of public and private internets and intranets. In addition to feature-length articles, IPJ contains technical updates, book reviews, announcements, opinion columns, and letters to the Editor.
IPJ is supported by the Internet Society and other organizations and individuals around the world dedicated to the design, growth, evolution, and operation of the global Internet and private networks built on the Internet Protocol. Previously published by Cisco Systems from 1998 until 2013, the journal was relaunched in September 2014 with the help of numerous supporters and sponsors.

There used to be…

TAPR’s Packet Status Register used to be such a resource, but it no longer serves that role. TAPR has not been substantively involved in Amateur Radio networking for decades.
ARRL used to be substantively involved in Amateur Radio networking, including substantive articles in QST and QEX, and a dedicated newsletter - Gateway for the worldwide Amateur Radio Packet Radio community.
For a brief period we even had Packet Radio Magazine which did an even better job of covering Amateur Radio Packet Radio and networking in depth than PSR and Gateway combined (and, for a few months, incorporated both of those publications).

But in the 21st century, there’s no organization, no substantive reference, no publication that promotes Amateur Radio networking in a substantive way to the rest of the world.

In my opinion, that is to the ultimate, long term detriment of Amateur Radio as a whole.

Simply, despite the incredible technological innovation (including Amateur Radio networking) that is occurring in Amateur Radio… it’s not being recognized by techies, and it’s especially not being recognized by the general public.

Most dangerously to Amateur Radio, the relevance4 of Amateur Radio in the 21st century is not being recognized by regulators such as the FCC.

One only need ask your techie friends what comes to mind when asked this question - “Have you heard of Meshtastic?”. Universally, the answer is Yes, because it’s being widely, actively, supported and promoted. If you ask the similar question - “Have you heard of Amateur Radio networking?”, the most typical answer will be a blank look, if not a laugh followed with “Is ham radio still a thing?”

What’s my point in raising this issue?

Simply, that kind of organic support and promotion is “good enough” for Meshtastic, etc. because Meshtastic, etc. does not depend on dedicated spectrum and continued support from regulators. Meshtastic operates in portions of spectrum designated for unlicensed devices.

“Organic support and promotion” is not sufficient for Amateur Radio
because it does depend on continued support from regulators.

In the US, there is ARRL, and a part of ARRL’s mission is to promote and defend Amateur Radio and continued access to, and enhanced privileges in, designated portions of spectrum.

Regulatory & Advocacy
Amateur Radio is subject to regulation at the international and national levels with regard to telecommunications and at the state and local levels with respect to land use regulations. ARRL advocates on behalf of Amateur Radio at all of these levels.

But… in the 2020s, ARRL, other than the Digital Networking for Ham Radio book, is not discussing or promoting Amateur Radio networking.

What Amateur Radio Needs to Do Differently, Soon

As I try to make the case in this article, Amateur Radio (writ large), really needs to begin promoting Amateur Radio networking in at least one of these ways:

A new organization focused on Amateur Radio networking - Amateur Radio Networking Group (?) that would promote Amateur Radio networking technology, and especially, promote existing Amateur Radio networks.
A substantive reference - Amateur Radio Network Reference (?) - An authoritative web page with substantive references to Amateur Radio (specific) network technology, and a directory of existing Amateur Radio networks. A techie, or Amateur Radio Operator, or a regulator should be able to reference this page to “get up to speed” on Amateur Radio networking. I’m not minimizing that organizing such a page would be a huge amount of work. Fortunately, a lot of the references can be pointers to articles, books, etc. that exist in Digital Library of Amateur Radio & Communications.
A substantive publication - Amateur Radio needs some kind of reference publication that’s dedicated to Amateur Radio networking, or perhaps just narrowly focused on Amateur Radio technologies relevant in the 21st century. Something on the scale of ARRL’s QEX… but again, focused on networking.

In my opinion, there are two organizations that could be parts of the solution, especially if they combined forces to implement all of the above.

The Potential Organizations for Doing Something Differently, Soon

ARRL

ARRL has a history of convening working groups within Amateur Radio that involve not just individual Amateur Radio Operators and ARRL personnel, but also Amateur Radio industry personnel. One example was the ARRL Future Systems Committee, which tried to look ahead a decade or more about technologies that were relevant to Amateur Radio, such as Spread Spectrum and Digital Signal Processing. Another example was that (if memory serves), ARRL convened the committee which developed the AX.25 protocol. TAPR was involved in later versions of AX.25 (including Version 2.2?).

The most recent example of ARRL convening a working group to tackle a significant issue in Amateur Radio is the ARRL Clean Signal Initiative:

ARRL’s New Program to Improve Amateur Transmissions
The Clean Signal Initiative (CSI) builds on ARRL’s roles in amateur radio education and technology. Key objectives of the CSI are developing specifications and test procedures that will influence equipment design and manufacturing, and educating amateurs regarding signal purity (avoiding and overcoming poor-quality signals).
CSI brings together ARRL Laboratory staff with member-volunteers, manufacturers, and independent technical advisors with extensive amateur radio design and testing expertise. Together, their work will drive improvements to transmitter and amplifier signal purity, and to help educate amateurs on their use.

In addition, ARRL has dedicated editorial staff that could publish an Amateur Radio publication similar to Internet Protocol Journal, but targeted specifically at Amateur Radio networking. Unlike other ARRL publications, an “Amateur Radio Networking Journal”5 should be published outside of the ARRL paywall. See below for the financial aspects of such a publishing model.

Lastly, ARRL has a long term program / role of interaction with the FCC. If there was a dedicated new organization, substantive reference, and a substantive publication, that would be a powerful “tool” with which to engage the FCC about the continuing relevance of Amateur Radio in the 21st century, rather than just “Amateur Radio, when all else fails” that has been the primary justification for Amateur Radio for the past century.

ARDC

Disclaimer: I am a volunteer for ARDC on one small committee, focused solely on one task - see Grants Communications Team. In mentioning ARDC in this section, I’m not “speaking” for ARDC. The discussion below about involving ARDC in this potential project is solely my own perspective.

ARDC also has a history of convening working groups within Amateur Radio that involve individual Amateur Radio Operators and ARDC personnel. This is most notable in the significant evolution of 44Net, and the creation of 44Net Connect over multiple years, guided by ARDC’s Technical Advisory Committee (TAC).

There are multiple potential points of involvement by ARDC on “Doing Something Different, Soon”.

First, ARDC’s entire orientation is right in the organization’s name - Amateur Radio Digital Communications. ARDC’s “DNA” is entirely about Amateur Radio communications created in the 21st century (and late 20th century). The genesis of ARDC was the potential to integrate (then new) Amateur Radio Packet Radio technology and networks with the (then) newly emerging Internet. Thus ARDC’s involvement would bring the perspective of modern Amateur Radio communications, specifically networking, to a partnership to “Do Something Different, Soon”.

ARDC as a grantmaking organization has the ability to financially support a project to “Do Something Different, Soon”, such as:

Financially support the publication of an “Amateur Radio Networking Journal” by the editorial staff of ARRL. For example, the editor of QEX is a contract employee specifically for that role.
Financially support the expenses of in-person meetings of an Amateur Radio Networking Working Group6 (typically in conjunction with Amateur Radio events such as Hamvention, Hamcation, Pacificon, etc.).
Financially and technically support the creation and operation of an independent website reference for Amateur Radio networking.
Financially and organizationally support Amateur Radio Networking media relations / outreach that would be independent of both ARRL’s and ARDC’s specific missions.

With ARRL and ARDC jointly supporting an Amateur Radio Networking Working Group, they could jointly invite other Amateur Radio organizations or projects in, such as TAPR, APRS Foundation, Open Research Institute, MMVDM, IP400, New Packet Radio, etc.

Jointly, ARRL and ARDC could publicize, to their respective audiences, including regulatory agencies, that Amateur Radio remains relevant in the 21st century with examples of progress from “Do Something Different, Soon”,

I welcome anyone to contact me to discuss these ideas, including at Hamvention 2026, Zero Retries Digital Conference 2026, and Pacificon 2026.

Please direct comments / feedback about this article to the Zero Retries email list with the #ZR0249 hashtag.

Announcing Project Argus

By George Zafiropoulos KJ6VU

Editor’s Note

I am privileged that KJ6VU offered Zero Retries the opportunity to be the first to publicly discuss Project Argus - a real scoop! This will be a very interesting capability to provide “ground truth” of repeater activity for repeaters.

Image courtesy of Sierra Radio Systems

At Hamvention 2026 in a few weeks, Sierra Radio Systems (SRS), in conjunction with RepeaterBook will unveil a new SRS product and and a new capability for RepeaterBook to display realtime statistics of a particular repeater.

Project Argus is a hardware monitoring solution that you can connect to your repeater or, alternatively a monitoring radio, that observes when the repeater is keyed up. The device sends the keyup date/time stamp and unkey date/time stamp to the RepeaterBook database and the repeater owner can either see the data privately or post the activity on the public RepeaterBook web site.

Why do this?

This will provide a repeater activity metric so when you go to a location you can see on RepeaterBook what repeaters are active.

When a module is installed at a repeater, in addition to the keyup info, a DC voltage and temperature can also be monitored and provided to the repeater owner.

The hardware is like a mini-station controller module. It is also compatible with other SRS Station Controller modules so you can use it for that as well. We will be demonstrating the system and selling the hardware at Hamvention 2026.

Graphic for display at Hamvention 2026 - courtesy of Sierra Radio Systems

Here is a picture of the board:

Please visit our demonstration at Hamvention 2026 at Booth 3012 (Sierra Radio Systems / PackTenna / Ham Radio Workbench Podcast) in Building 3 (Marconi).

Garrett Dow KD6KPC from RepeaterBook will be demoing RepeaterBook and Project Argus at RT Systems in Booth 3804-3805 in the same building.

Editor’s Postscript

This is a really unique capability. We’ve had bits and pieces of such a capability since we’ve had microprocessor controlled repeater controllers, but no way to make that info easily, publicly accessible, so kudos to SRS and RepeaterBook for this powerful collaboration.

What makes this possibility really interesting is the possibility of integrating it with a ka9q-radio receiver system that can be configured to receive all channels on a VHF / UHF band simultaneously. That would create the possibility of an “area repeater activity map” such as “222-225 Repeater Activity in Bellingham, Washington”. Such information would be really useful for new Amateur Radio Operators to see, at a glance, where the active repeaters are instead of having to monitor for themselves (and often, with only an inexpensive portable radio with the included (poor) antenna.

I followed up with some questions for KJ6VU:

Q1. Could this capability be also used for a website, like a club’s website, other than RepeaterBook?

A1. Yes. RepeaterBook is developing APIs that could allow an external web site to subscribe to the data that we are gathering from an Argus unit. They could then take that data and display on their own web site. More to follow on this capability in the coming months.

We will be expanding this to supporting other station controller modules as well.

Q2. For remote monitoring, I assume this just makes use of audio output of a speaker? So it would work equally well with digital voice, as long as you have a compatible radio?

A2. The sensor inputs are...

Digital input (pull to ground on an optoisolator)
DC voltage measurement from 0-60 volts
Temperature (digital temp sensor on a cable)

By default when the digital input pulls to ground this is an event that is sent to the RepeaterBook server, and the unkey as well.

For remote monitoring the easiest thing would be to take a radio like just about any Yaesu with a [10] pin MiniDIN and wire the digital input up to the COS output and you are good to go.

On a digital radio as long as you get a pull to ground indication, that will work. It’s possible to configure another input like the voltmeter to also trigger the event which can be useful to measure a high logic state going to a digital radio’s LED or whatever to sense carrier presence.

Q3. It would be cool to provide a “big picture” view of, say, a website like “Bellingham Area Repeater Activity” that uses a ka9q-radio “receive all channels simultaneously”.

A3. Your description is what we hope will happen with RepeaterBook. When you look up Bellingham repeaters, you’ll see the relative activity of all the repeaters listed there (assuming they’re all instrumented with a Argus unit). The difference from your idea is that each repeater will be reporting their activity individually (and independently) instead of with just one ka9q-radio.

In addition to the repeater activity application, the Argus unit can be used to monitor and control just about anything. If more sensors and of different types are needed, the other station controller modules can be used.

We are also developing two energy monitoring modules (not available until later this year) to monitor AC power (voltage, current, kWh, frequency) and DC power (Voltage, current, state of charge for SLA and LiFePo4 batteries).

…

I think Project Argus is a very cool new capability for repeaters, and I look forward to seeing it demonstrated at Hamvention 2026.

Please direct comments / feedback about this article to the Zero Retries email list with the #ZR0249 hashtag.

The Quiet Resurgence of RF Engineering

By Anthony Templeton, as published on Anthony’s Blog

Original article link - atempleton.bearblog.dev/quiet-resurgence-of-rf-engineering/

Editor’s Note

I rarely excerpt an entire article in Zero Retries. I endeavorer to adhere to fair use principles and excerpt only small parts of content from other authors. In such excerpts, I encourage Zero Retries readers to visit the author’s site to read the entire article. In this case, I consider this article to be the rare exception of exceptional relevance to the mission, and the readership, of Zero Retries.

This article, and Templeton’s overall perspective on radio technology careers is a rare example of distilled wisdom on a subject.

In my opinion, Templeton’s observations, and analysis is entirely accurate about the situation about US industry and government’s need for more radio technologists.

The Quiet Resurgence of RF Engineering

14 Apr, 2026

I’ve worked in the aerospace industry for the past 8 years, and for most of that time I felt like I could confidently say that RF engineering felt like it was a quiet, non evolving field. The advice I heard early on, and that I watched a lot of other people follow, was to go into software. Machine learning, cloud infrastructure, web development. That’s where the growth was, that’s where the money was, and honestly, that’s where most new graduates went (myself included at the time). I studied Information Systems in college, not electrical engineering. RF was nowhere on my radar.

But aerospace has a way of pulling you into hardware whether you planned on it or not. I started my career at NASA, building telemetry platforms, ETL pipelines, and spacecraft visualization tools. Pure software work. Then I moved to a private aerospace company. Much smaller than NASA (approx 130 employees at the time I joined), and it required me to wear a ton of hats to work on ground systems. That’s where things shifted. When you’re responsible for ground station services, even when most of it now is software defined you can’t stay in the software lane entirely. I found myself doing link budget analysis, troubleshooting RF anomalies, and developing a working understanding of the RF hardware chain that I never expected to need.

That experience is part of why I’ve been paying attention to what’s happening in RF more broadly. I’ve been feeling a shift over the past several years — more demand, fewer people, and more urgency from the companies I talk to. RF engineering is not only alive, it’s rebounding in a significant way. I wanted to dig into whether my gut feeling here is actually backed by data, or if I’m just seeing what I want to see from inside the aerospace bubble.

What Actually Happened to RF

To be fair to the people who called RF a shrinking field, they weren’t wrong, at least for a stretch. After the dot-com bust in the early 2000s, the telecom industry consolidated hard. Companies merged, manufacturing moved offshore, and a lot of RF design work either disappeared or got absorbed into a handful of large defense contractors. The broader electrical engineering job market stagnated. Electronic Design has documented this trend not just for RF, but across EE as a whole. I feel confident that if the field as a whole is shrinking, then the subfield of RF was also in decline.

And then software exploded. The engineers who might’ve gone into EE or RF design a generation earlier went down the software “FAANG” route instead. University enrollment in RF specific coursework drifted down. Though I’ll be honest, hard numbers on this are annoyingly hard to find so this is more of my gut assumption. What we do know is that today, companies openly describe the difficulty of recruiting RF engineers, pointing to a generation that chose software over EE.

But here’s the thing that gets missed in the narrative: it never actually went away. The defense sector has been keeping it alive this entire time. Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, these companies never stopped hiring people who understand beam patterns, power amplifiers, and antenna design. The majority of RF engineering job postings have historically come from aerospace and defense. RF didn’t die. It just receded from the civilian sector while quietly remaining essential to national security and defense.

So What Changed

The resurgence didn’t come from one place. It’s coming from several industries all hitting the same wall at roughly the same time; a shortage of engineers who can work at the hardware level.

The Space Boom

This is the one I see most directly in my work, and it feels the most dramatic. In 2015, roughly 260 spacecraft were launched into space globally. By 2024, that number hit approximately 2,695. A 10x increase in under a decade. The overwhelming majority of that growth came from commercial constellations, with SpaceX’s Starlink deploying over 1,500 satellites in 2023 alone.

Every single one of those satellites needs RF hardware. Starlink operates in Ku-band for user links and Ka-band for gateways, with V-band planned for Starlink V2. Kuiper and OneWeb follow similar architectures in Ka-band. Each spacecraft carries transceivers, antennas, filters, and amplifiers — and each ground station that talks to them needs the same. The amount of RF hardware per spacecraft adds up fast, and the launch cadence isn’t slowing down.

The money tells the same story. The global space economy hit a record $613 billion in 2024, with commercial making up roughly 78% of that. The space based RF market alone was valued at $18.6 billion and is projected to nearly double by 2033.

And it’s not just commercial. On the defense side, the Space Development Agency is building the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture — a LEO constellation targeting 500+ satellites. Only a few dozen are on orbit today, but nearly $35 billion has been committed through 2029. Even with the growing push toward optical links, these spacecraft still carry RF communications hardware and telemetry payloads, and that is unlikely to change anytime soon.

5G Wide Adoption

I think 5G’s impact on RF demand is genuinely understated. A typical 4G base station has 2 or 4 transmit-receive chains. A 5G MIMO radio integrates anywhere from 64 to 256. That’s an 8x to 16x increase in the power amplifiers, low-noise amplifiers, and antenna switches needed per installation. Multiply that across 642 operators and 374 commercial launches, and you start to see why the RF component market is pushing toward $50 billion with no signs of stoppage.

The design challenges make it worse. Millimeter wave frequencies introduce path loss that demands arrays with manufacturing tolerances at the millimeter scale. Additionally, thermal management, ex. dissipating 300+ watts from tower-mounted hardware with passive cooling, isn’t something you can solve reliably in software.

6G Is Already In The Works

It’s early, but 6G isn’t vaporware. 3GPP has been actively working on 6G study items since 2024, with first specifications targeted for late 2028 and commercial deployments expected around 2030. The EU, South Korea, and major telecom players like Ericsson, Nokia, and Samsung are all investing heavily into this research.

The RF challenges are genuinely new territory. Sub-terahertz frequencies and integrated sensing and communication (ISAC), which 3GPP officially scoped into 6G in the middle of last year, push well beyond what current design tools can handle. Worth noting though — the original vision for sub-THz has already been scaled back from outdoor cellular to mostly short-range indoor use cases like data centers and factories. But even with a narrower scope, all of this research eventually has to become hardware, and the people who know how to do that are already stretched thin.

The “Drivers” That Don’t Get Headlines

Space and cellular seem to dominate the conversation, but there are quieter contributors that I think are what make this feeling more durable rather than cyclical.

Automotive radar is a sneaky one. The EU now mandates automatic emergency braking in all new vehicles and, while the regulation is technically sensor-agnostic, most implementations rely on radar. Every new car with adaptive cruise control or collision avoidance has RF hardware running on board. That market alone is projected to hit $7+ billion this year. Then there’s Wi-Fi 7, operating across three bands simultaneously, and the ever expanding IoT landscape with over 21 billion connected devices as of 2025. Anything that communicates wirelessly needs RF work behind it, and that list just keeps growing.

The Talent Shortage

What makes this an interesting pattern, is that the supply side is genuinely broken. IEEE survey data shows 73% of EE employers can’t fill positions within six months, up from 45% five years ago. EE Times has reported specifically on the RF talent gap and its growing demand.

And it’s not just direct competition for RF roles either. RF and semiconductor careers often pull from the same shrinking pool of EE graduates, and right now the semiconductor side is in a hiring frenzy of its own. The CHIPS Act has poured billions into domestic fab expansion, AI chip demand is exploding, and the semiconductor industry is projecting a 67,000 worker shortfall by 2030. All of that competes directly with RF employers for the same talent. When everyone is fighting over the same small group of EE grads, RF companies, which tend to be smaller and less visible than the big chip fabs, often lose out.

Salaries reinforce this. Average RF engineer comp is pushing past $130K, with top-end design positions listing above $200K.

The real signal to me is what companies are doing about it. Mini-Circuits and Keysight are investing directly in university partnerships because they can’t wait for the academic pipeline to refresh itself. Baylor launched a new Graduate Certificate in Microwave/RF Engineering in 2024, one of the few new programs I’ve seen pop up, but I imagine it won’t be the last. When industry starts building its own talent pipeline, that tells me the shortage isn’t a blip.

Looking Forward

I don’t want to oversell this. I don’t think RF is going to become a field with an insane growth pattern. The BLS projects 7% growth for EE broadly, faster than average sure, but not a hockey stick. The demand is real, it’s coming from multiple directions at once, and the supply is genuinely constrained.

My own path is a small version of this story. I came in as a software engineer and had to learn RF on the job because there wasn’t someone else to hand it off to. I say this as someone who made that transition, you absolutely can learn enough RF to be effective in your role, and I’d encourage anyone in aerospace or wireless to do it (honestly it’s a fun niche to get into anyway). But there’s a difference between understanding link budgets and SDR anomalies versus designing a phased array from scratch. The latter takes years of dedicated focus. The underlying physics (electromagnetics, thermodynamics, materials science, manufacturing tolerances) don’t reduce to algorithms. You have to build intuition for it, and that’s not something you can shortcut.

I may one day expand on learning this stuff on the job and on the fly, but I do want to shoutout PySDR. It’s a free resource built exactly for software engineers. It uses Python as the bridge between hardware and software concepts, and starts with no RF knowledge assumptions from the beginning and doesn’t spend a ton of time over explaining the math.

The people who stuck with RF through the lean years are now some of the most sought-after engineers I’ve come across. And for anyone trying to figure out where to focus, either as a primary discipline or as a secondary skill set like it was for me, I think RF is worth a serious look right now.

Who Am I?

Anthony Templeton is a software engineer passionate about high-performance computing and aerospace applications. You can connect with me on LinkedIn or check out more of my work on GitHub.

…

Editor’s Postscript

I think Templeton absolutely nails this subject. I have covered this subject in the past, most notably about the “Spectrum Workforce” in this (compilation) article that first appeared in Zero Retries - Amateur Radio and the Growth of the Spectrum Workforce in the US National Spectrum Strategy.

One small portion of the radio technology industry that I think Templeton missed (though he mentioned Internet of Things) was the embedding of radio technology into things that just weren’t possible even a decade ago. Two examples in my own life is my BiPAP machine has an embedded cellular modem that I don’t pay anything for - the service costs were apparently embedded into the purchase price. Another is the Bluetooth radio that’s embedded into my Continuous Glucose Monitor, which I replace every two weeks (and I’m instructed to throw away). Another is wireless transfer of low power which will eventually allow the embedding of sensors into situations where batteries or external power aren’t practical… such as strain gauges embedded into critical walls to monitor for excessive stress or impending failure, or monitor for water ingress, or air quality in complex ductwork. Lastly… I can’t wait for the radio (RADAR) equivalent of a thermal scanner so a DIY homeowner can finally see what’s inside a wall before cutting into it.

While I agree with the author’s mention of PySDR, I was surprised that he also didn’t mention the GNU Radio framework for learning about Software Defined Radio. If an early or mid career Electrical Engineer wants to get a crash course in SDR, I don’t think you could do better than attending one of the annual GNU Radio Conferences.

This is a slide from a recent presentation I gave at LinuxFest Northwest trying to “evangelize” Amateur Radio to (Linux, in this case) techies:

So… Why Bother With Amateur Radio?
It gives you hands on experience with radio technology
Radio isn’t magic, and it’s not just an API call or a library
Radio is weird, much weirder than wired networks
If you understand how radio works at the physical level, you can do a better job with your software and your systems
Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, NFC, LoRa, cellular are all black boxes
Amateur Radio lets you really learn about radio technology

I think that Amateur Radio could have a substantive role in cultivating interest in young techies about radio technology, potentially leading to a career in engineering, and hopefully radio (RF) engineering. We’re making some progress on that score, but nothing systemic, at scale, yet. Perhaps my proposal in my earlier article will be a start at such systemic promotion, at scale.

Please direct comments / feedback about this article to the Zero Retries email list with the #ZR0249 hashtag.

ZR > BEACON

By Steve Stroh N8GNJ

Short mentions of Zero Retries Interesting items.

The SARC Communicator: May-June 2026

Amateur radio has always been a pursuit of contrasts—venerating the past while racing toward the future. This issue celebrates that duality from cover to cover.
We begin with history: Harry Melville Dowsett, the architect of practical radio, and the curious case of author Zane Grey’s on-air adventures in Tahiti. Then pivot sharply to the present—AI’s creeping influence, TETRA digital tech, California’s controversial Bill AB 1043 that may affect you, and a look at the ARRL’s struggle in the digital age.
Our technical deep dives range from the IC-9700’s capabilities for digital modes to rebuilding the Icom IC-PW1 amplifier to building a vertical HF antenna without radials. For the space-minded, we track LEO satellites, pico balloons, and the mysterious Judica-Cordiglia recordings (fact or fallacy?). And don’t miss the Baker Street walkie-talkie heist or British Columbia’s 2026 QSO Party wrap-up,
Need something lighter? Check page 13’s News You Can Lose, try using a bluetooth speaker IKEA-style, exploring POTACat, or enjoying a classic Spam fritter and mash recipe (yes, really).
Don’t miss the run-up to the FIFA World Cup Special Event Stations and learn how to participate.

I cannot say enough about this (in my opinion, exceptional) issue of The Communicator. There are about ten articles in this issue that I want to read, thoroughly, to learn about Zero Retries Interesting topics. This issue is now queued into my tablet reader for a block of time that I can read, slowly and carefully, to learn more (that I didn’t write) about technological innovation in Amateur Radio.

I wrote this to a correspondent explaining why I think so highly of The Communicator:

Many think “magazines” are something whose time has passed, but The Communicator is an Amateur Radio magazine reimagined for the 21st century - free, easy to read and portable between devices PDF format, and an overall mix of good articles about operating, technical topics. The Communicator imparts an overall sense that Amateur Radio is fun and interesting.
I consider the length, and the content, and the overall quality of The Communicator to be a remarkable achievement. Thus it’s my go-to recommendation when I encounter someone who’s curious about Amateur Radio. I refer them to the Communicator website to download a current issue for them to have a better idea of what Amateur Radio is about.

Each issue of The Communicator seems to get better, and better. Kudos, again, to The Communicator’s stellar and capable Editor John Schouten VE7TI. That said, this issue is exceptionally Zero Retries Interesting (disregarding that I’m one of the contributing columnists).

FreeDV vs Thunderstorm [Atmospheric Noise]

FreeDV blog / web page:

Rick, W7WC, recently emailed me with this impressive example of RADE v SSB during an electrical storm:
I thought you would like to hear a comparison of RADE V1 vs. SSB reception during a recent noisy evening on 80 meters.
We had a line of thunderstorms a few hundred miles long, creating an intense impulse noise environment. Communication is via an NVIS path between my station and a friend about 70km away.
Quite remarkable! Thanks for making all this possible.

I was unable to embed the audio clip, so click the title link for that. The first half of the recording is analog and barely understandable. The second half is FreeDV and it’s slightly robotic, which I attribute to the Forward Error Correction having to be used extensively, but it’s perfectly understandable.

FreeDV RADE is an open source digital voice mode specifically designed for communications via HF and its vagaries - atmospheric noise, fading, etc. RADE is Radio Autoencoder - machine learning techniques applied to digital voice for HF.

I think it’s notable that this is using FreeDV RADE v1, and the FreeDV developers are working on more advanced versions.

I Built an FM Receiver With One FPGA Input Pin

Brian Greenforest on LinkedIn:

Not “one-chip radio.”
Not “a tiny SDR module.”

One input pin receives the RF.
The FPGA threshold turns it into a transition stream.
Four-phase sampling recovers quadrature structure.
XOR logic handles mixing.
A CIC filter downsamples.
A cross-product demodulator recovers FM.
Sigma-delta output produces audio.

What disappears?

No strong external local oscillator spraying around the board.
No conventional analog mixer front end.
No RF/IF amplitude-preserving ADC.
No sine/cosine lookup tables.
No atan2 phase extractor.

The question was not “can I make a toy FM receiver?”
The question was:

How much of radio is actually necessary?

Turns out: less than the inherited stack tells you.

Full writeup in the comments

Talk about digital radio technology…

I met Greenforest after my presentation at LinuxFest Northwest here in Bellingham last Sunday. He told me this story in passing, and I was agog, but now you can be too.

Apparently Greenforest’s LinkedIn post is the only place their accomplishment is written up, so click the title link for more detail.

Amateur Radio to Participate in DoD Armed Forces Day Crossband Test on May 9, 2026

ARRL website 04/25/2026:

Amateur radio operators will participate in the Department of Defense’s Armed Forces Day (AFD) Crossband Test on May 9, 2026. The annual event will not impact any public or private communications.
For more than 50 years, military and amateur stations have participated in this interoperability exercise between the amateur and government radio services. The AFD Crossband Test provides a unique opportunity to conduct two-way communication between military communicators and stations in the Amateur Radio Service (ARS), as authorized in 47 CFR 97.111. These tests present both opportunities and challenges for radio operators to demonstrate individual technical skills in a tightly controlled exercise scenario.
ARRL The National Association for Amateur Radio® hails the Armed Forces Day Crossband Test as an example of the core principles of the US Amateur Radio Service, with its volunteers contributing technical proficiency and readiness in support of public service and national needs.
Military stations will transmit on selected military frequencies and will announce the specific ARS frequencies they are monitoring. All times are ZULU (Z), and all frequencies are upper sideband (USB) unless otherwise noted. An AFD message will be transmitted using the Military Standard (MIL-STD) Serial PSK waveform (M110), followed by MIL-STD Wide Shift FSK (850 Hz RTTY), as described in MIL-STD 188-110A/B. Technical information regarding these waveforms is available at drive.google.com/drive/folders/1pYDj7kQbm-QAyY4RPtx0dOXKohjaEjq9?usp=sharing.
To document your contacts with a QSL, visit: www.usarmymars.org/events-and-announcements and complete the request form.
The US Naval Academy Amateur Radio Club, W3ADO, will activate the historic NSS call sign during the Crossband Test. Several Naval Academy midshipmen and members of the Potomac Valley Radio Club (PVRC), including team leader Frank Donovan, W3LPL, will be operating on the grounds of the former US Navy radio transmitting facility in Annapolis, Maryland. PVRC is an ARRL Affiliated Club.

This annual exercise / test is a unique opportunity to demonstrate that Amateur Radio and US military can interoperate in emergency communication situations.

It’s notable (and Zero Retries Interesting) that the communications between Amateur Radio are apparently data communications rather than legacy CW or analog voice communications.

See the title link for more detailed information.

2025 Bill Orr, W6SAI, Technical Writing Winners Awarded

John E. Ross KD8IDJ, Editor in the 2026-04-30 issue of ARRL Letter:

The ARRL Foundation’s 2025 Bill Orr, W6SAI, Technical Writing Award has been awarded to Dr. Ethan Miller, K8GU, and Dr. Nathaniel A. Frissell, W2NAF, for their August 2025 QST article, “About Traveling Ionospheric Disturbances.”
The editors of QST nominated Miller and Frissell in August 2025, the ARRL Foundation Board approved the awards in January 2026, and the award plaques were distributed to Dr. Miller and Dr. Frissell last week. The award is an annual honor presented by the ARRL Foundation to recognize outstanding technical writing in the amateur radio community.

See the title link for the bios of the two winners.

Zero Retries congrats to K8GU and W2NAF for doing great technical writing (and technological innovation…) in Amateur Radio!

Info on Reporting Interference from AST SpaceMobile on 420-450 MHz (70cm) Band

John E. Ross KD8IDJ, Editor in the 2026-04-30 issue of ARRL Letter article:

adds some information about what to do to report any interference that’s experienced from AST SpaceMobile in the 420-450 MHz (70cm) Amateur Radio band.

After considering the filed comments, the FCC narrowed the requested authorization to emergency TT&C only and further provided that:
Use of these frequencies is permitted only in emergencies when no other spectrum is available
Each emergency event is limited to no more than 24 hours
Transmissions are restricted to five specific center frequencies (430.5, 432.3, 434.1, 435.9, and 439.5 MHz), each with no more than 50 kHz bandwidth
…
In the US, reports of suspected interference to amateur spectrum can be shared with the ARRL Regulatory Information Manager, email reginfo@arrl.org.

Thus, if there is any use of those frequencies by AST SpaceMobile that are outside those specific frequencies, with a bandwidth greater than 50 kHz, that would be notable to record and report.

It’s solely my impression, but I think it’s a reasonable inference that those limits were imposed because several Amateur Radio Operators in Europe recorded the transmissions of AST SpaceMobile’s test satellites, and made that info public. From that public reveal and that info filed with the FCC, it seemed obvious that AST SpaceMobile wasn’t attempting to minimize interference, and were routinely using the 420-450 MHz band (430-440 MHz in Europe).

Thus that “record” part, if anything outside what they’re authorized to do is observed, is critical to be able to effectively protest against AST SpaceMobile’s unauthorized use of 420-450 MHz.

The GPS III Rollout Is Almost Complete, But What Is It?

Tom Nardi in Hackaday:

…
But in the coming years, that’s finally going to change. Just last week, the tenth GPS III satellite was placed in orbit by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Once it’s properly configured and operational, it will join its peers to form the first complete “block” of third-generation GPS satellites. Over the next decade, as many as 22 revised GPS III satellites are slated to take their position over the Earth, eventually replacing all of the aging satellites that billions of people currently rely on.
…
While modern GPS receivers are more sensitive than those in the past, there’s simply no getting over the fact that signals coming from a satellite more than 20,000 kilometers away will be by their very nature weak. So not only is it relatively easy for adverse environmental conditions to block or hinder the signal, but it doesn’t take much to override the signal with a local transmitter if somebody is looking to cause trouble.
As such, one of the key goals of the GPS III program was to deliver higher transmission power. This will lead to better reception for all GPS users across the board, but the new satellites also offer some special modes that offer even greater performance.
In addition to the backwards compatible signals transmitted by GPS III satellites, there’s also a new “Safety of Life” signal. This signal is transmitted at a different frequency, 1176 MHz, and at a higher power, so compatible receivers should hear it come in at approximately 3 dB above the “classic” signal. It’s intended primarily for high-performance applications such as aviation, but as compatible receivers get cheaper, it will start to show up in more devices.
…
The new signals being transmitted by GPS III satellites won’t just be louder than their predecessors, they’ll gain some new features as well.
For one thing, GPS III satellites will transmit a standardized signal known as L1C which offers interoperability with other global navigation systems such as Europe’s Galileo, China’s BeiDou, the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS), and Japan’s Quasi-Zenith Satellite System. In theory a compatible receiver will be able to process signals from any combination of these systems simultaneously, improving overall performance.
The new satellites will also support the L2C signal. While this signal was technically available on earlier generation satellites, it’s still not considered fully operational and its adoption is expected to accelerate as more GPS III satellites come online. Compared with the legacy GPS protocol, L2C offers improved faster acquisition of signal, better error correction, and a more capable packet format.

This is a great article about the enhanced capabilities of GPS III, which will inevitably affect, and eventually improve Amateur Radio such as improved time synchronization and likely eventually embedding GNSS capability into every radio… because it’s so (increasingly) capable and practically free.

This is further justification that the substantial disruption proposed by NextNav’s radical, incredibly disruptive, and proprietary reconfiguration of the 902-928 MHz Band is unwarranted and unnecessary. See Zero Retries 0193 - The Threat to the US 902-928 MHz (33 cm) Band from NextNav. (Disclaimer - it’s very long and very detailed, but there is a detailed “skip to the relevant parts” table of contents.)

RTL-SDR 433: A New Android App For Decoding 433 Mhz Sensors With rtl_433

RTL-SDR blog:

Thank you to Christian Ebner from ebcTech, who has submitted news about his newly released Android app RTL-SDR 433, which lets you run the rtl_433 decoder directly on your phone using an RTL-SDR dongle connected via a USB OTG cable.
The app bundles rtl_433 as a native Android library and supports all 258 device protocols out of the box, including weather stations, TPMS, wireless doorbells, PIR motion sensors, energy meters, door/window contacts, and remote sockets. Decoding runs entirely on-device with no internet connection required, no root, and no special drivers. It uses the standard Android USB Host API together with a libusb Android port.
The UI is built with Jetpack Compose and Material 3, and shows a live list of unique sensors with expandable cards (temperature, pressure, RSSI, raw JSON) plus a full history log. The app is free to try with a decreasing per-session reading limit, and a one-time purchase for a few dollars removes the limit permanently.
We note that the GPL-licensed native layer (rtl_433, rtl-sdr, libusb Android port and EBC’s integration glue) is published openly at github.com/ebc81/rtlsdr433-native-gpl in compliance with GPL-2.0, while the UI layer remains closed-source.
More information about the app is available on the ebcTech page at https://ebctech.eu/rtl-sdr-433-android.

This seems like a cool app, more approachable than some “radio hacking” tools. It would be fun and useful to show off the number of radio-based “radio gadgets in daily life” are in your household, such as car unlock “clickers”7 and all the other devices named in the article. In fact it could be useful for troubleshooting. For example, I have a “garage door opener keypad” that I cannot make work. I’ve changed batteries, I’ve reprogrammed it with the garage door opener, and cannot make it work. It would be useful to see if the unit actually is transmitting. With this you could be a hero to friends and neighbors to be able to do some basic troubleshooting of their household wireless devices. (And, learn what you might disable of your friends and neighbors if you transmit at reasonable power on 433 MHz.)

Also, instead of using a phone for this app, there are low-cost Android tablets that might make using this app easier.

[Husky Satellite Lab - HSL} Newsletter: Spring 2026

“Husky” is the mascot (yes, the dog breed) of the University of Washington.

Cherry blossoms are in full bloom ver in these parts and with them an exciting new chapter for the Husky Satellite Lab (HSL). As campus wakes up for the season, our team is already in motion, pushing forward on some wickedly cool projects and missions.
Before we charge full speed into Spring, we’ve got some major updates to share from our latest endeavors and recent milestones heading into Spring 2026.
From NASA programs to new membership applications, let’s jump right in!
HS-2: Spring Interim Review and F’
Image of HS-2 Members (from left to right) Arin Kharkar, Henry Adams, David Magidson, and Yaj Jhajhria, at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory as part of the F’ Workshop.
Though HS-2 finished their PDR review in the fall, the team has not been slowing down! Throughout Spring quarter, HS-2 has been preparing for The Spring Interim Review (SIR), an interim review with our sponsors and mentors at The University Nanosatellite Program. In this presentation, the Payload, Electrical Power System (EPS), and Communications subsystems shared their current progress and received valuable feedback on key questions and areas for improvement.
In addition to these reviews, members of the HS-2 Division (as seen in the image above) had the opportunity to attend the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory Flight Software/F´ Development Workshop in Pasadena, California. There, they developed key skills in F´, a software framework designed for the rapid development and deployment of spaceflight, embedded systems, and instrumentation. The HS-2 team has since been sharing this knowledge with subsystem members and has begun implementing the framework across CubeSat software systems.
As Spring continues, much of their hardware is arriving, which means lot more activity in the lab as testing and system design for summer test assemblies.

I’m not so much highlighting the details of the University of Washington (though… they are the “home team” for collegiate Microsats)… as I am highlighting the method / communication methodology of the HuskySat team. They’re making brilliant (effective) use of Substack for communicating with their fanbase / supporters.

That said in my (objective, as I can be), the accomplishments of the HuskySat program have been impressive, in my opinion. Admittedly, I’m a bit biased for the home team.

Go Huskies - In Space!

Building the TinyDX – With a Little Help From AI

Chris Bolton M0KNF via Amateur Radio Daily 2026-04-28:

The TinyDX is a miniature FT8/4 QRP ~1W transceiver designed to be powered and operated via a USB connection to a smartphone/tablet running an FT8 app such as FT8TW for android or IFTX for IOS. It is able to operate on any 2 of the HF “high” bands, 20M, 17M 15M, 12M, 10M which are defined by the builder during the software configuration process. The TinyDx does not have CAT control but uses the transmit audio signal to switch the PA and receiver during the transmit/receive cycle. Band and mode are selected via 2 hardware switches on the main board.
Designer Barbaros (Barb) Asuroglu WB2CBA has shared the design on GitHub with all of the necessary fabrication files for the boards to be built and populated by the PCB manufacturer JLCPCB. The cost of having the boards built by JLCPCB is around £30 per set for an order quantity of 5 sets plus shipping. Choosing this option just leaves the individual to connect the pre-built boards together and load the bootloader and firmware as per the instructions on Barb’s blog.

The use of an AI as the “endlessly patient and knowledgeable Amateur Radio tutor” to figure out the problem with his unit(s) was instructive, and indicative of how useful AI can be.

I think that one of the “killer apps” for Amateur Radio will be a small radio like this that is connected to a “screen device” and powered and communicating via a USB-C cable and allows operation on an Amateur Radio exclusive band like 222-225 MHz (in North America). We have a similar capability with being able to flash AREDN firmware onto small travel routers, but that’s not quite as fun as being able to operate VHF / UHF. I had such a unit for the 420-450 MHz band once upon a time, but it was a prototype project by the manufacturer that wasn’t refined into a product.

My thanks to Amateur Radio Daily for mentioning this for inclusion in Zero Retries.

The ZBitx V2 Migration: Community Fixes For V1 Hardware Owners

G. Selvakumar VU3DXR in DXR Electronics Bits:

The zBitx community is buzzing with the release of the v2 software and hardware update by Ashhar Farhan (VU2ESE).While the new version promises to solve long-standing issues like receiver “chuffing” and the 24 kHz spur, the migration for v1 owners has proven to be a technical challenge. If you are seeing a “white screen” or unresponsive touch controls, you are not alone.
zBitx v2 Migration
Based on the latest discussions from the BITX20 Groups.io forum, here is the comprehensive guide to a successful upgrade.
…
What’s New in zBitx v2?
The v2 update is both a hardware revision and a software overhaul designed to decouple the user interface from the core radio.
Wi-Fi Architecture: The Raspberry Pi Zero 2W now acts as an Access Point (SSID:zbitx), and the front-panel Pico W connects via Wi-Fi.This replaces the old$I^2C$ link, eliminating the I2C “hogging” that caused CW keying lags.
Hardware Upgrades: The new retail units include a power switch, an in-built EFHW transformer, a passive FET mixer, and high-efficiencyAFT05MS004N LDMOS transistors.
24 kHz Spur Fix: By shifting the clock and adding a center_bin parameter in hw_settings.ini, the BFO is moved outside the crystal filter’s passband.

Click the headline link for all update procedures.

This is a good, comprehensive overview of the process of updating a zBitx V1 to a “V1.5”8. In my opinion, this kind of compilation (kudos to VU3DXR for doing so) is something that HF Signals should be providing on their website (and direct email to [known to HF Signals] zBitx V1 owners that bought direct from HF Signals) rather than forcing zBitx V1 owners to wade through the email list to pick up all the little nuggets that VU3DXR has assembled in this article.

A mild caution about the DXR Electronics Bits website - you might want to turn on “Reader Mode” or some other kind of ad filter because the popup ads can be overwhelming and frustrate you trying to read the content. MacOS Safari’s “Hide Distracting Items” feature worked pretty well for me to create a clean printout of the procedure for tackling my zBitx V1 to “V1.5 upgrade” later this summer.

Earth Venus Earth (EVE) / EME Update and Call for Participation

Michelle Thompson W5NYV on Open Research Institute:

For the upcoming inferior conjunction of Venus and Earth, there is a growing community of amateurs that are bound and determined to get a communications signal bounced off Venus and received here on Earth. This is EVE. The inferior conjunction is when Venus and Earth are the closest together.* This is the right time to attempt this feat, and it happens only once every 18 months or so.
The channel is daunting. So, ORI, SBMS, and others, have put together a link analysis.
Everything can be found at https://github.com/OpenResearchInstitute/EVE
This includes the current link analysis Jupyter Notebook, and all the support files to make it run, and more. Such as, all the documents used to propose observing sessions at the “really big” dishes at Green Bank and Effelsberg.
What can we do now to help make good things happen?
We have a modulation and coding scheme designed especially for this channel.
But we need to test it BEFORE Venus whooshes by in October of 2026. We need to test it now. We’ve tested in simulation, sure, but we all know that’s not good enough.
We need to test it with the Moon. EME is a close enough channel. It doesn’t have the same Doppler spread that Venus has, because the Moon is “locked” to the Earth, but it does wiggle around a bit, and it is a very hard microwave channel.

There was some interesting followup discussion on the DSES (Deep Space Exploration Society) email list.

It makes me proud to be an Amateur Radio Operator that “we” could even contemplate such a challenge as Earth Venus Earth communication.

Hamlib Named Winner of the 2026 Amateur Radio Software Award

Amateur Radio Daily 2026-04-26:

The following is a press release from the Amateur Radio Software Award:
The Amateur Radio Software Award (ARSA) committee is proud to announce that the Hamlib project has been selected as the recipient of the 2026 Amateur Radio Software Award. This year’s award honors the outstanding work of the current core developers: Nate Bargmann (N0NB), George Baltz (N3GB), Daniele Forsi (IU5HKX), and Mikael Nousiainen (OH3BHX).
The annual ARSA award recognizes software projects that enhance amateur radio and promote innovation, freedom, and openness in amateur radio software development. Hamlib was selected for its long‐standing and essential role in enabling software to interface with transceivers and other controllable devices. For more than a quarter century, Hamlib has provided a unified, reliable way to send control commands and read device status. Despite its age, the project remains actively maintained, with new radios and devices added regularly. Hamlib continues to be the go-to library for both established and emerging amateur radio applications.
About Hamlib
Hamlib provides stable, flexible shared libraries that simplify the development of amateur radio equipment control applications. Many modern transceivers include serial (RS‐232, USB, etc.) or Ethernet/Wi‐Fi/Bluetooth interfaces that allow software‐based control. Hamlib abstracts these interfaces, making it significantly easier for application developers to interact with radios, rotators, amplifiers, and other controllable devices. From WSJT‐X and Fldigi to JS8Call, Log4OM, and CQRlog, today’s widely used amateur radio applications are built on Hamlib.
Nate Bargmann (N0NB) notes that “over the lifetime of the project there have been several principal developers. Its founder is Frank Singleton, VK4FCS. Stéphane Fillod, F8CFE, and until about a year ago Mike Black, W9MDB (SK), were successive principal developers.”
Bargmann reports that the current long‐term support branch will receive the 4.7.1 release in the coming weeks, adding support for new radio models and improving existing ones. Work on Hamlib 5 is also underway. The new major version will introduce some backward‐incompatible changes to isolate internal structures and align with modern best practices, including breaking the C ABI. Discussions are ongoing regarding potential API changes, and feedback from client developers is encouraged.
“There is no set date for a release of Hamlib 5.0.0,” Bargmann adds, “but hopefully within the next year seems possible.”
Learn more about Hamlib at https://hamlib.github.io/.
Special Event Station
To celebrate Hamlib’s selection as the 2026 award recipient—and to encourage nominations for the 2027 Amateur Radio Software Award—the ARSA committee will operate the special event station K7A from November 27 through December 7, 2026.
About the Amateur Radio Software Award
The Amateur Radio Software Award is an annual international award recognizing software projects that enhance amateur radio and promote innovation, freedom, and openness in amateur radio software development.
Award Committee
Claus Niesen, AE0S (since 2020)
Kun Lin, N7DMR (since 2020)
Rich Gordon, K0EB (since 2021)
Sebastian Delmont, KI2D (since 2026)
For nomination guidelines, event schedules, and information about past winners, visit https://arsaward.com.

When you really look at what Hamlib is, it’s a remarkable accomplishment that is one of the primary technical underpinnings of Amateur Radio, rarely noticed, lurking in the background of software interaction with radios.

Hamlib is a perfect illustration of the XKCD comic Dependency:

Image courtesy of xkcd.com - https://xkcd.com/2347/

With this award, the Hamlib developers have now been publicly thanked.

My thanks to Amateur Radio Daily for mentioning this for inclusion in Zero Retries.

Starlink. Ho-hum.

Eric Grumling K0JEG on his Grand Valley Aviation newsletter / website:

I’ve been watching Starlink build out their satellite constellation over the last few years. I’ve also been hearing plenty of good things about the company and the service. But the hardware price was always a little too much, and the data limits were a little too low. Well, this month that all changed. They dropped the price of the Starlink Mini terminal to $199 and increased the monthly usage limit on the $50 Roam plan to 100GB, a 50% increase. With my life hopefully settling into a little more normal routine compared to the last year (and getting my tax refund) I thought it was time to try them out.
…
I’m Bored.
Satellites used to be the stuff of science fiction (in fact the geosynchronous satellite concept was first proposed by Arthur C Clarke, and because of that the orbit where it takes 24 hours to complete on orbit is called the Clarke Belt). Today we not only take them for granted, we pretty much think they’ve been supplanted by superior, (under)ground based technology like fiber optics. Where the fiber runs it’s great. If you’re at home or work, having fiber is the best communications solution bar none. But if the fiber isn’t available then what? Wireless works but is hard to set up and limited in bandwidth. Starlink works pretty much anywhere with a clear view of the sky.
The fact that anyone who does ‘brainwork’ for a living can work pretty much anywhere on the planet is still a game changing event. The idea of cruising through Glenwood Canyon while downloading lossless music or live-streaming 4K dashcam footage (at the same time) is something that we almost expect but is still a little bit magical to those of us who remember the massive gaps in cell service between cities. Bringing a little piece of “the grid” to places where it wasn’t before will level up the rural access gap, lower prices through competition and open up new ideas that weren’t possible in areas that couldn’t get service without an expensive plant extension.
I made a phone call from one hand to the other, through a network of satellites moving overhead at 17,000 miles per hour. It worked exactly as expected. No drama, no delay, no sense of wonder. Just another day in the life. For fifty years we’ve been solving the same problem—how to make a scarce resource feel abundant. The only difference now is that we don’t notice when the problem’s solved.

This is a great Zero Retries Interesting casual explanation the evolution of satellite communication technology framed in the context of his purchase of a Starlink Mini (now priced at $199 in the US). Like K0JEG, satellites have always been part of my life (though I’m old enough to remember “Live via Telstar” banners on some television programs).

Two additions to K0JEG’s discussion:

You can “dial back” your Starlink Mini subscription to Standby service for $5 / month with (unmetered) 400 kbps connectivity and back to full speed on a month to month basis. It’s amazing how useful 400 kbps is.
He gives the impression that the Iridium system is outmoded, but that’s not the case any more as the entire satellite constellation was replaced several years ago with vastly more capable satellites, including new data modes and digital voice services.

I concur with K0JEG’s recommendation in the footnotes of the book Eccentric Orbits: The Iridium Story. I couldn’t put it down. It tells the astonishing story of how close Iridium came to being completely killed, and why Motorola pretty desperately wanted to kill it.

Also, see my “Starlink just works” story from 2023 - Meadow Day Experiments.

AMRAD Electronics

Zero Retries Interesting vendor / products - discovered in researching something else.

Leo Bodnar, Rubidium Standards, RF Instrumentation, Software Defined Radio…

Book - The Secret Life of Circuits

Michal Zalewski9 on his newsletter / blog Icamtuf’s thing:

Many of you follow this blog because of the regular features about electronic circuit design. Today, I’m happy to announce that I’ve been working with No Starch Press on The Secret Life of Circuits:
Image courtesy of No Starch Press
I think it’s an exceptional book. It’s the reference I wish I had earlier in my life: an accessible, in-depth exploration of how circuits really work, from the motion of electrons to the dark art of embedded system programming.
The book is meant for the inquiring hobbyist, including those who have tried to learn the craft and hit a brick wall. With 420+ pages and 290+ meticulously-crafted color illustrations, The Secret Life of Circuits focuses on modern problem-solving and emphasizes intuition over cryptic formulas.

It’s a reasonable assumption that this book will be of the same high quality as the author’s blog articles such as Radios, how do they work?.

I think books are still relevant in the 2020s and beyond. A well-written, tightly focused book, written from depth of knowledge of a subject, offers distilled wisdom that lets you get up to speed on a subject10.

Video - K7RAW MagNoodLoop DIY Antenna for 20-10m

I have been in awe of Rudi Wiedemann K7RAW’s encyclopedic knowledge of antenna theory that he shares so freely on his YouTube Channel Antenna Whisperer - K7RAW.

K7RAW came to my attention last October at Pacificon with his innovative Drone Scan 3D project / product. I’ve stayed in touch with K7RAW since then, and this is his latest project. It’s made mostly of PVC, pool noodles (yes, really) and conductive adhesive copper foil tape.

When I realized that the “plunger” at the top of the assembly is the tuning control… I thought that is completely ingenious, and yes, makes for a very inexpensive tunable magnetic loop antenna. (Making a mag loop antenna tunable is the hard, expensive part.) When I discussed this antenna with K7RAW, he revealed that not only is his “plunger” a tunable element, but its action is linearized. I’m looking forward to the next video where he describes how that’s done.

Please direct comments / feedback about ZR > BEACON to the Zero Retries email list with the #ZR0249 hashtag.

Request To Send

By Steve Stroh N8GNJ

Editorial, Commentary, and Occasional Digressions

My LinuxFest Northwest 2026 Talk Went Well

My talk last Sunday at LinuxFest Northwest went well, and seemed well received. My goal was to expose the attendees to aspects of Amateur Radio that would be most relevant to them such as Software Defined Radio (being able to transmit in wider portions of spectrum than the unlicensed bands) and that there are many aspects of Amateur Radio that were open source.

There were < 10 attendees that were Amateur Radio Operators, and only five or so Zero Retries subscribers. I’ll post my slide deck here on the Zero Retries website after a bit of reorganizing to create a dedicated page for my presentations.

Hamvention Ho!

2 weeks until Hamvention 2026
in Xenia, Ohio, USA...
Zero Retries / DLARC booth 1506
in Building 1 / Maxim

Weekends Are For Amateur Radio!

Vintage Computer Festival Pacific Northwest (VCF PNW) 2026 is this weekend in Tukwila, Washington (greater Seattle area). I had hoped to exhibit a working Packet Radio system to showcase vintage TNCs (such as TAPR TNC 2s), including radios. But it’s been an intensive couple of weeks and I just haven’t been able to put in the time necessary in N8GNJ / Zero Retries Labs to put together a working system. Thus my exhibit will just show a collection of “vintage” TNCs as a static display.

Post Publication Update - I developed a health bug of some kind on Friday. Out of an abundance of caution that I might be contagious, I decided at the last minute not to attend VCF PNW 2026. Apologies to those who were coming to see the Packet Radio exhibit.

Have a great weekend, all of you co-conspirators in Zero Retries Interesting Amateur Radio activities!

Please direct comments / feedback about Request To Send to the Zero Retries email list with the #ZR0249 hashtag.

73,

Steve N8GNJ

Closing Thanks

My ongoing Thanks to:
Tina Stroh KD7WSF for, well, everything!
Jack Stroh, Late Night Assistant Editor Emeritus
Fiona and Shreky Stroh, Late Night Assistant Editors In Training

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Zero Retries 0249 was published on 2026-05-01. This issue was 16,512 words.

Footnotes For This Issue

To see the relevant sentence for the footnote, just click the footnote number.

The quoted article actually appeared in Amateur Radio Daily, April 24, 2026 - Linux Kernel Drops AX.25 and Amateur Radio Subsystem Support

“Ignorant of the situation” might be more technically accurate, but that’s a loaded term, and thus I choose not to use it.

Realistically, and I’m not being self-deprecating in this statement, Zero Retries, as the product of a single individual with no substantive organization behind it. Thus Zero Retries cannot really be considered an authoritative resource.

The relevance of Amateur Radio is what’s in question, as in “what does Amateur Radio do in the 21st century?”. The utility of Amateur Radio, in this era, is largely perceived as the potential for emergency communications. But I consider Amateur Radio’s utility for emergency communications to be increasingly in question - see Zero Retries Perspective on Emergency Communications (EMCOM) Capability in Amateur Radio.

“Amateur Radio Networking Journal” is, at the moment, an entirely imaginary title.

“Amateur Radio Networking Working Group” is, at the moment, an entirely imaginary name for an entirely imaginary group.

I remember that there was one situation where I parked my vehicle and I could not unlock it remotely (which turns off the built-in security system) and I thought that the battery in the “clicker” had died. It turns out that there was a security system in the building that I was parked next to that was swamping the low power signal from the “clicker”. When the vehicle’s security system was alarmed, the ignition was disabled and the horn blared. As soon as I pushed the vehicle away from the building about ten feet, the “clicker” worked again. Kudos to the engineer who designed the security system of the 1997 Dodge Dakota - I’ve never found a way to disable it.

It doesn’t seem (reasonably) possible to update a zBitx V1 to a full equivalent of a zBitx V2.

I think that the author might be Amateur Radio Operator K7TUF, but cannot verify that.

Brief story best offered as a footnote: After I was suddenly thrown into a job to administer a department of more than one hundred users, I was given the task of transitioning them to Windows 3.0 in a matter of months. I was completely out of my depth in administering Windows, and especially the nuances of networking Windows in a server environment. My salvation (and I mean that very literally) to be minimally competent for that project, was the book Windows 3.0 Secrets by Brian Livingston. I spent a two week vacation reading that book cover to cover. I learned the basics of what I had to do to successfully complete the transition of the department to Windows 3.0. Good books by good authors on a very specific subject are distilled wisdom. I still have that book - dog eared, with many Post-It tags, and highlighted portions of pages.

Zero Retries 0248

Steve Stroh N8GNJ — Fri, 24 Apr 2026 23:15:12 GMT

Steve Stroh N8GNJ, Editor

Tina Stroh KD7WSF, Business / Conference Manager

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In This Issue:

I-Frame

Breaking - Major Split in Development of MeshCore
Steve Stroh N8GNJ

Brief Update on The Packet Radio Forwarding Network
Glenn Allison N3MEL

HF Signals zBitx v2 - Inexpensive Open Source HF Software Defined Radio
Steve Stroh N8GNJ

iShareRadio Remote Radio Sharing Service
Steve Stroh N8GNJ

Pebble HF - Under $50 QRP HF Radio Kit
Steve Stroh N8GNJ

Upgrading your zbitx (v1) to zbitx v2 software

I-Frame

By Steve Stroh N8GNJ

Brief notes about this issue of Zero Retries.

Paid Subscribers / Founding Members Update

My thanks to Prefers to Remain Anonymous 69 for renewing as an Annual Paid Subscriber to Zero Retries this past week!

My thanks to Joe Pistritto N3CKF for becoming a new Annual Paid Subscriber to Zero Retries this past week!

Financial support from Zero Retries readers is a significant vote of support for the continued publication of Zero Retries.

Zero Retries Digital Conference 2026

Shown above is our brand new ZRDC 2026 Poster!

This will be a regular reminder that Zero Retries Digital Conference 2026 will be held on Friday October 16, 2026 in San Ramon, California, USA. This is the first day of Pacificon 2026 also in San Ramon. For more information, see www.zeroretries.org/p/conference.

Please direct comments / feedback about I-Frame to the Zero Retries email list with the #ZR0248 hashtag.

Breaking - Major Split in Development of MeshCore

By Steve Stroh N8GNJ

I have no significant expertise to offer on this development in MeshCore, other than this is a regular occurrence in Open Source projects, and also in Amateur Radio.

This philosophical divide - human-generated software versus using artificial intelligence to develop software is now occurring in all elements of software development. There are passionate, well-informed, well-reasoned advocates on both sides. Including, of course, Amateur Radio - see another story about AI assisted software development later in this issue.

Meshcore.io blog - Meshcore.io - Why The Split?

Since inception, the MeshCore development team have been working hard to build MeshCore.
We’ve released more than 85 versions of the MeshCore Companion, Repeater and Room Server firmwares with support for more than 75 hardware variants. All of this has been hand crafted, by humans.
We have always been wary of AI generated code, but felt everyone is free to do what they want and experiment, etc. But, one of our own, Andy Kirby, decided to branch out and extensively use Claude Code, and has decided to aggressively take over all of the components of the MeshCore ecosystem: standalone devices, mobile app, web flasher and web config tools.
And, he’s kept that small detail a secret - that it’s all majority vibe coded.
…
The team didn’t feel it was our place to protest, until we recently discovered that Andy applied for the MeshCore Trademark (on the 29th March, according to filings) and didn’t tell any of us. We have tried discussing this, and what his intentions are, but those broke down and we now have no communication with Andy.
It’s been a stressful few months trying to sort this out, and is now a sad day to bring this out to the public. It’s been a slap in the face to the team that have worked so hard on this project, to have an insider team up with a robot and a lawyer.
“Official” MeshCore
The use of the ‘official’ status is what is currently being contested. Andy is adamant that he owns the brand, and is using the word very heavily with his MeshOS line.
Meanwhile, in reality, the only ‘official’ MeshCore is the github repo. It’s the source of truth in terms of what is MeshCore, and Andy has never contributed to that.
Since the internal split, we launched the meshcore.io site, as Andy controls the meshcore.co.uk site and original discord server. We’ve been left with little other recourse. And, since launching the site, Andy copied the look and feel (again, using Claude) even though we asked him not to.
Project Growth
The MeshCore project has been on an incredible journey.
Having only started in January 2025, we have grown extremely fast!
As of this post, the official MeshCore Map shows 38,000+ nodes around the world, and the official MeshCore App has more than 100,000+ active users across Android and iOS.
It’s pretty epic how we’ve all built such an incredible community in such as a short time!
As the project grows, so does our need for a dedicated space that provides you with official information from the core team.
In recent times, we’ve seen an explosion of growth in MeshCore web sites dedicated to specific countries and mesh communities.
To name a few, we’ve seen:
MeshCore Portugal over at https://meshcore.pt
MeshCore Switzerland over at https://meshcore.ch
and the first successes with MeshCore UK over at https://meshcore.co.uk
Andy Kirby did do an amazing job helping to promote the MeshCore project on his personal YouTube, but only promotes his own products now.
Where To From Here?
So, the core team are pushing ahead with the meshcore.io website, the ongoing work of firmware feature development, bug fixes, managing PR’s and developer discussions, etc.
We now release change logs, blog posts and technical documentation for all of our new firmware and app releases here.
https://meshcore.io
https://blog.meshcore.io
https://docs.meshcore.io
You’ll also find some familiar faces on our blog posts, such as:
Scott our project founder, lead firmware engineer and developer of the Ripple firmware!
Recrof our official MeshCore Map developer and Firmware Flasher guru. He has shared some insights into the early development of the MeshCore Map.
Liam Cottle the official MeshCore App developer who will be posting useful guides for getting started with the MeshCore App.
FDLamotte who has done epic work on the Python tooling for MeshCore, as well as the STM32 firmware variants.
Oltaco (Che Aporeps) who has done amazing work on the new OTA Fix bootloader that makes firmware updates much more reliable.
The Core Team
The MeshCore team, now consisting of Scott, Liam, Recrof, FDLamotte and now Oltaco remain committed to designing and developing high quality, human-written software.
Our New Home
Please update your bookmarks!
This is where we will be hosting all official releases, technical documentation, and community discussions moving forward.
With the new website, we are also starting fresh with a new Discord server!
This is where you can interact directly with the MeshCore developers, get help with your projects, and contribute to the future of MeshCore.
Official Website: https://meshcore.io
Latest Updates: https://blog.meshcore.io
Technical Docs: https://docs.meshcore.io
Official GitHub: https://github.com/meshcore-dev/MeshCore
Reddit: https://reddit.com/r/meshcore
Facebook: https://facebook.com/groups/meshcore
Discord: https://meshcore.gg
Thanks for being a part of this journey!
The MeshCore Team

This… is going to be a slog.

It seems inevitable that the two MeshCore implementations - the development team, and Andy Kirby / meshcore.co.uk, having different agendas, are going to diverge and it seems inevitable to me that at some point soon they’ll not be interoperable.

Both websites - https://meshcore.io and https://meshcore.co.uk are approachable for newcomers to MeshCore. They’re appealing and engaging, with ample explanations for the various elements of MeshCore - software. hardware, and network. That there is so much in common between both sides, and both using the name MeshCore (and it being claimed as a MESHCORE™ on Kirby’s site), the potential for confusion is huge.

Thus “which MeshCore are you using?” is going to become a frequent question of MeshCore users wanting to be able to communicate with their friends.

My thanks to Franco Venturi K4VZ for mentioning this on the Zero Retries email list for inclusion in Zero Retries.

Please direct comments / feedback about this article to the Zero Retries email list with the #ZR0248 hashtag.

Brief Update on The Packet Radio Forwarding Network

By Glenn Allison N3MEL

Editor’s Note - I pinged N3MEL about an unrelated matter, and he responded with this great update on TPRFN, which he agreed to share with Zero Retries readers.

We are approaching our fourth anniversary and now have 22 full-time stations on the air. We recently added stations in Nevada and Oregon. While they don’t conform to the NVIS configuration to their east, we are seeing reliable West Coast traffic using 20m during the daytime. Establishing this [cross continent] RF path has been a long-term goal for us.

In other TPRFN news:

Winlink-to-Packet Gateway
I developed code allowing Winlink users to send private messages into the packet network. By addressing a message to WLGATE@WINLINK.ORG with the target packet station’s call sign in the subject, users can send ASCII text or TPRFN forms. More details are available here: https://www.tprfn.net/tprfn-gateway-news-1/winlink-to-packet-crossover

Station Lookup
We launched a searchable packet station list with home BBS info: https://www.tprfn.net/us-bbs-search-portal

World Wide Conference Server
I will be sharing the code and setup details for the BPQ to WWnConference Server via AMPRnet to encourage better utilization of this feature.

Packet Forms
We have released Skywarn and NTS Radiogram generators specifically built for packet radio: https://www.tprfn.net/html-to-text-packet-form

Network Utilities
Thanks to Anthony K1JAD and Jay N8FLA, we now have a network health page and live hub stats: https://www.tprfn.net/network-live-connections

You can find more details at http://tprfn.net

Our current needs include:

Network Promotion: Increasing visibility wherever possible.
Hub Stations: Recruiting more full-time stations to fill gaps in the central United States.
Advocacy: Finding ways to return Packet Radio to the mainstream as a viable EmComm digital mode.

Editor’s Note - I clarified that despite “Packet Radio” being embedded into the name of the network, TPRFN is actually using various data modes, including VARA HF.

Please direct comments / feedback about this article to the Zero Retries email list with the #ZR0248 hashtag.

HF Signals zBitx v2 - Inexpensive Open Source HF Software Defined Radio

By Steve Stroh N8GNJ

As longer term Zero Retries readers know, I was enthusiastic about the zBitx low power portable HF radio when it was initially released in early 2025. Apparently too enthusiastic, it turns out as there were several issues with the original zBitx (now called v1) that damped my, and others, enthusiasm for that unit. But the cost of the zBitx v1 was relatively low. Thus I don’t regret my “vote with my wallet” support for HF Signals and the zBitx, and I don’t fault HF Signals for what turned out to be some issues with the initial version. They tried to develop an entry level portable SDR that was open source, and based on a popular microcomputer (rather than a microcontroller).

But small companies like HF signals listen to feedback from their customer base, and can iterate fast. The zBitx v2 is now available for $269 including (international!) shipping.

As with zBitx v1, my enthusiasm for this product is that it is almost entirely a Software Defined Radio driven by a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W. It’s also open source, with a lot of future improvements to come from active community development. It amuses me that this particular radio is (claimed to be) running 64-bit1 Linux on a $15 microcomputer.

HF Signals zBitx v2 - Image courtesy of HF Signals

From the HF Signals zBitx v2 website:

What’s new in v2
The zBitx v2 brings four major upgrades over the original zBitx:
LDMOS-based, efficient 5 watt output.** The new LDMOS final amplifier delivers a clean, efficient 5 watts across all bands with lower current draw, cooler operation and longer battery life in the field.
Built-in EFHW transformer.** Connect an End-Fed Half-Wave wire antenna directly to the radio — no external matching unit required. Just throw a wire into a tree and you’re on the air.
MOSFET-based reverse polarity protection built into the on/off switch. A MOSFET-based protection circuit is now integrated directly into the power switch, guarding the radio against reversed supply leads with effectively zero voltage drop.
Responsive CW operation with macros and logging. The CW path has been reworked for crisp, low-latency keying with editable macros and integrated logging — the v2 is a serious CW machine, whether you’re chasing DX or running a portable activation.
…
Built-in EFHW transformer
The zBitx v2 has an EFHW (End-Fed Half-Wave) transformer built directly into the radio. Connect a resonant half-wave wire to the antenna port and you are on the air — no external tuner, no separate matching box, no extra cables to pack. It’s the ideal companion for pocket-portable, grab-and-go operations.
Reverse polarity protection, done right
A MOSFET-based reverse polarity protection circuit is built into the on/off switch. If you connect your power leads the wrong way around, the radio simply will not power up — and nothing inside gets damaged. Because it uses a MOSFET instead of a series diode, the voltage drop is negligible, so you get full output power and efficiency from every volt of your battery.
Everything is included:
Insert two 18650 LiPo batteries (not supplied) and you are ready to hit the field. At home, plug in a 9V power supply and work it from your monitor/keyboard/mouse. It has a built-in microphone and a high-quality speaker.
Remote into it with just the web-browser on your phone/tablet/laptop.
Specifications
Size: 170mm x 80mm x 45mm (including the battery case)
Weight: 415 grams including two LiPo batteries
Display: 480×320 resistive touch screen display with an independent Raspberry Pico front panel controller.
Software: Fully open sourced and available on https://github.com/afarhan/zbitxv2
Hardware: Hybrid superhet with LDMOS final amplifier, open source circuit with full description
Final Amplifier: LDMOS, efficient 5 watt output
Antenna Matching: Built-in EFHW transformer
Power Protection: MOSFET-based reverse polarity protection integrated into on/off switch
Frequency Coverage: All international ham bands from 80M to 10M
Power: 5 watts on all bands.
Power Supply: 6V to 9V.
Receive Current consumption: 300 mA
Transmit Current consumption: 1.5 to 3A (depending on the Drive settings)
Modes: USB/LSB/AM/CW/CW-Reverse/FT8/Digital modes (with FlDigi)
Preloaded Apps: FreeDV, QSSTV, Fldigi and more are coming

Another point of amusement about the zBitx v2 is that it ships with FreeDV digital voice mode for HF, though it’s undoubtedly an older version of FreeDV which is probably now considered deprecated in favor of the much more capable FreeDV RADE. The only other HF radios I’m aware of that ship with a digital voice mode are Icom HF radios with D-Star digital voice.

One criticism of the zBitx v1 was that some considered that all of the overhead of running the radio (display update, low latency for radio operation, processing voice and digital modes, and especially CW) was a bit too much for the Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W microcomputer, not to mention the “overhead” of running a full Linux stack. I think that this time, we’ll have to wait for the verdict of customers of the zBitx v2 to see if the overall performance / responsiveness has been improved (enough).

I was impressed with two of the improvements that make the zBitx more usable and more forgiving of new user mistakes:

Built-in EFHW transformer
MOSFET-based reverse polarity protection

Those are the two most common mistakes of new users, especially with batteries / battery holders that allow batteries to be inserted backwards. The reverse battery protection system is elegant and seemingly goof-proof. If you do it wrong, it just doesn’t start up, with no damage done.

The idea of attaching any random wire antenna and the radio just “handles it” with, again, seemingly goof-proof. (Obviously, optimizing the wire length, the better the performance).

Even though the display is a touch screen, you can also:

Remote into it with just the web-browser on your phone/tablet/laptop.

Lastly, for those of us that purchased zBitx v1 units, there is this procedure for updating to v2 software on the BITX20 email list by HF Signals founder Ashhar Farhan VU2ESE:

Note that this process is… apparently not bulletproof, so read the entire thread before attempting.

All in all, I really like the improvements in the zBitx v2 and I’ll likely invest in one later in 2026 after I get a few more projects completed in N8GNJ / Zero Retries Labs.

My thanks to DXR ELECTRONICS BITS blog for mention of this development.

Please direct comments / feedback about this article to the Zero Retries email list with the #ZR0248 hashtag.

iShareRadio Remote Radio Sharing Service

By Steve Stroh N8GNJ

iShareRadio is a new service that allows clubs and other organizations to share remote radios with granular permissions. Apparently it is still in development, but has been mentioned publicly by some of its principals.

I first learned about the iShareRadio service from listening to the Ham Radio Workbench podcast, where it was discussed by host George Zafiropoulos KJ6VU.

The idea of a using a remote radio station / system from anywhere, via Internet, isn’t new. It’s one of the primary benefits of the FlexRadio units, and recently implemented on the newest generation of HF radios from Elecraft, Icom, Kenwood, and Yaesu.

The idea of a “middleware” service to share remote radios amongst multiple users isn’t new either - see Remote Ham Radio (RHR).

But until iShareRadio, there hasn’t been a “middle ground” service suitable for clubs that want more flexibility than systems for individual access such as FlexRadio’s SmartLink, and the approach of Remote Ham Radio of renting a “dream station” as a subscription service. Also a frustration with individual access systems is that they’re unique to the radio manufacturer. To remotely use a FlexRadio requires the use of FlexRadio’s SmartLink, and to remotely use an Icom radio, even at the same station, requires the use of Icom’s remote access software.

Thus a service that’s suitable for clubs to share one or more remote radios is the opportunity that was noticed by iShareRadio. There were several things that were mentioned by KJ6VU that were great features for clubs:

Individual accounts, centrally administered. That ability to do centralized administration for a group is highly useful and needed. Didn’t renew your club membership? You lose your access to the club’s remote station.
Scheduled access - An individual (club member) can reserve a radio for a specific time slot.
Granular access - Features of the radio, or station, are granular enough that, for example, a club member with a Technician license can only use the radio on the bands that are compatible with their license class.
Manages multiple types of radios in the same interface / system. If a remote station uses, for example, a FlexRadio FLEX-8400 for HF, and an Icom IC-9700 for VHF / UHF, both can be scheduled and managed by iShareRadio.

Remote Club Stations are More Feasible Than Ever

HF operation has become more problematic for many in the past decade. One primary complaint has been the steadily rising radio noise floor in the HF bands. In my opinion, this is an inevitable, and largely unstoppable result of the use of efficient switch mode power supplies that are used in everything from mobile phone chargers to microinverters on the back of solar panels (and very soon, the rise and inevitable ubiquity of “balcony solar” panels).

Another issue is the constraints of living arrangements of living in, or relocating to housing where external antennas are restricted such as condominiums, apartments, even senior living centers, and dorm rooms. For such situations, having access to a a remote radio is an ideal solution.

A number of club hosted remote radio station situations come readily to mind:

A “senior citizen community” that I saw in Florida, where individual Amateur Radio stations at the units were discouraged, but the community center building hosted an Amateur Radio station. Amateur Radio Operators in that community could share (one or more) radios at the club’s Amateur Radio station, and could probably do so using a local microwave network such as AREDN.
A college radio station where after hours access to the college Amateur Radio station is prohibited, but members of the club could remotely access the radio systems at the club station.
Members of a large urban Amateur Radio club could demonstrate HF operation remotely to, for example, STEM classes, Makerspaces, and other gatherings without the inevitable difficulties of trying to make HF work in meetings.

But one of the most compelling ideas I’ve read about is the idea of finding a remote location where there is little or no electrical interference in the HF band to construct a remote radio station. Conceptually, such a remote radio station is “simple”:

20 foot cargo container,
Solar power and battery system (carefully chosen / engineered for low electrical noise, such as not using micro inverter solar panels),
Starlink Internet Access
Your choice of remotely controlled radios.

The “missing piece” for remote radio systems has been something like iShareRadio that is specifically designed for such situations as a hosted service that manages the complexities of granular sharing of remote radio stations, particularly the complexities of managing radios from different manufacturers.

While HF stations are the most well-known use of remote radio stations, there are many other uses of remote radio stations, especially the flexibility of a “cargo container” remote radio station that could be managed by iShareRadio:

Amateur Radio satellite station that integrates the VHF / UHF radio with an automatic antenna tracking system,
Earth Moon Earth (EME) station with a large antenna array,
Beacon transmitters,
Multiple Remote Receivers for multiple bands such as those used for HamSCI experiments,
If the area is scenic (such as a long view of mountains), add a high definition video camera for the benefit of club members (some Starlink plans feature uncapped data transfer),
If the area doesn’t have any artificial light, add a star camera,
Repeater / digipeater
Aircraft ADS-B receiver,

The possibilities of such a remote radio station are endless. I imagine possibly locating such a station on some friend’s properties in Montana and Wyoming.

Security Aspects of a Service Like iShareRadio

One issue of individual remote access is that consumer Internet access often is problematic. Sometimes such services require static IP addresses which can be expensive or unavailable from some Internet Service Providers. Sometimes individual TCP/IP ports must be (manually) opened for remote access to function. Other times it’s impossible to “come back in” from the Internet (remote access) to a device that’s connected via Carrier Grade Network Address Translation (CGNAT) such as what Starlink uses for IPv4.

There’s also the administration issue(s) of the potential use of weak passwords, sharing of accounts to unauthorized users… all the headaches of any remote access system. Not to mention the ongoing issues of identifying security issues that need to be patched and distributed, updating application software, etc.

As much as I reflexively want to recommend ARDC’s 44Net Connect free VPN service for Amateur Radio Operators to get access to a free static IPv4 address… 44Net Connect has its issues, such as what it provides you is an unfiltered static IPv4 address. Emphasis on unfiltered. When you use 44Net Connect, there is no firewall or other protection between the device you use with a 44Net Connect IPv4 address and “the rough neighborhood” of Internet bots and other attackers that will rapidly discover your new 44Net IPv4 address and begin probing and attacking it.

Thus a hosted, professionally administered service such as iShareRadio is an attractive option for clubs and even smaller groups such as families or just a few friends that want to share a remote radio station amongst multiple users. The remote radio station “phones home” to a iShareRadio’s known, safe set of IP addresses via a secure connection. Thus “incoming” access is not required - the connections are only outgoing. Thus there’s no need for static IP addresses, or another middle service such as 44Net Connect, and it works with no issues, even with Starlink.

Non Radio System Integration

This nugget from the FAQ was instructive:

What is the Station Controller?
The iShareRadio platform can integrate to a number of products and one of the most exciting is the Station Controller by Sierra Radio Systems. This is a robust, modular and easy to configure solution to manage, control and monitor your radio equipment.
The iShareRadio platform has integrated with the Station Controller as it is perfect solution to managing all the equipment around a radio.

I have also seen references to Node-RED integration… so nearly anything could conceivably be managed within iShareRadio.

I’m looking forward to seeing iShareRadio complete its development and become a fully functional service.

Post Publication Update

Email from KJ6VU:

Thank you so much for covering iShareRadio in Zero Retries! That was a really wonderful surprise. Everything you said in the article was spot on with a few minor comments below.
Radio support
The initial release of iShareRadio supports only Flex Radios. We are working on a solution for non-Flex radios but that will come later this year.
The Station Controller will work with any radio or equipment today.
Schedule
We are in beta now with several users.
We will be in full production release and selling subscriptions as of Hamvention this year so in a month.
The pricing model will include...
Free for end users to set up an account to access remote stations.
Radio station hosts will pay an annual service fee. The price will scale with the number of users, radios, etc.
Marketplace
We will be offering a “marketplace” where hosts can advertise their station for rent and users can book time for a fee.
Of course, a radio host can offer their radio for free if they choose to do that.
Public / Private
A host can offer their station privately or publicly.
Private hosting means that only people who the host has invited to use their system by email will know about the station.
Public hosting means the host will offer their station for anyone to rent time. The host has the approval of anyone requesting station access.

Please direct comments / feedback about this article to the Zero Retries email list with the #ZR0248 hashtag.

Pebble HF - Under $50 QRP HF Radio Kit

By Steve Stroh N8GNJ

In Zero Retries, I don’t normally mention the many… many… many… low power HF radios that are constantly being developed, especially those that are intended solely or mostly for Morse Code (CW) use. But there’s something different about the Pebble HF.

One attractive aspect of the Pebble HF is that the sponsors offer an engaging backstory. It’s the “product” of a couple of xOTA2 (outdoor casual operation) Amateur Radio Operators - Becky Spiceland N4BKY and Mike Spiceland N4FFF. They have a fun looking YouTube channel - Ham Radio Duo.

Another is that in the video and on the web page, N4BKY and N4FFF don’t shy away from comparisons with other (and in their own words, better) low power HF radio options. They are clearly focused on developing the Pebble HF to be a good enough, and inexpensive low power HF radio kit that is attractive to new, and potential, and budget conscious Amateur Radio Operators that want to “go outside and have fun on the air”.

The development of the Pebble HF was done by two very experienced Amateur Radio Operators - Barb Asuroglu WB2CBA did the hardware, and Guido PE1NNZ did the firmware (with modifications by N4FFF).

Beyond those two elements, this low power HF radio offers a unique confluence of factors that make the Pebble HF Zero Retries Interesting - to me:

Hardware design and firmware is open source.
The price - “under $50”.
The size - comfortably fits in a hand.
The simplicity of a single band - 20 meters.
Reasonable power - 5 watts with 12 volt input (or the flexibility of 1 watt with USB-C input).
Although optimized for CW, it’s usable for (Single Sideband) voice and digital (with an external digital interface). There’s no view of the bottom of the unit where the audio connections are, but it appears to be small jack, hopefully with audio input, audio output, and Push To Talk.
- But there’s this unclear reference:
  CW, SSB (USB/LSB), and digital mode capable*
  (* an external usb sound card is required for digital modes)
- So does the “sound card” get connected to the USB-C? Or do you use an external interface such as a Digirig Lite?
It’s un-intimidating. It looks like learning to use it is the work of just a few minutes.
Lastly… it’s a kit… a reasonable to build kit where the soldering is a total of 14 through hole components, including the coils that you wind.

I can’t quite explain why I find Pebble HF so interesting, more than the many other similar radios and kits. I guess one factor is that I can see showing this off to potential Amateur Radio Operators… and it just seems so approachable and simple - just a few connections. I could also see this being easy to demonstrate - plug in a common USB-C battery pack and a minimal dummy load and transmit across a room between two units.

Keeping to the approachable, un-intimidating paradigm, the “Just OK Mini” 20 meter antenna - 20m band would be a great starter antenna to pair with the Pebble HF.

Please direct comments / feedback about this article to the Zero Retries email list with the #ZR0248 hashtag.

ZR > BEACON

By Steve Stroh N8GNJ

Short mentions of Zero Retries Interesting items.

Breaking News: FCC Grants Frequencies’ Use For Satellite Service

Amateur Radio Newsline Report 2530 for Friday, April 24th, 2026:

JIM/ANCHOR; We begin this week with breaking news. As Newsline prepared to go to production, the US Federal Communications Commission announced that it had authorized AST SpaceMobile’s full, 248-satellite constellation to use requested parts of the radio spectrum, including those that had drawn objections from the amateur radio community.
The agency’s move will permit AST to fulfill its goal of providing services to consumers in so-called “dead zones,” regions without terrestrial networks, especially for emergency services. The successful application on behalf of the low-Earth orbit satellite system was granted on the 21st of April with conditions. The grant for the use of 698 to 960 MHz includes permission to make use of 430 to 440 MHz for emergency control and tracking of the satellites - a move that amateur radio operators feared would cause interference with hams’ operations.
The FCC said that AST emergency telemetry use will be limited to the 430.5MHz, 432.3MHz, 434.1MHz, 435.9MHz, and 439.5MHz frequencies for a duration of less than 24 hours. The FCC has said in the past that interference with ham radio was “unlikely.”
(FCC, PC MAGAZINE AUSTRALIA)

Echo App for iOS Devices

Image courtesy of echosdr.com

Visualize the Spectrum
See the invisible. Stream raw waterfall data directly from KiwiSDR, OpenWebRX, WebSDR, and FM-DX Webservers to explore the radio spectrum in real time on a fluid, hardware-accelerated canvas.
Listen to Anything, From Anywhere
Echo turns your iPhone and iPad into a global radio receiver. Browse 2,000+ KiwiSDR, OpenWebRX, WebSDR, and FM-DX Webservers to hear shortwave, aviation, numbers stations, and distant FM in real time.

This is a really gorgeous iOS application. It’s free to download and use, and in three clicks I had selected a receiver, and a portion of spectrum / station / net to listen to, and it just worked. This is an impressive demonstration of the utility of the global network of radio receivers being made available for use for free via Internet.

I can just imagine how useful this is in testing out one’s station - do a quick test while using this app tuned to a remote receiver. Talk about fast feedback!

We really seem to need a lot more remote receivers here in the Pacific Northwest. I need to get my KiwiSDR online.

My thanks to Conrad Trautmann N2YCH for mentioning this for inclusion in Zero Retries.

Hibbian Installer First Release

Dave “hibby”Hibberd MM0RFN via email:

I‘ve been working on my Linux side projects, and I’ve hit a point where I’m pretty happy with the work done and have things to announce that are probably ZR Interesting!
I’ve finally got weekly builds of a live running & installable Debian for hams available.
It contains the bulk of the amateur radio software we ship in Debian pre-installed, and has the ‘backports’ distribution of more modern software not normally available for Debian stable active, so you can run the recent wsjtx 3.0 out the box, for example, which otherwise won’t ship as Debian Stable until our next major release in 2027ish.
As it’s a ‘live’ distribution, it’ll run straight from a USB stick, bypassing whatever is installed on your computer not touching the existing hard drive, so it makes quickly repurposing a personal computer/laptop for a contest or special event easy too.
There’s also a raspberry pi image built with the same ethos, so your shack pi can be usable out the box without hours spent finding and downloading packages.

From the website:

I’m genuinely thrilled to announce that after years of me working away, one small project at a time, it is now possible to head over to download.hibbian.org and download either a PC or a Raspberry Pi image!
PC Live & Installer Image - Stable
This is an iso compatible with any amd64 computer - this comprises most machines sold in the last 15 years.
That said, I’d recommend at least 4GB RAM, preferably 8GB, and a not too old CPU. If there’s enough demand for a lightweight environment for old machines, I can add this to make life nicer.
The image needs to be written to a USB stick - on Windows I’d recommend Rufus. When the PC boots you will meet a live environment running Debian Stable & KDE Plasma 5 which contains the majority of the Debian Hamradio packages. You may check the list in the latest release notes.
These are the latest versions of the packages available in Debian - either backported by my colleagues in the Debian Hams team or quietly ported to the Hibbian Repo by me to ensure compatibility.
The image contains an installer so you can easily install to your local system if you prefer the conventional approach of running from a hard drive or you can ignore it and use the live image directly as your system disk!

This live distribution capability for Linux Amateur Radio apps is really welcome, especially for Raspberry Pi. This lowers the barrier to entry of using Linux considerably as “if you screw it up, just reboot and try again”. Then exit out and your system is back to normal (Windows, etc.). Speaking for myself, this would be especially welcome for Raspberry Pi as it could be distributed to prospective Amateur Radio users and probably usable enough for the Raspberry Pi 3B+ (only $40).

Kudos to MM0RFN for Hibbian 1.0 (?) and my thanks to him for mentioning this for inclusion in Zero Retries.

Announcing the VARAtrack APRS-over-VARA APRS Tracker

Stephen H. Smith WA8LMF on the aprssig email list:

Several years and 15,000 miles of road-trip drive-testing, using the VARA high-performance HF modem alongside traditional AX.25 HF packet, has shown VARA to be orders of magnitude superior for reliably transmitting APRS position reports on HF.
VARA exists exclusively as a Windows-based sound-card “soft modem” - the only way to do APRS-over-VARA has been to use a mobile laptop or Windows tablet in the vehicle. No simple hardware-only solution analogous to the Byonics TinyTrack for classic packet exists.
Recently, very inexpensive (starting at USD $139) tiny Windows-based ultra-compact computers known as “stick PCs” have become available. These devices are very small fully-functional 64-bit Intel-based quad-core PCs. They include 4 USB-C ports, 1GB Ethernet port, WiFi 5, Bluetooth 5, a Realtek HD sound system, and 4K-capable HDMI video. Further, these devices run directly from 12 VDC, making them ideal for mobile applications!
These devices are widely used to drive the 42” monitors displaying menus over the counter at fast-food places, and in airports for displaying incoming and outgoing flights. I have now one setup one to operate as a stand-alone APRS-over-VARA tracker.
Full details on the VARAtrack setup are on my website at:
Scroll down the page and follow the link on that page for “The VARAtrack”. Near the bottom of the VARAtrack page is a link to download a backup image file of my entire setup that can be used to restore the entire setup to another similar stick PC.
I will demonstrating the VARAtrack at the Dayton Hamvention at my radio trailer aka “Studio B” in the Emergency Comms Vehicles Expo.

WA8LMF has been working on testing this solution - APRS over VARA HF for some time. I agree with him that using an inexpensive Windows computer as a “VARA appliance” is the most practical way to use VARA HF (or VARA FM).

Beyond VARA HF, there are other potential solutions for APRS over HF that are more robust than legacy 300 bps AX.25 packet radio, including:

NinoTNC (see the section Latest SSB and FM modes - Improved Layer 2 Protocol with supplemental CRC. These are intended to work on SSB sideband channels or with Mic/Speaker connections on FM transceivers.)
Mercury Modem
Hush

Related - My Zero Retries Guide to Amateur Radio HF Data Communications was recently updated with some related information.

Graywolf - Modern APRS Station

Project by Chris Snell KN6TLO (? Pretty sure.):

Modern APRS station — software modem, digipeater, iGate, and web UI
Graywolf is a complete APRS station that replaces a hardware TNC with a software modem. Plug a radio into a USB sound card, install graywolf, and configure everything from your browser. No external sound card software, no config files to hand-edit — just a single binary and a web UI.
The dashboard shows real-time station status and a live packet feed
WHAT YOU CAN DO
Run a digipeater
Set up a fill-in or wide-area digipeater with WIDEn-N path handling, duplicate suppression, and cross-channel routing. Configurable rules let you control exactly what gets repeated.
Run an iGate
Bridge your local RF network to APRS-IS. Receive-only or bidirectional — gate RF packets to the internet and deliver APRS messages from the internet back to RF.
Beacon your position
Fixed station beacons, GPS-driven mobile trackers with SmartBeacon rate adaptation, APRS objects for repeaters or events, and custom status beacons.
Serve as a TNC
Expose KISS and AGWPE interfaces so other packet software (Xastir, YAAC, pinpoint, aprx, APRSdroid) can use graywolf as their modem over TCP, serial, or Bluetooth.
Combine everything
Run a digipeater, iGate, position beacon, and KISS server all at once on the same radio channel — or spread them across multiple channels and radios.

More technological innovation in Amateur Radio! Its interesting / reassuring for the future of Amateur Radio that there are folks like KN6TLO (and many others) who aren’t content with the status quo, same old, same old Amateur Radio paradigms and are willing to reimagine Amateur Radio technologies… even those that seem “static” like APRS.

New SCS PXdragon DR-9400 PACTOR Modem

(Link is to DX Engineering website)

Developed by SCS and distributed by WiMo, the PXdragon DR-9400 supports PACTOR-1/-2/-3 and PACTOR-4, Packet Radio and APRS with 1200 bps AFSK and 9600 bps G3RUH and Robust Packet Radio. Reception modes such as Weather-FAX (RX) and RTTY (RX) and an integrated PACTOR monitor expand the range of applications. Its compact design makes the DR-9400 ideal for stationary and portable operation—perfect for email messaging, file synchronization, telemetry, or APRS beaconing. Modern signal processing, versatile interfaces, and robust protocols make the PXdragon DR-9400 a reliable solution for data-oriented radio operation, even in poor propagation conditions.
…
SPECIFICATIONS SCS PXdragon DR-9400 PACTOR Modems
Supported Operating Modes:
PACTOR-1 / -2 / -3 / -4
PACTOR Monitor
Packet Radio (9k6 G3RUH, 1k2 AFSK)
Robust Packet Radio (RPR)
APRS (Automatic Beaconing)
Weather-FAX (Receive only)
RTTY (Receive only)

It’s encouraging that SCS supports Amateur Radio Packet Radio 1200 and 9600 bps in this latest generation of their Pactor modems.

My thanks to Brian O’Connor KA2CGB for mentioning this for inclusion in Zero Retries.

Stix Radio April Update

From Patreon email update and website:

Background:
At its core, the Radio is a handheld, Linux-based (Armbian) radio platform that blends analog VHF/UHF FM voice with LoRa data networking, GNSS and Wi-Fi connectivity. It’s designed to feel like a modern “smart walkie-talkie” — a decent hybrid between a classic handheld transceiver and a connected computing device.

… REV-C board spin. This includes:
Cleaning up the power architecture
Improving stability across the different voltage rails
Making sure everything behaves properly under load (especially RF + display + CPU all running together)
Given how complex this board is — with RF, audio, high-speed digital, and power all interacting — this kind of iteration is honestly expected. It’s much better to catch it now than later. I have always banked on at least 4 to 5 revisions as the bare minimum, so no drama.

This is a project worth following. The graphics (FT8, APRS) give some indication that beyond LoRa, there will be some built-in digital / data functionality on the VHF / UHF FM radio.

Reviving Teletext for Ham Radio > Hack the airwaves with some of the best tech of the 1980s

Stephen Cass KB1WNR in IEEE Spectrum:

Putting Teletext Back on the Air
I wanted to do something a little different. Inspired by how the BBC Micro co-opted teletext for its own purposes, I thought it might make a great radio protocol. In particular I thought it could be a digital counterpart to slow-scan television (SSTV).
SSTV is an analog method of transmitting pictures, typically including banners with ham-radio call signs and other messages. SSTV is fun, but, true to its name, it’s slow—the most popular protocols take a little under 2 minutes to send an image—and it can be tricky to get a complete picture with legible text. For that reason, SSTV images are often broadcast multiple times.
I decided to send the teletext using the AX.25 protocol, which encodes ones and zeros as audible tones. For VHF and UHF transmissions at a rate of 1,200 baud, it would take 11 seconds to send one teletext screen. Over HF bands, AX.25 data is normally sent at 300 baud, which would result in a still-acceptable 44 seconds per screen. When a teletext page is sent repeatedly, any missed or corrupted rows are filled in with new ones. So in a little over 2 minutes, I could send a screen three times over HF, and the receiver would automatically combine the data. I also wanted to build the system in Python for portability, with an editor for creating pages, an AX.25 encoder and decoder, and a monitor for displaying received images.
The reason why I hadn’t done this before was because it requires digesting the details of the AX.25 standard and teletext’s official spec, and then translating them into a suite of software, which I never seemed to have the time to do. So I tried an experiment within an experiment, and turned to vibe coding.
Despite the popularity of vibe coding with developers, I have reservations. Even if concerns about AI slop, the environment, and memory hoarding were not on the table, I would still worry about the reliance on centralized systems that vibe coding brings. The whole point of a DIY project is to, well, do it yourself. A DIY project lets you craft things for your own purposes, not just operate within someone else’s profit margins and policies.
Still, criticizing a technology from afar isn’t ideal, so I directed Anthropic’s Claude toward the AX.25 and teletext specs and told it what I wanted. After about 250,000 to 300,000 tokens and several nights of back and forth about bugs and features, I had the complete system running without writing a single line of code. Being honest with myself, I doubt this system—which I’m calling Spectel—would ever have come about without vibe coding.
But I didn’t learn anything new about how teletext works, and only a little bit more about AX.25. Updates are contingent on my paying Anthropic’s fees. So I remain deeply ambivalent about vibe coding. And one final test remains in any case: trying Spectel out on HF bands. Of course, that means I’ll need willing partners out in the ether. So if you’re a ham who’d like to help out, let me know in the comments below!

I knew of teletext and had even seen it in an expensive hotel room. It was indeed useful to get this stream of information available. I had no idea of the elegance and efficiency of Teletext that KB1WNR describes.

But I think that KB1WNR buries the lede about his experiment in Amateur Radio vibe coding software development… it worked! He started with an idea that he didn’t have the skills or knowledge to tackle entirely on his own. The idea wasn’t so compelling or universally useful that it justified devoting significant time and energy on his part, such as digesting the AX.25 and teletext specifications, or enlisting the help of others. Thus, on “hobby time”, using an AI assistant, he was able to develop a working system… again, from just an idea.

And, I think, writ large, unique new modes like this is going to be increasingly the norm in Amateur Radio. The nature of Amateur Radio encourages such experimentation. As KB1WMR proves out, vibe coding enables a person with some (perhaps minimal) some technical skill to create entirely new digital modes that can then (after being “documented publicly” per FCC Part 97 regulations) be used on Amateur Radio spectrum. While vibe coding might end up being expensive at the moment, surely the rapid evolution of AI technology - more efficient models, more capable hardware will render such hobby projects as unprofessional vibe coding, affordable on a hobby budget.

I was not able to find any public documentation of Spectel beyond this article, and thus I encouraged KB1WMR to do so in the comments section of the article. I also wasn’t able to find any direct contact info for KB1WMR, so apparently the comments section of the article is the only way to “contact” him.

My thanks to Bennett Z. Kobb AK4AV for mentioning this for inclusion in Zero Retries.

IEEE Spectrum’s Modern Amateur Radio Stories Archive

The preceding item is just the latest of a series of great treatments of Amateur Radio in IEEE Spectrum. Stories about Amateur Radio in IEEE Spectrum consistently portray Amateur Radio as relevant and interesting in the 21st century. I particularly appreciate these articles as explaining that Amateur Radio is useful to get hands-on experience with radio technology. These articles are always readable and interesting for IEEE Spectrum’s readership with an assumed technical background.

IEEE Spectrum articles tag: Amateur Radio

IEEE Spectrum articles tag: Ham Radio

Microwave Update 2026 in Rochester, NY is Open for Registrations

Email from Dave Carlson N2OA:

The Microwave Update conference for 2026 in Rochester, NY is open for registrations. We have a great lineup of speakers, a tour of the Antique Wireless Association (AWA) is available https://www.antiquewireless.org/homepage, and we should have some nice prizes. Presentations will be held at L3Harris.
https://microwaveupdate.org/MUD2026

I couldn’t (quickly) find a reference to what the primary activities are at the L3Harris facility near Rochester, New York, but I’m sure there’s ample Zero Retries Interesting activities there. Microwave Update is one of the great technical conferences in Amateur Radio, and definitely recommended if you’re interested in microwave communications in Amateur Radio.

Now mentioned in the latest update of Zero Retries Guide to Zero Retries Interesting Events.

SteppIR Resumes Sales to Amateur Radio

One time popup notification on https://consumer.steppir.com:

This is good news for Amateur Radio! I’m still in awe of SteppIR’s “mechanically tuned antennas”. I wouldn’t have imagined such an approach was viable until SteppIR proved out the concept.

Arcanum: ORI’s New Open Source Antenna Simulation Engine

Michelle Thompson W5NYV on the Open Research Institute web page:

…
The solution to these limitations exists. It is called the Conformal Method of Moments with Exact Kernel (CMoM). This approach replaces NEC-2’s straight-segment approximations with curved segments. The NEC-2 kernel is replaced with the full cylindrical surface integral. This means that we get more accurate modeling for exactly the antenna types that matter most to ORI’s work, such as ground station helices, compact loaded dipoles, loops, and arrays.
There is exactly one production software implementation of CMoM with exact kernel in the world. It is proprietary and the current price is $1599 USD per year for the license.
Until now, that has been the end of the story for anyone who needed high-fidelity curved-wire antenna modeling without a commercial license. We decided to do something about that. Arcanum changes things.
What Arcanum Is
Arcanum is ORI’s new open source CMoM antenna simulation engine. It is, to the best of our knowledge, the first open source implementation of the Conformal Method of Moments with Exact Kernel.
The name is intentional. An arcanum is hidden or secret knowledge. The mathematical techniques underlying CMoM have been in the academic literature for decades. Champagne, Williams, and Wilton described the curved-segment approach in 1992. This reference is listed in the Arcanum bibliography. We assemble these approaches into an accessible, open, community-owned tool. That is what we are building.
…

This is yet another interesting example of technological innovation (adjacent to) Amateur Radio. Given the increased interest within Amateur Radio about space communications, and ORI’s ongoing work in space communications, this ability to model antennas for ground station use more precisely will be highly useful.

The open source aspect of this system gets even more interesting when it can be used with an AI - imagine interactively modeling theoretical antenna designs.

My thanks to Amateur Radio Weekly Issue 417 for mentioning this.

QRX - APRS Missed Message Mailbox

New service for Amateur Radio APRS by Jesse Forkum N0JLF:

Q-code: “Wait / Stand by” — your messages are standing by.
Get started from any APRS radio or client
Send REG to QRX
That’s it. QRX will hold messages you miss while offline.
WHAT IS QRX?
QRX is a passive APRS message safety net. It monitors APRS-IS for messages addressed to your callsign, watches for acknowledgment, and stores any unacknowledged messages for later retrieval.
When you come back online (detected via position beacon), QRX notifies you of missed messages. Think of it as voicemail for APRS.
QRX never ACKs on your behalf, never retransmits messages, and never injects itself into the delivery path. It is purely an observer that catches what falls through the cracks.
HOW IT WORKS
Someone sends you an APRS message while your radio is off
QRX sees the message on APRS-IS, waits 5 minutes for your ACK
No ACK observed — QRX stores the message
You turn your radio on and beacon a position
QRX sees your beacon and sends you a notification
You send R to read messages one by one, like voicemail

There’s an unstated requirement that for QRX to work via radio that there must be an APRS (receive and transmit) Igate in your area.

My thanks to Amateur Radio Weekly Issue 417 for mentioning this.

New 2026 ITU Handbook on Amateur and Amateur-Satellite Services Released

Frank Karnauskas in ANS-109 AMSAT News Service Weekly Bulletins:

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has published the 2026 edition of the Handbook on Amateur and Amateur-Satellite Services . The updated reference provides comprehensive information on the amateur and amateur-satellite services, including relevant ITU regulatory texts, technical guidelines, and operational practices.
IARU President Tim Ellam, VE6SH/G4HUA, highlighted the handbook’s release, noting its value to national administrations, regulators, and amateur radio organizations worldwide. The document serves as an essential resource for anyone involved in frequency coordination, licensing, or satellite project planning.
The handbook is available for download free-of-charge at https://www.itu.int/pub/R-HDB-52-2026.

La Plata County Colorado Weather Radar

La Plata County has partnered with the Colorado Department of Local Affairs, the Colorado Water Conservation Board Water, and the Colorado Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management to acquire, install and operate a permanent weather radar station in southwest Colorado on land adjacent to the Durango-La Plata County Airport. The radar is locally owned by La Plata County.

This game-changer in preparedness for the region came on the heels of the 416 Fire in 2018 and the floods and mudslides that followed during annual monsoons. Relying on radar imagery from stations in Grand Junction, Albuquerque and Flagstaff – the closest radars until now - painted an incomplete picture of what was headed this way. This is because most of the storms that hit La Plata County and its surrounding areas form at or below 28,000 feet, which falls below eyeshot of those other radar stations.

The 416 Fire prompted a solution to this long-recognized gap in coverage, when the Colorado Department of Local Affairs extended a $1.7 million grant to fund a significant portion of the roughly $2.6 million project, with the remainder funded by La Plata County, Colorado Department of Transportation, Colorado Department of Natural Resources and other local partners pitching in for its operation and maintenance.

This is another example of (that I was unaware of), smaller scale weather RADAR systems to monitor weather conditions in local, rural areas not well covered by existing National Weather Service or urban weather RADAR systems.

My thanks to Chuck Kimball N0NHJ for mentioning this for inclusion in Zero Retries.

N0NHJ’s QRZ page is worth a look:

From 1998 through 2018 I completed 18 deployments in the Antarctic as a Satellite and Communications engineer. I worked at all three year round US Research stations…

First Computer Decoded Morse Code in 1975?

This was an interesting discussion I saw in passing about an Amateur Radio Operator’s involvement, including the Amateur Radio National Traffic System, in a US military project to automatically decode Morse Code transmissions via radio.

Jack Haverty on the Internet-history email list:

…
It started in 1963. In high school, I was interested in STEM (acronym not yet in existence though), had joined the school’s Radio Club, gotten a amateur radio (”ham”) license, and somehow gotten involved in something (in the US) called the National Traffic System (NTS - that acronym did exist).
NTS was a network. Actually an Internet. Actually a multi-technology Internet of interconnected networks. It had been evolving since shortly after World War II. Packets (think telegrams or emails) were transported around the world. There were LANs covering cities, Regional nets over the US, and gateways to nets covering other parts of the world. Even a TransContinentalCorps (TCC) that acted as a WAN.
I learned about all sorts of the technical mechanisms that operated inside the network: routing, flow control, addresses, error control, protocols for retransmissions, compression techniques, etc.
NTS typically carried messages such as Birthday Greetings, e.g., from a soldier stationed in Guantanamo Bay (address: “GITMO”) to a family member back home somewhere in the US. Although most of the distance was covered by radio, using Morse Code, the final link might use a different “LAN”, e.g., a telephone call or even simply driving to the house and delivering a piece of paper. NTS still operates today. More details at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Traffic_System if you’re curious.
When I was in Lick’s orbit at MIT, that experience made it easy for me to understand the ARPANET. Later also the Internet. Techniques were different but the problems remained the same.
At one point circa 1975, ARPA asked for our help with a critical DoD need. They wanted computers to be able decode hand-sent Morse code. No one ever explained exactly why to us tech grunts, but we knew Morse was being used by both the good and bad guys. The AI technology of the day was “Expert Systems”. We were tasked to use whatever we thought would help solve the problem.
That started a project which lasted several years, and produced a system which did about as well, possibly even better, than a human operator. From my high school experience, I acted as the “Expert”, and we had a series of staff and student projects to make the PDP-10 do the same things I had learned to do while participating in the radio network. ARPA was happy. DoD was happy. No ham operator could afford the millions of dollars to have their own PDP-10 system, but the government didn’t have that constraint.
The project even appeared in a 1990 Mitre report I think of as a compendium of “ARPA’s Greatest Hits”. See Chapter 22 of https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/ADA239925.pdf (FYI, ARPANET is Chapter 20 of same report).

Some Zero Retries Interesting Forums at Hamvention 2026 - NewTechHams

Spotted in passing browsing the Hamvention website:

Hackers in Amateur Radio
[Friday] Begin: 2:30 PM / End: 3:20 PM
Location: Room 4
Moderator: Jeremy Hong, KD8TUO
Join Jeremy Hong (KD8TUO), Ed Wilson (N2XDD), Arsenio Menendez (KN4OIH), Terry Schanno (NV0O) and Brian Raker (W4WWW) explore the overlap and coexistence of the amateur radio and hacker communities, and how each has influenced the other. We will discuss how modern tools and platforms like Software Defined Radio (SDR) and Meshtastic are enabling new experimentation, rapid prototyping, and open source collaboration in Amateur Radio. We will also highlight how hacker spaces and conferences are becoming major entry points into the hobby. Attendees can expect practical examples, community perspectives, and ideas for welcoming and collaborating across both worlds.

Radio Club of America - Youth Forum
[Saturday] Begin: 9:15 AM / End: 10:50 AM
Location: Room 3
Moderator: Jim Storms, AB8YK
Join Moderator Jim Storms and some impressive young hams. Webelos Scout Adam Grubb (KF8EKW) is currently building a 70cm EME station for his school science project. Carsten Glasbrenner’s (KQ4SJM) main interests are satellites and DIY projects, such as home brew antennas and simple soldering kits. Haley Pendell (KE2EVX) is active operating POTA, contesting with her radio club friends, and participating in nets, serving as net control for her local 2m net on Saturdays, and building DIY antennas. Maggie Dill (KR4FTN) is active in POTA activations and hosting nets on the local repeaters on her own.She has participated in Field Days and state QSO parties as an operator for the local Charlotte club(W4BFB) of which she is a member. She is sharpening her CW skills and can send/receive up to 25 WPM at the moment, and enjoys activating parks in CW.

Teaching a One-Day Tech Class
[Sunday] Begin: 10:25 AM / End: 11:25 AM
Location: Room 3
Moderator: Dan Romanchik, KB6NU
Join Dan Romanchik (KB6NU) of ARROW, and learn why is it important to teach ham radio classes. He will address why it is better to teach a one-day class instead of a traditional multi-session class, where can you hold the class, publicizing the class, possible fees, timing, teaching techniques, and student follow up.

It’s refreshing to see some attention paid to the particular issues in trying to reach out to NewTechHams at a high profile independent conference like Hamvention.

I’m in violent agreement with KB6NU about the value of a one-day class to reach NewTechHams - they often have enough general technical background to understand the basics of Amateur Radio, and can quickly self-educate on any sticking points they encounter.

AMSAT/TAPR Banquet to Feature Ray Roberge, WA1CYB, Update on AMSAT’s SDR Gen2

Also Zero Retries Interesting at Hamvention 2026, Frank Karnauskas in ANS-109 AMSAT News Service Weekly Bulletins:

Ray Roberge, WA1CYB, will be the speaker at the 17th annual AMSAT/TAPR Banquet. Roberge, a member of AMSAT’s Engineering team, will speak about progress on AMSAT’s SDR Gen2 project, including what it does and where it can be used.
AMSAT’s SDR Gen2 is a versatile, programmable GNU Radio transceiver/transponder designed for a 1U CubeSat footprint. The transceiver has 144 MHz – 6 GHz continuous coverage with 10 GHz coverage expected as well. The transceiver will support direct VHF, UHF, L, S, C, and X band operations in all modes – CW, SSB, FT8, NBFM, SSTV, FSTV, etc. and a downlink data rate of up to 1 MBps. This transceiver is being built to fly on GOLF and FoxPlus missions and will be both open source hardware and software.
The 17th annual AMSAT/TAPR Banquet will be held at the Kohler Presidential Banquet Center on Friday, May 15th at 18:30 EDT.

Learning more details about the AMSAT SDR Gen2 might be a reason to attend this event.

Brief Thought Experiment - SuperPeater Transmitter on 50-54 MHz @ 500 Watts

In researching the article on iShareRadio, I checked in on FlexRadio’s website and saw that “Aurora” which debuted at Hamvention 2025 as a prototype, is now a product line, beginning with the Aurora AU-510.

Recall that the signature feature of the Aurora is (up to) 500 watts output, and able to generate that power incredibly efficiently (uses Polar Modulation) from a standard 120 volt 15 amp circuit. 500 watts with no significant strain; the demo prototype at Hamvention 2025 was keyed down continuously and was barely warm to the touch.

One of the modes of the Aurora series is FM.

One of the frequency ranges of the Aurora series is 50-54 MHz.

50-54 MHz propagates really well. Recall that “Low VHF” was the preferred frequency range for wide area two way communications like the early California Highway Patrol.

So… what if an Aurora, operating at 500 watts, FM, on 50-54 MHz was the output of a cross band SuperPeater… Perhaps at 500 watts it’s a MegaPeater.

It might take a bit of persuasion at FlexRadio to create a new mode to transmit a 20 kHz bandwidth (max currently permitted on 50-54 MHz for US users) signal, but imagine that paired with the upcoming “Audio OFDM” modes.

50-54 MHz, especially at 500 watts, would be trivial to receive using a Raspberry Pi and Software Defined Receiver, as I envision in the SuperPeater concept.

Queue a certain iconic movie theme song; but fun food for thought…

Video - Groundbreaking Research Transmits Energy from Space to Earth

It puzzles me why this particular development is so “groundbreaking” as I recall that there have been many such (small scale, low power) demonstrations of microwave transmission of power from satellites to a receiver on Earth.

GuRu Wireless is the commercialization of this particular technology, and apparently it operates at 24 GHz. Power transfer via microwave radio is yet another “eventually critical” radio technology that’s going to need more technologists. It would be interesting to put a power transmitter in your backyard and have a drone staying on station a few hundred feet up, relaying… say, AREDN signals as part of the backchannel of your power beam to the drone. Or, I suppose the 160m fans would enjoy having a full wavelength 160m vertical antenna.

Video - FAST: China’s Radio Telescope Behemoth

Megaprojects YouTube channel:

AI-generated video summary :
Megaprojects explores the engineering ingenuity behind the 500-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope. This film details the decades-long development process, the unique active surface technology that enables precise sky tracking, and the significant social impact of creating a massive radio-quiet zone in Guizhou province.

Whatever the rivalries between China and the US, I’m proud, as a human interested in the furtherance of science and technology for humanity as a whole, especially in space, to celebrate the advances of science and space technology such as China’s Five-Hundred-Meter Aperture Spherical Telescope:

It has a novel design, using an active surface made of 4,500 metal panels which form a moving parabola shape in real time. The cabin containing the feed antenna, suspended on cables above the dish, can move automatically by using winches to steer the instrument to receive signals from different directions. It observes at wavelengths of 10 cm to 4.3 m.

Wow… a mechanically dynamic array antenna (on a massive scale)! I think that's a first (at least, I’ve never read of an equivalent antenna).

In my opinion, it was a tragedy for science and technology for humanity, and incredible short-sightedness (financially, and for scientific research, and for US science capability) that the US National Science Foundation allowed the Arecibo Observatory to deteriorate to the point of failure3. The loss of capabilities of Arecibo is a significant loss for US-based radio astronomy (and the occasional use for Amateur Radio).

But great for humanity and science that China has created this amazing capability! Perhaps China will want to increase interest Amateur Radio (and interest in radio technology, both China and worldwide) by “activating” the Five-Hundred-Meter Aperture Spherical Telescope for occasional Amateur Radio EME events.

Silent Keyboard - Jeff Mein KP3FT

KP3FT’s obituary was the first I’ve ever seen where involvement with Amateur Radio data communications was specifically mentioned:

Jeff was much more than a skilled operator; he was a visionary in his field. As a founding member of TPRFN, his influence is woven into the very fabric of the network. He was the creator of the “TPRFN” acronym-a name that now represents a growing community of operators dedicated to resilient, RF-based communication. His extensive knowledge of Packet Radio and his technical expertise were matched only by his willingness to help others. Throughout Central New York and far beyond, Jeff continually pushed the boundaries of what the hobby could achieve, always eager to mentor and support fellow operators. Jeff was also a member of the PR Digital Operators Group (PR DOG) out of Puerto Rico, where he worked alongside others as part of TPRFN to help ensure the island would never again experience the communication blackout devastation that followed Hurricane Maria. In addition, he was a member of the Eastnet Packet Radio Group.

This was especially poignant:

His “signal” will be greatly missed, but his legacy will continue to live on through every packet sent across the network he helped build.

KP3FT’s QRZ.com page has a lot of additional detail about his involvement, including more detailed mention of the Puerto Rico Digital Operator Group Services:

Member of the PRDOGS Packet Network . Check out their website, they have a large packet network spanning the island with many nodes. They are also part of TPRFN (see below for more info).

Our condolences to KP3FT’s family and his colleagues on TPRFN, Eastnet Packet Network, and PRDOGS.

Please direct comments / feedback about ZR > BEACON to the Zero Retries email list with the #ZR0248 hashtag.

Request To Send

By Steve Stroh N8GNJ

Editorial, Commentary, and Occasional Digressions

Updated - Zero Retries Guide to Amateur Radio HF Data Communications

Added mentions of the HF modes in NinoTNC, Hush new data mode, and VARAtrack as a use case.

Zero Retries Index for 2026 Issues

I’ve been intending to do this approximately forever, but there was aways something more pressing, or more usually, interesting to write about. Today I needed a “global” view of articles I’ve written in Zero Retries in 2026, and so I just sat down and got ‘er done.

Zero Retries Index 2026

It was reasonably easy and efficient to do this manually in less than one hour for 2026. For previous years with 50’ish issues each, would be a significant time sink. Now that I have a pattern / template, hopefully I can hand off generation of indexes for previous years over to an AI. Or perhaps it’s a rote task I can do in the evenings watching video entertainment.

Zero Retries Archive on DLARC Updated

The Zero Retries newsletter collection on DLARC is now mostly updated for most issues published in 2026. This is an archive of PDF versions of Zero Retries issues.

It won’t be up-to-the-latest-issue complete except around the end of the month or beginning of the month when I upload a month’s worth of PDF issues to DLARC’s Curator Kay Savetz K6KJN.

Could Be Worse… Could Be Raining

My favorite movie is Young Frankenstein, and one of my favorite quotes in that movie is the above. Click here to get the context. Generally… don’t jinx things like I did on Wednesday evening by considering this issue “complete”. (I’m not griping… just explaining how much interesting new stuff keeps occurring.)

I finished writing and proofreading this issue by the end of the day on Wednesday and queued it up for delivery at 15:30 Pacific on Friday as has always been my goal for publication. I dared hope that, for once in a great while, I was ahead of things and Zero Retries would go out as intended, and I could move on to other overdue writing tasks on the remainder of the week, including my presentation for LinuxFest Northwest on Sunday.

But… could be raining. When I opened my email on Thursday morning, there were no less than six great suggestions of Zero Retries Interesting items for inclusion in Zero Retries. All of them were relevant enough to merit inclusion in this issue, especially the lead story about MeshCore. I had an urgent article to write on Thursday, thus had to add all the new articles on Friday, which, of course, pushed the publication time a little past 15:30.

The word count of this issue on Wednesday evening was 8925. The final word count just prior to publication is 12517.

Weekends Are For Amateur Radio! LinuxFest Northwest 2026

This weekend is LinuxFest Northwest 2026 at Bellingham Technical College. LFNW is the highlight of the Bellingham techie social calendar. There used to be a few other techie events in the Bellingham area, but they’ve all faded out. LinuxFest Northwest also faded out, but it was revived with new energy by a team from Cascade Steam working with Bellingham Technical College to hold this beloved event. I’ve been attending LFNW literally for decades now. Coming to Bellingham every year for LFNW made us familiar with Bellingham and LFNW and the Bellingham techie community was a minor factor in Tina and my decision to relocate to Bellingham from the Seattle area.

I’ll be attending LFNW on Saturday. None of the Saturday presentations leap out at me, but I always manage to pick a few to attend that justify attending LFNW each year. A highlight of every LFNW is hearing John “maddog” Hall speak on… whatever. His topic for LFNW 2026:

Sovereignty
maddog travels around the world. More and more in various countries he hears the word “sovereignty”. Sovereignty, like the word “free” (as in Free Software) is often confusing.
Free Software is not just about the FreeDOM to do what you want with your software, but also about YOU having CONTROL of your software, and not some company or other person.
Today most people think of “Sovereignty” as having your data stored in your own country, under your country’s laws. But Sovereignty also means that YOU are the “sovereign”, YOU are the “king” (or queen) of your computer.
This talk will discuss the issues of sovereignty and how, through Free Software, Open Hardware, Open Data and the Internet you can regain control of your computing, and therefore your business and life.
Saturday, 09:30 - 10:00 in HC 108

It’s always a privilege to hear maddog speak - he’s like the beloved, whacky professor of Linux.

On Sunday, I’m doing a presentation:

Open Source and Linux in Amateur Radio
In many ways, Amateur Radio was the original open source community. Schematics and other aspects of amateur (as in non-professional) projects were shared freely. That open source ethos has continued to the present day, made even more impactful with the development of Software Defined Radio such as GNU Radio. The most impactful project for Amateur Radio at the moment is the Linux Handheld Transceiver (LinHT) which runs Linux and GNU Radio - shell into your portable radio!
Target Audience Techies that are curious about radio technology and want to go beyond using unlicensed spectrum.
Sunday, 11:20 - 11:50 in CC 235

I did a similar talk at LFNW in 2024 and I didn’t think it went well (no converts to Amateur Radio that I could tell). At LFNW 2025 I talked to a Linux fan who attended my 2024 presentation, and I told them I didn’t think it had gone well, so I didn’t submit a request to do a presentation. They said “Your talk was great! You realize that not only did you fill up every seat in the room, but there were people that wanted to attend but weren’t allowed to (overcrowd the room)?” I was humbled by their enthusiasm, so I’m going to do it again.

Hamvention Ho!

3 weeks until Hamvention 2026

2026-05-15 thru 17 in Xenia, Ohio, USA...
Zero Retries / DLARC booth 1506
in Building 1 / Maxim

Have a great weekend, all of you co-conspirators in Zero Retries Interesting Amateur Radio activities!

Please direct comments / feedback about Request To Send to the Zero Retries email list with the #ZR0248 hashtag.

73,

Steve N8GNJ

Closing Thanks

Numerous Annual and Monthly subscribers who also generously support Zero Retries financially!

You thousands of readers of Zero Retries without which there would be little point in publishing this newsletter.

The Usual Administrivia

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Fair Use - All excerpts from other authors or organizations, including images, are intended to be fair use and are fully attributed generally by author and link (URL).
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Zero Retries 0248 was published on 2026-04-24. This issue was 12517 words.

Footnotes For This Issue

To see the relevant sentence for the footnote, just click the footnote number.

I saw at least one reference / plaint that the zBitx software from HF Signals is “still 32 bit”.

xOTA - Summits On The Air, Parks on the Air, Whatevers on the Air…

There were numerous warning signs of impending failure of the Arecibo radio telescope, which were not acted upon.

Zero Retries 0247

Steve Stroh N8GNJ — Sat, 18 Apr 2026 05:07:41 GMT

Steve Stroh N8GNJ, Editor

Tina Stroh KD7WSF, Business / Conference Manager

Substack says this issue is too big for email clients. Thus, it might be easier to read in a web browser: https://www.zeroretries.org/p/zero-retries-0247.

It’s easy and free to subscribe for your own copy of Zero Retries every week:

VARA FM is Not an “Encrypted” Mode and is Legitimate and Legal for Use on Amateur Radio

In This Issue:

I-Frame

Paid Subscribers / Founding Members Update

More Widespread Use of OFDM in Amateur Radio VHF / UHF Data Communications is Imminent

Notable: Jim N1ADJ’s M17 Go Tools Project

I-Frame

By Steve Stroh N8GNJ

Brief notes about this issue of Zero Retries.

Paid Subscribers / Founding Members Update

My thanks to Prefers to Remain Anonymous 25 for renewing as an Annual Paid Subscriber (3rd year! to Zero Retries this past week!

Financial support from Zero Retries readers is a significant vote of support for the continued publication of Zero Retries.

Please direct comments / feedback about I-Frame to the Zero Retries email list with the #ZR0247 hashtag.

VARA FM is Not an “Encrypted” Mode and is Legitimate and Legal for Use on Amateur Radio

I discuss the significant accomplishment of developing an independent work-alike implementation of VARA FM in the following article.

Billy Penley KN4MKB’s article on his blog TheModernHam - Reverse Engineering VARA FM Part 1 – Connection Request, Legal Disclaimer and Reasoning makes a number of claims against the popular VARA FM data communications mode used on Amateur Radio VHF / UHF bands. Of course, every individual, and every Amateur Radio Operator, is entitled to express their opinion.

The overall tone of the first few paragraphs of KN4MKB’s article calls into question the “legitimacy” of being able to use VARA FM on Amateur Radio because the information VARA FM’s author has chosen to disclose is not sufficient to create an independent implementation (workalike / interoperable) application of VARA FM for the purpose of passively monitoring VARA FM transmissions.

I disagree with KN4MKB’s assertions that there was not “sufficient” information about VARA FM publicly disclosed by VARA FM’s author.

KN4MKB:

Thousands of amateur radio operators across the United States are using VARA FM, and VARA HF. This issue is that in the United States is that we also have an FCC regulation (FCC Part 97.309(a)(4))
An amateur station transmitting a RTTY or data emission using a digital code specified in this paragraph may use any technique whose technical characteristics have been documented publicly, such as CLOVER, G-TOR, or PacTOR, for the purpose of facilitating communications.
…
At what point between an undocumented frame structure, then XORing the frame bits, 2 different levels of encoding using data tables not viewable from disk(must be dumped from VARA as it is running), and then RNG based constellation mapping that can only be done when you seed the callsigns into a reverse engineered VB6 RNG algorithm do we say this isn’t publicly documented? You are going to keep using something like this, and shake your fist when someone says the word encryption? There is a reason nobody out there up until now has created a decoder for VARA data frames, and it’s not due to lack of trying. The details of this encoding/decoding is not documented anywhere. To me, there’s virtually no difference between that, and encryption itself.

KN4MKB’s assertions are only that - assertions / his interpretation / his personal opinions.

I posit that a reading of the exact wording of § 97.309 RTTY and data emission codes negates KN4MKB’s assertions about VARA FM:

… may use any technique…

… technical characteristics…

… documented publicly…

By the metric of the exact wording…

VARA FM’s author has used a technique…
With various technical characteristics…
That has been documented, publicly.

Whether a particular “data emission code” in use in (US) Amateur Radio is compliant with “documented, publicly”, rests solely with the FCC. Note that in 97.309 (b), if a “data emission code” is not sufficiently “documented, publicly”, there is a specific remedy:

When deemed necessary by a Regional Director to assure compliance with the FCC Rules, a station must:
(1) Cease the transmission using the unspecified digital code;
(2) Restrict transmissions of any digital code to the extent instructed;
(3) Maintain a record, convertible to the original information, of all digital communications transmitted.

§ 97.309 does not offer any specifics as to the degree of detail what must be documented, publicly to use a new “data emission code”.

§ 97.309 also does not offer any specifics about “publicly”. In the 2020s, it’s reasonable to consider “publicly” to be posted on a publicly accessible website. But in earlier eras, prior to the widespread availability of Internet access, “publicly” often meant publication in a magazine. Thus this flexility of “documented” being not specifically defined, and “publicly” not being specifically defined is, in my opinion, a net positive to Amateur Radio.

§ 97.309 is an Amateur Radio Superpower

I posit that being able to develop and use new “data emission codes” in Amateur Radio with the simple requirement to have (some) “documentation”, disclosed in some “public” manner, is effectively an Amateur Radio superpower.

Unlike other radio services that can make use of only those modes, modulations, systems, etc. that are specifically permitted in FCC regulations, Amateur Radio is unique that it can create new modes, modulations, systems, etc.

In the 2020s, this flexibility is going to become highly relevant in Amateur Radio as we begin to see the use of new modes, modulations, systems, etc. that are developed in whole or in part with the use of Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning. That’s because we humans won’t necessarily know how the AI developed such systems. Especially those of us who aren’t experts in developing new modes, modulations, systems, etc. But there are lots of us who have “ideas” that we’d like to experiment with, and asking an AI to develop such ideas is no different than working with a capable human to develop such systems. What we will be able to “document, publicly” is what AI (especially which version) was used, and what the prompt(s) were to guide the AI to develop the new mode. With the flexibility of “documented, publicly”, Amateur Radio is able to experiment, per…

§ 97.1 Basis and purpose.
The rules and regulations in this part are designed to provide an amateur radio service having a fundamental purpose as expressed in the following principles:
…
b) Continuation and extension of the amateur’s proven ability to contribute to the advancement of the radio art.
(c) Encouragement and improvement of the amateur service through rules which provide for advancing skills in both the communication and technical phases of the art.
…

KN4MKB’s Assertions Are a Slippery Slope

If KN4MKB’s assertions about VARA FM not disclosing sufficient technical detail, what does that say about the use of a number of popular modes, modulations, systems, etc. that also have not disclosed “sufficient technical detail”, such as:

Digital voice systems whose core technology is the use of the patented, proprietary, technology-not-publicly-disclosed AMBE vocoder? The AMBE vocoder is used in DMR, D-Star, System Fusion, P25, and other systems in wide use in Amateur Radio.
Pactor 4 is widely used in Amateur Radio for HF Winlink. It’s reliable and robust and provides high (for HF) data transfer rates. But the details of Pactor 4 are also proprietary, technology-not-publicly-disclosed.
LoRa is becoming widely used in Amateur Radio because it provides a robust, modulation that works amazingly well at low power levels and achieves surprising range at those low power levels. Generically, it is an implementation of Chirp Spread Spectrum (CSS), but the specific technical detail of LoRa is, again, proprietary, technology-not-publicly-disclosed.

Another instructive example of this slippery slope about asserting “not sufficient technical detail” disclosed is that the CLOVER mode, which specifically named in FCC Part § 97.309 has never had “sufficient technical detail” provided. I queried Claude AI for a (simplistic, potentially flawed) reality check:

Are there any “open” implementations of the CLOVER modulation technique for use on HF radio bands? Or, are the technical details of CLOVER considered proprietary, not disclosed publicly?

Claude AI’s response:

CLOVER is largely proprietary and closed, which has significantly limited its adoption and longevity. Here’s the situation:
What CLOVER is
CLOVER was developed by HAL Communications in the early 1990s (Bill Watkins, W5IYV, was the primary inventor)1. It uses a multi-tone PSK/AM hybrid modulation with adaptive rate control — quite sophisticated for its era. HAL sold dedicated hardware modems (the P-38, DSP-4100, etc.).
Proprietary status
The core CLOVER waveform and protocol details were never fully publicly documented in a way that enabled independent implementation. HAL held patents on the technique, and the technical specifications weren’t released as an open standard. This is in stark contrast to, say, PACTOR (where at least the lower modes had some documentation) or the various open modes like VARA, JS8, Winlink/ARDOP, etc.
Open implementations
As far as is publicly known: no open-source implementation of CLOVER exists. There have been no successful clean-room implementations that gained traction. The combination of patent protection (now likely expired, given the age) and lack of published specs meant nobody built one during the window when it was commercially relevant — and by the time patents would have expired, the mode had been eclipsed by newer digital modes.
Current status
HAL Communications appears to have ceased active development and sales of CLOVER hardware. The mode is essentially dead in practice. Most operators who cared about robust HF digital moved to PACTOR III/IV, or more recently to VARA HF (which is semi-open/free but not fully open-source either).
…
If you’re researching this for historical coverage, the ARRL’s QEX magazine had some early 1990s articles on CLOVER that are probably the most detailed public technical documentation available.

And… here we’re presented with a continuation of the slippery slope about what constitutes “disclosed, publicly”. While ARRL provides a reference page for CLOVER2 with some technical detail: https://www.arrl.org/clover, the technical detail that might be sufficient to be able to create an independent implementation of CLOVER is largely in the References articles. Some of the publications listed aren’t accessible at all - CQ Communications is out of business, and access to its magazines are in legal limbo. Does having published once in a magazine (that you can no longer access) count as “disclosed, publicly”? Past issues of QEX are only available to current (paid) members of ARRL. Does access to those issues of QEX by (paid) ARRL members, but not available to those who are not ARRL members count as “disclosed, publicly”?

Over time, Amateur Radio (and the radio technology industry in general) has developed “understanding” of how all of the above “work”… but that’s not the same as having all the technical details publicly disclosed for the purposes of developing independent workalike, interoperable systems to be able to monitor transmissions from these systems.

Want to Monitor? Just Buy a System.

But for anyone that wishes to do so, the simple expedient of buying a compatible system…

a DMR, D-Star, System Fusion, P25 radio that incorporates an AMBE vocoder,
a Pactor 4 modem,
a unit that incorporates a LoRa radio,
VARA FM and VARA HF software can be downloaded at no cost3.

provides a reasonable ability to monitor the usage of such systems on Amateur Radio spectrum. Including, if one is really motivated to monitor CLOVER transmissions, going to some trouble, of finding a used HAL Communications P-38 or DSP-4100 on eBay.

Conclusion

In the above, I am not positing that the author of VARA FM has disclosed a lot of technical details about VARA FM sufficient to allow other compatible, interoperable implementations to be created. That is not the case.

I am also not positing that the author of VARA FM didn’t make a number of technical choices in their implementation of VARA FM that are unexplained.

I conclude that that the author of VARA FM has met the letter of FCC § 97.309:

… technical characteristics have been documented publicly, …

because at least some technical characteristics have been documented publicly.

That is all that is required.

An individual Amateur Radio Operator’s opinion (whatever their background) of whether a particular system’s “technical characteristics have been documented publicly” adequately, or not adequately, are irrelevant. That is solely the FCC’s determination.

I further posit that this ambiguity provides a huge advantage to Amateur Radio.

The simple expedient of:

… technical characteristics have been documented publicly, …

allows the development of any new technology, system, modulation, etc. to be used on Amateur Radio spectrum.

Lastly, I offer this a straw man argument… imagine what the FCC would do if it wants to monitor a transmission from an Amateur Radio repeater that uses P25 technology.

Is the FCC going to attempt to create its own independent implementation of a P25 receive capability from “… technical characteristics have been documented publicly…?

Or is it just going to resort to the simpler, more practical expedient of purchasing a P25 radio and begin monitoring?

Please direct comments / feedback about this article to the Zero Retries email list with the #ZR0247 hashtag.

More Widespread Use of OFDM in Amateur Radio VHF / UHF Data Communications is Imminent

By Steve Stroh N8GNJ

Behind the scenes of some popular Amateur Radio modes, OFDM has been quietly emerging as a significant improvement in data communications in Amateur Radio. I predict that in 2026, OFDM will come out from behind the scenes to be more widely used (and recognized). OFDM will create new capabilities… and more capable data modes.

The first (that I’m aware of) and most widely known implementation of “Audio band Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM)”4 in Amateur Radio data communications, is VARA FM. With the use of “Audio OFDM”, VARA FM is robust, adaptable to varying conditions on the radio channel, and provides greater data rates than other technologies used on Amateur Radio such as Frequency Shift Keying (FSK).

Very tersely, OFDM divides a communications channel (either an audio channel, or a radio channel) into many subcarriers, and then operates each subcarrier as if it is an independent audio, or radio channel - boosting power for subcarriers that need it, “striping” data across multiple subcarriers with redundancy.

Various Implementations of OFDM in Amateur Radio

As far as I can (very inexpertly) determine, there was nothing unique about the way OFDM was applied in VARA FM. Thus it was possible for others to create audio band, or radio channel modes that incorporated OFDM. For example, the following modes also use OFDM techniques in dividing a channel into subcarriers:

MT63 text message / data mode
FreeDV digital voice mode
Ribbit text message mode
Mercury data mode
Hush data mode (added post publication)

VARA FM implements a number of other techniques besides OFDM to make it so effective as a data mode for VHF / UHF. Examples:

Channel sounding
Handshake between two stations to determine maximum common capabilities
Forward Error Correction (FEC)
“Upshift / Downshift” of speeds, modulations, etc. for reliability versus throughput

Thus it’s notable that Billy Penley KN4MKB, in an article on his blog TheModernHam - Reverse Engineering VARA FM Part 1 – Connection Request, Legal Disclaimer and Reasoning claims to have created an independent, interoperable equivalent of VARA FM:

At the point of writing, I have a fully functional modem that can complete a basic connection cycle with VARA FM. It can generate its own compatible frames, and decode the ones sent back from VARA FM as well. It lacks the automatic speed change based on SNR at this time.

A basic requirement of creating a independent, interoperable equivalent of VARA FM is to understand all the elements of VARA FM, and KN4MKB has done an admirable job of describing the basic functionality of VARA FM:

A high level overview of the VARA FM Program.
VARA at its core is a digital modem with Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiplexing (OFDM) with adaptive modulation, scaling from 4PSK up through 256QAM to achieve data rates from roughly 550 bps to over 25 kbps. VARA operates as a TCP server, listening on one port known as the “Control Port”, and another port known as the “Data Port” (8300, 8301 by default.) The modem handles all modulation, demodulation, error correction, and ARQ protocol internally.
The application seems to have been written in Visual Basic 6 by Jose Alberto Nieto Ros (EA5HVK).
The basic idea, is that an application (like Winlink Express) can simply connect to VARA port 8300, and setup some basic parameters (Listen callsign, connecting callsign, bandwidth mode etc. The application can start and stop connections by sending special commands to this port. Once connected, the application can then send data to the data port on 8301, and also read data from it as well. The great part is that the application doesn’t really need to know much about how the modem itself works. It just sends the connection request, (Or listens for one), and reacts with data meant for the other side.

KN4MKB goes on, at length to describe the inner workings of VARA FM. I hope that KN4MKB follows through in releasing his system. A system that provides equivalent features to VARA FM that is open source and thus can be ported to operate on Linux (especially on Linux systems such as Raspberry Pi 4 and 5) without the need for the “overhead” of operating VARA FM on a typical Windows system, would be welcome and highly useful.

But beyond the news about KN4MKB’s of a “VARA FM equivalent”, there’s other news about the use of OFDM in Amateur Radio.

NinoTNC Implementation of OFDM

Recall this Press Release from Alberta Digital Radio Communications Society (ADRCS):

Calgary, Alberta, January 30th 2026. The Society is pleased to announce that it is collaborating with the Terrestrial Amateur Radio Packet Network group (TARPN) to implement an audio band version of its OFDM technology in their Terminal Node Controller (TNC). “Adding the TNC rounds out the vision of the supernode that we presented at the Zero Retries Digital Conference last September and extends the functionality of the IP400 network to conventional radios on the 2M, 220 and 450 MHz bands, without any modifications”, says Martin Alcock, VE6VH, founder of the IP400 project. “Adding OFDM to our TNC gives us a higher speed mode than previously implemented and practical experience with OFDM”, says Nino Carrillo, KK4HEJ, creator of the TNC. Martin goes on to say “in addition it will give us access to proven KISS mode technology that will greatly enhance the utility of our existing nodes in delivering higher data rates for conventional packet radio applications on existing terrestrial networks”.

Although ADRCS / IP400 is working with KK4HEJ on “Audio OFDM”, their (hardware) implementations are different. IP400 describes their implementation as “Mode B”:

Mode B
Mode B is unique to the IP 400 project, to implement a higher speed data mode that interfaces to conventional radios, by providing a baseband (mic/speaker) connection to the radio. It achieves higher speeds using a technique known as OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing), also known to as LTE on the cellular band. This mode can be used with any existing radio or repeater in either the 144, 220, 440 or 902 MHz bands. Existing analog repeaters can be upgraded by adding of a small amount of hardware, and an audio path to existing AllStarLink systems are also supported with a custom audio driver.
The hardware for this mode employs a high end microcontroller and FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array), all of which are field upgradeable.

(That description, unique to the IP400 project, probably predates the decision to collaborate with KK4HEJ.)

Since then, I haven’t seen any (public) status reports from either IP400 or NinoTNC, but there apparently is considerable progress being made on both “sides”. But recently, there were some public updates on Discord.

I’m not a user of Discord, so I did not see this discussion for myself, but a number of screenshots were shared with me from the ninotnc Discord channel. The text in the screenshots were transcribed by Claude AI, and lightly edited for publication by me.

John N3XKD — Hey Nino, you don’t have any news on the IP400 collab, do you ?
Nino KK4HEJ — Sure do. We have been designing and testing OFDM waveforms that fit in a 3 kHz audio channel, that can be sent and received over an unmodified FM radio through the mic/speaker jacks. The 3kHz audio scheme uses 116 data carriers at about 22.7 symbols per second. Constellation complexities vary from BPSK to QAM256.
John N3XKD — So, What’s that translate to in throughput and what hardware-ish?
Nino KK4HEJ — We hope to realize around 18kbits/sec in an audio channel. Lots more in a wideband channel (like an FM radio with a data port). The IP400 project is building a daughter card that slots into the NinoTNC that carries an FPGA and STM32. But... I am getting more confident that I’ll be able to implement most of the audio channel capability in the dsPIC.
[scatter plot image — IQ constellation]
This is an actual over-the-air test of a QAM64 OFDM constellation that carries around 14kbits/sec. The transmit audio was fed into the mic port of an FTM-3100 and the receive audio was taken from the headphone jack of an IC-2000H. Processing was done on a computer. SNR in that I/Q plot measured at around 25dB, so almost a full-quieting FM signal.
Nino KK4HEJ — The heavy-hitter magic in this mode are the time-domain synchronization approach and the channel equalization scheme. The modem will be performing real-time channel estimation for each packet, which accounts for emphasis mismatch and timing offset errors.
John N3XKD — So, will there be a requirement for time sync ? frequency and phase ? Would you mind if I shared some of your info with the un-official IP400 discord ?
Nino KK4HEJ — Not in an external sense. The transmitter and receiver will be asynchronous. The decoding modem will be doing hard work to search for the sync preamble from the transmitting modem. Once that sync preamble is found, the decoding modem has a fairly large timing window to do the frequency-domain work.
John N3XKD — Ah ok, kinda like T1 timing, how you could time off of one end or the other
Nino KK4HEJ — I don’t mind, this is mostly written into the IP400 spec. I am not the IP400 communication lead, so I’m not sure what they are putting out. There are many modes encompassed in the IP400 project. We were calling this mode OFDM-AB at first (for audio-band), but I think it is called OFDM-B now.
John N3XKD — Yeah, looks like B.
…
John N3XKD — This is going to be essentially a KISS setup right ?
Nino KK4HEJ — There is a KISS mode in the IP400 architecture. The NinoTNC is a KISS device now and it will stay that way in the future. There are other interface methods with their supernode, but that’s outside of my scope.
John N3XKD — Yeah, it’s tough to follow the A and C modes, but this B mode is extremely interesting (edited) It’ll benefit TARPN big time Regular packet, you name it I have a pair of the dev radios and a pair of the Pi Zero hats for the A mode, just haven’t done much with them
Nino KK4HEJ — The B mode is what I care about the most, but we are moving so fast on the B mode that one of the other modes will be a high-speed mimic of it. Can’t remember if it’s A or C. One of those is 4FSK, the other is super-wideband OFDM.
John N3XKD — I ‘think’ A I think the super wide is the C I think the A is the one that’s being targeted to fit into the 70cm rules C is like 900 and up maybe, I ‘think’
Nino KK4HEJ — Ya, it’s a big project. To their credit, they are very focused on actual radio links. I only have enough capacity to keep focused on the B mode. This is the output of one of my python-based ofdm demodulator programs. The input was a wav file of audio recorded from a radio link. Top left you can see the channel magnitude response, bottom left is the phase response of the channel. The equalizer accounts for both, the red dots in the I/Q charts are the output of the equalizer. The grey dots in the I/Q charts are the unequalized samples. This is an early waveform, we have adjusted since, but demonstrates the capability of the equalizer pretty well.
[multi-panel chart image — channel magnitude, phase, and IQ symbol plots]
Tadd KA2DEW — This is incredible!

(I agree with KA2DEW!)

In addition to all of those implementations of OFDM, there is another promising implementation of OFDM in progress - Mesh Operations Protocol (MOP) in development by Stefaan Desmedt KO6IKR:

MODEM - OFDM modulation (4800 bps) / Direwolf / TCP Ether test

All of this development of OFDM is wonderful and welcome. Amateur Radio data communications on VHF / UHF has been hampered by limiting its interoperability to 1200 bps AFSK, and semi-interoperability of 9600 bps FSK, and widely varying implementations of other speeds, and modulation methods.

Yes, we’ve had and have…

25 kbps with VARA FM (proprietary, uses a wideband audio interface and radio with flat audio input / output)
56 kbps with the WA4DSY 56k modem (unique radio + transverter, open source)
128 kbps with the Icom DD mode (unique, proprietary mode, Icom radios only)
100 kbps - 1 Mbps with New Packet Radio (unique radios, open source)

But we’ve had frustratingly little that most people could actually use with their existing radios, other than VARA FM. Apparently in 2026, that will change!

Recounting, these are implementations of OFDM for use for Amateur Radio VHF / UHF intended as a data (file exchange) mode available or in development:

MT63
Mercury (currently targeted at HF, but not “restricted” to use on HF)
Hush (added post publication)
VARA FM
KN4MKB independent implementation of a “VARA FM Workalike”
IP400 “Mode B” by IP400 on IP400 hardware
IP400 “Mode B” by Nino Carrillo KK4HEJ for implementation on the NinoTNC
Mesh Operations Protocol (MOP)

The energy, creativity, and talent that is being applied to the above is exciting and encouraging. But I can foresee a looming… ~~problem~~ situation emerging.

Another Amateur Radio Tower of Babel - OFDM?

Of the OFDM implementations mentioned,

KN4MKB’s project is working to be interoperable with VARA FM.
IP400 and NinoTNC are working to be interoperable with each other.

That’s the extent of attempts at interoperability with these new implementations of OFDM in Amateur Radio.

Thus we might be on the cusp of creating a new Tower of Babel situation similar to what has occurred with Digital Voice systems used on Amateur Radio VHF / UHF - not interoperable, despite being very similar from a technical perspective.

It would be a shame if that same situation emerged with OFDM implementations in Amateur Radio such as a NinoTNC operating “Mode B” not being able to interoperate with a MOP node. Similar to the disparate Digital Voice modes, we would have “technical islands” of connectivity that couldn’t interoperate or network via radio.

Given that all of these modes are entirely software-defined, designed to work within the audio bandwidth of a typical Amateur Radio VHF / UHF transceiver, either with microphone / speaker connections or (works better / faster) with flat audio connections, it seems feasible that all of these OFDM implementations could work out interoperability details for the basic modulations. All of the other details about their various modes of operation - protocols, etc. could all be hashed out as “Protocol IDs”.

Yes, it’s going to be possible to “be compatible with any / all modes” with the capabilities of Software Defined Radios such as the LinHT… but there are going to be a lot of existing radios / modems that could be adapted to use these new “Audio OFDM” capabilities. Thus the best-case scenario would be if these Audio OFDM modes could be made interoperable. Or, at very minimum, recognize each other’s transmissions and thus sense an existing transmission in progress and avoid “doubling” with each other. This a real issue with 1200 bps AFSK and 9600 FSK packet radio not being able to share a channel because they cannot detect the other mode’s transmissions.

Perhaps, Some Coordination?

Thus, I suggest, again, the possibility of forming an organization modeled on my idea of the Amateur Radio Standards Organization (ARSO). It doesn’t have to be a formal, dedicated organization - it could be an ad-hoc assemblage of interested parties. I hope that such an organization / activity could be sponsored by an existing “parent” organization. I’ve done some outreach about that possibility… but have not received any encouraging responses.

Or perhaps I’m hopelessly out of date in this approach. Perhaps the necessary technical coordination could be hashed out with the interested parties showing up on the same Discord channel and hash out their respective code on a new Github repository.

I also offer the interested parties involved in the above a forum / presentation slot (panel discussion perhaps?) at Zero Retries Digital Conference 2026.

In any case, whatever the outcomes, 2026 promises to be a very interesting year for Technological Innovation in Amateur Radio.

Please direct comments / feedback about this article to the Zero Retries email list with the #ZR0247 hashtag.

ZR > BEACON

By Steve Stroh N8GNJ

Short mentions of Zero Retries Interesting items.

WSJT-X 3.0 Upgrade Is Significant

Tom Salzer KJ7T in Random Wire 178:

Here’s a rundown of what changed from WSJT-X 2.x to 3.0, released April 8, 2026. (Find WSJT-X on SourceForge.) When you upgrade, it’s good practice to back up your WSJT-X.ini and log — your settings should migrate (mine did), but better safe than sorry.

I had listed WSJT 3.0 as an item for inclusion in this issue’s ZR > BEACON, but when I opened Random Wire 178 Friday morning, candidly… KJ7T did a much better job of explaining the relevance of this upgrade than I was prepared to do in as a short mention in ZR > BEACON. Just click the headline to go directly to that article on Random Wire 178. Or, treat yourself to the entire issue - Random Wire 178.

Two Good Articles on M17 In Random Wire 178

Not to pile on too deep on Random Wire 178 and the KJ7T Admiration Society, but if you’re a fan of M17 and pressed for time, check out these two articles by KJ7T:

and

M17 Data Modes: The Sleeping Giant Wakes

I appreciate the excellent job that KJ7T is doing in following developments on M17.

Ham Radio History: How RTTY Became the First Mainstream Digital Data Mode

Mark Haverstock K8MSH on the On All Bands blog:

Radio Teletype (RTTY) became a popular digital mode in amateur radio through a mix of postwar circumstances, technical curiosity, and a group of operators who looked at a 180-pound machine and thought, “This would look cool in my radio room.” Its growth reflects both the experimental spirit of ham radio and the fact that, sometimes, if it makes noise, prints letters, and connects to a transmitter, hams will find a way to make it communicate with the world.
History of RTTY, Part 1
The origins of RTTY can be traced back to the late 19th and early 20th centuries with the invention of teleprinters, also known as teletypewriters. These machines sent typed text over wires using electrical signals encoded in standardized formats, such as the Baudot code. By the 1920s and 1930s, teleprinters were already well established in wireline communications, particularly for news agencies, government operations, and business.
However, early experiments in transmitting teleprinter signals over radio faced several challenges. Noisy radio frequencies were prone to interference, making reliable transmission of digital signals difficult. But soon, engineers discovered that frequency-shift keying (FSK)—a method where two distinct tones represent binary states—was particularly robust against noise. Instead of transmitting simple on/off signals (as in Morse code), RTTY used two tones to represent “mark” and “space,” corresponding to binary 1s and 0s. This made the system far more reliable over long distances and under poor propagation conditions.

This is a really good summation of the history of RTTY on Amateur Radio. One intermediate stage between the mechanical teletypes and personal computers was when microprocessors became widely available, companies like HAL Communications produced microprocessor-based RTTY modems / Terminal Unit (TU) (encoder, decoder). I remember one unit had the innovation of a parallel printer port that you could connect to a common dot matrix line printer which would then print everything received by the TU.

I’m surprised that K8MSH didn’t mention one of the most popular uses for RTTY - RTTY Art. Using the “nuances” of careful selection of characters, one could transmit images via RTTY. Calendars were popular, and some images were… “racy”.

I’ve found that www.rtty.com is a fantastic resource for all things Amateur Radio RTTY. Whenever I’ve done a web lookup for something relating to Amateur Radio RTTY, I seem to get directed to some corner of that site.

My thanks to Amateur Radio Weekly, Issue 416 for the first mention I saw of this article.

Stealth Signals Are Bypassing Iran’s Internet Blackout

Evan Alireza Firoozi in IEEE Spectrum:

…
Thirteen days into the January shutdown, we at NetFreedom Pioneers (NFP) turned to a system we had built for exactly this kind of moment—one that sends files over ordinary satellite TV signals. During the national information vacuum, our technology, called Toosheh, delivered real-time updates into Iran, offering a lifeline to millions starved of trusted information.
…
Satellite TV uses a file system called an MPEG transport stream that allows multiple audio, video, or data layers to be packaged into a single stream file. When you tune in to a satellite channel and select an audio option or closed captions, you’re accessing data stored in different parts of this stream. The NFP team’s insight was that, by piggybacking on one of these layers, Toosheh could send an MPEG stream that included documents, videos, and more.
…
A satellite receiver can’t tell the difference between our data and normal satellite audio and video data since it only “sees” the MPEG streams, not what’s encoded on them. This means the data can be downloaded and read, watched, and saved on local devices such as computers, smartphones, or storage devices. What’s more, the system is entirely private: No one can detect whether someone has received data through Toosheh; there are no traceable logs of user activity.
…
NFP’s solution was to add redundancy, similar in principle to a data-storage technique called RAID (redundant array of independent disks). Instead of sending each piece of data once, we send extra information that allows missing or corrupted packets to be reconstructed. Under normal circumstances, we often use 5 percent of our bandwidth for this redundancy. During periods of active jamming, we increase that to as much as 25 to 30 percent, improving the chances that users can recover complete files despite interference.

This is a fascinating article about this technique of repurposing a bitstream designed for one use case to transfer files. This overall idea, transmitting bulletin files5 is a technology that has been little-used (that I’m aware of). My favorite implementation of this idea is flamp - Amateur Multicast Protocol. flamp (and an earlier implementation of this idea, RadioMirror) divides a collection of files to be transmitted into blocks. All of the blocks are transmitted sequentially with a sequence number and checksum. The flamp receiver is passive - there’s no ARQ (Automatic Retry Request) mechanism. If a block is received with an incorrect checksum, the file isn’t reassembled until a block with the correct checksum is received. I think this system could be made even better with the IL2P Forward Error Correction system that’s now available as open source. When I finally get a test repeater on the air, this will be one of my use cases for the repeater - transmitting bulletin files, using flamp, in the wee hours.

This system is potentially useful for Amateur Radio because of the idea that is periodically floated about “what if Amateur Radio could obtain the use of a transponder on a geostationary satellite”? This system could be used with no changes in the “video” paradigm of the uplink and satellite infrastructure, unlike the unique uplink and receiver hardware that Outernet / Othernet system / service 6 required.

Use of a geostationary (GEO) satellite transponder by Amateur Radio isn’t an absurd idea given the increasing irrelevance of the two primary uses of transponders on GEO satellites - broadband Internet access (Starlink has almost entirely killed that business model) and Direct Broadcast Satellite (“cable television via satellite) (also killed by Starlink customers using streaming video). Thus there might be “deals” available for the use of entire transponders or sharing the use of a transponder in the wee hours.

Fixing Baltimore’s Unequal Weather Data Coverage

Rebecca Owen on EOS:

Waugh et al. describe a partnership between universities, state agencies, and Baltimore residents to build the Baltimore Community Weather Network (BCWN) that addresses the missing data coverage around the city. Unlike the patchwork of personal weather stations, community members participating in the BCWN are from underserved areas in the city and are actively involved in data collection and interpretation.
Weather stations are placed in open spaces to avoid obstacles like buildings or trees affecting measurements of temperature, rainfall, or wind. This careful placement is designed to ensure that the data collected are as close as possible to the conditions experienced by actual residents.
BCWN sites are carefully monitored and managed by community members. Baltimore residents are actively involved in data collection, weather station management, and decisionmaking with scientists and local organizations to help promote engagement, education, and community empowerment.

Group Seeks to Close RADAR Gap with Hays Community Radar Project

Cristina Janney in Hays Post:

The Hays Community Radar Project is seeking to raise $360,000 to purchase and install a Furuno dual-polarity Doppler weather radar to cover Hays and the surrounding area.
This initiative aims to eliminate a dangerous blind spot in Kansas weather coverage. Because the nearest National Weather Service radar is in Dodge City, the Earth’s natural curvature creates a beam overshoot problem.
The radar beam from Dodge City travels upward as it moves away from the source. By the time it reaches Hays, the bottom of the beam is at about 6,000 to 7,000 feet.
“Because the NWS beam travels in a straight line, it is over 7,000 feet over our heads in Hays,” said Dr. Kendall Krug, a board member at STEM Harvest and a member of the local amateur radio club.
“Most severe weather events, like developing tornadoes, microbursts and low-level wind shear, typically occur below 7,000, and can go completely undetected,”

I was not aware that purchasing and operating a weather RADAR was even a possibility on the scale of a small community.

Taken together, these two developments are yet more ways in which that radio technology can be used in community settings and operated by technically interested community members. Like community FM radio stations, “professional quality” weather stations, and now apparently weather RADAR can be financed by small communities, and operated by community members. In my previous career, another example of community technology infrastructure was the construction and operation of Wireless Broadband Internet Access systems using unlicensed spectrum. Such systems are even more feasible using Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) spectrum and systems. Another community infrastructure system could be one or more GMRS repeaters that are used for Skywarn storm spotting.

While none of these systems use Amateur Radio spectrum (and thus supporters are not required to be licensed), participation of Amateur Radio Operators who have hands-on experience with radio technology would be an invaluable contribution to the effective operation of such systems in small communities.

FCC Reviews Growing Space Sector’s Need For Spectrum

Amateur Radio Newsline Report 2528 for Friday, April 10th, 2026:

STEPHEN/ANCHOR: We begin this week in Washington, D.C. An official posting on the website of the Federal Communications Commission refers to potential new spectrum users as - and this is their terminology - “weird space stuff.” Kent Peterson KCØDGY explains what’s going on.
KENT: Expecting that orbital laboratories, inhabitable spacecraft, in-space repairs and many other related uses are going to have a need for greater access to the RF spectrum, the Federal Communications Commission is seeking comment on ways to make that happen. The agency voted last month to address new ways to support tracking, telemetry and command for a variety of on-the-horizon initiatives.
The FCC published the proceeding on its website, referring to the uses as [quote] “weird space stuff.” [endquote] The agency said that the proposed rulemaking is part of a larger effort to modernize policies in support of the quickly growing space sector. It encouraged comments in particular from companies involved in different aspects of lunar missions, satellite-servicing or related operations.
One of the potential frequency ranges referenced in the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking is frequency range 2305 MHz to 2315 MHz, which overlaps part of the amateur radio allocation on 13cm. The proposal is Docket Number 26-54.
This is Kent Peterson KCØDGY.
(FCC)

No joke - the formal title of this FCC posting is Spectrum Abundance for Weird Space Stuff. From the PDF:

FCC FACT SHEET*
Spectrum Abundance for Weird Space Stuff
Notice of Proposed Rulemaking – SB Docket No. 26-54
Background: In this Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM), the Federal Communications Commission (Commission) looks to bring spectrum abundance for emergent space activities. “Emergent” or “emergent space operations” are those spacecraft or commercial operations in space that use radio spectrum for control of, or communications with, a spacecraft, but which are not communications satellites. Currently there is an acute shortage of usable and readily accessible spectrum for telemetry, tracking and command (TT&C) functions that are essential for operating emergent spacecraft. Accordingly, the NPRM seeks to clarify and expand the Commission’s traditional regulatory classifications so that emergent space operations have more predictable access to spectrum. Additionally, the NPRM proposes to add a secondary allocation for the Space Operation Service (SOS) in spectrum bands that could support emergent space activities, particularly in frequency bands allocated for non-Federal use that may be lightly used in certain geographic areas. The NPRM also proposes to allow existing licensees to lease their spectrum to earth station licensees to provide SOS in connection with emergent spacecraft.
What the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking Would Do:
Seek comment on how to provide regulatory clarity and to leverage existing spectrum allocation to support emergent space operations.
Seek comment on codifying the use of frequency “piggybacking.”
Seek comment on permitting TT&C operations in FSS bands where TT&C may already be provided within the radiocommunication service.
Seek comment on a potential interpretation of TT&C definitions.
Propose to add an allocation for SOS (Earth-to-space) in the 2320-2345 MHz band and permit a version of de facto spectrum leasing in that band to earth station licensees and ask whether to extend this proposed framework to nearby bands, such as the 2305-2315 MHz and 2350-2360 MHz bands.
Seek comment on whether other satellite operators should be authorized by rule to use their FCC-licensed satellites and intersatellite links to provide TT&C and data downlinks to emergent spacecraft.

This constant jockeying for dedicated spectrum allocations for space use reminds me of the era before the consolidation of many disparate portions of spectrum allocations rolled up into national mobile networks. One approach to meet the need for “launch communications” that seems more reasonable to me is the creation of a network of satellites specifically for spaceflight support. “Weird Space Stuff” could use such a satellite network at lower cost and much less effort (and expense, and complexity) than trying to establish unique spectrum, unique network of ground stations, etc.

NASA pioneered this approach with its Tracking and Data Relay Satellites (TDRS) system. More recently, SpaceX has demonstrated the feasibility of this idea with various SpaceX launches downlinking video and telemetry via Starlink satellites. Maybe Amazon with its history of building “sold as a service” infrastructure might consider providing such services with their nascent Leo service that’s currently being built.

Another potential solution to this issue is to begin using “cognitive radios” in such circumstances that can detect moment by moment usage of existing portions of spectrum and “identify, use, and vacate” for each transmission. Honestly, the unique capability of ka9q-radio to “listen to all channels, simultaneously” is an absolute game changer for radio communications. You no longer have to allocate unique portions of spectrum to dedicated tasks “so you know where to listen”. If “Weird Space Stuff Launch 7825” needs to transmit telemetry, it identifies a portion of spectrum that seems clear for a data burst and transmits it. The ground station, being able to “receive every channel” is monitoring every potential portion of spectrum for a telemetry transmission, and thus receives the telemetry transmission of “Weird Space Stuff Launch 7825” with no issue.

ARDC is Hiring: Software Developer (PT Contract)

Editor’s Note - I ran this item several weeks ago and I was asked by ARDC to run it again. I’m happy to oblige!

ARDC seeks a mid-to-senior-level Software Developer to work with our staff on a contract basis. The role will support ongoing development of our 44Net program services, and potentially other related Free Software projects. An ideal candidate will be active in Free and Open technology communities – particularly those related to amateur radio, digital communications science, F/OSS development, and DIY culture.

ARDC is Hiring: Technical Writer (PT Contract):

ARDC seeks a Technical Writer to work with our staff on a contract basis. The role will support ongoing development of our 44Net program, and potentially other technical publishing activities. An ideal candidate will be active in Free and Open technology communities – particularly those related to amateur radio, digital communications science, F/OSS development, and DIY culture.

I’ve been involved previously, and currently, as a volunteer for ARDC. In my experience, they’re good folks to work with, and for, doing important and relevant work in Amateur Radio and adjacent areas such as open source development.

Thus I endorse and recommend these positions and ARDC as a whole.

Tuscon Amateur Packet Radio TNC Radionics Micro Processor RARE!

Ebay listing:

The Tuscon Amateur Radio TNC Radionics Micro Processor is a rare and unique item for ham radio enthusiasts. This micro processor is designed to enhance the performance of ham radio receivers, allowing users to achieve more precise and reliable communication. With its advanced technology and specialized functions, this TNC Radionics Micro Processor is a valuable addition to any amateur radio setup, offering improved signal stability and clarity for a superior listening experience.
Buy it now: $250

This unit is a TAPR Terminal Node Controller (TNC) - later renamed the TNC-1.

Superior listening experience… 😆 Can’t make this stuff up.

Please direct comments / feedback about ZR > BEACON to the Zero Retries email list with the #ZR0247 hashtag.

Request To Send

By Steve Stroh N8GNJ

Editorial, Commentary, and Occasional Digressions

Pressures of a Weekly Newsletter

One (of many) limitations of Zero Retries as a weekly newsletter, is that there are weeks that timeliness trumps completeness. In this case, my being a part time writer / Editor (with other things competing for my time during the week), and the desire to get the two stories in this issue published while they’re still timely, conflicts with doing a more complete treatment the subjects of those stories. Ideally I could have (and, arguably, should have) contacted Billy Penley KN4MKB and Nino Carrillo KK4HEJ for their direct perspectives on the stories I wrote in this issue of Zero Retries about their projects.

Thus, sometimes I envy the longer development / editing / production cycle of a magazine format with much longer lead times.

But in the end, I felt that Zero Retries readers were better served by discussing these two developments, in a timely manner, from my perspective. KN4MKB laid out his position very well on his blog, and KK4HEJ has chosen, to date, not to mention anything about his project beyond the brief mention on Discord.

Both of these projects will be much more widely exposed in the months to come so they’ll get ample publicity. Thus I view Zero Retries role, at this stage, is to make more people aware of the exciting potential of these two projects, and the changes they presage in Amateur Radio data communications… and their contributions to Technological Innovation in Amateur Radio.

Focus is the Tradeoff For Keeping Up With Technological Innovation in Amateur Radio

There’s an old (old) joke:

A pedestrian on 57th Street sees a musician getting out of a cab and asks, “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?” Without pause, the artist replies wearily, “Practice.”

So how does one keep up with the amazing, seemingly more, and more interesting, by the month firehose of technological innovation in Amateur Radio?

This Editor replies, wearily, “Focus”.

Really! No one has the bandwidth to keep up with literally hundreds of Amateur Radio (and adjacent fields) innovators that are pushing out technological innovations by the month. I certainly don’t7. It’s not your imagination. The more technological innovation I find and try to feature here in Zero Retries … the more I find. The discovery of one technological innovation leads to another. It never ends. It’s a (joyful, and endlessly fascinating) positive feedback loop.

The only way I know of to truly keep up with technological innovation in Amateur Radio is to restrict one’s focus to what you’re most interested in and what you’re most passionate about.

My favorite example of such focus is the (Digital) Amateur Television folks. Despite that their preferred mode is fundamentally a steam of digital bits, to them, DATV is about realtime image communications. The digital / data aspect of Digital Amateur Television (DATV) is entirely secondary to them having fun with building equipment for and communicating with their buddies with realtime image communications via Amateur Radio. That they could be accomplishing the same thing, perhaps more flexibly, perhaps in a more modern context, by videoconferencing over a data network via Amateur Radio (like AREDN) isn’t of interest to them. They like DATV, not data communications. Thus to keep having fun, the DATV folks exercise an admirable focus on their preferred mode, paying attention to the innovations that occur in relation to DATV - new equipment, new techniques, etc.

If you’re interested in Amateur Television, the best way to keep up to date is to request to be added to the great Amateur Television Journal newsletter edited by Jim Andrews KH6HTV: https://kh6htv.com/newsletter/. You might think that it’s a “local” newsletter, and it covers the activity in the Boulder, Colorado area well, but it also reports on many other areas, including some international activity. Highly recommended!

That… and if there’s something interesting happening that you’re a fan of, like DATV, and there’s a group doing the fun things like DATV that you enjoy hearing about and want to enjoy too, find a way to help support them with participation, encouragement, spreading the word, and perhaps financial support.

Hamvention Ho!

4 weeks until Hamvention 2026
in Xenia, Ohio, USA...
Zero Retries / DLARC booth 1506
in Building 1 / Maxim

Weekends Are For Amateur Radio!

The priority this weekend for me is to dust off some vintage TNCs out of the collection(s) of N8GNJ / Zero Retries Labs for a promised demonstration of vintage (but recent memory, to me) Amateur Radio Packet Radio data communications.

And I really have to get that MeshCore node on the air!

Have a great weekend, all of you co-conspirators in Zero Retries Interesting Amateur Radio activities!

Please direct comments / feedback about Request To Send to the Zero Retries email list with the #ZR0247 hashtag.

73,

Steve N8GNJ

Closing Thanks

Numerous Annual and Monthly subscribers who also generously support Zero Retries financially!

You thousands of readers of Zero Retries without which there would be little point in publishing this newsletter.

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This issue, Zero Retries 0247, was published on 2026-04-17. This issue was 9296 words.

(end)

Footnotes For This Issue

To see the relevant sentence for the footnote, just click the footnote number.

This reference isn’t correct. I met Ray Petit W7GHM who stated that he was the inventor of CLOVER. Additional reference.

No explanation provided for the context of this page (or that section, listing a very incomplete list of data modes used on Amateur Radio spectrum).

VARA FM and VARA HF require license key (fee is $69) which provides full functionality (full speed tiers).

Audio OFDM is OFDM technology applied to the audio bandwidth of a conventional radio.

In Amateur Radio, broadcasting is prohibited, but transmission of “bulletins” is encouraged. Thus we try not to say the “B” word.

Apparently Othernet is now out of business. Bummer.

One of the sadder realizations with Zero Retries is that I can’t do it all. I can’t keep writing Zero Retries on a weekly basis, at a level of quality and quantity that I can feel proud of… and be able to spend entire weekends and evenings noodling around in N8GNJ / Zero Retries Labs. Something has to give, and for the moment, that’s the latter in favor of the former. That’s a conscious choice.

Zero Retries 0246

Steve Stroh N8GNJ — Sat, 11 Apr 2026 03:37:14 GMT

Steve Stroh N8GNJ, Editor

Tina Stroh KD7WSF, Business / Conference Manager

Substack says this issue is too big for email apps.Thus, it might be easier to read in a web browser - https://www.zeroretries.org/p/zero-retries-0246

It’s easy and free to subscribe for your own copy of Zero Retries every week:

In This Issue:

I-Frame

What’s New at Digital Library of Amateur Radio & Communications - April 2026
By Kay Savetz K6KJN

https://archive.org/details/cq-amateur-radio?sort=date

I-Frame

By Steve Stroh N8GNJ

Brief notes about this issue of Zero Retries.

Paid Subscribers / Founding Members Update

My thanks to Tom Nolan W3EX for renewing as an Annual Paid Subscriber to Zero Retries this past week!

My thanks to Prefers to Remain Anonymous 67 for renewing as an Annual Paid Subscriber to Zero Retries this past week!

My thanks to Jake Steijn KK7HAQ for upgrading from a free subscriber to Zero Retries to an Annual Paid Subscriber this past week!

KK7HAQ included this nice note:
I’ve been reading you for a couple of years, if I recall right. Good stuff and you deserve at least a little support.

My thanks to Prefers to Remain Anonymous 124 for becoming a new Annual Paid Subscriber to Zero Retries this past week!

Financial support from Zero Retries readers is a significant vote of support for the continued publication of Zero Retries.

MoonRF Quad Likely Priced at $399, Not $2k

In Zero Retries 0245, open.space - Moon Launch Update! I speculated that the cost of a MoonRF Quad tile (4 units) could be priced at $2,000. I don’t remember why I offered that (totally unfounded) guess of that price point. Turns out I was way off (5x too high). I added this to the article:

Post Publication Update: Email from Martin McCormick K1MCC:
The QuadRF [kit] is likely to be $399, not $2000.
Wow. Just… Wow. That’s an incredibly reasonable price point.

I’m really looking forward to MoonRF’s crowdfunding campaign, not so much for being able to put a phased array 5 GHz antenna to immediate use… but I really want to vote with my wallet to help encourage the emergence of this technology into Amateur Radio.

Please direct comments / feedback about I-Frame to the Zero Retries email list with the #ZR0246 hashtag.

What’s New at Digital Library of Amateur Radio & Communications - April 2026

By Kay Savetz K6KJN

Greetings from DLARC World Headquarters in sunny Oregon, where I am thrilled to announce that the DLARC free online ham radio library now has a selection of the “big three” American amateur radio magazines: CQ, QST, and 73.

Here’s the TL;DR: we have every issue of 73 Amateur Radio (516 issues published from 1960-2003), 530 issues of QST from its founding in 1915 through 1961, and now 199 issues of CQ Magazine published from 1946 through 1963! The “big three” U.S. amateur radio magazines.

The non-TL;DR “give me more information!” version is that DLARC is now home to those 199 issues of CQ Amateur Radio Magazine, published from 1946 through the end of 1963. The pre-1964 issues have fallen into the public domain, so they’re available for us all to read and use.

CQ’s final issue was published in October 2023, and publisher Dick Ross (K2MGA) died a few months later. The legal status of CQ Magazine is in flux. I’m not sure anyone knows yet what will happen to the material published from 1964 through 2023 — but having access to the first nearly two decades of the magazine is huge news. Many of the issues came to DLARC via the SPARK Museum of Electrical Invention, and some scans came from the University of Illinois Chicago.

But there’s still work to be done: CQ magazine launched in 1945. DLARC doesn’t yet have January 1945 (volume 1 number 1) through March 1946 (volume 2 number 3), most of volume 3, and a smattering of issues in volumes 4, 11, and 12. Those are now in the DLARC Wantlist.

I’ve told the story of 73 here a few times: before Wayne Green (publisher of 73) died, he contributed a complete set of the magazine to Internet Archive and asked that they be made freely available. That collection was just about the first thing I added to DLARC when the project launched.

The last of the big three, arguably the best known, is QST, which has been published by the ARRL since 1915. The ARRL is a member organization, and they work hard to create great information exclusively for their members, which is 1000% their right and privilege. Like CQ, the oldest issues are old enough to be in the public domain, which means the 530 issues published before 1962 are here to enjoy. (When you click the link, you’ll see something like 609 results. Some of those are indexes, not issues. Indexes are available all the way through 2001.)

There’s more in the works (soon!) for DLARC. I’m preparing a post for the Internet Archive blog for World Amateur Radio Day, April 18, that will announce the other new stuff. In the meantime, there are plenty of ham radio magazines to keep you busy.

Digital Library of Amateur Radio & Communications is funded by a generous grant from Amateur Radio Digital Communications (ARDC) to create a free digital library for the radio community, researchers, educators, and students. If you have questions about the project or material to contribute, contact me at kay@archive.org.

…

Editor’s Note - Just a reminder that K6KJN will be representing DLARC at Hamvention 2026 in Xenia, Ohio - 2026-05-15 thru 17. Stop by at booth 1506 in Building 1 / Maxim to say Hi.

Post Publication Update - My article published in ZR 246 just yesterday is already obsolete. Thanks to Daniel Bateman at hamcall.net who filled in the gaps in our collection, DLARC now has a complete set of CQ Magazine from its launch in 1945 through the end of 1963.

Please direct comments / feedback about this article to the Zero Retries email list with the #ZR0246 hashtag.

ZR > BEACON

By Steve Stroh N8GNJ

Short mentions of Zero Retries Interesting items.

MOP - It’s (Web Page) is Back!

In Zero Retries 0239, I wrote (admittedly a bit gushingly) about Mesh Operations Protocol (MOP):

I could try to explain this, but the web page linked in the title is an absolute marvel of self-explanation. It’s really amazing! Scroll down to see the sections Live Network Simulation, Cross-Country Delivery, and MOP vs. The Rest. Read those, and you’re up to speed on the ideas of MOP.

But MOP’s developer, Stefaan Desmet KO6IKR, wasn’t (then) quite ready for MOP to be publicly known (he deliberately had not publicized it). My mention of the website in Zero Retries 0239 resulted in a rush of questions he wasn’t quite ready for, and K06IKR took the MOP website offline. I wasn’t smart enough (then) to have “snapshotted it” to Internet Archive Wayback Machine. I was bummed! But after some encouragement, K06IKR has put the MOP website - https://smasher.be/mop/ back online. And, yes, with a snapshot of it into the Wayback Machine for posterity.

Although it was then, and currently is, a concept / project in development by KO6IKR, it represents one of the best scoped set of ideas / concept / plans of a mesh network for operation on VHF / UHF bands.

A decentralized mesh network for amateur radio.
No sessions. No hubs. No closed-source software.
Just datagrams and beacons — short, efficient bursts.
…
VALIDATE
Integrity & Origin ID (Open)
Each message includes an open, non-obscuring integrity tag that lets receivers verify origin and detect tampering or corruption. Message contents remain readable to any receiving station in compliance with FCC Part 97.
ROUTE
Beacon-Driven Discovery
Gateways beacon every 10 min, relays every 15 min. Route knowledge ripples outward through re-broadcasts. No central directory — your routing table builds itself from what you hear.
ACCESS
CSMA/CA with Exponential Backoff
Listen before talk. If channel is busy, defer. Random backoff avoids collisions between stations that were both waiting. Directed frames get retried with exponential backoff.
MODULATE
OFDM at 4800 bps
First working version of a custom OFDM modem — early tests are very promising. Built in Python with numpy + sounddevice. Beacons use 1200 baud AFSK for APRS visibility.
TRANSMIT
Standard FM Voice Channel
3 kHz audio bandwidth. PTT via CAT command (Yaesu), VOX, or GPIO. No special hardware — any radio with a soundcard interface.

I think KO6IKR made a lot of good decisions in his scoping of MOP. He’s right - short bursts are the way to go, especially in urban areas (he’s located in the Los Angeles, California area). The use of OFDM is another excellent technical choice, and he’s one of a number of folks1 that have chosen to implement OFDM in the audio domain to allow use of existing VHF / UHF “data” radios (at 10 / 25 / 50 watt power levels).

KO6IKR states that MOP will be open source. When he completes his development work sufficiently to the point where he’s comfortable opening it up for collaboration and initial testing, I hope that he gets an enthusiastic response. I think he will get an enthusiastic response. I will jump at the chance to implement a test MOP system in N8GNJ / Zero Retries Labs.

An Old Concept That Could Be Resurrected

Jonathan Naylor G4KLX on the OpenDV email list:

For the last few months I have been working with the SX1255 RF I/Q device in various hardware configurations. We are not alone in working with this chip and there is already a lot of information and code available to help me. I am currently working on porting the MMDVM firmware over to using the device, but unlike the ADF7021 based hotspots, this hardware will support all modes, and potentially any new ones that appear.
Before I explain the reason for this post, let me tell you a short story. At Ham Radio in 2019 (in the “before” times), I was approached by Torsten DG1HT, of DMR+ fame, and he suggested that by using suitable SDR technology it would be possible to build a repeater that would offer a different DV mode on adjacent duplex channels. Technically this was easily achievable, my issue with that idea was to do with licensing. It’s probably true to say that in most European countries, and elsewhere, there just isn’t enough free spectrum to do that, and any such application to try it would be refused at the first hurdle. So apart from the thought experiment associated with it, I didn’t pursue it any further. It didn’t help that we didn’t have any suitable hardware available to try it with. However for low power personal hotspots, such problems don’t exist to any extent as long as you don’t connect it to a large antenna and/or use a power amplifier with it.
News has now reached me that the TETRA guys behind the SXceiver, which I am also using for development, are talking of using that hardware with two sets of channels, one for TETRA and one for DMR. Obviously the output power would be split in half for each carrier, but it is perfectly achievable. It also gets around the problem of integrating TETRA with the operation of the MMDVM in our particular case.
However it also got me thinking about taking this concept to its logical conclusion. How about being able to run multiple MMDVM instances, maybe each one locked to a specific mode, or maybe a couple of modes, connected to a separate program that interfaces to the SX1255 and makes suitable I/Q data available to each MMDVM based on a configuration file. Each MMDVM being unaware of the others. Each I/Q stream would be from a particular offset from the hardware centre frequency and within the configured bandwidth of the chip, and suitably frequency shifted and filtered, with the reverse being true on transmit. For obvious reasons this would have to be done in duplex mode. That would allow for some truly interesting configurations. The people that I would feel sorry for would be those creating dashboards to display it all!
For the DVM project, it would be possible for them to use one device to handle both the control and traffic channels in their P25 phase 1 trunking system instead of multiple duplex hotspots. The same hardware would be able to handle P25 phase 2 when they eventually implement it. Maybe even running it side-by-side with the phase 1 RF.
Any effort to amplify such a system would require very linear amplifiers, probably in class A, in order to ensure that there was no intermodulation between the different carriers. This would be easy for low powers, but would get difficult at higher power levels. There are also question marks about the overall spectral cleanliness of the SX1255 that need to be investigated.

I understand where G4KLX is coming from in this proposal, within the paradigm of making digital voice repeaters more utilitarian in accommodating multiple standards.

But…

~~My perspective is that Amateur Radio is about at the limit of accommodating digital multiple standards.~~

Post-publication Update - That paragraph should have read:

My perspective is that Amateur Radio repeater operations is about at the limit of accommodating digital multiple standards.

That omission was unfortunate and widened the scope of my statement beyond what I intended to say.

…

We’re beginning to experience diminishing returns for putting up ever more DMR repeaters, and System Fusion repeaters, and DMR repeaters, and D-Star repeaters, and M17 repeaters, and perhaps even future BBFM repeaters. New Amateur Radio Operators are justifiably confused and can suffer from the “paralysis of analysis” in trying to figure out if they want to invest in a DMR radio, or a D-Star radio, or a System Fusion radio, or a P25 radio, or a TETRA radio. All of those systems have their good points and bad points, and it’s common that there are repeaters using each of those in a given (usually metro) area.

This Amateur Radio “Tower of DV Babel” is resulting in absurd situations like here in Western Washington, USA, the Western Washington Amateur Relay Association (WWARA)2 is effectively mandating a policy that future repeaters (and, eventually existing repeaters) to be “narrowbanded” when, objectively monitored, there’s ample channel airtime to accommodate multiples of the existing number of repeaters that are coordinated by WWARA… just not enough “pairs” for each repeater to have “it’s own channel”.

Being able to operate on multiple digital voice systems using the same radio is on the cusp of being a non-issue3 by the LinHT and successors. And the “capacity” issue of only so many repeater pairs being available might well be solved with the application of Single Channel Time Division Multiple Access technology. But neither of those potential solutions, nor (in my opinion) G4KLX’s proposed system, address the “Tower of Babel” mess that is multiple modulation technologies being proliferated on repeater systems.

Thus, Joe Hamelin W7COM said it well in forwarding this item to me for Zero Retries (which I had not spotted before his mention):

And we could call it a Superpeater!

I understand the desire for accommodating (not obsoleting) the radios that individuals have invested in, and Amateur Radio being under no constraints to consolidate on a particular (digital) voice (or data) technology.

My SuperPeater concept accommodates whatever radio a user wants to use (or has) by setting up virtual receivers (using ka9q-radio) for each mode. Purely for example, here’s an imagined “receiver map” for an imagined SuperPeater:

440.000 is monitored on the SuperPeater receiver for FM transmissions,
440.010 is monitored on the SuperPeater receiver for M17 transmissions,
440.020 is monitored on the SuperPeater receiver for DMR transmissions,
440.030 is monitored on the SuperPeater receiver for D-Star transmissions,
440.040 is monitored on the SuperPeater receiver for System Fusion transmissions,
440.050 is monitored on the SuperPeater receiver for P25 transmissions,
440.060 is monitored on the SuperPeater receiver for NXDN transmissions,
440.070 is monitored on the SuperPeater receiver for TETRA transmissions,
440.080 is monitored on the SuperPeater receiver for DPMR transmissions.
440.090 is monitored on the SuperPeater receiver for POCSAG transmissions.

Similarly, for data…

440.110 is monitored on the SuperPeater receiver for 1200 bps AX.25 transmissions,
440.120 is monitored on the SuperPeater receiver for 1200 bps AX.25 with IL2P transmissions,
440.130 is monitored on the SuperPeater receiver for 1200 bps AX.25 with FX.25 transmissions,
440.140 is monitored on the SuperPeater receiver for 2400 bps AX.25 with IL2P transmissions,
440.150 is monitored on the SuperPeater receiver for 3600 bps AX.25 with IL2P transmissions,
440.160 is monitored on the SuperPeater receiver for 4800 bps AX.25 with IL2P transmissions,
440.170 is monitored on the SuperPeater receiver for 9600 bps AX.25 transmissions,
440.180 is monitored on the SuperPeater receiver for 9600 bps AX.25 with IL2P transmissions,
440.190 is monitored on the SuperPeater receiver for 19200 bps AX.25 with IL2P transmissions.
Any “hardware radio format” could be accommodated (it’s “just software”), such as a radio transmitting SSB.

What changes the game, and addresses G4KLX’s concern about spectrum is that the a SuperPeater would output a (unique, as yet undefined) wideband data stream, perhaps 100 kHz wide.

All of the above inputs (and as many more as required) would be translated into a “subsidiary” data stream. The receiver of a SuperPeater is (conceptually) simple and inexpensive:

Raspberry Pi computer
Software Defined Receiver - perhaps as simple as an RTL-SDR, or perhaps more capable such as a HydraSDR RFOne.
Unique software to receive the data stream and parse out each component as necessary (or interested in receiving) and route it into other applications using TCP/IP sockets.

With this concept, you transmit with “whatever radio” to the SuperPeater, and you receive with the SuperPeater receiver. This also accommodates the situation of Operator A using DMR wanting to converse with Operator B using D-Star, on the same repeater.

With some months of perspective, I think the SuperPeater concept has significant potential, especially in this era of quiet repeaters. It needs additional refinement and development of a reasonable specification. And, who knows… with perhaps a few more months of evolution in the capabilities of ClaudeAI, with a reasonable specification, perhaps I could end up doing the software development.

Transceive 1.4 Beta Testers Wanted

Georges Auberger WH6AZ via email (to the Transceive app email list)

Aloha,
I’m getting close to releasing a new update of Transceive. This version includes some significant plumbing changes, and I’m looking for people to help test it and make sure nothing broke.
Here’s what’s changed:
Universal binary (Apple Silicon + Intel)
Fix for DNS lookup when nodes use non-standard ports
Updated authentication for AllStar public auth
More robust node reachability (green/red status is more reliable, with less need to hit Cmd-R)
New: reorder nodes with simple drag and drop
New: add a memo to a node entry
I’m especially interested in people who can test against both public and private nodes. Also, I no longer have access to Intel hardware, so it would be great to have some Intel-based Mac users in the mix.
If you’re interested, head over to this link to join the beta on TestFlight:
https://testflight.apple.com/join/rbWKPna5
Thanks in advance for the help.

Transceive (link to App Store entry)is a $20 MacOS app for connecting to AllStarLink4:

Radio for AllStarLink nodes
Transceive allows amateur radio operators to connect to their AllStar node from anywhere in the world. Operators can administer linked nodes, monitor traffic, and transmit audio, all from the comfort of their Mac. You will either need an account on the node you are connecting to or register for an AllStar account and use it to connect to public nodes.
ALLSTAR PUBLIC AUTHENTICATION
Connect directly to public nodes with your AllStar account. Experience the AllStarLink network without the complexity of setting up your own node. A callsign is required to sign up for an AllStar account.
NODE CONNECTIONS
Account information is stored for every node you manage. Passwords are securely stored in the macOS keychain.
Hostname and port for public nodes are automatically looked up via DNS so you don’t have to remember specific IP addresses.
Node indicators let you know if your node becomes unreachable due to change in network conditions, for example when connecting to a new WiFi.
Connect to up to 8 nodes at the same time.
Nodes can be set to automatically connect when the application opens.
AUTOMATIC IDENTIFICATION
Node attributes and location are displayed for each node.
Callsign details such as name, license type and country are looked up automatically. (Availability varies by country of callsign issuance.)
Node locations can be visualized on a map by clicking on the pin icon.
STELLAR AUDIO
Experience high quality audio from any sources connected to your Mac.
Monitor and adjust audio levels with the help of a calibrated audio monitor panel.
Full duplex support.
RADIO LIKE
Transmission is activated by holding down the PTT button or the SPACE bar.
When transmitting, a timeout timer is displayed to help you avoid timing out a repeater.
Latching PTT option provides a hands-free experience.
LINKED NODES MANAGEMENT
Quickly link your node to other nodes on the network.
Identify keyed nodes as they transmit.
A history of previously linked nodes is preserved for easy access in the future.
Automatic unlinking prevents you from inadvertently linking multiple nodes together. This feature can be turned off when necessary, for example when managing a hub.
CUSTOMIZATION
Modify built-in DTMF commands to match your specific node configuration.
Define your own DTMF sequence presets for quick access to frequent operations.
KEYPAD
A keypad allows you to enter arbitrary DTMF commands for your node.
Transceive is independently developed and not affiliated with AllStarLink or its developers.

I haven’t yet seen one, but a handheld Push To Talk microphone with a USB-C interface, similar in size, weight, and feel to a Motorola or a Kenwood mobile radio microphone would, in my opinion, sell very well for use with voice applications like Transceive. Yes, there are adapters for the “real” microphones, but they’re clunky in comparison to handheld microphone with native, integrated USB-C. Having a native USB-C interface (hopefully properly, uniquely “signed”), they could be supported by apps like Transceive.

Image courtesy of Juma Communications

The Juma Communications USB-C Speaker Microphone (finally… someone got this concept) is designed for portable speaker / microphone / lapel use, and what I’m hoping for is a larger, heavier, mobile handheld microphone. (Admittedly I have big hands and such microphones just… feel good in my hand.) I think it would be fun to participating on a net via AllStarLink while sitting in a coffee shop, picking up the microphone to speak. That would be a conversation starter!

Significant Potential for Interference in Amateur Radio 420-450 MHz (70cm) Band in California

A Zero Retries reader alerted me to these FCC Special Temporary Authority grants for testing in California of high power operation in the 420-450 MHz band:

0504-EX-ST-2026, Hawthorne, CA
0528-EX-ST-2026, Hermosa Beach, CA
0529-EX-ST-2026, El Segundo, CA
0530-EX-ST-2026, Desert Center, CA

Typical verbiage (location changed with each STA):

Please explain in the area below why an STA is necessary:
To authorize the applicant’s operation on the requested frequencies at Hawthorne, California, in order to perform near term testing and system integration that both prepares for an upcoming technology demonstration at the U.S. Army Yuma Proving Ground and enables the applicant to meet requirements under active and pending U.S. Government contracts.
Please explain the purpose of operation: Operations under the STA will consist of performance testing, system integration, and related development activities conducted to ready the equipment for an upcoming technology demonstration and capability evaluation at the U.S. Army Yuma Proving Ground and to demonstrate and verify performance needed to meet requirements under active and pending U.S. Government contracts.
…
Frequency: 420.00000000-450.00000000 MHz
Output Power/ERP: 3.000000 kW
Mean Peak: 11.020000 kW

Before you fire up your computers to protest to the FCC, recall that in the US, the US Government is the Primary user of 420-450 MHz (various agencies are allocated various segments). Amateur Radio use of 420-450 MHz is secondary. Unlike the earlier use of 420-450 MHz by AST Space Mobile - a private company, use of 420-450 MHz for a demonstration for a US Government project is, yes, a legitimate use of 420-450 MHz, and interference to Amateur Radio is… secondary.

Those of us not in California - enjoy (and use, hopefully productively, and publicly and innovatively) our use of 420-450 MHz! (Or for those of us above Line A, and Canada - 430-450 MHz.)

New AX.25 library for ESP32 Microcontrollers

Robert Ambrose N7GET in the Ninotnc email list:

I’ve been working on a component library for AX.25 on an ESP32 microcontroller. This library is specifically designed to be used to build (or generate) applications rather than an application in and of itself.
The first application I’ve created (generated) is a something I’m calling ‘ESP-TNC’. It is at its core an AX.25 router that connects to a KISS TNC+radio station using a UART or RS-232 interface. It can connect to an existing WiFi network as a station or act as an Access Point. It allows multiple operators to connect to it using KISS or AGWPE over TCP/IP. As an example I’ve tested it with RMS Packet, RMS Express and Easyterm all connected to it at the same time. It also has a BBS, digipeater and a beacon capability.
I’ve paired this with a NinoTNC connected directly to the UART bypassing the USB interface and I think it works great.
This is alpha software. If there’s anyone out there who is comfortable with working with microcontrollers and is interested in this kind of thing, I’m looking for to move this project to the next stage of a controlled release. I will be releasing this as open source under GPL3.

The energy and creativity that’s going into the invention of new generations of TNCs are just amazing.

Introducing Radio Terminal

Andy O’Brien K3UK on the digitalradio email list:

I have set up a sub-group here called Radio Terminal , it is experimental digital mode software developed by a ham well-known to this group, Steinar LA5VA. If you are interested in contributing to the development of this software and its experimental modes , please apply to join
https://digitalradio.groups.io/g/RadioTerminal/topic/radioterminal/118693127 .
Please check your national rules to ensure the modes are permitted by your country .
Andy K3UK
What is RadioTerminal?
RadioTerminal is an open-source digital modem/terminal program written in Python. I have also made a Windows .exe version using PyInstaller. The program is still under development, but at the moment it includes these main parts:
1) Olivia (including an extended/experimental version)
With selectable FEC options, including: Walsh (8 tones, 250 Hz, compatible with fldigi), Golay, LDPC, Polar, Reed-Solomon, Turbo, Viterbi, BCH, and a combined Viterbi + Reed-Solomon mode that I call “Deep.”
2) Olivia ARQ (experimental code)
Based on Olivia, but this is my own MFSK variant: 8 tones and about 250 Hz bandwidth. It uses Reed-Solomon as its core and has a custom ARQ mechanism.
3) SCAMP / Sgump (ported from FLDigi)
A direct port from the FLDigi code base, done with help from an AI tool. I have not changed the algorithm — only ported it to Python.
4) HFCSS
5) FHSS –
6) IFKP – Incremental Frequency Keyed

Sounds like an interesting project. Scamp is an interesting new mode, and of course I’m a long time fan of FHSS (Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum).

CascadiaMesh

CascadiaMesh is an expanding community built mesh network primarily made up of solar-powered MeshCore radios across the coastal Pacific Northwest. Currently it covers British Columbia, Western Washington, and Western Oregon. The vibe is simple: a region-wide text messaging system that lets anyone message publicly or privately with anyone on the network. We proudly became the first large MeshCore network in North America and are still the largest by both geographic scale and daily active usage in North America.
The best part? It doesn’t depend on outside infrastructure at all! No electrical grid power, no cell coverage, no internet. If the lights go out, the mesh can keep talking.

The choice of MeshCore, rather than Meshtastic, in CascadiaMesh goes a long way in fixing the worst of the issues of scaling LoRa based mesh networks on unlicensed bands.

First, I have to reflexively have to reset myself from framing mesh networks like this operating on unlicensed spectrum “versus” mesh networks operating on Amateur Radio spectrum (used by Amateur Radio Operators). All independent radio experimentation that provides hands-on experience with radio technology is a good thing.

Second, impressive as CascadiaMesh is, I’m not mentioning it as a unique achievement of the Pacific Coast of the United States (despite their claims). I’ve seen mentions of similar regional mesh networks developing all over the US, and of course, also in Europe, and probably in every other region - South America, Asia, Africa… wherever there is access to unlicensed spectrum and curious techies.

That said, Amateur Radio is “losing mindshare” to projects / networks / communities like this. While Amateur Radio has the potential to be able to do the equivalent of CascadiaMesh (and Mesh America), and considerably more, Amateur Radio hasn’t made a significant enough investment in organizing such a program, or motivating manufacturers to develop mesh equipment for the unique capabilities of the Amateur Radio market, such as a LoRa radio operating at 25 or 50 watts on the Amateur Radio 420-450 MHz band (or the 222-225 MHz band).

Thus there may come a point where there will be, and more interesting, people to communicate and collaborate with, on unlicensed mesh networking. That might precipitate a tipping point where the default for a potential NewTechHam is to briefly consider Amateur Radio, but then decide to “just go have fun”; without the complication of getting an Amateur Radio license, arcane rules (no encryption, bandwidth / symbol rate limits) and just join in on the fun of networks and communities like CascadiaMesh. Or, arguably, we’re past that point (I’m not sure).

I confess that despite being alerted to the existence of CascadiaMesh by my friend Michael Gan several weeks ago, I haven’t taken the time to really learn about what CascadiaMesh is doing and the infrastructure it’s developed.

My thanks to Zero Retries Pseudostaffer Steve Monsey N0FPF who reminded me of CascadiaMesh with this email:

Watch the packets fly!
https://cascadiamesh.org/map/

HAM / Amateur Radio - Integrating the Linux and Radio Worlds Together

This page is my attempt to capture my journey in the Amateur Radio (HAM) hobby where I’ve both learned and try to teach my learnings to my fellow HAMs. Hardware is always what people think about when it comes to this hobby but there lot more of powerful software available to complete the job. My primary focus on these pages is how to do that software on Linux even though there is a lot more options on Microsoft Windows. I’m doing my working on fixing that over time but the following documents will hopefully help other Linux-savvy HAMs!

Interesting reference page by David Ranch KI6ZHD with lots of detail and links about operating packet radio on Linux, including Raspberry Pi.

My thanks to Joe Hamelin W7COM for mentioning this for inclusion in Zero Retries.

The mkiss Module Update is Actually a Pretty Big Deal

Ben Kuhn KU0HN on the Zeroretries email list; reference Zero Retries 0245 - Updating the Linux MKISS Driver in Linux:

I was pretty excited to hear the news that someone is taking over maintainership of the mkiss module. Rumors have been going around for a few years now that the Linux AX25 stack may be dropped from the kernel completely due to some bugs and lack of maintainers. The article referenced the mkiss userland utility, but the mkiss kernel module (driver) is for KISS itself, including multidrop KISS.
From the source of the driver itself (https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git/tree/drivers/net/hamradio/mkiss.c?h=v6.19.11)
MODULE_AUTHOR(”Ralf Baechle DL5RB ”);
MODULE_DESCRIPTION(”KISS driver for AX.25 over TTYs”);
There are other modules for 6PACK BPQEther, YAM, Baycom, and others; but the mkiss driver is what’s used most these days. It’s still *extremely* relevant for us Linux users as it’s how the built-in AX25 stack is able to interact with legacy serial TNCs, Bluetooth TNCs like mobilinkd or those built in to newer radios, as well as software/sound card TNCs like Direwolf. The kernel’s AX25 stack allows for native TCP/IP networking as well as access from applications that support it (PAT, Xastir, etc...). The vast majority of AX.25 software on Linux expects the Kernel/OS to handle these interfaces like it does any other hardware.
AGWPE is great for directly connecting a client to a modem, but KISS support built in to the OS makes more advanced things like IP networking much more seamless.

Thanks for that additional context, KU0HN!

Video - Best Radio for Decoding APRS/Packet Data?

Craig Lamparter KM6LYW:

Let’s look at the internal modems built into many modern APRS-enabled radio and compare their reception and decode rates. Does Kenwood decode more packets than Yaesu? VGC/Vero? Finally, let’s compare to a baseline SDR setup with a software modem to see the best-case scenario.

I’m looking forward to watching this entire video.

Please offer comments / feedback about ZR > BEACON on the Zero Retries email list with the #ZR0246 hashtag.

Request To Send

By Steve Stroh N8GNJ

Editorial, Commentary, and Occasional Digressions

Substack Can Post Without Emailing

I was dreading the process of “backposting” issues of Zero Retries from www.zeroretries.radio to www.zeroretries.org (see below) because I expected there to be much confusion from Zero Retries email subscribers when they received those past issues via email (again - having received a “heads up” email from Substack and the issue from Ghost). But I’d apparently overlooked the option in Substack to publish only to the web, and not via email. (When you do so, Substack puts up a warning that only a small minority of readers will see a web-only post. Substack is really email-centric). That was a great capability, and ideal for this situation.

That capability will also come in handy for some content that could be in the “date flow” of postings, something like a blog, instead of just creating “pages” which aren’t visible except via the top menu bar (such as Zero Retries Guides).

Zero Retries 0241 - 0244 backposted to Substack / www.zeroretries.org

I’ve “backposted” Zero Retries 0241, Zero Retries 0242, Zero Retries 0243, and Zero Retries 0244 on Substack / www.zeroretries.org (formerly published on Ghost / www.zeroretries.radio.

This is in service to consolidate all Zero Retries content to Substack / www.zeroretries.org. I’m not done yet - still to be backposted are ZR 0235 - ZR 0240. Doing so is a high priority so I can just get back to writing Zero Retries instead of this administrivia. I also have to move any articles that were created on www.zeroretries.radio. I’ve moved some of those, but not all.

DLARC is Such an Incredible Resource

It was so cool reading this month’s What’s New at DLARC column describing how there are now issues of not only the complete collection of 73 Magazine, but also the issues of CQ and QST that are public domain (out of copyright). At one point, I’ve been a subscriber of all of those magazines and it’s amazing to think that the issues that are in DLARC can be downloaded and read. You can easily scan through a year’s worth of issues in an evening.

One of the reasons I’m such a fan, and think that DLARC is such an incredible resource is that “Amateur Radio” magazines often cover developments outside of Amateur Radio, discussing fundamental radio technology. For example, the creation of artificial satellites is entirely within living memory (Sputnik 1 was launched 1957-10-04), and I’m sure the progress of various breakthroughs (such as the development of Geosynchronous Earth Orbit - GEO) satellites was discussed as an exciting new development in Amateur Radio magazines. I hope that perhaps the CQ archives could, somehow, be added to DLARC.

Another reason I love DLARC is that there have been so many times that Amateur Radio has attempted projects that weren’t quite feasible or sustainable with the technology or other resources of the era in which they were attempted. For example, Amateur Radio accomplished some amazing things with Amateur Radio satellites such as Packet Radio Satellites (PACSATs) that were expensive to create in the 1980s / 1990s. Now such capability is absolutely routine / easy / cheap. Other times, technological innovations were reported, but not formalized in enduring standards that are easy to reference.

Another was that, for a time, the US (and many countries) had reasonable local, regional, and national (and international) packet radio networks. Packet Radio in that era had a lot of technical issues - 1200 bps, no Forward Error Correction, multiple networking systems (TEXNET, Net/ROM, ROSE, etc.), the TNCs of the era weren’t very capable compared to modern embedded computers such as Raspberry Pi. But, for a while, it worked. We have better technology now, and arguably it’s easier and cheaper to recreate such networks.

My Presentation at SARC

Tina and I very much enjoyed our brief trip to Surrey (Vancouver) British Columbia, Canada for me to give a presentation at Surrey Amateur Radio Communications Society.

Given the activity level of SARC and especially SARC’s worldwide outreach via its stellar newsletterzine The Communicator, as I was developing the presentation, the majority of the presentation morphed into the most comprehensive explanation I’ve done to date of NewTechHams. I plan to clean up and post that portion of the presentation, and expand it into the long promised detailed page on NewTechHams.

But one of the biggest draws of attending SARC’s first in-person meeting of 2026 was meeting John Schouten VE7TI, Editor of The Communicator:

John Schouten VE7TI and Steve Stroh N8GNJ 2026-04-08; photo by Steve Stroh N8GNJ

I’m in awe of the stellar job VE7TI does in producing The Communicator and I gave him a number of appropriate kudos during my presentation. Appropriate because in being free for anyone to access, with great content that represents Amateur Radio very well, The Communicator is a significant resource in attracting and educating NewTechHams and potential NewTechHams.

And yes, boss 😁, I’m mindful that “deadline approacheth” for the next issue of The Communicator, and I’ll get my column in on time.

GMRS in Canada Doesn’t Require a License

I learned something New from Claude AI. I was fact checking what I thought I knew about various unlicensed radio services in the US and Europe (FRS versus DPMR, if memory serves), and I had the random thought to ask if GMRS was the same in Canada as it is in the US? ClaudeAI’s response:

Yes, but with differences from the US:
GMRS is legal in Canada and uses the same frequencies as the US
No license required in Canada — this is the key difference from the US, where a $35 FCC license is required
US GMRS radios work in Canada without modification
So ironically it’s simpler to operate GMRS in Canada than in the US. Cross-border interoperability works fine since the frequencies are the same.

That mention of “cross border interoperability” probably needs a further fact check as us uptight Americans might be kerfluffled at a Canadian, with no license, communicating with a US GMRS user, or using a GMRS repeater.

Or, maybe not. I have no idea - I’ll have to ask around as I’m sure that has come up here in the US / Canada Northwestern borderlands.

Hamvention 2026 Ho!

5 weeks until Hamvention 2026
in Xenia, Ohio, USA...
Zero Retries / DLARC booth 1506
in Building 1 / Maxim

The Technological Innovation In Amateur Radio Firehose Continues

This is yet another issue of Zero Retries that offers a smorgasbord of developments that are occurring, now, in Amateur Radio that you’re probably not hearing about from other Amateur Radio media. I’m not afraid to candidly admit that I can’t keep up with how much is going on, and, again, I drop stuff constantly that I’d love to mention.

In my wilder fantasies (yeah, I lead a pretty tame life), Zero Retries would be a magazine, perhaps monthly. I assign a promising subject for a story to one of a number of capable staff writers. When it comes back. I lightly proofread and edit it, and assemble it into a “73 Magazine” length magazine (online, of course, and free like The Communicator).

And maybe (again, fantasizing here) I can get organized enough, and the AI helpers get good enough, that I can actually accomplish at least something like Zero Retries Magazine. NotebookLM is a stellar research assistant. For general answers, I’m getting increasingly respectful of ClaudeAI.

We need a Packet Radio Appliance

That idea was going to be an article in this issue as a spinout of a email conversation I had this week, but once again, there were too many interesting things to bring to you in this issue. I really want to publish on Friday, and that article would take another few hours, so it’s deferred for now.

Very generally… Amateur Radio needs a packaged solution for using more advanced capabilities that have emerged in Amateur Radio Packet Radio in the last couple of decades. All of this is available, it’s just not integrated / packaged. One example is KM6LYW’s mention of the integrated TNCs in some new portable radios… but those implementations are old, tired, and slow (but works fine for the use case - APRS). We need a “black box” that does:

3600 / 4800 / 9600 bps
Both (simultaneous) FX.25 and IL2P Forward Error Correction
Net/ROM automatic / auto discovery mesh networking
Easy to create routers / gateways that would allow more than one radio / band to be used.
Integrated BBS so that you can read BBS messages, bulletins, see files that were transferred to your BBS in the background
Good chat system, at least equivalent to Raven in AREDN and Meshtastic / MeshCore.
Interface is a web browser, similar to the way DigiPi works.
Designed for a (reasonably priced) Raspberry Pi 3B+ - it’s an appliance that connects to the radio.
Integration of 44Net Connect for easy access to your station.

“Packaged” similar to TARPN, but more generic than TARPN’s perspective of how to build a Packet Radio network. DigiPi is another great example of packaging, but DigiPi has many more modes than Amateur Radio Packet Radio, and is tightly optimized for use with the Raspberry Pi Zero 2W. I think the greater capabilities of the Raspberry Pi 3B+ is a better platform for what I’m imagining.

My correspondent said that my idea as I pitched it was a bit scattershot, and they were right, so this deserves not just an article but a full treatment as a specification.

Upcoming Events

It’s getting to be the busy season. I created the Zero Retries Guide to Zero Retries Interesting Events page as much for myself and my reference as for public usage.

Comcast - Grrr…

The house I’m staying at this weekend has Comcast Internet. Which mostly works fine (reasonably fast)… but of as I’ve described previously, Comcast customers, including me this weekend, cannot access www.zeroretries.radio.

I can just barely respect the “choice” of Comcast to consider www.zeroretries.radio as a potential phishing site. But, the way that they implement that decision is to simply break the connectivity and leave it for the customer to figure it out. Comcast could put up a redirect page with an explanation like “We consider this page to be potentially harmful so we’re not going to let you see it”. But no, they just break the connectivity with no hint of an explanation.

Thus I hope there’s a special circle in Heck reserved for the network engineers at Comcast who decided to implement that particular method of “protecting” Comcast customers.

As always, I am unreasonably happy to no longe be a paying ~~hostage~~ “customer” of Comcast.

Weekends Are For Amateur Radio!

I’m traveling this weekend, and I’m still not caught up on the conversion of pages and previous issues of ZR from www.zeroretries.radio to www.zeroretries.org. But I did bring my loaned MeshCore node, and with the article about CascadiaMesh, my interest is piqued.

Have a great weekend, all of you co-conspirators in Zero Retries Interesting Amateur Radio activities!

Please offer comments / feedback about Request To Send on the Zero Retries email list with the #ZR0246 hashtag.

73,

Steve N8GNJ

Closing Thanks

Numerous Annual and Monthly subscribers who also generously support Zero Retries financially!

You thousands of readers of Zero Retries without which there would be little point in publishing this newsletter.

The Usual Administrivia

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Fair Use - All excerpts from other authors or organizations, including images, are intended to be fair use and are fully attributed generally by author and link (URL).
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⬅️⬅️⬅️ Previous Issue of Zero Retries \ Next Issue of Zero Retries ➡️➡️➡️

Zero Retries 0246 was published on 2026-04-10. This issue was 7994 words.

Footnotes For This Issue

To see the relevant sentence for the footnote, just click the footnote number.

Two other implementations of “audio” OFDM for VHF / UHF that come readily to mind is VARA FM and more recently, the IP400 Project.

In Western Washington, WWARA is the entity that coordinates the use of “repeater pairs” on the VHF / UHF bands and “prioritizes” the usage of particular repeater pairs by particular repeaters.

The LinHT will make the multiple digital voice standards a non-issue from the perspective that being a fully Software Defined Radio, you won’t need a separate“DMR radio” to access a DMR repeater, and a separate “D-Star radio” to access a D-Star repeater”. You’ll just use the “DMR” module or the “D-Star” module on the LinHT to access a DMR repeater or a D-Star repeater.

This took some time and work to include. The Apple App Store “discourages” copying of text, but a consultation with ClaudeAI resulted in two effective workarounds.

Zero Retries 0245

Steve Stroh N8GNJ — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 22:30:00 GMT

Steve Stroh N8GNJ, Editor

Tina Stroh KD7WSF, Business / Conference Manager

Substack says this issue is too big to read in an email client. Thus, it might be easier to read in a web browser - https://www.zeroretries.org/p/zero-retries-0245.

It’s easy and free to subscribe for your own copy of Zero Retries every week:

KISS Protocol Implementation Improved

In This Issue...

I-Frame

Zero Retries Back on Substack / www.zeroretries.org

open.space - Moon Launch Update!

Introducing an AREDN Chat Client

The Zero Retries Perspective on Raven

Posted on the AREDN website:

I-Frame

By Steve Stroh N8GNJ

Brief notes about this issue of Zero Retries.

Zero Retries Back on Substack / www.zeroretries.org

Welcome back to Zero Retries being published on Substack using the non-problematic www.zeroretries.org domain.

‘Nuff said here in Zero Retries. If you’d like to know more, see this page.

All content that was published uniquely on Ghost is in the process of being imported into Substack / www.zeroretries.org.

Please direct comments / feedback about I-Frame to the Zero Retries email list with the #ZR0245 hashtag - mailto:zeroretries@groups.io?subject=%23ZR0245.

Image courtesy of MoonRF

open.space - Moon Launch Update!

By Steve Stroh N8GNJ

I’ve been excited about this project since I saw this prototype exhibited at Pacificon 2025. Unlike repurposing commodity Wi-Fi chipsets, or flashing new firmware onto an existing piece of hardware, this project really takes radio technology in a completely new direction - solid state spatial control (phased array technology) that is entirely under the control of the user and the software.

I was getting a bit worried that March came and went with no hint of actual hardware:

Expected to ship: March 2026.

But more than most people in the world, I’m sympathetic to small companies / innovative projects having “issues with domain names” due to forces beyond their control. Thus, with the following update, I’ll grant them ample grace for the schedule slip.

Note - both moonrf.com and scalerf.com, as of this writing, redirect (back) to open.space, which is probably just an artifact of moving the website content to a new domain / hosting… for which I can also offer ample sympathy.

Martin McCormick K1MCC via email

(to those signed up for updates at open.space):

Wow, it’s already spring 2026—and another full moon in the year of the scalable RF phased-array!
Over the last few months, there’s been good progress on the quest to make Earth-Moon-Earth (EME) communication simple, affordable, and actually usable.
→ The latest update here ←
None of this is an April Fool’s joke, I promise!
The open·space domain name... however... has collided with the military-industrial complex. It turns out they’ve successfully trademarked the vacuum of space!
We received a formal takedown notice for our open·space domain from Kratos Defense. Yes, that Kratos, the massive defense contractor. Apparently they hold a trademark for “OPENSPACE” (no dot), which they use for obscure satellite command software tied to military and classified programs (including one called Golden Dome).
So my lawyers recommended making it very clear: we are the ham radio open·space, not the SkyNet orbital weapons control thing.
To be fair, their marketing team deserves respect. Naming a classified military network OPENSPACE is right up there with Greenland, Full Self-Driving, and the Patriot Act.
Anyway, rather than burning time and money on lawyers to argue the lack of overlap between our ham radio project and their space military system, I’m focused on our upcoming Crowd Supply campaign. They can have the open.space domain (and sure, take the Earth while they’re at it...)
Effective immediately, the moon-bounce project shall henceforth be named:
MoonRF! And the website is: MoonRF.com
So keep a lookout now for emails from m@MoonRF.com
Messages to old ___@open.space addresses will soon be bouncing—and not off the moon this time!
All for now,
- Martin
Founder of... MoonRF (I guess)

Below are excerpts of the MoonRF web pages, all of which have a great deal of rich, deep, relevant content. After reading this, I recommend going back and clicking through the links and read all of the detail on those pages.

Gems of Info From the Website / Update

Clicking through the here link - https://open.space/updates/ finds a minor detour in the roadmap towards a phased array 5 GHz antenna capable of Earth Moon Earth Communications - Meet the QuadRF Kit.

Image courtesy of MoonRF

As many of you know, the full MoonRF Array utilizes 240 antennas to reach the moon. But that scalable array is built from a single key building block: the QuadRF.
The QuadRF is a powerful software-defined radio “tile” featuring four integrated antennas and four complete IQ-to-RF-digital signal chains, capable of 4x40 MHz full-duplex communication.

And now for a couple of Oh… My… Gosh… moments.

Before you start “but, in my day”, or “in my day job”, or “we’ve been doing this forever” -ing, keep in mind that this is an open source project, controllable by whatever software the user deigns to use with it (both receive, and transmit) to make it do what the user wants to do, and the pricing is very reasonable, ~~likely to be maybe US$2000 (or less)~~ for a QuadRF kit. Also… that this isn’t just the antenna… this is the radio integrated with the phased array antenna.

Post Publication Update: Email from Martin McCormick K1MCC:

The QuadRF [kit] is likely to be $399, not $2000.

Wow. Just… Wow. That’s an incredibly reasonable price point.

…

You’ve seen the time and frequency-domain... but what about a... space-domain! ✨
With four antennas, precise direction-of-arrival information about every signal is measured. This can be rendered in real-time to literally see your RF environment.
Real-time spatial visualization of RF signals (4.9 GHz - 6.0 GHz) in the surrounding area. Color codes frequency.
This works through walls or at very long range and you can select between different polarizations (LHCP/RHCP). The built-in Pi 5 processing is fast enough to render 1 GHz of spectrum for the surrounding environment at 30 fps update rate.

Finally! With a century of experience in “fixed phase” antennas behind us in Amateur Radio, it’s hard to keep in mind that there is that third element of a radio signal - spatial!

This capability alone will sell a ton of Quad RF Kits into Electrical Engineering programs, students, and classrooms. When you have a unit like this that enables you to understand the spatial dimension of transmitted (and received - especially via reflections, multipath, or attenuation circumstances) radio signals, “radio” really starts to click in one’s mind.

But wait - there’s more!

⚙️ Agentic Transceiver
The QuadRF comes with a pre-trained AI agent system that allows you to prompt it with an idea or RF intent, and within minutes it writes the code, compiles the program, and runs it live with the RF hardware. The system is pre-loaded with context information about the QuadRF capabilities, controls, and API, so the agentic AI knows how to write the custom SDR software correctly. If there are bugs, the agent will look at the program output, debug the problem and iterate towards a solution automatically. You can interrupt it at any time or give it hints, but normally you can just hit enter and let it go ahead!
In general, there’s no need to know programming or signal processing, but it’s good to have enough RF experience to ask the right questions. For the NTSC/PAL video decoder, grayscale was working in about 5 minutes after prompting the AI agent. Color took a few more tries. And after a little prodding to make it more efficient, it optimized the inner loops with NEON instructions for the ARM A76 cores —giving butter-smooth video.

Run on Raspberry Pi 5 folks. Capable enough, readily available1, well supported. I guess I found a good use for my Raspberry Pi 500 or my new 500 Plus).

Here’s the part I really loved:

👶 Personal Update
Meanwhile I got the flu, then a week later our entire family acquired norovirus. Everyone recovered well (me as of yesterday). We also have a baby due any day now (our first!) so there may be a little interruption to get this on Crowd Supply in March 😂. But I’m trying to at least have a good update by the end of April.
I’m still doing most all the development in my garage, and nothing has been released to the public yet. But a huge amount of open-source software will drop on GitHub soon. I’m planning to have anything that runs on the Pi 5 to be GPLv2 licensed (that’s my answer to the dozen people who asked! :)

As a former expectant parent… I could barely keep track of my butt even with it always following in close formation. K1MCC’s personal bandwidth is impressive!

Here’s the Zero Retries money quote:

🛠️ Getting involved
Very soon we are looking for beta testers to help interface the QuadRF with existing SDR tools. Most SDR tools “just work” if they support SoapySDR or ZeroMQ, but many others need native support. If you are a developer or creator of an SDR tool, especially if you can get them running on a Raspberry Pi 5, please reply to any emails you get. Will invite you to a private GitHub repository and Discord channels to get you set up as an early contributor.

There is your chance to get in on the ground floor of a new wave of technological innovation in Amateur Radio!

The Zero Retries Perspective on MoonRF

When I saw this system exhibited at Pacificon 20252, I was gobsmacked. Not that such a thing existed; I was well aware of phased array antennas (they’re much of the reason that 5G mobile networks work at all). It’s that it was being shown at an Amateur Radio conference (and not even a tech conference), and targeted towards an audience of Amateur Radio Operators. I’ll guess that with his background, K1MCC could probably have gotten some angel funding to develop the QuadRF concept to the point that would make some company that does phased array antennas for the 5G industry curious / interested / nervous enough to throw a few $Million at K1MCC to take such potential disruptive technology out of the picture.

But, to date, K1MCC was audacious enough to launch such open.space / QuadRF / MoonRF as an open source project. What’s most heartening is that he apparently hopes to find enough kindred souls within Amateur Radio to make the project’s original stated goal a reality - Earth Moon Earth communications.

It was cool… and I’m sure not coincidental or unintended that this update hit on 2026-04-01, the same day that the Artemis II mission launched to send humans back to Earth’s moon, Luna. Millions of people will get their first “live” glimpse of Luna from this mission… but with MoonRF, dreamers and builders like my friend Dennis Rosenauer AC7FT (video - Earth Moon Earth With Software Defined Radio), and organizations like the Deep Space Exploration Society…

We Amateur Radio Operators, with our radios, can “go” to Luna, and touch it with our radio signals. That… is very, very Zero Retries Interesting… and cool.
And I think that is something that can inspire young folks, on a warm summer evening, with Luna in full, glorious view, reaching out with our radios to “touch” Luna… to dream bigger3 towards a career in science, technology, engineering, art, and math.

Not to mention I think that being able to make full use of QuadRF units and a MoonRF array… would convince a lot of potential NewTechHams…

to get their Amateur Radio license.

Dear Radio Regulators… projects, and concepts, imagining, and building new technology like this is why we still need Amateur Radio in the 21st century and beyond.

Deepest kudos to Martin McCormick K1MCC for this project.

Please direct comments / feedback about this article to the Zero Retries email list with the #ZR0245 hashtag - mailto:zeroretries@groups.io?subject=%23ZR0245.

Introducing an AREDN Chat client

I think this is a very promising development. It’s especially useful that Raven can also be also used for chatting via Meshtastic and MeshCore.

Image courtesy of AREDN / Tim Wilkinson KN6PLV

Meshchat has been the go-to chat client for most users of AREDN networks. But because AREDN is a communications network software, and the core team has been reluctant to move into apps, support of Meshchat has been hit-and miss.
So the AREDN team has decided to step up to the plate with an AREDN-supported chat client, called Raven. It has a nice set of features:
Realtime text messaging.
Runs on any AREDN-supported hardware that’s running current AREDN software (but see recommendations in the wiki).
Can communicate with other Raven clients via AREDN.
Can communicate between AREDN meshes via Supernodes
Supports talking on a Meshtastic network (requires additional hardware)
Supports talking on a Meshcore network (required additional hardware, and integration is very involved. Documentation will eventually be provided).
Supports multiple channels per node.
Supports sharing images.
Supports sharing Winlink forms.
Not compatible with MeshChat (it is not possible - sorry)
Notes
This is Alpha code. While it seems to work fine in limited testing, YMMV..
Information on prerequisites, installing and configuring Raven can be found at https://github.com/kn6plv/Raven/wiki

I saw a brief kerfuffle on a AREDN-related email list that tried to take AREDN to task about Raven “enabling message transfers between Amateur Radio and unlicensed users” (Meshtastic used on unlicensed spectrum by non Amateur Radio Operators). Some regard that concept being illegal (such as Amateur Radio Operators using their Amateur Radio equipment on non Amateur Radio spectrum, such as Citizens Band (CB) or General Mobile Radio Service (GMRS).

That kerfuffle was quickly damped down when it was explained that Raven was a chat client that could connect, simultaneously, to AREDN and Meshtastic / Meshcore networks…

but Raven does not provide the router / bridge capability for message transfers between those networks.

Message transfers between networks would be a cool capability given that most MeshCore use that I’ve read about is actually being done by Amateur Radio Operators, and often done so on Amateur Radio spectrum. However, such a capability is probably more appropriate for a network-level application / service than individual’s Raven applications.

This is really encouraging! In my early involvement with AREDN, friends and I tried using Meshchat but we (I) experienced high latency and lost messages, which could have been the result of network issues prior to the development of AREDN Supernodes, and the general network improvements from the switch from OLSR mesh network routing to Babel mesh network routing.

Note that Raven isn’t a standalone app; Raven is an additional capability that is added into one’s AREDN node. After installation, Raven is just one of the web windows into your AREDN node that you would use from your favorite OS / favorite web browser.

The Zero Retries Perspective on Raven

Raven, by itself, doesn’t “close the gap” in popularity and usage between AREDN and Meshtastic / MeshCore… but it narrows the gap considerably. Having a built-in, minimal fuss, chat client that is (likely, eventually) standardized with each AREDN node, makes AREDN a lot more palatable for a lot of potential AREDN users. It’s an easier “sell” of AREDN when you can say “Oh, AREDN can do messaging too… and a lot more, at much higher networks speeds”.

While “use whatever apps you want” is an accurate description of AREDN’s capabilities given that AREDN networks are largely equivalent to using Internet connectivity4, it’s intimidating to potential new users having to figure out what they want to do / use on an AREDN network. That’s especially problematic when trying to create an entirely new AREDN network. Having that baseline chat capability is a good “sales tool” for promoting AREDN networks. Not to mention that the AREDN node’s Raven chat client can also connect to Meshtastic / MeshCore (one client - multiple networks!) is a further selling point in promoting AREDN.

Once again, I think that two big AREDN developments in 2025:

Changeover from OLSR mesh network routing to Babel mesh network routing
Support for some 802.11ah / Wi-Fi HaLow units for AREDN use on 902-928 MHz

and now, Raven, makes AREDN networks much more capable and interesting to NewTechHams (and prospective NewTechHams).

Kudos to Tim Wilkinson KN6PLV and the AREDN team for the development of Raven… and the willingness to “branch out” into developing a supportable chat capability in AREDN / Meshtastic / MeshCore.

Please direct comments / feedback about this article to the Zero Retries email list with the #ZR0245 hashtag - mailto:zeroretries@groups.io?subject=%23ZR0245.

KISS Protocol Implementation Improved

By Steve Stroh N8GNJ

Introduction

What is the relevance of covering “plain, old, boring, KISS (Amateur Radio Packet Radio) protocol in 2026? Why does any of this matter in 2026 and beyond? Why mention it at all in Zero Retries?

Simply, because Amateur Radio keeps creating new TNCs… all of which implement (their interpretation) of a KISS software interface. Years ago I thought we had hit “Peak (KISS) TNC” with the NinoTNC, but that’s absolutely not the case. New radios with integrated TNCs continue to be developed, including two being developed / released in 2026:

There are new portable radios being introduced with integrated TNCs - with a KISS interface.
The OpenTNC is a new open source project with a pending assembled and tested option - the NA6D OpenTNC, and it includes a KISS interface.
The new ESP32 LoRA-Pi Modem is a new platform for communicating via LoRA on the 420-450 MHz band… using a KISS interface.
The pending Kenwood TM-D750A will almost certainly include an integrated TNC, and it will almost certainly have a KISS option.

Updating the Linux MKISS Driver in Linux

Michael Larabel on phoronix - Linux Ham Radio KISS Serial Driver Being Modernized In 2026:

Here’s something that wasn’t on my bingo card for this year of the “MKISS” driver for ham radio being modernized in 2026 as opposed to just being dropped. The MKISS code hasn’t seen much driver activity since the original Git import of the Linux kernel more than twenty years ago.

Posted to the Linux kernel mailing list this Sunday by open-source developer Mashiro Chen is modernizing and cleaning up the MKISS ham radio driver. This is a serial port KISS protocol driver for exchanging data between a computer and terminal node computer for AX.25 amateur radio “ham radio” connections.

The MKISS driver has been around since before the Linux kernel Git import and in the 21 years since it was an SMP rewrite in 2025 and some minor fixes but that’s been about it. Even for some minor code maintenance on MKISS has been more than six years ago.
Mashiro Chen explained of this 2026 modernization of the driver:
“This patch series modernizes the mkiss driver, which is used for AX.25 communication over serial lines.

The series starts by moving variable assignments out of ‘if’ conditions to improve code safety and readability. The second patch removes redundant static initializations to 0. The third patch fixes missing spaces around assignment operations. The fourth patch modernizes the logging system by replacing legacy printk() calls with netdev_* and pr_* macros for better device-specific context. The fifth patch addresses remaining checkpatch.pl issues, primarily converting space-based indentation to tabs, aligning parameters, and fixing comment formats.
The patches are out for review on the Linux kernel mailing list.

The KISS Wikipedia article (my usual reference on KISS) makes no mention of MKISS, thus I had to do a minor refresher on MKISS. With some web search fu, I found Linux Amateur Radio AX.25 HOWTO which has a reference to MKISS:

6.1.1.1. Configuring for Dual Port TNC’s
The mkiss utility included in the ax25-utils distribution allows you to make use of both modems on a dual port TNC. Configuration is fairly simple. It works by taking a single serial device connected to a single multiport TNC and making it look like a number of devices each connected to a single port TNC. You do this before you do any of the AX.25 configuration. The devices that you then do the AX.25 configuration on are pseudo-TTY interfaces, (/dev/ttyq*), and not the actual serial device. Pseudo-TTY devices create a kind of pipe through which programs designed to talk to tty devices can talk to other programs designed to talk to tty devices. Each pipe has a master and a slave end. The master end is generally called `/dev/ptyq*’ and the slave ends are called `/dev/ttyq*’. There is a one to one relationship between masters and slaves, so /dev/ptyq0 is the master end of a pipe with /dev/ttyq0 as its slave. You must open the master end of a pipe before opening the slave end. mkiss exploits this mechanism to split a single serial device into separate devices.

MKISS is not Multidrop KISS (or XKISS, or 6PACK)

Part of my uncertainty about what MKISS is, is that there was also a variant of KISS that was Multidrop KISS… from back when more than two serial ports were difficult to support on PCs (the convention was that COM3 shared IRQ4 with COM1, and COM4 shared IRQ3 with COM2 - see Wikipedia COM (hardware interface). Thus “Node Stacks” (of TNCs) used “daisy chained” (multidrop) RS-232 connections:

PC Serial Port TX → TNC1 RX
TNC 1 TX → TNC2 RX
TNC 2 TX → TNC3 RX
TNC 3 TX → PC Serial Port RX

… with special firmware (or configuration options) to accommodate multiple TNCs on a single serial port.

Thus, I’m in admiration that Chen is willing to go to the trouble of updating a Linux driver for MKISS, for what is now a pretty obscure piece of hardware. Namely (mostly legacy) TNCs that incorporate more than one radio port such as the Kantronics 9612XE.

Since Kantronics does a good job supporting most TNC capabilities / standards that have evolved over the decades, I thought I’d see if the 9612XE accommodates Multidrop KISS. Apparently, that terminology has been updated to XKISS (Extended KISS). From the 9612XE manual, page 177:

XKISS (Extended KISS)
The TNC also supports the G8BPQ multi-drop KISS Mode, called extended KISS (XKISS). With this mode, the TNC can be connected to a G8BPQ node along with the other TNCs on the same serial port, to provide multiple radio ports to the node. Otherwise, XKISS works like KISS. For information on this mode of operation, see the documentation for the XKISS software you are using.

Diving even deeper into this rabbit hole of obscure, obsolete, “no need to do it this way now” technology, see the paper After 38 Years, Do I Still Get a KISS? by Mike Cheponis K6THZ and Phil Karn KA9Q for Zero Retries Digital Conference 2025. In that paper, the authors explain yet another variant of “Multidrop KISS” - 6PACK:

What Is 6PACK? (A brief AI summary)
6PACK is a specialized data link layer protocol used in amateur radio packet communications to provide efficient, low-latency communication between a host computer and a TNC (Terminal Node Controller) over a serial interface. According to < https://docs.kernel.org/networking/6pack.html > it was developed by Ekki Plicht DF4OR, Henning Rech DF9IC.N1EOW and Gunter Jost DK7WJ/K7WJ, although Thomas Sailer HB9JNX/AE4AWA and Uwe Walter DL2VAF and others were contributing.
6PACK was developed to optimize data transmission between a computer and a TNC by addressing limitations of earlier protocols like KISS. It was especially designed to support high-speed operation and multiple ports over a single serial line, improving performance in packet radio systems. The name “6PACK” comes from its origin with six-port TNC setups.

Addressing Multiple Radio Ports in the Kantronics 9612XE

If you’re curious how to use the two radio ports on a 9612XE, from page 72 and 73…

Switch from Radio Port 1 to Radio Port 2
Up to now, we have assumed you are using radio port 1. Switching to port 2 (and a particular channel (stream) on port 2) and back again is easy. At the command prompt, you enter the stream switch character (default is “|”, normally called the “pipe” symbol, but you can change it) followed by the number of the port you want to switch to, followed by the stream you want to go to on that port.
Note: The command STREAMSW sets the character recognized to switch streams (and ports). See the commands reference for details.
For example, to switch to stream A on port 2, connect to another station and
disconnect:
Step 1. At the “cmd:” prompt, type |2A and press the enter key ,
Step 2. Now you are on port 2, stream a. You can verify this, by issuing the command STATUS. The status response will show the port and stream to which your command or data will be directed.
Step 3. From here, issue a connect command, such as “cmd: C WØXI”. After a connection has been established, you can carry on a communication with station WØXI,
Step 4. To disconnect (and remain on Port 2), issue the disconnect command,
“cmd: D”.

Of course… with current technology, almost all of this is moot.

It’s admittedly “oldtechsplaining” that current computers are just so fast that they can poll [PC] serial ports (even operating at 115 kbps) that there’s no need to assign Interrupt Requests (IRQs). Thus a modern PC can support a very large number of serial ports, if necessary just by assigning a unique I/O address such as 3F8, 2F8, 3E8, 2E8, etc. Or just use USB 😀.
MKISS is no longer needed other than to support TNCs with multiple radio ports. It’s feasible to attach as many TNCs (with USB interfaces) as you wish to any computer. Even a basic Raspberry Pi 3B+ supports four native USB ports, and many more USB ports by connecting USB port expanders.
Multidrop KISS / XKISS is no longer relevant because we can have as many serial ports as we wish on any computer, even for legacy TNCs that require an RS-232 connection, thanks to USB to RS-232 adapters.
And modern TNCs already have USB interfaces, and are KISS devices, and are relatively inexpensive. Connect as many as needed and the computer will be able to handle it.

Conclusion

KISS has been with us for nearly four decades now, and I suspect that more and more variability in implementations of KISS is being introduced through the use of “tribal knowledge osmosis” in the various implementations of KISS. In my opinion, a “KISS Steering Committee” should exist within Amateur Radio to provide a reference implementation… if not a modernized KISS standard that incorporates all the accumulated knowledge of what works in KISS, what doesn’t, and a unified approach on how to fix the things that don’t.

It’s amusing, and a little bit fun to revisit all of this legacy arcane packet radio knowledge. But in this era… just buy a DigiRig Mobile or a DigiRig Lite or equivalent audio interface, and move all of the packet radio (or other digital / data mode) functionality into the host computer.

ZR > BEACON

By Steve Stroh N8GNJ

Short mentions of Zero Retries Interesting items.

IP400 Project Reaches Halfway Point

Editor’s Note - The text that follows is a concatenation of an email received from Martin Alcock VE6VH, founder of the IP400 project, and a posting - Project Status as of March 19th, 2026 on the ADRCS website, and then lightly edited for publication.

For more information on IP400, see https://ip400.adrcs.org.

The IP400 Project is pleased to announce that we have reached the half-way point for the IP400 project. The hardware development is complete, as well as the research phases for proof of concept. We are now at the point where we will be doing limited production runs for the various hardware components, and the rest of the development effort from here on it will be mostly in firmware and FPGA development.

The outputs from the development effort are many and varied, there will be a new outdoor 400 MHz node with an integrated power amplifier, an AllstarLink upgrade to add OFDM data modes to existing repeater systems, as well as an OFDM TNC for standalone use, all nodes supporting high speed data as well as an AX.25 compatible KISS mode.

The project development continues on three fronts:

Node Hardware The mini-node has been revised to add a POE ethernet adapter, making it now a three board stack instead of two. The 5W power amplifier has been designed, pre-production units will be available soon. The supernode prototype has been built, and the design for the production version and TNC OEM board is complete. Both are pending prototype builds.

See Hardware for an explanation of IP400 hardware variations.

Firmware The unified firmware platform is in development, and pending successful testing, will be released for beta testing with Mode A only on the WL33 platforms shortly.

New Modes Development of Mode B is ongoing and is looking very promising. Mode C will be available later this year.

See Vision for an explanation of IP400 modes.

…

Team Members Page A new page has been added to the IP400 project site acknowledging contributors.

Stixs - Handheld 5 Watt VHF / UHF LoRa Data Radio In Development

Stixs Labs is developing a new portable data radio with an impressive sounding list of features:

Dual-band TX - Professional VHF and UHF communication with 5W output power. Shared antenna system with intelligent band switching.
Built strong - Solid aluminium core with a 5-inch touchscreen for reliable operation across environments.
Meshtastic - Extended range communication with LoRa technology. Perfect for mesh networks and remote monitoring applications.
Quality audio - ES8316 audio codec with PAM8302A amplifier delivers crystal-clear communication with advanced noise suppression and echo cancellation.
Robust power - Advanced power management with USB-C Power Delivery charging. Multiple voltage rails ensure optimal efficiency for extended field operations.
Open Source & Customizable - Built on Armbian Linux with full source code access. Customize, extend, and contribute to the platform that grows with your needs.
Current Development Phase: Pre-production software development & testing in progress with expected availability in August 2026

This is a “kitchen sink” unit, combining an FM radio (the VHF / UHF radio), a LoRa radio operating on 868 or 915 MHz, 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi, etc.

Despite this mention:

Join amateur radio enthusiasts and developers who are already backing the future of handheld radio communication.

It’s obvious that Amateur Radio really isn’t the target audience of this unit. If it were, the features would be more tailored to the unique capabilities of Amateur Radio, such as being able to run LoRa on the Amateur Radio UHF (70cm) band at higher power than unlicensed users, it would probably incorporate MeshCore, and there would be some mention of multiple modes that the VHF / UHF radio section supports, other than “FM”.

This unit sounds interesting and ambitious. Perhaps it will be able to achieve the fabled “just load a modem for data communications” via the Linux subsystem. Making all of this work together (especially the three distinct radio subsystems), at a reasonable price, on a reasonable timeline is going to be a challenge.

My thanks to Mark Poole K6MAP for bringing this unit to my attention for Zero Retries.

DLARC: The Radio Geek’s Doomscrolling Antidote

Nick Langan in Radio World:

Immerse yourself in a digital collection of amateur radio and communication artifacts
The internet has aged to the point where it is easy to fall into a rabbit hole, reminiscing about websites from decades past.
The site that fuels those scrolling endeavors is the Internet Archive — a nonprofit that hosts a digital library of internet sites and other artifacts in digital form. The project began in 1996 to archive the web.
Today, it contains one trillion web pages through its “Wayback Machine,” as well as 56 million books and texts. It also works with approximately 1,400 libraries through its Archive-It program to identify and preserve important digital history.
Kay Savetz (K6KJN) freely admits to having been an Internet Archive power user. Savetz used not just the archive.org website, but also its command line interface to upload many documents.
Kay Savetz poses with some of the seven pallets of Bob Cooper’s material. Cooper was a noted pioneer in long-distance VHF reception and satellite television.
A licensed amateur radio operator since 1989, Savetz’s own interviews with Atari 8-bit computer pioneers are among those early uploads.
So when the Amateur Radio Digital Communications foundation provided a significant grant to the Internet Archive to form a collection of the history of amateur radio and adjacent endeavors, the archive sought a lead curator. Savetz was a natural fit.
The project was funded in 2022 and titled the Digital Library of Amateur Radio and Communications. Today, DLARC has approximately 225,000 items, spanning magazines, newsletters and call books.
In computing terms, that’s about 26 terabytes of storage space, Savetz told us.
Savetz took us inside DLARC’s impressive array of content, and we’ve added links to the featured offerings throughout our story.

This is a great (delightful) lengthy story about DLARC. Langan did an in-depth interview and teased out a lot of detail about Kay Savetz K6KJN and DLARC / Internet Archive. Recommended!

Another Entirely Zero Retries Interesting Issue of Random Wire Newsletter!

While I love all of the content in the average issue of that Tom Salzer KJ7T packs into his Random Wire Newsletter, there are some issues like Issue 176 that are entirely Zero Retries Interesting. (Issue 175 was really good too!) To wit:

Updates on M17 and LinHT (that I’ve missed this week, but KJ7T caught)
Installing an Uninterruptible Power Supply for a Raspberry Pi Zero
More info on his Buddipole antenna project (and I am very grateful for learning of the existence of the Buddipole Center Tee Adapter which converts the odd thread of a painter’s pole to 1/2 inch threads which at least I have a prayer of matching to put up a lightweight temporary VHF / UHF antenna5.
Lots of other interesting techie info.

You could conclude from the regular mentions of each other’s newsletters that KJ7T and I have a “Ham Bromance” going… but to date, we’ve never met, only corresponded and talked briefly, and know of each other entirely from publishing our respective newsletters. KJ7T and I are fellow techies, focused on the more technical / digital elements of Amateur Radio, and both of us are comfortable writing about what we find interesting. Thanks for the Zero Retries shoutout in RW 176!

Amateur Repeater Directory - With a Novel Update System

At a glance, https://app.amateurrepeaterdirectory.org looks like many other visualizations of the location (and features / capabilities) of Amateur Radio repeaters in a map format. There’s nothing overt there that suggests this page is doing anything from displaying a visual representation of a (static) database of repeater information.

But, apparently, there’s (claimed to be) more interesting technology than is readily apparent.

Maddeningly, to me, there is almost no text description of the technical underpinnings of these systems apart from snippets of text on the YouTube videos. To me, that calls into question whether this system is real (beyond deploying / demonstrating a few prototype units).

From the video’s description:

AirPulse is a new RF sensing device designed to power the Amateur Repeater Directory with live radio activity data. By connecting radios to the AirPulse Network API, repeaters can be automatically discovered and radios programmed instantly—no cables, no guesswork, just turn on your radio and connect.

At https://www.youtube.com/@AmateurRepeaterDirectory is this additional description:

Feedline Labs created Greywire Fabric, the Live RF Intelligence Fabric — a real-time intelligence layer for radio. With AirPulse, live activity comes into view, repeaters light up on the map, and RF becomes something you can see as it happens. Greywire Fabric moves beyond static repeater data and turns radio into a living, connected network.

I will give credit to these folks for coming up with a number of impressive-sounding buzzwords system names - AirPulse, Feedline Labs, Greywire Fabric, LiveRF Intelligence Fabric, etc.

I can imagine how something like this would work (no help from the above descriptions or anything else I was able to find). The following is solely from my imagination:

Radio receiver is a “reasonable” Software Defined Receiver, with reasonable quality such as bandpass filters to improve sensitivity from broadcast transmitters, paging transmitters, etc. that are prevalent in metropolitan areas. The receiver would periodically scan through the entire spectrum, creating an internal (or on a remote host computer) heat map of radio activity on various channels.
On received signals, it could cross reference databases such as Amateur Radio repeater directories, FCC database, etc.
It could periodically send snippets of audio for processing with an AI.
It could load ka9q-radio for simultaneous monitoring of the active channels. That would provide the realtime activity from actual spectrum use, feeding updating the Amateur Repeater Directory.

Again, this seems like an impressive technology integration… but I can’t bring myself to buy into it too deeply when it’s explained almost entirely in YouTube videos… in this era where videos can be entirely fabricated with AI.

Post Publication Update: A reader of Zero Retries did a reality check against of a known good list of repeaters in a major metro area against (this) Amateur Repeater Directory, and the latter was way out of date. Thus this project doesn’t seem credible (or real?).

My thanks to Mark Poole K6MAP for bringing this to my attention for Zero Retries.

Why You Might Want To Set Up Your Raspberry Pi Internet Web Server on 44Net

Dave Ginsberg N3BKV on his N3BKV’s Ham Radio Hacks blog:

I had a big problem with my blog. Since it’s hosted on Blogger, there were issues with Google and Bing indexing it. I must have spent nearly two weeks trying to figure out why search engines were having trouble with redirects and couldn’t index the site. After some research, I found out this is a common problem with Blogger.
So, I decided it was time to set up my own web server. That way, I’d have full control over everything—from which content management system and plug-ins I use to how the site is hosted. I had a spare Raspberry Pi sitting around that I could use, since my site doesn’t get a lot of traffic. All I needed was a static, internet-addressable IP address. But those are generally hard to come by without an expensive business-class internet connection.
As hams, we have access to millions of IPs for free, thanks to some forward-thinking operators from the 1980s via 44Net. Here’s a link to an article and a short video on the history of 44Net:
https://www.ardc.net/ardc-kicks-off-youtube-channel-with-44net-origin-story/
What I needed was an internet-routable 44.x IP so my web server could appear on that IP on the public internet. Most home internet service providers (ISPs) don’t allow this kind of setup, so I needed a way to route my traffic through someone who could provide internet connectivity for my 44Net IP.
Enter 44Net Cloud. It lets you create a Virtual Private Network (VPN) tunnel from your computer to the 44Net Cloud, and they route your traffic to the internet. There’s a bit of latency, so it’s not ideal for radio traffic, but for websites or file sharing with your club (e.g., using Nextcloud - https://nextcloud.com/), it’s a great solution.

Agreed wholeheartedly that N3BKV’s use case is ideal for 44Net Connect.

Video - Meshtastic vs Meshcore vs Reticulum vs ATAK

Jason Johnston KC5HWB on his Ham Radio 2.0 YouTube channel:

Today I compare Meshtastic, Meshcore, Reticulum and ATAK in a high overview of each service. These 4 are not in direct competition with one another, and they can often work together.

I had not heard of ATAK (Android Team Awareness Kit). See ATAK & Meshtastic for Next-Generation Field Intelligence for an explanation.

Please offer comments / feedback about ZR > BEACON on the Zero Retries email list with the #ZR0245 hashtag - mailto:zeroretries@groups.io?subject=%23ZR0245.

Request To Send

By Steve Stroh N8GNJ

Paid Subscribers / Founding Members Update

The only updates on this subject this week is that with the return to publishing on Substack, paid subscriptions in Substack have been reactivated as of 2026-04-03.

Financial support from Zero Retries readers is a significant vote of support for the continued publication of Zero Retries.

Presentation at Surrey Amateur Radio Communications Society (SARC) Next Week

Next Wednesday 2026-04-08, Tina and I will journey to Surrey, British Columbia for me to give a talk at the monthly meeting of SARC. I’m looking forward to meeting members of this dynamic Amateur Radio organization in person. SARC is one of my few Amateur Radio memberships and I joined SARC because I appreciate its progressive approach to Amateur Radio, and especially I want to support their amazing newsletterzine, The Communicator.

That… is the kind of publication - entirely online, entirely free, with great production values, good editing, and a good content mix including (but not exclusively) Zero Retries Interesting articles that is relevant and interesting about Amateur Radio in the 21st century. I’ve been so consistently impressed with The Communicator that I now write a column for each bimonthly issue, and then went on to become a paid member of SARC. I’m especially looking forward to meeting the Editor of The Communicator, John Schouten VE7TI.

Cross Fertilization

One of the surprises of the overall experience of publishing Zero Retries has been how much time I end up cross fertilizing between folks that are involved in technological innovation in Amateur Radio. It regularly happens that I’m writing something for Zero Retries and it occurs to me to provide an introduction between two folks that might not be aware of each other’s complementary activities / projects. That cost me an hour of email time today as I was working on this issue.

Lately I’ve had some very interesting in-depth conversations by phone. This week I had three of those - thanks folks - you know who you are.

Hamvention Ho!

6 weeks until Hamvention 2026
in Xenia, Ohio, USA...
Zero Retries / DLARC booth 1506
in Building 1 / Maxim

Weekends Are For Amateur Radio!

This weekend will be butt-in-chair time to finish converting the content published on Ghost / www.zeroretries.radio back onto Substack / www.zeroretries.org.

Please offer comments / feedback about Request To Send on the Zero Retries email list with the #ZR0245 hashtag - mailto:zeroretries@groups.io?subject=%23ZR0245.

73,

Steve N8GNJ

Closing Thanks

Numerous Annual and Monthly subscribers who also generously support Zero Retries financially!

You thousands of readers of Zero Retries without which there would be little point in publishing this newsletter.

The Usual Administrivia

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Fair Use - All excerpts from other authors or organizations, including images, are intended to be fair use and are fully attributed generally by author and link (URL).
Paid Promotional Content - Unless otherwise noted in the article or item, advertisement, or sponsorship notice, Zero Retries does not include paid promotional content. Exceptions:
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Zero Retries 0245 was published on 2026-04-03. This issue was 7708 words.

end

Footnotes for This Issue

To see the relevant sentence for the footnote, just click the footnote number.

No trying to buy a proven mini PC that was apparently last week’s model and no longer available. Gosh I missed (this) footnote capability in Ghost!

That this was shown at Pacificon… and not anywhere else (that I’m aware of) was a primary reason Tina and I decided to attempt Zero Retries Digital Conference 2026 in proximity of Pacificon 2026.

A long overdue Thanks to my friend and mentor Ken Koyan K8TV who, once upon a time, decades ago brought me along to meet a friend of his in rural Northeast Ohio who had perhaps the only tractor Power Take Off (PTO) EME array in the world. I never forgot that sight, and the implications of that system and seeing a real EME array. I wish I knew who that EME operator was.

The same web browser, same (local) email client, web servers, file servers, etc. as used on Internet can, generally, be used on AREDN networks.

Either Buddipole is missing a huge potential market in Amateur Radio for lightweight VHF / UHF antennas with a 1/2 inch pipe thread base using painter poles… or I’m oblivious to some common source of such antennas.

Zero Retries 0244

Steve Stroh N8GNJ — Fri, 27 Mar 2026 22:30:00 GMT

Steve Stroh N8GNJ, Editor

Tina Stroh KD7WSF, Business / Conference Manager

This issue of Zero Retries was originally published on Ghost - https://www.zeroretries.radio/zero-retries-0244/. Thus all links that were for zeroretries.radio have (attempted to) been changed to equivalents on zeroretries.org.

See this archive page:
https://web.archive.org/web/20260406214906/https://www.zeroretries.radio/zero-retries-0244/
for how it originally appeared on www.zeroretries.radio.

Substack says this issue is too big for email clients. Thus, it might be easier to read in a web browser - https://www.zeroretries.org/p/zero-retries-0244.

It’s easy and free to subscribe for your own copy of Zero Retries every week:

In This Issue...

I-Frame

AX.25 Version 2.2 - John Langner WB2OSZ

Introduction by Steve Stroh N8GNJ

FCC Bans New “Consumer Routers” - Steve Stroh N8GNJ

Starlink Now Marketing Starlink as Suitable for Emergency Backup - Steve Stroh N8GNJ

⬅️⬅️⬅️ Previous Issue of Zero Retries \ Next Issue of Zero Retries ➡️➡️➡️

I-Frame

By Steve Stroh N8GNJ

Brief notes about this issue of Zero Retries.

Some Weeks Just Fly By

One story I worked on for most of a day this week ended up not being usable here in Zero Retries. But, it was still fascinating to work on the story and I don’t regret the time “lost” doing so.

And... that’s the story, for me, writ large about Zero Retires. This coming July will begin the sixth year of publishing Zero Retries (almost) weekly, and creating a new issue of Zero Retries every week is still as much fun, immersive, and addictive as it was at the beginning.

Thank you, Zero Retries readers for coming along on the ride.

Not Publishing on Substack

For new Zero Retries email subscribers that sign up for Zero Retries on Substack from a link, or the Substack app, or ??? and find yourself receiving Zero Retries from Ghost, the short story is that I’m no longer using Substack to publish Zero Retries. When a new email subscriber adds themselves to Zero Retries on Substack, I manually add that person to receive Zero Retries via Ghost (no big deal). Between Substack and Ghost, a typical week sees 3-10 new email subscribers to Zero Retries.

Please direct comments / feedback about I-Frame to the Zero Retries email list with the #ZR0244 hashtag.

AX.25 Version 2.2

By John Langner WB2OSZ

Introduction By Steve Stroh N8GNJ

John Langner WB2OSZ is one of my heroes of Zero Retries Interesting Amateur Radio. WB2OSZ is the creator of the Dire Wolf Software TNC, which has become one of... if not the cornerstone element(s) of Amateur Radio Packet Radio remaining relevant in the 21st century. Dire Wolf is remarkably capable software, most notably incorporating a unique, automatic mechanism for correcting received single bit errors without requiring a retransmission (Zero Retries!). This capability is largely “behind the scenes” of Dire Wolf operation, but WB2OSZ explained it in a 2018 presentation, where I was privileged to be in the audience and meet WB2OSZ.

Dire Wolf is interoperable with both FX.25 and IL2P Forward Error Correction (FEC) systems now in use in modern Amateur Radio that make Packet Radio much more usable and reliable, especially at (fussy) 9600 bps operation. Dire Wolf is also interoperable with a number of different speed tiers such as 2400 bps and 4800 bps, including interoperability with the NinoTNC. Dire Wolf includes many of the primary elements for being an APRS digipeater / IGate, and runs very well on Linux, Windows, and MacOS. It also runs on systems as modest as the Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W as evidenced by it being one of the primary modes of the DigiPi.

WB2OSZ is also a capable technical writer (Dire Wolf documentation is excellent). In the past several years has begun systematically documenting the many divergent enhancements of APRS since the development (decades ago now) of the first formal specification of APRS. Just one example of WB2OSZ’s excellent technical writing is APRS Digipeater Algorithm.

When WB2OSZ shared a draft version of this article with me in December 2025, I was struck that I wasn’t aware of the significant advantages of AX.25 Version 2.2 over Version 2.0. Given that decades that have now passed since the release of Version 2.2, it’s valuable for this knowledge to be propagated more widely.

One might ask... why does this matter now, after more than two decades since this update? Simply, Amateur Radio Packet Radio operation continues in many areas. One example is that Packet Radio TNCs are now embedded within new, modern radios. Another example is that there are extensive Amateur Radio Packet Radio networks such as the 145.050 NET/ROM Packet Radio Network (operating in California, Nevada, and Oregon) and EastNet Packet in the Northeastern US. Not to mention Amateur Radio Packet Radio being used as “transport” for APRS and Winlink.

Given the significant advantages of AX.25 Version 2.2 that WB2OSZ explains, I hope that other AX.25 implementations will consider updating to Version 2.2. Most modern “Terminal Node Controllers” - TNCs such as the TNC4, and Kantronics 9612XE (”Easily upgradeable flash based bios/firmware”) are now implemented in (updatable) flash-based firmware and not nearly as memory or processor power constrained as 1980’s era TNCs. More modern TNCs are “KISS” TNCs and thus move AX.25 functionality into a host computer.

Lastly... WB2OSZ is perhaps guilty of “burying the lede” in his article in not referencing that Dire Wolf has implemented AX.25 Version 2.2. That capability is another element of why Amateur Radio Packet Radio networks using Dire Wolf generally work better than using legacy TNCs.

I had originally planned to “reprint” the entire article here in Zero Retries, but WB2OSZ completed the article and it’s now publicly available - see below.

...

If you had to choose between using a mobile phone from 1984 and one from 1998, the decision would be obvious. In just fourteen years, mobile technology evolved from bulky, single-purpose bricks into compact, reliable, feature-rich devices. What’s easy to forget is that communication protocols evolve in exactly the same way — and Amateur Packet Radio is no exception.

Most operators know that AX.25 is the protocol that made amateur packet radio possible. What fewer realize is that there isn’t just one AX.25 standard. In fact, there are two major revisions, separated by nearly a decade and a half of real-world experience, experimentation, and lessons learned.

Packet radio exploded in popularity in the mid-1980s. New TNC manufacturers appeared almost overnight, and the hobby grew rapidly because everyone agreed to speak the same digital “language”:

AX.25 Version 2.0 — October 1984

But technology didn’t stand still. After more than ten years of operational use, network experimentation, and feedback from thousands of packet operators, [AX.25] was revisited and improved. The result was a significantly more capable and efficient protocol:

AX.25 Version 2.2 — July 1998
(Now more than 25 years old as I write this.)

Ironically, while the 1998 revision brought meaningful improvements, existing implementations rarely adopted it. Most manufacturers disappeared, and the few that remain don’t mention AX.25 2.2 support at all.

So, what changed? And why does AX.25 Version 2.2 offer such clear advantages over its 1984 predecessor?

Let’s take a closer look at what makes Version 2.2 the better protocol — and why you should be using it.

Read (download) the entire (PDF) article at:
https://github.com/wb2osz/direwolf-doc/blob/main/AX.25-version-2.2.pdf

WB2OSZ’s article is an easy to understand, high level treatment of the differences between AX.25 Version 2.0 and Version 2.2, and a good explanation of how Version 2.2 is backwards compatible / interoperable with Version 2.0. A primary feature of Version 2.2 is that implementing it...

does not break any functionality or compatibility or interoperability with existing TNCs or existing Amateur Radio Packet Radio networks.

Highly recommended! My thanks to WB2OSZ for this article, and his many contributions to Amateur Radio in both his work on Dire Wolf and his writing.

Please direct comments / feedback about this article to the Zero Retries email list with the #ZR0244 hashtag.

FCC Bans New “Consumer Routers”

By Steve Stroh N8GNJ

This issue may become problematic, at least for a while, for Amateur Radio. We had it good for a long time with cheap, capable routers such as GL-iNet units (my personal favorites, supported by AREDN firmware). But there are some workarounds for Amateur Radio given we’re a bit more savvy than typical consumers. It’s quickly going to get confusing as the FCC makes no attempt to “de-conflate” the two functions - the actual Internet routing function in a household, and the Wireless Access Point function, that are almost always combined into a single unit. It will also probably become an amusing game of “whack a mole” as new “versions” of existing (currently approved) routers slip through the proposed new processes for approval of new units.

To answer a likely criticism in advance, I am not a lawyer (thus I’m not “armchair lawyering”), I am not an FCC “kremlinologist“, and these views are offered as relevant to the Zero Retries Interesting Amateur Radio, not political, aspects of this issue.

FACT SHEET: FCC Updates Covered List to Include Foreign-Made Consumer Routers, Prohibiting Approval of New Model

Update Follows Determination by Executive Branch Agencies that Consumer-Grade Routers Produced in Foreign Countries Threaten National Security

WASHINGTON, March 23, 2026—Today, the Federal Communications Commission updated itsCovered List to include all consumer-grade routers produced in foreign countries. Routers are the boxes in every home that connect computers, phones, and smart devices to the internet. This followed a determination by a White House-convened Executive Branch interagency body with appropriate national security expertise that such routers “pose unacceptable risks to the national security of the United States or the safety and security of United States persons.”

The Executive Branch determination noted that foreign-produced routers (1) introduce “a supply chain vulnerability that could disrupt the U.S. economy, critical infrastructure, and national defense” and (2) pose “a severe cybersecurity risk that could be leveraged to immediately and severely disrupt U.S. critical infrastructure and directly harm U.S. persons.”

Read the entire statement at https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-420034A1.pdf.

I agree with some very limited aspects of the reasoning behind this decision. Cheap consumer grade routers are routinely shipped with not just known security flaws, but sometimes with malware / spyware already installed. Attempts by “authorities” (not just in the US) to get the manufacturers to correct known issues have not been taken seriously by the manufacturers.

Thus this sledgehammer approach to improve the situation... whatever the real motives, however flawed the execution.

This issue won’t affect the vast majority of consumers that use routers supplied by their Internet service provider such as Comcast, Starlink, etc. Those big providers have enough clout (influence) within the US government to get their units rapidly approved through this “process”.

I predict the “process” as outlined, such as new units require approval from Department of Defense... will collapse within months under the weight of applications for use of newer technology in routers such as Wi-Fi 7 which is still in the early adoption phase. The “process” outlined by the FCC does not seem reasonable, workable, or scalable.

I don’t plan to cover this issue further in Zero Retries as it will be breathlessly covered (it’s irresistible clickbait) by consumer and homelab websites, newsletters, YouTubers, etc. That said, here are a few observations from the Zero Retries perspective.

I foresee three Zero Retries Interesting areas that I think this issue may affect:

AREDN makes extensive use of routers in being able to meld AREDN networking / access within an Amateur Radio Operator’s home to be accessible via their household Internet... such as getting your laptop onto an AREDN network while using your household Wi-Fi.
44Net / 44Net Connect requires routers (capable of Wireguard Virtual Private Network - VPN) for use of 44Net systems and services.
This issue also may affect Amateur Radio Over Internet systems such as communicating on Internet talk groups, especially using radio hotspots. Functionally, these projects / products bridge (route) Internet to a radio. No, these aren’t “consumer routers” that the FCC is targeting, but that may well be too fine a distinction for the FCC when faced with a tsunami of requests for exemptions. Thus Amateur Radio products may well be swept up in the “blanket ban” that the FCC is proposing on “routers” that are manufactured outside the US.

It’s interesting to note the approach for Amateur Radio hotspots that AllScan uses in its products - combining used embedded PCs and commodity portable radios, ends up being a clever and effective workaround. Thus AllScan’s products won’t be affected by this issue.

Knowledgeable folks like many Zero Retries readers have known about the issues of cheap routers and the first thing they do when they want to use one is to install OpenWRT firmware. Whether a router is supported by OpenWRT is my primary checklist item when considering purchasing a new router.

I expect that embedded computers such as Raspberry Pis (with independent Ethernet ports and external, higher capability Wi-Fi), will bridge the gap of availability of consumer routers. That Raspberry Pi can handle this function is evidenced by their use by Pi-hole. I’ll guess that some vendors will quickly bring Raspberry Pi “router appliances” to market... which may well prove highly useful to Amateur Radio. Just open up such an appliance to find the Micro SD card, and swap that out with a Micro SD card with Amateur Radio routing software.

Lastly, of course, this issue affects only those of us within the US trying to purchase products that are manufactured outside the US. My sympathies to vendors of innovative Amateur Radio products manufactured outside the US, trying to sell into the US, that will get impacted by this issue. Hopefully... not calling the product anything resembling Internet router will help.

Please direct comments / feedback about this article to the Zero Retries email list with the #ZR0244 hashtag.

Starlink Now Marketing Starlink as Suitable for Emergency Backup

By Steve Stroh N8GNJ

Email from Starlink (I’m a customer) directing me to their web page for this use case:

Be prepared for power outages, natural disasters, and extreme weather when traditional coverage fails..

STAY ONLINE NO MATTER WHERE YOU LIVE
Starlink delivers connectivity to remote areas beyond cell service reach.

Stay connected when you need it most with affordable service plans.

OFF-GRID RESILIENCE
Starlink emergency backup powers connectivity in even the most rural and remote areas.

CONNECTIVITY WHEN AND WHERE YOU NEED IT
Stay connected to friends, family, and your community without latency or delays.

GET ONLINE IN MINUTES
Starlink emergency backup deploys in minutes for instant off-grid connectivity.

BACKUP HOME INTERNET: STARLINK FOR OUTAGES. ANYWHERE COVERAGE.

Starlink offers anywhere coverage for homes during power and internet outages, harsh weather conditions, and natural disasters.

Starlink (a service of SpaceX) continues to expand the its marketing of Starlink service for additional use cases. This is the first time (that I’m aware of) that Starlink has explicitly marketed Starlink specifically, directly as “emergency backup” communications. Emergency communications capability has been mentioned in Starlink For Businesses for some time, but only somewhat incidentally to the overall service offering.

As I’ve mentioned, Starlink made me an offer I couldn’t refuse as a Starlink Home customer - a free Starlink Mini unit as long as I maintain at least $5/month standby service. I said Yes, of course, and I’ve done a number of “test deployments” in the past several months of using it in a lightly simulated emergency scenario. I’ve set it up in random locations, using emergency power (battery unit, 12 volts from a car), and there are only two issues that I’ve seen:

If it’s been a while since one’s Starlink Mini has been used, upon activation it will not be usable immediately as it will download a software update that, depending on the connectivity (see below) may take some time.
Heavy tree coverage does degrade the speeds and reliability as the Starlink constellation shifts behind trees. Using the Starlink app to optimize the orientation of the Starlink Mini will help this issue a lot. Also, using Starlink Mini.

Also as part of my informal testing, I’ve “fast updated” my Starlink Mini operating operating mode from STANDBY - $5/month to ROAM - $50/month..

It’s not a direct comparison between Standby and Roam. Standby speed is limited to 400 kbps, but total transfer is not capped. Roam speed is “full broadband” (speed not stated), but total transfer is capped to 100 GB. Changing back and forth is fluid, done in the Starlink app (either IOS or Android).

For emergency usage, the Starlink Mini is pretty amazing. It can be used for Broadband Internet either via built-in Wi-Fi or via Ethernet. Starlink offers a several routers what can extend the built-in Wi-Fi or via Ethernet. And the Starlink Mini can be powered via AC adapter, USB-C or 12 volts (I recommend the Starlink 12 volt to USB-C adapter).

I think this indicates that Starlink is beginning to position itself as a capable system for emergency communications. This is a slow start to existing Starlink customers. But, similar to Starlink for Businesses, I think that Starlink is likely to create a new sub-business for use of “fleets” of Starlink Minis to be managed, paid for (group discounts likely), and likely special services (Starlink specific Push to Talk voice communications app?) marketed to organizations with large service areas such as utilities, highway departments, construction companies, trucking companies, etc.

Please direct comments / feedback about I-Frame to the Zero Retries email list with the #ZR0244 hashtag.

ZR > BEACON

By Steve Stroh N8GNJ

Short mentions of Zero Retries Interesting items.

AREDN Soon “Rebased” on OpenWrt 25.12

Orv Beach W6BI on several AREDN-related email lists:

The nightly build due out on 03/18 has been “rebased” on OpenWrt 25.12. It has a new kernel, new wireless drivers and many, many months of patches and fixes and they’ve all been rolled into the AREDN software. It’s been lab-tested and seems fine, but the usual caveat applies: Don’t test it on any node you’d be really annoyed at having to rebuild. But please do test.

AREDN just continues to amaze me with its capabilities and the basic improvements that are continuing to be incorporated such as this.

PyTNC Pro

Stefaan Desmedt KO6IKR via email:

[My new project, PyTNC Pro,] is still in Beta, but it is APRS, Direwolf, VARA FM, etc. all in one interface.

I was a bit sick and tired of jumping around all these apps. I am looking for some feedback. Just put your radio in APRS mode, or if using VARA FM..

I am planning to do a monthly update of this.
Manual : https://github.com/smashingwaffle/pytnc-pro/wiki

https://github.com/smashingwaffle/pytnc-pro

From the Github page:

A FREE modern, feature-rich APRS transceiver for Windows with real-time mapping, emergency communications support, and VARA FM integration. The WIKI page is live.

Features:

📡 APRS Operations
• APRS-IS Integration - Connect to the worldwide APRS Internet System
• RF TX/RX - Transmit and receive over radio via soundcard modem (AFSK 1200 baud)
• VARA FM Support - High-speed digital mode for APRS over VARA FM
• Smart Beaconing - Automatic position beacons with configurable intervals
• Full Symbol Support - All APRS symbols with Hessu icon set

🗺️ Real-Time Mapping
• Live Station Tracking - See all APRS stations on an interactive map
• Clickable Callsigns - Click any callsign in the feed to pan to their location
• QRZ Popups - Station info with profile photos (requires QRZ subscription)
• Trail History - Track station movement over time
• GPU Accelerated - Smooth 60fps map rendering

🚨 Emergency Communications (EmComm)
• NOAA Weather Alerts - Real-time NWS warnings and watches
• USGS Earthquakes - Live earthquake data with magnitude filtering
• NASA FIRMS Wildfires - Active fire detection from satellite data
• Air Quality Index (AQI) - Smoke and pollution monitoring via AirNow
• Hospital Locations - Nearby trauma centers and emergency rooms
• DARN Network - Disaster Amateur Radio Network repeater locations

📻 Radio Integration
• PTT Control - Serial port PTT (RTS/DTR)
• CAT Control - Rig frequency/mode control (Yaesu, Icom, Kenwood)
• GPS Support - Serial GPS for automatic position updates
• Audio Device Selection - Independent TX/RX audio routing
Future feature ::### 💬 Messaging
• APRS Messaging - Send and receive APRS messages
• Message Acknowledgment - Automatic retry with ACK/REJ
• Conversation History - Persistent chat logs

KO6IKR is active in Amateur Radio emergency communications activities in California and the feature set of PyTNC Pro is tailored to the use case for that region’s Amateur Radio EMCOM infrastructure. PyTNC Pro is an impressive project, from one person, illustrating that a lot of technological innovation is occurring, in Amateur Radio.

GroundWave Project

Email from Jason Miller KF7TNN on a private email list:

I’ve been working on a project that I would say is HAM adjacent and I would be curious if there is anyone in the group who would be interested in playing around with it and providing feedback on features and usability.

The project is called GroundWave and you can learn more about it here

https://groundwave.io

...

What is GroundWave

GroundWave is an open-source, field-deployable situational awareness platform inspired by ATAK (Android Team Awareness Kit). It provides mapping, real-time position tracking, messaging, and team coordination through a standard web browser — no native app installation required.

The platform is packaged as a suite of Docker containers designed to run on portable, low-cost hardware such as a Raspberry Pi or Intel NUC. A single server unit creates a local Wi-Fi access point; client devices — phones, tablets, laptops — connect to that network and open GroundWave in their browser.

GroundWave is fully self-contained and operational without internet connectivity. Offline map tiles, position data, chat messages, and all coordination tools are served entirely from the local device. When connectivity does exist, optional features such as online map style fallback and server federation become available.

GroundWave is MIT-licensed. The source repository will be open to contributions when GroundWave exits beta.

Design Principles

Every architectural and feature decision in GroundWave is guided by a core set of principles:

Offline-First. The system must be fully operational with zero internet access. Map tiles, APIs, and real-time communication all run locally. Internet connectivity, when present, is treated as an optional enhancement rather than a requirement.

Containerized. All server-side components run inside Docker containers orchestrated by Docker Compose. Deployment is a single command regardless of the host operating system. Updates and rollbacks are clean and reproducible.

Web-Native. Clients connect via any modern web browser. No native app is required on phones, tablets, or laptops. This eliminates app store dependencies and device enrollment friction in the field.

Replicable. A complete GroundWave deployment — server hardware, Docker images, and tile data — can be reproduced from a self-contained release archive. No external registries or cloud services are needed to stand up a new unit.

Modular. Features are organized into discrete, independently toggleable modules (chat, markers, file sharing, overlays, voice, federation). Operators can enable only what their mission requires via environment configuration.

Resource-Conscious. The platform is designed to run on single-board computers with limited CPU, RAM, and storage. Performance budgets are validated against a Raspberry Pi 4 baseline. Unnecessary dependencies are avoided.

No Cloud Dependencies. GroundWave does not phone home, require license validation, or depend on any third-party SaaS. All data remains on the local device under operator control.

Network-Agnostic. The server communicates over standard TCP/IP and works on any network topology — Wi-Fi hotspot, wired LAN, mesh radio, or ad hoc. The client needs only a browser and an IP route to the server.

A later followup from KF7TNN:

To be transparent here, this project was never aimed at competing with larger platforms or commercial offerings, but rather to provide smaller groups, organizations or rural communities who can’t otherwise afford those options a tool they could use. My goal was to just add in features that could make a difference, and let the users find interesting and impactful ways to use them in their scenarios. On one hand that might be aiding in SAR, CERT, etc., while on the other it could just be a local community or group using it to coordinate with volunteers for an event, for example. I’m excited to see it used in ways I never even imagined.

The self-contained nature of it is key and provides endless ways it can be deployed. Basically, any machine that can support Docker should be able to run GroundWave. And any client device that can support a web browser would be able to connect and use it. As far as a network goes, it just assumes it’s on one, but that could be anything from the internet, to cellular, to WiFi to all the way down to Meshtastic (coming soon, but as you can imagine limits a lot of the features unfortunately). I personally have been playing around with portable WiFi HaLow nodes running OpenMANET and that seems to work great.

As for the data, I have not added any connections to outside services or platforms, but would love to know more about the things that would be useful to connect to. For right now, any data generated within GroundWave is exportable from the dashboard, mostly as JSON, but a few of the location specific items have their own formats. The idea there was that before starting a “mission” you’d spin up an empty instance, load up your maps and data, and when you’re done you can export everything back out for analysis, public record, or whatever your use-case is. It also allows for reuse of annotations which is very useful for repeating events (think parades, festivals, etc., where the details are mostly the same and could be reused).

Feel free to reach out to me directly with any questions. Happy to demo it for you or take you deeper under the hood if you’d like. Just let me know.

KF7TNN posted his email address on the list - jason@jason-miller.com. GroundWave Project incorporates encryption, but this project is not necessarily intended for Amateur Radio use (but that’s not structurally excluded, either). GroundWave Project is another impressive project, from one person, illustrating that a lot of technological innovation is occurring, in this case, adjacent to Amateur Radio.

The ISS Returns to S-Band: HamTV Now Transmitting Color Bars on 13 cm

AMSAT Canada

The above is an experiment. When I just paste in a URL, Ghost creates a website “bookmark” like the above . If this works well for readers (feedback requested) this would allow more items to be featured, with less manual formatting work.

This is a good article explaining the reasons for setting up a receive only station for S-band (13 cm) - 2.395 GHz. The article is Zero Retries Interesting - recommended. Kudos to AMSAT-CA for an interesting article and making content such as this publicly accessible instead of behind a paywall like AMSAT-US does.

My thanks to Amateur Radio Weekly Issue 411 for mentioning this item.

The postscript to this article was particularly Zero Retries Interesting:

What’s Coming Next on AMSAT-CA

This article is the first in a short, focused series aimed at helping amateurs move from curiosity to capability.

Upcoming posts will include:

A Minimally Viable HamTV Receive Station Experiments using easily obtained antennas, low-noise amplifiers, and simple RF chains to demonstrate what is just enough to receive the signal.

Selecting and Using a Software Defined Radio for S-Band Reception A practical discussion of SDR selection, front-end considerations, sampling bandwidth, dynamic range, frequency stability, and how SDR choice affects real-world microwave performance.

Demodulating and Displaying the Video A straightforward walkthrough of software tools, signal recording, demodulation steps, and video display—no black boxes.

Tracking and Automation Pathways Several approaches to tracking the ISS at S-band, from manual methods to semi- and fully-automated solutions, using commonly available tools.

Along the way, we’ll share real results with real hardware, so others can decide for themselves how far they want to push their experiments.

The Bigger Picture

The goal here isn’t just to receive colour bars.

It’s to lower the barrier to microwave experimentation, spark repeat engagement, and build practical skills across the amateur community. These short primers will eventually be consolidated into a complete technical paper documenting what was learned, what worked, what didn’t, and how others can build on it.

HamTV on the ISS gives us a rare thing: A persistent, meaningful microwave experiment that amateurs can grow with over time.

If you’ve ever been curious about S-band, this is the moment.

Stay tuned—pun fully intended—as we find out just how interesting a test pattern can be.

Improving Open AMBE for D-Star

Steve Lampereur KB9MWR:

Overview:

The AMBE vocoder (speech coder) problem started when D-Star was developed and introduced to ham radio in the late 90’s early 2000’s. It’s since been compounded by DMR, Yaesu Fusion, and other digital radios. The proposed solution has been to replace this with an open source codec. However, none of these digital modes have a means to specify or differentiate the audio codec should they ever want to move away from AMBE. And there still isn’t much of a working implementation of Codec 2 for VHF/UHF radios. There is a working implementation for HF. Codec2/FreeDV is a good conception, but it hasn’t come to fruition in the advent of the AMBE patents expiring and other digital radios also employing AMBE and flooding the market. Besides we still don’t have radios with open firmware where we could load our own apps or alternative codec.

Keen observers have noticed a number of good radio initiatives that sadly haven’t come to be. The; Connect Systems CS7000, Wireless Holdings DV4 Mobile, the HT of the Future (aka: Algoram, Katena, Whitebox), the Newradio initiative in Germany/Austria, RU3ANQ SDR, and so on. There is a new (2019) initiative, the M17 Project, but it’s too early to tell if that will reach production.

Manufacturers are a fairly conservative bunch. They don’t want to invest in anything unless they know it’s going to sell. We all understand. Fortunately, much of the innovation now is purely in the form of software, which is much easier to mass-produce than hardware. So all you need the manufacturers for is to make general purpose SDR hardware, which is an easier sell than some new special mode. It’s also important for leaders to recognize the works of the dedicated software developers. And when the hardware manufacturers see the potential from their work, to work out an agreement so the software folks receive more than just a thank you.

This article resurfaced as part of an email discussion I participated in this week. While it’s somewhat dated (it was stated in the email exchange that this was published six years ago), it seems worth revisiting as the patents for AMBE have now aged another six years (and now out of patent protection, and thus eligible for an open source workalike?).

It’s worth discussion whether to (or not to) attempt to implement Amateur Radio digital voice modes such as D-Star and System Fusion, complete with AMBE, in new Software Defined Radios such as the forthcoming LinHT.

Or not? My impression is that Digital Mobile Radio (DMR) digital voice technology has largely eclipsed D-Star and System Fusion in Amateur Radio. Icom / Kenwood and Yaesu’s radios for those modes are expensive; DMR radios are much less expensive. DMR radios are available from multiple manufacturers, and there are now many more DMR repeaters (and support groups) than for D-Star or System Fusion.

If it were me as a software developer (and I’m not), it would seem more fun to take advantage of the easier path of fully implementing the already open source, code available and proven M17 Project (which the LinHT developers have already done), or break some new ground in implementing FreeDV RADE (designed for HF narrowband channels) or FreeDV BBFM (designed for VHF / UHF wider channels), both of which have amazing voice quality considering the narrow channels, and especially in comparison to the (inferior, in my opinion) voice quality of systems using AMBE.

44Net Connect Has a Limit of 8 Tunnels

Phil Karn KA9Q on the ARDC 44Net email list:

... I’ve hit the limit of 8 tunnels per account, so I can’t add any more.

Reply from Adam Lewis KC7GDY, ARDC’s IT and Development Operations Manager:

Bumped you up. You can spin up more tunnels now.

Thus, “8” is a default, but not a hard limit. It was fascinating to read KA9Q’s use case(s) and his experience with using 44Net Connect for the first time.

Starlink Micro Stealth Introduction?

In the article Brinc unveils Guardian, a Starlink-connected drone that could ‘replace the police helicopter’ there was this mention:

Guardian is the world’s first Starlink-connected drone. An integrated panel on top of the device gives the drone unlimited range anywhere in the world, maintaining a reliable data link when traditional cellular or terrestrial infrastructure is unavailable.

Yes, Starlink (Mini) has been used on (larger) drones for some time. But in this photo:

BRINC Drones Guardian - Image courtesy of GeekWire

the Starlink unit (looks to me to be) smaller than the Starlink Mini - roughly half the size of the Starlink Mini. I’m inventing (or anticipating) the terminology for this unit - The Starlink Micro. Not to mention that the power requirements of this unit must be commensurately lower to not severely curtail the power budget of drone overall, which also needs to power a camera and a floodlight. Given that the “Micro” would be operating with a much improved Line of Sight to the Starlink constellation in Low Earth Orbit, perhaps the “Micro” has be simplified, and its power budget reduced with the use of a static panel antenna, rather than a Phased Array antenna.

My primary reason for mentioning Guardian and its Starlink connectivity isn’t to begin covering drones in Zero Retries (though I’m not fundamentally opposed to doing so). Rather, this development illustrates the amazing increase in radio technology that we wouldn’t have imagined in previous eras. We’ve had handheld satellite radios for decades (Iridium and Globalstar), but only for voice and low bandwidth data. But this unit, given its capability of high definition video, must be capable of at least 20 Mbps. Now Broadband Internet Access in a (nearly) handheld form factor can be used nearly anywhere in the world for real world applications, at reasonable prices.

First Release Candidate For GNU Radio 4 (GR4)

Image courtesy of GNU Radio

MARCH 22, 2026

GNU Radio 4.0 RC1: A New Foundation for High-Performance Signal Processing

GNU Radio 4.0 has reached its first release candidate (RC1)—a major milestone that signals the transition from active development to near-production readiness. See the tag for all the details.

At this stage, the core architecture is stable, the execution model is well-defined, and the API is no longer expected to undergo major breaking changes. Developers can begin building against GR4 today with confidence that their work will carry forward into the final release.

GNU Radio 4 is a fundamental re-architecture of the system—designed for modern C++, deterministic execution, and high-performance pipelines that scale from embedded systems to large, complex DSP applications, while remaining accessible for research and hobbyist use.

This is not an incremental update. It is a new foundation for building signal processing systems.

Based on an early explanation of (then forthcoming) GR4 at GNU Radio Conference 2025, from my perspective, there are two primary advancements in GR4 from earlier versions of GNU Radio:

Plugin system with built-in reflection
...
This enables:
...
Integration with higher-level systems, including AI-driven workflows

and

Permissive core licensing

The GR4 core adopts a more permissive licensing model, lowering barriers for adoption:

• Easier integration into commercial systems
• Greater flexibility for mixed-license environments
• Broader ecosystem participation

It was explained to me at GNU Radio Conference 2025 that GR4 will be much more usable than earlier versions of GNU Radio for development in conjunction with Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning.

One thing I hope to see in GR4 is for the Graphical User Interface (GUI) - GNU Radio Companion (GRC) to be more integrated if not integral to GR4. Imagine doing vibe coding in GR4 and the output of the vibe coding will be the graphical elements of a GNU Radio Companion diagram. Conceptually, an AI could teach one the basics of Software Defined Radio using GNU Radio Companion block diagrams - and develop useful new radio technology.

As explained to me at GNU Radio Conference 2025, the license used in previous versions of GNU Radio required public disclosure of any code derived from GNU Radio, and that had a chilling effect for corporate or government use of GNU Radio other than for prototyping. That’s no longer the case with GR4. Thus GR4 could be used more directly for (Software Defined) radio development rather than a workflow of

Prototype in GNU Radio
Prove out concepts
Redevelop as an embedded system

Radio technology developed in GR4 should be able to be “directly embedded”, saving a lot of (re)development time and resources... somewhat akin to (imperfect analogy warning) prototyping software in a high level language, proving out the concept, then rewriting the system in a more efficient low level (machine) language.

Overall, it seems that GR4 is a clean sheet of paper approach to the entire concept of GNU Radio as (my imperfect analogy) conceptually a Linux-like Operating System for Software Defined Radio systems. There seems to be a migration path for earlier versions of GNU Radio flowgraphs to be adapted for GR4, thus it won’t be required to “start over from scratch” for systems developed in earlier versions of GNU Radio.

Beyond those two elements of GR4, I can’t do justice to the wealth of detail in this article about the improvements in GR4 beyond earlier versions of GNU Radio, so please click the link at the headline.

I think that GR4 will be a big deal for Software Defined Radio technology in 2026 and beyond, especially for Amateur Radio applications given GR4 will be more usable for development with the help of Artificial Intelligence.

UltraPeater

The UltraPeater by Zindello Industries is the ultimate infrastructure-grade LoRa mesh repeater designed to elevate your mesh network to new heights—literally.

...

Engineered for fixed, high-performance deployments at comms sites, towers, masts, or remote installations, the UltraPeater transforms the compact power of the Luckfox Pico Ultra into a reliable, always-on backbone node. Unlike portable solar-powered mesh devices, the UltraPeater is built for seamless integration into existing infrastructure: powered via PoE for 24/7 uptime, mast-mount ready, and ships with a preconfigured setup so it hits the air running.

At its core is a precision-engineered radio hat featuring one of two high-performance EBYTE E22-series LoRa modules (customer-selectable at order*):

• EBYTE E22 900M30S — 30dBm (1W) output with integrated LNA (Low noise amplifier) for superior sensitivity and performance in low-noise environments, delivering exceptional range and reliability where clean spectrum is available.
• EBYTE E22P 915M30S — 30dBm (1W) with both integrated LNA and BPF (Low Noise Amplifier and Band Pass Filter for 915MHz), providing top-tier noise rejection and clean operation in higher-RF-noise environments like HAM Radio sites, dense urban towers or co-located comms sites.

Every UltraPeater board is rigorously tested in-house, with actual transmit power output verified before shipping—so you get guaranteed performance, not just spec-sheet promises.

Flexible Antenna Connectivity

The UltraPeater can be optioned with your choice of two robust antenna connector types to suit your installation:

• SMA — Compact and widely compatible, perfect for sheltered outdoor installations or use indoors.
• N-type — Rugged, weatherproof, and ideal for outdoor/mast-mounted setups with low-loss coax runs.

UltraPeater - even better than a SuperPeater! 🤣

I don’t remember where I saw this mentioned, but this makes a lot of sense. The main thing it has to recommend it is that it has 1 watt transmit power, powered by Power Over Ethernet (POE) (several options). At a quick read, I wasn’t able to determine if the UltraPeater is “North America” compatible. These are made in Australia, thus they may not be configured to use the full 902-928 MHz band that we have access to in North America.

Introducing Hamstat.com

Andrew McCaskey WA4MTP:

The HAMSTAT HamsOverIP Monitor served up at
https://hamstat.com
provides a real time view of “conditions” on the HamsOverIP system. HamStat shows who is on a HamsOverIP call, who has recently finished a call, and who may be available or open to a call from another ham. Any licensed amateur radio operator worldwide can join HamsOverIP with proof of license and a free Digital Mobile Radio (DMR) id.

Image courtesy of Andrew McCaskey WA4MTP

The Active BLF tab on the HamsOverIP.com site is the indicator that a ham extension is busy. Hamstat reads that info and determines who just hung up and how long they have been offline. The system operates on the notion that for a short time (selectable up to 30 minutes), you are probably still in the shack and might be open to a call or QSO with another ham that you have not yet met. Their extension number is right beside their callsign, and a click on their callsign pulls up the QRZ.com page for that station.

Hamstat also lets you:

• Enthusiastically advise people that you are “in the shack” for the next few minutes and that you are definitely open to a call or QSO.
• Add up to five stations in a watchlist, and then notifies you through your browser when they become available.
• See who has recently been on the system
• Opt out of HamStat so you will never appear on the page at HamStat.com (unless you opt back in at a later date).

This seems like a cool enhancement to HamsOverIP service. WA4MTP makes a good case:

HamStat is the same scenario: It identifies who may still be in the shack for a “tailend” QSO by VoIP phone using the HamsOverIP system instead of radio.

This is a reminder of yet another project for N8GNJ / Zero Retries Labs – get my Amateur Radio VOIP phone, formerly for Hamshack Hotline, ported over to HOIP. And get registered for HamStat at the same time.

CDM Repeaters

Custom-built Amateur Radio 1.25M Repeaters

Welcome to our site dedicated to custom-built amateur radio repeaters! We specialize in 220 MHz systems, but our expertise extends beyond that frequency. Whether you’re a hobbyist or a seasoned operator, we here to provide you with high-quality solutions tailored to your needs. Join us in enhancing your communication experience!

Another fortuitous “I don’t remember how I found it” Zero Retries Interesting discovery. The North America 1.25 meter / 222-225 MHz (and perhaps 219-220 MHz) is an ideal place for more interesting data communications systems - if there is a reliable source of radios for that band. I used to recommend BridgeCom Systems BCM-220 radios, but that unit is now out of production. When dealing with surplus / used commercial land mobile radios, there’s an infinite number of ways to get tripped up if you’re not very well versed in knowing what to buy and how to adapt them to Amateur Radio use. Thus I’m happy to pay a company like CDM Repeaters to procure, test, and adapt such radios to end up with a unit usable for Amateur Radio.

I have too many projects already in queue (including a BridgeCom Systems BCR-220 repeater...) to investigate their products, but it’s good to know that CDM Repeaters is a source of (apparently repurposed Motorola CDM radios) for the Amateur Radio 1.25m band.

Video - TRMNL X

From the video description:

The TRMNL X is a 10.3-inch e-ink dashboard with 16-level grayscale, 227 PPI, IP65 water resistance, dual ESP32 microcontrollers, 5 GHz Wi-Fi, and up to 12,000 mAh of battery for six months between charges—all for $219 with no subscription fees. One year after the original TRMNL review, every promise has shipped: open-source firmware, bring-your-own-device support for Kindle, Nook, iPad, Kobo, Raspberry Pi, and Seeed Studio DIY kits, plus fully self-hosted servers in PHP, Node, Python, Ruby, and Elixir through the Terminus project. The community has exploded to over 850 free plugins and recipes funded by a Creator Fund that pays developers real money based on installs and API impressions. TRMNL also hacked 2-bit grayscale out of 1-bit e-paper hardware, shipped zero-flicker refresh, removed front branding with Tailor, and published an Unbrickable Pledge promising to open-source everything if the company folds. The TRMNL X features a 4:3 aspect ratio, magnetic pogo pin charging, modular puck connector for future PoE and sensor accessories, gesture touch controls, and OTG power bank mode—making it the e-ink display the original should have been.

This seems like an amazing combination of features. I knew e-ink was power efficient... but six months on battery? Wow!

My thanks to Joe Hamelin W7COM for mentioning this to me.

Please offer comments / feedback about ZR > BEACON to the Zero Retries email list with the #ZR0244 hashtag.

Request To Send

By Steve Stroh N8GNJ

Still Working on Getting Paid Subscribers Set Up In Ghost

Ghost has something like 50-75% of the publishing features that Substack has. Mostly that’s for the better, such as Ghost has no “Followers”, no “Notes”, etc. But Substack was definitely easier to figure out the basics like setting up paid subscription tiers.

Tina and I were able to get Stripe connected to Ghost... but presenting the “tiers” to new (and existing) email subscribers isn’t very transparent. We’re working on it.

Apologies to Zero Retries Subscribers on Comcast / Xfinity

Like Microsoft, Comcast / Xfinity operates their own “Internet protection” systems for both basic web access and users of comcast.net email. Currently, the zeroretries.radio and zeroretries.net domains (the latter used, at the moment, only for email) are being blocked by Comcast / Xfinity. I’ve appealed this issue several times via the online form below. My last attempt pleaded for them to tell me specifically what Comcast’s issue is with those domains. All I’ve received to date is a blanket “nope - still on the naughty list until the domain owner fixes the issues we have a problem with” reply, with no indication that the specific info I included was even looked at, let alone considered.

All I can suggest to Comcast / Xfinity subscribers of Zero Retries is to provide feedback to Comcast / Xfinity via this online form: https://spa.xfinity.com/report.

This issue is an additional reason for me to be glad to be a former customer of Comcast / Xfinity. For me, Starlink is an ideal Internet service provider - “just the bits” Internet service, stable pricing, works reliably, and provides good quality broadband Internet anywhere in suburban / rural areas like Bellingham / Whatcom County, Washington that have scattered islands of other Broadband Internet options, including fiber and “5G” cellular. Not to mention the significantly lower cost than Comcast - I’m using the 200 Mbps tier for $80 / month and it works great. I could probably be on the 100 Mbps tier for $50 / month and I might try that for a month to see if we even notice the difference.

Perhaps a Disruption Is Coming for the zeroretries.radio Domain...

Interesting email this morning...

We are writing to inform you that your .radio domain name will be transferred to a new registrar by the beginning of May 2026, on a date that will be shortly notified.

Following the transfer of the .radio top-level domain registry from the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) to Digity, LLC, EBU has decided to cease the operations of the register.radio service, which has been operated by COREhub SRLU on EBU’s behalf until now. Therefore all domain names sponsored by register.radio will be transferred to an ICANN-accredited registrar affiliated with Digity, LLC: Sav.com, LLC. From that day expected in early May neither COREhub SRLU nor EBU will have any responsibility on the management of these domains.

...

Once the transfer is completed, Sav.com will become your sponsoring registrar for .radio domain name(s), and you will receive further information directly from Sav.com regarding account access and registrar services.

If there are any significant disruptions from this transition, that could be a tipping point to convert to a (more mundane) domain than zeroretries.radio. I’m acutely aware of the sunk cost fallacy regarding the time / energy / reader frustration issues associated with using zeroretries.radio.

Nice Mention of Zero Retries by Jared Crapo K0TFU

Zero Retries is an independent newsletter promoting technological innovation in and adjacent to Amateur Radio. Published by Steve and Tina Stroh, it’s the weekly newsletter to read if you are what Steve calls a NewTechHam. NewTechHams wanna build handheld SDRs that can do DSTAR, AllStar, or any other digital mode with just a software update. NewTechHams are as comfortable with a Raspberry Pi as they are with a 2m HT. NewTechHams want to design repeaters that use digital timeslicing so a repeater doesn’t need a big duplexer or multiple frequencies. If any of this sounds interesting to you, you should be subscribed to this free email newsletter.

My thanks to K0TFU for this nice mention on his website!

Hamvention Ho!

7 weeks until Hamvention 2026
in Xenia, Ohio, USA...
Zero Retries / DLARC booth 1506
in Building 1 / Maxim

Weekends Are For Amateur Radio!

The weather oracle on my pocket computer predicts “not rain” for this weekend, so mostly this coming weekend will be another catch-up session in N8GNJ / Zero Retries Labs. As for projects, as soon as I get down to the actual bench top in my workshop, I want to fire up the MeshCore unit I was loaned to try that out.

Have a great weekend, all of you co-conspirators in Zero Retries Interesting Amateur Radio activities!

Please offer comments / feedback about Request To Send on the Zero Retries email list with the #ZR02xx hashtag.

73,

Steve N8GNJ

Closing Thanks

Numerous Annual and Monthly subscribers who also generously support Zero Retries financially!

You thousands of readers of Zero Retries without which there would be little point in publishing this newsletter.

The Usual Administrivia

Zero Retries About - https://www.zeroretries.org/about
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Fair Use - All excerpts from other authors or organizations, including images, are intended to be fair use and are fully attributed generally by author and link (URL).
Paid Promotional Content - Unless otherwise noted in the article or item, advertisement, or sponsorship notice, Zero Retries does not include paid promotional content. Exceptions:
- Advertisements in Zero Retries,
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Zero Retries 0244 was published on 2026-03-27. This issue was 8738 words.

(end)

Zero Retries 0243

Steve Stroh N8GNJ — Fri, 20 Mar 2026 22:30:00 GMT

Steve Stroh N8GNJ, Editor

Tina Stroh KD7WSF, Business / Conference Manager

This issue of Zero Retries was originally published on Ghost - https://www.zeroretries.radio/zero-retries-0243/. Thus all links that were for zeroretries.radio have (attempted to) been changed to equivalents on zeroretries.org.

See this archive page:
https://web.archive.org/web/20260406214928/https://www.zeroretries.radio/zero-retries-0243/
for how it originally appeared on www.zeroretries.radio.

Substack says this issue is too big for email clients. Thus, it might be easier to read in a web browser - https://www.zeroretries.radio/zero-retries-024

It’s easy and free to subscribe for your own copy of Zero Retries every week:

HamSCI 2026 and ARRL Headquarters Tour

In This Issue...

I-Frame

Thought Experiment - Frequency Hopping (But Not Spread Spectrum) Radio System

ARDC is Hiring: Software Developer (PT Contract):

I-Frame

This is a new section of Zero Retries. One time mention - from the recently updated Zero Retries About page:

I-Frame (IF) is “The Least I Think You Need To Know - Tersely“ section at the beginning of each issue of Zero Retries beginning in Zero Retries 0243. IF replaced the Request To Send (Editorial) section - see below. In Amateur Radio Packet Radio (AX.25 protocol) an I-Frame is an Information Frame; frames are one of the fundamental unit of transmission in Amateur Radio / Packet Radio and it seemed a suitable term for the “Least I Think You Need To Know” about an issue of Zero Retries. Two other common types of frames are S-frames (Supervisory), and U-frames (Unnumbered).

Missing email subscribers...

I haven’t yet figured this out, but Ghost says that there are 3509 folks currently signed up to receive Zero Retries via email. But when I queue it up, Ghost says that it will go out to “All 3,432 subscribers“. I have no idea what the story is about the gap of “77“ between those two numbers. Zero Retries might not be going out to everyone who’s tried to sign up to receive Zero Retries via email. Please advise if you’ve signed up to receive Zero Retries via email, but aren’t receiving it via email.

A Confession...

A lot of stuff that folks mention to me, that really deserves to get mentioned here in Zero Retries... doesn’t, and that’s my fault. I drop (forget) stuff, it doesn’t get bookmarked properly so that I see again it after the initial mention / email, it gets pushed down too far into the “potential mention” queue... many sins of omission.

Please don’t take such lacks of mention personally. It’s (generally) not you (or the potential story). It’s generally me. Please feel free to remind me about the thing you found Zero Retries Interesting if you don’t see it appear in Zero Retries within a reasonable interval of when you first brought it to my attention. I really want to do a good job of promoting Technological Innovation in Amateur Radio here in Zero Retries.

I need a better system of queuing and tracking potential articles, especially now that the trauma and chaos of the transition to Ghost and the zeroretries.radio domain is complete. (Suggestions are welcome.)

Please direct comments / feedback about I-Frame to the Zero Retries email list with the #ZR0243 hashtag.

HamSCI 2026 and ARRL Headquarters Tour

By Steve Stroh N8GNJ

HamSCI is the Ham Radio Science Citizen Investigation to make use of Amateur Radio (mostly High Frequency - HF spectrum below 30 MHz) to conduct scientific research. For more detail about HamSCI, reference the HamSCI About page. As “Citizen” indicates, participation in HamSCI is not confined to academic personnel. Any Amateur Radio Operator can participate in HamSCI activities, programs, and ongoing research. Some HamSCI activities are “receive only” / do not require transmitting, thus those activities do not require an Amateur Radio license.

ARRL is the American Radio Relay League, the largest organization of Amateur Radio Operators in the US.

The weekend of 2026-03-14 and 03-15, Tina KD7WSF at I attended the HamSCI 2026 conference. We had a great time learning from the presentations, posters and poster sessions, and having many stimulating and informative conversations.

The conference was efficiently directed by Bob Inderbitzen NQ1R, ARRL’s Director of Marketing and Innovation and Dr. Nathaniel A. Frissell W2NAF, Lead HamSCI Organizer. The venue of the conference was the Student Center of Central Connecticut State University (CCSU) in New Britain, Connecticut, USA. The venue was very nice and conducive to not just the conference activities, but lots of face to face conversations and the poster session. Unlike at HamSCI 2025, I didn’t participate in the Poster Session at HamSCI 2026... and I should have. The posters presented weren’t limited to just topics presented at HamSCI 2026, but were generally related to Amateur Radio, science, and technological innovation. For example, two that I was personally interested in were Unauthorized Use Of Military Satellites: Threats To Mission Security And Integrity and Radioconda: Gateway to Software Radio. The time allocated for viewing and interacting with poster authors was another substantial block of time - three hours on Sunday morning, and thus these one-to-many interactions. That changed my perspective on the utility of poster sessions at a conference, from “interesting” to a highly useful way to “multiplex” various topics rather than one or two central presentations. I now want to figure out how to implement a Poster Session into the Zero Retries Digital Conference.

ARRL offered a good video recap of the Poster Session:

I’m not a scientist, and not currently involved in HamSCI activities, but a number of the presentations were engaging to me as a “typical” Amateur Radio Operator.

Meteor Scatter Science by Robert Suggs NN4NT discussed implementations of radio communication by bouncing radio off of meteor scatter... and the science behind it. Something I learned - there are meteors... and there are meteoroids. There’s no such thing as micrometeoroids - using that (invented) word is a quick way to irritate a meteor specialist like NN4NT.
Remembering and Honoring Paul Nicholson G8LMD: Passionate VLF Enthusiast and Master by Jonathan Rizzo KC3EEY was (in addition to learning about the life’s work of G8LMD) a mini tutorial on Very Low Frequency radio. I learned that G8LMD was integral in the development of the Indian Lighting Detection Network.
The third annual HamSCI book club: a discussion on shortwave radio as it was used in World War II by Aaron Bilow W3WAM was a passionate discussion of the book All the Light We Cannot See. I had known of this book... but had not considered reading it until listening to why it was so interesting.

One of the activities of HamSCI 2026 was a visit on Saturday afternoon to ARRL Headquarters and ARRL’s flagship bulletin station W1AW which was < 5 miles from CCSU in nearby Newington, Connecticut, USA. It was interesting to see W1AW in person for the first time, and W1AW Manager Joe Carcia NJ1Q gave a great tour and ably answered every (often obscure) question thrown at him. It was Zero Retries Interesting to see the mix of HF radios, amplifiers and other equipment that W1AW uses for its regular bulletin transmissions. It was also interesting to see that W1AW is largely utilitarian, rather than “showpiece” in how it presents Amateur Radio operations. There were multiple big screens... but the radio hardware was the most prominent feature of W1AW.

W1AW’s regular, sustained operation and resulting duty cycle is taxing on “Amateur grade” equipment. I expected to see more commercial grade equipment, but most of it was typical Amateur Radio equipment, albeit rack mounted with lots of fans and dedicated (air conditioned? I forgot to ask) space behind glass doors. W1AW was divided into the bulletin equipment section (about half of the total floor space), and then there were some “studios” where ARRL members visiting W1AW could operate independently using dedicated radios and antennas.

It’s been quite a while since I looked at W1AW’s transmission schedule:

Digital Transmissions

Frequencies are 3.5975, 7.095, 14.095, 18.1025, 21.095, 28.095, 50.350, and 147.555 MHz.

Bulletins are sent using 45.45-baud Baudot, PSK31 in BPSK mode and MFSK16 on a daily revolving schedule. The actual daily schedule can be found here.

From the Zero Retries perspective, if I had any influence on W1AW, I would transmit a rotating variety of (more) data modes to allow individuals to try out reception of those increasingly sophisticated data modes. I would also have W1AW transmit some voice bulletins with FreeDV RADE as a demonstration of how far Amateur Radio technology has come. FreeDV RADE is open source, and runs on a typical Windows computer, so there’s no “resource” or “proprietary” concerns about using it.

There was some VHF / UHF equipment at W1AW, including some that was ground mounted clearly for satellite use, but that equipment wasn’t demonstrated or highlighted during the tour segment, that I was on. I think there was some Meshtastic equipment at W1AW, but again, not demonstrated or highlighted during the tour segment that I was on.

The People and Zero Retries Interesting Conversations

Most of the conversations I had at HamSCI 2026 were off the record at their individual’s request. Some of the folks I met were:

Doug Leber N0MM who is a friend and fan of Zero Retries for some time. N0MM and I had a number of conversations about his participation in Edge of Space Sciences.
Jason Johnston KC5HWB of the Ham Radio 2.0 YouTube channel, who was busy recording the presentations. We chatted briefly about his videos and my response(s) in Zero Retries about the MMDVM / M17 controversy in 2025.
I enjoyed meeting Rick Ciervo W1CIE, Mark Derks KC1RVQ, and Steve Bossert K2GOG all of whom work at ARRL in various roles.
At ARRL Headquarters, the highlight of the tour there for me was seeing the ARRL Lab and meeting John Jobin McAuliffe W1DRF who is the Digital RF Engineer at the ARRL Lab (easily the coolest job title of all of the ARRL folks I met). W1DRF was the one of the most Zero Retries Interesting people I met during the weekend, and he’s a fan of Zero Retries. More about the visit to the ARRL Lab below.
David Siddall K3ZJ has a fascinating career background including working for the FCC (thus his deep understanding of Amateur Radio issues at the FCC in his current role as ARRL Washington Counsel). K3ZJ and I discussed a number of Amateur Radio / FCC issues and I learned a number of things about FCC “process”, and some reasons to be optimistic about improvement of US Amateur Radio regulations.
I caught up briefly with Rich Moseson W2VU who now works with ARRL on various projects. W2VU conducted video interviews at the Poster Session.
I had a number of conversations with Ed Wilson N2XDD who is the ARRL Hudson Division Director. N2XDD was involved in Zero Retries Interesting activities such as M17 for years. His Director duties (especially the extensive travel to represent ARRL) now consume most of his time.
I met separately with Conrad Trautmann N2YCH who is the ARRL Technical Editor and Ron Diehl NQ8W who is the Editor of QEX. I expressed my opinion to them that to be more relevant to the current generation of new and prospective Amateur Radio Operators, both QST and QEX really need to feature more Zero Retries Interesting articles. Neither was committal (to be expected), but didn’t overtly disagree about featuring more articles on Software Defined Radio (I mentioned LinHT prominently), data networking, packet radio (still a thing), microwave communications (beyond contesting), television, and space communications.
Ryan Volz and John Swoboda of the MIT Haystack Observatory had a poster about their project Radioconda. They were attending HamSCI to promote Radioconda and gather feedback. I chatted with them for some time. One of the most notable things about Radioconda was that incorporates a number of radio related applications (not just the usual collection of Software Defined Radio apps) into an easy to manage installer for multiple platforms including MacOS (yay!). Radioconda also supports a variety of radio hardware including Software Defined Transceivers including ADALM-PLUTO, and Software Defined Receivers as minimal as RTL-SDRs. Notably, Radioconda includes GNU Radio which can often be a challenge for mortals like me, so for that alone, Radioconda is a win. I had a number of suggestions about other packages that I think would be beneficial to include that I’ll be forwarding to them.

I just discovered this video - an interview with Volz at HamSCI 2026 on the Digital Rancher YouTube channel by Robert Theiss W5ITR; Amateur Radio YouTube channels based in Texas were well represented at HamSCI 2026:

ARRL Lab Visit

As mentioned above, the tour of the ARRL Lab conducted by John Jobin McAuliffe W1DRF was a highlight for me. In addition to conducting testing in support of Amateur Radio product reviews in QST, the ARRL Lab is equipped to do extensive testing (including a screen room that, of necessity, isolates the powerful transmissions of W1AW which is literally next door). The ARRL Lab also is able to test consumer devices that may be generating Radio Frequency Interference (at power levels greater than FCC regulations permit) in Amateur Radio spectrum.

I was surprised to learn that the ARRL Lab is intimately involved in working with Amateur Radio Operators that want to operate on the 420-450 MHz / 70cm band in areas adjacent to the US Space Force’s PAVE PAWS RADAR installations. The ARRL Lab developed operating standards that allow Amateur Radio operations to continue, at reduced power (instead of being displaced entirely as a secondary user of 70cm in the US).

I jokingly chided W1DRF for the apparent lack of Amateur Radio data communications equipment in the ARRL Lab, and he showed me the OpenTNC (not sure of the version that I saw) that he had built and tested in the ARRL Lab. Thus Amateur Radio data communications was represented in the ARRL Lab! (Whew!) W1DRF and I had a conversation about testing standards of Amateur Radio transceivers, and the utility of the TX/RX turnaround time measurements being useful for effective channel utilization in data communications (Packet Radio) networks.

I visited ARRL Headquarters on Monday morning on a last minute errand and chatted with W1DRF who showed off a homebrew “Cantenna” (Waveguide antenna) - for use on the 902-928 / 33cm band. It was made out of galvanized air ventilation pipe - pretty cool!

Wrapping Up HamSCI 2026

It was ironic to me that given the proximity of ARRL (< 5 miles from Central Connecticut State University) and ARRL’s Collegiate Amateur Radio Program, there doesn’t appear to be an Amateur Radio presence at CCSU. Doing so would seem to be a useful synergy for both CCSU and ARRL (and the Newington / New Britain area in general).

The most referenced radio unit used by HamSCI is the RX-888 (mostly HF) radio receiver that is useful for HamSCI work mostly because it is well supported by ka9q-radio. The RX-888 is “widely available from multiple (China-based) manufacturers” (cloned) and thus the quality and usability of any given RX-888 unit from any given vendor isn’t predictable. It was stated “When you buy one, you don’t know who makes it, or what’s in it“. There are many RX-888s in use in HamSCI activities... but no one seems particularly happy with them, especially the thermal issues that they seem to (universally) experience.

For those reasons, the New-888 Project was started to create an improved version of the RX-888 that’s stable, predictable, and specifically designed for HamSCI work (such as being restricted to HF only) - https://github.com/fourfathom/New-888. Given the overwhelming use of ka9q-radio with the RX-888, then learning about the New-888 Project, a quote from Alan Kay came to mind:
People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware.

The number, and quality (Zero Retries Interesting!) of conversations I had at HamSCI 2026 easily justified our attendance, and likely justifies our attendance at HamSCI 2027.

Lastly, all of the interesting experiences at HamSCI 2026 inspired me undertake two new small projects for Zero Retries. Both projects are modest enough in scope that I should be able to complete them in time to unveil them at Hamvention 2026.

As I’ll elaborate in Request To Send in this issue, if you’re despairing about the uncertain future of Amateur Radio, I recommend attending an event like HamSCI 2026 to soak up some of the energy, progressive spirit, and the positivity and curiosity about Amateur Radio in the 21st century.

As I discussed, there are some really remarkable and Zero Retries Interesting people that are working at ARRL Headquarters. They have a positive attitude about Amateur Radio and the future of Amateur Radio. If you live in the region (or are willing to relocate), ARRL is hiring for several interesting jobs:

Work for ARRL - 03/20/2026

Please direct comments / feedback about this article to the Zero Retries email list with the #ZR0243 hashtag.

Thought Experiment - Frequency Hopping (But Not Spread Spectrum) Radio System

By Steve Stroh N8GNJ

This is just a very brief thought experiment. What if Amateur Radio developed a Sequential Frequency Hopping Radio System that wasn’t designed to be “spread spectrum”?

What if a Frequency Hopping Radio System used a predictable, sequential frequency hopping pattern (Sequential Frequency Hopping Radio System) instead of a the more traditional pseudorandom hopping pattern that’s integral to Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum (FHSS) operation?

One of the huge benefits of using Frequency Hopping in Amateur Radio is that it could be operated as an “underlay” system - operation across a wide range of Amateur Radio spectrum that is otherwise “occupied and allocated” such as the portions of the Amateur Radio VHF / UHF bands used for repeaters.

Recall that there is are no exclusive allocations of Amateur Radio spectrum - only “in use” and “prioritization”. If a particular portion of spectrum is not in use, it’s available of use by any Amateur Radio Operator. Reference my article Repeater Coordination Does Not Exclude Other Use of the Repeater’s Frequencies.

A Sequential Frequency Hopping Radio System might incorporate these features:

Each band is mapped into 12.5, 25, 50, 100, 200, 300, 400, 500, 1 MHz channels:
Each channel, each channel size, of each band is numbered sequentially.
Portions of spectrum that are dedicated for special purpose by regulation such as space, CW, etc. is excluded from the map.

Each map is assigned an easy to transmit identifier, something similar to a Protocol Identifier. A map of 144 - 148 MHz divided into 12.5 kHz channels would be transmitted as (example) “2m-125”. All stations receiving that beacon would know that the station that transmitted the beacon will transmit using that channel map.
The modulation index used on each transmission is dynamic. Small amounts of data don’t justify complex modulations.
The dwell time on each channel is approximately 100 mS - long enough for data to be transmitted in a reasonable time, but short enough that someone monitoring (especially scanning) won’t be bothered by a 100 mS “blip” on the channel.
If there’s a lot of data to transmit, the wider channels and more complex modulations are used. Again, those parameters are beaconed in advance.
Each station using this system would decide upon a particular, regular time that it will transmit (dynamic, based on channel usage / network traffic) and will also transmit its “transmit slot” as part of its beacon. All usage (transmissions) will be synchronized using a common timebase, probably derived from GNSS.

Conceptually, such a system is no different than two stations deciding to change channels to have a high bandwidth communication. Unlike that scenario, there is no prior coordination required - the systems - with “beaconing of intent” the usage of spectrum is dynamic and decentralized, which only minimal standardization (such as the identifiers) requiring advance coordination.

Again this is offered solely as a thought experiment, and is not nearly advanced enough to seriously consider implementing - yet.

Please direct comments / feedback about this article to the Zero Retries email list with the #ZR0243 hashtag.

ZR > BEACON

By Steve Stroh N8GNJ

Short mentions of Zero Retries Interesting items.

Hush’s first release is FINALLY OUT!!!!

Nick Charros KC1WZQ on QRZ.com:

It has been a while since I’ve given a devlog, but almost all of the profiles and speed levels are implemented and the modem can do loop-back so you can test out the modem without a partner!

The current speed levels are QRP(X), MFSK(X), and OFDM(X) - OFDM goes up to SL12 and can reach a Theoretical maximum of *100 kbps* on HF (2700 Hz bandwidth)

The build files are currently not built, but you can build it very very easily by running and installing cargo and rustup! simply run cargo run to start the modem, and if you find the artifacts you can run Code:hush_rust_core.exe --live-loopback --no-audio and run as a loop-back modem!

To interface, run 1 or 2 hush_term terminals and type `MYCALL

Next you need to open the modem. Run “devices” to find your audio device’s index. For default, run `OPEN 5 0 4800` (syntax is OPEN )

To connect to a station, run `CONNECT ` (Note: Currently the connect function is janky and may not work 100% of the time. Future versions will fix this.)

To send text, type in `SEND `

You should see an RX frame in the Hush’s TNC prompt.

To disconnect, run DISC and the modem will automatically disconnect!

Thank you all for the support and I hope that this takes off!

73 de Nick KC1WZQ

PS. GitHub link should be updated: https://github.com/kc1wzq/Hush

I just saw this today (Friday) so have had no time to evaluate it. Note that this project has been in development for several months, so there’s been some significant work invested.

RPC Electronics ESP32 LoRA-Pi Modem Now Shipping

Image courtesy of RPC Electronics

The ESP32 LoRA-Pi is a KISS LoRA modem and 1W UHF transceiver all on one module. Its physical size and form-factor is designed to sit on top of a Raspberry Pi. However, its USB interface allows it to be used with virtually any device that has a USB port and can run software that can speak the KISS protocol.

Key Features:

Native KISS protocol
Use it for APRS, WinLink, WinTNC and so much more
1 Watt UHF Transceiver on-board (Antenna NOT INCLUDED)
USB-C, Bluetooth and direct UART interface for Raspberry Pi options
Web Config via Wifi (future feature)
Bluetooth/Wifi antenna included
Comes pre-configured for KISS operation via USB out of the box
Connect directly to computer, phone and/or tablet via USB
Optional 3D printed case (see below)
Optional UART connector and stand-offs kit for use with Raspberry Pi (see below)

This is a remarkable combination of features! Let’s unpack this a bit.

This... is the radio! No big, power hungry radio module.
LoRa - a remarkably capable modulation for long range reliable communications at low power. I’ll have to do my homework better about the specifics of LoRa, but I think all of the modulation, error correction, etc. is all handled within the LoRa protocol, thus you only need to worry about your applications data to be transmitted.
LoRa implemented on Amateur Radio 420-450 MHz (70 cm) band - at 1 watt! Not the very low power LoRa radios suitable for use in Europe on the 433 MHz unlicensed band at very low power. The unit uses standard SMA antenna ports for the Wi-Fi / Bluetooth radio and the UHF radio to be able to use external antennas.
KISS interface. Meaning nearly any Amateur Radio application that can “talk KISS” - Bulletin Board Systems, APRS, etc. can be used with this, with the benefit of the LoRa modulation rather than 1200 bps Audio Frequency Shift Keying modulation (and its many limitations).
USB-C data interface for data and power. Thus it can be connected to a desktop or laptop via USB-C (including powering it), or any Wi-Fi / Bluetooth device (standalone). It can also be integrated onto a Raspberry Pi computer.
Very reasonable price including optional case of < $100.

It’s early days to understand how capable this will be (for example, over the air data rate not specified), but with the right application of proven technologies for packet radio (such as Net/ROM mesh networking, or JNOS for AX.25 / TCP/IP / Net/ROM) and perhaps even being able to specify different channels and cluster several of these as a relay node... wow, this looks really capable and Zero Retries Interesting!

Kudos to Jason Rausch WB4APR and Remi Bilodeau VE2YAG for shipping this really innovative product into Amateur Radio! Another demonstration of Technological Innovation in Amateur Radio!

What if I told you that you could do Ethernet over LoRA?

Check out a thing I’m working on: https://github.com/datapartyjs/lorapipe
We have a roadmap here: https://github.com/orgs/datapartyjs/pr

Speaking of doing more interesting things via LoRa...

My thanks to Jeff Davis KE9V for mention of this.

Michigan Radio Amateurs Technological Society (MIRATS)

Image courtesy of Michigan Radio Amateurs Technological Society

Welcome to the Michigan Radio Amateurs Technological Society! Our callsign is WE8CHZ. We are an FCC-registered amateur radio club.

While we focus on Michigan residents, anyone can join us. We enjoy exploring radio tech, using it in real-life ways, and diving into other parts of the radio hobby—whatever sounds fun.

We are an online club, so we don’t have a physical meeting spot. Most of our chats happen on Discord, but you can also reach us on Facebook.

Our members often hang out on the IRA Linked Repeater System (w8ira.org), the W8BCI repeater in Lansing (w8bci.org), and others like West Michigan Connect on Wires-X.

This Zero Retries Interesting Amateur Radio group was spotted in passing while researching something else. Gotta love an organization with a sense of humor enough to have a humorous club callsign like that.

They’re also a Zero Retries Interesting group for featuring articles such as Running a Full Windows Packet and Vara Station on Linux. Their articles can be followed with RSS, and I’m now doing so.

ARDC is Hiring (Contract Roles)

ARDC seeks a mid-to-senior-level Software Developer to work with our staff on a contract basis. The role will support ongoing development of our 44Net program services, and potentially other related Free Software projects. An ideal candidate will be active in Free and Open technology communities – particularly those related to amateur radio, digital communications science, F/OSS development, and DIY culture.

ARDC is Hiring: Technical Writer (PT Contract):

ARDC seeks a Technical Writer to work with our staff on a contract basis. The role will support ongoing development of our 44Net program, and potentially other technical publishing activities. An ideal candidate will be active in Free and Open technology communities – particularly those related to amateur radio, digital communications science, F/OSS development, and DIY culture.

Thus I endorse and recommend these positions and ARDC as a whole.

GRCon26 Key Dates

Email from GNU Radio Conference 2026:

We’re excited to announce that GNU Radio Conference 2026 (GRCon26) will take place September 21–24 in Raleigh, North Carolina, at the Talley Student Union.

GRCon26 is generously hosted by NC State, which is home to one of the four NSF PAWR platforms, the AERPAW wireless research platform.

Key Dates
April 3 - Call for Participation Opens
April 6 - Registration Opens
June 13 - Call for Participation Closes
July 24 - (Initial) Main Track Schedule Posted
September 21 - Conference Begins

We invite you to submit talks, papers, workshops, tutorials, and demos for GRCon26. Whether you’re advancing research, deploying SDR systems in the field, building open-source tools, or experimenting at home, we want to hear from you.

Like HamSCI, GNU Radio Conference is another high-energy conference. Tina and I won’t be able to attend this year (September will be a busy month for us), but GRCon is recommended!

Using M17 Without a Radio

Great article in Random Wire 174 by Tom Salzer KJ7T:

How many ways are there to connect to an M17 reflector without owning an M17-capable radio? It turns out there are several software options for getting on M17 reflectors using just a computer, phone, or tablet. Here’s the rundown of what I’ve uncovered.

DroidStar — This is, perhaps, the most popular option. DroidStar is a multimode digital voice client that runs on Windows, Linux, MacOS, Android, and by jumping through a few hoops, probably iOS. (I say probably because I’ve not tried this and most of the advice I found is no more recent than 2023.) It connects directly to reflectors over the internet using just your microphone and speaker(s). For iOS, DroidStar-DMR is a fork of DroidStar that adds some features and is reportedly easier to install on iOS. DroidStar is the go-to solution for most operators and works well on a phone while driving.

M17 Web Client — Listening via the M17 Web Client is probably the easiest way to get started as there is nothing to install. The M17 Web Client is a beta application that enables receiving and transmitting M17 over reflectors from your web browser, making it very easy to get on the air without having to have any special equipment or software installed. Find it at
https://m17project.org
. Check out the streaming examples at
https://stream.m17.app/
(and I note that the Kansas City Wide network is also available if you scroll down the streaming page a bit).

mvoice — The Linux desktop client mvoice is the original M17 client for Linux, featuring Ham-DHT support and direct routing. This is more of a power-user tool but it does have full TX/RX capability.

SDRangel — If you are an SDR hardware user, SDRangel supports both transmission and reception of M17 and runs on both Windows and Linux, working with PlutoSDR, HackRF, and other SDRs. This requires SDR hardware but not a traditional radio.

Practical recommendation: DroidStar on Android is the easiest full TX/RX option and takes about five minutes to set up. The reflector used by the M17 team is M17-M17, module C — there is a net every Friday at 17:00 UTC (10:00 am where I live) where you can ask questions and test your setup.

If you are an iOS user, the easiest path forward without a radio is the MSeven app from the Apple App Store. (I run this on an iPad Mini and it works very well.)

In this brief summary, I did not include information about M17 hotspots since these generally also require a radio.

NEWSDR 2026

16th New England Workshop on Software-Defined Radio

Worcester Polytechnic Institute, 100 Institute Road, Worcester, MA, USA
Main Event: Friday 5 June 2026, 8:00 AM (US Eastern) – 5:00 PM (US Eastern)
Tutorials: Thursday 4 June 2026, 5:00 PM (US Eastern) – 9:00 PM (US Eastern)

The 2026 New England Workshop on Software-Defined Radio (NEWSDR 2026) is the sixteenth installment of an annual workshop series organized by the Boston SDR User Group (SDR-Boston). We are very excited about this year’s NEWSDR event being hosted in-person in the beautiful and historic Atwater Kent Laboratories Building of Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Worcester, MA, USA. The primary goal of this workshop is to provide a forum that enables SDR enthusiasts to get together, collaborate, and introduce SDR concepts to those interested in furthering their knowledge of SDR capabilities and available resources. NEWSDR 2026 welcomes both experienced SDR enthusiasts as well as individuals who are interested in getting started with SDR.

...

Workshop Registration

Attendance at NEWSDR 2026 is free, but advance registration is required to ensure access to on-campus parking, guest Wi-Fi, and meals. Click here to register. The deadline to register is 25 May 2026.

Community Spotlight Talks & Posters: Abstract Submission

Interested in giving a 2-3 minute spotlight talk and a poster presentation about your SDR-related activities at NEWSDR 2026? If so, click here to submit your talk/poster abstract information. Deadline for abstract submission is 25 May 2026. Acceptance notifications will be sent out by COB 29 May 2026.

Another Zero Retries Interesting event found when researching something else.

Ground Station: An Open Source SDR Orchestration Platform for Satellite Tracking And Decoding

RTL-SDR.com:

Over on GitHub, we’ve seen the release of a new program simply called “Ground Station”, described as a full-featured, open-source software solution for satellite tracking and radio communication.
The software presents as a web-based UI that allows users to manage satellite passes, view SDR waterfall data, decode basic signals such as GMSK telemetry, view telemetry packets, synchronize TLEs, manage multiple SDR devices, browse downloaded weather imagery, monitor DSP performance, and interface with antenna rotators.
Unlike tools such as SatDump, which focus primarily on signal processing and decoding, Ground Station acts as a higher-level orchestration platform. It automates the full workflow, handling pass prediction, SDR control, recording, and decoding, and integrates with SatDump for more complex protocols like weather satellite image decoding.
While SatDump does include some tracking and automation features, Ground Station takes this further with support for multiple SDRs, coordination across multiple stations, and a centralized management interface. It also includes an interesting AI-based speech-to-text feature for transcribing amateur satellite voice communications.

This... sounds like a great combination of features to get all of that into one console / system.

Automatic Signal Recognition With AI Machine Learning And RTL-SDR

RTL-SDR.com (lots of Zero Retries Interesting content of late):

Thank you to Trevor Unland for submitting his AI machine learning project called “RTL-ML” which automatically recognizes and classifies eight different signal types on low-power ARM processors running an RTL-SDR.
Trevor’s blog post explains the machine learning architecture in detail, the accuracy he obtained, and how to try it yourself. If you try it for yourself, you can either run the pre-trained model or train your own model if you have sufficient training data.
The code is entirely open source on GitHub, and the training set data has been shared on HuggingFace.
RTL-ML is an open-source Python toolkit for automatic radio signal classification using machine learning. It runs on ARM single-board computers like the Raspberry Pi 5 or Indiedroid Nova paired with an RTL-SDR Blog V4, achieving 87.5% accuracy across 8 real-world signal types including ADS-B aircraft transponders, NOAA weather satellites, ISM sensors, FM broadcast, NOAA weather radio, pagers, and APRS.

The project provides a complete pipeline from signal capture to trained classifier. Unlike academic approaches that rely on synthetic data or expensive GPU hardware, RTL-ML uses real signals captured from actual antennas and runs entirely on edge hardware with no cloud dependency. The Random Forest model is 186KB and processes signals in around 120ms on a Pi 5.

The GitHub repository includes the full capture and training scripts, a pre-trained model, 8 validated spectrograms, and documentation for adding new signal types. It works out of the box on both Raspberry Pi 5 and Indiedroid Nova with identical code and accuracy.

I have been waiting for something like this to appear (and those earlier systems to improve with better AI). Systems such as this are inevitable and inexorable - it’s just going to be the way radio systems work in the near future. They’ll use an appropriate system (with, or without a header / Protocol Identification to give a hint of what the modulation, etc. is) to transmit - short, robust packets for voice / video, longer packets with FEC for data, etc.) and the receiving station(s) will figure out what it is being transmitted, load the appropriate decoder, and decode / display / play it. It’s mostly a matter of larger data sets being loaded into an AI, and having enough cheap compute / AI power to bring to bear on the challenge.

Video - Andy’s Ham Radio Linux ~ 03/11/2026

RATPAC Amateur Radio:

Spotted this (but haven’t yet watched it) as one of the algorithmic selections on the Zero Retries YouTube channel. Of late, RATPAC is doing a good job of highlighting Zero Retries Interesting topics like this.

Video - Pluto+ Clone SDR Review

TheGmr140 YouTube channel:

Another Zero Retries Interesting video I just learned of, thus haven’t yet had time to watch. I was amused to learn that these units are referred to as “Fishballs”. The reviewer mentioned that these are < $100. My thanks to RTL-SDR for alerting me to this video.

Please offer comments / feedback about ZR > BEACON on the Zero Retries email list with the #ZR0243 hashtag.

Request To Send

I decided to relocate Request to Send to the end of each issue of Zero Retries. One time mention - from the recently updated Zero Retries About page:

Request to Send (RTS) is the Editorial section of Zero Retries, and is derived from the RS-232 data communications standard where one of the signals in RS-232 is “Request to Send” so that Data Terminal Equipment (DTE) (terminals / computers) and Data Communication Equipment (DCE) (modems / TNCs) stay in synch because DTEs typically had small buffers. So, Request to Send is a playful way of saying “May I please have your attention?”. Prior to Universal Serial Bus (USB), RS-232 was the primary serial communications standard, including on Packet Radio Terminal Node Controllers (TNCs). As of Zero Retries 0243, I relocated RTS towards the end of each issue of Zero Retries in response to a number of readers providing feedback that I sometimes / often discuss too much of the mechanics of publishing Zero Retries in RTS at the beginning of each issue. Moving RTS towards the end of Zero Retries makes reading my commentary more optional for readers that don’t care to read it.

Post Publication Update - I had some of the technical detail about DTE / DCE wrong, now corrected. My thanks to Brian O Connor KA2CGB for pointing out the incorrect detail.

Zero Retries Photo Essay Page Coming Soon

I took a lot of photos at HamSCI 2026 and the visit to ARRL Headquarters. Given that Zero Retries is an email newsletter, I attempt to minimize the photos included in Zero Retries to keep the file size reasonable for an email. I will soon update the (new) Photo Essays page on www.zeroretries.radio with some of the photos from this past weekend. I wasn’t able to do so in time for publication of this issue given my preparation time was compressed because of travel.

(Yet Another) Future Project - Zero Retries Fiction Series

I’m seeing so many Zero Retries Interesting developments... some of which I can’t (yet) explain here in Zero Retries (non-disclosure).

The way my mind works now, after decades of steeping in all of the amazing things that radio technology can do, especially in this era of “easy” manufacturing of radio devices (Crowd Supply is amazing...), Software Defined Radio, Artificial Intelligence enabling vibe coding, I can imagine some fun possibilities in Amateur Radio.

I have some projects to finish in the first half of this year, including being fully ready for the first ever Zero Retries booth at Hamvention, so this is yet another deferred project. But imagine an Amateur Radio club... with a big budget... with a membership requirement that you must be willing to get involved in Zero Retries interesting activities / projects... and a core part of this club is to get youth involved in the fun (and lucrative career prospects) of radio technology / electrical engineering / software development... combined.

This project is partially inspired by Jeff Davis KE9V’s excellent Amateur Radio (as a well integrated plot device) fiction set in the 21st century such as Cornbread Road, The Zombie Apocalypse, and Late Night Radio (link via Internet Archive Wayback Machine).

Finally Scored a Raspberry Pi 500 Plus

Since its debut a few months ago, I’ve been curious about the Raspberry Pi 500 Plus. This is the downtown and deluxe Raspberry Pi unit with the cool mechanical keyboard, 16GB RAM and 256GB NVMe storage (replaceable for even more storage capacity). It even has “... bright, crisp LEDs set beneath the mechanical switches. Cycle through the preset patterns or individually program the LEDs for a truly custom look.“

Since we were in one of those lucky metropolitan areas where Micro Center has deigned to place a store (they haven’t made it North of California, or West of Kansas), I stopped in to peruse the Micro Center in Paterson, New Jersey. I asked if they had the Raspberry Pi 500 Plus in stock, and they did. They’re hard to get mail order (almost always sold out), so this was a good opportunity.

My favorite reviewer of all things Raspberry Pi is Jeff Geerling (KF0MYB) and if you’re curious about the RPi 500+, see his review - Raspberry Pi 500+: NOW we’re gaming!

While at Micro Center, I also picked up a cool, more compact podcast microphone... for... soon.

Sad Hams - Route Around Them

My experiences at HamSCI 2026 crystalized a thought I’ve had for some time.

Much is made (at great length, and great angst, and no small amount of resulting damage) about Sad Hams - those who are generally negative about the (perceived, by them, but not real) decline in skills, modes, on-air participation, low attendance at clubs and Amateur Radio events, etc. in Amateur Radio.

The “cure” for not letting Sad Hams get to you and discourage you from having fun and doing interesting things in Amateur Radio is to go where, or tune into where the action is (virtual participation). There is Zero Retries Interesting activity happening all over the place... but not everywhere. Believe me... I know this / live this.

If you’re a Zero Retries reader that wants to be doing more Zero Retries Interesting things in (and adjacent to) Amateur Radio, but you’re “outstanding in your field” hoping for local interaction, but not finding it, then I suggest traveling to events like HamSCI 2026 or GNU Radio Conference 2026, or DEF CON 2026, or Zero Retries Digital Conference 2026 and you’ll be certain to find folks with interest and energy.

Post Publication Update 1 - In recommending the above conferences, don’t be deterred by the stated focus of the conference, such as GNU Radio for GRCon. The reason to attend is to interact with people doing interesting things, with energy and enthusiasm. Even if you’re not (yet) active in (for example) GNU Radio, you’ll find ample energy and enthusiasm for Zero Retries Interesting projects and activities there.

If you’re just not having fun with your local Amateur Radio Operators, I suggest checking out Meshtastic... or rather, now the momentum seems to have shifted significantly to MeshCore. That is where the cool, hip, happenin’ data communications over Amateur Radio folks are hanging out. I just got pinged about that this past week by a group in my region that I had not heard of, and a friend gifted me with the loan of some MeshCore gear that is set up for me to just “put it on the air”.

For social interaction out of area, I suggest following the lead of Tom Salzer KJ7T and what he’s explaining about EtherHams (Amateur Radio over Internet) such as his article Using M17 Without a Radio (see above). You can also join the fun on AREDN even with no local folks to participate with by connecting to a nearby AREDN tunnel server. Or even Hams Over IP - VOIP telephony with an Amateur Radio focus.

Post Publication Update 2 - There are many Zero Retries Interesting activities one can participate in that can connect you to other Zero Retries Interesting folks / projects that aren’t dependent on finding other Zero Retries Interesting folks / projects that are local to you. Some examples are participating in HamSCI, participating in SatNOGS and TinyGS, operating a WSPR receive station, connecting with remote others with Amateur Radio Over Internet, etc.

I’m trying to take my own advice. I’m no longer hoping for better things out of two Amateur Radio clubs that I used to (try) to be active in with some Zero Retries energy. Both clubs just don’t want to hear it - they want to keep doing their Sad Hams same old, same... old... low energy, and thus low participation, activities. Ditto two US national organizations that I’ve tried to be helpful to, and hopeful about, but now watching both organizations coast slowly down with no real energy or useful activity. I’ve also decided not to attend a regional conference that I used to enjoy attending because last year’s event was so low energy Sad Ham’ish, that I no longer have any enthusiasm for it.

I’m so much happier that instead of that same old, same old event, I traveled to HamSCI 2026 and picked up some energy, motivation and some new ideas.

I’m looking forward to doing three in person presentations in the next couple of months to high energy fun organizations (two of them not Amateur Radio... but I’ll be talking up Amateur Radio there). And then, of course...

Hamvention 2026 Ho!

10 weeks until Hamvention 2026
in Xenia, Ohio, USA...
Zero Retries / DLARC booth 1506
in Building 1 / Maxim

Weekends Are For Amateur Radio!

Lots of catching up to do this weekend from Amateur Radio activities of the past month that I haven’t had time to sort out in N8GNJ / Zero Retries Labs. Despite my best intentions, I acquired a bit more schtuff including a pair of TNCs (I forget what...) that were $3/each. (They needed a good home.)

Have a great weekend, all of you co-conspirators in Zero Retries Interesting Amateur Radio activities!

Please offer comments / feedback about Request To Send on the Zero Retries email list with the #ZR0243 hashtag.

73,

Steve N8GNJ

Closing Thanks

Numerous Annual and Monthly subscribers who also generously support Zero Retries financially!

You thousands of readers of Zero Retries without which there would be little point in publishing this newsletter.

The Usual Administrivia

Zero Retries About - https://www.zeroretries.org/about
Zero Retries Digital Conference - https://www.zeroretries.org/p/conference
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Zero Retries Reprint / Reuse Policy - https://www.zeroretries.org/p/reprint-reuse
Fair Use - All excerpts from other authors or organizations, including images, are intended to be fair use and are fully attributed generally by author and link (URL).
Paid Promotional Content - Unless otherwise noted in the article or item, advertisement, or sponsorship notice, Zero Retries does not include paid promotional content. Exceptions:
- Advertisements in Zero Retries,
- Sponsorships in Zero Retries,
- Zero Retries products,
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- Features and content exclusive to paid subscribers.

⬅️⬅️⬅️ Previous Issue of Zero Retries \ Next Issue of Zero Retries ➡️➡️➡️

Zero Retries 0243 was published on 2026-03-20. This issue was 8041 words.

(end)

Zero Retries 0242

Steve Stroh N8GNJ — Fri, 13 Mar 2026 22:30:00 GMT

Steve Stroh N8GNJ, Editor

Tina Stroh KD7WSF, Business / Conference Manager

This issue of Zero Retries was originally published on Ghost - https://www.zeroretries.radio/zero-retries-0242/. Thus all links that were for zeroretries.radio have (attempted to) been changed to equivalents on zeroretries.org.

See this archive page:
https://web.archive.org/web/20260407182624/https://www.zeroretries.radio/zero-retries-0242/
for how it originally appeared on www.zeroretries.radio.

Substack says this issue is too big for email clients. Thus, it might be easier to read in a web browser - https://www.zeroretries.org/p/zero-retries-0242-052

It’s easy and free to subscribe for your own copy of Zero Retries every week:

In This Issue...

What’s New at Digital Library of Amateur Radio & Communications — March 2026

Weekends Are For Amateur Radio!

NewTechHams Are My Hope For The Future of Amateur Radio

Zero Retries Flyers / Handouts / One Pagers

Request To Send

(Invalid) Security Warnings for www.zeroretries.radio - Part 5

Administrivia Alert!

Microsoft... (sigh...)

Earlier this week, some Zero Retries readers continued to report “security” issues with zeroretries.radio when using Microsoft systems. I was able to replicate a surprising issue in Microsoft Edge browser:

Using www.zeroretries.radio in Microsoft Edge... works fine!

However, using zeroretries.radio (no www) in Microsoft Edge, redirects to www.zeroretries.radio (per the CNAME), but then throws up a scary warning notice per Microsoft Defender SmartScreen.

Clicking More Information...

Clicking Report that this site doesn’t contain phishing threats, I filled out the form as the site owner explaining things as best I could (twice, now).
Clicking Continue to the unsafe site (not recommended) seemed to clear the issue (on my system), but when I cleared all cookies, etc. and tried again, it happened again. Apparently clicking through this notice changes the behavior only on the local system (sets a cookie).

It was suggested by a Zero Retries reader that’s ex-Microsoft, that I reach out to a Microsoft employee and request they “clear zeroretries.radio from inside”. But, I don’t currently know any (active) Microsoft employees; all of my Microsoft contacts are now ex-Microsoft.

Thus all I can do is continuing to fill out the Microsoft form and hope my request eventually does get noticed by a human or a bot... and they actually check zeroretries.radio and see there’s nothing “phishy” going on.

Last minute update: That issue seems to have been cleared. Using Microsoft Edge browser on my Mac... seems to work fine for both zeroretries.radio and www.zeroretries.radio.

Paid Subscriptions for Zero Retries to Resume Soon

Because Zero Retries is no longer being published on Substack, we’ve disabled paid subscriptions (new and renewals) in Substack.

Because of the pressures of getting ready for our travel this week, Tina and I weren’t able to complete the delicate process of connecting the Zero Retries Stripe account to Zero Retries on Ghost, which enables us to set up paid subscription tiers (which have been, and always will be optional!!!) . That’s coming in the next couple of weeks or so after we return from our current travel.

All “extras” (still in process) of Paid Subscriber status on Substack will transfer to Paid Subscriber status on Ghost.

Stealth Sponsorships Available - Founding Members

The newest Zero Retries Founding Member is Founding Member 0024 - Rob Bowser KO4HUI. As a Founding Member of Zero Retries, KO4HUI is listed in every issue of Zero Retries.

K04HUI made a unique request for his Founding Member listing in each issue of Zero Retries to be:

Rob Bowser (SPOOLTENNA)

SPOOLTENNA is KO4HUI’s new small business and product:

SPOOLTENNA is a compact, lightweight 40-10m end fed half wave antenna that was specifically designed for portable amateur radio operations like Parks on the Air® (POTA) and Summits on the Air™ (SOTA). Its innovative spool form factor is intended to ensure rapid deployment and teardown, providing a frustration-free operating experience that doesn’t compromise performance.

KO4HUI’s request was a reasonable extension to the mention of each Founding Member in every issue of Zero Retries, and I was happy to oblige.

Thus I wanted to mention this possibility for current or future Founding Members - a subtle, brief mention of a project, product, or company or product in every issue of Zero Retries as part of your Founding Member acknowledgement.

We Love Random Wire Newsletter / EtherHam Too!

In Random Wire Newsletter 173, Tina and I, Zero Retries, and our Zero Retries Digital Conference received a nice shout out by Random Wire Editor Tom Salzer KJ7T. His work in Random Wire nicely complements the content mix of Zero Retries. It’s a must-read-right-now publication for me and is Zero Retries Interesting and Recommended! If you’re into operating Amateur Radio via Internet, as well as a lot of good practical tips about advanced networking in your household, you’re missing a lot of great content on that subject in Random Wire and KJ7T’s companion website EtherHam.

Hamvention 2026 Ho!

9 weeks until Hamvention 2026
in Xenia, Ohio, USA...

This week’s installment of the Zero Retries Hamvention 2026 saga seems a bit silly to have to do. We want to reassure Zero Retries / DLARC / Ham Radio Weekly fans that there will be a Zero Retries (+ DLARC) booth at Hamvention 2026 - Building 1 / Maxim, in Booth 1506. This reassurance seems necessary because of the status of Zero Retries on the official public commercial exhibitors list lingering as “Reserved“ rather than “Confirmed“. Apparently the payment processing / confirmation system behind the scenes at Hamvention moves... deliberately.

Post Publication Update: Zero Retries’s booth at Hamvention 2026 is now Confirmed, thanks to the efforts of Tina KD7WSF, Zero Retries Business Manager.

I’ll have a dedicated page for Zero Retries at Hamvention 2026 up soon. And we’ll (actually... Tina will...) get busy on one of those more eye-catching line ads in the official public commercial exhibitors list.

New Zero Retries One Pagers

For HamSCI 2026 we developed a new One Pager handout, and a table display sign, both with QR codes, for Zero Retries, revised for early 2026 and the new www.zeroretries.radio domain.

Post Publication Update: With the change to www.zeroretries.org, the original versions were deprecated. Current versions can be downloaded from:

If you would like to receive one of these electronic versions for printing and distribution at a conference, or Amateur Radio club meeting... or whatever (I should have offered them to AREDN in time for their SCALE 23x booth), please reach out to Tina KD7WSF.

3500+ Zero Retries Email Subscribers

No longer “nearly 3500”, or 3500’ish...

In 2026 to date, the email subscriber counts for Zero Retries have been rough estimates. Email subscribers were split between existing email subscribers on Substack, and new email subscribers on Ghost. There were a number of email subscribers who unsubscribed (some in disgust at the “chaos” of the changeover). Others try Zero Retries, and find it’s not for them. Thus the email subscriber count was in flux.

Finally, I was able to do the “big email merge” a couple of weeks ago, after which there was finally just one list of email subscribers (on Ghost). The “big email merge” cleared out some duplicates, but knocked the total subscriber count down significantly.

Folks continue to find their way to Zero Retries (some still finding their way to Substack, and I add them to the Zero Retries email list on Ghost). In the past month, there are typically three, and sometimes as many as ten new email subscribers per week. This week, the email subscriber total ticked up comfortably above 3500. Woo Hoo!

As always, I offer a disclaimer that when I announce a new email subscriber total that it’s not the number that matters, it’s that the number continues to grow steadily. This is just a basic indication of interest in Zero Retries. There are also many Zero Retries readers that don’t subscribe via email - they read Zero Retries when prompted by mentions on social media, or they follow Zero Retries via RSS.

Thanks folks! Without readers, there would be little purpose in writing Zero Retries!

Weekends Are For Amateur Radio!

This weekend Tina KD7WSF and I will be attending the HamSCI 2026 Workshop in New Britain, Connecticut, USA. We had a great time at HamSCI 2025 in Newark, New Jersey USA and the combination of Tina being able to spend some time back in New Jersey before and after the conference, the HamSCI conference, and getting to see ARRL Headquarters on Saturday is a nice combination for us.

One new highlight of traveling in New Jersey for me was discovering the Green Brook Electronics (GBE) store in North Plainfield, New Jersey. Recommended! GBE is second in “fun browsing surplus electronics in a retail store” only to the (now closed) Fair Radio Sales in Lima, Ohio. The photos on GBE’s website don’t do it justice. The actual store is sprawling and far more “interesting” and “overflowing with stock” than the website photos suggest. If you’re a fan of vintage electronics like I am, I suggest allocating at least an hour to visit GBE.

Have a great weekend, all of you co-conspirators in Zero Retries Interesting Amateur Radio activities!

Please direct comments / feedback about this Request To Send to the Zero Retries email list with the #ZR0242 hashtag.

Steve N8GNJ

Image courtesy of Internet Archive / Digital Library of Amateur Radio & Communications

What’s New at Digital Library of Amateur Radio & Communications — March 2026

By Kay Savetz K6KJN

Big things are happening with DLARC and Australia. DLARC is now an archive of the Wireless Institute of Australia Weekly News Broadcast (WIA News). Edited by Graham Kemp VK4BB for more than 30 years, each 30-minute weekly broadcast focuses on “what is happening in our ‘Wonderful Ham World’”, with a lens on Australia, naturally, but plenty of international news reports as well. We have 878 episodes in the library, all with scripts, all full-text searchable.

Also coming from the Land Down Under, DLARC has added the newsletter of the Ballarat Amateur Radio Group. This club was founded in 1980 and has been publishing its member newsletter continuously since. We now archive all 252 issues of this charming newsletter, which combines technical discussions (conductive polymer hybrid aluminium electrolytic capacitors) with community news … and, let’s be honest, fewer photos of wallabies than I would personally prefer.

What’s farther away than Australia? Space! I’m thrilled to announce a new sub-collection in DLARC’s Radio Conferences collection: the AMSAT Symposium archive. Here you’ll find proceedings, audio, and video from AMSAT Symposium, the annual conference run by the Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation. The earliest proceedings and papers we have are from the 1986 AMSAT Space Symposium — and we have proceedings and papers all the way through 2012. But wait, there’s more! We also have audio recordings of presentations and the accompanying slide decks from the 2004 and 2012 conferences. Those came from wonderful CD-ROMs published by AMSAT. I’d love to get my hands on the discs from other years’ shows. In the mean time, there’s incredible information here about ARISS and robotics and Cubesat and SETI and … converting a barbecue grill to an antenna for satellite communication.

Closer to home (but still DX) we’ve added a complete archive of The VHF DX Podcast, hosted by Nick Langan and Bryce Foster. This show is laser-focused on FM DX: long distance FM radio reception. It’s been published sporadically since 2021: there are only 26 epodes so far, because they publish only when there’s good FM DX to talk about. It’s a relatively rare phenomenon, so there are sometimes months between shows. I had a fun conversation with Mr. Langan about the American Ionospheric Propagation Association — folks who were tuning into FM DX in the late 1950s and early 1960s. (I hear that was a great time for FM DX because of the sunspot cycle, and a lower noise floor verses the buzzy electrical devices than we have today.) You can read about those glory days for yourself: DLARC has many (maybe all? It’s hard to know for sure) issues of the AIPA TV-DX newsletter.

Last month I wrote about Internet Archive patron Curtis Philips’ beautiful scans of Electrical Experimenter magazine. The one-man scanning machine is still at it, having uploaded 131 issues of Radio News AKA Radio Amateur News AKA Radio Television News AKA probably other things, because publisher Hugo Gernsback seemingly loved changing the names of his magazines with the times. The magazine started in July 1919 — Mr. Philips’ lovely color scans start with issue two (August 1919). DLARC also has a more complete set of this magazine, scanned from microfilm so they’re black-and-white. But Philips’ color scans — vibrant covers and warm, aged inside pages — add a certain beauty to the collection.

Besides the magazines, Philips has also scanned the books Radio News 150 Radio Hook Ups (from 1926), Loomis Radio Theory And Operating(1925), Moyer & Wostrel Practical Radio (1924), and Audels New Radiomans Guide (1939).

Finally, we have lots of new documents and movies from Milwaukee (Wisconsin) Radio Amateurs’ Club. The club has been diligent about documenting its history: they recently sent dozens of documents, images, and films which I added to DLARC’s MRAC collection. Those come in addition to the 2,800 (!!) items already in the collection, going all the way back to a certificate from 1919 showing the club’s affiliation with the ARRL. They’ve saved letters, meeting minutes, photographs, invoices, newsletters, rosters, and more — a fascinating and thorough record of the club and its 100-plus-year legacy.

Steve and I are planning our trip to Hamvention in May (it will be my first time!) We’ll be sharing a booth [Building 1 / Maxim, Booth 1506 - Ed.], where I’ll be spreading the word about DLARC.

Please direct comments / feedback about this article to the Zero Retries email list with the #ZR0242 hashtag.

NewTechHams Are My Hope For The Future of Amateur Radio

By Steve Stroh N8GNJ

I received an email from a longtime Zero Retries reader that was some good food for thought. They didn’t explicitly state that it was OK for me to share their email here in Zero Retries, so I’ll offer a précis (new word for me - thanks ClaudeAI!).

Aside from some small glimmers of light, the hobby is largely in the grips of appliance operators.

That seems to be the core of my correspondent’s pessimism that the LinHT (and similar “advanced Amateur Radio” projects, products, and services (PP&S) won’t find much of an audience because they’re too advanced for the “appliance operators”.

See Zero Retries 0241 - LinHT Revision B Making Great Progress for a recent update on LinHT.

This is actually a common enough plaint that it seemed reasonable to share my reply and perspective. The following was lightly edited for publication. This shouldn’t be construed as “the NewTechHams are going to save Amateur Radio” - that’s a heavy lift. But as you’ll read, I have reason for optimism.

What I didn’t mention in my reply, and should have, is that the label “appliance operator”, to me, isn’t necessarily a pejorative. Permit me a bit of a story. When we were building out the Puget Sound Amateur Radio TCP/IP Network, there were a handful of us who delighted in building the network - the repeaters, the routers, the user radios, trying to make it work reliably, etc. But it was the users (the appliance operators) who just wanted to connect up and use it to send messages and files to their buddies - reliably, traversing multiple repeaters, bands, and routers. And to me, the users / appliance operators were a more important part of the network builders because they were actually using this thing we built, and their usage justified the effort of having built it.

In many aspects, I consider myself an appliance operator. In some aspects of Amateur Radio, I don’t want to have to fuss with it until it works - I just want to follow the instructions and start communicating. Amateur Radio needs appliance operators... that are willing to get involved with new systems such as M17, New Packet Radio, Mercury, and others to use them. Far too often, new systems are developed for the joy of developing... and trying to make it user friendly, to develop a reasonable user base... is a secondary consideration, and that’s often a deadly perspective. It’s not a communications system if there are no users that want to use it to communicate.

Thus my opinion differs than my correspondent’s perspective that “the hobby is largely in the grips of appliance operators”. I wish I could convey how much I see NewTechHams and their energy coming into Amateur Radio. At GNU Radio Conference (GRCon) 2025, I was in a room of 50 or so folks, more than half of which were already Amateur Radio Operators, and every one of them capable of “sitting down and writing a unique new radio” because they were proficient in GNU Radio. This is no different than a person very experienced in Linux being able to write an application to run on Linux. Honestly watching the rise of the NewTechHams feels like watching Linux coming from behind to surpass Windows Server. LinHT will inevitably cause a “wha happen?” moment amongst the “fixed function” radio users and manufacturers.

Keep in mind that the technology of LinHT isn’t confined to the portable radio form factor. That’s just where the developers chose to start. LinMobile could very quickly become a realty, perhaps even more easily than LinHT.

In Zero Retries, I try to convey this momentum of technological innovation that I’m seeing in Amateur Radio. But, weekly bursts of text doesn’t do justice to that momentum... but I’ll keep trying. Perhaps when I finally graduate to creating unique videos regularly on the Zero Retries YouTube channel, I can make more of a dent in the same old, same... old...perception of the sad hams / and the “I’m not interested in anything new” appliance operators.

I understand why my correspondent, and so many others have that impression. Candidly, I think that’s something of a case of selection bias from going to typical Amateur Radio club meetings, hamfests, the “Ooh look at the latest Chinese radio unboxing” YouTubers, etc. If my correspondent (and others) were to attend meetings of Meshtastic fans, GNU Radio gatherings, DEF CON, Zero Retries Digital Conference, etc. I think they would come away with a different impression.

The tepid reception, to date, of the LinHT is unfortunately a perfect storm:

There’s a long story about why LinHT isn’t funded by grants so that a lot of LinHTs could be made and injected into Amateur Radio. Thus with minimum resources, the development of LinHT is proceeding slowly (but steadily).
The abysmal, accidental timing of LinHT’s development coinciding with punishing tariffs on electronics being shipped into the US.
The lack of vision about the bright future of Amateur Radio by leaders in Amateur Radio (especially the Amateur Radio industry) that’s made possible by Software Defined Radio that can be modified by the user,
No small amount of unfortunate arrogance, etc.

I’m seeing all of these factors combine against LinHT… and I’m still optimistic.

Actually, I’m fatalistic that LinHT can’t not happen. It’s a perfect answer to so many plaints and longstanding issues in Amateur Radio such as single mode radios and the resulting Tower of Babel effect that an Amateur Radio Operator using a DMR radio cannot use a D-Star repeater. Etc., writ large. I don’t know what the “spark” is going to be that is going to “ignite” the LinHT (or perhaps also the LinMobile) into widespread recognition and usage... but the LinHT is dry tinder waiting to be lit.

Steve N8GNJ

Please direct comments / feedback about this article to the Zero Retries email list with the #ZR0242 hashtag.

ZR > BEACON

By Steve Stroh N8GNJ

Short mentions of Zero Retries Interesting items.

CoronaSDR for IOS – a Free Native RTL_TCP Client

RTL-SDR.com blog:

Thank you to Silviu YO6SAY for writing in and sharing with us news about the release of his iOS App called “CoronaSDR” which is a native client for receiving from rtl_tcp servers. rtl_tcp is a server program for RTL-SDRs that streams raw IQ data over a network connection.

Unlike Android, iOS does not allow third-party USB devices like the RTL-SDR to run on its devices. But you can set up an rtl_tcp server on a networked PC or Raspberry Pi in your home, and connect to the data stream with an iOS app like CoronaSDR.

Silviu writes:

CoronaSDR is a free, native iOS app that connects to an rtl_tcp server on your local network (no cloud, no subscription).

Current features
• Live spectrum + waterfall (Metal / GPU-accelerated)
• Demod modes: AM / NFM / WFM / USB / LSB / CW
• RF controls: gain, PPM, direct sampling, offset tuning, bias-tee
• Stations with tags + CSV/TSV import/export
• List/range scanning with squelch hold/skip
• Background audio + lock screen controls

Known limitations (early build)
• Built solo so far — no external testers yet
• Most real-world testing to date has been NFM and WFM
• Other modes are implemented, but I’d consider them early until more field feedback comes in

Tested with an RTL-SDR Blog V4 (R828D) on a Raspberry Pi running rtl_tcp. I’d really appreciate detailed feedback (device + iOS version, tuner type, rtl_tcp command, mode/frequency, and steps to reproduce any issues).

Project page:
https://coronasdr.pages.dev/

Issues/bug reports: https://github.com/s1lviu/CoronaSDR/issues

I love this idea of a small package of a Raspberry Pi with an RTL-SDR dongle, small antenna, and an iPhone or iPad for casual viewing of the spectrum in your area.

Kudos to YO6SAY!

This is such a cool idea I might put one together for travel in time for Hamvention.

Discovery Drive - A motorized antenna rotator engineered for the Discovery Dish

The article in Zero Retries 0241 last week - Discovery Drive Campaign Launching Soon... was just a few days ahead of the actual launch.

I was surprised at the price of this unit - $700, and at first glance, this seems about the same price as the venerable Yaesu G-5500. But reading through the description, I understand that’s not the case. In my opinion, the Discovery Drive is actually a good option for VHF / UHF Azimuth / Elevation antennas being used to track Low Earth Orbit satellites, especially if your use case for such a unit is portable or temporary operation.

From my perspective the attributes of the Discovery Drive are:

Designed for portable operation (lighter weight, DC power input - that USB-C was suitable was surprising),
Apparently pretty mechanically robust,
More modern interfaces such as Wi-Fi and USB, without external / third party interface units required,
More robust than the lower cost alternatives,
Weather resistant (the less expensive options are not),
It’s an advantage that the entire design is open source - it can be extended into areas and use cases not originally envisioned.

This wouldn’t be a common use case, but I could imagine this being used for accessing different mountain top nodes (such as AREDN or HamWAN) nodes. Uncommon, and perhaps impractical as buying multiple AREDN / HamWAN nodes is less expensive than one Discover Drive alone... but the Discover Drive makes such usage possible.

I don’t currently have the available N8GNJ / Zero Retries Labs discretionary budget for this unit, so I’ll miss out on the introductory pricing. There are a few projects that are ahead of it in the N8GNJ / Zero Retries Lab purchase queue. But I’ve always wanted an azimuth / elevation rotor for tracking LEO satellites, and now that there are some Zero Retries Interesting LEO satellites on the horizon (pun intended) such as a PACSAT or two, this unit is definitely in the purchase queue.

AREDN Evangelizes Modern Amateur Radio Networking at SCALE Conference

Orv Beach W6BI (AREDN Ambassador) via the AREDN Facebook Group:

Image courtesy of Orv Beach W6BI.

Pictured - Tim Wilkinson KN6PLV, one of the AREDN Lead Developers.

AREDN once again had a booth at SCALe (the Southern California Linux Expo). We had good traffic past the booth on Friday, very busy on Saturday, and light traffic on Sunday (very typical).

Something different this year was that SCALE hosted KB6NU and his Ham In A Day training class, one on Friday and one on Saturday. Several dozen hams were minted out of the follow-on testing. And being geeks, quite a few of the new hams made their way to the AREDN booth for an indoctrination 😊

Note the lack of gray hair in the listeners in the photo above.

Long time Zero Retries readers might consider what follows to be a tired refrain... but consider that everyone attending SCALE 23x was there for their interest in Linux, not Amateur Radio. But AREDN presented a facet of Amateur Radio that was relevant and interesting to them within that context of Linux (and networking).

Thus (thanks to Dan Romanchik KB6NU) there are now several dozen more NewTechHams in Amateur Radio, looking around with what to do next with their new Amateur Radio license. Obviously they got exposed to AREDN, but there’s a lot more interesting things to do, and we really have to figure it out, as a community, to help them with that.

Second Edition of VHF, Summits, and More

Bob Witte K0NR on his The KØNR Radio Site blog:

Big news — I’m proud to announce that the Second Edition of my book VHF, Summits, and More is now available. I’ve received tons of positive feedback on the first edition, published in 2019, and I decided it was time for an update. This new version is printed in color, which greatly enhances the photos and graphics.

This book is an easy-to-understand introduction to VHF/UHF ham radio with an emphasis on mountaintop VHF operation. I’ve enjoyed ham radio and writing about it ever since I received my first FCC license. Although I’ve used the ham bands from 160m to 3cm (10 GHz), I find the VHF and higher frequencies the most interesting. This is mainly because of the interplay between mountains, Height Above Average Terrain (HAAT), and VHF propagation. VHF has lots of spectrum, lots of modes, and lots of fun challenges.

For the second edition, I gave everything a fresh look. I updated every chapter and added 100 pages of new material. In Part I, the VHF tutorial section, I added new chapters to improve the treatment of basic VHF/UHF: Popular VHF/UHF Bands, Antennas, Coaxial Cables & Connectors, and WSJT-X Digital Modes. Part II covers topics that originated from my blog, often based on questions I hear from newer hams. In Part III, which is focused on SOTA, I added several chapters on how to be successful doing VHF SOTA, and I added a few new trip reports. I also added some information on combined SOTA/POTA activations.

I’m really happy to see this new book, particularly that it has 100 pages of new material. This is one of those books that’s not only fun and interesting to read (K0NR is a good writer) and one can always learn new things. But it’s handy to have a book like K0NR’s that’s a counterpoint for “Oh, Ham Radio... is that still a thing?“ - particularly for younger, more active folks for whom Parks On The Air / Summits On The Air (POTA / SOTA) activities would be appealing with an Amateur Radio station in one’s backpack.

And... K0NR has embraced data modes - at least the WSJT-X data modes!

This book (actually two of them so that I’ll be able to hand to a prospective new Amateur Radio Operator) is now in my to be purchased queue for when we’re back from travel.

MFJ Documentary / Martin F. Jue: Life and Legacy

A documentary about MFJ Enterprises, ingenuity, legacy, and community.

Martin F. Jue is an engineer, inventor, and entrepreneur whose journey began in the Mississippi Delta, where he was raised in the back of a family-run grocery store. From building crystal radios as a child to founding one of the largest amateur radio accessory companies in the world, Martin’s life reflects the power of persistence, creativity, and technical curiosity. A graduate of Mississippi State and Georgia Tech, he returned to Starkville to teach and build. MFJ Enterprises began with a single filter circuit and grew into a globally recognized brand. Quietly tenacious and profoundly inventive, Martin remains a quintessential figure synonymous with the words “amateur radio”, known as much for his humility as his engineering prowess.

This is a very Zero Retries Interesting project. There was a lot of technological innovation developed by MFJ over the decades. Cost reduction (at which MFJ excelled) of complex devices certainly counts as technological innovation. From personal experience, MFJ contributed a lot of technological innovation in Amateur Radio Packet Radio.

I also had not taken into account that a core value of MFJ was to manufacture as many of its products as possible at its factory in Starkville, Mississippi, USA assembled by MFJ employees in Starkville.

This documentary isn’t yet completed and is still actively fundraising to be able to complete it.

ARISS Beyond the ISS

Amateur Radio on the International Space Station web page:

With 25 years of experience connecting astronauts and cosmonauts to tens of thousands of kids and adults around the world via amateur radio, ARISS is plotting a course to continue our mission in the government and commercial space realm beyond the targeted decommissioning of the ISS in the 2030 timeframe.

As you know, we’ve already been active in conducting ham radio operations in commercial space ventures including all four Axiom Space flights to the ISS and the Fram2 free-flying mission, and that’s a big hint on where we’ll be focused in the post-ISS era. We’ve identified commercial space stations as a key growth area for ARISS and we’re in conversations with anyone and everyone in this emerging sector about making ham radio an asset for crews.

Artist renderings of Starlab, Axiom Space, Orbital Reef and Vast commercial space stations

Based on publicly available information, there are at least four companies developing or interested in developing commercial space stations: Vast, Axiom Space, Starlab Space and Sierra Space’s Orbital Reef. Vast has stated that it could have its four-person, single-module Haven-1 space station for low-Earth orbit as soon as 2027.

It’s very cool to think that Amateur Radio could continue to be a presence on future earth-orbiting space stations. Kudos to ARISS to keep explaining what they’re doing, and thinking, and advocating on behalf of Amateur Radio.

My thanks to Amateur Radio Weekly Issue 411 for highlighting this development.

AMSAT-US Trying To Get Some Attention from GEO Satellite Vendors

I cannot link to this article because it’s behind the AMSAT-US paywall, and thus not publicly accessible. LEO and GEO in this context is Low Earth Orbit / Geosynchronous or Geostationary Earth Orbit.

Drew Glasbrenner, KO4MA, President in his Apogee View column in the January / February 2026 issue of AMSAT-US’ AMSAT Journal:

Since the beginning of the year, I have reached out to two different aerospace companies that are advertising opportunities for hosted payloads in higher orbits, including GEO. Frankly, it’s been difficult getting any response, especially when I see they’ve checked out my LinkedIn profile before not returning an email. So, I’m asking for help. If you are involved with this type of company or have contacts within, let’s talk. Email me at aglasbrenner@amsat.org.

My goal is to find a modest communications payload opportunity above LEO. To that end, we are also putting together a small committee to begin developing practical payload ideas when we do make that contact.

This is mildly bad news that KO4MA isn’t getting attention from these (unnamed, for the moment) GEO satellite companies. Mayhaps a bigger hammer needs to be applied to that effort.

But there are three good news items in those two paragraphs!

AMSAT-US is trying to arrange an Amateur Radio GEO payload (presumably that would cover the Western Hemisphere, or at least North America). This is a big change from the (as far as us in the public could tell) indifference by AMSAT-US about attempting an Amateur Radio GEO payload for coverage of the Western Hemisphere.
This is (apparently) independent of the futureGEO project of the European Space Agency (ESA), with Amateur Radio involvement being coordinated by AMSAT-DL. That goal of that project is to develop an Amateur Radio GEO payload over the Atlantic Ocean that could potentially cover Western Europe and potentially the Eastern half of North America (mostly for the benefit of Canada, which is a member of ESA). AMSAT-US is one of the Amateur Radio organizations participating in this project.
AMSAT-US is serious enough about such an effort that they’re putting together a dedicated committee, to discuss GEO. This is also big change from the (as far as us in the public could tell) indifference by AMSAT-US about attempting an Amateur Radio GEO payload for coverage of the Western Hemisphere.
KO4MA as the new President of AMSAT-US, is talking publicly about the potential of an Amateur Radio GEO payload for the Western Hemisphere, even if what he’s currently conveying is the (momentary) bad news that he can’t get a return email.
It is a big deal that KO4MA is willing to “go on the record” that AMSAT-US is beginning to actively work towards an Amateur Radio GEO Payload for the Western Hemisphere. This is yet another big change for AMSAT-US, from the deafening silence from previous AMSAT-US presidents.

In late 2025, I rejoined AMSAT-US based on the change in attitude (becoming more progressive and increasing openness) that I saw in AMSAT-US making many of their publications over past decades available for public access through DLARC.

I also saw some new initiatives in plans for future AMSAT-US satellites that involved microwave, Software Defined Radio (SDR) and more use of data communications such as a future Packet Radio Satellite (PACSAT).

Another factor in rejoining AMSAT was that I felt strongly that if I wanted to have a voice in the direction of AMSAT-US (towards GEO, more use of microwave, more Software Defined Radio, more use of data communications like PACSAT), I needed to be “on the inside” as a (voting) AMSAT member.

Now, my rejoining AMSAT-US seems like fortuitous timing with KO4MA talking about the potential of a GEO payload, and other Zero Retries Interesting projects for future satellites. A long email to KO4MA asking “how can I help?” is in the queue.

futureGEO Article in Same Issue
In the same issue as the above there was another article related to GEO:
The futureGEO Project: Charting the Path to a New Era in Geostationary Amateur Radio by Paul Stoetzer N8HM. Again, unfortunately, this article is behind the AMSAT-US paywall, and thus not publicly accessible. Mostly it is a “report out” of the futureGEO workshop convened by AMSAT-DL which was held on 2025-09-19 at the Bochum Observatory in Germany. Much of the details of that meeting have previously been reported out in publicly accessible articles.

Closing Thanks

Numerous Annual and Monthly subscribers who also generously support Zero Retries financially!

You thousands of readers of Zero Retries without which there would be little point in publishing this newsletter.

The Usual Administrivia

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Zero Retries 0242 was published on 2026-03-13. This issue was 6344 words.

(end)

Zero Retries 0241

Steve Stroh N8GNJ — Fri, 06 Mar 2026 23:30:00 GMT

Steve Stroh N8GNJ, Editor

Tina Stroh KD7WSF, Business / Conference Manager

This issue of Zero Retries was originally published on Ghost - https://www.zeroretries.radio/zero-retries-0241/. Thus all links that were for zeroretries.radio have (attempted to) been changed to equivalents on zeroretries.org.

See this archive page:
https://web.archive.org/web/20260408044644/http://web.archive.org/screenshot/https://www.zeroretries.radio/zero-retries-0241/
for how it originally appeared on www.zeroretries.radio.

Substack says this issue is too big for email clients. Thus, it might be easier to read this in a web browser - https://www.zeroretries.org/p/zero-retries-0241-2e7

It’s easy and free to subscribe for your own copy of Zero Retries every week:

In This Issue...

LinHT Revision B Making Great Progress

Mercury HF Modem v2

Multi-Instance (Cross Band / Multi Radio) Cluster in VarAC

Request To Send

Paid Subscribers Update

My thanks to Thom Proehl K7FZO for renewing as an Annual Paid Subscriber to Zero Retries this past week!

Financial support from Zero Retries readers is a significant vote of support for the continued publication of Zero Retries.

Administrivia - Imports Into Ghost (Finally), Welcome to Zero Retries on Ghost

What follows is why I labeled this Administrivia. If your eyes glaze over about administrivia, feel free to skip ahead.

In this item:
References to “Substack“ is content currently on www.zeroretries.org. References to “Ghost“ is content currently on www.zeroretries.radio.

On Wednesday, 2026-03-04:

Exported posts and pages from Substack
Exported subscriber info from Substack
Imported posts and pages into Ghost
Imported subscribers into Ghost

I should have paid attention to the actual numbers pre and post import, but in round numbers, there are now nearly 3500 email subscribers on Ghost. There were between 200 and 250 new subscribers that signed up on Ghost prior to the import, so 3300+ subscribers are new to receiving email from Ghost.

That worked. Mostly. Kind-of. The email import into Ghost seems to have been a non-event. As I write this, only one person signed up for email manually in Ghost from Substack.

At a glance, all the Posts published on Substack are now present in Ghost. For example, Zero Retries 0000 is now available on Ghost - https://www.zeroretries.radio/zero-retries-newsletter-0000/

Good news is that the photos I embedded in Substack posts seem to have also migrated - I wasn’t sure that would be the case since Substack embeds photos. Bad news is that there was no translation of URLs, etc., so every URL within a post or page referencing Substack still points to Substack. I don’t think that Ghost offers linking within posts, so that’s another fix that will need to be applied manually. Finally, In Substack, I never correctly, or fully utilized tagging, and didn’t understand how useful tags are (Thanks Tom Salzer KJ7T!) Since I’ll eventually “touch” every post originally published on Substack, I’ll be applying consistent tags (which were also apparently imported from Substack).

The Pages published on Substack such as those under Zero Retries Guides also seem to have been imported and now present in Ghost, but I haven’t done any work to provide linkage to those pages within Ghost... so they’re not yet visible.

Thus there’s a lot of cleanup to do to make everything internally consistent in Ghost, so Substack will remain online for the foreseeable future. Good news is that none of this is hard or inscrutable. Bad news is, it will be time consuming.

But, good news, it was already in my plans to reread / touch every post and page as I write my forthcoming book Zero Retries Guide to Amateur Radio in the 21st Century. So all of this boils down to a systematic application of butt-in-chair time, and all of that work will eventually get done.

Another thing I’m going to do as part of my “touch every post now in Ghost” process is to create navigation links for Previous Issue and Next Issue.

The (soon to be) plan for the Paid Subscribers and Founding Members (as I write this on Wednesday, after the initial import process), is:

✅ In Ghost, import all paid subscriptions email addresses manually as free subscribers so they’ll now receive Zero Retries issues via emails from Ghost.
In Substack, generate a post and email for paid subscribers explaining this issue / process. (I think that will be the first, and last, paid-subscribers-only post and email that I’ve ever sent in Substack.)
In Substack, turn off paid subscription renewals (monthly, annual, Founding Members).
In Ghost, connect the Zero Retries Stripe account (payment back end).
In Ghost, set up paid subscription options.
✅ Founding Members will continue to be listed in every issue of Zero Retries.

I decided upon the process above because I set up Zero Retries paid subscriptions and Founding Members as entirely optional. I didn’t want to presume anything of Paid Subscribers and Founding Members by attempting to import their info into Ghost as anything other than as free subscribers.

(Invalid) Security Warnings for www.zeroretries.radio - Part 4

Administrivia Alert!

On 2026-03-04, I posted this on the Zero Retries email list:

Something has changed for the positive!

My personal indicators that there was an issue with using zeroretries.radio were:
• Wouldn’t display in iPhone Safari
• Wouldn’t display in iPad Safari (older OS - it’s an older iPad no longer [receiving updates])
• Wouldn’t display in MacOS Chrome
• Wouldn’t display in MacOS Brave (understood that Brave is warmed over Chrome)

As of today… all of those work.

As suggested, I’ve tried to “light a fire” under Ghost Support. At best, their responses were pleasant, but tepid.

At this point, I’m going to declare “good enough” and offer apologies for anyone who reports issues. I think I’ve done as much as I can, working through Ghost Support.

In response, Jason McCormick N8EI noted:

zeroretries.radio and www.zeroretries.radio are no longer blocked in Cloudflare. So that’s a massive win for your domain move.

Indeed that is the case - see the report for zeroretries.radio in Cloudflare Radar - no mention of phishing, which had been mentioned in every previous Cloudflare Radar report I’ve run. So...

‘Nuff said on this issue. I’m moving forward on “full migration” to Ghost, as discussed above.

Hamvention 2026 Ho!

11 weeks until Hamvention 2026
in Xenia, Ohio, USA...

I won’t breathlessly report out every week on the preparations for Zero Retries exhibiting at Hamvention 2026 (other than the countdown, which just seems fun to do, and a weekly, visceral reminder to me that preparation time is short), but there was a significant development this week.

The Zero Retries / DLARC booth will now be in Building 1 / Maxim, in Booth 1506. We’re paid up and in discussion with the indoor booth folks, but Zero Retries isn’t currently on the official, public list, but we’re assured that’s an oversight.

This development means that Zero Retries and DLARC will be in a high profile location with lots of traffic. Both Kay Savetz K6KJN and I look forward to being at a stable location where we can meet up with Zero Retries and DLARC fans.

I’ll have a dedicated page for Zero Retries at Hamvention 2026 up soon. And we’ll get busy on one of those more eye-catching line ads in the official Hamvention listing.

Attending HamSCI 2026 Next Weekend

Tina KD7WSF and I will be attending HamSCI 2026 next weekend in New Britain, Connecticut, USA.

This year’s theme, “Discovering Science Through Ham Radio”, celebrates the community’s achievements, including Personal Space Weather Station deployments, meteor scatter propagation studies and the promotion of WSPR as a propagation sensing tool. The workshop is expected to feature more than 50 poster and oral presentations, plus invited tutorials, and a banquet with a keynote address by a prominent member of the community.

The program will focus on the latest findings, strategies, and best practices in ionospheric science. It has been designed to bring together the amateur radio and professional science communities.

Thus HamSCI (not just the annual conference, but the ongoing program) is one of the most prominent examples of technological innovation (research) in Amateur Radio. HamSCI is particularly noteworthy for its direct, deliberate involvement in collegiate student researchers (and presenters at HamSCI conferences).

One of the highlights for me will be a tour of ARRL Headquarters in nearby Newington, Connecticut.

I hope to have “Zero Retries Interesting” conversations with other HamSCI 2026 attendees.

Weekends Are For Amateur Radio!

This week a friend said that they cringe a bit every time they read this section of Request To Send because their weekends are consumed with activities revolving around their children. I sympathize and remember what it was like during that phase of our lives. But eventually, perhaps, Amateur Radio and the kids can be the same activity, such as activating a Parks On The Air, or transmitter hunting, or launching a pico balloon.

For our household...

Saturday will be consumed by “Mike & Key Flea“ and travel to / from. A long day, but fun.
Sunday will be consumed by packing for travel beginning early Monday. Next week we’re looking forward to lots of sightseeing, shopping, and visiting relatives around Northern New Jersey and Connecticut, then attending HamSCI 2026 next weekend.

Publication Note - Likely No Zero Retries Next Week

As noted above, next week will be a heavy (but fun) travel week for Tina and I. From experience, it will likely be tough to carve out enough blocks of time that I require to publish a typical issue of Zero Retries.

Thus, please don’t be alarmed if Friday 2026-03-13 passes without Zero Retries 0242. Or, perhaps time will permit. We’ll just have to play it by ear.

Please direct comments / feedback about Request To Send to the Zero Retries email list with the #ZR0241 hashtag.

Steve N8GNJ

LinHT Revision B Making Great Progress

By Steve Stroh N8GNJ

LinHT is the most important hardware project in Amateur Radio today. Bruce Perens K6BP 2025-08-12

LinHT is Linux Handheld Transceiver, an open source project by the M17 Foundation and M17 Project and a very talented team of developers to develop a handheld Software Designed Radio (SDR) (user-changeable). The primary differentiation of LinHT is that it runs Linux as its operating system - no inscrutable, proprietary, unchangeable embedded OS, and it runs GNU Radio flowgraph SDR modules. Within its limitations (such as currently only operating on the Amateur Radio 70cm - 420-450 MHz band), it can run any mode. Modes already implemented include supported FM with CTCSS, SSB, M17, TETRA receive, and an experimental 64-QAM data mode operating at 2 Mbps.

In the LinHT v2 prototypes and perhaps early production runs, the LinHT circuit board is a (mostly) drop-in replacement for the circuit board of the Retevis C62 handheld radio (some components on C62 circuit board are salvaged and reused.

Most information in this article is from the LinHT Development Team:
Andreas Schmidberger OE3ANC
Vlastimil Slintak OK5VAS
Wojciech Kaczmarski SP5WWP

LinHT boards have arrived!

Wojciech Kaczmarski SP5WWP:

Today, we have received a set of three Rev B boards. They will be tested in the coming days. Stay tuned!
What’s new in Rev B:
– redesigned power supply
– internal RF power amplifier (~5W at 435MHz, CW)
– improved RF receiver path (added variable attenuation)
– GNSS receiver
– battery charging through USB-C
– cleaner layout and grounding

LinHT Rev B boards - Image courtesy of Vlastimil Slintak OK5VAS

LinHT Rev B update

Vlastimil Slintak OK5VAS:

The board powers up correctly, the ATTiny power-management firmware is working, and the PMU logic now controls the startup/shutdown sequence as intended.

USB-C charging is also working as expected, and the whole device can be powered on with the rotary ON/OFF switch.

We also confirmed debug UART from the SoM is available on the Kenwood connector and works with common Baofeng-style USB serial adapters.

There is still a lot of work ahead: update the Linux device tree for the new Rev B pinout, validate all new peripherals, and fully test GNSS, the RF power amplifier stage, and the rest of the hardware.

LinHT Rev B circuit board - Back - Image courtesy of Vlastimil Slintak OK5VAS

LinHT Rev B circuit board - Front - Image courtesy of Vlastimil Slintak OK5VAS

LinHT rev B – first boot

Wojciech Kaczmarski SP5WWP:

Sharing great news from Andreas OE3ANC. Good work, team!

LinHT Rev B First Boot - Image courtesy of Andreas Schmidberger OE3ANC

The big feature, to me, in the LinHT Rev B is the integrated 5 watt power amplifier. 5 watts transmit power in a portable device operating on the 70cm / 420-450 MHz band is quite usable. Another feature I wasn’t aware that was being developed for Rev B was a GNSS receiver. That’s another great feature for the LinHT - that’s a cheap way to have a real time clock (time stamping logs, for example) as well as location data for a future APRS-like mode.

It’s taking longer than we fans of the LinHT had expected for Amateur Radio manufacturers to get the concept of LinHT and to start getting seriously interested in manufacturing a commercial, turnkey LinHT.

It’s also possible, given that LinHT is an open source project with all of the details of the LinHT being developed and reported out in public, perhaps there is a (or multiple) manufacturers quietly developing their own version of LinHT.

When I’ve written about LinHT and no committed commercial developers - yet, I invoke the mental image of a group of penguins clustering around a hole in the ice. No penguin wants to go first, because there might be a hungry predator waiting under the ice for a tasty penguin meal. But once one goes, they all go. None of the Amateur Radio manufacturers, given consumer price points for Amateur Radio equipment, “want to go first” with a LinHT.

I’ve also written that manufacturers that are vested in perpetuating their proprietary / current digital modes such as Yaesu (SF / C4FM), Icom (D-Star, NXDN), Kenwood (9600 APRS, D-Star, NXDN), Anytone (DMR) aren’t likely to be (initially) interested in manufacturing a LinHT as that will likely cannibalize their lucrative radios.

But I’m convinced it’s going to be like a rush of penguins into the hole in the ice - when the first manufacturer comes out with a LinHT - there will be a fast cascade from other manufacturers that don’t want to miss out on the vast market for the LinHT.

At the Zero Retries booth at Hamvention 2026, I’ll have some handouts about LinHT Rev B as handouts for potential (seriously interested) radio manufacturers that are also at Hamvention.

Kudos to OE3ANC, OK5VAS, and SP5WWP. Developing LinHT has been a lonely quest to date, but I’m in violent agreement with K6BP that LinHT is the most important hardware project in Amateur Radio today.

Please direct comments / feedback about this article to the Zero Retries email list with the #ZR0241 hashtag.

Mercury HF Modem v2

By Steve Stroh N8GNJ

Mercury is a software implementation of high performance, high reliability modem for data communications on the HF bands. Mercury is being developed as a workalike of VARA HF, with equivalent performance and reliability. Unlike VARA HF, Mercury is being developed as open source, and thus no cost. Development of Mercury has been funded by grants (1, 2, 3) from Amateur Radio Digital Communications.

Most information in this article is from the referenced email list message by Rafael Diniz.

Rafael Diniz on the hermes-general email list:

Dear HF radio friends,

After some quiet times, Mercury is back full gas!

The Mercury repository (https://github.com/Rhizomatica/mercury) has been reorganized, and we have some great news!

The main branch has been replaced by two branches:

--

Mercury v1 (mercuryv1 branch): https://github.com/Rhizomatica/mercury/tree/mercuryv1

AGPL v3

This is the original Mercury modem written in C++, with the MFSK weak-signal modes, cross-platform GUI, and the existing ARQ implementation. Broadcast mode is present. It contains the same code that was previously on main. No changes were made to the code — it was simply moved to its own branch.

Kameron is working on Mercury v1 and it has many new features!

--

Mercury v2 (mercuryv2 branch, now the default) https://github.com/Rhizomatica/mercury/tree/mercuryv2

GPL-3.0, LGPL-2.1

This is a complete rewrite of the modem in C, using David Rowe’s OFDM modem at the modem (more modems to be added in a later moment). Key changes from v1:

- Modular reactor architecture replacing the monolithic state machine
- Per-direction mode selection — each path (A→B and B→A) negotiates its mode independently based on local SNR
- Hybrid SNR + delivery-feedback adaptive gear-shifting (DATAC4/DATAC3/DATAC1 for payload, DATAC13 for control signaling)
- Persistent FreeDV mode pool eliminating codec re-initialization overhead
- Arithmetic-coded callsign compression with overflow protection
- Async structured logging system with optional JSONL output
- VARA-compatible TCP TNC interface (ARQ and Broadcast)
- Raspberry Pi 4/5 optimized build support

Mercury v2 is what will be deployed on the HERMES stations for store-and-forward email and file transfer over HF. Broadcast mode is also present and working fine.

--

There are no plans to retire Mercury v1 and both versions will co-exist and have new (binary) releases soon!

There was some additional back and forth on the email list, including:

Why not a GUI for mercury as in Vara with only soundcard setup, waterfall and a scope of received signal constellation?

We are working on it:
https://github.com/Rhizomatica/mercury-qt

The Vara command “CHAT ON” or “CHAT OFF” are not implemented and, testing mercury with varim, give a “WRONG” answer.

Good catch. I forgot about CHAT command. I’ll install varim here to test.

What’s really cool about Mercury, beyond that it’s a high performance data communications mode for HF operation, is that it’s open source. Thus Mercury can be embedded, adapted / extended / improved / forked infinitely.

As an example of this embedded functionality model, this has already happened in many packet radio systems having integrated Dire Wolf Software TNC. Often Dire Wolf’s functionality is embedded so far in the background of the system, it’s practically invisible.

Part of that embedded functionality model is becoming “just another mode” in new generations of HF radios, similar to other built-in modes in HF radio, such as RTTY, CW, SSB, etc. This is beginning to happen with FreeDV RADE being supported as a selectable mode in FlexRadio units.

Another cool aspect of Mercury is that a parallel project is to integrate it with an open source HF radio (HF Signals sBitx v3), into a system called HERMES. The combination will be essentially an HF band data communications appliance / modem.

Of course, Mercury and HERMES are just the modem (data transport). The ultimate utility of HF data communications modes are the applications. One of my favorite HF data communications applications is VarAC which integrates a number of data communications “sub applications”, including email, messaging, bulletins, file transfers, etc. in a very well developed user interface. I hope that data communications systems and networks such as Winlink, The Packet Radio Forwarding Network (TPRFN), and perhaps DigiPi will eventually integrate Mercury as just another data transport mode.

Please direct comments / feedback about this article to the Zero Retries email list with the #ZR0241 hashtag.

Multi-Instance (Cross Band / Multi Radio) Cluster in VarAC

By Steve Stroh N8GNJ

I’ve gushed enough in this issue, and previous issues of Zero Retries about the very capable and very polished VarAC application for data communications on Amateur Radio HF and VHF / UHF bands. VarAC uses VARA HF and VARA FM as the “transport layer” and seamlessly integrates email, short messages, bulletins, file transfers, and other modes. It’s really a fantastic application, and it’s amazing that Irad Deutsch 4Z1AC and Larin Deutsch make VarAC available at no cost for use on Amateur Radio spectrum by Amateur Radio Operators.

But one nagging feature seemed to be lacking in VarAC - the ability to use multiple bands or even a combined HF and VHF / UHF VarAC node. My imagined application is that some users in an area might want to operate a VARA FM / VarAC network on 2m / 144-148 MHz. Others might want to operate VARA FM / VarAC on 70cm / 420-450 MHz. Others might want to use 6m / 50-54 MHz or 1.25m / 222-225 MHz. I thought that would require completely separate computers / radios / modems with no integration or ability to “gateway” between bands.

But I was very incorrect in my understanding / assumption that such a feature was missing in VarAC.

I had a brief email exchange with 4Z1AC where I asked if such a feature could be added to VarAC (similar to that capability already present in the commercial version of VarAC - SafecomLink). To my delight, 4Z1AC replied:

As for multi-instance cluster - this is available already in VarAC. Many already operate a cluster:

How to enable multi-node cluster in VarAC - Image courtesy of Irad Deutsch 4Z1AC

Oh... this rocks my world!

Perhaps even before Hamvention, all three elements of my 2m / 1.25m / 70cm omni antenna are about to get a workout from having three VARA FM radios + modems, and now a VarAC multi-node-cluster connected. I need to fire up one of my Software Defined Receivers and start scouting for quiet frequencies for operating VARA FM on 2m, 1.25m, and 70cm in my area.

Massive kudos to 4Z1AC for this feature!

Please direct comments / feedback about this article to the Zero Retries email list with the #ZR0241 hashtag.

ZR > BEACON

By Steve Stroh N8GNJ

Short mentions of Zero Retries Interesting items.

A Look Back at 2025: ARDC’s Annual Report is Now Available

Rebecca Key KO4KVG on the ARDC website:

Our 2025 Annual Report is now available, highlighting a year of progress as we rolled out new initiatives, shared a clearer strategic direction, and continued supporting innovation across our community. Highlights include:

• Rolling out our vision, strategy, and priority areas for funding
• Approving 79 grants, totaling about $3.4 million, supporting projects across amateur radio and digital communications
• A financial summary highlighting ARDC’s funding and operations
• Launching 44Net Connect, lowering barriers to accessing 44Net address space
• Welcoming Harald Welte to our Board of Directors
• Sharing findings and insights from the Grants Evaluation Team (GET)
• Launching our YouTube channel with the 44Net Origin Story, celebrating 44 years of 44Net
• A look ahead at what’s next for 2026

If you have questions or comments, feel free to reach out at contact@ardc.net.

ARDC’s annual reports are, to me, always a fascinating read. An entire year of ARDC’s activities, especially the stories about some ARDC grants, condensed into a single engaging document. In my opinion, 2025 was an unusually formative year with ARDC adding their first director who isn’t an Amateur Radio Operator, and the 44Net Connect transitioning from beta testing to fully available and operational. I think that ARDC publicly stating their Priority Areas For Funding (and the prominent role of space communications there) was incredibly helpful for Amateur Radio.

ARDC is one of Amateur Radio’s secret weapons for creating new technological innovations in radio technology.

SARC Communicator Journal: March-April 2026

Speaking of secret weapons for creating new technological innovation in radio technology, Surrey Amateur Radio Communications’ newsletterzine The Communicator is another. The Communicator is an engaging look at modern Amateur Radio, and it helps a lot for it to be approachable to a world audience that it’s published in Canada. The Communicator is published online, for free.

I’ve been so impressed by The Communicator, its subject matter mix, its high production values (kudos to Editor John Schouten VE7TI), and just the overall “tone” of The Communicator that Amateur Radio is cool, fun, and relevant that I asked to become a contributor, and joined SARC as a member. I’ll be presenting to an in-person SARC meeting in April. My article in this issue is Rational Optimism About the Future of Amateur Radio, beginning on Page 76:

I’ve been asked why I’m so optimistic about Amateur Radio?
Why can I see a future for revitalized Amateur Radio… and the
“sad hams” cannot?

I’m inspired and energized… and given a bit of vision… by a
number of factors.

One of the biggest factors of my optimism is that Amateur Radio
is a unique microcosm of the technology industry. We have access
to spectrum that isn’t rigidly defined (well, the repeater
operators beg to differ). We have reasonably flexible rules (more
flexible in Canada, but we’ll be working on that factor in the US).
In the US there’s a flexible definition that “undefined codes”
must be “publicly documented”. That’s all it says.

...

Again, there are (always!) a number of Zero Retries Interesting articles in every issue of The Communicator, such as in this issue:

Chameleon Project: Digital Radio (Page 16) by Kevin McQuiggin VE7ZD / KN7Q,
High Above The Noise: What’s New in Amateur Satellite Radio (Page 40) by (author unstated),
The North Fraser Club Balloon Project: High-Altitude Amateur Radio on 925 MHz (Page 54) by Adrian Stimpson VE7NZ,

Radio is the same as in 1920… Really? (Page 114) by John Schouten VE7TI was a great article about ongoing technological innovation in Amateur Radio:

There is a controversial article at https://www.radioworld.com/news-and-business/business-and-law/financial-traders-seek-permanency-for-shortwave-data with the quote: “A radio engineer from the 1920s could take a shortwave radio from the 1920s and transmit and receive voice signals today,” the SMC wrote in a cost-benefit analysis filed to the FCC after a December meeting with the commission.

“It is remarkable how little innovation has occurred in this band.”

This claim by the Shortwave Modernization Coalition (SMC), a proponent of gaining HF bandwidth to trade financial transactions, because it is faster than the Internet...

overlooks a century of profound advancements in amateur radio on the high-frequency (HF) shortwave bands (roughly 3-30 MHz).

...

These digital modes represent profound innovation:
• Spectrum efficiency — Modes like FT8 and PSK31 use fractions of SSB bandwidth, allowing far more activity in crowded HF
bands.
• Power efficiency — Contacts at milliwatts or watts succeed where voice fails, enabling QRP (low-power) enthusiasts to span continents.
• Weak-signal performance — Advanced error correction and digital signal processing overcome noise, fading, and propagation
challenges.
• Accessibility — Free software (WSJT-X, FLdigi) and sound-card interfaces turn everyday computers into sophisticated transceivers.

The Communicator is published bimonthly on the odd months - highly recommended!

Simple D-Star Transceiver Uses Inexpensive Hardware

Donald Papp on Hackaday:

[Yeckel] recently put the finishing touches on an ambitious implementation of a simple D-STAR (Digital Smart Technologies for Amateur Radio) transceiver using some very accessible and affordable hardware. The project is D-StarBeacon, and [Yeckel] shows it working on a LilyGO TTGO T-Beam, an ESP32-based development board that includes a SX1278 radio module and GPS receiver. It even serves a web interface for easy configuration.

...

So far as [Yeckel] is aware, D-StarBeacon is currently the only open-source implementation of a D-STAR radio available on the internet, which is pretty interesting. We’ve seen projects that touch indirectly on D-STAR, but nothing like this.

I’m normally a fan of Amateur Radio articles on Hackaday, but this one has a glaring lack, not mentioning that a D-Star radio (receive and transmit) has been implemented in open source, as one of the modes in Multi Mode Digital Voice Modem (MMDVM), including radio“hotspots”. Papp’s reference to “touch indirectly” is a very old reference to MMDVM, predating the development of radio hotspots.

The comments on this article are the usual humorous “Hackaday mix” of informed and relevant, uninformed, and inflammatory. None of the commenters made mention that there have been experimental implementations of D-Star that replace the AMBE vocoder with another non-proprietary vocoder. (Obviously, that didn’t get wide adoption... but it was proven feasible.) Also not mentioned was that despite that the patent for the particular implementation of AMBE used by D-Star has expired, DVSI is very litigious. Thus, while open source implementations of that version of AMBE are feasible... it’s generally been concluded that it’s not worth getting into the crosshairs of DVSI’s legal team with a workalike implementation of AMBE.

Discovery Drive Campaign Launching Soon

RTL-SDR.com:

Our Discovery Drive campaign will be launching soon, so make sure to sign up for updates on the pre-launch page!

Discovery Drive is an automatic antenna rotator that is designed to be used with our Discovery Dish product, as well as similarly sized antennas such as Wi-Fi grid and Yagi antennas.

A motorized rotator, such as Discovery Drive, enables precise tracking of fast-moving polar orbiting satellites using a satellite dish or directional antenna. Examples of polar orbiting weather satellites include METEOR-M2, METOP, and FENGYUN. Depending on your location, you may also have access to other interesting satellites that dump data over specific regions.

Apart from public weather data, operators and enthusiasts might be interested in using Discovery Drive to track CubeSats, and amateur radio operators may wish to track amateur radio satellites.

Amateur radio astronomy hobbyists can map the galaxy in the hydrogen line spectrum using Stellarium, or custom software to aim a Discovery Dish with H-Line feed, allowing you to scan multiple parts of the sky in one night.

Please check out our promo video below!

There’s an unmet market segment with radio experimenters and Amateur Radio Operators for an (more) reasonable cost outdoor rated antenna rotor for use with smaller, lightweight antennas. But what the verbiage above doesn’t (explicitly) state, but is quickly obvious from the video, is that this unit isn’t (as stated) a mere “motorized rotator”, it’s an azimuth and elevation rotator, capable of changing two-dimensional antenna orientation for tracking a pass of a Low Earth Orbit satellite with a directional (high gain) antenna or dish.

The price of this unit isn’t yet stated, but the closest competition is the Yaesu G-5500DC which is $760 at Ham Radio Outlet. If the Discovery Drive is perhaps half that price, I think it will find a big market for those of us who are increasingly interested in participating in (automated) LEO satellite activity, such as participating in SatNOGS, TinyGS, the Packet Radio and video systems on the International Space Station, and the (I hope, I hop, I hope) a new Packet Radio Store and forward mailbox / BBS / digipeater Packet Radio satellite (PACSAT) in discussion by AMSAT-US (unfortunately, no public facing link for this project).

Inovato, N0LSR Design Endorse Open HamClock Backend Public Server

Amateur Radio Daily:

Editor’s Note: Amateur Radio Daily is a contributor to the Open HamClock Backend project and recommends their public server. Amateur Radio Daily headlines have appeared on HamClock since 2023.

Open HamClock Backend (OHB) is now providing a central server for any HamClock user to use with their existing HamClock application. With the original HamClock application scheduled to be sunset in June, the central server provided by OHB will extend the life of existing HamClock installations indefinitely. Previously, OHB users were required to host the server locally. This update allows any HamClock user to utilize OHB’s central server through a small configuration change.

When the creator of HamClock became a silent key earlier this year, the HamClock project was expected to be sunset in June 2026. While the HamClock application is open source, the backend server that powers many HamClock features was closed. OHB provides a replacement for that backend service.

Open HamClock Backend (OHB) is a community project by a team of developers with Brian Wilkins (KO4AQF) as the main contributor. It is fully open source, and it runs on servers in a commercial data center. Another example of what the ham radio community is capable of. The hosting in the data center is donated. This provides very high availability with no costs for anyone.

With the stability of the OHB project making its way to a centralized public server, Inovato and N9LSR Design recently announced that they would endorse OHB for their HamClock appliances.

There has been much angst, opinionating, and sparring, and outright bloviating (insert canonical quote about three Hams in discussion arriving at five different opinions) about which “HamClock successor” project is “most legitimate”.

In my very, very minor opinion on this matter (with no “standing” whatsoever)...

The presence of Amateur Radio Daily’s content on Open HamClock Backend (OHB), and Inovato’s endorsement of OHB, combine to make OHB my preferred solution for continuing to use HamClock.

I think very highly of the content of Amateur Radio Daily (and the incredible amount of work Cale Mooth K4HCK puts into Amateur Radio Daily and Amateur Radio Weekly) so it counts a lot that ARD content is on the OHB “fork” of HamClock.

Similarly, Inovato with their inexpensive and capable Quadra / Quadra4K units, in my opinion, made HamClock widely known, widely used, and highly popular in Amateur Radio.

Thus all of my Quadra / Quadra4K units running HamClock will be redirected to Open HamClock Backend... displaying the headlines of ARD among other information.

Apple’s New MacBook Neo

(Yeah, there Steve goes again in Apple Fanboy mode. Guilty! But I think it’s relevant here - read on.)

In its early 2026 new product introductions this week, Apple debuted the MacBook Neo laptop. This new unit (and new category for Apple) is a cost reduced laptop - base cost direct from Apple is $599. There is some reduction in functionality from the other MacBooks because the Neo uses their A18 processor originally designed for iPhones, 8 GB RAM, and 256 GB storage. For the most common tasks - email, web browsing, etc. the Neo works fine.

Here’s why I think that the Neo is applicable to Amateur Radio - increasingly, what we do is done via a web browser. For anything related to that, the Neo would be a great choice. Even if you don’t care for Apple’s native Safari web browser, all of the other web browsers are available for MacOS on the Neo, including Chrome (or “de-Googled” Brave or Chromium) and Firefox. The number of Mac applications for Amateur Radio is steadily increasing - see Mac Ham Radio for a great overview.

There are two differentiating features of the Neo versus new Windows laptops or Chromebooks in this price class:

The build quality is superior. Apple didn’t “cheapen” the construction of the Neo versus the other MacBooks. Like every MacBook, the lower piece of the Neo is solid aluminum. There’s no fan on the Neo (the aluminum body is an adequate heatsink, and the processor is very power efficient).
Apple has dialed in the battery life of MacBooks with Apple’s (again, very power efficient) processors - more than 8 hours of typical use.

There’s another subtle issue to recommend MacBooks in general in Amateur Radio - a lot of “command line” applications, utilities, etc. Linux or BSD users require “just work” in MacOS (or are easily added). I know folks that have bought MacBooks that fire up the Command window, make it full screen, and ignore the MacOS graphical user interface completely.

Thus, in my opinion, for typical usage, the price performance of a MacBook Neo has a lot to recommend it. I will be investing in one that I can devote to Amateur Radio use such as remotely accessing my DigiPi station (web browser), my VARA FM / VarAC station (screen sharing into a Windows system), my (eventual) HF station, etc. that all live in N8GNJ / Zero Retries Labs. That a MacBook Neo will be a new, rugged, reliable, inexpensive (enough) laptop that I can dedicate to Amateur Radio is to me a distinct improvement over Winbooks, Netbooks, Chromebooks, or used Windows laptops.

Likely I’ll have my new Amateur Radio MacBook Neo with me at the Zero Retries booth at Hamvention where it will be a great way to have new Zero Retries subscribers sign up right there in the booth.

Please direct comments / feedback about ZR > BEACON to the Zero Retries email list with the #ZR0241 hashtag.

Closing Thanks

Numerous Annual and Monthly subscribers who also generously support Zero Retries financially!

You thousands of readers of Zero Retries without which there would be little point in publishing this newsletter.

Permission to Reuse Zero Retries Content

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It’s appreciated (a courtesy, but not required) to notify Zero Retries Editor Steve Stroh N8GNJ of any reuse of Zero Retries content - editor@zeroretries.net.

If you’d like to republish an article in this issue for other uses, just ask.

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Zero Retries 0241 was published on 2026-03-06. This issue was 6463 words.

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Zero Retries 0240

Steve Stroh N8GNJ — Fri, 27 Feb 2026 23:30:00 GMT

Steve Stroh N8GNJ, Editor

editor@zeroretries.net

This issue of Zero Retries was originally published on Ghost - https://www.zeroretries.radio/zero-retries-0240/. Thus all links that were for zeroretries.radio have (attempted to) been changed to equivalents on zeroretries.org.

See this archive page:
https://web.archive.org/web/20260412233955/https://www.zeroretries.radio/zero-retries-0240/
for how it originally appeared on www.zeroretries.radio.

Substack says this issue is too big for email clients. Thus, it might be easier to read in a web browser - https://www.zeroretries.org/p/zero-retries-0240-3be.

In This Issue...

Impressions of ARRL’s New Digital Networking for Ham Radio Book

Request To Send

Paid Subscribers Update

My Thanks this week to:

Joe Hamelin W7COM for renewing as Founding Member 0014!
Founding members are listed in every issue of Zero Retries!
Prefers to Remain Anonymous 66 for renewing as an Annual Paid Subscriber!
Dave Kolesar W3KCK for upgrading from a free subscriber to an Annual Paid Subscriber!
Charles Riley G4JQX for three years of being a Paid Subscriber!
Prefers To Remain Anonymous 22 for three years of being a Paid Subscriber!

Financial support from Zero Retries readers is a significant vote of support for the continued publication of Zero Retries.

Hamvention 2026 Ho!

Unexpectedly, Hamvention 2026 made a booth available to Zero Retries! And we promptly offered to share it with Kay Savetz K6KJN of Digital Library of Amateur Radio & Communications (DLARC). Like Zero Retries, DLARC will be exhibiting at Hamvention for the first time. We’ll also be reaching out to some high profile friends of Zero Retries (and DLARC) to make “booth time” available. The first acceptance of that offer was from Cale Mooth K4HCK of Amateur Radio Daily / Amateur Radio Weekly / Net Finder.

Hamvention 2026 is 2026-05-15 thru 17 in Xenia, Ohio, USA. Both K6KJN and I look forward to being at a stable location where we can meet up with Zero Retries and DLARC fans. More details soon.

12 weeks...

Big Update of the Zero Retries About Page

I had created an About item in the menu bar of the new Zero Retries page... but didn’t (re)create an actual About page there. Oops! That was being flagged by several people as potentially one of the “security” issues about www.zeroretries.radio.

So I copied the About page from Substack, and there was a lot of info there that really needed to be updated, so I spent a day updating it. ~~https://www.zeroretries.radio/about/~~ https://www.zeroretries.org/about. It’s now reasonably complete, up to date, and perhaps slightly entertaining. There’s some remaining work to do (marked with “tk“s).

Post Publication Update - If you’re reading this after 2026-04-03, the conversion to Ghost / www.zeroretries.radio didn’t work out and Zero Retries is again being published on Substack / www.zeroretries.org. Thus the info in this section is retained solely for historical reference.

Porting Over from Substack - No Progress This Week

Administrivia Alert!

Nothing bad happened this week, it was just busy, busy, busy with other normal life things. So the big “port over” of email addresses from Substack email subscribers into Ghost email subscribers didn’t happen. Again.

(Invalid) Security Warnings for www.zeroretries.radio - Part 3

Administrivia Alert!

But nothing good happened this week either - no big breakthroughs in the lingering security issues some folks are experiencing with their computer / Internet security systems in accessing zeroretries.radio.

In the struggle with the security issues of using zeroretries.radio as a domain name for this newsletter, I was reminded (I forget by what) of the Sunk Cost Fallacy. I’ve invested so much time (and attention, and energy) into using zeroretries.radio that I want to just “gut it out” and hope it “fixes itself” eventually. (?) That is the definition of the Sunk Cost Fallacy.

One issue is... what alternative, “mainstream” domain name could I use in place of zeroretries.radio that would be more palatable to the inscrutable and opaque Internet Security Industrial Complex that I seem to have run afoul of? Then I remembered that, out of habit, I registered zeroretries.com. (D’Oh!) At the moment, that’s used solely as a redirect to zeroretries.org. I also own zeroretries.net (Double D’Oh!) which I’m currently using solely for email, and another web redirect to zeroretries.org. So, I have some options. If I can’t get this silliness resolved reasonably soon and stop expending time and attention on it, it seems (increasingly) more reasonable to just “bail” on using zeroretries.radio for Zero Retries on Ghost and use it solely as a fun redirect to the actual domain that’s hosting Zero Retries.

Post Publication Update 1 - D’Oh... I realized that I’m just working against myself forwarding of zeroretries.com and zeroretries.net to zeroretries.org (since I’m no longer publishing the new content there). Both of those domains are now being forwarded to zeroretries.radio.

Administrivia

I had to chuckle when I read this by Justin Giorgi AI6YM in his most recent newsletter:

Administrivia

tl;dr - The store moved to Shopify so I can focus on making cool stuff. The blog will move to another platform soon for the same reason.

I am 100% stealing ‘Administrivia’ from Steve Stroh (N8GNJ) of Zero Retries without shame. Thanks Steve!

You’re welcome Justin! I’m glad administrivia works well for you too.

Weekends Are For Amateur Radio!

This weekend is the great gathering-up of schtuff that I now consider extraneous to the core missions / fun activities / future projects in N8GNJ / Zero Retries Labs. This is in preparation for schlepping it all to the Mike & Key Amateur Radio Club’s 44Th Annual Electronics Show & Swap Meet on Saturday, 2026-03-07 in Puyallup, Washington.

My goal in taking the schtuff to “Mike & Key Flea” is to be purged of it. All items will be “priced to move”; revenue generation from the schtuff is a very secondary priority to purging it. Anything that I take there that is not redistributed to my fellow Amateur Radio Operators and electronics aficionados will be donated as “electronics recycling” at the wonderful RE:PC retail store in Kent, Washington. If I do end up going to RE:PC, I’ll try not to... and almost certainly fail... to browse the trailing edge electronics on display there. And, since I’m in the Seattle area, I have a few electronics doodads to pick up at the equally wonderful Vetco Electronics retail store in Bellevue.

Have a great weekend, all of you co-conspirators in Zero Retries Interesting Amateur Radio activities!

Please direct comments / feedback about Request To Send to the Zero Retries email list with the #ZR0240 hashtag.

Steve N8GNJ

Impressions of ARRL’s New Digital Networking for Ham Radio Book

By Steve Stroh N8GNJ

This week I received my (paid, not review - I was one of the supporters of this book - see below) copy of ARRL’s brand new book Digital Networking for Ham Radio by Glen Popiel KW5GP.

First and foremost, I’m delighted that ARRL has published a Zero Retries Interesting book about Data Communications Networks that operate in Amateur Radio spectrum, by Amateur Radio Operators! KW5GP clearly put a lot of work into the 250 pages of this book. I consider this new book to be only the second modern treatment by ARRL of Amateur Radio data communications in the 2020s. (The first was the significant update of the data communications section in the 100th Edition of the ARRL Handbook last year, which I helped to write.)

It’s refreshing that this book doesn’t get bogged down in any discussion of the previous century of Amateur Radio activities, even those digital / data activities that are somewhat relevant such as Radio Teletype (RTTY). Given his involvement (he literally wrote the book) I’ll forgive the author for the few nostalgic mentions of High Speed Multimedia (HSMM) which has now been entirely deprecated by the rapid evolution and capabilities of AREDN.

It’s gratifying to see ARRL recognize, formally, with this book, that data networks in the Amateur Radio microwave bands is an active segment of Amateur Radio activity.

There’s a lot to like about this book. I particularly appreciate that the book treats the TCP/IP network protocol matter-of-factly as a useful technology in Amateur Radio, with good explanations. The tutorials about how TCP/IP works, and troubleshooting TCP/IP issues, merit additional study over time.

Another thing to admire about this book was that ARRL offered an opportunity for clubs and individuals to show their support for this book, and this topic, in advance with financial contributions, in return for a brief mention in the book. More generally, I hope that advance financial support by those organizations and individual members sent an effective message to ARRL leadership that this topic is important within Amateur Radio. I took advantage of that opportunity to showcase:

Organizations:
Zero Retries Newsletter
(Page 245)
Clubs:
WETNET / Puget Sound Amateur Radio TCP/IP Network and Group Silent Keyboards
(Page 246)

There were a total of 39 organizations / clubs listed. Because they were savvy enough to financially support this book / topic in advance, I’m going to check out every one of themas potentially Zero Retries Interesting.

I was also gratified to be mentioned in the Acknowledgements (Page 249):

A special thanks go out to...
Steve Stroh, N8GNJ, editor of the Zero Retries Newsletter

(and others...)

for their invaluable assistance in the research for this book.

I was happy to help KW5GP in offering ideas for some of the areas that should be covered.

Notable Inclusions In This Book

The book is sprinkled with useful, self-contained nuggets of information that help average Amateur Radio Operators understand some of the nuances of data communications networking on microwave frequencies. Examples:
- dB vs. dBm vs. Watts (Page 27) The use of dBm has always frustrated me, and I often resort to just asking an AI app “translate x dBm to watts”. KW5GP gives a reasonable explanation for why dBm, rather than watts, is used.
- Ethernet Data Cable (Page 28) Discusses some of the significant differences between Category 5 and Category 6 cabling.
- It would be great if these “nuggets” were listed in a separate Table of Contents.
The chapter Backup and Redundancy is a subject often overlooked in building networks. If a network isn’t working... why? Thus having the ability to monitor a network (before something goes wrong) is a critical element in a usable (reasonably reliable) network. Several networking monitoring systems are discussed.
The chapter Deploying Amateur Radio Networks is another often overlooked topic about the criticality of ensuring adequate Fresnel zone clearance in outdoor microwave networks. It’s not enough to merely have optical line of sight between two points, there must be adequate Fresnel zone (ground) clearance in the path. Several path prediction tools are discussed.

Minor Nitpicks

Any book, and especially this book (already at 250 pages) cannot be all things to all readers. In suggesting additional content, I acknowledge that “more content” comes at the cost of a thicker, more expensive, perhaps less easily readable book that would require more time to research and write.

The mention of The Amateur Packet Radio Network (AMPRNet℠) (Page 10) isn’t well researched. The more common name for this block of (now) 12M IPv4 addresses is 44Net (amprnet.org is the associated domain name available for use with using 44Net IP addresses. Example - one of my systems was sw.n8gnj.wetnet.ampr.org). Also, the revenue generated from the sale of 44Net IPv4 addresses was more than 2x the revenue reported in this section. Better coverage of the importance and relevance of 44Net is suggested for future editions.
There was no substantive mention (that I recall) of antenna polarization (or much discussion of the critical role of antenna selection) for microwave network nodes. This topic merits discussion as, for example, to access my local HamWAN node, I made the mistake of purchasing a solid, high gain dish antenna. That antenna turned out to be completely unsuitable due to wind load, and unnecessary because the node is easily accessible with a smaller, lower gain mesh antenna which has much lower wind load.
There was little discussion of the role of power supplied to radios over Ethernet cabling. There is the formal, standardized Power Over Ethernet specification - 802.3af... and everything else. Some radios can use 802.3af power supplied by an 802.3af Ethernet switch. Other radios require their own unique power supply. Those two types of power requirements aren’t compatible. That discussion would make a good “nugget”.
There was little discussion of applications that can be used over Amateur Radio data networks such as AREDN and HamWAN. In the end, these are just networks, the radio equivalent of an Ethernet cables. What makes such networks interesting and useful is the applications that can be used over them such as Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) telephony (such as Asterisk), email (independent of the Internet), file servers, high resolution cameras / videoconferencing (de facto Amateur Radio Television). Not to mention being able to supply connectivity for repeater linking, repeater management, accessing remote Amateur Radio receivers and transceivers, Internet interconnection, etc.
While there was a brief discussion of the role of Private IP addresses (Public vs. Private IP Addresses - Pages 45 and 46) such as 10.x.x.x, 192.168.x.x, etc., this is a subject in Amateur Radio data networks that deserves a fuller treatment as it can get confusing fast. For example, how AREDN uses (and self-assigns) 10.x.x.x addresses within AREDN networks can really cause issues, despite AREDN’s goal of largely automating and insulating IP address management from users. This discussion would be well complemented by a discussion of why the public (and globally unique) IPv4 addresses available from 44Net are so valuable and useful in Amateur Radio networks. This is particularly true when Amateur Radio networks are interconnected via Internet such as AREDN’s tunnel servers.
I disagree with KW5GP that IPv6 is not generally relevant in Amateur Radio TCP/IP networking. There are many advantages to using IPv6 that could be useful in Amateur Radio data networks, beyond just the exponential increase in the number of IP addresses with IPv6 . For example, all of the complexities and hassles with Public vs Private IP addresses, Network Address Translation (NAT) are irrelevant when using IPv6. All modern systems, such as Linux, Windows, and MacOS, and modern networking equipment is “dual stack” and thus capable of operating on both IPv4 and IPv6.

The Problem With a Book... Is That It’s a Book

In my comments that follow, I don’t mean to detract that the subject of Amateur Radio Microwave Data Communications Networking now has a (modern) dedicated book on the subject. And, this book will get noticed because the author has credible history, having authored a previous book (Amazon search link) on this subject, and this book is published by ARRL. Thus this book, and this subject, will get attention and mindshare within Amateur Radio if for no other reason than it will be advertised by ARRL, featured at each Ham Radio Outlet store’s book section, etc.

But... even at 250 pages, there’s a lot of glaring lacks on the subject of Digital Networking for Ham Radio. I think a more accurate title of this book would be Microwave Data Networks for Amateur Radio, as the book discusses operations almost entirely on the 2.x GHz and 5.x GHz Amateur Radio bands, with brief mentions of the Amateur Radio bands at 902-928 MHz, and 3.x GHz.

Part of the issue is that this is a book... and books require significant time to write (I’m acutely, personally aware of this issue 🫤). But the time required to write a book gets no deference from rapidly evolving Amateur Radio data network technology. Examples:

While 44Net and the use of 44Net IPv4 addresses is discussed in the book... ARDC’s 44Net Connect service (a free Virtual Private Network) became fully operational in late 2025. 44Net Connect makes the use of 44Net IPv4 addresses in Amateur Radio networks almost simple... certainly much more practical for the average Amateur Radio Operator, or organization, or project - because “it’s just Wireguard; everyone knows Wireguard“.
The changeover of AREDN’s mesh networking technology from OLSR to Babel was completed by the end of 2025. Beginning in 2026, AREDN firmware includes only Babel mesh networking technology. The inclusion of Babel makes AREDN units / networks able to be dynamic, automatic, auto-discovery mesh networking again with significantly improved reliability and performance compared to using OLSR. Use of OLSR became a handicap in AREDN networks, often requiring the use of static routes / links to maintain reliability. Extensive testing with Babel in AREDN has proven it to provide stable networks, but still dynamic (minimal need for static routes / links).
Another development of AREDN technology in late 2025 is its support for “new” 802.11ah / Wi-Fi HaLow network devices that operate on the 902-928 MHz band that Amateur Radio shares with unlicensed use / users. That development makes the use of 902-928 MHz very practical and useful for localized high speed data networks, especially in areas where trees are abundant as 902-928 MHz signals can “punch through” tree foliage - to a limited degree. This is in contrast to 2.x / 3.x / 5.x GHz signals that cannot penetrate tree foliage.
While Meshtastic receives significant coverage, the recent and rapid evolution of MeshCore (and the even newer MeshCom) is not mentioned. MeshCore and MeshCom began getting significant attention in 2025, especially among Amateur Radio users (using 433 MHz and 915 MHz) as “Meshtastic that works“.

There were also some gaps on this subject (microwave data networking) in the book:

Use of radio networking equipment and networks that operate on unlicensed spectrum, adhering to Part 15.247 regulations weren’t discussed. Use of unlicensed spectrum / equipment is a valid option for Amateur Radio and there are many such networks operated by Amateur Radio organizations such as Rocky Mountain Ham Radio’s Amateur Microwave Network, BCWARN, and HAMNET.EU (Highspeed Amateurradio Multimedia NETwork). They use unlicensed equipment and spectrum because:
- “Part 15” equipment, especially systems designed for use complex, long range, outdoor networks by Wireless Internet Service Providers (WISPs) (as opposed to “Wi-Fi”) such as equipment by Ubiquiti and MikroTik, well designed for the purpose of wide area outdoor networks and usable as-is.
- AREDN and HamWAN modifications to “Part 15” equipment are considered by some to be too limiting (such as disabling encryption) or of little use, especially with the evolution of “WISP-grade” networking capabilities in the mid 2020s.
- There was dedicated, reserved spectrum for Amateur Radio networking at 3.x GHz and 5.x GHz, but Amateur Radio use of 3.x GHz has been deprecated, and much of the “Amateur Radio” portion of 5.x GHz is now dual-allocated for unlicensed use (no longer exclusive for Amateur Radio).
- Despite the theoretical advantage of Amateur Radio operation under Part 97 rules being able use higher transmit power than operation under Part 15.247 rules... higher power is generally unneeded in microwave networks. If you have an optical line of sight path with adequate Fresnel Zone clearance and a reasonably clean channel then the link will almost always work at Part 15.247 power levels.
Icom’s (now decades old) D-Star Digital Data (DD) Mode would seem to qualify for mention in this book given that it operates exclusively on the 1240-1300 MHz (23 cm) band. While DD mode radios don’t have built-in TCP/IP (they’re effectively an Ethernet bridge), they are certainly network devices - albeit half-duplex radios with a data rate of 128 kbps. DD mode is usable and still relevant because it continues to be supported in Icom’s ID-RP1200VD repeater and the Icom IC-705 and the Icom IC-9700 radios as well as the now-discontinued Icom ID-1 radio. I have documented in Zero Retries that there are a dozen or so DD mode repeaters (data communications networks) still in active use in North America.
Some Amateur Radio microwave networks have begun using 10 GHz links. Such links have the significant advantage of Amateur Radio exclusive spectrum from 10.0 - 10.5 GHz (500 MHz!), at least in the US. Thus wider channels are available resulting in faster speeds. One vendor of 10 GHz equipment, Mimosa Networks, is willing to supply units within the US that operate in 10.0 - 10.5 GHz with proof of an Amateur Radio license. There have been a number of ARDC grants provided for developing such links.
The QO-100 Amateur Radio payload in Geosynchronous Earth Orbit (GEO) above the Eastern Hemisphere is effectively a “hemisphere-wide” Amateur Radio microwave network. Data communications is “just another use case” on QO-100, especially on the Wideband Transponder. What’s different with QO-100 versus typical Amateur Radio satellites is that QO-100 is usable 24x7x365 with simple fixed dish antennas largely pointed towards the sky instead of the horizon (through ground clutter). Another difference with QO-100 versus typical Amateur Radio satellites is that accessing it is only via Amateur Radio microwave spectrum - 2.x GHz uplink, 10.x GHz downlink.

Lots of Digital Networking Occurring on Amateur Radio VHF / UHF Bands

My biggest... suggestion... for this book, especially the title being “Digital Networking for Ham Radio” would be for it to be expanded to cover Digital (Data) Networking that’s occurring in the Amateur Radio VHF / UHF bands. In my opinion, that’s where a great deal of the value-add of Amateur Radio in contributing to modern radio technology is - figuring out how to do good data communications networks in VHF / UHF. For example:

Amateur Radio Packet Radio networking may have fallen out of everyday use with most Amateur Radio Operators... but it’s hardly “dead, gone, irrelevant”. Indeed Packet Radio been revitalized in the past decade with innovations in this era such as:
- The Raspberry Pi computers that are inexpensive enough and capable enough to be used as dedicated “radio computer appliances”,
- The Dire Wolf Open Source Software TNC,
- The creation of two Forward Error Correction (FEC) systems - FX.25 and IL2P (both supported by Dire Wolf),
- TNCs that are capable of faster data speeds such as the DigiPi, the NinoTNC, and (still in development) MMDVM-TNC running on MMDVM modems.
New Packet Radio (NPR), offering data speeds up to 1 Mbps using a 1 MHz channel, especially now that integrated, reasonable power units are available assembled and tested from Localino. (Yes, this is problematic in the US at the moment due to outdated bandwidth and symbol rate regulations.)
Arguably, the Amateur Radio Winlink email system with access via Amateur Radio VHF / UHF fits the description of Digital Networking for Ham Radio. Winlink and Amateur Radio emergency communications networks have been revitalized by system upgrades from Amateur Radio Packet Radio (almost always at 1200 bps) to VARA FM which operates at data speeds of up to 25 kbps on VHF / UHF with very high reliability .
Similarly, the use of the VarAC software, combined with VARA HF or VARA FM is creating new Digital (Data) Networks for Ham Radio in local areas. VarAC implements email, bulletins, short messages, file transfers, “digipeating” (not interoperable with packet radio) and other elements of networking - via Amateur Radio.
There should be at least some mention of the vast network of APRS digipeaters integrated with Internet servers, that can support short messaging via APRS. That fits the definition, at least to some degree, of Digital Networking for Ham Radio.

The “Encryption” Bogeyman

A discussion of encryption here is relevant in the context of the book Digital Networking For Ham Radio because “encryption is illegal in Ham Radio” is frequently referenced in the book.

In modern networking, encryption is now a given. It... just... is! One interesting example is that to query the FCC’s callsign database via the FCC website for “official” verification of an Amateur Radio callsign record... is impossible without using HTTPS: (Hypertext Transfer Protocol - Secure).

In the book, KW5GP goes to great lengths, with frequent references, that the use of HTTPS (and by extension, other secure systems such as SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) and SFTP (Secure File Transfer Protocol) on any system operating on Amateur Radio spectrum (operating under Part 97 rules) is illegal. (There is an exception for managing Amateur Radio satellites.)

Or, perhaps not, depending on one’s interpretation of this one line:

§ 97.113 Prohibited transmissions
(a) No amateur station shall transmit:
(4) ... messages encoded for the purpose of obscuring their meaning,

That one line has been almost universally interpreted within US Amateur Radio as a blanket prohibition against any use of technology that incorporates encryption such as HTTPS, SSL, or SFTP.

But I think it’s a reasonable point of discussion about

purpose of obscuring their meaning,

For example, if you want to query someone’s callsign record to validate that they have a valid Amateur Radio license, from an Amateur Radio network, you don’t intend (your purpose) to use HTTPS to access FCC callsign records via the FCC’s website. That choice has already been made for you by the website you need to access. Similarly... would you want to make it possible to configure a repeater controller or remote radio from an Amateur Radio network using Telnet? I posit no, because Telnet uses plain text, and is thus easily monitored and hackable by “bad actors”. Similarly, would you want to make it possible to upload a new firmware package to a network node or repeater or remote radio using (insecure) FTP? Again, I’d posit no because FTP login (username / password) is also plain text, thus easily monitored, and thus easily hackable, and thus could allow “bad actors” to upload their firmware.

I posit that if you were to create a simple website (server) to be used over an Amateur Radio network, you’d be hard pressed to configure it so that it doesn’t automatically incorporate/ require the use of HTTPS to access it via a modern web browser.

My point in the above examples is that such usage isn’t using encryption because you want to obscure the meaning... you’re using secure systems which, as a normal part of that technology, in this era, that makes use of automatic, behind the scenes (with little choice possible by the user) encryption as a normal security measure. HTTPS, SSL, and SFTP all have the encryption “baked in”.

There are other ways to create secure systems without encryption such as adding unique cryptographic public key signatures to every transmission... but that’s cumbersome and few (or any?) have implemented such systems. The use of encryption is now just a normal element of networked systems.

In the end, using HTTPS, SSL, SFTP, and other “normal Internet tools” that incorporate encryption, over Amateur Radio spectrum, is one’s individual choice on how to interpret that one line. It’s your Amateur Radio license on the line.

This subject will, inevitably, be addressed with the FCC by those who want to modernize Amateur Radio regulations to be more compatible with the technologies and the use cases of the 21st century. Canadian Amateurs are experimenting with “key escrow” techniques, and the use of encryption in Amateur Radio is now being discussed by the ARRL Board.

Conclusion

First and foremost, I’m delighted that this book has debuted, and delighted that it was published by ARRL. It’s a good book, and a good treatment of the subject, and my comments above shouldn’t be construed as significant criticisms.

I recommend the purchase of this book by most readers of Zero Retries because:

It’s a good treatment of the subject matter, even for those that are already involved in AREDN, HamWAN, or Meshtastic networks. It’s an enjoyable read and I appreciate KW5GP’s conversational writing style (same as I use here in Zero Retries). While I haven’t yet read the book cover to cover, I plan to do so. In my cursory reading this week, I’ve picked up on some nuances that I thought I understood thoroughly, but apparently didn’t.
This book is a great introduction to radio data networking in Amateur Radio in the 21st century. If you have it on hand, you can loan (or gift) it to potential Amateur Radio Operators who are potential NewTechHams. This book demonstrates that Amateur Radio in the 2020s isn’t the “same old, same old“ general perception of Amateur Radio.
It’s a minor consideration, but widespread purchase / popularity of this book “sends an unmistakeable signal” to ARRL management that this, and related subjects, are of significant interest (and thus profit potential). Revenue = attention to ARRL management.

The problem with any book as a source of information on a rapidly evolving area of technology such as this subject is that by the nature of being published on paper and only published periodically (even annually), it can’t be comprehensive and ever be completely up to date. Some try - witness the attempted comprehensiveness of the ARRL Handbook which despite the updates on Amateur Radio data communications technology in 2025 mentioned here (and many more changes not mentioned here), the 101st Edition of the ARRL Handbook didn’t get updated on those technologies at all.

The only way I can envision a book that’s reasonably up to date and comprehensive on this subject is for it to be very regularly updated... and published (paper) on demand, if not published primarily on digital media such as a PDF. I can easily envision such a book being updated several times per year as the technology (rapidly) evolves. The best example of this is AMSAT-US publishes Getting Started with Amateur Satellites, with each annual revision debuting at the Xenia, Ohio Hamvention conference. It would be great if this book was continued with a similar model.

A Suite of ARRL Amateur Radio Networking Books?

Perhaps it would be feasible to address individual technologies with a suite of more narrowly targeted books by ARRL, allowing deeper treatments, such as:

Perhaps the second edition of this book could be retargeted to only discuss microwave data networking without discussion of Meshtastic.
A new book would discuss Meshtastic / MeshCore / MeshCom, and related technologies in Amateur Radio, such as using APRS over LoRa modulation.
A book that’s a fresh treatment of APRS technology and networks in the 2020s is badly needed.
Similarly, a book that’s a fresh treatment of Amateur Radio Packet Radio and Packet Radio networking in the 2020s is badly needed, including the use of Winlink. Although VARA FM, Icom DD Mode, and (again, in development) MMDVM-TNC aren’t Packet Radio, they would fall within the overall scope of such a book. Such a book would be mostly about VHF / UHF operation.
I think there has been such significant progress in higher speed data communications in HF, including the recent change in the US in deleting symbol rates on HF bands in exchange for a 2.8 kHz bandwidth limit, that a new book on Amateur Radio data communications on HF is warranted. Such a book should include significant treatment of VARA HF, Rhizomatica Mercury, and especially the rapid development of The Packet Radio Forwarding Network. Winlink and VarAC should also be mentioned prominently as Amateur Radio network technologies specifically relevant to HF.
A book discussing Amateur Radio Over Internet activities (generally, the premise of the new EtherHam website) including remote access of radio receivers and transceivers, repeater linking networks, radio hotspots, etc.

All that said... I’m eventually going to sit down at some point with a dedicated “inputs” copy of the book and mark it up with a highlighter and (many) Post It Notes. Once that’s complete (?) I’ll hand it over to, or ship it to KW5GP as input for the eventual 2nd Edition of the book.

Thank you, very much, Glen for writing this book! It was badly needed by your fellow Amateur Radio Operators. It is Zero Retries Interesting and I really enjoyed it and learned from it.

Please direct comments / feedback about this article to the Zero Retries email list with the #ZR0240 hashtag.

ZR > BEACON

By Steve Stroh N8GNJ

Short mentions of Zero Retries Interesting items.

TPRFN Two New Resource Pages

Glenn Allison N3MEL on the Zero Retries email list:

We are excited to announce the launch of two new internal tools designed to provide better visibility into our infrastructure: the TPRFN Network Map and the TPRFN Network Health page. These resources are now live and available on the network website. Here is a quick breakdown of what’s new:

• TPRFN Network Map: A comprehensive, interactive visual guide to our entire network architecture. Use this to understand node connectivity, signal flow, and spatial distribution at a glance.

• TPRFN Network Health Page: Your real-time pulse on system performance. This dashboard tracks uptime, latency, and active alerts, ensuring you have the data you need to stay ahead of potential issues.

Why the update? Our goal is to move from reactive troubleshooting to proactive management. By putting these visual and diagnostic tools in your hands, we’re making it easier for everyone to stay informed and aligned.

Explore the Network Map & Network Health pages here: https://www.tprfn.net/network-live-connections

If you have any feedback or notice any data discrepancies, each page has its own support link.

Also attached are the User Manual for the Network Map page.

Network Map page created by Tony K1AJD
Network Health Page created by Jason N4SFL

Thank you to both these guys and to all the stations that make up the network..

As I mentioned earlier in this issue, I think that The Packet Radio Forwarding Network - TPRFN is an important new resource in Amateur Radio data communications infrastructure. One day soon in 2026 I’ll be back online on HF data communications and try to plug into TPRFN.

New Amateur Radio Organization - Alliance Amateur Radio Society

I just discovered this interesting new Amateur Radio organization today - Alliance Amateur Radio Society (AARS). I appreciate the organization’s spirit and especially its motto:

Loqui requirit vires
(to speak requires strength)
Who we are

Born out of the Liberal Preppers Facebook group, our founder Todd Owen realized - based off his experience in the hobby as well as feedback from the group - there was a need for a club that pushed aside the the traditional conservative mindset of the majority of ham radio clubs, one that is welcoming to marginalized enthusiasts across the country (and around the globe).

The traditional ham community talks about being friendly, helpful, and supportive and they do good work in many situations, especially in times of crisis or assisting with community events. Unfortunately, this doesn’t always get applied to the day-to-day interaction and acceptance. The term Sad Ham is well-known for a reason: because there are many of them. From chastising a new ham for stumbling over their callsign to making far right political statements over the air (and in violation of the regulations and spirit of amateur radio) to openly discriminating against people’s gender, sexual orientation, neurology, race, religion, the list is unfortunately long. The list of marginalized and under-represented groups is just as long.

I’ve been saying here in Zero Retries that new, and new types (primarily virtual) of Amateur Radio organizations should... and hopefully would... emerge in this era as a counterpoint of Amateur Radio organizations that were organized in the 20th century.

AARS here, Surrey Amateur Radio Communications Society - SARC (publisher of the wonderful The Communicator newsletterzine), Online Amateur Radio Community, NARS - Narwhal Amateur Radio Society, NR7WL, and many other organizations are emerging and demonstrating that there can be new types of Amateur Radio communities in this era, and are very welcome into the incredibly diverse community that is Amateur Radio.

New High-Performance Software Defined Radio

Received via email - I had to look despite NI (formerly, I guess, National Instruments) systems being completely unaffordium in the current Zero Retries experiments / projects budget:

Ettus USRP X420

The latest USRP (Universal Software Radio Peripheral) device offers:
• A 10 MHz to 20 GHz frequency range
• Up to 1 GHz bandwidth
• Multichannel phase coherency <1 degree RMS

Up... to... 1 GHz bandwidth ?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

Wow... and wow... Give this technology five years of technological evolution (to become a bit more affordable) and imagine what Amateur Radio could do with such a capability.

One thing that leaps to mind with this kind of capability is being able to do precision navigation with only terrestrial radio transmissions. If you know where the local television and radio broadcasters are, and a few other known location radio sources (remember, with this you could receive nearly any radio transmission), you could essentially navigate with automatic direction finding.

Auto-NVIS: Autonomous Ionospheric Nowcasting System

Spotted on GitHub authored by Bob McGwier N4HY:

What is Auto-NVIS?

An autonomous, unattended ionospheric monitoring and HF propagation forecasting system that combines:

Real-time GNSS-TEC and ionosonde measurements
Advanced nonlinear state estimation (Square-Root UKF)
Physics-based background models
IONORT-style 3D magnetoionic ray tracing with multiple integrators
Homing algorithm for automatic path finding (winner triplets)
Automatic space weather event response

Result: Continuous, accurate NVIS frequency planning during Solar Cycle 25 volatility.

Overview
Auto-NVIS is an autonomous, unattended system designed to provide real-time HF propagation forecasting for Near Vertical Incidence Skywave (NVIS) communications during the volatile conditions of Solar Cycle 25 (2024-2026 solar maximum). The system integrates real-time sensor fusion, advanced nonlinear state estimation, and deterministic ray tracing into a closed-loop control system capable of operating 24/7 without human intervention.

Mission Statement
Provide continuous, accurate, and physically-valid ionospheric state estimation and NVIS frequency planning that automatically adapts to extreme space weather events—including solar flares, geomagnetic storms, and sudden ionospheric disturbances—ensuring reliable HF communication links during critical conditions.

Architectural Philosophy
“Physics-Based, Data-Driven”
The system does not rely solely on:

Empirical statistics (which fail during anomalies)
Raw observational data (which is often sparse and noisy)

Instead, Auto-NVIS uses a Square-Root Unscented Kalman Filter (SR-UKF) to assimilate real-time observations into physics-based background models (IRI-2020 or NeQuick-G), ensuring outputs that are both physically valid and observationally accurate.

I’ve been intrigued with (the practicality of) NVIS since I learned about it being an integral element of The Packet Radio Forwarding Network - TPRFN (see above) for reliable, predictable regional communications via High Frequency (HF) Amateur Radio. With that, use of data modes with vastly improved weak signal performance, and Software Defined Radios, HF has become steadily more usable every year for data communications.

2026 Hamcation AMSAT Forum | Drew Glasbrenner, KO4MA President’s Update

I learned... a lot... from K04MA’s presentation. If you’re pressed for time, I suggest starting at 21:53 (see the timestamps in the description of the video).

In that segment of the video, KO4MA finally said something, substantive, authoritatively about the potential for Amateur Radio GEO capabilities for the Western Hemisphere, from the perspective of AMSAT-US. Finally, someone in authority at AMSAT-US has said that they’re in active discussion with ARDC about funding an Amateur Radio GEO.

That... is progress! With this, I have some renewed hope for AMSAT-US under K04MA new leadership!

Please direct comments / feedback about ZR > BEACON to the Zero Retries email list with the #ZR0240 hashtag.

Closing Thanks

Numerous Annual and Monthly subscribers who also generously support Zero Retries financially!

You thousands of readers of Zero Retries without which there would be little point in publishing this newsletter.

Permission to Reuse Zero Retries Content

This article is reprinted with permission. It was first published in Zero Retries newsletter, issue Zero Retries (number), (date) - (include full web link of the specific issue).

It’s appreciated (a courtesy, but not required) to notify Zero Retries Editor Steve Stroh N8GNJ of any reuse of Zero Retries content - editor@zeroretries.net.

If you’d like to republish an article in this issue for other uses, just ask.

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Zero Retries 0240 was published on 2026-02-27. This issue was 6999 words.

(end)

Zero Retries 0239

Steve Stroh N8GNJ — Fri, 20 Feb 2026 23:30:00 GMT

Steve Stroh N8GNJ, Editor

editor@zeroretries.net

This issue of Zero Retries was originally published on Ghost - https://www.zeroretries.radio/zero-retries-0239/. Thus all links that were for zeroretries.radio have (attempted to) been changed to equivalents on zeroretries.org.

See this archive page:
https://web.archive.org/web/20260412225517/https://www.zeroretries.radio/zero-retries-0239/
for how it originally appeared on www.zeroretries.radio.

Substack says this issue is too big for email clients. Thus, it might be easier to read this in a web browser - https://www.zeroretries.org/p/zero-retries-0239-f64.

In This Issue...

N8GNJ’s Top Three Priorities for Zero Retries Interesting Amateur Radio in the Next Three Years

Technological Innovation In Amateur Radio

⬅️⬅️⬅️ Previous Issue of Zero Retries \ Next Issue of Zero Retries ➡️➡️➡️

Request To Send

Paid Subscribers Update

My thanks to Prefers to Remain Anonymous 65 for renewing as an Annual Paid Subscriber to Zero Retries this past week!

My thanks to Prefers to Remain Anonymous 123 for upgrading from a free subscriber to Zero Retries to a Paid Subscriber this past week!

Financial support from Zero Retries readers is a significant vote of support for the continued publication of Zero Retries.

No More Fable Of Contents

Apologies, folks. Labeling the contents section when I began publishing on Ghost as Fable of Contents was deliberate, and was intended as a homage to my first professional writing stint in Boardwatch Magazine. “Fable” was decreed by Boardwatch’s founder and “Editor Rotundus” Jack Rickard. He once explained that the content mix in Boardwatch was so dynamic (chaotic) in the heady days of the newly commercialized and publicly accessible Internet resulted in so many ads pouring into Boardwatch that sometimes the Table of Contents didn’t match the actual articles, page numbers, etc. Thus, Fable of Contents became one of the long running inside jokes for long time Boardwatch readers. Another one was “Broadwatch”, but that’s a tale for another time.

I was recently asked about my usage of Fable of Contents, and in a moment of blinding realization, that usage here in Zero Retries didn’t seem that funny, or relevant, just confusing, so I’ve discontinued that, and updated the web versions of the last few issues.

(Invalid) Security Warnings for www.zeroretries.radio - Part 2

Post Publication Update 2 - If you’re reading this after 2026-04-03, the conversion to Ghost / www.zeroretries.radio didn’t work out and Zero Retries is again being published on Substack / www.zeroretries.org. Thus the info in this section is retained solely for historical reference.

Post Publication Update 1 - This should have been obvious to me, but if you’re reading this on www.zeroretries.radio, you’ve been able to access this info and understand the situation. But those who cannot access www.zeroretries.radio cannot see this information. Thus I created a post on Substack (which generated an email to those still on Substack Zero Retries - www.zeroretries.org) that explains the situation in more detail.
Invalid Security Issues with www.zeroretries.radio Published on Ghost

Some readers are still reporting issues accessing Zero Retries’ new website (published on Ghost, using the www.zeroretries.radio domain).

This week, Ghost Technical Support finally provided some clarity on the root cause of the issue:

Our engineers have had a look at this, and were able to determine that the site was marked as a phishing site by Cloudflare, as well as other providers.

You can see the results of a search here: https://www.virustotal.com/gui/url/b3a93580ea03db32ac5fec58a5b92149f35d300e00adeeae9326cb51367e5581/detection

While [Ghost has] applied to have this block removed (by Cloudflare, as we work with them), we aren’t able to easily remove this from the rest of those blocking it.

The reason it is sometimes returning a block for users, vs not loading for others, is because some users would have it being blocked at the DNS level (failing to load at all) vs the browser level (the red page these members are seeing).

As to why the site is being marked as “phishing” by some locations, is another issue. I do not see anything “malicious” on the site, though with newer TLD domain extensions I do know there are some restrictions. For example, a .radio domain seems that it should be utilized for those in the “Radio” industry (e.g. broadcasters, radio journalists, and related services). When doing some digging on this, it does seem like that may be a potential reason for being marked as phishing.

Thus the issue seems to boil down to “fear of phishing”, as determined by (I really don’t know...) and manifesting in varying ways in some browsers, on some (PC?) security systems. Some readers have been able to “whitelist” www.zeroretries.radio with no further impact, but others report that they don’t have that ability.

To be clear, I’m not minimizing / trivializing / dismissing the experience and caution of those who have reported this issue. But please understand, these issues are not universal.

For example, three of the browsers I have installed on my Mac - Safari, Firefox, DuckDuckGo, are working fine. But (Mac) Chrome has a major issue with accessing www.zeroretries.radio:

This site can’t be reached
www.zeroretries.radio refused to connect.
ERR_CONNECTION_REFUSED

(Yes, I’ve tinkered with Chrome’s various security settings, and no joy at all.) Given the experience with the other three browsers, that message is clearly specious.

As far as I can tell, I’m doing everything right in setting up publication of Zero Retries on Ghost and dot Radio domains to use www.zeroretries.radio, which Ghost’s technical support has confirmed.

If you’d like to interact about this issue, please do so on the Zero Retries email list.

Thus I don’t plan any changes at the moment, such as migrating to a different domain name (I really like zeroretries.radio...), and I do plan to continue to migrate all Zero Retries content to Ghost.

The Saga of Conversion to Ghost and zeroretries.radio - Part 6

I had to wait all week for the above not-exactly-a-resolution from Ghost and thus out of fear that something fundamental would need to be changed, I didn’t pull the trigger on mass import of email addresses from Substack, and attempted migration of all the Substack content.

Now that I know there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with Zero Retries content, hosting system, or domain name / provision, I will move forward on those tasks next week.

Next week’s issue of Zero Retries - 0240 on 2026-02-27, will be the last that will be mentioned on Substack, where I’ll put a Pinned Notification to find Zero Retries at www.zeroretries.radio (and a heads up about potential (invalid) security warnings.

Once again, thanks for your patience.

Post Publication Update on Zero Retries 0238 - Breaking - ARRL Begins to Consider Encryption in Amateur Radio

I added this to the above article on the web version of Zero Retries 0238:

I received some thoughtful feedback on this article from a Zero Retries reader, resulting in this update. I’m leaving the above verbiage with some incorrect points in place for comparison, since (in Ghost) I don’t seem to be able to use strikethrough formatting.

First... I mistakenly thought that participation in ARES was linked to ARRL membership, and thus ARES was exclusive to ARRL members.

ARES Membership Requirements

Every licensed amateur, regardless of membership in ARRL or any other local or national organization is eligible to apply for membership in ARES.

Second, I’m perhaps guilty of parsing Item 44 too pessimistically and saying:

I expect that a “secure forwarding” capability that’s proposed as exclusive to ARES...

A less pessimistic parsing of Item 44 might translate to:

... by allowing secure forwarding of health and welfare messaging, especially for use in Amateur Radio emergency communications.

... of which the ARES program of ARRL is one of many entities that provide emergency communications training, and services, within Amateur Radio.

Given the context of an ARRL meeting in which all the participants have longstanding participation in ARRL, it may be that, in their minds, saying “ARES” is equivalent to saying “Amateur Radio emergency communications”.

My thanks to the Zero Retries reader that provided their candid feedback on this item. I truly appreciate such detailed and candid feedback to what I write in Zero Retries.

I’ll Have a Table at Mike & Key Electronic Flea Market 2026

I will be attending the Mike & Key Amateur Radio Club’s 44Th Annual Electronics
Show & Swap Meet on Saturday, 2026-03-07 in Puyallup, Washington, the biggest “hamfest” (not a conference - no presentations) in Western Washington. This year Tina and I will have a table to blow out some of the accumulated items that are now just taking up space in N8GNJ / Zero Retries Labs. See the Zero Retries Store for some items I’ll be bringing, and more.

If you’re planning to attend this event, I’ll be hanging out at Table 2-S3 (presumably on the upstairs level of the venue). Please stop by and say Hi.

Weekends Are For Amateur Radio!

It worked out for a visit to our daughter and son in law this weekend in the Portland, Oregon area that I can attend the Salem [Oregon] Hamfair on Saturday 2026-02-21 in Rickreal, Oregon. I’m not attending in a quest for anything (quite the opposite in two weeks). But, it’s always interesting, when getting out of one’s area, and seeing a new set of Amateur Radio (and related) treasures being made available for low, low prices. 🤣

Have a great weekend, all of you co-conspirators in Zero Retries Interesting Amateur Radio activities!

Please direct comments / feedback about Request To Send to the Zero Retries email list with the #ZR0239 hashtag.

Steve N8GNJ

Technological Innovation In Amateur Radio

By Steve Stroh N8GNJ

I had an interesting exchange with a long time Zero Retries reader who took mild issue with my characterization of various technological innovations occurring in Amateur Radio as actual (as in new) innovation. This reader had long experience in a particular network technology I’ve covered in Zero Retries, but in the context of government / military usage. Basically, much of what I’m portraying in Zero Retries for future innovations and networking... has long since already been done in government / military communications. I conceded the reader’s point, partially, that some specific technologies might have already been developed and deployed... in government / military communications. One example is a data communications on system of the UK military - the Bowman C4I system. It operates on VHF / UHF and features automatic mesh networking.

But I disagree with the reader’s assertion, that in the bigger picture of Amateur Radio, that there’s no actual innovation occurring, as in developing new technologies.

Bryan Hoyer K7UDR coined a term - Amateurize (which, unfortunately, I cannot find a specific online reference to, but the term really stuck in my mind.) The point he intended to make with that term was situations where Amateur Radio recreates existing technology, especially in networking, instead of using existing technology (unchanged) that is already proven.

But in my mind, there are times when “Amateurizing” a technology is a badge of honor, and is technological innovation. Some examples:

(My favorite) - Phil Karn KA9Q’s NET and NOS - a TCP/IP stack running on a typical PC running MS-DOS. This was groundbreaking at the time. At the time there was only one other such implementation (that I was aware of) by FTP Software. One primary “Amateurizing” element of NET and NOS was that it could operate TCP/IP over slow 1200 bps half duplex networks (KA9Q added a “patient” mode in the NET and NOS TCP/IP stack) using a KISS TNC driver (another Amateurization). And, of course it was made available free (and KA9Q made the source code freely available). In all the critical aspects of TCP/IP, NET and NOS were totally compliant and interoperable.
Digital Mobile Radio (DMR) wasn’t designed to be usable worldwide via Internet interconnections between DMR networks. Amateurized elements for Amateur Radio use of DMR included low cost DMR repeaters thanks to MMDVM, and keeping individual Amateur Radio DMR ID’s unique thanks to the centralized database of RadioID. The (mostly unused, to date) potential of a single channel DMR repeater (one time slot is allocated to receive, the other to transmit), while not developed within Amateur Radio, may well find its greatest use in Amateur Radio.
Amateur Radio Packet Radio was an Amateurization project that spanned multiple Amateur Radio groups in Montreal, Quebec, Ottawa, Ontario, Vancouver, British Columbia, and Tucson, Arizona. Packet (switching) radio data communications had been tested (expensively, and limited) as part of the ARPANet, and ALOHAnet. Once microprocessors were available, Amateur Radio put them to use for a practical packet radio system for the requirements of Amateur Radio, such as reasonable cost and a modulation system that would work with typical VHF / UHF radios.
Amateur Radio Microsats (Cubesats), dating back to the launch of OSCAR 1 in 1961 were one of the first implementations of very small satellites that could be launched opportunistically on rockets whose primary mission was a large satellite.
Pico Balloons combine a number of Amateur Radio innovations, including very lightweight payloads, the use of 100% solar power (no batteries - too much weight, too problematic in very cold temps in the upper atmosphere), the solar panels being just the panel, no backing (lightweight), and most importantly the use of a WSPR variant to transmit telemetry on Amateur Radio HF bands. This is only practical because of the worldwide deployment of WSPR receiving stations.

I could spend weeks researching and documenting what would probably run to hundreds of such examples in which Amateur Radio adapted an existing technology to make it practical and popular to use in Amateur Radio.

And... of course, there is the reverse... where Amateur Radio technologies led to commercial products and even entire companies, such as:

The Montreal packet radio experiments led to the creation of DataRadio, which created one of the first “Mobile Data Terminals” for use in public safety. Instead of calling in a license plate check, a patrol officer could just type the license plate number into a keyboard and get a response without using a dispatcher. Notably, the earliest DataRadio terminals worked over typical VHF / UHF two way radio channels used by public safety (not cellular technology).
Gerald Youngblood K5SDR created (what became) the SDR-1000 as a series of articles in the QEX newsletter, which was so popular it led to the formation of FlexRadio Systems (the Accidental Company), which manufactures leading edge commercial and military radios.
The success of the first network of Amateur Radio Packet Radio digipeaters in California inspired the creation of Metricom and the use of micronodes on streetlight poles.

There’s probably another book that could be written of examples of how Amateur Radio technologies led to commercial products and even entire companies.

Conclusion

I contend that ample Technological Innovation is occurring in Amateur Radio, and is relevant to the development of radio technologies whose benefits extend well beyond Amateur Radio.

Such information should be readily available for reference when someone says “Well, what good is Amateur Radio?” We in Amateur Radio need to be able to quickly cite such relevant examples, especially those that are contemporary.

Please direct comments / feedback about this article to the Zero Retries email list with the #ZR0239 hashtag.

N8GNJ’s Top Three Priorities for Zero Retries Interesting Amateur Radio in the Next Three Years

By Steve Stroh N8GNJ

To keep issue length (more) reasonable, I’ve divided this long article into three consecutive installments.

Part 1, in Zero Retries 0237 was summations of the inputs provided.
Part 2 , in Zero Retries 0238 was a consolidation and synthesis of ideas into some broader themes for consideration of the Top Three Priorities for Zero Retries Interesting Amateur Radio in the Next Three Years.
This is Part 3, the conclusion.

First, I’m grateful to all of those who offered inputs into this thought experiment. Many different perspectives were offered, many of which I had not considered.

To refresh, these were the broad themes I consolidated / synthesized in Part 2:

Amateur Radio Standards Organization (ARSO)
Commercial Interest in Amateur Radio Spectrum
Data Communications Emphasis, Mesh Networking, Newer Digital Voice Systems
Emergency Communications (EMCOM)
GEO Payload / Satellite for Western Hemisphere
High Frequency (HF) Operation
New Amateur Radio Organizations
Primary References - Books, Web Page, Wiki for “I’m a Ham - Now What?”
Regulatory Reform (Mostly, US)

A tragicomic phrase from my last paycheck job comes to mind:

Get it all done first!

But of course, that’s not feasible for us small band of technological innovators, and especially me here in Zero Retries. So here’s the three items that I think are most important to focus on in the next three years, all the same priority:

Data Communications Emphasis, Mesh Networking, Newer Digital Voice Systems
GEO Payload / Satellite for Western Hemisphere
Regulatory Reform (Mostly, US)

With a minor cheat of a fourth...

Primary References - Books, Web Page, Wiki for “I’m a Ham - Now What?”

I think these specific areas of focus will have a significant positive impact on Amateur Radio in the next three years. Of course, this isn’t to say that anything else is unimportant, just, again, these are the areas that I think that I and Zero Retries can focus on to make a significant difference in Amateur Radio.

Data Communications Emphasis, Mesh Networking, Newer Digital Voice Systems

It’s easiest to quantify the impact of new data communications / mesh networking technology in Amateur Radio in the next three years given the amazing interest in Meshtastic, Meshcore, Reticulum, and other low bandwidth data communications systems used in unlicensed spectrum by technical hobbyists. With the much greater access to spectrum, especially in VHF / UHF and the ability to run higher power than what is possible (legal) in unlicensed spectrum, Amateur Radio data / mesh network systems could go far beyond the capabilities of Meshtastic / Meshcore. But... could isn’t the same as will. While Amateur Radio has ample potential, we haven’t yet realized that potential for next generation Amateur Radio data / mesh network systems. Thus providing renewed focus by me, and Zero Retries might yield some benefits to data / mesh network systems in progress such as:

LinHT - a Software Defined Radio in a portable radio form factor,
IP400 - a higher speed data communications system for the Amateur Radio 70 cm (420-450 MHz) band,
“915 MHz” AREDN - use 802.11ah / Wi-Fi HaLow systems in AREDN networks.

GEO Payload / Satellite for Western Hemisphere

The QO-100 Amateur Radio payload in Geosynchronous Earth Orbit above the Eastern Hemisphere has provided a unique new capability for Amateur Radio Operators in that hemisphere. While not simple or inexpensive to access (requires 2.4 GHz uplink, and a 10 GHz downlink), it serves to link up widely dispersed Amateur Radio Operators that want to do “something different and experimental”, especially those located in rural areas.

A similar capability in the Western Hemisphere would, in my opinion, have much the same effect, allowing widely dispersed Amateur Radio Operators that want to do “something different and experimental”, particularly in much of Canada and Mexico, Amateur Radio Operators located West of the Mississippi River in the Continental US (ConUS), and those outside ConUS such as Hawaii. With the ubiquity of Internet, mobile networks, Starlink (especially the very inexpensive “Standby” service tier), it’s arguable that “high bandwidth” Amateur Radio experimentation over wide areas should shift to experimentation over existing networks. That’s a reasonable assertion.

But... space, and satellites! Given that Micro GEO satellites now seem to be feasible as a turnkey product / service, this seems more feasible, technically and operationally, then ever. But... not easy, and it will be expensive in comparison to previous Amateur Radio satellites. Given the lack of public enthusiasm from AMSAT-US and AMSAT-CA for an Amateur Radio GEO after the previous “big splash” of enthusiasm about a Western Hemisphere GEO, it’s going to take some significant evangelism, marketing, and just plain boosterism. And perhaps a new, dedicated organization whose singular focus is a Western Hemisphere Amateur Radio GEO.

There were three really encouraging developments in 2025 regarding a Western Hemisphere GEO:

ARDC announced that Space-Based Communications is one of their three Priority Areas for Funding:
Examples include Geostationary (or Highly Elliptical Orbit (HEO)) satellite programs.
What that means in practice (how big a check would ARDC be willing to write?) hasn’t been explored, but since the previous “big splash” there hasn’t been an actual proposal for ARDC to consider. Note that ARDC is a funding organization, not an operational organization, so while ARDC will provide funding, there’s no potential for an “ARDC GEO Satellite / payload”. Thus, perhaps a new organization is needed to create a proposal and an operational framework.
open.space came out of stealth mode at Pacificon 2025 and unveiled their phased array 4.9–6.0 GHz 4-antenna SDR tile (cluster of 4 units) that can be combined into an large enough array that’s claimed to be capable of Earth Moon Earth (EME) communications. Thus the “easy jaunt” to GEO (36,000 km) versus hitting Luna (385,000 km) with enough RF power to be reflected back to earth, seems easy. With enough scale of production, an Amateur Radio GEO earth station for, with 5 GHz earth station seems feasible. This is significant given that one of the development challenges named in the previous big splash was how to do a powerful enough 5 GHz uplink for an Amateur Radio earth station to be affordable.
I was joined in this quest... this recognition of the importance of a Western Hemisphere Amateur Radio GEO satellite / payload by Cale Mooth K4HCK of Amateur Radio Daily and Amateur Radio Weekly. K4HCK published a manifesto - Opinion: futureGEO is the Most Important Amateur Radio Initiative of this Decade. Why is no one Talking About it?. Amateur Radio Daily now hosts a resource page for this initiative - futureGEO Resources. Until you see someone that you respect getting onboard a quest like this, you’re never quite sure if you’re just imagining that something is important, or you’re just early to such a realization. With K4HCK’s interest and involvement, this initiative is definitely the latter.

Regulatory Reform (Mostly, US)

When faster data communications systems that operate in Amateur Radio VHF / UHF spectrum are discussed with Amateur Radio Operators who aren’t familiar with data communications, there is always sputtering, enthusiastic, pessimistic pushback “... but... the FCC rules...“. And, in the letter of the law (current FCC Amateur Radio regulations), they’re right.

Such issues are no longer just theoretically hampering technological innovation in Amateur Radio data communications. While New Packet Radio has offered higher speed data communications in the Amateur Radio 420-450 MHz band for years now, to date such systems have been a bit... fussy... to assemble given the requirement of a specific type of external amplifier needed to provide reasonable transmit power.

But Localino now offers the NPR-H 3.0 (70cm), a single unit New Packet Radio system for 420-450 MHz that transmits at 7 watts and can do 1 Mbps. But in the US, that unit can only be legally operated at a fraction of that full speed because of arcane FCC Amateur Radio regulations restricting “symbol rate” and maximum bandwidth for data communications. I’ve covered this issue extensively in Zero Retries so I won’t rehash it here.

While the Localino NPR-H 3.0 (70cm) can at least be used in the US (in a “US restricted mode”), the new Localino NPR-H 3.0 (2m) cannot be used at all in the US as even the NPR “US restricted mode” cannot be used in the US 2 meter (144-148 MHz) band as the maximum bandwidth for 2 meters in the US is a mere 20 kHz, and NPR can only operate with a minimum of 100 kHz bandwidth.

Thus, there’s work to be done if US Amateur Radio wants to realize newer, more innovative Data Communications Emphasis, Mesh Networking, Newer Digital Voice Systems in US Amateur Radio.

One immediate, early thing that can be done to (admittedly) “poke” the FCC, and make some progress about this issue is to apply for Special Temporary Authority (STA) or Part 5 Experimental licenses to actually use (test) NPR at full 1 Mbps speed on 70cm in the US, and also actually use (test) NPR at minimum and full speeds on 2m in the US. This approach has been used to established precedent for improved technology in Amateur Radio spectrum. In the previous decade, the ARRL would regularly apply for STAs to use high speed modems in the HF bands during hurricane season to provide for more efficient emergency communications in the Caribbean. The precedent developed from that series of STAs being granted was that nothing bad happened from that variance from the current FCC Amateur Radio rules. (And, as was pointed out regularly, no other country had such restrictions.) Eventually, the FCC Amateur Radio rules for HF data communications were updated. The FCC may well decline such STA / Part 5 licenses, but at minimum, they’ll become aware, on some level, that technological innovation in Amateur Radio is being impeded by current FCC Part 97 regulations.

Now that these three initiatives have been identified, I’m going to create a resource / reference page, with subpages each, and provide regular updates to them. Now that I’ve identified what I should be working on... it’s time to get busy on them.

Primary References - Books, Web Page, Wiki for “I’m a Ham - Now What?”

As for this initiative, it’s not so much of a cheat of a fourth of three initiatives, this is more along the lines of recognition and “more deeply thinking” of a project that’s been in the background of Zero Retries for years now. Mostly this will take the form of a book that I’ve been working on - Zero Retries Guide to Amateur Radio in the 21st Century, but also a number of variants of that information, such as ideas for academia and Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) curriculums related Amateur Radio, a more formal treatment of technological innovation in Amateur Radio that can be easily referenced, and some other “information products” that I’ve identified as unique to Zero Retries.

Please direct comments / feedback about this article to the Zero Retries email list with the #ZR0239 hashtag.

ZR > BEACON

By Steve Stroh N8GNJ

Short mentions of Zero Retries Interesting items.

Great Idea for Enhancing Geocaching With Amateur Radio

From Merideth Stroh KK7BKI:

Create a Geocache that when you find it, there’s info for you to use your ham radio to make a call with a particular subaudible tone, which will trigger the receiving radio to send an automated pre-recorded transmission with a congratulations message.

Or, the reverse - in a localized area (such as a small park), upon seeing a sign, use your ham radio to make a call with a particular subaudible tone, which will transmit an automated pre-recorded transmission that provides coordinates to find a geocache.

Geocaching is a fun family activity and we enjoyed checking out a few geocaches when daughter Merideth (yes, I’m a very proud Dad) was younger. We even did it with a basic GPS receiver (just displayed Lat / Long / Altitude) once we got into the general area of a geocache. This idea seems to me have a lot of potential for generating some interest in Amateur Radio from geocache participants.

Using AI, I can imagine that there could be a rotating list of funny voice messages using some recognizable voice types, such as a deep, gravely voiced cowboy, or... one’s imagination is limitless. Each one could be a brief snippet of info about Amateur Radio:

Did you know that there are two Amateur Radio stations about the International Space Station?
Morse Code is a cool secret language (that your parents won’t understand what you’re saying).
Anyone can become an Amateur Radio Operator - no minimum age!
With your Amateur Radio license, you can use your Raspberry Pi computer to send signals around the world!

Or, perhaps this is a way to generate more activity for a too-quiet Amateur Radio repeater.

A quick web search didn’t find any hardware that has this specific capability, so perhaps there’s an opening for a small Amateur Radio manufacturer for a new product!

Kudos to KK7BKI for this great idea!

MOP - Mesh Operations Protocol

Post Publication Update 2 - It’s back!

Post Publication Update 1 - Sadly, the MOP page is no longer available (and darn it, I didn’t snapshot it into the Wayback Machine; I really gotta get into that habit when I see really interesting pages like that). I don’t know the reason. I’ve reached out to KO6IKR that I hope he brings it back.

Stan Slonkosky KE6ZC alerted me to this new development:

I have not studied this enough to understand all of what is going on here as I just found out about it. Stefaan Desmedt KO6IKR, is working on what he calls his Mesh Options Protocol. Currently, he is working on an open source software modem that could be used instead of VARA FM.

From the MOP website:

A decentralized mesh network for amateur radio.
No sessions. No hubs. No closed-source software.
Just datagrams and beacons — short, efficient bursts.

• 4800 bps
• Custom 4-FSK
• 0.6s TX TIME — 200B MESSAGE
• 0 Central Servers Required

Why We Built This
Many existing amateur radio data systems behave like “phone calls.” MOP is built for short bursts, broadcast reach, and mesh forwarding.

GitHub page:
https://github.com/smashingwaffle

I could try to explain this, but the web page linked in the title is an absolute marvel of self-explanation. It’s really amazing! Scroll down to see the sections Live Network Simulation, Cross-Country Delivery, and MOP vs. The Rest. Read those, and you’re up to speed on the ideas of MOP.

One thing that leaps to mind is “only 4800 bps“? But when you look at that 0.6s TX time for a 200 byte message, and the simplicity of a modulation method that combines reasonably fast and reasonably robust, and the ability to scale the mesh because the collision domain is large, but the potential for collisions are reduced, and you think hmmm, yeah, I get it the design tradeoffs.

But what’s really to love is that MOP incorporates a new clean sheet of paper implementation of mesh networking! I had actually started a story in this issue, but didn’t complete it, positing that the era of high profile Amateur Radio nodes might be drawing to a close because high profile sites are increasingly “going very corporate (expensive, with increasingly fussy requirements)”. That article would also make a case that we now have ample capacity to implement decentralized, automatic mesh networking... like MOP.

MOP, as proposed, has significant potential to give Amateur Radio a compelling capability that exceeds the utility of Meshtastic / Meshcore. For one, you can use a semi-typical (needs a flat audio connection for the higher order modulation) VHF / UHF radio which can generate significant RF power (50 watts isn’t unusual) for longer range / higher reliability.

One thing I’d love to see in MOP (but haven’t looked, haven’t contacted the author) is a multi-node capability, where you could “stack” different band radios - 2m / 1.25m / 70cm, even 6m and 33cm, for inter-band routing.

I could easily see MOP integrated into a small, efficient black box radio with just just three connections - USB for host access (which could be used to add Ethernet or Bluetooth), antenna, and power.

Quantum SDR Project

Michael Papp WB6GJE alerted me to this new development!

From the website:

The Quantum SDR Project has one core aim: to develop exciting and novel radio technology that’s more affordable for our members.
Small steps, first the Spectrum pan adapter with day-bright high resolution touch screens, HF-VHF all-modes receiver, digital modes WiFi and AI-based features such as a VUI (Voice User Interface)!

The QCom ultra-portable SDR transceiver is now available, with 0.1-20 watts of efficient TX power giving a global reach!

The first product launched in June 2023 was the Quantum Spectrum DSP M2, an affordable touch display that offers advanced Digital Signal Processing for all radios new and classic, providing a full 192/138 KHz band view and Slip-tune™ independent tuning.

Unlike the MOP project (previous story), the Quantum SDR Project isn’t very clear about what it’s actually offering. For example, I couldn’t find any significant info (specs) on the “QCom ultra-portable SDR transceiver” on the website - not even a photo. But it does seem to be real hardware - see the video:

The “Store” tab has you fill out contact info. Etc. Actual dates for delivery aren’t stated (next month). This seems to be a US company - buried in the “Legal” tab.

It all sounds pretty interesting and ambitious, but I think I’m going to reserve my enthusiasm to see if they reach out to some reviewers with some actual hardware.

Video - Tech Minds Ft2 Is The Fastest Digital Mode Ever Created!

As quickly becomes obvious, “fastest” isn’t a reference to data speed, it’s actually a reference to reduced transmission time. I found a better explanation, written by Martino Merola IU8LMC, FT2’s developer: New Digital Mode: FT2:

FT2 is not a theoretical concept. It is fully working software, tested and operational.

On February 16, 2026, we successfully completed dozens of real contacts in FT2 mode, with transmission cycles of 3.8 seconds — four times faster than FT8 and twice as fast as FT4. QSOs were verified on two bands (40 meters and 80 meters) with stations in Campania, Capri, Sardinia, and Turin. Signals were successfully decoded down to -12 dB signal-to-noise ratio.

FT2 uses the same codec as FT8 and FT4: 77-bit payload, LDPC (174,91) encoding, 8-GFSK modulation. The only difference is the time compression: shorter symbols, cycle reduced to 3.8 seconds. The result is a complete QSO in 7-11 seconds, compared to the full minute required in FT8.

This mode was conceived and developed by IU8LMC, with the support of the ARI Caserta Team. Artificial intelligence was used as a development tool to assist with modifications to the WSJT-X source code.

The Time vs Bandwidth vs Sensitivity chart shows the engineering trade-off behind FT2: at 3.8 seconds with 150 Hz bandwidth, sensitivity is approximately -12/-13 dB. Less sensitive than FT8, but more than sufficient for contests, DXpeditions, and pile-ups where signals are strong.

FT2 does not replace FT8 or FT4. It is a specialized mode for when pure speed is what matters.

Video - Ham Radio Keyboard-to-Keyboard Options!

How exactly do data modes work? What’s the difference between Frequency and Phase shift keying? Why do we use different techniques to modulate data into radio waves? Is there a single best mode for data/keyboard communication?

Craig Lamparter KM6LYW (always!) does a good job of a basic description of various types of data modes in this video. KM6LYW Radio is one of the first videos I see when I bring up my Zero Retries YouTube channel.

Video - AREDN Networking Software Update ~ 02/11/2026

RATPAC is really on a roll so far this year with some great Zero Retries Interesting presentations!

Every Amateur Radio project needs an Ambassador like Orv Beach W6BI!

MSeven-M17 App for iPad

Tom Salzer KJ7T in his always great newsletter, Random Wire 170:

I tested MSeven on my iPad Mini where it is working great. It should also work on an iPhone (although your phone must be running iOS 26.0 or newer — my phone is too old). Here’s the description in the Apple App Store:

I can’t do a better job than KJ7T does about this app, so just click on the link in the title to go to it. I’m constantly learning new things about Amateur Radio Over Internet from Random Wire newsletter and now EtherHam.com and it’s so much fun to be able to read such distilled wisdom on the subject!

I have the same problem with my iPad as Tom does with his iPhone, so I’ll have to try this out on my (newer) iPhone.

ARRL’s Digital Networking for Ham Radio Book Now Shipping

ARRL Letter for 2026-02-19 by John Ross KD8IDJ:

New Book Release: Digital Networking for Ham Radio
ARRL’s new book, Digital Networking for Ham Radio, a practical, hands-on guide to designing and implementing high-speed data networks for amateur radio stations, is now shipping.
Written by Glen Popiel, KW5GP, the book brings together in one comprehensive resource the knowledge needed to build, configure, and expand digital networks for ham radio. From TCP/IP fundamentals to deploying mesh technologies such as AREDN^®, HamWAN, and Meshtastic^®, readers will find clear explanations and step-by-step guidance.
“When I began experimenting with amateur radio data networking, I realized there wasn’t a single resource that clearly explained how it all works — especially TCP/IP in terms the average ham could relate to,” said Popiel. “That inspired me to create a practical guide to designing and implementing high-speed amateur radio networks. Since there’s no speed limit above 70 centimeters, operators can integrate webcams, IP phones, and other networked devices. I hope this book encourages hams to explore, experiment, and enjoy networking on the microwave bands.”
Digital Networking for Ham Radio covers selecting hardware, choosing network topologies, configuring systems, and staying compliant with FCC Part 97 rules. The book is designed for both newcomers and experienced operators who want to expand their stations with resilient, high-speed networking capabilities.
Digital Networking for Ham Radio is now shipping. Order from the ARRL online store or through an ARRL publication dealer. ARRL Item No. 2349, ISBN: 978-1-62595-234-9, $29.95 ARRL member price, $34.95 retail.
For additional questions or ordering, call 1-888-277-5289 toll-free in the US, Monday through Thursday 8 AM to 7 PM and Friday 8 AM to 5 PM Eastern Time. Outside the US, call (860) 594-0200.

Please offer comments / feedback about ZR > BEACON on the Zero Retries email list with the #ZR0239 hashtag.

Closing Thanks

My ongoing Thanks to:
Tina Stroh KD7WSF for, well, everything!
Jack Stroh, Late Night Assistant Editor Emeritus
Fiona and Shreky Stroh, Late Night Assistant Editors In Training

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Permission to Reuse Zero Retries Content

This article is reprinted with permission. It was first published in Zero Retries newsletter, issue Zero Retries (number), (date) - (include full web link of the specific issue).

It’s appreciated (a courtesy, but not required) to notify Zero Retries Editor Steve Stroh N8GNJ of any reuse of Zero Retries content - editor@zeroretries.net.

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Zero Retries 0239 was published on 2026-02-20. This issue was 6811 words.

(end)

Zero Retries 0238

Steve Stroh N8GNJ — Fri, 13 Feb 2026 23:30:00 GMT

Steve Stroh N8GNJ, Editor

This issue of Zero Retries was originally published on Ghost - https://www.zeroretries.radio/zero-retries-0238/. Thus all links that were for zeroretries.radio have (attempted to) been changed to equivalents on zeroretries.org.

See this archive page:
https://web.archive.org/web/20260412232648/https://www.zeroretries.radio/zero-retries-0238/
for how it originally appeared on www.zeroretries.radio.

Substack says this issue is too big for email clients. Thus, it might be easier to read this in a web browser - https://www.zeroretries.org/p/zero-retries-0238-98d

In This Issue...

What’s New at Digital Library of Amateur Radio & Communications — February 2026

Thought Experiment - Top Three Priorities for Zero Retries Interesting Amateur Radio In the Next Three Years; Part 2 of 3 - Consolidation / Synthesis of Ideas

⬅️⬅️⬅️ Previous Issue of Zero Retries \ Next Issue of Zero Retries ➡️➡️➡️

Request To Send

Substack Data Breach

Email from Substack:

I’m reaching out to let you know about a security incident that resulted in the email address and phone number from your Substack account being shared without your permission.

I’m incredibly sorry this happened. We take our responsibility to protect your data and your privacy seriously, and we came up short here.

What happened. On February 3rd, we identified evidence of a problem with our systems that allowed an unauthorized third party to access limited user data without permission, including email addresses, phone numbers, and other internal metadata. This data was accessed in October 2025. Importantly, credit card numbers, passwords, and financial information were not accessed.

What we are doing. We have fixed the problem with our system that allowed this to happen. We are conducting a full investigation, and are taking steps to improve our systems and processes to prevent this type of issue from happening in the future.

What you can do. We do not have evidence that this information is being misused, but we encourage you to take extra caution with any emails or text messages you receive that may be suspicious.

This sucks. I’m sorry. We will work very hard to make sure it does not happen again.

- Chris Best, CEO of Substack

It’s not clear whether this email was sent to me as a publisher of a Substack newsletter, or as a subscriber of Substack newsletter(s).

This email is all I know (personally) know about the situation.

My colleague Tom Salzer KJ7T in his Random Wire 169 newsletter (also published on Substack) found some other articles / mentions online, thus see his article Notice: Newsletter Platform Substack Notifies Users of Data Breach for a bit more info.

(Invalid) Security Warnings for zeroretries.radio

Last week after publishing Zero Retries 0237, I received some reports about

https://www.zeroretries.radio

being a “suspicious” website (or similar wording). Some of the warnings were just incorrect, such as stating that encryption wasn’t being used (provably, it is - see https://...)

The issue seems to have (mostly?) settled down, perhaps after I enabled DNSSEC on my domain management configuration at dotRadio domains. But it also seemed to help that a number of people “clicked through” despite the warnings.

Please advise, via the Zero Retries email list, if this issue persists.

Paid Subscribers Update

My thanks to Rob Bowser (SPOOLTENNA) for upgrading from a free subscriber to Zero Retries to a Founding Member Subscriber 0024 this past week!

Founding members are listed in every issue of Zero Retries!

My thanks to Prefers to Remain Anonymous 21 for renewing as an Annual Paid Subscriber (3rd year!) to Zero Retries this past week!

My thanks to Prefers to Remain Anonymous 122 for upgrading from a free subscriber to Zero Retries to an Annual Paid Subscriber this past week!

My thanks to Prefers to Remain Anonymous 121 for upgrading from a free subscriber to Zero Retries to a Paid Subscriber this past week!

Financial support from Zero Retries readers is a significant vote of support for the continued publication of Zero Retries.

The Saga of Conversion to Ghost and zeroretries.radio - Part 5

Apologies to Zero Retries readers who find this discussion tedious and irrelevant, but some readers do want to know what’s going on in this process.

Exporting data from Substack is easy and non-disruptive. It’s a snapshot in time of the posts and other data on Substack, and especially the total list of 3400+ email subscribers. But importing that data into Ghost is potentially disruptive, and this week had a number of disruptions to the point where I ran out of “comfortable” days early in the week to attempt the import. So I didn’t do so.

I also haven’t yet linked Ghost and the Zero Retries Stripe account for setting up the optional paid subscriber capability in Ghost. I’ll try again next week.

Zero Retries Digital Conference 2026 Page

There is now a basic ZRDC page on www.zeroretries.radio, with early information on ZRDC 2026. The “Conference” top bar link on the page now directs to that page. We will flesh out that page with new information as it is developed.

The primary takeaway about ZRDC 2026 at the moment is that it will be held on the same Friday as the first day of Pacificon 2026, at a venue within walking distance of the Pacificon hotel.

We expect that the combination of ZRDC on Friday, and Pacificon on Saturday will make for a very Zero Retries Interesting weekend, worth traveling to and attending. For my impressions of Pacificon 2025, and the Zero Retries Interesting aspects, see Zero Retries 0224 - Pacificon 2025 - Great Conference!

If possible, please reserve Thursday afternoon to join a number of ZRDC 2026 attendees at the Computer History Museum, which is a fascinating place with many engaging exhibits (recommended).

Weekends Are For Amateur Radio!

Discussions about potentially getting involved in KMRE 88.3 - a low power, community FM broadcast station here in Bellingham have unexpectedly restarted. There might be some interesting crossovers between community broadcasting in Bellingham and Zero Retries.

Tomorrow (Saturday) I’ll be visiting KMRE’s transmitter site (and actually seeing the transmitter). When I first reached out with some interest in volunteering to KMRE, and I mentioned that I’d love to see the transmitter, that was received with some puzzlement. “You want to see... the transmitter? Um... why?“

Have a great weekend, all of you co-conspirators in Zero Retries Interesting Amateur Radio activities!

Steve N8GNJ

Please direct comments / feedback about Request To Send to the Zero Retries email list with the #zr0238 hashtag.

What’s New at Digital Library of Amateur Radio & Communications — February 2026

By Kay Savetz K6KJN

In 1974, hams debated whether the autopatch was a friend or foe. In 1983, they wondered whether personal computers and amateur radio were “married or just living together.” More than four decades later, the discussions continue — and thanks to DLARC, we can see where they started.

DLARC has scanned 133 issues of Repeater Journal, the quarterly newsletter of the Southeastern Repeater Association — from 1974 through 2008. These newsletters came from the estate of Wayne Williams, K4MOB. SERA is the largest amateur radio repeater coordinating organization in the United States. These vintage journals include club business, lists of repeaters, and articles like in ’74: “Autopatch: Friend or Foe?” and in 1983: “Personal Computers and Amateur Radio: are they married or just living together?” (I don’t know the answer, but 43 years later, the relationship is still going strong.) We’re missing a handful of issues, they’re now in the DLARC Wantlist.

Last month I noted that we had scanned a collection of 40 issues of “Call Letter”, the newsletter of Northwest Vintage Radio Society. This month, the group sent more issues that they had in digital format. The data was a little tricky — for instance, some had the covers and back covers in one PDF and the newsletter innards in another PDF. After some careful massaging of the files, DLARC’s collection of Call Letter has nearly doubled, now up to 76 issues of this newsletter dedicated to the preservation and enjoyment of vintage radio and antique wireless equipment.

We also added 30+ newsletters from the North Shore Radio Association, an amateur radio group in Massachusetts, USA. (Not to be confused, as I did in a moment of panic, with the North Shore Amateur Radio Club in Oshawa, Ontario, Canada. We’ve archived their newsletters, too.)

I discovered in the back alleys of the Internet a few lost issues of Fidonet HAM-PACKET Digest, a newsletter published by Brian Murrey KB9BVN from 1989 through the early 1990s. DLARC now has 20 issues. Written in the heyday of 1200 bits per second amateur packet radio, and distributed via landline BBSes, the newly added issues include receiving and interpreting satellite comms on the 440 band, and SAREX2 — packet on the space shuttle. Sorry, the formatting of the PDF came out a little weird — I couldn’t figure out how many lines per printed page they expected. We’re still missing issues — v2n7, v2n8, v2n9, and v2n11 — so I’ve added the Digest to the DLARC Wantlist. Did it continue into volume 3? I reached out to KB9BVN but he doesn’t have the original files after all this time.

Internet Archive patron Curtis Philips has been uploading beautiful scans that he made of Electrical Experimenter magazine. Published in the 1910s and 1920s by Hugo Gernsback, the famous science fiction and science fact publisher, the magazine features plenty of radio-related articles and advertisements. Check out this two-page “Radio Department” spread published April 1918, just after the U.S. government shut down amateur radio stations due to World War I. And this 1919 article about a device that let you “see” wireless signals. Nikola Tesla wrote five articles for the magazine over the years. I created a new collection for these wonderful Electrical Experimenter scans — there’s 70 issues so far. In 1920 the publication’s name was changed to Science and Invention and they published an article about electrocuting sharks, and the management of DLARC definitely does not advocate doing that.

Tom Perera W1TP asked me to add his Perera’s Telegraph Collector’s Guide to DLARC, which I was thrilled to do. After selling “many thousands of copies,” he decided to make the guide available online for free. Originally published by the Radio Society of Great Britain, the guide has sections on Pre-Morse Land-Line Telegraph (1830-1844); Spark and Wireless Keys (1910-1921); American, German, Japanese, and Russian military keys; and many other topics. Check it out, it’s a fascinating read.

It’s been a long minute since I had any update on the Packet Radio Temporary Notes collection. As a reminder, these were informal technical docs distributed by the organizations developing packet radio from the ground up, from 1972 through 1983. These documents are hard to find, but I’ve found two more: PRTN 111: Packet Radio Link-Related Measurements Test Plan by R. C. Kunzelman, and PRTN 245: JANUS Interface Specifications for a symmetrical, 1822-like Interface. (“A need arose in the Packet Radio project for specification of an interface between Packet Radio units and other equipment. This paper is to meet BBN’s responsibility to supply that specification.”) That brings DLARC to 133 PRTN files, with dozens and dozens still out there, somewhere, waiting to be rediscovered.

For some lighter reading material, check out “Radio Boys Cronies, or Bill Brown’s Radio” by Wayne Whipple and S. F. Aaron, a 1922 (public domain!) juvenile fiction book about resourceful boys who explore radio technology and solve mysteries.

Turning to conferences: I’ve added 11 talks from the M17 Project’s 2025 conference which was held in September in Poland, archived from their YouTube channel. Unfortunately, the audio wasn’t captured that well, but if you listen carefully (or read the automated transcripts, which are pretty good) you can learn about TETRA and its use in amateur radio, and e-Czas Radio: long-wave radio distribution of legal time signals in Poland.

I received a request from a DLARC user to preserve everything from the Trenton (New Jersey) Computer Festival’s web site and YouTube page. This annual festival has been held for 49 years and has amateur computer and radio significance. The last founder, Professor Al Katz K2UYH, passed away in 2024 and this patron is worried about the future of the show. So I dug through the organization’s site history in the WayBack machine to find programs, schedules, press releases and even some slide decks from talks, going back to the year 2000. Also, I got more than 200 videos from the group’s YouTube channel. All of this is in DLARC’s new Trenton Computer Festival collection. Ham radio talks at the show have included last year’s Building a 26 MHz to 1.7 GHz RF Spectrum Monitor on a Raspberry Pi Zero — and in 2023, Getting Started on EME (Earth-Moon-Earth) Communication. Older schedules hint at unrecorded talks like in 2011on APRS, Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service, and radio history. (Here’s the program for that year.)

Taaaa daaa, that’s some of what’s new in February 2026. If you’d like to revisit past What’s New at DLARC columns, now you can: here’s a compilation from the first column in October 2023 through December 2024, and a roundup of the 2025 columns. As always, if you have material to contribute or suggestions for the library, please email me at the address below.

Editor’s Postscript - On 2026-01-28, Kay did a presentation to RATPAC about DLARC. That presentation is now available on YouTube - DLARC: updates from your favorite free online ham radio library.

Please direct comments / feedback about this article to the Zero Retries email list with the #zr0238 hashtag.

Thought Experiment - Top Three Priorities for Zero Retries Interesting Amateur Radio In the Next Three Years; Part 2 of 3 - Consolidation / Synthesis of Ideas

By Steve Stroh N8GNJ

To keep issue length (more) reasonable, I’ve divided this long article into three consecutive installments.

Part 1, in Zero Retries 0237 was summations of the inputs provided.
Part 2 , below, is a consolidation and synthesis of ideas into some broader themes for consideration of the Top Three Priorities for Zero Retries Interesting Amateur Radio in the Next Three Years.
Part 3, planned for Zero Retries 0239 will be my opinions and my perspective of what should be the Top Three Priorities for Zero Retries Interesting Amateur Radio in the Next Three Years.

The following was developed with considerable editorial discretion... with some creative license... of what ideas expressed by the responding individuals could be combined into broader themes.

Amateur Radio Standards Organization (ARSO)

Amateur Radio continues to create new modes and implement existing modes on new hardware and software with varying degrees of compatibility. The resulting lack of interoperability has resulted in Amateur Radio communications becoming fragmented into silos such as DMR radios not being able to interoperate with D-Star radios.

This situation is similar to use of many different network standards prior to the widespread adoption of TCP/IP as the universal networking protocol. Thus it seems past time for Amateur Radio to have its own wide-ranging standards body for technologies used in Amateur Radio, similar in scope to the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF).

Another activity of ARSO might be reference implementations of open source radio technology including DSP libraries and GNU Radio flowgraphs applicable to Amateur Radio. Hardware reference implementations could include simple (as possible) hardware examples for VHF / UHF / microwave, polar modulation (for high efficiency), etc.

Perhaps the first “big project” that ARSO should consider is building an open Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) for Amateur Radio as a precursor towards some use of encryption in Amateur Radio. Another near term project for ARSO could be developing a distributed database for contact logging. It should be lightweight enough to not require a “big” computer. Once this is established, create a distributed realtime contact dashboard.

Commercial Interest in Amateur Radio Spectrum

In this era, Amateur Radio must be on the alert and prepared to respond quickly and at scale to potential use of Amateur Radio spectrum by commercial (or other) users. Amateur Radio needs to be to credibly provide solid reasons to justify Amateur Radio use in of its allocated spectrum, especially with examples of technological innovation being implemented within Amateur Radio. Recent issues have shown a need for a “quick response” capability. Examples include building coalitions of credible organizations in advance (and regularly communicate and coordinate) to be able to quickly co-sign formal comments.

Develop a notification system that would quickly alert NewTechHams (and related actives such as Meshtastic, GMRS, and CB experimenters) via channels that are relevant to them, such as Discord groups.

Data Communications Emphasis, Mesh Networking, Newer Digital Voice Systems

Emphasize data communications and data networking as a primary mode - HF (see HF item for more detail) and VHF / UHF / Microwave. Mesh networking has traditionally been problematic in Amateur Radio and unlicensed bands, but has proven useful and scalable in some military applications when enough (expensive, in earlier eras) technology and adequate spectrum could be applied. In the 2020s, to support mesh networking technology in Amateur Radio, we now have flexible (Software Defined) wideband (multiple band) radios, ample computer power, and many reference examples of good ideas for mesh networking... and many reference examples of what not to do. Also, develop a (generic) Chirp Spread Spectrum (CSS) implementation for all Amateur Radio VHF / UHF bands that works as well as LoRa.

A new type of digital voice should be developed as “just another data type” that can be transported over data communication networks. Also, develop (or implement existing) an open source, higher quality (than current bandwidth / technology constrained implementations) digital voice mode.

Emergency Communications (EMCOM)

Acknowledge Amateur Radio’s declining role in “served agency” scenarios in recognition that there is now ample commercial / Government EMCOM capabilities, such as Starlink.

Continue to encourage personal EMCOM capabilities such as non-grid power, local radio communications, HF communications, etc.

GEO Payload / Satellite for Western Hemisphere

Few other Amateur Radio capabilities excite NewTechHams as much as satellite communications. Connectivity between widely separated Amateur Radio Operators using Low Earth Orbit (LEO) Amateur Radio satellites is fleeting, and the majority of Amateur Radio satellites are designed for voice / “radiosport” casual contacts. The QO-100 Amateur Radio payload in GEO over the Eastern hemisphere has proven to be useful for regular communications (including some networking) with simpler equipment and modest fixed antennas.

Possibilities for GEO satellite usage include potentially leasing dedicated transponders on existing GEOs, contracting for engineering / build / launch / place into orbit services of a “Micro GEO”, and (unlikely, but possible) Amateur Radio (or perhaps “MARS”) use of US Department of Defense Fleet Satcom satellites operating in the UHF band.

High Frequency (HF) Operation

Emphasize ways HF can be used other than “expensive radio, powerful transmitter, big antenna on suburban lot. Examples - Build it yourself magnetic loop antennas, data modes, fun modes such as WSJT-X and FT8, digital voice such as FreeDV RADE, and inexpensive radios such as QMX+, sBitx v3, Radioberry, and Hermes-Lite. Also, develop or improve an automated message origination and delivery system - for Health and Welfare traffic.

New Amateur Radio Organizations

ARRL is frequently cited as not very relevant with NewTechHams / OldTechHams and the younger demographic in general and 21st century media. Examples - monthly magazines, paywall, high membership dues. The outlines of a what a new organization should be to address this issue aren’t well defined, but some examples are emerging, such as Online Amateur Radio Community (OARC).

Sub-elements of a new organization are emerging such as numerous Discord chat groups on specific Amateur Radio topics, focused publications such as Zero Retries, and general publications made available at no cost such as SARC The Communicator.

Primary References - Books, Web Page, Wiki for “I’m a Ham - Now What?”

Provide guidance and directory of a collection of simple, inexpensive Zero Retries Interesting projects or activities for new or prospective NewTechHams... especially those that are fun. This would also serve to improve engagement with the perception of Amateur Radio as relevant, interesting, and developing useful skills.

Emphasize digital technologies, data communications, and networking. Video tutorials should be an outgrowth once these references are developed. This is tightly paired with an emphasis on modern media relevant to potential and current NewTechHams. Modern media includes wikis / websites, videoconferences / YouTube / TikTok video, Discord channels, and Digital Library of Amateur Radio & Communications (an enormous amount of information, available for free). Dedicated, tightly focused technical in-person conferences are “modern” - example, DEF CON and GNU Radio Conference.

De-emphasize use of legacy media including magazines, periodic publication (monthly), newsletters, email lists. Unfocused, casual attendance in-person events such as Amateur Radio club meetings and presentations at hamfests are “legacy”. Implicit in modern media is that it’s almost always accessible at no cost (no paywall).

Regulatory Reform (Mostly, US)

In the US, existing symbol rate limitations, bandwidth limitations, emission restrictions on VHF / UHF bands are inhibiting technological innovation in Amateur Radio. Example - New Packet Radio is only marginally legal on 420-450 MHz, and not legal on 144-148 MHz. Other countries don’t have such restrictions and thus US Amateur Radio is an outlier, and at a technological disadvantage, with these restrictions in place.

Prohibitions against use of encryption in Amateur Radio (especially in the US) is another issue that is coming to the forefront. Canada has allowed some encryption on Amateur Radio spectrum with placing encryption keys in escrow.

Please direct comments / feedback about this article to the Zero Retries email list with the #zr0238 hashtag.

ZR > BEACON

By Steve Stroh N8GNJ

Short mentions of Zero Retries Interesting items.

Breaking - ARRL Begins to Consider Encryption in Amateur Radio

This just in from the ARRL 2026 Annual Board Of Directors Meeting Minutes (held 2026-01-16 and 17):

[Item 22]
Director Frenaye removed the Communication Counsel’s Report and began his comments by asking Counsel Siddall to elaborate on Canada’s use of encryption codes, particularly if those codes are made public, and the possibility of establishing a nationwide repository for these codes. Counsel Siddall provided a detailed explanation of Canada’s approach, and a discussion ensued between him and Director Frenaye about how to initiate a similar process in the United States. Counsel Siddall emphasized the need for developing consensus on any such proposal.
[Item 44]
Director Frenaye moved, seconded by Director Yonally that Communications Counsel and the Executive Committee explore options for reducing the FCC workload by changing to a lifetime Amateur Radio license, and by allowing secure forwarding of health and welfare messaging, especially for use in the Amateur Radio Emergency Service.

I trust there’s ample evidence that discussion and consideration of encryption in Amateur Radio, here in Zero Retries and the Zero Retries email list, predated the ARRL Board of Directors meeting.

“... secure forwarding...” for use in ARES. Note that while ARES is an emergency communications (EMCOM) activity, ARES is an exclusive program of ARRL.

There are many other EMCOM groups and activities that are independent from ARES and ARRL. Exploration of the possibility of “secure forwarding of health and welfare messaging, especially for use in ARES“ is an unfortunate myopia on the part of ARRL, which promotes itself as The National Association for Amateur Radio”... not the “National Association for ARRL Members”. I expect that a “secure forwarding” capability that’s proposed as exclusive to ARES... will be poorly received by the > 80% of US Amateur Radio Operators that are not ARRL members.

Post Publication Update

First... I mistakenly thought that participation in ARES was linked to ARRL membership, and thus ARES was exclusive to ARRL members.

ARES Membership Requirements

Every licensed amateur, regardless of membership in ARRL or any other local or national organization is eligible to apply for membership in ARES.

Second, I’m perhaps guilty of parsing Item 44 too pessimistically and saying:

I expect that a “secure forwarding” capability that’s proposed as exclusive to ARES...

A less pessimistic parsing of Item 44 might translate to:

... by allowing secure forwarding of health and welfare messaging, especially for use in Amateur Radio emergency communications.

... of which the ARES program of ARRL is one of many entities that provide emergency communications training, and services, within Amateur Radio.

My thanks to the Zero Retries reader that provided their candid feedback on this item. I truly appreciate such detailed and candid feedback to what I write in Zero Retries.

MMDVM and MQTT

Jonathan Naylor G4KLX on the OpenDV email list:

In the near future, the whole of the MMDVM suite of programs will be moving over to using MQTT to disseminate information to other programs and people. Let me explain, MQTT is middleware that allows multiple programs to read and write data to each other using named “topics” that can be subscribed to. In terms of the MMDVM programs, it will be used to make status information available to other programs that desire it, for example, a display driver program, a file logging program, or a GUI.

This move to MQTT means that none of the existing programs will write log files, but will make that information available via MQTT instead. It would be trivial to write a program to write this program to a file if needed. In addition some programs will make more detailed status information via other topics in JSON format which is better structured than the existing log format.

Existing digital voice data streams between the MMDVM Host and the gateways will remain as UDP links as MQTT isn’t designed for the level of service that this traffic requires.

This means that the master/main branches of each of these programs will become MQTT enabled, and it is possible that other bugs will be introduced into the programs initially. The last non MQTT enabled versions of each program will have a Git tag added to it so that it can easily be found.

MQTT is Message Queuing Telemetry Transport, and it operates over TCP/IP. For those like me that need a bit more explanation about the benefits using MQTT, see MQTT.org. Once you understand how efficient and lightweight it is, it’s easy to imagine many more scenarios in Amateur Radio systems where MQTT would be useful.

G4KLX’s work to migrate MMDVM to using MQTT has been in progress for some time, so kudos to G4KLX for reaching this milestone!

We’re excited to announce the launch of our crowdfunding campaign for xSDR

Image courtesy of Crowd Supply

Andrew Avtushenko via Crowd Supply:

... the next evolution of embedded software-defined radio.

xSDR is a compact, single-sided M.2 software-defined radio designed for seamless integration into modern computing platforms. The “x” stands for extended, delivering extended bandwidth and multi-channel operation in the same minimal footprint that defined uSDR.

You can configure and operate xSDR directly from a browser, and collaborate through cloud-based workflows using the wsdr.io platform. Build, control, and share RF applications without complex setup or driver overhead.

Details of the capabilities of xSDR are on the campaign page, But a few basics are:

Two transmit / receive channels (MIMO),
Frequency range is 30 MHz to 3.8 GHz,
Bandwidth up to 90 MHz,
Price of a single xSDR is $549

The capabilities we can bring to bear on radio systems with new radio technology such as this... is just amazing. Imagine a ka9q-radio receiver (or, as periodically hinted... transmitter) with a 90 MHz bandwidth. Or perhaps this one unit can do all of 420-450 MHz on one channel, and both 144-148 MHz and 219-225 MHz on the second channel.

Offline Electronic Maps

In the ARRL Letter for February 12, 2026, there was this story:

Digital or Paper?
In a digital world, everything works correctly. But what happens when it doesn’t?

Tina Milenovic, K8RBQ, a member of the All Things Amateur Radio Association (ATARA) in Lancaster, Ohio, said her club began asking that question a couple of years ago. “What happens in a grid down situation, when the internet, tablets, laptops, and GPS are not available? In an emergency, how can first responders quickly navigate and travel to their intended destinations?” Milenovic said that after some thought and discussion, the answer was, well, old school ... use paper maps!

In 2023, members of ATARA began contacting the county engineer offices of Fairfield and contiguous counties to acquire fold-out, paper county maps for their Off Grid team members. The Off Grid team trains to be able to respond and provide mission-essential emergency communications in a natural or human-made disaster situation in which amateur radio operators are needed to assist first responders or other emergency officials. The intent of having the paper maps was to ensure that team members could travel to an incident scene if the power grid or internet were down and no GPS was available.

Yes, it’s a prudent precaution to foresee that in a significant communications emergency, online map services such as Apple Maps and Google Maps might not be available. But resorting to paper maps isn’t the only alternative in such a scenario. Another alternative, but with the capabilities of electronic maps, is offline (downloaded, stored locally) electronic maps, such as OpenStreetMap (use the Export option). That seems a more likely scenario to me, unless there has been a Carrington / Electro Magnetic Pulse (EMP) event, in which case, almost nothing will be working - modern vehicles, laptops, GPS receivers, two way radios, Starlink, etc.

Headless APRS Appliance

Ev Tupos W2EV on the Aprsfoundation email list:

Does the APRS ecosystem have a product that allows me to connect my cell phone to an APRS network appliance (TNC/Transceiver) via Bluetooth; with the cell phone having a UI that is designed for both configuring the appliance and using it for situational awareness communication with other APRS users?

In effect, the APRS appliance is “headless”, accessed via a Bluetooth connection to a cell phone.

Don Rolph AB1PH replied:

The APRS Appliance:

https://github.com/APRSFoundation/aprsappliance

supports bluetooth connections over serial interface protocol. This is supported on android devices and LINUX/Windows devices.

IOS devices cannot connect via Bluetooth.

The APRS Appliance acts as a hotspot and can be connected via WIFI which is the more tested approach.

And terminal application can login over WIFI and be used to configure the device. An Xterm applications should work fine. I use Mobaxterm on my PC.

Jason Rausch K4APR also replied:

https://www.rpc-electronics.com/esp32-aprs-tracker.php

A quick glance at that page shows:

KISS over Bluetooth (Tested with APRSDroid Android and APRS.fi iOS applications

I just love learning factoids about amazing new capabilities in Amateur Radio like these two solutions, and sharing them in Zero Retries. From my perspective, the former is a great solution for a fixed installation, especially given that it’s based on a Raspberry Pi, which can easily host an Ethernet connection (Raspberry Pi 3B+ is $40’ish) and the latter, as an integrated appliance, is ideal for mobile or go kit usage.

Some Interesting (New?) Vendors at Hamcation 2026

I had reason to look at the vendor list of Hamcation 2026, and the vast majority are same old, same old vendors. But there were some new (to me, at least) vendors:

Frontline Gadgets
LowMesh LLC
MakerNova
MorseNexus (formerly PreppComm)
Rocket Machine Worx - This caught my interest as great-looking, apparently well-built coax wall penetration units. We’ve really needed something better than “drill through wall, fish coax through, goop up with silicone seal”.
Rokland - I’m a future customer of Rokland to purchase several ALFA Network Tube units for 802.11ah.
Seeed Studio
Sol-Tac
SpecFive
SPOOLTENNA - I haven’t gotten out into the field with a small HF radio in some time, but this looks like a great easy to deploy wire antenna option.
TN07 Engineering

One emerging theme leaped out - Meshtastic / Meshcore, enabled by LoRa, is either finding a large emerging market, or the cost of starting a business in this new business segment is low (risk) enough for a number of vendors to enter.

It looks like new vendors can get space at Hamcation, unlike Hamvention where new vendors are placed on a waiting list that (reportedly) can stretch to years. I applied for a future Zero Retries table (no placement preference) while attending Hamvention 2025, and I haven’t heard from Hamvention for 2026.

Silent Keyboard - Professor David J. Farber

From (Farber’s) Interesting People email list (which has run for decades):

IP Asia Announcement

We are heartbroken to report that our colleague – our mentor, friend, and conscience – David J. Farber passed away suddenly at his home in Roppongi, Tokyo. He left us on Saturday, Feb. 7, 2026, at the too-young age of 91.

To his son Manny, he was simply “Dad”, his bedrock whom he will miss immeasurably. They spoke almost daily by video throughout his time in Japan, and shared special times on numerous visits. He is survived by son Manny Farber and daughter-in-law Mei Xu, daughter-in-law Carol Hagan and grandsons Nate Farber and Sam Farber. He was preceded in death by his wife Gloria (G.G.) and son Joe Farber.

Dave’s career began with his education at Stevens Institute of Technology, which he loved deeply and served as a Trustee. He joined the legendary Bell Labs during its heyday, and worked at the Rand Corporation. Along the way, among countless other activities, he served as Chief Technologist of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission; became a proficient (instrument-rated) pilot; and was an active board member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital civil-liberties organization.

His professional accomplishments and impact are almost endless, but often captured by one moniker: “grandfather of the Internet,” acknowledging the foundational contributions made by his many students at the University of California, Irvine; the University of Delaware; the University of Pennsylvania; and Carnegie Mellon University.

In 2018, at the age of 83, Dave moved to Japan to become Distinguished Professor at Keio University and Co-Director of the Keio Cyber Civilization Research Center (CCRC). He loved teaching, and taught his final class on January 22, 2026.

At CCRC, one of his most enjoyable activities was co-hosting the IP-Asia online gathering, which has met every Monday for more than five years and has addressed many aspects of the impact of technology on civilization. Dave thrived in Japan in every way.

We, the IP-Asia community, will gather for an online remembrance of Dave at the usual time and place, 2100 JST on Monday, February 9, 2026.

It’s impossible to summarize a life and career as rich and long as Dave’s in our few words here. And each of us, even those who knew him for decades, represent just one facet of his life. But because we are here at its end, we have the sad duty of sharing this news. Further information and a more formal obituary are forthcoming.

Farber was at least briefly an Amateur Radio Operator, though as I write this story, I cannot find a record of his lapsed callsign. I found that Farber made at least a few fleeting references to Amateur Radio, and he knew (pretty well, if memory serves) my friend and mentor, Dewayne Hendricks WA8DZP (also now a Silent Keyboard). Farber also gave an influential talk about emerging radio technology (flexible spectrum usage I think) to an Amateur Radio audience... though I cannot find a reference to the PDF of his speech (which I remember I downloaded from the FCC website). Both lapses are very frustrating.

Not mentioned in the above brief announcement was that Farber curated an email list called Interesting People (IP) for decades. To be added to it, you had to “plead your case” directly to Farber, and I was thrilled when I applied, and “made the cut”. Farber gave early notice of many breaking technological developments on IP. It wasn’t solely a broadcast (announcement) email list. It was always a thrill when something I said on another email list was picked up by Farber and reposted onto IP.

I think I met Farber briefly at a conference or a private gathering as I have a memory of his very distinctive voice. What I found most remarkable about Farber was that he was recruited to serve briefly at the FCC as “Chief Technologist” which, at least as I recall, was a position created for him to advise the Commission without being bogged down in the legalese administrivia that characterized the Commission’s activities. His brief tenure at the FCC was, at least for a time, formative in bringing a technological focus about Internet and spectrum policy, to the FCC, explaining that spectrum usage was fungible and a creation of technology... not fixed property equivalent to “land” that can only be allocated to exclusive use instead of being sharable with the use of steadily improving technology.

What I found most admirable about Farber was that he figured out how to continue to be productive and contributing to technological society, as a teacher, to the very end of his life. We should all aspire to make our own “dent in the universe” and contribute to the future of humanity like Farber did.

Please offer comments / feedback about ZR > BEACON on the Zero Retries email list with the #ZR0238 hashtag.

Closing Thanks

My ongoing Thanks to:
Tina Stroh KD7WSF for, well, everything!
Jack Stroh, Late Night Assistant Editor Emeritus
Fiona and Shreky Stroh, Late Night Assistant Editors In Training

Founding Members who generously support Zero Retries financially:
Founding Member 0000 - Steven Davidson K3FZT (Renewed 2025, 3rd year!)
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Founding Member 0003 - Don Rotolo N2IRZ (Renewed 2025, 3rd year!)
Founding Member 0004 - William Arcand W1WRA (Renewed 2025, 3rd year!)
Founding Member 0005 - Ben Kuhn KU0HN (Renewed 2025, 3rd year!)
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Founding Member 0012 - Ryan Tolboom N2BP (Renewed 2025, 2nd year!)
Founding Member 0013 - Newton White N4EWT (Renewed 2026, 2nd year!)
Founding Member 0014 - Joe Hamelin W7COM (New 2025)
Founding Member 0015 - Rich Stocking N7OP (New 2025)
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Founding Member 0017 - Phil Karn KA9Q (New 2025)
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Numerous Annual and Monthly subscribers who also generously support Zero Retries financially!

You thousands of readers of Zero Retries without which there would be little point in publishing this newsletter.

Permission to Reuse Zero Retries Content

This article is reprinted with permission. It was first published in Zero Retries newsletter, issue Zero Retries (number), (date) - (include full web link of the specific issue).

It’s appreciated (a courtesy, but not required) to notify Zero Retries Editor Steve Stroh N8GNJ of any reuse of Zero Retries content - editor@zeroretries.net.

If you’d like to republish an article in this issue for other uses, just ask.

Zero Retries 0238 was published on 2026-02-13. This issue was 6875 words.

(end)

Zero Retries 0237

Steve Stroh N8GNJ — Fri, 06 Feb 2026 23:30:00 GMT

Steve Stroh N8GNJ, Editor

This issue of Zero Retries was originally published on Ghost - https://www.zeroretries.radio/zero-retries-0237/. Thus all links that were for zeroretries.radio have (attempted to) been changed to equivalents on zeroretries.org.

See this archive page:
https://web.archive.org/web/20260412225455/https://www.zeroretries.radio/zero-retries-0237/
for how it originally appeared on www.zeroretries.radio

Substack says this issue is too big for email clients. Thus, it might be easier to read in a web browser - https://www.zeroretries.org/p/zero-retries-0237-924.

In This Issue...

Breaking - Zero Retries Digital Conference 2026 - October 16 in San Ramon, California

Thought Experiment - Top Three Priorities for Zero Retries Interesting Amateur Radio In the Next Three Years; Part 1 of 3 - Inputs

Petition for Rulemaking Filed with FCC to Permit Limited Use of Cryptographic Protection for Certain Amateur Emergency and Resiliency Communications

⬅️⬅️⬅️ Previous Issue of Zero Retries \ Next Issue of Zero Retries ➡️➡️➡️

Request To Send

It will take me a while to figure out formatting (and using Markdown). Thus the form and formatting of these early issues published on Ghost won’t be as “polished” as I was doing on Substack, in deference to pushing out Zero Retries on schedule(ish) on (new to me) Ghost.

The Saga of the Conversion to Ghost and zeroretries.radio - Part 4

I’ve decided that for at least the immediate future, Zero Retries will be published with the URL of

www.zeroretries.radio

It works, and my goal of being able to specify just zeroretries.radio when that’s convenient, like on a business card or QSL card, has been satisfied.

Thus it’s time to proceed with the next stage of migration to Ghost:

Attempt migration of all email subscribers currently subscribed to Zero Retries in Substack, and
Set up payment capability in Ghost for those subscribers that wish to optionally support Zero Retries financially. This is the same arrangement currently used with Substack. All Zero Retries content is available free; paid subscribers get a few extras (and additional extras in 2026), but the content will be the same for free and paid subscribers.

It will be interesting to see how this goes. There are 3400+ email subscribers on “Substack” Zero Retries, and already 100+ have subscribed on “Ghost” Zero Retries.

As for the Ghost editor, I’ve established templates and other customizations, and gotten familiar with more of the nooks and crannies of Ghost. In the end, it’s just another tool, and the more I use it the more comfortable it feels and the more productive I am... but to date using the Ghost editor is still a low-grade tussle. I discovered that one of my favorite editing hacks - using tk, works great in the Ghost editor.

Weekends Are For Amateur Radio!

Some units have arrived for use and review in N8GNJ / Zero Retries Labs and I need to get going on those. Not to mention the “other” new radios (see ZR > BEACON). The weather oracle promises (100%!) rain this weekend, but moderate temps, so the Lab will be tolerable and perhaps I can get in some Amateur Radio Fun! even with minimal sunlight and the shop doors closed.

Have a great weekend, all of you co-conspirators in Zero Retries Interesting Amateur Radio activities!

Steve N8GNJ

Please direct comments / feedback about Request To Send to the Zero Retries email list with the #zr0237 hashtag.

Breaking - Zero Retries Digital Conference 2026 - October 16 in San Ramon, California

By Tina Stroh KD7WSF
Zero Retries Conference Manager

It is with great excitement that we are able to announce the Zero Retries Digital Conference (ZRDC) 2026 will be held on Friday, October 16, 2026 in San Ramon, California. The Roundhouse Conference Center is a short walk from The San Ramon Marriott Hotel where Pacificon 2026 will be held on Friday, October 16 thru Sunday, October 18. We are also planning some informal activities for ZRDC 2026 attendees on Thursday, October 15.

The conference will follow the same general format as ZRDC 2025 in regard to schedule. Over the next few weeks and months, Steve will be putting together a panel of speakers who will offer presentations on new and emerging technologies in Amateur Radio. In addition, Steve will offer a conspectus of ZRDC 2025, updating ZRDC attendees on the progress of projects presented and discussed at ZRDC 2025.

Now that the major contracts have been signed, I will be building out the conference page and will announce when registration will be open. Given that this conference will be held in San Ramon, California where there is a higher concentration of Amateur Radio Operators with a technical focus, we expect the available tickets to sell out quickly. So when the announcement is made that registration is open, please don’t hesitate in purchasing a ticket.

In the meantime, if you have any questions, concerns or suggestions for the conference, please don’t hesitate to contact me directly at tina@zeroretries.net.

See you in October!

Please direct comments / feedback about this article to the Zero Retries email list with the #zrdc hashtag.

Thought Experiment - Top Three Priorities for Zero Retries Interesting Amateur Radio In the Next Three Years; Part 1 of 3 - Inputs

By Steve Stroh N8GNJ

To keep issue length (more) reasonable, I’ve divided this long article into three consecutive installments.

Part 1, below incorporates summations of the inputs provided.
Part 2, planned for Zero Retries 0238 will be a consolidation and synthesis of the ideas into some broader themes for consideration of the Top Three Priorities for Zero Retries Interesting Amateur Radio in the Next Three Years.
Part 3, planned for Zero Retries 0239 will be my opinions and my perspective of the Top Three Priorities for Zero Retries Interesting Amateur Radio in the Next Three Years.

On 2026-01-01, I wrote this on the Zero Retries email list:

Something that would help me in Zero Retries (and Amateur Radio) is figuring out what should be the focus of efforts promoting Amateur Radio in the 21st century. I’m pinging knowledgeable folks with this query (some of whom were bcc’d on this email that probably aren’t on the Zero Retries email list). What should the priorities for Amateur Radio be…

In the next… three years?
Three items, max?
Doesn’t have to be practical / achievable / realistic.

I don’t know what such items should be quite yet. But before one can charge off to a battle… one needs to know which direction to plant your feet. So here’s a few ideas to start the conversation.

US Amateur Radio reform to remove the symbol rate limits and (preferably) bandwidth limits for the US Amateur Radio VHF / UHF bands.
A more modern “single web page” directory for 21st century Amateur Radio that, for example, references Zero Retries, SARC The Communicator, the reference how.aprs.works for APRS, the upcoming ARRL book on digital networking, the RATPAC video conferences, references to HamSCI, etc. Something that someone thinking about coming into Amateur Radio would find relevant.
Some guide, book, web page, video tutorials… something… current… that discusses how to use GNU Radio and GNU Radio Companion for experiencing within Amateur Radio. Includes a directory of various GNU Radio flowgraphs relevant to Amateur Radio such as a flowgraph about 1200 bps AFSK packet radio.

Thanks for your ideas!

Happy 2026!

(Only) 3 Ideas, (Only) 3 Years?

A natural question probably arises - why 3 ideas, max, and why a time horizon of 3 years?

In part, I was inspired by ARDC’s Priority Areas for Funding statement, published in 2025-04. I consider that statement an admirable distillation of what ARDC considers as its (3) priorities for funding “most impactful” grants.

3 priorities is, in my opinion, the maximum that can be accommodated in one’s mind as (equal) priorities.
- Less than three is too narrow a focus for the many challenges ahead, and changes needed in Amateur Radio.
- More than three... that’s not really prioritizing. We each, and we all, have only so much energy, and only so much “focus” available.
3 years is a reasonable time horizon for this thought experiment. “Things” will be radically different by the end of the next three years, thus there’s little point in a longer time horizon. For these ideas to potentially “get traction”, we have the remainder of 2026, and all of 2027 and 2028, comfortably before the end of this decade. I’m imagining...
- AI capabilities will have evolved through multiple generations. Probably any techie will be able to design software (and likely software radios) and hardware by then.
- We’ll have even more processor power available, at even lower cost to bring to bear on challenges and opportunities in Amateur Radio.
- We’ll have even better (software-based) radio technology available, available, at even lower cost to bring to bear on challenges and opportunities in Amateur Radio.

Responses

There were many good responses - see the link above for the individual contributor’s actual statements and the entire discussion thread (now locked). The following items were edited for publication.

Joe Hamelin W7COM

Better digital audio. We don’t have the problem of FCC mandated spectrum efficiency like LMR does. We’re using their highly compressed codecs because that’s what’s readily available. Clear “toll quality” audio should be our standard, not trying to fit voice into 6.25kHz channels for repeaters that are 99.9% quiet. G.726 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G.726), an open, standardized ITU-T audio codec for voice, works for several bit rates and is standard in the VoIP world. There is a lot of silicon out there for that. This is why M17 is important as a base protocol.
LoRa on ham bands at 2m, 1.25m, 70cm and 33cm bands. The link in ZR0233 shows that Semtec chips support these bands. Make 5w the nominal operating power. One should be able to harvest acceptable 5-10W PAs from $25 HTs, or at the very least, copy the design of their finals. 222MHz LoRa could provide some very interesting propagation.
Call me crazy, but let’s put 1 & 2 together and have VoLoRa, or Voice over LoRa. Then we could transmit toll quality audio without a fancy codec!

In addition to the better digital voice that W7COM mentions, we also have some existing implementations for Amateur Radio - Baseband FM (BBFM) and Opulent Voice.

I’ll expand, a bit, on W7COM’s mention of LoRa to across multiple bands to generic Chirp Spread Spectrum (CSS). Because LoRa is so...

Ubiquitous in chipsets and many different manufacturer’s boards...
Hackable (easy to integrate)...
Works so well...
Inexpensive...

... it’s easy to forget that LoRa® is a proprietary implementation of CSS owned by Semtech. This is very similar to the situation with most digital voice implementations in use in Amateur Radio depending on the AMBE vocoder technology owned by DVSI. I’ve seen a few mentions that Semtech has gotten “testy” over work-alike / interoperable implementations of LoRa such as in GNU Radio (but in fairness to Semtech... they don’t seem “hair trigger litigious” like DVSI has been over work-alike / interoperable implementations for AMBE.

Thus now that we have Software Defined Radios, and Chirp Spread Spectrum is a well understood technology (with hopefully ample prior art), it would be great to be able to implement CSS more widely in Amateur Radio, for example, as “just another mode” in the LinHT and its successors.

W7COM was (kind-of) prescient about Voice Over LoRa. A YouTube video - This is a New Kind of Wireless, mentioned in Zero Retries 0236 (mentioned by W7COM) discusses a new LoRa board that incorporates the 2.4 GHz band, and the description mentions:

... showing how 2.4 GHz LoRa pushes beyond text and GPS toward higher-data features like voice.

I’ll “genericize” W7COM’s idea of Voice over LoRa to “voice over Amateur Radio data networks”. In my opinion vision of the future voice should be just another payload over “just move the bits” data networks in Amateur Radio. That is already the situation with AREDN networks transporting any payload type because it’s amply fast and uses TCP/IP like the Internet.

Justin Overfelt AB3E

Regulatory reform - Removing symbol rate and bandwidth limits on VHF+, removing restrictions on what emissions can be where, etc. Really most important is removing things right now. We can’t experiment with the good stuff if we’re not allowed to!
A Western Hemisphere Geosynchronous Earth Orbit (GEO) payload or satellite for use by Amateur Radio. We simply must have it, any way possible.
Attract NewTechHams to Amateur Radio. I think #1 and #2 serve this goal among other approaches.
Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) - ARRL could publish their Root Certificate and every Logbook of the World user’s Public Key. There is currently no centralized (or distributed) PKI capability in Amateur Radio.
(Posted in reply to K0JEG.)

I agree with all of AB3E’s points, all previously discussed in Zero Retries.

Jason McCormick N8EI

(Significantly paraphrased)

Deemphasize EMCOM.
Improve engagement by emphasizing fun events and group build projects.
Improve interoperability with use of systems based on open standards (example - M17 Project) and networking technology such as TCP/IP.

I agree with all of N8EI’s points. We might be able to fix the interoperability issue with a combination of “just throw more computer power at it”, Machine Learning (automatic recognition), and user-defined Software Defined Radios.

John Kreno N3XKD

Regulatory reform, relaxing of bandwidth and symbol restrictions
Better community organization around co-ordination and standards (HAM Standards Body?)

Chuck Till K4RGN

Automated message origination and delivery system for Health and Welfare (H&W) messages, accessible by individual hams who are certified to operate it.

In my opinion, this isn’t in (direct) opposition of the de-emphasis of Emergency Communications as this could be personal Emergency Communications. Example - providing H&W outgoing messaging for one’s neighborhood.

We have two such systems... but they’re only usable within Amateur Radio - Winlink (HF / VHF / UHF) and The Packet Radio Forwarding Network (TPRFN). PiGate was a (now discontinued) project to provide a public web page via a captive web portable accessible via Wi-Fi (typically, in a mass casualty shelter scenario) for composing messages to be forwarded via Amateur Radio data networks such as AREDN, New Packet Radio, TPRFN, and Winlink.

Cale Mooth K4HCK

Outreach to young professionals with strong recognition that that group is going to have just enough time and disposable income to support at least a small amount of involvement in the hobby. I’d argue the best way to do this is through local ham clubs working with other groups like local makerspaces and every adjacent local meet-up (software developers, hardware developers, etc.).
Outreach to college students.

I agree with both these points, but college students are even more time-constrained and budget-constrained than young professionals. Combining with K4HCK’s first point, perhaps the most effective way to do outreach to college students is to offer direct support by interested and compatible Amateur Radio Operators to “Radio Clubs”. (Note - many college radio clubs are now becoming “Wireless clubs” or “Radio clubs” to de-emphasize the perceptions of legacy Amateur Radio.) Example - there is significant external involvement with the HamSCI program based at the University of Scranton (Pennsylvania, USA).

David Billstrom N4SZ

(Significantly paraphrased)

Deemphasize EMCOM.
Emphasize the intersection of computer and networks and radio.
Emphasize interoperability

Steve Davidson K3FZT

(Significantly paraphrased)

Same points as N8EI and N4SZ.

Wes Plouff AC8JF

Get a geosynchronous (or long orbital period) amateur satellite into orbit covering North America. Along with this, devise ground stations that are easy to reproduce on hobby budgets.
Make open, non-proprietary digital voice modes widely available, built in to equipment or as add-ons.
Develop open, non-proprietary DSP software for transmitter builders, with the goals of efficiency (polar modulation) and clean signals (amplifier linearization).

I think that AC8JF’s #3 is at least partially addressed with numerous GNU Radio flowgraphs. We also now have some open source implementations of “Raspberry Pi of radios”; example - CaribouLite RPi HAT.

Collin McConkey KE8RXN

Digital data modes are the most attractive feature about amateur radio to my demographic, not voice. Open-source voice is good, but we prefer data over voice for daily communication as it stands. We text far more than we talk on the phone. The same approach generally applies to our use of amateur radio. Utilizing analog FM to talk on repeaters is not our primary use case for ham radio.
HF fascinates several young IT professionals in my conversations with them - we understand that we can communicate regionally and globally with existing infrastructure. However, being able to do it with our own infrastructure (again, predominantly on digital modes like FT8) is quite attractive.
Local mesh networking is hugely popular with younger IT professionals. If projects like IP400 gain more popularity, there is a market for them (e.g., see the popularity of Meshtastic and Meshcore).

Phil Marquis K6HSV

EMCOMM is way overrated. It’s always been a stepchild.
Keep showing the advances in digital comms plus show the convergence of operating modes.

Glenn Allison N3MEL

(Significantly paraphrased)

ARRL isn’t working for Amateur Radio - too much politics and not enough involvement in actual Amateur Radio operations.
ARRL and other groups should work on recruitment and retention of younger people’s involvement in Amateur Radio, and promote Amateur Radio as relevant to them.
Local groups need to promote training and participation in groups and networks.

Eric Grumling K0JEG

(Significantly paraphrased)

I’d like to see a distributed database for contact logging. One that has a standard real-time interface and could be implemented on simple hardware like an ESP32 level chip.
Real time contact dashboards? This could easily become a modern spotting network showing a global snapshot of band conditions at any given moment, contesting and special events. Heck, even livestreams and play by play. Who wants to wait 6 months to find your score?

“Gamification” is a significant factor in increasing participation in Amateur Radio, such as Parks On The Air (POTA) and Summits On The Air (SOTA).

Jim Shepherd W6US

Development of inexpensive small all-mode radios for use in all microwave bands up to 100 GHz. Radios must have USB connection for various modes and content. Should be 12 Vdc powered.
Really good basic level publications on GNU Radio that will allow the majority of ham operators to understand and use this powerful tool.
Educate Technician class operators about the world of ham radio beyond a cheap handheld to kerchunk local repeaters.

W6US’s #1 is a challenge (or, a “fertile area of experimentation”) to get to 100 GHz. The max frequency of two reasonably-priced, small, USB-powered Software Defined Transceivers - ADALM-PLUTO and LimeSDR Mini 2.0 is 3.8 GHz. A series of “simple” transverters based on exacting printed circuit board fabrication is probably feasible.

I plan to address W6US’s #3 partially (or comprehensively) in my book (in progress) Zero Retries Guide to 21st Century Amateur Radio. But I also identified a need for a more focused book for prospective and new NewTechHams loosely titled “I’m a Ham - Now What?“ that addresses all of the Zero Retries Interesting aspects of Amateur Radio that are relatively easy and inexpensive. Examples:

Build a TinyGS LoRa-based satellite ground station,
Use Ribbit for easy data communications using a smartphone app with any portable radio
Build a simple, inexpensive WSPR receiver, and
Build your own inexpensive, high performance VHF / UHF omnidirectional outdoor antenna (scroll to bottom of page).

Bob Witte K0NR

(Significantly paraphrased)

Don’t lead with EMCOM. Served agency EMCOM is naturally declining. Encourage personal EMCOM capabilities.
Follow up with the FCC on regulatory relief of symbol rate limits and bandwidth limit on the VHF / UHF bands will enable innovation in faster data transmissions on those .

Douglas Datwyler WR7O

(Significantly paraphrased)

Pay attention to the commercial interests that will make anything we do moot. If we aren’t watching, ham radio frequencies will be taken.
Encourage LoRa / CSS used in Meshtastic, Meshtastic, MeshCore, and others that are still to come. Operate them on any band we can (after bandwidth/data rate constraints are lifted).
Encourage / use AREDN on 902-928 MHz band when, for those like me, using 5 GHz isn’t feasible (terrain or tree cover).

Alexander von Obert DL4NO

(Significantly paraphrased)

Don’t lead with EMCOM. Served agency EMCOM is naturally declining. Encourage personal EMCOM capabilities.

Dan Romanchik KB6NU

(Significantly paraphrased)

An “omnibus” web reference for Amateur Radio is AC6V’s Amateur Radio & DX Guide. Although its creator Rod Dinkins A6CV (Rod’s son Jeff now has AV6V) has passed, this website is still online. AC6V.Com was really a monumental achievement. Recreating that, even if you could build on top of what’s already there would take a team many hours to complete and maintain.

Ben Kuhn KU0HN

(Significantly paraphrased)

1. Rules updates to bring part 97 in to the realities of 2026. Part of this would be removal of symbol rate and bandwidth limits. The other regulatory issue is encryption. Part 97.1 (b) is “Continuation and extension of the amateur’s proven ability to contribute to the advancement of the radio art.” and (c) is “Encouragement and improvement of the amateur service through rules which provide for advancing skills in both the communication and technical phases of the art.” A lack of encryption also makes amateur radio incompatible with modern internet technologies, which is a major turn off to NewTechHams. The FCC could loosen the rules a bit and permit encryption on specific bands or with specific power levels to provide for experimentation. They should also both permit and encourage encryption for controlling equipment remotely. Another solution that would also help address the cultural issues is if organization with authoritative standing in the US would both provide a service similar to what RAC has done at https://www.rac.ca/public-encryption-keys/ and publish guidelines about how encryption and cryptography can be used legally.

2. Outreach to groups where technically-minded folks congregate - makerspaces, Linux user groups, engineering conferences, technical conferences, etc.

3. More/better documentation on GNURadio, and hardware with useful power levels to use it. LinHT is a great start, but more bands/power, would really drive adoption. Something in a larger form-factor would be fine.

Chuck Hast KP4DJT

(Significantly paraphrased)

Remove symbol rate restrictions on US Amateur Radio. Use of encryption such as HTTPS, SSL, and SFTP is required for using common applications and Internet connectivity such as AREDN and other networks.
Amateur Radio demonstrated and used in schools provides students a place
to do actual work with radio technology in common use today. We should promote Amateur Radio groups in schools, universities and other institutions.
Young people are interested in digital radio technology and operations, rather than legacy Amateur Radio technology and operations.

Loïc Fejoz F4JXQ

Out of those readings and my personal history, I have written a manifesto of HamRadio for the XXI°:https://w.fejoz.net/radio/2026/01/31/hamradio-manifesto/. Trying to summarize it here as 3 axis to develop I would pick:

An “Open Stack” and Modular RF Pile
Mesh Networks and Technological Resilience
RF Hacking and STEM Education

In his article, F4JXQ did a masterful job in thinking through his top priorities. I decided to excerpt it full as the second item in ZR > BEACON below.

Part 2 will appear in Zero Retries 0238, scheduled for publication on Friday 2026-02-13.

Please direct comments / feedback about this article to the Zero Retries email list with the #ZR0237 hashtag.

Petition for Rulemaking Filed with FCC to Permit Limited Use of Cryptographic Protection for Certain Amateur Emergency and Resiliency Communications

I received this from a Zero Retries reader who watches Amateur Radio filings at the FCC:

A petition was filed late last year concerning encryption in amateur radio.

https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/document/122533192529/1

Before the
Federal Communications Commission
Washington, D.C. 20554
Petition for Rulemaking
In the Matter of:
Amendment of Part 97 to Permit Limited Use of Cryptographic Protection for Certain Amateur Emergency and Resiliency Communications
Petitioner: Justin Sostre
Call Sign: W5NKR
...

The FCC hasn’t given this a RM number, and may not do so, and only if a RM is assigned would the FCC take comments on it.

W5NKR’s petition is 12 pages and provides some interesting perspectives:

Broad use of encryption by any Amateur Radio Operator during “Emergency and resiliency operations”,
“Non-emergency / non-resiliency” use of encryption:
- Is reserved for Amateur Radio Extra class licensees,
- Can only be used on Amateur Radio spectrum above 28 MHz (10 meters),
- Transmissions using encryption are limited to 100 watts with “duty cycle restrictions” (?),
- Restricted to communications within the US, and
- Key retention for 90 days (minimum).

My personal, very cursory, very preliminary commentary follows.

I’m not opposed to the use of encryption in Amateur Radio, especially in this era. There are some valid reasons for use of encryption.
- One primary... need... for at least some encryption being permitted is that Amateur Radio networks are increasingly interconnected with the Internet, and Internet protocols now by default... and increasingly by requirement, incorporate encryption. I don’t think it’s possible to “shell into” any server on the Internet without the use of encryption (Secure Shell - ssh, versus the old, non-encrypted Telnet protocol). There are very few websites that don’t require the use of HyperText Transfer Protocol - Secure (https)... including the FCC website. The FCC website is the “ultimate source of truth” about the validity of an Amateur Radio Operator’s license status.
- Current FCC regulations allow the use of encryption for managing satellites given that a satellite is a high value, unique Amateur Radio system, and theoretically, a malicious command could cause an Amateur Radio satellite to de-orbit. Thus it’s a reasonable extension of the use of encryption to manage other high value, “subject to malicious command” Amateur Radio systems such as repeaters, repeater interconnections, high profile (mesh) network nodes, updating software and firmware over Amateur Radio spectrum (including automatic updates), managing remote radio systems such as an HF radio that is remote-controlled for club use, etc.
- And, yes, of course, some emergency communications scenarios.

One of W5NKR’s stated goals is that use of encryption would create a “trusted” Amateur Radio communication capability. I kind of get that - I’ll guess that every reader has heard of cases of “spoofing” (false identification) being used in Amateur Radio - on repeaters, on HF, either someone using another Amateur’s callsign, or a imaginary callsign, or none at all.

But “trusted” communications do not necessarily have to be encrypted. There is also authentication, which hasn’t yet been very well explored in Amateur Radio. While it’s not actually authentication, many commercial and in public safety radio systems such as P25 and DMR, each radio transmits a unique radio identification in addition to a network identification. If a P25 or DMR radio is stolen, it can be “blacklisted” as having been stolen, and its ability to be used in a network (trunking repeaters) is limited. That radio ID is a limited form of authentication - it’s known that a specific radio identification is a specific (physical) radio. (Admittedly, this is a strained analogy.)

A better example of the use of authenticated transmissions in Amateur Radio is the experimental implementation of cryptographic signing in M17, discussed in Zero Retries 0159 - M17 Experimental Authentication Signatures:

Finally some good news regarding digital signatures. I’ve been experimenting with ST’s CMOX library and just got 160-bit ECDSA to run on the Module17. It takes around 8.25 ms to sign a 16-byte M17 voice stream digest. The signature can be appended to the voice stream. The curve used is Brainpool P-160 R1, with secp256r1 signing takes a tad under 15 ms.

Note this is experimental digital signature appended to a transmission in a manner similar (at least in my mind) to the way Forward Error Correction, or a Cyclical Redundancy Checksum (CRC) is also appended to a transmission. While the goal of the M17 experiment was to authenticate the sender of the transmission... it seems to me that the content of every transmission could be similarly authenticated with a “super CRC” (I’m sure there’s already a name for such technology).

My too-verbose point of the above is that encryption is not necessarily required if trusted communications (as opposed to private communications) is the goal.

I plan to study this proposal in depth in the coming week provide more in-depth commentary in a future issue of Zero Retries.

Please direct comments / feedback about this article to the Zero Retries email list with the #zr0237 and #encryption hashtags.

ZR > BEACON

By Steve Stroh N8GNJ

Short mentions of Zero Retries Interesting items.

Happy 10th Anniversary of MMDVM’s Creation

Jonathan Naylor G4KLX on the OpenDV email list:

Happy Birthday to us!

Well this is embarrassing..... Today [2026-01-15] marks the tenth anniversary of the first release of the MMDVM, plus one day. Despite putting the anniversary in my calendar, I completely failed to notice that the day had come and gone, it was yesterday the 14th January. So in 2016 I moved my source code from a private GitLab repository to a public GitHub one. An announcement was made on the old Yahoo! groups and waited for the bug reports. This is the commit from the MMDVM firmware:

commit dd17a47972192a0ff448fb6842b5bef1c783bd34
Author: Jonathan Naylor
Date: Thu Jan 14 18:57:21 2016 +0000 Initial commit

The first version only supported the Arduino Due as the modem hardware (hotspots would come later in the year), and the MMDVM Host would compile and run under Windows and Linux, and still does. The first version only supported D-Star and DMR, System Fusion and P25 phase 1 would appear later in 2016.

The D-Star side was straightforward to implement, I had been developing for that mode since 2009 and knew it well, but DMR represented a new level of complexity not just in the design of the protocol, but also in its requirements for timing synchronisation between the transmitter and receiver. I had it down to approximately 42 microseconds, and it was then that we found that the clock oscillator on the Due wasn’t good enough to maintain a proper lock. We were used to needing good oscillators for radio frequency setting, but needing it for proper operation of a modem operating at audio type frequencies was new to us.

In comparison all newer modes have been relatively simple to implement, although the documentation for the ham only modes has been lacking, and I do wonder if that was done to try and get competitive advantage, yes I’m looking at you Yaesu. Some companies even threatened me with law suits for implementing their on-air protocol, until I pointed out that US law doesn’t apply in the UK, yes I’m looking at you Yaesu.

Most companies I’ve dealt with have been really open and helpful, even if they didn’t want it publicised, but some have been completely closed to approaches, yes I’m looking at you Yaesu. I’m an Icom guy away from the MMDVM so it’s no skin off my nose.

One of the strangest requests I received came from a US federal agency that wanted to use my P25 work in their systems. Normally I would welcome such an approach, but that could put my work in the category of “safety of life” and I didn’t want that level of stress, after all the MMDVM is a hobby based system. I thanked them for their approach and suggested that they talk to Motorola for that level of support. I have worked on safety critical embedded systems and am familiar with the reliability requirements, but the MMDVM isn’t at that level, after all I wanted to have something written and working in months/years rather than in decades.

So here we are, ten years and one day later, the MMDVM has grown to encompass more modes, and gone in directions I never expected like POCSAG support. We don’t have exact numbers for the number of MMDVM systems out there, but we’re pretty sure that it is over 100,000 systems of all sorts running either as hotspots or as repeaters.

We’re currently working on new hardware and software, and the results will be exciting once they’re deemed good enough, this is thanks for an ARDC grant that has allowed us to investigate interesting new chips and then develop for them. We hope to have something to announce before the heat death of the universe.

I would like to have included a list of people who have contributed to the MMDVM over the years, but it would be a huge list, and I would still be in danger of missing important players off. So all I can say is, you know who you are, and I thank you for all of your support over the years. The loss of the old Yahoo! group messages hasn’t helped matters either.

Multi Mode Digital Voice Modem (MMDVM) is truly a remarkable achievement and a primary example of technological innovation in Amateur Radio... that probably no one would have thought possible, until G4KLX did it. Before MMDVM, typical (and probably current) commercial / government practice of “integrating” multiple modes, or “interoperability” was to purchase one of every different kind of radio, and add a simple audio / control cross-connect matrix. I’ve seen this approach implemented in numerous emergency communications vehicles, an entire rack of radios.

Thus Amateur Radio, using MMDVM, is way, way ahead of the commercial state of the art. I’ll guess that MMDVM’s Open Source code has by now found its way into Software Defined Receivers (or could...) so that we can have “all channel / any mode” receivers, such as KA9Q has discussed in his personal system using his ka9q-radio project where he decodes and records all of the activity on Amateur Radio repeaters in the San Diego, California area.

I’ve periodically followed, and communicated with G4KLX and others involved in MMDVM development, and the stuff they’re working on currently as a result of their latest grant from ARDC is... next level... like transcoding between many (but unfortunately, not all) Amateur Radio digital voice systems, and using new and more capable radio chipsets.

While G4KLX certainly deserves the credit for doing the work on MMDVM... I think there’s also some credit due to ARDC for funding two grants, in 2023 and 2024 (search for MMDVM) to fund G4KLX being able to return to focused work on updating and extending the technology underpinning MMDVM.

Hamradio Manifesto: From Utility to Creativity

Loïc Fejoz F4JXQ on his blog / website:

The current approach to amateur radio, focused on communication and disaster relief, is no longer sufficient to attract today’s technical profiles. This manifesto defines a strategic transition: moving from passive use to the design of resilient and innovative communication systems. It must return to what it was at its origin: the avant-garde of wireless experimentation. This manifesto proposes a return to a logic of construction by transforming the radio spectrum into a global innovation laboratory.

The Waves as a Creative Space

Public utility should no longer be our only selling point, but the result of our technical excellence.

Development axis: Prioritize the design of experimental digital protocols, signal processing optimized by the modern techniques available (MCU, CPU, DSP, GPU, FPGA, NPU, etc.).
Target: Captivate Makers, Hackers, and engineers by offering a prototyping environment.
The Vision: One no longer joins amateur radio to wait for a network failure, but to build what industry cannot, or is not interested in, inventing.

For an “Open Stack” and Modular RF Pile

The current market relies on closed proprietary equipment (black boxes). The priority is now the opening of all hardware and software layers.

Hardware/Software Decoupling: Separate the physical “Muscle” (amplifiers, filters) from the “Brain” (DSP, software). The user must be able to interchange their radio’s intelligence just as they change a Linux distribution.
Standardization: Allow developers to interact directly with the hardware via open APIs, standardize I/Q flows, and other flows between layers.
Accessibility: Encourage the development of fully open-source RF stacks to lower the barrier to entry for experimenters.

Mesh Networks and Technological Resilience

Develop a decentralized data infrastructure, independent of cellular networks and the commercial Internet, tolerant of delays and intermittency. The goal is to complement traditional traffic for more experimentation and diversity.

Independent Backbone: Create a world-wide HF/VHF data network, capable of carrying text and images without any dependence on critical infrastructure or the Internet.
Dynamic protocol negotiation – Hailing: Establish smart calling (hailing) channels. By dynamically announcing details, modulation, and application layers of the used protocol (through initiatives like HQFBP and its announcements), we enable unprecedented agility and diversity of modes, while maintaining interoperability.
Amateur Radio as a Service: Democratize access to the waves for operators without the possibility of fixed antennas via networks of remote stations shared in the cloud.

RF Hacking and STEM Education

Amateur radio must once again become the school of technical curiosity.

Protocol Analysis: Encourage reverse-engineering of radio protocols (proprietary IoT, LoRa, Sigfox, Bluetooth, Wifi, etc.) and satellite links to understand, learn, optimize, and secure.
STEAM 2.0 Kits: Develop “turnkey” pedagogical tools linking radio to popular or school education activities (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics).
Gamification: Modernize engagement through mobile applications like “POTA/SOTA/xOTA” as vectors for real-world hardware performance testing. These challenges must be designed to captivate 16-25 year olds as well as experienced professionals.

Conclusion: Building to be Useful

By prioritizing creativity and technical openness, we form a community of experts capable of responding to many technical innovation and usage challenges. This community is the engine that keeps the tool ready for emergencies. Paradoxically, it is through this creative transformation that amateur radio will find its full utility!

I can’t offer any significant context to offer, and certainly no criticism, of F4JXQ’s excellent and thought-provoking summation of Zero Retries Interesting / NewTechHams / Modern and future-oriented... view of what Amateur Radio should be aspiring towards.

Is The “Mini” Better for Data Modes? (Video)

Craig Lamparter KM6LYW on his KM6LYW Radio YouTube Channel (Home of the DigiPi Project):

Let’s compare the original Baofeng UV5R to the new Baofeng “Mini.” Which has a better receiver? Which is better for packet/APRS radio? We’ll test both along with a couple of Yaesu’s to find out!

I was fascinated with this video!

The referenced “Mini” is the Baofeng UV5R Mini (link from KM6LYW Radio YouTube channel). The context is the use of portable radios for use with the DigiPi project. The combination of the DigiPi and an All In One Connector (AIOC) makes for a low cost way to explore Amateur Radio data communications. The original Baofeng UV-5R was infamous for being susceptible to desense from any nearby source of significant radio energy, such as broadcast FM stations.

In a side-by-side comparison of an original UV-5R, a Yaesu portable radio, and the UV-5R Mini, the Mini does not suffer from the UV-5R’s desense problem. In fact, it worked nearly as well as the Yaesu in receiving 1200 bps AFSK packet radio transmissions (APRS) on 144.39 MHz.

OK... cool... nice that this unit isn’t “deaf” like the bigger, earlier version. But what’s the big deal?

Two UV-5R Minis, four antennas, batteries, USB-C charging cables, earpiece, etc. is $35 at Amazon!
(Link is from the KM6LYW Radio YouTube description.)

There’s some understandable cost savings from the vendor not supplying charger cradles (the battery has a USB-C connector) or AC to USB-C chargers... but even with those savings, that’s an insanely low cost of $17.50 per radio that (KM6LYW claims) performs pretty decently. What’s even more surprising is that the radios can be programmed (per the Amazon description) from a smartphone app via Bluetooth.

KM6LYW only briefly mentions that the audio adapter he used for his testing with the portable radios is an All In One Cable (AIOC) - a minimalist combination of audio adapter and programming adapter in one unit. An AIOC has a small form factor and integral connectors for use with portable radios. KM6LYW recommends an AIOC by Temporarily Offline, but I recommend the AIOC by NA6D.

At the moment, I don’t plan to use UV-5R Minis for anything serious... but they seem ideal, at least from a cost / performance aspect, for a number of very localized demonstration scenarios I have in mind. I also have a number of TNCs in Zero Retries Labs that I need to test out and see if they work, and the UV-5R Mini and a few easily fabricated cables seem ideal for that task.

A “quantity” 🤣 of UV-5R Minis are scheduled to arrive this weekend. More radios...

NASA Selects Participants to Track Artemis II Mission

The article names four individuals, all of whom I think are hams in North America:

Chris Swier (K1FSD, I think), South Dakota - https://www.qrz.com/db/K1FSD
Dan Slater AG6HF, I think), California - https://www.qrz.com/db/AG6HF
Loretta A Smalls (AJ6HQ, I think), California - https://www.qrz.com/db/AJ6HO
Scott Tilley (VE7TIL), Canada - https://www.qrz.com/db/VE7TIL

These were pretty cool too:

Non-Profit & Amateur Radio Organizations:

AMSAT Argentina, Argentina
AMSAT Deutschland, Germany
Amateur Radio Exploration Ground Station Consortium, Towson, Maryland
CAMRAS, Netherlands
Deep Space Exploration Society, Kiowa County, Colorado
Neu Golm Ground Station, Germany
Observation Radio Pleumeur-bodou, France

Official recognition from a US government agency that Amateur Radio is capable of materially contributing to space science and space communications!

A HamClock Server Alternatives Presages Many HamClock Options?

I was one of the first to spot the announcement of open-hamclock-server project early this week (including alerting Amateur Radio Newsline), and wow, that Zero Retries Interesting story just completely blew up in Amateur Radio media. Most Amateur Radio “general interest” YouTube channels covered this development pretty breathlessly, but I prefer to link to the more sober coverage of this development:

open-hamclock-backend Aims to Keep HamClock Ticking in Amateur Radio Daily2026-02-03
An Open-Source Effort To Salvage Hamclock in Amateur Radio Newsline Report 2519 for Friday, February 6th, 2026

An outgrowth of this development that I think most folks don’t understand (at least, I haven’t seen this possibility mentioned) is that now that “HamClock Server” has essentially been made open source...

anyone or any group can create a new, unique HamClock server - with varied and unique content being supplied to HamClock users.

For Amateur Radio data communications networks that operate on the TCP/IP (IPv4 - I’m guessing...) protocol could be used to supply HamClock displays with unique information from / about that network.

I’m certainly not committing (or seriously considering - yet) that I’ll develop a a Zero RetriesHamClock server to supply Zero Retries content to HamClock users... but I could. ARRL could do so for their fans. Less popular mode “spots” could be promoted via HamClock, such as M17 net schedules and active conversations. AREDN could provide network announcements. It will probably be possible, soon enough, to create a HamClock server with content specific to an audience of one - your own, unique source of content about your Amateur Radio systems, news that you specifically care about.

Let thousands of HamClock servers bloom!

Lastly, we HamClock fans owe a huge debt of Thanks to Silent Keyboard Elwood Downey WBØOEW for creating HamClock. Learning more about HamClock, WB0OEW must have been a heckuva server guru to supply data to many HamClock users worldwide. HamClock was a great example of technological innovation in Amateur Radio.

I also think that related debt of Thanks is due to Michael Burmeister-Brown of Inovato for creating the Quadra / Quadra 4K - inexpensive, turnkey units that could be dedicated to use as HamClock appliances. In my opinion, the availability of the Quadra and Quadra 4K popularized HamClock and brought it into widespread recognition and use because you didn’t have to share a computer to display HamClock. Unfortunately, Michael has announced that he has a terminal illness and is closing down Inovato.

New Comedy Podcast Tackles Ham Radio’s “Gatekeeping Problem” With Humor and Education

Amateur Radio Daily 2026-01-20:

New Comedy Podcast Tackles Ham Radio’s “Gatekeeping Problem” With Humor and Education

Guy and Gus launch innovative series as survey data reveals 73% of new operators feel intimidated by online ham radio communities

Orlando, FL – January 20, 2026 – As amateur radio experiences a post-pandemic surge in new licensees, a troubling trend has emerged: online communities have become battlegrounds where “real radio” debates and equipment tribalism drive newcomers away from a hobby designed around experimentation and connection.

Ham Radio Gizmos is tackling this challenge head-on with an innovative solution: a comedy podcast that makes learning fun again.

The show centers on twin brothers Guy and Gus Wyre, whose constant disagreements mirror the hobby’s most heated debates. Guy champions modern software-defined radios, digital modes, and computer integration. Gus lives for vintage tube equipment, heavy iron, and radios that glow before they transmit. Their sibling rivalry becomes the vehicle for education – proving both approaches have merit while reminding listeners that ham radio is big enough for everyone.

...

That... is something that I didn’t realize that Amateur Radio needed - a comedy podcast, especially with a Zero Retries Interesting perspective:

Guy champions modern software-defined radios, digital modes, and computer integration.

But as soon as I read about it... heck yeah... I’m sure that I’ll likely become a committed fan!

Explore the Stratosphere With a DIY Pico balloon
A tiny ham-radio transmitter lets you track a balloon globally

David Schneider N4LVD in IEEE Spectrum:

There’s an interesting development in amateur ballooning: using so-called superpressure balloons, which float high in the atmosphere indefinitely rather than simply going up and up and then popping like a normal weather balloon. Superpressure balloons can last for months and travel long distances, potentially circumnavigating the globe, all the while reporting their position.

You might imagine that an undertaking like this would be immensely difficult and cost thousands of dollars. In fact, you can build and launch such a balloon for about the cost of a fancy dinner out. You just have to think small! That’s why amateur balloonists call them pico balloons.

The payload of a pico balloon is so light (between 12 to 30 grams) that you can use a large Mylar party balloon filled with helium to lift it. They’re also inexpensive; that’s important because you won’t get your payload back. And because such diminutive payloads don’t pose a danger to aircraft, they aren’t subject to the many rules and restrictions on free-floating balloons that carry more mass.

The essential advances that made pico ballooning possible were figuring out how to track a balloon no matter where in the world it might be and how to power such tiny payloads. A lot of folks worked on these challenges and came up with good solutions that aren’t hard or expensive to reproduce.

N4LVD explains pico balloons and the technology elements in a matter of fact, but engaging style, which I envy. His bio states that he’s “... a former editor at IEEE Spectrum” and that shows. It took some digging into every link in the story until I found one that had a reference to his callsign.

Please offer comments / feedback about ZR > BEACON on the Zero Retries email list with the #ZR0237 hashtag.

Closing Thanks

My ongoing Thanks to:
Tina Stroh KD7WSF for, well, everything!
Jack Stroh, Late Night Assistant Editor Emeritus
Fiona and Shreky Stroh, Late Night Assistant Editors In Training

Founding Members who generously support Zero Retries financially:
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Permission to Reuse Zero Retries Content

This article is reprinted with permission. It was first published in Zero Retries newsletter, issue Zero Retries (number), (date) - (include full web link of the specific issue).

It’s appreciated (a courtesy, but not required) to notify Zero Retries Editor Steve Stroh N8GNJ of any reuse of Zero Retries content - editor@zeroretries.net.

If you’d like to republish an article in this issue for other uses, just ask.

Zero Retries 0237 was published on 2026-02-06. This issue was 8252 words.

(end)

Zero Retries 0236

Steve Stroh N8GNJ — Fri, 30 Jan 2026 23:30:00 GMT

Steve Stroh N8GNJ, Editor

This issue of Zero Retries was originally published on Ghost - https://www.zeroretries.radio/zero-retries-0236/. Thus all links that were for zeroretries.radio have (attempted to) been changed to equivalents on zeroretries.org.

See this archive page:
https://web.archive.org/web/20260412224105/https://www.zeroretries.radio/zero-retries-0236/
for how it originally appeared on www.zeroretries.radio

Substack says this issue is too big for email clients. Thus, it might be easier to read this in a web browser - https://www.zeroretries.org/p/zero-retries-0236-e57

In This Issue...

Breaking - ADRCS and TARPN Announce New Audio OFDM-based Mode for VHF / UHF Radios

What Would A New, More Advanced Amateur Radio VHF / UHF Data Mode Look Like?

Kenwood TM-D750A / TM-D750E Mobile Radio is Apparently Imminent

Dire Wolf supports higher speed data communications:

Request To Send

Paid Subscribers Update

Administrivia Note:

Paid Subscription renewals (automatic billing) are continuing on Substack until:

Potential domain name changes are completed, and
I can copy the email subscriber database from Substack to Ghost and begin email transmissions from Ghost, and
We are able to set up optional paid subscriptions in Ghost.

Once those tasks are completed, automatic billing will be turned off on Substack. Thanks for your understanding, and your ongoing financial support, while we work through the transition of Zero Retries from Substack to Ghost publishing platform.

My thanks to Newton White N4EWT for renewing as Founding Member Subscriber 0013 to Zero Retries in January!

Founding members are listed in every issue of Zero Retries!

My thanks to Paul Campbell KE7YK for renewing as an Annual Paid Subscriber to Zero Retries in January!

My thanks to Prefers to Remain Anonymous 119 for upgrading from a free subscriber to Zero Retries to an Annual Paid Subscriber in January!

My thanks to Prefers to Remain Anonymous 120 for upgrading from a free subscriber to Zero Retries to an Annual Paid Subscriber in January!

My thanks to Prefers to Remain Anonymous 20 for beginning their second year of being a Paid Subscriber to Zero Retries in January!

My thanks to Prefers to Remain Anonymous 64 for beginning their second year of being a Paid Subscriber to Zero Retries in January!

Financial support from Zero Retries readers is a significant vote of support for the continued publication of Zero Retries.

The Saga of the Conversion to Ghost and zeroretries.radio - Part 3

Some progress. The current URL is www.zeroretries.radio.

But zeroretries.radio (no www.) also now works thanks to the great and elegantly simple idea from Terry Hunt K4HNT of adding a CNAME for zeroretries.radio to redirect to www.zeroretries.radio. It works - click on the first link in this paragraph.

But I also got a great explanation / suggestion on using a .radio root domain like zeroretries.radio from Founding Member 0005 Ben Kuhn KU0HN:

The fix is to use a different DNS provider for your domain. That removes dotRadio’s infrastructure and limitations from the equation.

I’m using Cloudflare and their free DNS for my own dotRadio domain, and I use a cname for the root record to point at pages.dev which hosts my Hugo site. [Cloudflare is] able to handle root as a CNAME.

KU0HN understands the issue - ku0hn.radio.

Best of all, Ghost works with Cloudflare as a DNS to be able to use a root domain!

KU0HN has offered to tutor me, and I’m grateful for that offer. I’m dithering whether the current situation - www.zeroretries.radio working... and dealing with two entities - dotRadio domains and Ghost, is good enough. Or, is it worth the added complexity to get involved with Cloudflare as a third entity in the publication of Zero Retries?

To be continued...

Attending HamSCI 2026

Tina and I had such a good experience attending the HamSCI 2025 conference (in Newark, New Jersey, USA) that we decided to attend HamSCI 2026. That conference will be 2026-03-14 and 15 in New Britain, Connecticut, USA. Apparently HamSCI 2026 is not just located near ARRL Headquarters, but it will also be “Hosted by ARRL”.

Tina and I are looking forward to catching up with Zero Retries fans at this conference and perhaps arranging a meetup nearby? I’m looking forward to finally seeing ARRL HQ and W1AW.

I’m On The New ARDC Grants Communications Team

The 2026 (inaugural) ARDC Grants Communications Team has now had its first meeting, and the 2026 team is now listed on ARDC’s Who We Are page:

2026 Grants Communications Team (GCT)
Staff Lead: Adam Zimmel – W0ZML
Jayadevan Gurubalan – VU33JD
Steve Stroh – N8GNJ
James Ewing – KC1UDQ
Stuart Murray – NV4T

When the announcement went out for the formation of the ARDC Grants Communications Team (GCT), I volunteered. The GCT was a substantive answer to a longstanding “missing piece” of ARDC’s grantmaking. Namely... how did each ARDC grant ultimately work out? Not to mention that I had complained about this issue several times to various ARDC staff, and once they created a volunteer group to answer my plaint... it was only fair that I volunteer.

The GCT is the third of three volunteer teams involved with ARDC grants. The Grants Advisory Committee (GAC) evaluates incoming grants and recommends whether ARDC should fund a grant proposal, or not. (I served on the GAC for two years, and it’s hard work.) The Grants Evaluation Team (GET) evaluates completed (or, sometimes, not completed) grants as to whether they met the goals of the grant proposal, or not. The GET’s evaluations are (as I understand it) used internally within ARDC and are not made public.

The job of the brand new GCT is “close the loop” - write up a brief concluding “story” about each grant for public consumption to be added to the initial grant description so folks browsing ARDC’s Awarded Grants will have some idea of how a grant turned out, perhaps as a basis for applying for a similar grant from ARDC. And, sometimes, it’s just fun to read “the rest of the story”. For example, I’ll be fascinated to read... or perhaps write, the conclusion of the MIT’s W1MX “Big Dish” restoration. I’m also looking forward to posting “the rest of the story” of this potentially significant R&D grant (which, per a private query to ARDC, didn’t ultimately work out).

I’m looking forward to working with the other members of the GCT - we’re a neat group of people including getting reacquainted with James Ewing KC1UDQ who is involved with 802.11ah / Wi-Fi HaLow technology.

The Emerging ‘Technification’ of Amateur Radio

On 2025-01-20, I did a presentation (references later in this issue) via Zoom to the Wellesley Amateur Radio Society (WARS) iWellesley, Massachusetts, USA) titled (per their suggestion) The Emerging ‘Technification’ of Amateur Radio.

It’s still in my queue to populate the slide deck with relevant web links for the projects and subjects that I highlighted, and send it to WARS. The meeting was recorded, but I don’t see a YouTube (or other video presence) for WARS where the video would be posted. I’ll post my version of the slide deck when the conversion from Substack to Ghost is further along.

What’s fun about doing such presentations is although I discuss the same general themes, every one is different because technological innovation in Amateur Radio is occurring continuously... sometimes dramatically different in the space of a week.

For this audience, and this title, I created a couple of new slides, the content of which are below.

Forces Driving ‘Technification’
N8GNJ’s Take

Cheap computing power has created radio technologies that we had not imagined….
- Well, some had imagined, but didn’t have the technology (then) to make happen
- Radios are now computers - with antennas!
- OFDM isn’t a mode that was possible in earlier eras - requires significant compute capability to manage subcarriers individually.
- The current (younger) demographic in society favors data modes.
- Open source is an amplifying effect - develop in public, get help, build community.
- NewTechHams is the most powerful factor
- Now we’re in entirely new territory for digital communications
  - Previous step changes were microprocessors, DSP, Software Defined Radio
- Now we’re in the era of AI and Machine Learning
  - Can easily be embedded, not cloud! Raspberry Pi just announced Raspberry Pi AI HAT+ 2
- Embedded AI / ML will enable Vibe coding. Crude now, but today is the worst it’s ever going to be.
- GNU Radio 4 will be AI enabled
- What can’t we do - anything that a human can do to make an effective communications system
  - We have dozens or perhaps hundreds of data modes. We’re still developing them.
  - What happens if we put them all into an AI blender and ask it to create new ones or a synthesis of all of them?

Great Meeting with Professor Andy Klein of Western Washington University

In Zero Retries 0225 I wrote a brief mention of (local, to me, in Bellingham, Washington, USA) Western Washington University Develops Electrical and Computer Engineering Department (EECE).

I speculated that incorporating “Zero Retries Interesting” aspects of Amateur Radio might be useful to EECE students, especially to students choosing the (offered) specialization of Wireless Networking and Signal Processing.

Last week I met with EECE’s Department Chair, Professor Andy Klein KG7WFT on the campus of Western Washington University. We had a really productive and fun meeting, and we agreed that some of my ideas regarding Amateur Radio in the EECE curriculum had merit. It’s very high in my queue to follow up with a proposal to Professor Klein.

Please direct comments / feedback about Request To Send on the Zero Retries email list with the #ZR0236 hashtag.

Breaking - ADRCS and TARPN Announce New Audio OFDM-based Mode for VHF / UHF Radios

Press Announcement from Alberta Digital Radio Communications Society (ADRCS - “The Society”):

Calgary, Alberta, January 30th 2026
The Society is pleased to announce that it is collaborating with the Terrestrial Amateur Radio Packet Network group (TARPN) to implement an audio band version of [ADRCS’] OFDM technology in [TARPN’s] Terminal Node Controller (TNC) [NinoTNC]. “Adding the TNC rounds out the vision of the Supernode that we presented at the Zero Retries Digital Conference last September and extends the functionality of the IP400 network to conventional radios on the 2M, 220 and 450 MHz bands, without any modifications”, says Martin Alcock, VE6VH, founder of the IP400 project.

“Adding OFDM to our TNC gives us a higher speed mode than previously implemented and practical experience with OFDM”, says Nino Carrillo, KK4HEJ, creator of the TNC. Martin goes on to say “in addition it will give us access to proven KISS mode technology that will greatly enhance the utility of our existing nodes in delivering higher data rates for conventional packet radio applications on existing terrestrial networks”.

Supporting background information (not included with Press Announcement):

Wikipedia - Orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing
ADRCS IP400 400 MHz Mesh Network Project page
NinoTNC Info Page
ADRCS Presentation (video and slide deck) at Zero Retries Digital Conference 2026
GitHub Source code Site; there is also a (private) developer GitHub site for development / pre-release code; send email to learn more about becoming a developer and request access to the developer GitHub site.
IP400Developers email list

In a brief email exchange with VE6VH after receiving this announcement, I clarified some points.

This new OFDM-based mode is in the early stages of specification and development. Although no data speeds have yet been established, the new OFDM modulation will enable data speeds

... higher than is currently being delivered on the [NinoTNC].

Also, VE6VH clarified that this new OFDM-based mode, over the air, will use the IP400 frame format. On the computer connection...

The TNC interface will still be AX.25 frames using KISS, as it is today. They will be reformatted internally to IP400 OFDM frames, similar to what he does today with IL2P.

Thus, after loading this new OFDM-based mode (IP400-NinoTNC?) firmware onto a NinoTNC , it will not be compatible / interoperable [on air] with any other Amateur Radio data (or digital voice) modulation currently in use in Amateur Radio.

Although this new OFDM-based mode can be used “standalone” (between two or more IP400-NinoTNCs), the bigger picture for this new capability seems to be for “IP400-NinoTNCs” paired with conventional VHF / UHF FM radios to be an inexpensive, entry level access to a tiered IP400 Mesh Network consisting of:

IP400-NinoTNCs using (various band) VHF / UHF FM radios,
IP400 Power Nodes operating on 420-450 MHz (minimum data speed 100 kbps),
IP400 Supernodes
- Provides access for IP400-NinoTNCs,
- Provides access for IP400 Power Nodes,
- Interconnect to other IP400 Supernodes / Repeaters via IP400 high speed 2.39 GHz links.

Not mentioned, but a likely extrapolation, is that this new OFDM-based mode is a win for TARPN Networks. Connections in such networks are solely point-to-point links. Likely the use of OFDM modulation will enable links, with no change in hardware, to able to operate at higher data speeds than is currently feasible with “fixed” data speed modulations as currently implemented in the NinoTNC.

Kudos to ADRCS, VE6VH, TARPN, and KK4HEJ for this development! As demonstrated in a growing number of digital modes on Amateur Radio, “audio band” OFDM enables new capabilities in Amateur Radio data (and digital voice) communications.

Please direct comments / feedback about this article to the Zero Retries email list with the #ZR0236 hashtag.

What Would A New, More Advanced Amateur Radio VHF / UHF Data Mode Look Like?

By Steve Stroh N8GNJ

I had an email conversation with a very knowledgeable Amateur Radio Operator who has an engineering background and lots of deep knowledge about digital communication via radio.

I mentioned that the “current hotness” in Amateur Radio VHF / UHF was VARA FM. (I really gotta get that Zero Retries Guide finished so I can link to something more substantive than the VARA software distribution site that’s inscrutable for newcomers to VARA FM.) My correspondent replied to the effect that none of the technologies (OFDM, etc.) incorporated into VARA FM is that remarkable or unique.

I replied that while their statement is accurate, VARA FM is “winning” in Amateur Radio because it works better than any other higher speed data mode in Amateur Radio VHF / UHF.

What VARA FM Does Well

From a very high level, what VARA FM does better than any other Amateur Radio higher speed data mode to date is to integrate / interleave a number of existing techniques for data communications, such as (not an exhaustive list):

Implements Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) in the audio passband of a typical VHF / UHF FM radio. OFDM’s use of subcarriers, each which are independently modulated and decoded, is astonishingly robust compared to earlier, simpler data modulations.
When used with a radio with a flat audio interface (or modification) and a high fidelity audio interface, can achieve 25 kbps on a standard VHF / UHF FM channel, including 12.5 kHz channels. VARA FM terminology for this combination is “WIDE”.
When used with nearly any VHF / UHF FM radio using microphone / speaker connections and any audio interface, can achieve 12+ kbps on a standard VHF / UHF FM channel, including 12.5 kHz. VARA FM terminology for this combination is “NARROW”. This is pretty remarkable considering that previous higher speed data modes such as 9600 bps Frequency Shift Keying (FSK) required a flat audio connection.
WIDE and NARROW VARA FM systems can interoperate because VARA FM does a handshake before each connection to establish fastest common speed (including synchronizing modulation methods - see next bullet), and then the WIDE station “downshifts” to “NARROW” to complete the communication.
VARA FM “upshifts” and “downshifts” using different modulation methods as necessary. If VARA FM’s fastest mode isn’t working, it “downshifts” until it can pass data reliably.
VARA FM implements Forward Error Correction (FEC) which is integral, not optional. Thus single bit errors never impact a communication.
The existence of VARA FM (and VARA HF) has spawned an amazing application called VarAC which implements a very nice user interface and email, bulletins, file transfers, short messages, and many more capabilities. Currently, VarAC only works with VARA FM and VARA HF.
VARA FM has a network effect, that as more and more stations use it, more and more stations are incentivized to try it out. No other Amateur Radio higher speed data mode on VHF / UHF is currently experiencing such a network effect, except, arguably, Meshtastic / Meshcore (explosive growth is mostly on unlicensed spectrum such as 902-928 MHz) and AREDN (microwave).

There are other features of VARA FM that make it so capable, but those listed above are enough to make the point that there isn’t any system currently available in Amateur Radio VHF / UHF data communications that is competitive.

Equivalent Capabilities of VARA FM in Packet Radio

There are some Amateur Radio data communications systems that are equivalent to some of the capabilities of VARA FM:

There are data modes that are faster than 1200 bps AFSK that can be used with most VHF / UHF FM radios with microphone / speaker connections (though nothing approaching 12+ kbps).
There are current implementations of data modes with speeds of 9600 bps and faster.
There are current implementations of Forward Error Correction in Amateur Radio data communications systems. However, FEC is not (yet) widely used because it’s not standard (though Packet Radio systems that implement FX.25 are backwards compatible with Packet Radio systems with no FEC).
Dire Wolf is notably more reliable than any hardware TNCs used for Packet Radio because of its internal “check for flipped bits, and correct such errors” capability. Two Dire Wolf systems exchanging data at faster data rates with FEC probably work very well.
Over the decades of Packet Radio, there have been many different network systems compatible such as Net/ROM / TheNET, ROSE, FlexNet, etc.
There are current, and pending implementations of OFDM in VHF / UHF FM audio spectrum,

While all of the above capabilities could be integrated into a single system that could be equivalent to the elements integrated so well in VARA FM.... that hasn’t been done to date, and (to my knowledge) no one / no group is working on doing so.

Why?

There’s a disincentive to even try developing such a system because VARA FM already exists and works so well. Any new system would be “competing” against VARA FM. For the “mass use case”, VARA FM is available now, works well, easy (enough) to implement for average users (it’s a Windows app), and there’s a lot of peer support available.
Many EMCOM groups have standardized on VARA FM, especially for Winlink access on VHF / UHF. The primary selling point for VARA FM with Winlink is that for the minor investment of an audio interface such as SignaLink USB to replace a TNC, and the one-time purchase of a VARA license key, access to Winlink on VHF / UHF becomes faster and more reliable.
Integrating all of those techniques into a single system would be a lot of work.
Those who have created existing capabilities, such as the faster data speeds, are content with what they’ve implemented to date, and don’t see the need for further improvement.

One reason for VARA FM technology choices is that VARA’s author chose not to incorporate almost any backwards compatibility with legacy Packet Radio technology. (The VARA software does provide a KISS interface. Thus Packet Radio applications that can communicate via a KISS interface can work over VARA.)

What Could Cause This Status Quo To Improve?

VARA FM, for all its capabilities, isn’t universally accepted in Amateur Radio. Some reasons for that are:

It’s a proprietary system; it’s not Open Source, it’s only available from a single source, single developer software, with no transparent process for bug fixes or (requested) improvements.
It operates only on Windows (though some have been able to run it on Linux using WINE),
To use the highest speed capabilities requires the payment to VARA’s developer to purchase a license key,
It’s not fast enough; it is possible to do faster data rates than VARA FM’s maximum speed of 25 kbps on VHF / UHF,
VARA FM is essentially a station to station file transfer system rather than a network system (though it has elements of networking, such as digipeating).

To be transparent, I personally don’t consider any of the above issues to be reasons not to use VARA FM. I applaud what VARA FM’s author has created and how well VARA FM actually works on Amateur Radio VHF / UHF FM radios and channels. I’m a fan of Open Source and all of the reasons to use it and embrace it and I promote Open Source as much as possible. In my personal usage, I’m agnostic about using both proprietary systems (Zero Retries is written using a Mac using MacOS) and Open Source systems.

Thus there are many folks who prefer to use Packet Radio technologies for Amateur Radio data communications on VHF / UHF because:

Packet Radio technology is (mostly) open source,
Packet Radio technology is (mostly) backwards compatible, including using legacy hardware that still works, such as TNCs,
Anyone who has an idea can “innovate within the framework” of Packet Radio technology. Folks are still creating unique new devices such as new APRS trackers, new TNCs, some radios are now including Packet Radio TNCs, there are new software implementations, new (and old) networking protocols, etc.

Besides VARA FM, there are some systems already available, and some in development for Amateur Radio VHF / UHF to implement more advanced data communications. Following is a survey of various “faster” data communications systems used on Amateur Radio VHF / UHF channels.

Note that there are many implementations of 9600 bps Frequency Shift Keying Packet Radio. Those systems are widely known (example - the Kenwood TM-D700 / TM-D710 series of radios). The following systems are generally faster, and less widely known. This is a general survey, deliberately light on details.

WA4DSY 56k Radio Modem

It’s largely forgotten now, but the first widely used “faster than Packet Radio” data communications mode on Amateur Radio VHF / UHF was the WA4DSY 56k Radio Modem. This was a system whose data rate was 56 kbps, and could be used on any VHF / UHF band. The WA4DSY modems could easily be configured as a full duplex repeater (there was the issue of needing a duplexer configured for 100 kHz channels). WA4DSY 56k repeaters were deployed in a number cities in North America, including an independently developed, but compatible system in Vancouver, British Columbia. The WA4DSY 56k systems fell out of favor and were eventually removed from service because the modem’s output was on 28 MHz and thus required an expensive 28 MHz to (band of choice) transverter for VHF / UHF operation. In addition, the data interface (designed for the early 4.77 MHz PCs) required a unique interface board. But in this era, all of those hardware dependent issues could be vastly simplified.

Icom D-Star Digital Data

Icom has made very little mention over the past decade of its unique higher speed data communications (128 kbps) capability called D-Star Digital Data - “DD mode”. DD was first implemented in Icom’s (now discontinued) ID-1 radios that debuted in 2004 and operated on 1240-1300 MHz (23 centimeters).

DD mode was innovative when it debuted. It operated as a transparent Ethernet to RF bridge. DD mode is very simple - no routing, no filtering, no TCP/IP protocol stack, etc.:

Ethernet packets <-> RF transmit / receive.

One reason to consider DD mode is that Icom has offered a series of 1240-1300 MHz repeaters compatible with DD mode, including the current “third generation” repeaters to be able to create a radio Local Area Network. DD mode is included in the Icom IC-9700 and IC-905. Unfortunately, in the more than two decades since the ID-1 debuted, Icom has not improved DD, and that lack of advancement in DD mode’s capabilities has left it behind in comparison to other faster data modes such as New Packet Radio.

New Packet Radio

Despite the name, New Packet Radio (NPR) has no backwards compatibility with legacy Packet Radio technology. Unlike VARA FM and typical Packet Radio technology, and like the Icom radios with DD mode, New Packet Radio is a unique data radio.

NPR provides up to 1 Mbps data rate, but it requires a 1 MHz channel to do so. NPR’s minimum speed is 56 kbps (for US users on 420-450 MHz) or 100 kbps (everywhere but US), using a 100 kHz channel. NPR has much to recommend it - it’s native TCP/IP using IPv4, the hardware uses an Ethernet interface, and new NPR radios for 144-148 MHz (2 meters) and 1240-1300 MHz (23 centimeters) are now available in addition to 420-450 MHz (70 centimeters) from Localino (NPR-H 3.0 units). NPR has its own hub (analogous to a well-located digipeater) networking capability by configuring one unit as a control node. The original NPR technology, including the networking, is Open Source, and being based on TCP/IP, could easily be configured to operate cross-band with a simple router.

AREDN on 902-928 MHz

AREDN’s first Production software release of 2026 - 4.26.1.0 includes support for some 802.11ah / Wi-Fi HaLow devices that operate on the 902-928 MHz band (North America) at data rates up to 325 Mbps. Amateur Radio is a licensed user of the 902-928 MHz band and can use amplifiers to achieve higher ranges and higher reliability than unlicensed users. As of 4.26.1.0, AREDN devices now use the Babel mesh networking protocol for much greater reliability and far less “chatter” on AREDN networks, which has proven to provide much greater throughput and network reliability than AREDN networks using the previous mesh networking protocol (OLSR).

LinHT Experimental Data Mode

The Linux Handheld Transceiver is a project of the M17 Foundation and M17 Project currently in development as an Open Source Software Defined Transceiver. For proof of concept demonstration, the developers chose to implement the prototype LinHT in the form factor of a portable radio (Retevis C62). LinHT is implemented as a replacement circuit board for that radio. Notably, LinHT supports GNU Radio flowgraphs.

In the prototype / proof of concept stage, the LinHT developers have implemented a new, unique, high speed data mode:

Supported modes (current status)
...
🧪 Experimental 64-QAM @ 2 Mbps

IP400 Mesh Network Project

Per the (recently refreshed) IP400 Mesh Network Project website:

The next phase is the development of a node that will bridge the analog and digital worlds together, offering three different data modes, a compatible mode for an existing TNC, the IP400 network mode, and a high speed modem for linking purposes. This modem will provide speeds in excess of 1Mb/s initially, with an eventual goal of 40Mb/s

The primary band supported by IP400 is the 420-450 MHz (70 cm) band (430-450 MHz in Canada, where IP400 is being developed), with later systems operating on the 902-928 MHz (33 cm) band, and 2.39 GHz.

(I wrote the above prior to notification of the cooperation between IP400 and NinoTNC for incorporating OFDM into the NinoTNC that was announced today.)

Kantronics 9612XE

The Kantronics 9612XE is a TNC and successor to the venerable KPC-9612 product line. This mention caught my attention:

Port 2 supports 4800, 9600, 19200, 38400 bps with GMSK/DFSK modulation

See the item in ZR > BEACON later in this issue for more interesting info about the 9612XE.

MMDVM-TNC

MMDVM-TNC is replacement firmware for MMDVM modems. For details, see MMDVM-TNC is (Kind of) Real in Zero Retries 0175. MMDVM-TNC can operate at higher data speeds such as 14400 bps, 19200 bps, 24000 bps, 28800 bps, 33600, and 38400 bps. MMDVM-TNC (proposed new name - GTDATA) uses VHF / UHF FM radios with flat audio connections. MMDVM-TNC’s highest speeds may require a radio with higher audio bandwidth and a 25 kHz channel. The MMDVM project is evaluating the use of newer, more capable and flexible radio chipsets for MMDVM radio hotspots. These newer chipsets may improve the feasibility of MMDVM-TNC, especially the highest speed modes.

Rhizomatica Mercury Modem

Mercury modem is an application for audio adapters to provide a robust, adaptive data communications mode on HF, providing data rates up to 5735 bps. Mercury was designed as a “workalike” mode for VARA HF, but unlike VARA HF, Mercury is Open Source.

I have have had discussions with the Mercury developers and they state there is nothing structural that would prevent Mercury from being able to be scaled to faster data rates on the wider, quieter channels available on VHF / UHF, but such a mode isn’t currently on their development roadmap.

Faster Data Rates in Dire Wolf Software TNC

Dire Wolf is an application for audio adapters to provide robust Packet Radio data communications modes on VHF / UHF FM. Dire Wolf features a unique, integral “test and correct for single bit errors” capability that makes Dire Wolf more reliable for Packet Radio communications even without use of Forward Error Correction (FEC)... which Dire Wolf also supports - both FX.25 and IL2P.

Data rates: 9600, 14400, 19200, 28800, 38400 bps.

Conclusion

There are a variety of higher speed data communications modes / technologies available for use or “prior art” (such as WA4DSY 56k Radio Modem) for Amateur Radio VHF / UHF that could be used as building blocks for new, adaptive, higher speed data modes similar in functionality and capability to VARA FM. Many of these systems are available as Open Source.

Many of these systems were developed prior to, or in the early stages of significantly more capable technology that can be applied in the mid-2020s:

Very fast and relatively inexpensive compute power, including CPUs, GPUs, and FPGAs,
Software Defined Radio / Transceiver techniques and systems / chipsets,
Community development systems such as Github,
Vastly improved networking technology such as AREDN’s new use of Babel mesh networking, and even the potential to use IPv6. Not to mention a rich history of legacy networking for low speed data such as Net/ROM / TheNET.
The potential for Artificial Intelligence to develop new systems (Vibe Coding), and Machine Learning techniques to (potentially) add adaptive behavior.

Thus Amateur Radio spectrum, the Amateur Radio services in all countries, and Amateur Radio Operators provide...

a fertile, promising area for research and development of new radio systems for data communications.

Please offer comments / feedback about this article on the Zero Retries email list with the #ZR0236 hashtag.

Kenwood TM-D750A / TM-D750E Mobile Radio is Apparently Imminent

By Steve Stroh N8GNJ

The Kenwood TM-D750A (US) and TM-D750E (Europe) is the “successor” to the beloved, and mourned, Kenwood TM-D710GA “APRS” radio that was discontinued several years ago. It has been rumored, teased, and anticipated for more than a year. It’s been Zero Retries Interesting because it would (potentially) be one of the few “data capable” radios in (new) production.

Just prior to being available for sale, radio and digital device manufacturers are required to post type certification information with the FCC, including a user manual (for consumer devices such as this radio).

Per the flurry of YouTube videos, each one more breathless than the last, the Kenwood TM-D750A / TM-D750E radios will soon to be available for sale. All of the YouTube creators are basically regurgitating features and specifications from the TM-D750A / TM-D750E USER GUIDE posted on the FCC website.

The only video I saw on the subject that was reasonable enough to link to to the source material was from Digital Rancher - Robert Theiss W5ITR, who provided this info in the text accompanying the video:

https://www.fcc.gov/oet/ea/fccid
[Type in] Grantee Code K44 and Product code 524000

Some Zero Retries Interesting news for this radio from keyword searching and skimming the manual:

It does have the standard 6-pin MiniDIN Flat Audio connector (AKA “Data jack” / “9600 jack”) for connecting external modems / TNCs / audio adapters (see Page 5-7):
- DATA Connector
  This is the data input/output terminal. Used to operate the EchoLink node station by connecting to a PC, or to connect to the external TNC.
  For details on the “DATA connector”, refer to the USER MANUAL.
- The “USER MANUAL” is not yet available (that I could find) for further detail.
The GPS receiver (Supported Satellite GPS/QZSS/Galileo) is apparently internal to the radio unit, with an external GPS connector on the back panel (see Page 5-7). (QZSS is Japan’s Global Navigation Satellite System.)
Inferring that this radio supports D-Star DV Fast Data mode (see Page 5-6):
- DATA
  Appears while in data communications mode.
  Blinks while receiving fast data.
It does have an internal 1200 bps / 9600 bps Packet Radio TNC, that can be used in “APRS” or “KISS” mode (see page 5-4):
- APRS 12 Appears when the packet speed is set to 1200 bps in APRS mode.
- APRS 96 Appears when the packet speed is set to 9600 bps in APRS mode.
- KISS 12 Appears when the packet speed is set to 1200 bps in KISS mode.
- KISS 96 Appears when the packet speed is set to 9600 bps in APRS mode.
This was a curious “feature” (see Page 2-1) for a mobile radio:
- Supports battery charging and data transfer via USB Type-C
  (I suspect that’s a typo / carryover from the feature set of the Kenwood TH-D75A portable radio that shares some electronics with this unit).
It’s been widely reported this radio would be the usual 144-148 (2 meter) / 440-450 MHz (70 centimeter) dual band, with up to 50 watts transmit power on those bands. The US version would incorporate the North America 222-225 MHz (1.25 meter) band, but the transmit power level of that band was undisclosed until this manual - 20 watts(see Page 8-2).
Lots of Input / Output capability:
- “Wireless LAN” (apparently not licensed to say “Wi-Fi”)
  - WLAN Frequency Range 2.4 GHz, 5 GHz
  - 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac
- Bluetooth:
  - Version 5.0, Class 1
  - HSP, SPP
- USB-C (both display unit and radio unit)
- MicroSD card slot (both display unit and radio unit)
The APRS® (Automatic Packet Reporting System) trademark is used with permission of Tucson Amateur Packet Radio Corp., its assignee.

HamCation 2026 is in two weeks, thus it seems likely that will be the official debut of this radio for actual sale. It will be fascinating to see the price.

Please direct comments / feedback about this article to the Zero Retries email list with the #ZR0236 hashtag.

ZR > BEACON

By Steve Stroh N8GNJ

Short mentions of Zero Retries Interesting items.

OPEN.SPACE: AN OPEN SOURCE SDR BASED PHASED ARRAY FOR BOUNCING SIGNALS OFF THE MOON

RTL-SDR.com:

Open.space is an upcoming open-source project aiming to unlock affordable earth-moon-earth (EME) bounce communications for the amateur radio public. To achieve this, they have designed a software-defined radio-based tiling system that allows people to easily create phased arrays.

EME (Earth–Moon–Earth) bouncing is a part of the amateur radio hobby that typically involves using (~1m - 3m diameter) high-gain dish antennas to transmit a signal toward the Moon, reflect it off the Moon’s surface, and have it received by a distant contact on Earth with similar hardware.

A phased array consists of a grid or lattice of many small antennas working together in sync. By applying tiny delays between elements and combining their signals, the array can make radio waves add up in one chosen direction and cancel in others. This lets software steer the receive/transmit beam electronically (no motors or moving parts), improving sensitivity and reducing interference. Compared to a dish antenna, it can scan and track targets much faster, form multiple beams if needed, and is compact and low-profile without physically turning. A common phased-array antenna many may have used before is a Starlink antenna.

A single open.space tile consists of a 4x4 MIMO SDR and four antennas. The SDR’s frequency range covers 4.9 - 6.0 GHz, and it has 40 MHz of bandwidth via an 8-bit ADC. The tiles can be used on their own as a general SDR, for radio direction finding, as an Open-Wi-Fi router, as a 4G/5G basestation, or for drone HD links and robotics communications.

This article is basically a nice rewrite of info already posted on the open.space website, but nicely consolidated. The writing on RTL-SDR.com is almost always Zero Retries Interesting.)

I’ve reached out to open.space several times since I saw prototype / mockup hardware displayed in October at Pacificon 2025, but no response to date. It’s frustrating that open.space hasn’t updated the information on their website much, but what they have posted is fascinating. If the open.space units perform as promised to achieve Earth Moon Earth (EME) communications, it may well inject new energy in interest in EME.

I’ve also speculated several times what this system might be able to do for Amateur Radio AREDN networks on the Amateur Radio portions of the 5 GHz band.

One thing I’d love to finally have from such a system is usable “wall X-ray” system that will show studs, plumbing, electrical, etc. before you make an expensive mistake with a drill.

But when reading KE9V’s mention, this was the money quote that jumped out:

Expected to ship: March 2026.

My thanks to Zero Retries Pseudostaffer Jeff Davis KE9V for mentioning this article.

This is a New Kind of Wireless (video)

Data Slayer YouTube channel:

A New Band...
This video explores the arrival of dual-band LoRa, combining traditional sub-GHz LoRa with a new 2.4 GHz LoRa band that dramatically expands bandwidth and capabilities. Using the new MuziWorks Base Duo boards, the video walks through setup, Meshtastic flashing, and real-world testing—showing how 2.4 GHz LoRa pushes beyond text and GPS toward higher-data features like voice. Despite operating in a higher frequency, the range and penetration closely mirror classic LoRa behavior, even performing below the noise floor in challenging conditions. The modular Base ecosystem, paired with open-source firmware, signals a major shift toward more flexible, global, and hackable long-range wireless networks.

Muzi Works Base Duo 👉 https://muzi.works/products/base-duo

New 2.4 GHz LoRa band? New to LoRa usage, maybe...

Now added to the Zero Retries YouTube channel Watch Later queue.

DIY P25 Trunked Repeater System - Ham Radio (video)

Skyler F YouTube channel (Skyler Fennell W0SKY):

Experimental trunked phase 1 P25 repeater system with 1 Control Channel and 2 Voice channels with MMDVM Boards with the DVMProject.

In this video, I linked it to my friend Elijah KK7GKG’s FNE system called “HamNet”. More information here: https://hamnet.kk7gkg.com/home/

I used the Motorola XTS1500 and XTS5000 with 9600 baud phase 1 trunking. At this point, “S BAND” 450-512 radios are not supported, and you need the Q band Motorola XTS radios to use it.

One universal truth I’ve discerned over my decades in Amateur Radio is that nearly any radio technology can be replicated / made into an experimental, hobby system, given enough years of technology advancement... and clever, motivated, curious Amateur Radio Operators. Systems that cost tens... or hundreds... of millions of dollars to develop are now being replicated with a Raspberry Pi 5 and an inexpensive Software Defined Transceiver. For example, I can’t imagine the long term implications of the hobbyist-budget phased array 5 GHz technology available at hobby budget levels (see next story).

When I (habitually) checked W0SKY’s QRZ page, I found some Zero Retries Interesting content, such as...

If you’re interested in Amateur Radio 902-928 MHz (33 centimeter) band radios, repeaters, and nodes, check out W0SKY’s 900MHz and Repeater Gear page. Despite the title, he also offers equipment for 440 MHz.

My thanks to Joe Hamelin W7COM (Zero Retries Founding Member 0014) for mentioning the above two videos.

Microwave HamTV From Space (Not SSTV) (video)

saveitforparts YouTube channel (Gabe Emerson KL1FI):

In addition to the amateur radio repeater and occasional Slow-Scan Television (SSTV), the International Space Station has also started transmitting HamTV. This is closer to “Fast Scan TV”, or traditional digital television. It’s also similar to what some earlier commercial TV satellites used (DVB-S). Unlike the SSTV signals, this one is up in the microwave S-band, around 2.395GHz or almost in the Wifi band).

So far there’s not much on the HamTV signal, just a black screen. Eventually they’ll start using this for more school contacts and other ham radio operations. You can find more information about it at the links below:
https://wiki.batc.org.uk/HAMTV_from_t...
https://www.ariss.org/hamtv-on-the-is...
https://live.ariss.org/hamtv/

My thanks to Amateur Radio Weekly Issue 405 for mentioning this video.

Amateur Technician Position for Repair Units - Yaesu

Spotted in passing on the Yaesu website:

Job Opportunities
Yaesu USA in Cypress, CA is currently looking for an Amateur Technician for repair units. If you have experience and ability with Radio Amateur VHF and UHF mobile transceiver repair, and currently hold an FCC Amateur Radio Operator license. If this position interests you, please send your resume to: amateurtech@yaesu-us.com Attn: Mikio Maruya.

Kantronics 9612XE

I check in on the Kantronics website every so often. Apparently Kantronics has a healthy business in supplying their units to industrial customers. I was surprised to see the Kantronics 9612XE as a successor to the KPC-9612+. This paragraph caught my eye:

The 9612XE now includes the wireless modem modes engineered for dependable and versatile digital communications in the commercial operating environment. Able to communicate in a variety of formats, including TCP/IP, LSUB and TUP, 9612XE units are seamless and transparent radio link substitutes and can also operate as a data-operated switch (DOX).

I think a marketing person got a bit too enthusiastic with the prose here, at least with the mention of TCP/IP. From that mention, I was imagining that Kantronics may have embedded a TCP/IP stack into the firmware or embedded OS and implemented SLIP for the serial / USB port. But, there is nothing about TCP/IP (that I saw mentioned in the manual) in the 9612XE feature set - just the ability to use TCP/IP with KISS and external TCP/IP application.

The 9612XE is apparently not just a slightly updated version of the KPC-9612+ as there are some significant feature differences that wouldn’t be possible with the legacy hardware of the KPC-9612 / +:

Digital audio drive control – set from keyboard or by remote control (handy!)
Easily upgradeable flash based bios/firmware (also handy!)

In browsing the 9612XE manual, I’d forgotten how rich the feature set of the Kantronics TNCs has became over the years... decades... of continuous refinement (and creeping featuritis, but the usability doesn’t seem to have suffered). Kantronics implemented their own version of Net/ROM mesh networking (K-Net), a polling mode and a DAMA - a “Coordinator Node / Coordinated Node” mode. Such modes provide more reliable data transfers in a dense network. Kantronics TNCs provide a reasonable BBS, some remote access capabilities, and even some analog inputs and switch outputs, and not just KISS mode, but XKISS mode.

Most impressive, to me, is the continuous refinement of the Kantronics documentation. It’s a marvel of clarity and excellent technical writing to explain the operation and the minutiae of getting a Kantronics TNC properly configured, with all the myriad options well explained.

ARDC’s Priority Areas for Funding

Email from Rebecca Key KO4KVG, ARDC Communications Manager:

With our next application deadline coming up on February 1, 2026, I wanted to follow up in case this information might still be relevant to your audience. If you’re open to sharing it again, that would be fantastic.

For reference, we introduced our Priority Areas for Funding in 2025, which reflect our broader vision and strategy: https://www.ardc.net/apply/priority-areas-for-funding/.

We’re especially interested in projects that align with the following areas:

Research & Development (R&D): open hardware and software systems that enable learning and experimentation (e.g. SDRs, open codec technologies, new modulation techniques).

Space-Based Communications: projects that create or expand access to satellite communications for amateur radio (AR) and digital communications (DC), engaging communities in wireless experimentation (e.g. GEO or HEO programs, repurposed commercial satellites, space-based tools for learning).

Open Source Education: scalable, open educational materials and hands-on projects that make AR and DC more accessible, especially for new learners and clubs (e.g. curricula, videos).

While we welcome proposals across the full range of AR and DC, projects that align with these areas remain a priority in our grantmaking.

This is timely. I recently did a presentation to an Amateur Radio club via Zoom. One of the examples of technological innovation in Amateur Radio that I (and others) feel is needed is an Amateur Radio payload in GEO orbit over the Western Hemisphere, functionally equivalent (but perhaps different hardware) to QO-100 over the Eastern Hemisphere.

In my presentation, I said it was frustrating and confusing that there was some... significant disconnect... within organizations that have some Amateur Radio satellite capability (such as AMSAT-US and AMSAT-CA) to create an Amateur Radio GEO satellite or payload in the Western Hemisphere. I’ve documented here in Zero Retries that there are companies that can develop / build / launch into GEO, as a turnkey service, a “Micro GEO” satellite. Amateur Radio doesn’t need to build its own GEO sat, or payload - that expertise / hardware can now be purchased as a turnkey service / product.

(This seems even more viable with the emergence of open.space’s 5-6 GHz scalable transmitter / antenna system. If it can do EME, it can do GEO. Generating reasonably powerful RF at 5 GHz for a 5,786 km transmission was one of the big unanswered questions of such a satellite or payload. QO-100 uses 2.3 GHz for its uplink.)

In the Q&A after my presentation, one of the attendees of the presentation (who has not followed up with me with an email, as promised) had some relationship, or insight, with the leadership of AMSAT-US. They mildly took me to task, to the effect that “AMSAT-US leadership has said that it’s willing to work on a GEO, as soon as someone steps up with some funding.”

I may have gotten a bit testy at that point, replying something to the effect that such a statement seems to be “willful ignorance”... because it cannot any clearer from ARDC’s statement above...

At the time of this presentation, I wasn’t aware that AMSAT-US had posted all the materials from their 2025 Symposium (see next item). Now I’m even more “testy” because there was a presentation at that event from ARDC, including this slide:

Areas of Interest in Space
Geostationary and highly elliptical orbit (HEO) satellites: The foundation supports projects that develop and deploy these types of satellites. HEO and geostationary satellites offer higher bandwidth, greater availability, and a wider geographic footprint than the more common Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites

That this was presented at the 2025 AMSAT-US Symposium leaves no doubt that anyone in leadership at AMSAT-US saying that they haven’t found any source of funding for a GEO payload or satellite is “willful ignorance”.

ARDC is willing to work with organizations to potentially finance (at least in part), significant space systems. ARDC even specifically mentions GEO!

[AMSAT-US] 2025 Symposium Papers and Presentations

Catch up on the fifteen presentations given at the 43rd Annual AMSAT Space Symposium and Annual General Meeting.

Presentation PowerPoints (Slides only)
Presentation Videos
Papers

I look forward to watching all of the Engineering Update presentation as that contained the primary information about the most Zero Retries Interesting projects and satellites (that I was able to find). Unfortunately, the slide deck of that that presentation was not posted.

m17-texting

A simple C GUI app, generating M17 baseband of its packet mode. Works well with the Digirig Mobile (and a Yaesu FTM-6000).

I think stuff like this just cool. I love that it’s simplistic enough to use minimal hardware and demonstrates that M17 isn’t just digital voice, but also data and text messaging. The Digirig Mobile is, generically, an audio interface.

Decoding
M17 packets can be decoded with the m17-packet-decoder available in the M17_Implementations repository.

The FCC Wants to Let Broadcasters Turn Off Your TV

John Bergmayer of Public Knowledge:

The Federal Communications Commission is considering letting TV broadcasters switch off the current broadcast standard (ATSC 1.0) and move to a new one (ATSC 3.0) on a timeline they set themselves. This could result not just in millions of TV sets becoming obsolete overnight, but could change the nature of broadcasting forever, from a free, widely-accessible service, to yet another proprietary streaming service. That’s why, along with Consumer Reports, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Electronic Privacy Information Center, Media Council Hawaii, and Open Technology Institute at New America, we filed comments with the FCC arguing against this rushed transition.

Don’t get me wrong. ATSC 3.0 itself offers legitimate benefits over ATSC 1.0. In fact, the proposed transition corrects a mistake the FCC and the broadcast industry made in setting the ATSC 1.0 standard, where for short-sighted reasons, a technology was chosen that was known at the time to be worse for mobile reception, and harder to tune in to, among other things. Whoops. Turns out most people’s primary screen these days is the one they carry in their pocket.

So, new technology is good. ATSC 3.0 could bring better reception, better picture and audio, and even improved emergency alerts. TV viewers would benefit from all of this.

But the proposed transition would also let broadcasters cut off existing signals without any requirement that consumers are ready for the switch, that affordable equipment is available, or that anyone has even heard of “ATSC 3.0.” Even worse, while encryption is not necessary for the standard to work, the broadcasters have proposed to encrypt their signals with digital rights management (DRM) for the first time in the history of broadcasting. A private entity called ATSC 3.0 Security Authority (A3SA), controlled by broadcasters, would decide which devices can receive encrypted signals, and what they’re allowed to do with them. (To name one problem: Home recording is allowed by copyright law, but do you think the broadcast industry would have ever allowed it if it was given technological veto power?) A TV might even have the “NEXTGEN TV” ATSC 3.0 logo and still be unable to display encrypted local broadcasts because the two certifications (the certification that the TV can technically receive the signal, and the certification that it has permission to decrypt the signal) are separate. A3SA licenses also expire, so your TV could stop working for encrypted broadcasts even if the hardware is fine.

The DRM issue is probably the biggest obstacle to ATSC 3.0’s adoption and has driven thousands of people to file comments with the FCC objecting to it. Even broadcast industry insiders realize it’s a bad idea.

The abject greed of the commercial television broadcasters, given that they’re continuing to use spectrum for which they paid nothing... knows no bounds.

I’ve been casually following ATSC 3.0 for some time, and it seems, overall, to be a reasonable evolution of technology. ATSC 3.0 could provide a number of useful services including the potential addition of hyper localized Broadcast Positioning System (BPS) that could supplement position and timing data derived from Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) such as the US Global Positioning System (GPS).

One of the prime reasons that broadcast television remains relevant at all in the era of video content being primarily streamed via Internet... is the idea that in an emergency, “local television broadcasting” could provide potentially lifesaving information. But imagine the average person in an emergency fumbling around to get their (ATSC 1.0) television connected to an antenna, only to get a message on screen saying “no signal detected” because the local television broadcasters have switched to ATSC 3.0. Or doing the same thing with their ATSC 3.0 television, only to get a message on screen saying “this receiver’s authorization has expired”.

So, no, count me as opposed, overall, to unfettered deployment of ATSC 3.0 if broadcasters can encrypt their ATSC 3.0 transmissions and selectively provide decryption keys that can expire. There should continue to be some element of “service for the public good” in commercial terrestrial television broadcasting. Or commercial television broadcasters should just renounce all 210 MHz of prime VHF / UHF spectrum currently allocated to television broadcasting and move entirely to Internet / satellite broadcast distribution.

Please offer comments / feedback about ZR > BEACON on the Zero Retries email list with the #ZR0235 hashtag.

Closing Thanks

My ongoing Thanks to:
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Zero Retries 0236 was published on 2026-01-30. This issue was 9222 words.

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Zero Retries 0235

Steve Stroh N8GNJ — Fri, 23 Jan 2026 23:30:00 GMT

Steve Stroh N8GNJ, Editor

https://web.archive.org/web/20260412223656/https://www.zeroretries.radio/zero-retries-0235/

This issue of Zero Retries was originally published on Ghost - https://www.zeroretries.radio/zero-retries-0235/. Thus all links that were for zeroretries.radio have (attempted to) been changed to equivalents on zeroretries.org.

See this archive page:

for how it originally appeared on www.zeroretries.radio

Substack says this issue is too big for email clients. Thus, it might be easier to read this in a web browser - https://www.zeroretries.org/p/zero-retries-0235-cdb

In This Issue...

Apologies for Too Much Technological Innovation in Amateur Radio

Collision(s) with the Future of Amateur Radio

What Would A Future Mesh Networking Broadcast Include?

Intercept Radio Signals For Intelligence Gathering With An RTL SDR

Request To Send

It will take me a while to figure out formatting (and Markdown). Thus the form and formatting of these next few issues of Zero Retries will be pretty rough in deference to pushing out Zero Retries on schedule(ish).

The Saga of the Conversion to Ghost - Part 2

As you probably see, getting Ghost and the new zeroretries.radio domain hasn’t gone smoothly. I won’t fault Ghost, or dotRadio domains specifically, but from my experience this week, they’re unable to “play nice together” to allow me to use just, plain zeroretries.radio as a domain name for a Ghost newsletter.

Ghost has their requirements, and dotRadio domains (owner of the .radio top level domain) domains has their requirements. Both have pointed out that they each “play nicely with others”. Ghost supports many domain registrars to allow root domains as a domain name for a Ghost newsletter... but not the dotRadio domain registrar. Similarly, there many other uses of a .radio domain that are able to use .radio as a root domain... but not Ghost.

After multiple rounds of emails with both Ghost and dotRadio domains technical support, the best accommodation that could be reached this week is to use:

www.zeroretries.radio

Yeah, I hear you - in 2026 (heck, probably in 2006...) it shouldn’t be necessary to use a subdomain as a website URL. But, apparently, my choice of the combination of Ghost and a .radio domain just can’t quite gel together to allow use of zeroretries.radio without a www (or other) subdomain.

I don’t consider this ultimately acceptable in the long term. It’s cumbersome to constantly specify www (I’ve been doing it for more than four years now and it’s grown tedious). I plan to do one last plea to the Ghost and dotRadio domains support folks that while www.zeroretries.radio works with Ghost and dotRadio domains, that isn’t really what I want to be using, and is there some way that the two orgs could work it out that I could use Ghost and a domain of zeroretries.radio?

In the likely event that doesn’t work, I’m going to consider a number of alternatives such as using a different domain that I can get working as a root domain with Ghost.

I will get that working and stable before pulling the triggers of deeper usage of Ghost, such as importing the nearly 3500 email subscriber email addresses currently on (Substack) www.zeroretries.org, and turning on payment options. I really want a stable domain name in place before doing any of that.

Thus this is why you’re viewing this on www.zeroretries.radio (Ghost) from a email likely received from www.zeroretries.org (Substack).

For the DNS experts out there, here’s the DNS settings that work between Ghost and dotRadio domains for www.zeroretries.radio:

@ 18000 IN A 178.128.137.126
www 18000 CNAME zeroretries.ghost.io

These are the DNS settings Ghost says are required to use Ghost with a root domain such as zeroretries.radio:

CNAME @ [subdomain].ghost.io
A www 178.128.137.126

Oh, and kudos to you brave few who found their way to www.zeroretries.radio and signed up for email already. Special Kudos to Tom Salzer KJ7T who was the very first email subscriber on www.zeroretries.radio / Ghost.

Paid Subscribers Update Next Issue

Post publication Update - Apologies to the new and renewing Paid Subscribers. I will include those updates from the previous week and next week in Zero Retries 0236.

Please offer comments / feedback about Request To Send on the Zero Retries email list with the #ZR0235 hashtag.

Apologies for Too Much Technological Innovation in Amateur Radio

By Steve Stroh N8GNJ

A friend who’s more knowledgable than I about most of the topics presented here in Zero Retries (they’re wicked smart, very highly placed in a core Internet organization, and has much more actual hands-on experience with data modes in the last decade than I do) unsubscribed from Zero Retries last week.

Besides this friend, I’ve only ever reached out to one other “unsubscribe” because I was curious why they did so. The turnover of “unsubscribes” to Zero Retries is perhaps 3-5% of new subscribers, so I figure I’m generally doing a fair amount right for the email subscriber count to have ticked up to nearly 3500 despite the unsubscribes. My friend said, basically, that while they like Zero Retries...

it’s just too much to read.

That’s not the first time I’ve heard that plaint, though most who say that confess that they don’t read much of Zero Retries, but they stay subscribed because I sometimes mention something that they may be specifically interested in.

The problem is... I don’t know how to rein it in. The entire point of Zero Retries is to highlight the incredible technological innovation that’s occurring now in Amateur Radio. I guess it’s a good problem to have that there is so much technological innovation occurring in Amateur Radio.

Maybe I could shorten up the weekly issues of Zero Retries. I’ve toyed with the idea of Zero Retries Magazine... with monthly issues running at a length of probably more than 50 pages in PDF format (not distributed via email) much like The Communicator. The weekly Zero Retries newsletter would perhaps be a terse editorial with mostly ZR > BEACON short mentions. Or much simpler blog format with each individual story a blog post like what Random Wire has decided to do with EtherHam. But then, some of the value of Zero Retries is lost - you don’t really see the total amount of technological innovation happening in Amateur Radio, at least in weekly increments.

Nothing will change in the short term; I still have lots to do with the changeover to Ghost, the Zero Retries Guides, and the book. But clearly, if I’m losing knowledgeable folks like my friend out of the Zero Retries readership, I could, and should, be doing something better to address that issue.

Please offer comments / feedback about this article on the Zero Retries email list with the #ZR0235 hashtag.

Collision(s) with the Future of Amateur Radio

By Steve Stroh N8GNJ

I had three distinct “collisions” with the past (or present) of Amateur Radio and what I’m observing as the future of Amateur Radio... all the in same number of days. I’ll call them:

The CW Gray Zone
Digital Voice Modes Versus Software Defined Radio
The Largely Unnoticed Rise of NewTechHams

Collision 1 - The CW Gray Zone

The first collision was CW (Continuous Wave), more formally known as On / Off Keying (OOK)... usually known as Morse Code operation. I had a email exchange with two people who got kind of bent when I offered a comparison between the craft or skill of CW / Morse Code with the craft or skill of woodworking.

CNC Woodworking
I had a blinding analogy about CW in the 21st century in having watched a video about a woodworker who had obvious skill in hand crafting various projects with wood, but was delighted with the addition of a Computer Numerically Controlled (CNC) router table to their wood shop. Now they could design more intricate wood projects by modeling what they wanted to see in the wood in software, and send that model to the CNC router table to reproduce the model more accurately, and much faster, than they could do so by hand.

Computer Assisted CW Radio
Then in space of a day after I watched the CNC router table video, I had a reason to visit the PreppComm Amateur Radio site and saw their newest product Nomad. Nomad is a clamshell device which opens to a keyboard, and a small screen. Nomad is a 80m / 40m / 20m HF radio... solely for computer assisted CW. It doesn’t even have an input for a microphone. You type your inputs to be transmitted, and what you type is transmitted in CW. When you tune the radio to a CW transmission, the received CW is displayed on the screen.

The CW Gray Zone
In Amateur Radio, CW is kind of a litmus test, or dividing line... actually, more of a gray zone. On one side of the gray zone are who think CW is fun, and it’s the vital soul of Amateur Radio. On the other side are those who think CW is an anachronism... outdated... irrelevant.

My two friends are mostly on the CW is fun / vital side and extending into the gray zone. They both enjoy CW and continue to think it’s highly relevant in Amateur Radio.

The NewTechHams (and OldTechHams) that are mostly the readers of Zero Retries, in my experience, mostly consider CW to be uninteresting other than mild curiosity that it’s still in use... though it is occasionally still useful as a simple mode of transmitting required identification that’s universally recognized as valid, such as on a repeater system.

The Nomad and its use case lives exactly in the middle of the CW Gray Zone. The CW gray zone is populated by folks like me who see CW as both fun and an anachronism. When I get back to operating on the HF bands, hopefully in the next few months, as with nearly every radio I put on the air, there will be an audio interface and computer connected for doing data modes. One of the modes I’ll definitely be checking out is CW activity, and I may encounter my two friends on the bands - them doing CW by hand (and ear) and me letting the computer enhance my CW abilities to do a better job transmitting and receiving CW than I can do by hand.

Just like that woodworker who uses their CNC router to do better, faster work than they could solely by hand.

Collision 2 - Digital Voice Modes Versus Software Defined Radio

The second collision was the future of digital voice modes. I was having an email discussion about a particular digital voice mode. I was trying to explain how the Linux Handheld Transceiver (LinHT) Project fits into the paradigm of multiple Digital Voice modes used on Amateur Radio.

My correspondent didn’t seem to grasp the true nature of the LinHT and Software Defined Radio (SDR) technology in general (of which the LinHT is just one implementation). That is that Software Defined Radio renders the “partisanship” of specific modes irrelevant - it can do them all. Radios that are “hardware defined” for a specific mode or modes - such as Digital Mobile Radio / Frequency Modulation (DMR / FM) exist because:

Particular implementations of Digital Voice technology was the best that the technology of a decade or so ago could do.
The manufacturer of a radio has a vested interest in perpetuating a specific digital voice mode that best perpetuates their business model. (This is most pronounced in the competition between Icom and Kenwood to support D-Star but not DMR or System Fusion, and Yaesu supporting System Fusion but not D-Star or DMR. Not to mention no support from a China manufacturer for D-Star or System Fusion despite both being “open” standards.)
The network effect of numerous radios on the market at varying price points, the radios that your friends have, and repeaters that are fixed function with one digital voice mode.

Now we can do better with the vastly improved technology of this era - Software Defined Radio. SDR technology has been dribbling into Amateur Radio, but largely hasn’t been a factor in VHF / UHF operations other than inexpensive Software Defined Receivers. But as exemplified by the LinHT project, that’s about to change.

With the LinHT, and its technological successors, we’ll have radios that are Any Mode... it’s just software. Different digital voice modes won’t be any more distinctive or advantageous than different speeds of CW.

But what my email correspondent really didn’t grasp was that the current digital voice modes aren’t the best we can do, even at this moment.

As in soon enough, there won’t be any (radios dedicated to specific voice modes). Such radios will be functionally as antiquated as the original cellular “brick” phones. These new generations of radios will be truly software based radios, and the software will be under the control of the user. FM, no sweat. DMR yep. And new variations of voice modes like M17and BBFM (both entirely Open Source) no sweat either. Etc. These new software based radios will handshake to find the best common mode they’re both capable of.

Data modes... of course (I’ll spare you that speech). With a bit more processing power (that you know is coming in the next couple of years... such progression is inexorable...) we’ll have Machine Learning on device so the radio will just figure it out.

The leap of... not faith... but vision... required to make these new radios will probably require a new generation of manufacturers. The Packet Radio era created PacComm, DRSI, Kantronics, hugely enlarged AEA’s and MFJ’s volume of business. It could... and I think will... happen again in this era of incredible capabilities in radio technology, combined with highly automated electronics manufacturing. That’s because there’s a gaping void in the middle of the two way radio market (not just Amateur Radio) between...

Low end, simple commodity two way radios as currently being manufactured in China - typically FM / DMR, and
Higher End / High End / Commercial / Government fixed function two way radios as currently being manufactured by vendors like Icom, Kenwood, Yaesu, Motorola Solutions, L3Harris, Thales, Tait, etc.

Someone is going to figure this out. Similar to those Packet Radio vendors leveraging the equivalent of Open Source in that era (TAPR offering a reasonably priced license to clone the TAPR TNC 2), someone’s going to figure out how to leverage the Open Source technology of the LinHT to make better radios and exploit that gaping void in the middle of the two way radio market.

Collision 3 - The Largely Unnoticed Rise of NewTechHams

The third collision was in a conversation with a Zero Retries reader about their experiences with new, young hams coming into Amateur Radio getting somewhat interested in operating Morse Code. They offered this feedback in response to my mentions of the rise of NewTechHams.

Admittedly I probably have some situational bias with publishing Zero Retries, but while I have seen some small amounts of interest in Morse Code (hey, secret language, kind of cool...), I’m seeing far more NewTechHams quietly coming into Amateur Radio, pretty much unnoticed by Amateur Radio at large - with little or no interest in Morse Code. Because the nature of their specific interests in Amateur Radio, NewTechHams tend not to get noticed such as by this Zero Retries reader. Typically NewTechHams don’t join clubs, they don’t join organizations like ARRL, they don’t talk on repeaters, (though they own and experiment with the requisite inexpensive portable radio), etc. They’re learning about Amateur Radio from YouTube and TikTok, and exchanging questions and info on Discord and Reddit. Thus they go largely unnoticed except by their peers, and more often than they get active on Amateur Radio, they get active on Meshtastic / Meshcore on unlicensed spectrum.

I posit that NewTechHams are coming into Amateur Radio in surprising numbers, and they’re just not being noticed because they’re not “showing up” in conventional metrics of Amateur Radio “growth”. To answer a plaint in advance, no the numbers of NewTechHams certainly aren’t offsetting the numbers of Amateur Radio licenses that are not being renewed, for whatever reason...

Here’s a thought experiment with regard to NewTechHams... reach out to all of them. The only contact info we positively have access to, is their postal address (at least in the US; in some other countries, even that info is considered non-public). Thus what if a NewTechHams organization did a postal (as in postcard) mail campaign to all of the new Amateur Radio licensees in the past five years, perhaps even a decade? The postcard would be simple, but interesting (like a photo postcard, maybe even interesting enough to put on the fridge) with some compelling message to get them to check out the website of a new Amateur Radio organization that catered specifically to the interests of NewTechHams? The trick is that you’d get one shot to make a good impression in specifically addressing the interests of NewTechHams.

Conclusion

In offering my observations about these three distinct “collisions” with the past (or present) of Amateur Radio, I’m not trying to present myself, or Zero Retries as some specially privileged observer, or an oracle, or a Grand Poobah of anything. All I’m doing here in Zero Retries in general, and in this article, is trying to be transparent about the trends I’m observing happening now in Amateur Radio.

Your observations of Amateur Radio and its future will undoubtedly vary.

Please offer comments / feedback about this article on the Zero Retries email list with the #ZR0235 hashtag.

What Would A Future Mesh Networking Broadcast Include?

By Steve Stroh N8GNJ

In my earlier writing career about Broadband Wireless Internet Access, a vendor of microwave communications equipment reached out to me to explain their new mesh networking microwave nodes. If memory serves, these units were intended to operate on the 28 GHz or so licensed microwave bands. What was interesting about that vendor was how they intended for their units to cooperatively share the use of the 28 GHz band. Keep in mind that this is a band where every use is coordinated, licensed, and operated as individual point-to-point links. For every link, there was a pair of radios. Every hardware vendor loved this model. Every user of that band hated that model. This vendor (whose name I’ve long since forgotten) had a better idea using the (then) new technology of phased array microwave antennas (for communications).

The vendor’s basic idea was that they could implement point to multipoint “within the rules” by combining three distinct techniques:

Frequency separation (generally a 100 MHz channel, if memory serves),
For each transmission, the phased array antenna would focus the beam in a specific direction (thus “within the rules” of a “point to point” pair of antennas),
Separating transmissions to various receivers on a synchronized time schedule (down to the milliseconds).

The differentiation of this system from pairs of radios was that every transmission from every unit included all of the above information - frequency, direction (path of beam), and specific time slot and did so in a way that every other unit in the area could passively receive all of this information, even from units not belonging to the same organization.

Thus if both “Telecom A” and “Telecom B” both deployed these units in the same area, the units were aware of what all the other units operating in the area were doing. If memory serves, another piece of information was whether there was interference on a particular path, frequency, or timeslot and thus, that one needed to be avoided.

Beyond the utility of increasing the overall capacity of links operating on the 28 GHz band in a particular area, one (attempted) selling point was that there was a cost savings because an individual radio installed on one corner of a building could operate “dynamic” point-to-point links to any other radio in a 90° arc. Thus the one unit could do the work of multiple radios required in traditional pairs.

In the end, this technique was innovative, but the company didn’t really get much traction in the market and, like so many other radio technology companies in the early Internet boom, quietly went out of business.

One funny moment was when they were describing their new technology to me, that I immediately grasped the utility of the “broadcast to all nodes” idea. They told me usually, “press” like you doesn’t usually get the concept. But, my background included Amateur Radio, and a little known 1995 Ph.D. thesis - Decentralized Channel Management in Scalable Multihop Spread-Spectrum Packet Radio Networks by Tim Shepard KD1KY.

In his thesis, KD1KY did a thought experiment about being able to scale packet radio transmissions on the same frequency, but collisions increased with the number of transmissions. The “conventional” approach was to implement a control unit which “parceled out” transmission time slots to each unit, but what if the control unit fails? KD1KY figured out that if each unit transmitted its preferred time slot for transmitting, and then listened to all the other transmissions, each broadcasting their preferred time slots, eventually each unit would adjust their time slots to accommodate everyone, as much as possible, without requiring a control node. You can hear KD1KY describe his theory in a presentation at the Digital Communications Conference 2017 - HRN 358: Tim Shepard KD1KY ‘Thoughts on Regulation’ 2017 DCC. (My thanks to Gary Pearce K4AAQ for recording this at DCC 2017 and making it widely available on YouTube.)

A unit’s preferred / adjusted time slot is just one of many parameters that would be useful to broadcast for other units to be aware of in a decentralized, dynamic network. I thought of a few other such useful parameters:

Transmit on a specific beacon / hailing channel
- Use a simple modulation (not OFDM)
- On 144.39 use typical 1200 bps AFSK (not very often)
- On 222-225 MHz or 420-450 MHz use faster modulation methods like MMDVM-TNC or OFDM
General Info
- What date I think it is
- What time I think it is
- What is my general transmission time (what minute on the hour)
- Software Version
- Funny Stuff
  - Finger file
- What is my public key (for authentication)
- Am I on emergency power?
  - If yes, time remaining
ID Info
- Who I Am (callsign)
- My preferred map icon (from APRS)
- My IP address (unique in network)
Location Info
- Stationary or Mobile?
- Location
  - Grid Square
  - Lat/Long
Transmission / Radio Info
- TX power
  - Changes to low if I’m on battery power
- TX frequency
- Grid square coverage (what I reliably cover)
- EIRP - TX power - feedline +/- antenna
- Height of antenna
- Antenna is directional or omni
  - If directional, beam width
- Polarization
Operational Characteristics
- OK to relay my transmissions (Yes / No)
- I am OK to relay other’s transmissions (Yes / No)
- Am I a Repeater (Yes / No)
  - If yes, Input Frequency and any other access info (CTCSS, etc.)
- Am I operating on a repeater
  - If yes, repeater info
- Do I have (digital) voice capability (Yes / No)
  - If yes, which digital voice mode(s) I’m capable of
Network Neighborhood
- Channels that I hear that are heavily used (% occupied)
- Channels that I hear that aren’t heavily used
- Once per day, channel statistics that I hear
  - Channel / which seconds of the day I hear occupied
- Bulletin stations I hear and receive from
- Bulletin stations I send to
- Winlink stations I can reach
- Do I receive APRS on 144.39
- Repeaters I know about and can use
- Nodes I know about and can connect to

Obviously this is a though experiment and wish list, nothing like a serious proposal. We in Amateur Radio didn’t ever (that I’m aware of) ever do anything close to this degree of information transmission within Amateur Radio data networks. But in the mid 2020s and beyond, with the compute power we have available, with a properly formatted specification, it seems feasible to me that we could create a very compact “hash” of all of these parameters (and many more reserved for future use) so that when each node transmitted, the “network neighborhood” would know a heckuva lot of information about each node, and work cooperatively in the network to maximize network utilization and reliability.

Just as one example...

Node B has good connectivity with Nodes A and C,
Node E has good connectivity with Nodes C and F

Then Node C would be aware that if Node A and Node F want to communicate, it can automatically relay between Node A and Node F.

This is an example of the kind of technological innovation and experimentation that any one, any group, could now implement using Amateur Radio spectrum.

Please offer comments / feedback about this article on the Zero Retries email list with the #ZR0235 hashtag.

ZR > BEACON

By Steve Stroh N8GNJ

Short mentions of Zero Retries Interesting items.

Announcements of IP400 Developments - January 2026

From Alberta Digital Radio Communications Society (ADRCS) News page:

Calgary, Alberta, January 13th, 2026. Following the presentation at the ZRDC the society is pleased to announce that its power node is now in development and that the specification for the supernode is now available for developers. Copies may be obtained by requesting one from the contact form, and it is also available on the developer GitHub repository.
Calgary, Alberta, January 20th, 2026. The society is pleased to announce that the IP400 supernode is now entering its development phase. This node provides a data upgrade with two native modes: a compatible 4FSK mode on 400MHz a high speed OFDM mode on the 2.9GHz band for backbone data network implementations, combined into a single RF modem. The hardware will be a HAT module for an existing raspberry Pi system, which can operate either in a standalone mode or as a simple upgrade to an existing AllstarLink system. A third data mode is currently in the design phase, which will enable IP400 traffic on conventional FM radios. Copies of the specification are available on the developer GitHub site, or to members upon request. The OFDM mode development is being sponsored by a grant from ARDC.
Calgary, Alberta, January 23rd, 2026. The Alberta Digital Radio Society is pleased to announce that it has chosen to extend its Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) development to include an audio band version that will be the basis for the third data mode of its IP400 Supernode. “This mode will enable conventional analog FM Radios and repeaters in either the 2M, 220MHz, 440MHz and 900MHz bands to join data networks at higher data rates than have been previously been utilized”, says Martin Alcock, VE6VH, founder of the IP400 project, who goes on to say “the data capability not only breathes new life into existing repeaters that are falling into disuse, but can be also be used in peer to peer applications. The higher data rate will enable not only data-oriented communications such as telemetry and messaging, but also digital voice coders that are more intelligible than those that are currently in use in existing digital modes”.

These announcements reflect that there’s apparently a lot of development work underway on the IP400 Network Project. I’m recently back in touch with Martin Alcock VE6VH who alerted me to these announcements. There’s a lot of detail to unpack and understand in more depth from these announcements, especially the newly announced 4FSK and “OFDM in audio” modulations.

Two Tech Minds Videos

Matthew Miller M0DQW on his Tech Minds YouTube channel:

Here we take a look at a new software for RF Signal Intelligence. Intercept is a free download and can be installed on OSX and Linux based machines, providing a quick and easy solution to using the most popular RTLSDR decoding packages.

My thanks to Amateur Radio Weekly Issue 404, and Zero Retries Pseudostaffer Cale Mooth K4HCK, for the first mention that I saw of this video. Amateur Radio Weekly is an excellent Zero Retries Interesting “read it right now” publication.

This is NOT a normal Radio! But it can do amazing things!

Matthew Miller M0DQW on his Tech Minds YouTube channel:

In this video we take a look at a B210 clone and use GBU Radio to test its features. Is this the perfect setup for RF Hacking and Cracking or is it just an extreme learning tool?

My thanks to longtime friend of Zero Retries Joe Hamelin W7COM for the first mention that I saw of this video.

One of the things that I find most encouraging and interesting about the Tech Minds YouTube channel is that every video released there is consistently Zero Retries Interesting. (Not to mention that the content and production values are very high quality.) The former video, released 2026-01-01, as of today has 74,500 views to date. The latter video released 2026-01-11 has 43,202 views to date. YouTube states that Tech Minds has 152K subscribers. Thus I don’t feel quite so “lonely” in publishing Zero Retries Interesting content after seeing numbers like that. Given the very technical material that M0DQW publishes, and the intense “Amateur Radio” competition on YouTube, obviously there is a much larger audience for Zero Retries Interesting information out there... I just need to be doing (a lot) more information dissemination on video.

AMSAT CubeSatSim Kit - Heathkit Edition Educator Pack

Image courtesy of Heathkit

Heathkit is thrilled to make our return to the Amateur Radio sector in partnership with AMSAT and Kirkwall through a special Heathkit edition of the AMSAT CubeSatSim.

Designed by KU2Y, KI6ZUM, and WD6DRI; with help from a team at AMSAT, the CubeSatSim is a low cost satellite emulator that runs on solar panels and batteries, transmits UHF radio telemetry, has a 3D printed frame, and can be extended by additional sensors and modules. Through integration with the Kirkwall IoT monitoring software, this CubeSatSim educator pack builds on the opportunity to learn about satellite communications and Command & Control (C2) with the addition of the comprehensive Kirkwall monitoring platform for any sensors connected to the CubeSatSim through the QWIIC connect system. With applications ranging from university research to space enthusiast and hobbyist builds, users will enjoy the ultimate hands-on educational experience in CubeSat engineering, satellite communications through Amateur Radio, and satellite IoT sensor monitoring.

...

The CubeSatSim has the following features:
• Working solar panels and rechargeable batteries
• Multi-channel voltage, current, and temperature telemetry transmitted in the Amateur Radio UHF band
• Telemetry decoding using FoxTelem software or APRS software
• Payload microcontroller Raspberry Pi Pico and sensors
• Integrated Low Pass Filter
• 3D printed frame and solar panels

I remembered reading that a CubeSatSim full kit would be made available, but I’m surprised that I had not heard about this. I haven’t yet rejoined AMSAT so they may have publicized this to AMSAT members through its newsletter or other materials, but until a Zero Retries reader told me about this, I had no idea it was available on Heathkit, which as far as I can tell, has no marketing capabilities at all.

MeshCom - a New “Meshxxx” Variant Specifically for Hams

Informative email from Robert Walker HB9XBO:

There’s another LoRa mesh system that you might not be aware of another - MeshCom. Similar to Meshtastic, there is an Austrian development called MeshCom (separate from Meshcore) which started a few years ago and which has gained a lot of traction recently from Spain to Finland on 433MHz, notably OE, DL and I, with HB9 now coming to the party.

See site: https://icssw.org/en/meshcom/ see map:
https://mcmap.oevsv.at/
So what’s the difference? As I gather so far, Meshtastic is for anyone, Meshcore has its focus on off grid mesh (e.g. preppers) and is popular in the UK, but MeshCom is specifically for Hams: it combines LoRa on 433MHz, gateways which attach themselves to the MeshCom server via WiFi (thus enabling a dashboard, see
https://meshcom.oevsv.at/
) and feeding the APRS network. Yes, MeshCom nodes show up on aprs.fi.

I’m currently running a T-Beam as a gateway, and trying out a T-Deck Plus as a portable terminal, range is modest at present, so I must try a better antenna setup for my 20mW.

Small excerpt from the referenced MeshCom 4.0 page:

MeshCom 4.0

MeshCom is a project to exchange text messages via LORA radio modules. The primary goal is to realize networked off-grid messaging with low power and low cost hardware.

The technical approach is based on the use of LORA radio modules which transmit messages, positions, measured values, telecontrol and much more with low transmission power over long distances. MeshCom modules can be combined to form a mesh network, but can also be connected to a message network via MeshCom gateways, which are ideally connected via HAMNET. This enables MeshCom radio networks, which are not connected to each other via radio, to communicate with each other.

Wow... HAMNET is quite a heterogeneous network, integrating with everything from legacy Packet Radio, to New Packet Radio, I’m sure some connectivity via QO-100, and now adding LoRa-based MeshCom. Impressive!

A Latent Interest In Amateur Radio Paging

During my SysAdmin career, I was given an alphanumeric pager so that my boss could easily summon me when some irate user of our systems showed up in his office. One of the very first web apps I saw on my employer’s internal web was a web form to send an alphanumeric page - just fill out the pager phone number and the text message. Fortunately my boss was very reasonable and didn’t require me to take my pager home as our department operated on typical weekday office hours. But sometimes I did, especially if I was doing something overnight like a quarterly backup.

Since it was a corporate device, one of the options I had was that I could subscribe to notifications of corporate network problems. Being a curious techie, I asked to be added. Boy, that was a mistake! My employer had operations all over the world, and every time there was a corporate network hiccup (literally...) anywhere in the world, there was a notification to anyone subscribed to network outages. I think I lasted two weeks before asking to be removed from those notifications.

Last week, I was watching a movie where one of the characters was wearing an alphanumeric pager. With a bit of nostalgia, and thinking ahead to a much busier N8GNJ / Zero Retries Labs, with lots of computers, I thought “wouldn’t it be fun to have one of the radios send me pages” if there was an issue with one of the lab systems.

I quickly found my way to Dan Srebnick K2IE’s blog page Amateur Radio Paging which gave some quick pointers to get up to speed on the subject. I’d forgotten that in Europe there is the Decentralized Amateur Paging Network (DAPNET). At the moment, my “pager itch” doesn’t run deep enough to become a DAPNET node. In my noodling around, I found this interesting article Ham Radio Paging Putting POCSAG On Packet and a book PAGER HANDBOOK for the Radio Amateur, both by Phil Anderson W0XI (Silent Keyboard).

The latter two publications reminded me that it was a native capability of the Kantronics KPC-9612, KPC-9612+, and the new (?) 9612XE all can transmit POCSAG pager data with any radio with a flat audio connection. I happen to have a KPC-9612 that probably won’t be doing much 9600 bps data given I have two KPC-9612+ units, so that might be a great fit for a pager interface.

Sigh... I’m overcommitted with too many projects to realistically tackle this in the near future. But it was a fun hour or so of relearning that yeah, Amateur Radio groups, and individual Amateur Radio Operators could be doing their own alphanumeric paging.

SafecomLink

World’s best long-range radio-based (HF, VHF, UHF) data communication software platform; When everything fails, SafecomLink delivers.
SafecomLink distinguishes itself as the singular software platform that comprehensively addresses the full spectrum of operational requirements. Its multifaceted suite of features, solidifies its status as the premier choice for HF/V/U base data management on a global scale. With a commitment to excellence and innovation, SafecomLink offers unparalleled versatility, reliability, and performance to organizations across various sectors worldwide.

I saw one brief mention of this, on Facebook, I think, and I was intrigued. As I began to read through the features, it felt more and more familiar, until it dawned on me that this was a very polished, more advanced version of the very well developed (Amateur Radio) application VarAC. Apparently I’m years late to this realization - SafecomLink has existed for more than two years (or probably more - v8.4.4 was mentioned on 2023-11-11. Now the incredible polish and continuing feature improvements that go into VarAC make a bit more sense.

One feature of SafeComLink, that I don’t think is available in VarAC is:

SafecomLink Cluster
Operate multiple SafecomLink instances concurrently, all linked to a shared database, enabling your presence across multiple frequencies with various transceivers. Facilitate message relay and delivery between different frequencies.

The detailed web page for the Cluster feature doesn’t elaborate on the “across multiple frequencies” capability.

But that’s a feature that I would really love to have in VarAC, so that I could operate multiple VarAC instances on multiple bands such as 2m, 1.25m, and 70cm, and have all of those emails, bulletins, etc. and potentially cross band relay (though the Digipeating feature doesn’t mention that capability).

Post Publication Update - Clusters is indeed a feature of VarAC. I’m embarrassed that I missed it.

SafecomLink is yet another of technological innovation (and development) in Amateur Radio, and then applying that work to (much more lucrative) commercial markets. Some other examples are

Winlink Global Radio Email for Amateur Radio, and SailMail Association for boat owners to send and receive email via Marine HF radio.
Kantronics (mentioned previously in this issue) makes it clear that most of their products are intended for commercial use.
FlexRadio‘s entry page offers the option for the Amateur Radio products or the Government products.
And many, many more such examples, including Kenwood, Icom, and Yaesu.

Please offer comments / feedback about ZR > BEACON on the Zero Retries email list with the #ZR0235 hashtag.

Closing Thanks

My ongoing Thanks to:
Tina Stroh KD7WSF for, well, everything!
Jack Stroh, Late Night Assistant Editor Emeritus
Fiona and Shreky Stroh, Late Night Assistant Editors In Training

Annual Founding Members who generously support Zero Retries financially:
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Zero Retries 0235 was published on 2026-01-23. This issue was 6860 words.

(end)

Zero Retries 0234

Steve Stroh N8GNJ — Fri, 16 Jan 2026 23:30:00 GMT

Steve Stroh N8GNJ, Editor

Tina Stroh KD7WSF, Business / Conference Manager

Substack says this issue is too big for email apps. Thus, it might be easier to read in a web browser - https://www.zeroretries.org/p/zero-retries-0234

It’s easy and free to subscribe for your own copy of Zero Retries every week:

In this issue:

What’s New at Digital Library of Amateur Radio & Communications — January 2026

Amateur Radio Standards Organization?

Zero Retries Guide to Amateur Radio HF Data Communications

Request To Send

Commentary by Editor Steve Stroh N8GNJ

Paid Subscribers Update

My thanks to Prefers to Remain Anonymous 19 for renewing as Founding Member Subscriber 0009 to Zero Retries this past week (3rd year)!

My thanks to Prefers to Remain Anonymous 116 for becoming new Founding Member Subscriber 0023 to Zero Retries in the past two weeks!

Founding Member Subscribers are listed in every issue of Zero Retries!

My thanks to Gerry Brown KK7GAB for renewing as an Annual Paid Subscriber (3rd year!) to Zero Retries in the past two weeks!

My thanks to Prefers to Remain Anonymous 62 for renewing as an Annual Paid Subscriber to Zero Retries in the past two weeks!

My thanks to Prefers to Remain Anonymous 115 for upgrading from a free subscriber to Zero Retries to an Annual Paid Subscriber in the past two weeks!

My thanks to Prefers to Remain Anonymous 117 for upgrading from a free subscriber to Zero Retries to an Annual Paid Subscriber in the past two weeks!

My thanks to Prefers to Remain Anonymous 118 for upgrading from a free subscriber to Zero Retries to an Annual Paid Subscriber this past week!

My thanks to Bill Kreutinger KM6SLF for two years of being a Paid Subscriber to Zero Retries in the past two weeks!

My thanks to Prefers To Remain Anonymous 113 for one year of being a Paid Subscriber to Zero Retries in the past two weeks!

My thanks to Prefers To Remain Anonymous 38 for restarting their Paid Subscriber subscription this past week!

Financial support from Zero Retries readers is a significant vote of support for the continued publication of Zero Retries.

I remain deeply grateful, and humbled, to the Zero Retries paid subscribers. To date, they don’t receive much “extra” for their paid subscriptions. Finally in 2026 there will be some significant benefits for paid subscribers, but more about that in the next few months. In the next few months, paid subscribers will be in flux in the transition from Substack to Ghost publication platforms (see below). I haven’t yet turned off paid subscriptions in Substack, but will do so after the transition to Ghost is complete. Paid subscribers on Substack will receive full “credit” for their paid subscriptions. I’ll go into (probably excruciating) administrivia detail about the transition to paid subscriptions on Ghost directly with the paid subscribers. Platform conversions are hard!

Leaving Substack

The primary reason I decided to migrate Zero Retries off Substack as a publishing platform is that Substack has some significant “structural” issues that I don’t want to be even a passive participant of. This isn’t a new issue and I had hoped to transition off Substack at several points in 2025, but other projects / issues like ZRDC 2025 took precedence. Many readers have told me that they love the Zero Retries content, but, on principle, won’t subscribe to Zero Retries as long it’s published on Substack - which I understand.

Another issue with Substack is that its business model is based around it becoming an ecosystem, not just a publishing tool for independent writers. One illustration of this focus is that Substack newsletters are often referred to as “substacks” rather than email newsletters. Increasingly, use of the Substack app is required for certain functions. Substack has expanded its platform to encompass publishing video, podcasts, short blurbs, an app-based messaging system, and many other “enhancements” that, for me, just get in the way of trying to publish an email (primary) newsletter that is also is accessible on the web as a blog (RSS). One irritating issue is that I can manage email subscribers to some extent... but I cannot do anything to manage “followers on Substack”, and I especially cannot turn off having “followers”.

My last issue with Substack is that its editorial focus is to support, amplify, and cross-fertilize topics that are generally popular culture, politics, sports, and business. In contrast, the content of Zero Retries is a niche (technical aspects...) of a niche (data communications, microwave, space, regulatory issues...) of a niche (Amateur Radio) and thus just doesn’t really fit as a topic that Substack supports well.

All that said, there is a lot to love about Substack. A new writer like me with a wild idea for an email newsletter could get started for no cost. Substack “carried” Zero Retries at their expense, and no expense to me, for the first two years. After that, with (optional) paid subscribers, Substack began making a bit of revenue from Zero Retries, which given all that Substack does (that I didn’t have to worry about, like email subscription issues) I think Substack’s “cut” of the revenue from Zero Retries paid subscribers is entirely reasonable. I am grateful to Substack for helping get Zero Retries started. But now it’s time to move on beyond Substack.

Welcome to Ghost

I hope... expect, that the experience with Ghost will be vastly simplified - write, publish, repeat.

But the learning curve is already significant. I reflexively want to return to Substack because after years of use, I understand ~~all~~ most of the mechanics of writing and publishing there and writing in Substack’s editor is muscle memory. I’m confident that all the capabilities that I used and valued in Substack can be done here in Ghost... it’s just going to take some time to figure it out. I’m going to have to resist the temptation to “fall back” to Substack.

For example, Ghost’s (web-based) editor is driving me nuts in these first few hours of composing this first issue on Ghost as I don’t understand some of the paradigms to be able to do basic formatting of text, that had become muscle memory in Substack.

But one of the significant differences between writing in Substack’s editor and writing in Ghost’s editor is that the latter supports the use of Markdown syntax so (assuming you know Markdown) the graphical user interface of the Ghost editor doesn’t need to be so full featured. Now to try to develop “Markdown muscle memory”.

One issue that will make it easier to transition Zero Retries to Ghost is my choice to use a new domain name:

zeroretries.radio

For the immediate future, all the old Zero Retries content, published prior to 2026, and for the moment, the static pages such as the Zero Retries Guides, will remain on Substack at https://www.zeroretries.org. As soon as feasible, I’ll migrate that content here to Ghost.

Update - Not… quite… so… fast! I was forcing myself to write in Ghost, despite the learning curve handicaps. But I quickly realized that I made a fundamental mistake in setting up Zero Retries on Ghost, and there was no (apparent) way to correct that mistake, and no apparent way to delete my Ghost account and completely start over. So I had to throw myself on the mercies of Ghost support to fix that mistake… and wait for a response. Assuming I may not get an answer for a couple of days, I reluctantly restarted writing this issue of Zero Retries in Substack. And since I ran into that fundamental mistake, I didn’t redirect https://zeroretries.radio to my account on Ghost - it remains redirected to https://www.zeroretries.org.

Update to the update - Ghost support came through with a fix to my issue, but enough time had elapsed that I won’t have time to even attempt an import of email subscriber addresses into Ghost, so this issue will go out via Substack. But next week should be “all Ghost”.

Platform conversions are hard!

Zero Retries Archive Now On Digital Library of Amateur Radio & Communications

https://archive.org/details/zeroretries

Zero Retries newsletter
An independent newsletter about technological innovation in Amateur Radio, promoting Amateur Radio as (literally) a license to experiment with and learn about radio technology. Published by Steve Stroh N8GNJ. The official web site is https://zeroretries.radio

Followup by Kay Savetz K6KJN, Program Manager, Special Collections, Internet Archive, Digital Library of Amateur Radio & Communications, and Zero Retries Pseudostaffer, and great friend of Zero Retries:

Use the search “text contents” field to do a full-text search, or click “Date Published”.
Thanks for being a part of the DLARC archive.

Kay is thanking me for Zero Retries being included in DLARC?!?!?!

It’s actually the reverse - I thank Kay for including Zero Retries with other amazing content in DLARC such as 73 Magazine, Packet Radio Magazine, all the amazing content of TAPR over multiple decades, the Digital Communications Conferences, etc.

It’s humbling to think that the content of Zero Retries will now be preserved for posterity by Internet Archive - as long as IA survives, Zero Retries will survive.

What made this feasible and reasonably efficient is that I finally discovered the not very obvious method to export all the issues of Zero Retries from Substack into individual files. This had been a long term task at Kay’s urging (you… don’t back up every issue???)

But even with the “magic export” discovered, there was still considerable massaging that needed to be done on the exported files, such as consistent naming (despite my use of logical, sequential naming for each issue). Kay and I divided and conquered the tasks - I got all the file names consistent over the course of a couple of hours of otherwise passive video viewing, and Kay applied their scripting ninja skills at adding some metadata to each file (the exported file didn’t include the title of the file in the file).

Anyway… we got it all done, and now Zero Retries issues, 0000 through 0233 dated 2025-12-31 is accessible as easy to download PDF files. The DLARC archives of Zero Retries isn’t quite as “sexy looking” (no Substack formatting), but one primary irritation of Kay (and others) is fixed, that the links in each issue aren’t obfuscated into Substack links that were used to monitor clickthroughs.

Store and Forward episode 14 — Ham Radio in 2025 and 2026

It’s a bit embarrassing to have forgotten, and now admit how much time had passed since the last episode of Store and Forward, a podcast about the past and future of ham radio where Kay Savetz K6KJN discusses Digital Library of Amateur Radio & Communications and I discuss Zero Retries.

Thus we had a bit of catching up to do on the latter half of 2025, and our very near term plans for 2026.

Store & Forward is a labor of love for both of us, and it serves as a useful benchmark for our respective projects in a relaxed, conversational format.

NotebookLM Success

A second motivation to convert the Zero Retries archives into PDF format was that Google NotebookLM only accepts certain formats, and one of them is PDF, so getting Zero Retries archives into PDFs is a win / win - DLARC and NotebookLM. With Zero Retries spanning 4.5 years now, and more than a couple hundred separate issues… I’m at the point of sometimes forgetting “did I write about x in Zero Retries“?

As with all sophisticated software tools these days (see above), NotebookLM has irritating, unintuitive limitations and a learning curve… but unlike all AI chatbots I’ve used to date, NotebookLM works. To date, I’ve mostly used it superficially, but as a test, I asked it to generate an article on a topic I’ve written about extensively in Zero Retries… and it did a very decent job. Most impressively, as advertised, the output stayed bounded by the input material - Zero Retries. NotebookLM didn’t invent anything and did a very reasonable synthesis of the total of my writing on the subject - even some aspects I’d forgotten I wrote.

I think such NotebookLM research will prove very useful as a starting point for the chapters of my book Zero Retries Guide to Amateur Radio in the 21st Century. This was exactly the use case for NotebookLM and its development was guided towards such utility by author Steven Johnson.

My original use for NotebookLM also works - it’s pulling up references to specific subjects that I do remember that I’ve written about, but didn’t remember when or what issue, though I did one query that NotebookLM wasn’t able to find, and I had to find manually and “instruct” NotebookLM. So, not perfect yet.

Recent Updates to Zero Retries Guides

Speaking of successes in generating new content, two Zero Retries Guides:

Zero Retries Guide to VHF / UHF Radios for Data

and

Zero Retries Guide to Zero Retries Interesting Events

have received extensive updates. Updates for the former two were largely based on input from participants on the Zero Retries email list. Wisdom of crowds - thanks folks!

On the Events page, I’ve noted the events that I and Tina hope to attend. The first major event we’ll attend in 2026 will be HamSCI 2026 on 2026-03-14 and 15 in New Britain, Connecticut, USA. I look forward to chatting with Zero Retries Interesting folks at HamSCI 2026.

As I’ve mentioned, developing new Zero Retries Guides is a virtuous cycle - NotebookLM can help pull together previous material, each one serves as a standalone reference to a particular subject, and they are most of the content of chapters in the book. Much more to come in 2026.

Weekends Are For Amateur Radio!

Bellingham (and this corner of North America in general) is experiencing waves of… sunshine… for a four day weekend. That’s a nice bonus for this weekend, and I’ll be spending time in N8GNJ / Zero Retries Labs.

One nagging task in N8GNJ / Zero Retries Labs that’s now complete is the 30 foot antenna pole for my primary VHF / UHF antenna that was braced at approximately 13 foot proved not robust enough for the Wicked Whatcom Winter Winds and developed a permanent, severe bend. In every windstorm (frequent in the winter), it seemed that the antenna pole might fail and collapse. That antenna pole has now been replaced by a new, more modest, 20 foot antenna pole, that is now actually straight, and is now no longer annoying to look at.

Have a great weekend, all of you co-conspirators in Zero Retries Interesting Amateur Radio activities!

Steve N8GNJ

What’s New at Digital Library of Amateur Radio & Communications — January 2026

By Kay Savetz K6KJN
Internet Archive’s Program Manager, Special Collections

I have two topics to share this month: first, some of the newest additions to the DLARC library. Then, some of the oldest items in the library have entered the public domain.

DLARC has scanned 66 issues of the Proceedings of the Institute of Radio Engineers. Adding those to the smattering of IRE Proceedings we had before, the new collection has 80 of these journals ranging from 1917 through 1962. The Institute of Radio Engineers was a professional organization that existed from 1912 until the end of 1962. In 1963, it merged with the American Institute of Electrical Engineers to form the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).

We’ve added 40 issues of “Call Letter”, the newsletter of Northwest Vintage Radio Society. Based in my neighborhood of Portland Oregon, NWVRS is a nonprofit educational membership organization dedicated to the preservation and enjoyment of vintage radio and antique wireless equipment. Also: 19 issues of Arizona Antique Radio Club News, another fine newsletter from another fine not-for-profit vintage radio preservation group. (The IRE, Call Letter, and Arizona newsletters are the last of the material donated to DLARC by the wonderful Spark Museum of Electrical Invention.)

We’ve added 22 issues of an interesting newsletter devoted to medium/low-frequencies, published by Jim Ericson KG6EK. The first issue we have is number 45, where the newsletter is titled “1750 Meters: Western Update” with the wordy subtitle “The Western Newsletter for the Experimenter’s Band (160 to 190 KHZ)”. By issue 62, the newsletter’s name pivoted to simply “Western Update” but with a new equally wordy subtitle: “The Western Newsletter for MF, LF, and VLF Experimenters”. It’s filled with interesting ideas and anecdotes about low-frequency operation, such as Max Carter’s article “Some quirks of super slow” which discusses the problems of receiving a signal sent at one-tenth baud (10 seconds to transmit one symbol change)!

We have a smattering of issues published from May 1987 through November 1990. I’d love to fill in the gaps, so I’ve added this one to the ever-shifting DLARC Wantlist. I don’t know exactly when the newsletter began or ceased publication. If you have any insight or any issues, please let me know. (Thanks to California Historical Radio Society for these newsletters.)

Aaaaand we’ve added the complete archive of a little newsletter called Zero Retries! 256 issues of the independent newsletter about technological innovation in Amateur Radio, published by Steve Stroh N8GNJ. It took some serious finagling for Steve to get the text of the issues exported from Substack, and then for me to get them converted into readable PDF files, but it was worth the effort to create a complete, searchable archive of this newsletter in DLARC.

We’ve added documents from Quartzfest, the “ham radio, camping, learning and living event” hosted near Quartzsite, Arizona, annually since 1997. The archive includes conference schedules, newsletters, and other documentation of that event going back 10 years.

Also check out “Amateur Radio in Space: A Teacher’s Guide with Activities in Science, Mathematics, and Technology”, a 1998 educational guide to the Space Amateur Radio EXperiment (SAREX).

Public Domain Amateur Radio

Every January 1 in the United States is “public domain day”, when items of a certain age shed their copyrighted status and become, well, everyone’s. At the start of 2026, written works published in 1930 became public domain, including the characters Betty Boop, Blondie and Dagwood; the film All Quiet on the Western Front; and the musical compositions Georgia on My Mind and I Got Rhythm, among many other notable and not-so-notable works. Duke University’s Center for the Study of the Public Domain has a thorough rundown.

Relevant to radio, a number of items in the DLARC library also became PD. Some of the highlights:

The books Short Waves (”the first book devoted to high frequency currents as related to radio communication”) and The Radio Manual (”for radio engineers, inspectors, students, operators and radio fans”) and Radio and Its Future.
1930 issues of Hugo Gernsback’s Radio Craft magazine (chock full of great color art and advertisements that you can use!)
1930 issues of Experimental Wireless and Radio News magazine and Radio magazine and General Radio Experimenter
Bell Telephone System Technical Publications on Two-Way Television and Aircraft Radio Development
Radio Condenser Company’s treatise on superheterodyne tuning condensers
Television To-day and To-morrow by Moseley and Chapple — published just four years after TV was introduced. (”In 1926 television was demonstrated for the first time, and there seemed little reason why the apparatus should not come into public use without undue delay.”)
The book Education On the Air: First Yearbook of the Institute for Education by Radio by Josephine H. MacLatchy
The books Radio Physics Course by Alfred Ghirardi, Electrical Equipment by T.C. Lloyd, and Pioneers Of Electrical Communication by Rollo Appleyard

I hope you enjoy the old stuff in the DLARC library as much as I enjoy adding new stuff to the DLARC library.

DLARC want list: https://archive.org/details/dlarc-wantlist

Amateur Radio Standards Organization?

By Steve Stroh N8GNJ

As in… is it time to consider such a thing?

In Zero Retries 0079 (2022-12-30), I imagined The Amateur Radio Standards Organization (ARSO):

The Amateur Radio Standards Organization (ARSO) was formed for a pragmatic reason. Amateur Radio Operators, and Amateur Radio organizations were free to create entirely new modes as long as those modes were publicly documented. Before ARSO was formed, documentation for Amateur Radio technologies were (mostly) in public, but sometimes hard to find. This caused some consternation in the mid-2020s when the FCC and US Department of Defense (DOD) accused a small group of Amateur Radio Operators in New Mexico of using encryption in Amateur Radio spectrum. The accused Amateur Radio Operators responded that they were just using an obscure modulation technique, but none of them could find where that obscure modulation technique was publicly documented. ARDC provided a grant to establish ARSO with a website and some contracted labor from various universities with strong radio technology curriculums. ARSO quickly became a clearinghouse for documentation of almost all Amateur Radio technologies. ARSO developed a simple identifier that could be transmitted with most digital modes, allowing very easy lookup of the technology used for every transmission.
One minor illustration of the utility of ARSO was the consolidation of TCP/IP port numbers for various functions for better commonality between various units and software. Another was acting as an intermediary for obtaining unique Media Access Control (MAC) addresses for Ethernet and Wi-Fi devices used in Amateur Radio so that Amateur Radio interoperated smoothly with non Amateur Radio systems. Prior to ARSO assuming this role, obtaining MAC addresses, and identifiers for new devices with USB ports, was cumbersome and expensive for small vendors such as Amateur Radio manufacturers.
The formation of ARSO solved another growing problem in Amateur Radio - authentication. As Amateur Radio became more popular, a few bad actors occasionally tried to “horn in on the fun” without having an Amateur Radio license. ARSO developed a reasonable, universal authentication and registration system for Amateur Radio Operators worldwide, allowing Amateur Radio Operators to use their authentication signature for all major Amateur Radio systems such as accessing AmGEO-200.
Universal authentication also helped solve a nagging issue in Amateur Radio - the historical ban on using encryption in Amateur Radio. There had always been corner cases such as emergency communications involving sensitive information where encryption was considered necessary. The combination of qualification via the US government’s Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and authentication was a workable compromise. Amateur Radio Operators that wanted to qualify to use encryption for emergency communications had to be licensed for at least two years, and submit to a background check / qualification process that wasn’t any more onerous than participation in the various US military auxiliary communications programs. Amateur Radio Operators that (attempted to) use encryption but didn’t go through the background check / qualification process were quickly identified, found, and “given a stern talking to”.
ARSO Conferences
In the early 2020s, there were a number of Amateur Radio conferences such as Digital Communications Conference (DCC), AMSAT Annual Meeting, and the various large events such as HAM Radio Friedrichshafen, Ham Fair, Hamvention, and Hamcation. ARSO decided that conferences were part of its mission, and decided to have more frequent and more accessible conferences. ARSO holds one-day “companion” conferences adjacent to the major Amateur Radio events for discussion of new technologies. The subject matter of the annual GNU Radio Conference (GRCon) so closely overlapped with Amateur Radio that ARSO considered GRCon just another Amateur Radio conference.
ARSO conferences received funding to be inclusive and comprehensive. All presentations at ARSO conferences were streamed live, video recorded, and edited for clarity. Post conference, all presentation videos were publicly available, audio was transcribed into text, and the presenter’s slide deck, or still photos of slides were excerpted from the video. This standardized approach to conferences began generating considerable “cross fertilization” especially between Amateur Radio Operators in different countries. The ARSO conference held in conjunction with Ham Fair was particularly popular as few US Amateur Radio Operators were conversive in Japanese to understand presentations made at Ham Fair.
ARSO conferences also revived the practice of putting out a Request for Student Papers (RFSP) for students to present their ideas at an ARSO conference. This was pioneered by Greg Jones WD5IVD at the 1996 DCC. Participation in the ARSO conferences generated even more interest in Amateur Radio among students.

I keep returning to the idea of ARSO, and the need for such an organization every time I read of a new Amateur Radio device that implements compatibility with another device, but not necessarily compatibility against a standard.

Examples include the OpenTNC implementing 9600 bps data and testing compatibility with Dire Wolf Software TNC, and now a new generation of APRS devices operating over LoRa?

I think “ARSO” is needed… but I have no idea how to create such an organization, and I’m wide open to ideas for doing so.

Our family of ESP32-Based APRS, Packet and LoRA Devices!

ZR > BEACON

By Steve Stroh N8GNJ

Short mentions of Zero Retries Interesting items.

NA6D OpenTNC

Image courtesy of NA6D.com

The Open-Source TNC. Now Shack-Ready.
Upgrade your digital station to the modern era with the NA6D OpenTNC, the premium evolution of the open-source TNC.
We have taken the versatile architecture designed by David Platt (AE6EO) and refined it for the serious operator. While our original development kits were designed for tinkering, this new edition is designed for operating. We’ve shrunk the footprint, optimized the circuit, and encased it all in a rugged aluminum enclosure that belongs on your desk or in your go-kit.
Why the NA6D Edition?
The original OpenTNC is a fantastic platform, but we wanted to make it better for everyday use.
Rugged Aluminum Case: Say goodbye to exposed PCBs and 3D-printed plastics. Our custom aluminum enclosure provides superior durability and helps shield your sensitive RF equipment from digital noise.
Compact Footprint: We redesigned the PCB to be significantly smaller, making this the perfect TNC for go-kits, portable operations, or crowded shack desks.
Optimized Audio Path: We have refined the component values in the TX audio filtering stage (fixing the quirks found in the v0.8 beta designs) to ensure cleaner audio and broader compatibility with modern transceivers right out of the box.
Powerful Digital Modes
Just like the original, the NA6D OpenTNC is a powerhouse for AX.25 communications. Powered by the RP2040, it unlocks:
APRS: Track locations, send messages, and map local traffic.
Packet Chat: robust keyboard-to-keyboard QSOs.
BBS Access: Connect to local mailboxes and emergency networks.
KISS Mode: Full compatibility with modern software suites for advanced networking.
And more...
Since the OpenTNC is a traditional TNC, it does not support software TNC modes, like VaraFM.
Technical Specifications:
Core: RP2040
Connectivity: USB-C (Power/Data), DB-9 (Radio/Audio)
Enclosure: Black Anodized Aluminum
Dimensions: Approximately 64mm x 40mm x 24mm [w x l x h]
Cables:
We’re still working on getting cable and initial production runs might not have custom cables. We’re working on offering cables for:
Mobile/Base radios with a mini-DIN 6 connector (common modern “data” connector)
HTs with the 2-Pin Kenwood connector
If you are interested in other connectivity, you can fill out the survey after signing up for notifications to let us know.

The above info is a bit vague on the specifics, but it looks like a straightforward refinement of the OpenTNC project as documented on Dave Platt AE6EO’s OpenTNC project on GitLab. Some things to admire about this implementation and OpenTNC in general:

Aluminum enclosure with blinkenlights - always cool,
USB-C digital interface,
The Raspberry Pi RP2040 is the processor,
Support for 9600 bps,
Support for FX.25 Forward Error Correction (FEC).

NA6D makes nice hardware. The NA6D version of the All In One Controller (AIOC) is the nicest AIOC I’ve seen to date.

It seems likely that support for IL2C FEC might be implemented given that Dire Wolf Software TNC is a reference for packet radio compatibility with OpenTNC, Dire Wolf supports both FX.25 and IL2C, and Dire Wolf is open source.

The use of the RP2040 - generically one of the Raspberry Pi microcontrollers, is a smart choice in my opinion. Raspberry Pi makes an unusually strong commitment to education and support. Raspberry Pi also works hard to keep its products available over a long term, as well as backwards compatibility in never products as much as possible. Thus, in my opinion, for “hobby” projects such as Amateur Radio, where there are low production quantities involved, and significant interest in open source, if you’re using a microcontroller (or embedded computer) other than Raspberry Pi products, you’re working too hard.

My thanks to David “Zonker” Harris N6UOW for mentioning this development.

Disclosure - NA6D donated a number of AIOCs to the Zero Retries Digital Conference 2025 to be given away as raffle prizes.

New RPC Electronics Products Spotted

Jason Rausch K4APR makes lots of Zero Retries Interesting products. I’m a fan and owner of several SMT NinoTNCs. I was checking RPC Electronics for another story, and found mention of a number of interesting new (to me…) products:

Two excerpts below (there are a total of six products in this family). The others say “details coming soon”:

ESP32-APRS Tracker
Image courtesy of RPC Electronics, LLC
The ESP32-APRS Tracker is an all new APRS Tracker meant for the 21st century. We started with the powerful ESP32 WROOM module and built the platform on its vast array of built-in peripherals. Adding a high quality, fast locking GPS, sensors and other devices, we have created a small form factor, feature rich APRS Tracker/Digipeater/iGate/Modem that will fit your APRS operating needs.
ESP32-LoRA “Swiss Army Knife”
Image courtesy of RPC Electronics LLC
The ESP32-LoRA SAK is an all new APRS-LoRA device meant for the 21st century. We started with the powerful ESP32 WROOM module and built the platform on its vast array of built-in peripherals. Adding a high quality, fast locking GPS, sensors and other devices, we have created a small form factor, feature rich APRS-LoRA Tracker/Digipeater/iGate/Modem that will fit your APRS-LoRA operating needs. The best part...an on-board 1 Watt LoRA transceiver!

It’s just fascinating to see the technological innovation in Amateur Radio evolving. It’s encouraging to see experienced Amateur Radio hardware designers like K4APR with a deep background in APRS creating solid new products like these but using LoRa as a radio interface.

Kudos to K4APR for these new (and the upcoming) products!

AREDN Production Release 4.26.1.0

AREDN production release 4.26.1.0 is now available
This release is the first AREDN production release that omits the legacy OLSR protocol, and consequently the first release with the major number 4. That may sound scary, but if all your local nodes are on 3.25.5.0 or greater, they already speak Babel. That means a migration to this production release should pretty much be a non-event for your network.
If you are upgrading to 4.26.1.0 from a babel nightly build, you may see the following message:

BEWARE: Downgrading firmware WILL result in a broken or incomplete node configuration.
This can be safely ignored during this upgrade.
Major Features
Babel only routing. OLSR is no longer available.
OpenWRT 24.10.5 (https://openwrt.org/releases/24.10/notes-24.10.5)
Support for some HaLow (802.11ah) 900 MHz radios
Default NTP now aredn.pool.NTP.org
Tunnel backup and restore to simplify node migration (https://docs.arednmesh.org/en/latest/arednGettingStarted/node_admin.html#tunnel-backup-restore)
Support for user defined files in backups and upgrades (https://docs.arednmesh.org/en/latest/arednGettingStarted/node_admin.html#backup-configuration)
Support for new app launcher in sidebar (https://docs.arednmesh.org/en/latest/arednHow-toGuides/app-launcher.html)
Save AREDN node as a webapp.
Bump the major release number to 4.
New Devices Supported
Nanostation AC Loco
Cudy TR1200
Cudy TR3000
HaLowLink 1
Heltec HT-HD01
Heltec HT-HD7608
Alfa Tube-AHM
Alfa Tube-AHM PoE
Bhyve virtual machines
VirtualBox virtual machines
Notes
There is still some instability with HaLow devices due to immature support for these radios in current Linux kernels. This manifests as occasional device restarts.
HaLow devices may sometimes require power cycling after upgrading.

In my opinion, this release is a very significant improvement in functionality for AREDN. Sunsetting the Optimized Link State Routing (OLSR) mesh networking protocol that AREDN used to use, in favor of Babel mesh networking protocol, is a huge leap forward in reliability for AREDN networks that choose to use dynamic mesh networking. The unreliability and performance issues of dynamic mesh networking was a (often deserved) “knock” on AREDN networks, but converting from OLSR to Babel offers the best of all worlds - reliability, reasonable performance, and dynamic mesh networking.

In my opinion…

Support for some HaLow (802.11ah) 900 MHz radios

is also a very big improvement for AREDN. Perhaps even a new era for AREDN becoming more popular. Now small AREDN networks can be implemented that operate on the 902-928 MHz band can be implemented (and fully interoperable with AREDN networks on other bands) with the simple expedient of connecting AREDN radios via Ethernet to form a inter-band router. It’s on my “soon” list to purchase a pair or three Alfa Tube-AHM radios to start experimenting with AREDN on 902-928 MHz.

Kudos to the AREDN team for these developments, and the “courage” to deprecate OLSR from their production releases at the end of 2025.

…

44Net Connect Makes AREDN Tunnels Easy (and Free)

A separate project (but, in my opinion, shouldn’t be1…), relevant to AREDN is the production release of 44Net Connect. The tunnel capability in AREDN, being able to connect AREDN RF networks via Internet, was problematic because AREDN tunnel servers required the use of a static IPv4 address. That was sometimes costly, and even sometimes impossible with some Internet Service Providers (ISPs). Now, static IPv4 addresses for Amateur Radio use are very easy to implement thanks to 44Net Connect.

HamWAN 2025 Summary Report

Doug Kingston KD7DK on the HamWAN PSDR email list:

(Excerpts follow - click the link for full details.)

West Tiger Mountain - The Boeing BEARS installed a full HamWAN cell site at the company’s facility on West Tiger Mt. HamWAN supported the project with technical assistance but the project was funded by the BEARS and a couple of other donors. The site is connected to the rest of PSDR via 2 10GHz links capable of 500Mbits, one to Ziply Fiber in Everett (our primary internet connection point) and the other link to Capitol Park, which is well connected in the Seattle area. HamWAN will operate the cell site and its already attracting clients, some of whom were previously on East Tiger. We thank the BEARS for making this possible.
…
New Monitoring System - We installed a new monitoring system based on Zabbix using the community edition of the commercial product. This has added a lot better visibility of HamWAN system health. We still have some customization we want to accomplish (some additional parameter collection, map updates, inventory export), before we retire Cacti, but it's already been a great help. If you want to help with this, please reach out to netops@.
…
RouterOS Fleet Upgrade - We upgraded all the HamWAN maintained devices to RouterOS 7.x. At this point we can recommend this upgrade to all PSDR/HamWAN users.
Documentation Refresh - Much of our online documentation has been updated and new documentation added. We also added a new client config generator to help make client configuration easier for users.

On the West Tiger Mountain item, note the use of (Amateur Radio band) 10 GHz links. This one of the first uses of Amateur Radio 10 GHz band networking, not just experimentation or use by satellite. A few factors came together to make this possible:

Technically capable Amateur Radio organizations - BEARS and HamWAN PSDR,
Mimosa Networks makes the B11 radio for the 10 GHz band (not entirely Amateur Radio, especially outside the US),
Funding available from ARDC for purchase of 10 GHz band links.

Use of 10 GHz links is an excellent implementation of the philosophy of Use It (our Amateur Radio bands) or Lose It. This is especially an imperative in the US as the current FCC is very actively engaged in reassigning spectrum allocations, especially above 1 GHz, to the cellular industry for exclusive use.

The HamWAN Puget Sound Data Ring (PSDR)2 is the excellent Amateur Radio microwave network (on 5 GHz) in Western Washington. Its coverage extends into British Columbia to the North, to nearly the Oregon border to the South. Unlike many Amateur Radio microwave networks, PSDRallows (encourages) individual user access, as well as supporting Internet connectivity for repeaters and other Amateur Radio infrastructure. The two biggest differences of HamWAN from AREDN is that HamWAN is an engineered (static) network (no mesh networking capability) and HamWAN uses Mikrotik technology for the linking and user access radios. All PSDR nodes feature at least two backbone connections to maintain reliability. Another point of admiration for HamWAN is that each node has standalone capabilities - DNS, routing, etc. and thus remains functional even if backbone connections go down.

Masters Communications Model FMDM-150M FM Deviation Meter

Nothing beats having a real communications Service Monitor to test FM radios and repeaters for various functions, but they are incredibly expensive new, and even used ones (that are worth while) are commonly $2000.00 or more. There are inexpensive frequency modulated RF signal generators currently available that provide reasonable accuracy for testing receivers. These signal generators allow you to do basic sensitivity and simple audio tests including CTCSS tones. But, there are no manufacturers left making inexpensive test equipment for measuring FM deviation of transmitters. The Heathkit IM-4180, AEA DM-1, and MFJ-224 are long gone. I’ve owned all of these, and they are mediocre at best - even when they were brand new. The test equipment offered here is an attempt to provide a better solution than anything prior, with reasonable accuracy, on a hobbyists limited budget.
The FMDM-150M FM Deviation Meter provides direct / accurate measurement of Frequency Modulation from 0 to over 5kHz deviation with modulating frequencies from 50 Hz to over 4 kHz without the need of a computer, SDR, or spectrum analyzer or involving Bessel nulls or any complicated math. The system is comprised of several individual components that are available separately in kit form or assembled and tested and calibrated. The receiver is a current production Uniden “Bearcat” BC355N “police”scanner (chassis 367E) that is modified by adding a 3.5mm (1/8”) stereo jack to its rear panel to bring out discriminator audio and a squelch logic signal.

For as long as we’re going to be using FM transceivers for data communications, connecting external audio adapters, TNCs, modems, etc. to FM transceivers3, setting correct Deviation is a significant issue for optimum performance.

Thus the FMDM-150M is a notable accomplishment in the service of data communications (using FM radios) over Amateur Radio - kudos to Kevin Custer W3KKC of Masters Communications for creating this unit.

While setting “good enough” deviation “by ear” is usually possible4 for lower speed data modes like 1200 bps Audio Frequency Shift Keying, higher speed data modes suffer when deviation isn’t set correctly. I purchased an AEA DM-1 at a hamfest last year mostly because it was cheap. I remember its reputation at the time it was introduced was “better than nothing” and it was an appliance rather than a big, expensive, hard to use service monitor.

Thus this low cost system for determining accurate deviation with the interesting approach of using a Uniden BC335N scanner (with a minor modification) as the receiver system.

While individuals might not want to invest in this system to set up a few personal data radios, it would be an ideal investment for an Amateur Radio club interested in data communications, or just a group of friends who want to do data communications.

This unit would be useful for my intended setup of many radios in N8GNJ / Zero Retries “Interoperability Lab”… I probably should get one on order. (Update - done!)

Interesting Potential Data Mode - Using DTMF as a Data Protocol

I stumbled onto this presentation by Zhemin Zhang KD2TAI who presented an interesting premise - use the 12 (or 16 if you include the “A, B, C, D” keys in a 4th column) Dual Tone Multi Frequency - DTMF (much better known as “Touch Tone”) tones as encoding for a data communications system.

One primary advantage I can imagine is that DTMF is specifically designed to work within the audio spectrum of analog telephone circuits / human voice spectrum / and thus just about any FM (or digital voice?) radio. Thus “DTMF data” would be transmitted clearly with very simple audio connections to just about any radio.

Such a system would be a lot of fun to listen to - wonder how fast a data rate could be accomplished? (Hopefully there could be some form of at least minimal Forward Error Correction incorporated.)

This kind of thinking outside the box about data communications over radio taking advantage of “cheap compute power” reminds me of Ribbit / Rattlegram from a few years ago.

LinHT for Beginners: A Linux-Based Experimental SDR Radio

Don Trynor, VA3XFT on EvoHam:

If you’ve recently searched for information about the LinHT radio, you’re not alone. LinHT has started appearing in amateur radio and software-defined radio (SDR) discussions, often described as an open-source, Linux-based, software-defined handheld radio.
That combination naturally raises questions – especially for hams who are newer to digital voice and are still getting comfortable with concepts like SDR, codecs, and experimental radio platforms.
This beginner guide explains what the LinHT actually is, why it’s generating interest, and how it fits into the broader ham radio landscape, without assuming prior SDR or Linux experience.

This is a good overall treatment of LinHT from the perspective of someone interested in Amateur Radio digital voice modes and is curious about where LinHT fits into the digital voice paradigm.

My thanks to Amateur Radio Weekly Issue 403 for the first mention (that I saw) of this article.

What are amateur radio’s top three priorities in the next three years?

Dan Romanchik KB6NU on his blog:

Steve, N8GNJ, publishes a newsletter called Zero Retries. Steve describes the newsletter as “an independent newsletter about technological innovation in Amateur Radio (sic), promoting Amateur Radio as (literally) a license to experiment with and learn about radio technology.” It’s a great newsletter, and I’d encourage you to subscribe.
In addition to the newsletter, Zero Retries hosts a Groups.io mailing list. In the Zero Retries group, they discuss the topics covered in the newsletter. One of the latest topics is “Top three priorities, in the next three years, for Amateur Radio in the 21st Century? ” The purpose of this topic is “figuring out what should be the focus of efforts promoting amateur radio in the 21st century.”

Nice mention by Zero Retries Pseudostaffer KB6NU of this discussion on the Zero Retries email list. Lots of good ideas came out of this discussion, and I’ll be consolidating / synthesizing them in a near future issue.

KernWi-Fi engineers the VK Yaesu IMRS Network: a first of its kind, carrier grade build for Australia

KernWi‑Fi has partnered with Australian amateur radio enthusiasts to design and deploy an enterprise‑grade, secure IP network for Yaesu’s Internet‑linked Multi‑site Repeater System (IMRS) -bringing carrier‑class routing, segmentation and compliance practices to community radio infrastructure. The initiative is led by Managing Director Phil Kern (VK5PK), working closely with Chris Dimitrijevic (VK3FY), who first approached KernWi‑Fi to explore a robust digital framework for IMRS. Chris Dimitrijevic connected Phil Kern with Peter Clee (VK8ZZ), who helped shape the technical scope that underpins the rollout.
See here for our AUS REPEATER NET – WiresX / IMRS / YSF Reflector overview
VK5PK : “Our goal was straightforward: deliver IMRS over an IP fabric that behaves like a carrier network—predictable routing, strong isolation, and security you can audit. If we treat community infrastructure with enterprise discipline, reliability follows.”

Interesting project to create repeatable, predictable, consistent, reliable infrastructure for repeater linking.

What I found most interesting about this project is the willingness of a telecommunications infrastructure vendor to get involved with an Amateur Radio repeater network, though KernWi-Fi Managing Director Phil Kern being VK5PK was a major factor.

My thanks to Amateur Radio Weekly Issue 403 for the first mention (that I saw) of this article.

Experimental Radio News 14

Editor Bennett Z. Kobb (who is also AK4AV):

Selling sunlight at night, making drugs in space, detecting weapons at a distance – and the latest in shortwave, in Experimental Radio News 14.

As always, ERN is a fascinating “read it right now” publication about radio technology developments I wouldn’t otherwise hear about. Literally the items mentioned in ERN are at the bleeding (experimental) edge of radio technology.

ERN has been at the forefront of tracking “High Frequency Trading” experimental radio communications on the HF bands. This issue includes:

Walking back waivers
The FCC is now issuing letters to HF experimental licensees emphasizing their obligations, including non-interference to incumbents. But the letters include a major change: They remove routine waivers of station identification.
The FCC has never explained the waivers. Some of these stations run hundreds of thousands of watts in multiple HF bands, yet did not have to identify themselves. The exemptions complicate the process of identifying interference sources.
Stations now must follow the ID rule, which requires voice or Morse identification without digital encoding or modulation.
“Failure to comply with any of the above will result in cancellation of station license,” the FCC said.

Yay! Minor win for the rest of us HF band users now that we can distinguish who is originating those weird transmissions.

Unapologetic Zero Retries plug for financial support of Experimental Radio News:

Reader support helps keep the news coming. 😋

More info about ERN and the author on the About page.

As a beneficiary of financial reader support for Zero Retries, I can attest that reader’s financial support makes a difference to one’s motivation to continue to produce content without a primary motivation of revenue (not restricted to paid subscribers). In my occasional research relating to the FCC, I can attest that it takes significant research work, skill, and time investment to dig out original material that is very professionally presented in ERN. AK4AV is a skilled writer and editor with deep experience. Unlike Zero Retries, all of the material in ERN is unique and original content, with a very small audience who can appreciate it. As Zero Retries financial contributions are re-established on Ghost in the next few months, I’ll become a financial contributor to ERN.

APRS Over LoRa Articles on How APRS Works

Two interesting, detailed articles by Jon Adams N7UV on the How APRS Works website, sponsored by the APRS Foundation:

Is LoRa (Long Range) technology magic?

LoRa - The Settings Under the Hood

It’s great that “APRS” as represented by the APRS Foundation is now beginning to incorporate LoRa technology for APRS. This “embrace”5 of LoRa for APRS is long overdue.

(It’s easy to overlook new articles on the How APRS Works website / blog as older articles, rather than newer articles, appear at the top of the page. Thus you have to scroll all the way down, and click through Load more issues to see the newest articles. Or, you can subscribe with RSS.)

AI6YM Announcements / New Products

Justin Giorgi AI6YM on his latest newsletter:

Announcing the T41 Mini
tl;dr - The T41, but smaller. Full specs will be published soon. The first units will be available at FDIM & Hamvention. Kits only $399 with fully assembled radios available too.
It’s no secret I love the T41. Fully open source, modular, all-band, all-mode transceiver with a 192kHz spectrum display? I love everything about that sentence.
There’s two things I don’t love.
The price tag. I sold my kits at a VERY low margin, the manufacturing costs on this thing are NUTS.
The “trunk portable” design. I just don’t have the option to operate HF at home. My rigs have to be portable.
So I’ve been quietly working on a smaller, lighter, and CHEAPER T41. It needed to keep the spectrum display, big screen, powerful processor, and of course the fantastic RF performance. I was willing to sacrifice a bit on modularity, supporting every band in one radio isn’t a strict requirement either.
…
PicoFox Update
tl;dr - PicoFox r3 shipping soon. It’s a big improvement over r2 thanks to great feedback from this community!
Manufacturing is done, I’m waiting on delivery of enclosures before final assembly can begin. Orders are open now with shipments expected by the end of January. Look for ads in QST and other publications - and let me know what you think of them (I have ZERO marketing experience).
…
FoxSniffer Announcement & Update
tl;dr - The FoxSniffer is a handheld RDF receiver that can determine the direction to a transmitter miles away or standing on top of it. Shipments expected to start March 1st. Full specs and pre-orders are open. ($50 off for a limited time!)
I had hoped to make this announcement a LONG time ago but it turns out that building a VHF/UHF receiver from scratch is sort of difficult.
My early design had a couple of flaws. LO leakage into the detector being the biggest issue. That was easy to fix but it was masking image rejection problems. Pushing the si5351 to UHF was also a bit more challenging. My first prototype worked well enough but unit to unit variance meant a good number of devices would not function up to 450MHz.

I met AI6YM briefly when we both had vendor tables in at Pacificon 2025 and was impressed by his products. I’m curious about the T41 Mini - that’s a compelling price point. I’m enthusiastic about the forthcoming PicoFox r3 and the FoxSniffer, and I’m sure that I’ll be investing in those two products. (Radio) “Fox Hunting” / Transmitter Hunting / Radio Direction Finding are Zero Retries Interesting activities that easily appeal to NewTechHams and those potentially interested in Amateur Radio as a physical aspect of Amateur Radio. Developing and maintaining such expertise is a useful capability to demonstrate knowledge of radio technology.

HydraSDR Update

I pinged Benjamin Vernoux of HydraSDR about the how the new (introduced in 2025) RFOne Software Defined Receiver was doing, and he provided this informative update. One differentiating feature of the RFOne is that it’s manufactured in the US, so no tariff / import / overseas manufacturing issues.

The launch has been going well and I’ve been pleased with the reception from the community so far, except in Europe where things have been a bit slower.
As with any new product, there’s always a learning curve as I gather feedback and continue to refine things, but overall I’m happy with where things stand.
There is lot of update on https://github.com/hydrasdr#software-support
RFAnalyzer – RF Analyzer is an Android app for real-time spectrum analysis using SDR hardware. It displays live FFT and waterfall plots of the radio frequency (RF) spectrum and supports demodulation, recording, and more, support HydraSDR RFOne (Since 6 Oct 2025)
kalibrate-hydrasdr - Kalibrate-HydraSDR - GSM-based frequency calibration tool for HydraSDR RFOne. Scans GSM base stations to measure and correct the internal TCXO frequency offset with precision PPM/PPB measurements.
New fork with native HydraSDR support like AIS-catcher fork / SDRTrunk fork / GNSS-SDRLIB-PVT
SatNOGS - SatNOGS Client 2.1 docker container updated with gr-satellites 5.8 and HydraSDR RFOne SDR support
I’m also planning a major release of the host software (github.com/hydrasdr/hydrasdr-host) with version 1.1.0 coming soon.
This update will include significant enhancements to the DDC with more than 2x performance improvement, as well as optimized streaming with reduced overhead.

It’s cool that there’s explicit support for RFOne for use with SatNOGS!

Introducing the Raspberry Pi AI HAT+ 2: Generative AI on Raspberry Pi 5

Image courtesy of Raspberry Pi
Featuring the new Hailo-10H neural network accelerator, the Raspberry Pi AI HAT+ 2 delivers 40 TOPS (INT4) of inferencing performance, ensuring generative AI workloads run smoothly on Raspberry Pi 5. Performing all AI processing locally and without a network connection, the AI HAT+ 2 operates reliably and with low latency, maintaining the privacy, security, and cost-efficiency of cloud-free AI computing that we introduced with the original AI HAT+.
Unlike its predecessor, the AI HAT+ 2 features 8GB of dedicated on-board RAM, enabling the accelerator to efficiently handle much larger models than previously possible. This, along with an updated hardware architecture, allows the Hailo-10H chip to accelerate large language models (LLMs), vision-language models (VLMs), and other generative AI applications.

Honestly, I can’t parse out very much of that other than it’s even more feasible now to run Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning applications on a relatively inexpensive combination of a Raspberry Pi 5 and this new unit. It takes Amateur Radio a while to start taking advantage of capabilities like this, but I find hardware like this very attractive as a platform because:

It’s not a (physically big, power demanding) desktop computer,
It’s not running on a system in the cloud, requiring Internet access, an account on a “Mother, May I” application from a company that will change its policies next week,
It can run Machine Language applications locally, under your control, reliably.

Two such innovative Machine Language applications in Amateur Radio (that can be run on embedded / local hardware like this) I’m fond of citing are:

I imagine that I’m missing many others that I’m simply not aware of.

I’m looking forward to someone creating a Machine Learning application that incorporates all known Amateur Radio data communication modes, and gets turned loose on a radio receiver, and it just “figures it out”. We don’t have to tune individual channels on an HF receiver any more - ka9q-radio can “receive it all”. In 2026, we shouldn’t have to “select” a data mode that we’d like to receive - some application - “OmniData?” should just be able to “figure it out”.

Hubble Network - Bluetooth to LEO Satellite

Once upon a time, when I knew radio technology (hubris), a claim like

Track and transmit with confidence. Powered by space-grade coverage.
Unlock low-cost global transmission and visibility for any device with a Bluetooth^® chip. No modems, no infrastructure, no custom hardware required.

… would trip my BS filter and I would disregard an idea as communicating (anything…) reliably from a radio device designed to communicate for only a few feet in an indoor setting… to a satellite in low earth orbit… as preposterous.

But virtually nothing related to radio is truly impossible these days if you can throw enough compute power, process gain, antenna gain, forward error correction, etc. at the problem. We’ve seen such “impossible” things as just a few milliwatts of transmit power being received on the far side of the planet using WSPR. Not to mention that LoRa was never designed to communicate with satellites, but it’s being used that way.

So I’m willing to be convinced. Hubble Network is based in the Seattle Washington area, and perhaps a coincidence, or perhaps not, that the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) is also based in the Seattle area. If things settle down and time permits 🤣, I’d like to talk to someone at Hubble to understand how Bluetooth can be used with satellites.

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Zero Retries 0234 was published on 2026-01-16. This issue was 10,133 words.

Footnotes for this Issue

To see the relevant sentence for the footnote, just click the footnote number.

It seems feasible and desirable, to me, to integrate basic 44Net Connect compatibility into AREDN. But it might be too complex, the code too big, configuration too fussy for that to be realistic. In my fantasy scenario, selecting a tunnel server via 44Net Connect would be a simple selection in the configuration of an AREDN tunnel server. Perhaps work things out so that setting up an account on 44Net Connect, there’s a bit of additional configuration to provide easy tunnel support for AREDN.

HamWAN is the underlying network technology. Puget Sound Data Ring is the specific HamWAN network in Western Washington.

The “correct interfacing” issue is one reason why 9600 bps Frequency Shift Keying generally worked acceptably in the Kenwood TM-D700 and TM-D710 radios because Kenwood optimized the internal 9600 bps FSK Terminal Node Controller (TNC) to the radio section, including drive levels and deviation.

or the mode is so “tolerant” of a wide range of deviation being received, or “adaptive” such as VARA FM.

APRS over LoRa has been happening for years, but that was being done by individual vendors. Hopefully the involvement of APRS Foundation will encourage full interoperability between APRS over LoRa implementations.

Zero Retries 0233

Steve Stroh N8GNJ — Thu, 01 Jan 2026 06:30:11 GMT

About Zero Retries

Steve Stroh N8GNJ, Editor

Email - editor@zeroretries.net

On the web: https://www.zeroretries.org/p/zero-retries-0233

Substack says “Too long for email”? YES

⬅️⬅️⬅️ Previous Issue of Zero Retries \ Next Issue of Zero Retries ➡️➡️➡️

In this issue:

Request To Send

Commentary by Editor Steve Stroh N8GNJ

Paid Subscribers Update

My thanks to Gerry Brown KK7GAB for renewing as an Annual Paid Subscriber (3rd year!) to Zero Retries in the past two weeks!

My thanks to My thanks to Prefers to Remain Anonymous 115 for upgrading from a free subscriber to Zero Retries to an Annual Paid Subscriber in the past two weeks!

My thanks to Bill Kreutinger KM6SLF for two years of being a Paid Subscriber to Zero Retries in the past two weeks!

Financial support from Zero Retries readers is a significant vote of support for the continued publication of Zero Retries.

3400 Email Subscribers!

Snipped from the Substack Dashboard today. Image by Steve Stroh N8GNJ

Just days before the end of 2025, the email subscriber count for Zero Retries has ticked up to 3400. The total readership of Zero Retries, via RSS, social media, pass-alongs, etc. is anecdotally much more than that number. I am grateful to all of you for “voting with your attention” that Zero Retries is contributing to Amateur Radio, and thus worth the work that I put into it. As I explain in every issue of Zero Retries in the section above, I’m am very grateful to the paid subscribers to Zero Retries that help to support Zero Retries financially.

Apologies For Publication Confusion

Thanks to those of you who reached out to check in on me if I was doing OK. It was appreciated! No health or other issues - the issue with Zero Retries not being published on schedule on Friday 2025-12-19 and 2025-12-26 was mostly poor planning on my part combined with busyness.

I had intended to take my “annual” holiday break and not publish Zero Retries in the last two weeks or so of the year in order to spend time with family over the Christmas / New Year holidays… but didn’t say anything about that in Zero Retries 0232.

There was also some last minute, barely scheduled travel just before Christmas by Tina and I to help out a friend. That kept us busy to the point where I didn’t get any laptop time to work on this issue of Zero Retries, until today.

I had wanted to implement the transition of Zero Retries to a new platform and migrate off Substack in December 2025, but as I’ve said previously, that’s a complicated process.

zeroretries.radio

That transition - Zero Retries being published on a platform other than Substack, is my highest priority for Zero Retries now. I’m determined that the transition will be implemented in January, 2026. At this point, I can reveal that Zero Retries on the new platform will be published using a new domain name:

zeroretries.radio

Currently that domain redirects right back here to Zero Retries on Substack, but soon enough it will point to Zero Retries on another platform.

While I hope to migrate the content of Zero Retries onto the new platform, that may not be possible (at least cleanly). We’ll see.

The Zero Retries Email List

… is going great! One of the nicest things about the Zero Retries email list is that there is a lot of community support and peer to peer information exchange happening on via the list. My thanks to all the participants. It’s also gratifying to see Zero Retries Interesting information posted on the list that I wasn’t aware of.

The Zero Retries YouTube Channel

https://www.youtube.com/@ZeroRetries is similarly going well (68 subscribers! Yoo Hoo!)

There’s a lot of Zero Retries Interesting content on YouTube, and while I’ve kind of been throwing a lot of stuff into the playlists on ZRYC, in the future I’m going to curate more selectively, such as creating specific playlists for topics such as Packet Radio (videos that I consider credible).

Synergy of Video Presentations, Zero Retries Guides, and the Zero Retries Book

I’ve been getting a lot of positive feedback and suggestions about the new Zero Retries Guide to HF Data Communications and my stated intention that it is the first of many Zero Retries Guides. I’m glad that I seem to have identified another “gap” in Amateur Radio that’s useful to furthering the mission of promoting Amateur Radio of the 21st century.

I intend that each Zero Retries Guide is going to be the basis of a three-way synergy - ZR Guides feed ZR video presentations feed chapters in the upcoming book.

Each Zero Retries Guide will be expanded into a brief video presentation (my goal is 10 minutes max) that will get posted on YouTube. These will be wholly original content, explaining a subject such as HF Data Communications, from the unique Zero Retries perspective. The idea is to “cross support” the (text) Zero Retries Guide with the (video) Zero Retries presentation. This addresses one of my primary plaints about video presentations (lack of deeper context), while addressing the near universal shift of information presentation in this era from text to video.

And then, between the Zero Retries Guide, and developing the presentation, and the feedback I receive from both, I can then “port” that information over to the equivalent chapter in the still in progress book - Zero Retries Guide to Amateur Radio in the 21st Century. After moving Zero Retries to a new publishing platform, this book is the next primary project of Zero Retries in early 2026.

Coming Attractions in 2026

My wife Tina KD7WSF, Zero Retries’ Business Manager often cautions me not to overpromise and underdeliver, and that’s a point well taken. With that in mind, I have reasonable confidence that I’ll be able to deliver on these near future projects.

Two big, important projects for Zero Retries in 2026 (besides the book) will be:

Porting Zero Retries content into Google’s NotebookLM and then sharing that out. There are limits on NotebookLM sharing, so this feature will be initially be offered to Zero Retries paid subscribers. That’s not a “shill” for additional Zero Retries paid subscribers, just a long overdue “Thanks” to the paid subscribers who currently don’t receive much “value added” for their paid subscriptions. NotebookLM doesn’t “ingest” web pages, so I was basically stymied for an reasonable way to add issues of Zero Retries to NotebookLM. But in some brief downtime the past couple of weeks, I did a specific enough AI and web query and found a reasonable way to do so. This will also address a longstanding task of porting out each issue of Zero Retries into a PDF so that it can be archived into DLARC.
Beginning the Zero Retries Zoom sessions (good name To Be Determined). In doing presentations for others, I’m not in control of the agenda (inclusion of Amateur Radio club business meetings, for example) and often, I feel that important (Zero Retries Interesting) information doesn’t get presented, or it’s diffused (discussion forks into discussing, for example, M17 in a presentation I intended to be about, for example, New Packet Radio. This is completely understandable in a context of a general presentation for an Amateur Radio club. I think there’s lots of room for a Zero Retries Interesting focused discussion / interview on specific topics with specific interviewees, and I’m determined to make that happen in 2026. Zoom does a great job in creating decent video, and I have hopes that either Zoom, or another application / service will make it possible for me to easily and efficiently edit the videos lightly (titling, minor cutting) and then post them on the Zero Retries YouTube channel. And, of course, it helps the “Zero Retries Synergy” that Zoom automagically creates a good enough transcript of each Zoom session.

As with NotebookLM, Zoom sessions, at least at the basic tier that I’m currently using, the participation in a Zoom session has limits. Thus, as with the Zero Retries NotebookLM, this feature will be initially offered to Zero Retries paid subscribers. Again, that’s not a “shill” for additional Zero Retries paid subscribers, just a long overdue “Thanks” to the paid subscribers who don’t receive much “value added” for their paid subscriptions.

Thanks for a wonderful and productive 2025, all you Zero Retries readers!

Handy Tip - Use RSS to Monitor Groups.io Email Lists

A longtime Zero Retries reader mentioned to me:

Reading the Zero Retries email list via RSS is wonderful!

RSS is Really Simple Syndication, a way of monitoring blogs (mostly) and other websites that have an RSS feed, via a RSS feed reader app. My use of RSS is one of the main reasons I can bring you interesting developments here in Zero Retries (without spending most of my days manually polling various websites).

Indeed! That got me thinking that most of the Groups.io email lists that I follow for Amateur Radio, I’m doing so passively and thus don’t need to clutter my email inbox with each new post to the list (or digest). Groups.io allows you to be subscribed, but not receive emails which has the advantage of being able to go to the Groups.io page for the list and comment there if you wish. Gmail keeps nattering at me that I’m at 88% or so capacity on my current tier, and I’m going to implement this strategy in the next few days and set those Groups.io lists to “no email” and convert my monitoring to RSS.

Best of Zero Retries 2025

End of year summaries are the usual fodder for media such as Zero Retries, and I think that’s appropriate and useful for the first issue of Zero Retries in 2026. It was a busy and productive year for technological innovation in Amateur Radio.

(Likely) No Zero Retries on Friday 2026-01-09

I’m going to reserve the next ten days or so to complete the transition to a new publishing platform for Zero Retries without the self-imposed pressure to publish a new issue of Zero Retries. Thus I don’t plan to publish Zero Retries on Friday 2026-01-09 (or Friday 2026-01-02)… unless the conversion to the new platform goes really, really well.

Weekends (and Holidays) Are For Amateur Radio!

We’ve had a streak of clear (sunny) but cold weather here in Bellingham this week, and after publishing this issue, I’m going to reserve a few days to work in N8GNJ / Zero Retries Labs to ~~catch up on~~ at minimum, clear the bench of accumulated projects (perpetually in progress).

Have a great weekend, all of you co-conspirators in Zero Retries Interesting Amateur Radio activities!

Steve N8GNJ

ZR > BEACON

By Steve Stroh N8GNJ

Short mentions of Zero Retries Interesting items.

Introducing 44Net Connect: A Simpler Way to Access 44Net

ARDC website:

Are you a ham that wants to experiment with 44Net but found the setup process to be intimidating? Say no more, because we’ve got great news for you!
We’re excited to introduce 44Net Connect, a service that makes it easy for hams to begin using 44Net IPv4 addresses through a simple, modern setup. Whether you’re experimenting with digital modes, improving repeater infrastructure, setting up a home lab, or just curious to see what 44Net is all about, this new service lowers the barrier of entry to get you started.
Why 44Net Connect?
44Net Connect uses modern, secure networking technology (WireGuard) that’s already supported by many popular routers, including NETGEAR, TP-Link, and Ubiquiti, and it works across a wide range of devices, from desktop computers and phones to Raspberry Pis.
Here’s what makes 44Net Connect especially useful:
Simple setup: No complex configurations required. Just connect and go!
Get a static IPv4 address: Access a static 44Net IPv4 address without relying on your ISP.
Bypass carrier-grade NAT (CGNAT) limitations: Perfect if your IPv4 support is behind CGNAT or has a short lease from your ISP.
Experiment safely: You can experiment and learn without “breaking the Internet”– 44Net Connect has the bumpers in place for you.
All in all, 44Net Connect makes 44Net more accessible and fun, helping more people experiment with networking, amateur radio, and digital communications technologies!
How to Get Started
Getting connected is easy: all you need is a router, computer, phone, Raspberry Pi, or anything that can run a WireGuard client.
If you haven’t already, go to the 44Net Portal, set up an account, and then open a ticket for call sign verification.
Once your call sign is verified, head over to the 44Net Connect dashboard to sign up and join the registration queue.
From there, you’ll be able to explore what 44Net has to offer and see just how easy it is to get online.
A Community Effort
44Net Connect wouldn’t have been possible without the work and collaboration from Adam Lewis KC7GDY, who originated the concept; Zach Seguin VA3ZTS, an early contributor that worked closely with Adam on the project; and John Hays K7VE SK, whose subject-matter expertise and efforts were instrumental in bringing 44Net Connect to reality. Ian Redden VA3IAN, Dave Gingrich K9DC, and Dan Theisen WI7FI contributed valuable guidance, insight, testing, and support throughout the project as well.
We’d also like to thank the 2024 and 2025 Technical Advisory Committees (TAC), who helped shepherd this project from “what if” to proof of concept to being production-ready, and of course the many beta testers who provided valuable feedback along the way.
If you’d like to learn more about 44Net Connect or get involved, please reach out to Adam Lewis KC7GDY, our IT & Development Manager (adam@ardc.net) or John Burwell KI5QKX, our 44Net Program Manager (john@ardc.net).
A Nod to 44Net’s Legacy
44Net Connect debuted December 10, 2025, which is also the 45th anniversary of another pivotal moment in amateur radio, when Hank Magnuski KA6M put up the first digipeater in the United States and helped kick off the packet radio era. We are honored to mark this new service alongside a significant milestone in amateur radio and digital communications.
Join In!
44Net Connect continues the spirit of 44Net: a playground for experimentation and innovation with TCP/IP over RF. With this new service, getting started has never been easier. So fire up your router, and start exploring the possibilities!

My chosen router for 44Net Connect (not yet implemented) is the GL.iNet GL-AR300M16 (available from Amazon).

The article 44Net Connect is Live! in Zero Retries 0232 was an “insider’s heads up” notification on the 44Net email list. This is the formal, general, fully public article about 44Net Connect aimed at a more general audience.

I’m still jazzed that 44Net Connect is finally live and publicly available.

UberSDR - Open Source Web Based HF SDR

Andy Zwirko K1RA on the ka9q-radio email list:

… For those running the RX-888, there is a new system that is so cool I can’t put it into words. It wraps so much into one app I may be retiring many of my other go to SDR apps and hardware.
https://ubersdr.org/
https://github.com/madpsy/ka9q_ubersdr
It’s composed of two docker images to support KA9Q-Radio and another for the UI, decoding and processing. There are also standalone clients for Windows and Linux, which I’ve yet to play with that offer various audio and CAT interfaces and SDC TCI connectivity, something I’ve been looking to see supported in the opensource SDR realm. See
https://www.lw-sdc.com/
for more on add-ons.
I’ve spun up docker and when I’m not testing/playing/restarting the images, you can check the receiver UI here:
http://ubersdr.k1ra.us:9080/
but also check out some cool metrics and analytics at:
http://ubersdr.k1ra.us:9080/digitalspots_map.html
http://ubersdr.k1ra.us:9080/bandconditions.html
http://ubersdr.k1ra.us:9080/noisefloor.html
There are only a select few others running this found here:
https://instances.ubersdr.org/

To which Phil Karn KA9Q (creator of ka9q-radio) replied:

Pretty cool. This is exactly what I hoped would happen when I started ka9q-radio -- somebody would put a really good UI on it.

At a glance, this looks like an ideal Software Defined Receiver client - for Amateur Radio HF reception.

That merits a plaint - UberSDR supports only HF and on a specific (albeit, good) Software Defined Receiver, the RX-888, that’s only (well, mostly…) for HF.

A second, minor plaint - UberSDR has native installations for Linux (completely understandable) and Windows (also completely understandable), but not MacOS… also understandable, I guess. But this would be really cool running on a Mac given how much Graphic Processor Unit (GPU) power that a typical, modern Mac has available (and almost entirely idle) in the era of the Apple M4 processor that is now baseline on current generation Macs.

We need the kind of functionality and usability such as UberSDR for VHF / UHF SDRx units, especially building in the decoders for common VHF / UHF modes, such as the various flavors of digital voice, conventional packet radio / APRS, LoRa / Meshtastic (on 433 / 868 / 915 MHz), etc.

“Need”, as my observation is that HF operation is mostly of interest to Amateur Radio Operators with long experience, but not of much interest to NewTechHams who are often constrained to VHF / UHF operations in apartments, condos, housing developments governed by Homeowners Agreements (HOAs) prohibiting external antennas, etc. This matters if Amateur Radio is going to be able to be seen as relevant in this era amongst the potential population that could become NewTechHams.

Electronic Technicians Association International

As an Electronic Technician (now retired), I had always intended, but never quite got around to getting certifications by the International Society of Certified Electronics Technicians (ISCET). That didn’t hinder me in my eclectic career path which expanded into SysAdmin / NetAdmin work, and eventually writing… but it was always something that I regretted not doing.

In researching a related area for an idea and possible story, I discovered that ISCET merged with other organizations with similar missions into the Electronic Technicians Association International (ETAI).

ETAI even has their own electronic magazine - High Tech News.

Wikipedia’s article - Electronics Technicians Association gives a good overview of the history of the various organizations that merged to become ETAI.

This mention in the Wikipedia article was Zero Retries Interesting:

In 1993 ETA became a COLEM for the FCC Commercial Radio License program and offers professionals the chance to sit for seven different FCC commercial licenses at ETA test sites including the general radiotelephone operator license.

I was under the (mistaken) impression that FCC licenses for individuals (other than Amateur Radio and General Mobile Radio Service - GMRS) had long since been deprecated in favor of industry certifications. Apparently the FCC Commercial Radio Operator Licenses continue, but testing for it is administered by Commercial Operator License Examination Manager organizations (COLEMs) such as (per ChatGPT):

National Association of Radio and Telecommunications Engineers (NARTE)
W5YI Group
National Radio Examiners (NRE)
ATI / FCC Commercial Radio License Examinations

It would be cool if something could be worked out with one of those groups, perhaps W5YI group (given its origins in Amateur Radio) to create “certifications” for various aspects of Amateur Radio in the 21st century such as:

Software Defined Radio
APRS
Digital Voice systems
Antenna theory
Microwave communications

And many other specialized topics.

Pending ARRL Book - Digital Networking for Ham Radio

This email from ARRL to some (ARRL affiliated?) Amateur Radio clubs was shared with me by Zero Retries reader Bob Houghton AD6QF:

While doing some research on clubs that have members with interests around new technologies like AREDN, Meshtastic, and networking, I thought you and the executive team of [organization redacted] would be interested in a new ARRL book called Digital Networking for Ham Radio, which is expected to be available before spring 2026. We go to press officially in mid-January. Here is a link to the final high-level table of contents.
Glen Popiel, KW5GP, an accomplished author of multiple ARRL publications, brings a unique perspective to this new book. Its focus stands out, and it is worth recognizing both individuals and clubs that are engaged in these subjects. Innovative technologies in the 33-, 23-, 13-, and 5-centimeter bands are attracting commercial interest. This book highlights the amateur radio community’s engagement with these frequencies and why we must show we are using them to prevent commercial interests from taking them away from the amateur radio community.
The new book will include pages for “booster” ads, so individuals and clubs interested in these topics can take part. Here are the details:
Individuals — For $30, an individual will have first and last name plus call sign listed in the book. Individuals listed will also receive a free printed copy of the book as a thank you. Those on our list will receive a discount code to claim a printed copy as soon as it arrives in our warehouse.
Clubs — We believe that the more club members who have this book, the more it will spark discussion and encourage even greater hands-on group projects. Listing the club’s name, main call sign, and website address costs $50. Club members who are not named individually are eligible to buy the book at half price. There is no limit to the number of copies you can order.
We expect to fill six to eight pages with booster ads in this book on digital networking and their use of the microwave spectrum. With a list price of $34.95, this book is an excellent way to support an important topic, demonstrate your commitment, and help defend our spectrum as one of our boosters.
Time is extremely limited before we go to press. Submit your club details using the online form linked below. We encourage you to share this message with your members or those interested in this topic so they can be part of the individual listing option.
The ARRL member services team will then reach back out to confirm the details and to process payment.
We need to close all form entries by January 9, 2026, to prepare and complete everything for the first production run.
Here is the form link.
Please do not hesitate to call or email me directly with any questions.
73,
Steve Bossert, K2GOG
Advertising Sales Manager
ARRL The National Association for Amateur Radio®
225 Main Street, Newington, CT 06111-1400
860-594-0203
sbossert@arrl.org
ads@arrl.org
www.arrl.org

AD6QF said:

I take this as a positive sign that ARRL is moving in the right direction.

I agree!

I think that the “booster” (I’d call it sponsorship) section of the book is a great idea, though I think they slightly missed the mark by not offering a slightly more prominent mention (such as mentioning the company name in a bold font), at a higher cost, to commercial companies. It’s an interesting hybrid to the complications of crowdfunding via Kickstarter, etc. where a product must be delivered. This approach is such a good idea that I’m going to adopt it for my upcoming book.

To support this book, and ARRL’s re-entry into books about Amateur Radio data networking (there have been a number, most recently High Speed Multimedia for Amateur Radio in 2016), I queried K2GOG at ARRL about the possibility of Zero Retries being mentioned as a “club” in the book, and I received a positive response, details To Be Determined.

I agree that this new book is a positive sign for ARRL’s recognition that Amateur Radio in the 21st century won’t be Same Old, Same Old technologies, and that Amateur Radio data networking is a significant trend in the 21st century. I hope I’m wrong in inferring that the book will posit that “Amateur Radio data networking is only being done in “33-, 23-, 13-, and 5-centimeter bands” and not mention the innovation in data networking that is being done in Amateur Radio VHF / UHF bands such as VARA FM, New Packet Radio, IP400, CATS, and AREDN (in the 902-928 MHz / 33 cm band).

Back in 2025-08, when I first heard about this book, I corresponded briefly with KW5GP with some suggestions of topics I think the book should include, and pointers to a number of Amateur Radio microwave networks.

To answer a question in advance, no this book doesn’t impact my plans for, or intended content of my pending book Zero Retries Guide to Amateur Radio in the 21st Century. While I think there will be some overlap of coverage, the two books have different aims and intended audiences. For example, I have no qualms about including speculative ideas (clearly labeled as such) such as my SuperPeater concept and discussing the rise of NewTechHams, and what that demographic portends for Amateur Radio in the 21st century.

I look forward to buying this book, reading, and learning more about the covered subjects from KW5GP’s perspective.

Ham Radio Workbench Podcast 252 - AllStar ROIP Linking with David NR9V from AllScan

I haven’t yet listened to this episode of HRWB, but it is next on my podcast list, within the next few days. I’m in awe of the productivity of David Gleason NR9V in churning out a wide variety of innovative audio interfaces via his company AllScan.info for a variety of use cases and radios in Amateur Radio. He's created several new variants of his products just within the last few months, which he previews on the Facebook group AllScan AllStar App & Nodes.

An episode of HRWB like this doesn’t get much more Zero Retries Interesting, and I really want to hear what NR9V has to say, especially from his encyclopedic knowledge of AllStarLink, which I could use a primer on.

DreamHat+ 60 GHz RADAR Hat For Raspberry Pi

Robb Smith VE7PSK via email:

Have you seen the DreamHat+ 60 GHz radar hat for Raspberry Pi?
(https://linuxgizmos.com/dreamhat-enables-60-ghz-radar-sensing-on-raspberry-pi-4b-and-5/)?
This is a computer-controlled 60 GHz transceiver in the form of a Raspberry Pi HAT which can be had for relatively little money, and looking at the datasheet, I think it might be possible to use it as a high-speed data transceiver. The 60 GHz band is an ISM band, so it should be possible for hams and non-hams alike to have some fun with it.

The article says in part:

Dream Boards has released the DreamHAT+ Radar, a compact add-on board that brings high-precision 60 GHz mm-wave radar capabilities to Raspberry Pi 4B and 5. Built around Infineon’s BGT60TR13C radar chip, the DreamHAT+ is designed for developers and researchers working on gesture recognition, presence detection, indoor tracking, and privacy-focused sensing, all without relying on cameras or microphones.
The radar operates between 58 and 63.5 GHz using frequency modulated continuous wave (FMCW) technology. It features one transmitting and three receiving antennas on a single chip, enabling directional sensing and motion tracking.
…
The DreamHAT+ Radar is available now for $110.83 from Pimoroni.

Two decades ago, the cheapest 60 GHz unit available was (from fallible memory) tens of thousands of dollars, which was reasonable at the time for achieving 1 Gbps radio links rooftop to rooftop in urban areas. Much of the expense of those units was creating an antenna that could focus (and track) a beam with the wavelength of 5mm.

Now a 60 GHz radio is a cheap Raspberry Pi HAT. I love technology!

Link to the previous mention of OpenTNC in Zero Retries 0232.

Pocket Pico / Pico TNC Project

Peter Filiberti KF7PSM via email:

I saw the write up on the OPENTNC. The author also modified the code to
work on our hardware design for the "POCKET PICO" as it is dubbed by our
group.

You can find it here:
https://github.com/pfiliberti/pico_tnc

Also another Ham forked our repo and took our firmware and made some
slight changes so it runs on the opentnc hardware. That is located here:
https://github.com/mpvano/pico_opentnc

Something else that might be of interest is the original tncemu:
https://github.com/pfiliberti/tncemu

From the PICO TNC page:

PICO TNC is the Terminal Node Controller for Amateur Packet Radio powered by Raspberry Pi Pico. This is a fork of that project. I have removed all of the major features of the code except for the modulator/demodulator section and inserted a z80 emulator from my TNCEMU project that emulates a Heathkit HK21 Pocket Packet. Introductory Video can be seen here:

I have strong memories of the HK21 (see cover and review article in the link) and I now have one in my collection of TNCs. (If memory serves, the HK21 was actually a product of Tano Corp. of Japan, not an original design by Heathkit). It was cool that you could connect a downsized TNC to a portable radio for a fully portable (handheld) packet radio station (sans laptop, of course). Now we can do the same thing with the Mobilinkd TNC4 and the Digirig and Digirig Lite, not to mention some portable radios with built-in TNCs.

Codec 2 Optimized For Smaller Memory and Faster Execution

Wojciech Kaczmarski SP5WWP on the M17 Project website:

After a few days of optimizing Codec2’s code (3200 bps mode), it is time to share the results (and the code itself!).
What the goals were:
provide the 3200 bps mode through a separate, clean repository (only C code, no Octave test benches, no modems etc.)
prepare an easy experimenting ground for further improvements (beyond the bit-exactness constraint)
code clean-up: remove all the unnecessary and obsolete constructs, applied optimizations
fully static memory allocation (including KISS FFT)
After all of that has been done, the resulting code is still fully compatible with the original Codec2, but executes faster and with much less memory footprint. Sounds like an excellent drop-in replacement for OpenRTX and other embedded projects. See the readme file for more details.
GitHub repository: https://github.com/M17-Project/Codec2-mod
As always: have fun testing the code. Feedback is welcome!

This is just one example of the continuing technological innovation occurring within the M17 Project. All the other digital voice systems used in Amateur Radio are static - they’re as good (or poor…) as they’re ever going to be. This is a situation akin to trying to improve voice quality in the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) that David Isenberg so aptly described in his amazing and prescient essay The Rise of the Stupid Network. All of the interfaces for P25, D-Star, System Fusion, DMR, etc. - repeaters, radios, networking, are now “locked in” so you can’t get better voice quality (or other fundamental improvements) from those systems.

But M17 is different because it’s entirely software based, especially its vocoder - Codec 2, and M17 is Open Source, so M17 can be improved… and as demonstrated by this development, is being improved.

Also relevant to M17, there have been a number of small announcements in the last few months relating to M17 posted on the M17 Project website, including CC1200 hotspot firmware v2.0 is out.

Will some nimble Amateur Radio vendor in the US please buy a number of the CC1200 hotspots and sell them from stock so us casual M17 users can order just one via a US source? I’m happy to pay a premium for a CC1200 from such a vendor. I just don’t want to deal with the complexities of ordering quantity 5 direct from China.

When You Hear “APRS”, Do You Think “2 meter FM”???

Jon Adams N7UV on the Ham-Radio-LoRa-APRS email list:

The Amateur Packet Reporting System (APRS), as envisioned by WB4APR and subsequently many others, was and is an application to establish a highly robust tactical messaging system using amateur radio digital communications, which was growing quickly in popularity around 1980. His goal was to allow any suitably equipped ham to capture, in a short period of time, an overview of what was going on (from a ham radio point of view) in the local area, including announcements, bulletins, messages, alerts, weather, objects, events, frequencies in use, nets, meetings, hamfests, ham satellites in view, mobile/portable device locations, and to be able to map this activity. Messaging is a core part of APRS!
Here’s a quote from a writeup WB4APR had published back in 2002 on the 10th anniversary of APRS: (the link is to the old aprs.org site, which doesn’t use https. so your browser might warn you of all kinds of dangers %^)
APRS is a real-time tactical digital communications protocol for exchanging information between a large number of stations covering a large (local) area. As a multi-user data network, it is quite different from conventional packet radio.

APRS is different from regular packet in four ways. First by the 
integration of maps and other data displays to organize and display 
data, second, by using a one-to-many protocol to update everyone in real time, third, by using generic digipeating so that prior knowledge of the network is not required, AND FORTH [sic], since 1997, a worldwide transparent internet backbone, linking everyone worldwide. APRS turns packet radio into a real-time tactical communications and display system for emergencies and public service applications (and global communications). Normal packet radio is useful in passing bulk message traffic (Email) from point-to-point, but it does not do well at real time events where information has a very short life time and needs to get to everyone quickly.
It’s well worth a read, if for no other reason than to understand better what Bob had in mind when he crafted APRS.
Many, including WB4APR, stated that APRS wasn’t intended to be a vehicle/person tracking system, but indeed that is generally considered to be the most common use of APRS today. To a great extent, that use has taken away from the original intent of messaging and situational awareness. Back when APRS was first envisioned, the GPS constellations that we take for granted nowadays didn’t exist, and once they became available the cost of a GPS receiver was astronomical (pun intended). Nonetheless, as GPS prices plummeted, it became easy to add GPS to a mobile setup. There’s nothing wrong with tracking mobile/portable units, it’s critical to remember that APRS is supposed to be an amateur radio situational awareness system, which also includes keeping track of things that are moving.
Mike KC8OWL has been one of the leaders in reinvigorating the “messaging” aspect of APRS with his (ok, it’s a bunch of folks) “APRS Thursday“ program, encouraging APRS-equipped hams to send a message. Messaging is a fundamental part of APRS.
What does LoRa have to do with APRS? First, they’re two different things. LoRa is an advanced, modern, wireless digital modulation technology, and APRS is an application (an “app”) that relies upon some method of wide-area wireless communications.
Traditional APRS (like what is heard on 2 meters) uses a very mature (or nearly obsolete, to this writer) digital modulation technology called AFSK (audio frequency shift keying) generated by simple analog<>digital modems (TNCs) to take advantage of the VHF voice FM radios that continue to be the most common item the average ham has access to. It’s straightforward to connect a TNC to a suitable 2 meter FM radio and, so long as the ham gets the wiring right, the audio levels properly set, and the RF path is solid, the TNC can construct a data packet, generate an audio waveform that modulates radio’s microphone input, and the radio transmits the packet. At the remote station (digi, igate, another operator, etc.) using a similar setup, it can receive, demodulate, and then read the contents of that data packet. Easy-peasy! (For AFSK APRS, please never use VOX to key the transmitter!)
There are two major challenges with legacy amateur packet radio. First, AFSK modulation used over the air is very sensitive to distortion, FM capture effect, random noise bursts, slow and fast path fade, mobile fade/flutter, etc. From that AFSK Wikipedia link above (mildly edited to further the point):
AFSK ... is far less efficient in both power and bandwidth than most other modulation modes.
The protocol selected to encode the information is AX.25, a variation on X.25, a protocol designed for wired packet-switched communications. X.25 works well because it is on a wire, there are no “hidden transmitters”, all units can detect whether the wire is busy or not thus to not step on one another, and there is a very low probability of external noise corrupting a bit. The A in AX.25 means “amateur”, as the hams who worked with X.25 did a few tweaks to it, and christened it AX.25. Over a radio channel AX.25 is problematic. It’s designed for a wire, not a real-life radio channel, with distortion, multipath, FM capture effect, random noise bursts, hidden transmitters, etc. AX.25 has no error correction capacity, so if a bit is corrupted over the radio channel, the receiving end has to throw out the entire packet, and that entire channel occupancy time has been wasted. Why was this selected? Because, back in the mid-1970’s, it was available, understood, and was designed for packet-switched networks, so why not? And could be implemented on fairly inexpensive (even for the 1980s) hardware.
Today, AFSK is crude. It was very common back in the dial-up modem days (does anyone even remember those ancient acoustically coupled modems where you dialed a phone number, then placed the handset into the rubber cups and could hear dulcet modem tones?), since all that there was available was an plain-old-telephone-service (POTS) audio circuit between two computers. AFSK was an easy way to encode digital information on a voice-grade telephone connection. An old-school telephone circuit is (within reason) a wire, not nearly as subject to the real world vagaries of a radio channel.
So here we hams are, in the 2nd quarter of the 21st century, still using a set of technologies that are now over 50 years old. LoRa data communications represents a thousand-fold improvement on legacy FM AFSK packet radio! LoRa is as big a step forward from FM AFSK as FT8 and other advanced digital communications modes are to RTTY %^).
Next time, let’s find out more about what’s so cool about LoRa and why it’s perfect for hams and APRS!

Kudos to N7UV on this great food-for-thought article about keeping APRS relevant with improved radio technology. Candidly, this is the kind of thought leadership I had hoped would be provided by the APRS Foundation. But that organization is fading out in relevance for lack of substantive communications (last update on their website was 2026-07) or substantive advancement of organizational perspective on APRS.

LoRa is one reasonable option for a “better than AFSK” modulation system for low data rate communications in Amateur Radio. But, LoRa is a bit tough to fit into conventional APRS usage as there aren’t any 10 or 25 or 50 watt radios available for LoRa (and especially not for Amateur Radio VHF / UHF bands other than 433 MHz (intended for low power unlicensed use in Europe) and 915 MHz (intended for low power unlicensed use in North America). Yes, there’s an argument to be made that LoRa doesn’t need higher power operation, but… we’re Amateur Radio, and we can use such power levels.

One huge improvement that could be implemented with APRS would be the incorporation, as a standardized improvement in the APRS specification, of Forward Error Correction (FEC). We now have a choice of FEC for VHF / UHF packet radio appropriate for APRS - FX.25 or IL2P 1 (my choice is the latter as its FEC is interleaved, rather than being “tacked on”) but adding FX.25, if that is the consensus, would be a significant improvement to APRS.

Another vastly improved implementation of APRS beyond 2m AFSK modulation is Communication And Telemetry System - CATS which also uses 70 cm, with Frequency Shift Keying at 9600 bps. Unlike LoRa, all of the technology in CATS is Open Source.

Is LoRa (Long Range) Technology Magic?

Another great article by Jon Adams N7UV on the Ham-Radio-LoRa-APRS email list:

No, just good old fashioned math, signal processing, and silicon engineering know-how.
What makes LoRa so special? It’s a modulation scheme that is fairly unusual in our natural world, save some animals and charged particles interacting with the Earth’s magnetic field.
LoRa is a form of radio frequency modulation like AM, FM, SSB, CW, etc., but one that has some very impressive characteristics making it ideal for static high path loss situations. And it can provide this kind of performance while sipping microjoules from a 10-year-lifetime lithium primary battery or an inch-square solar panel and a supercap. LoRa is a wireless data transmission technique, not an end application. It’s a digital communications mode for which there is an extensive and ever-growing amount of technical documentation publicly available.
LoRa is the trademarked term for a specific chirp spread spectrum (CSS) technology developed by semiconductor company Semtech, headquartered in Southern California, USA. The silicon that Semtech manufactures is a complete radio transmitter/receiver on a chip. Chirp spread spectrum has been used by the military since World War II (in a former life I helped design spacecraft-borne CSS radars for NASA), it’s nothing new, it just used to be really complex to implement in hardware. It’s a form of frequency shift keying (FSK) where it’s both the carrier frequency relative to the channel center and the rate of change with respect to time of that carrier frequency that encodes the data. That’s what makes it novel and so remarkable.
Semtech developed LoRa for the Internet of Things (IoT) world. There, IoT means communicating flow rates from a water meter that’s in a concrete box mostly underground, or a gas or electric meter on the side of a house, to a aggregator site on a phone pole a kilometer away. In fact, that and similar environments and uses are what has made LoRa radio technology so successful in the global marketplace. LoRa has discrete settings that allow a wide range of data rates, channel occupancy times, power consumption, and radio link budget. Every one of these settings might find value in a particular situation. And the broad operating frequency range means it can be adapted to nearly any unlicensed band that’s available. According to Semtech, there were over 410 million end nodes with LoRa ICs deployed worldwide as of February 2025. What that means for us hams is plenty of product availability!
Unlike some ham radio digital communications techniques, there are no fees to use LoRa other than the cost of the semiconductor chip, which is a few dollars US. There are manufacturers all over the world that take Semtech chips and incorporate them into their products. According to Semtech, a lot of their chips go into metering devices that water, electric power, and gas utilities that then use the LoRa link to communicate remotely with those meters. LoRa chips can be configured to consume extremely little power, and allow that meter’s battery to last a decade. Due to the modulation method and receiver performance, 20-byte 1% packet error rate receiver sensitivities of -120 to -150 dBm are achievable. LoRa settings that enable about 1200 bps over the air have a receiver sensitivity of around -129 dBm - compare that to 2 m amateur packet radio at 1200 baud on a typical analog FM receiver breaking squelch at maybe -120 dBm and a usable signal needing to be around or greater than -110 to -105 dBm, and at those received power levels still often not able to meet the 1% packet error rates that LoRa does. And that’s for fixed nodes.
Semtech’s chip technology has progressed through 3 generations, and much of the silicon they make supports 150-960 MHz continuous; some of their chips also support 2400-2500 MHz, that’s potentially interesting too. (Sadly, they don’t support the 1240-1300 MHz 23 cm US ham band - that would be awesome if they did...)
LoRa, as implemented by Semtech, supports a wide range of data transmission rates from 11 bps (about that of a 20-word-per-minute Morse code operator) to 62.5 kbps. The challenge with very low data rates is that a message can tie up a channel for tens of seconds, cratering overall channel capacity. But the link margin is huge! (Only of value if you can make use of it.) Completely satisfactory link margins can be had at LoRa settings that provide over-the-air data rates of even 10 kbps with channel occupancy times in the 40 ms range, vastly improving the channel availability and its capacity to accommodate multiple users.
Because of LoRa’s native ability to work far below the noise floor, carrier squelch multiple access - collision avoidance (CSMA-CA) doesn’t exist in the LoRa world. However, it does have something that’s similar, channel activity detection (CAD). While generation 1 LoRa chips had a limited CAD function, generation 2 and greater LoRa chips have a full-featured CAD that allows the transmitter to check the channel for activity before making the decision to transmit a LoRa packet. CAD produces an outcome similar to that of CSMA-CA. At the aforementioned “10 kbps” settings, a CAD operation takes just a millisecond. Researchers have really begun to dig into ways to improve the overall channel availability through innovative ways of using CAD.
Hams started experimenting with LoRa around a decade ago, nearly all in Europe. There are lots of independent research papers on LoRa written since the mid-2010s, there are funny-hat-wearing Swiss hams on YouTube who talk about LoRa, there are whole ham clubs using LoRa for amateur radio comms, and at least a few who are experimenting with new ideas to take greater advantage of what LoRa has to offer. Semtech publishes detailed technical data sheets and technical white papers that describe in detail how to use LoRa. All are publicly available technical resources for learning more about LoRa and how hams can take best advantage of it.
More to come!

Sadly, a lot of hobbyist usage of LoRa, both Amateur Radio and Meshtastic / MeshCore is a Tragedy of the Commons in using a single channel for wide area networking. Amateur Radio Packet Radio experienced this in the early days of the TNC-2 and its ability to digipeat. Initially, most Amateur Radio Packet Radio activity was on a common frequency - 145.01 MHz. That’s where everyone was, so that’s where everyone wanted to be. We quickly learned that putting all packet radio traffic on a single frequency such as 145.01 MHz just doesn’t scale. Packet Radio activity soon spread out into ten widely agreed upon discrete Packet Radio frequencies - 144.91, 144.93, 144.95, 144.97, 144.99, 145.01, 145.03, 145.05, 145.07, and 145.09 with gateways, backbones (often on another band), different channels for BBS forwarding, etc. LoRa foresaw this issue and created LoRaWAN as a standardized way to “spread out” LoRa communications, but Amateur Radio (and Meshtastic, and MeshCore) haven’t embraced LoRaWAN - yet.

Federated Amateur Radio Packet Network Wiki

… is a valuable resource for hams looking to learn more about packet radio networks. The wiki provides documentation, user tools, and site tools to help users navigate and utilize the network effectively.

Just one (of the many) valuable nuggets of Zero Retries Interesting info in Random Wire 161 (and Random Wire newsletter in general). The “popular perception” is that Packet Radio isn’t in active use any more (except for VHF / UHF Winlink access and APRS), but this and many other (scattered, diffuse, not centrally organized) Packet Radio organizations are active in developing, promoting, and growing Packet Radio networks.

Let’s Encrypt Certificates Now Available for IP Addresses Without Domain Names

Another valuable nugget from Random Wire 161:

Upcoming Changes to Let’s Encrypt Certificates means you won’t need to have a domain name to obtain a short-lived Let’s Encrypt certificate: “This switch will also mark the opt-in general availability of short-lived certificates from Let’s Encrypt, including support for IP Addresses on certificates.” This is a big deal for those of us with some IP-based resources that are connected to the internet but have no domain name.

Let’s Encrypt

… is a Certificate Authority that provides free TLS certificates, making it easy for websites to enable HTTPS encryption and create a more secure Internet for everyone. Let’s Encrypt is a project of the nonprofit Internet Security Research Group.

This might slide by unnoticed by most in Amateur Radio (including me), but kudos to Random Wire Editor Tom Salzer KJ7T for having caught this significant development. I think it’s significant for the potential of (free) Let’s Encrypt certificates that can now be used with (free, for Amateur Radio use) static IPv4 IP addresses that don’t necessarily have domain names connected to them, issued by 44Net Connect. We cannot use Hyper Text Transport Protocol Secure (HTTPS), AKA web site / browser encryption, on Amateur Radio spectrum2. But, in setting up Amateur Radio Over Internet systems that will be accessed from the public Internet, not having HTTPS (certificates) (HTTP, no S) is a major hassle. Think accessing a remote Amateur Radio with just a 44.x.x.x IP address. Using http://44.x.x.x, your web browser starts throwing all kinds of fits. https://44.x.x.x - no problem. With HTTPS, such Amateur Radio Over Internet systems act like “real Internet”.

Continued Kudos to KJ7T for his excellent work on Random Wire Newsletter and now EtherHam.

Amateur Radio Can Be Relevant to Entry Level Job Seeking

I saw two articles recently that align with my positing in Zero Retries that hands-on experience with radio technology via Amateur Radio can be relevant to one’s career prospects for technology, and especially radio technology.

Ramneek Kalra in IEEE Spectrum - Hands-On Experience Can Increase Your Chances of Landing a Job Tips for impressing employers with practical applications:

As a college student, are you concerned that your knowledge alone won’t be enough to impress potential employers? Do you feel you lack the necessary hands-on technical skills to secure a job? Maybe you’ve thought of an engineering solution for a problem in your school or community but are unsure how to take the next step.
I struggled to bridge the gap between classroom theory and real-world application. But when you combine academic knowledge with practical projects that solve a societal problem with technology, you can ace any interview.

…

Students need to understand the importance of doing something exceptional beyond learning theory and concepts. Having practical skills before leaving school is a great way to set yourself apart from other new engineering graduates.

Amateur Radio is a practical, and demonstrable way for students to get hands on experience with radio technology.

…

Eleanor Pringle in Fortune - Getting hired in 2026 is all about your ‘microcredentials’ says CEO of $1.3 billion learning platform—this is what he tells Gen Z to focus on:

Enter the trend of “microcredentials,” professional certificates that demonstrate a candidate is pursuing additional training or qualifications to support the roles they’re applying for. According to $1.3 billion learning platform Coursera, more than 90% of employers would rather hire a candidate with a microcredential on their CV than one without.

While this article discusses semi-formal credentials from Coursera, I posit that hands-on experience with radio technology via Amateur Radio is a valuable de facto “micro credential”.

These two articles complement a comment I heard at GNU Radio Conference 2025 relating to trying to find and hire people who have experience with GNU Radio. The matter-of-fact reply was “everyone I know who has experience with GNU Radio has a good job already”.

There’s an infinite number of experiences to be gained by experimenting with Software Defined Radio (and GNU Radio is one of the easiest ways to get started with SDR), in Amateur Radio. It starts simply with getting a Software Defined Receiver working, and getting a very low power Weak Signal Propagation Reporter (WSPR) transmitter working.

To be clear, obtaining an Amateur Radio license, or using Amateur Radio spectrum, is not required to develop such expertise. But, Amateur Radio spectrum - LF, to HF, to VHF / UHF, and microwave, along with the unlimited modes available (including unique ones that you develop) has exponentially more possibilities for learning about the very broad spectrum (yes, pun intended) of radio technology.

The RadioBuilder Radio Lab For Builders

All the building blocks to experiment and build radios
AM, SSB and FM
LW to VHF
0 – 2GHZ RF Amplifier
0 – 500MHz Mixers
Variable Gain 60dB IF amplifier
7 Watt Audio Amplifier
3 Signal Generators 8KHz to 160MHz
Color Display
ESP32 Controller
RF and IF Filter
3 Prototyping areas
Spectrum Analyzer Detector

This is pretty cool - a “breadboard” for radio experimentation and learning.

No idea why this occurred to me, but in a tightly defined environment like this, with good documentation by the vendor, this would be an ideal environment for an Artificial Intelligence chatbot like ChatGPT to teach radio technology one step at a time, going beyond the exercises developed and documented by the vendor.

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AI Data Centers Demand More Than Copper Can Deliver

Samuel K. Moore in IEEE Spectrum:

Radio and terahertz links could be better, faster, and cheaper

The [AI] industry is working on ways to unclog data centers by extending copper’s reach and bringing slim, long-reaching optical fiber closer to the GPUs themselves. But Point2 and another startup, AttoTude, advocate for a solution that’s simultaneously in between the two technologies and completely different from them. They claim the tech will deliver the low cost and reliability of copper as well as some of the narrow gauge and distance of optical—a combination that will handily meet the needs of future AI systems.
Their answer? Radio.
Later this year, Point2 will begin manufacturing the chips behind a 1.6-terabit-per-second cable consisting of eight slender polymer waveguides, each capable of carrying 448 gigabits per second using two frequencies, 90 gigahertz and 225 GHz. At each end of the waveguide are plug-in modules that turn electronic bits into modulated radio waves and back again. AttoTude is planning essentially the same thing, but at terahertz frequencies and with a different kind of svelte, flexible cable.

With our shared background of Amateur Radio, and more generally, the use of radio technology in free space, we sometimes don’t think of the incredible myriad uses of radio technology that aren’t communications (as we know it). This is yet another example of an unconventional, unexpected, and absolutely essential use of radio technology. At GRCon 2025, I learned about radio technology being used for higher resolution imaging, new types of RADAR, Near Field Communications (NFC), etc. We think of computing (and now, AI) being the most impactful technology in our current technological society, but there are other supporting technologies such as power generation and delivery, and now, in the 2020s, radio technology has become absolutely fundamental. It has been, for decades now, but it’s faded into the background… and it shouldn’t.

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This issue released on 2025-12-31

Footnotes for this Issue

To see the relevant sentence for the footnote, just click the footnote number.

I haven’t tried to look at the creation / edit history of these articles on Wikipedia… but some Amateur Radio Operator is doing a wonderful job of creating these unique-to-Amateur-Radio technologies in Wikipedia. Kudos, unknown Wikipedia Amateur Radio editor!

It’s a longer, deeper discussion, but the letter of the regulations for US Amateur Radio is that deliberate obfuscation of content is prohibited except for space telecommand and control of remote control model vehicles. Thus if you’re just trying to access something on the Internet - such as querying / validating a callsign on the FCC website (only accessible using https), you’re not trying to obfuscate the content, the obfuscation / encryption is incidental.

Zero Retries 0232

Steve Stroh N8GNJ — Sat, 13 Dec 2025 01:45:29 GMT

About Zero Retries

Steve Stroh N8GNJ, Editor

Email - editor@zeroretries.net

On the web: https://www.zeroretries.org/p/zero-retries-0232

Substack says “Too long for email”? YES

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In this issue:

What’s New at Digital Library of Amateur Radio & Communications — December 2025

Zero Retries Email List

📡 The TPRFN Connection: December 2025 Newsletter

Zero Retries YouTube Channel Is Live

44Net Connect is Live!

FCC Allocates 60-Meter World-Wide Amateur Band Approved at WRC-15; Continues Amateur Use of Four Additional 60-Meter Channels…

Zero Retries Guide to Amateur Radio HF Data Communications

Comments Summary From Previous Issue

Request To Send

Commentary by Editor Steve Stroh N8GNJ

Paid Subscribers Update

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Financial support from Zero Retries readers is a significant vote of support for the continued publication of Zero Retries.

Big… Overflowing… Issue of Zero Retries

This has been an exceptionally Zero Retries Interesting week!

I thought the big news in Zero Retries this week was going to be the launches of the Zero Retries email list, the Zero Retries YouTube channel, and one of the first Zero Retries Guides (of a long, long list of subjects) - Zero Retries Guide to Amateur Radio HF Data Communications.

But then came news that 44Net Connect had officially launched (which I had been calling 44Net VPN).

That prompted me to start writing a brief article about Starlink Mini, Starlink Standby service, and 44Net Connect and a powerful fusion of those three developments. Given the already large size of this issue of Zero Retries, and even more Zero Retries Interesting developments this week (read on…), I punted that article forward to the next issue.

This was also the week of the month that Kay Savetz K6KJN contributes their monthly column What’s New at Digital Library of Amateur Radio & Communications (which I always read immediately when it hits my email inbox).

But the Zero Retries Interesting stuff just kept coming…

There was the news that the ARRL will be sponsoring HamSCI 2026 in Connecticut, USA. It’s so cool to see that ARRL has resumed actively sponsoring technical conferences relating to Amateur Radio!

Glenn Allison N3MEL wasted no time after the soft launch of the Zero Retries email list to publish The TPRFN Connection: December 2025 Newsletter on the new list (reprinted in this issue).

My colleague in writing Zero Retries Interesting Amateur Radio content, Tom Salzer KJ7T of the Random Wire newsletter chose this week to bring his new project out of stealth mode - EtherHam.

And lastly… the biggest Zero Retries Interesting news this week is that the US FCC formalized its regulations (and thus, it’s official, and permanent) the US Amateur Radio 60m band, with a Zero Retries Interesting twist.

And of course, there are also the many interesting short items that I mention in the ZR > BEACON section which, of late, I have to severely triage for inclusion in Zero Retries. One of the many blessings of the Zero Retries email list is that when there’s an item for ZR > BEACON that I just don’t think I can fit into Zero Retries (it’s always too big…) I can now post it to the Zero Retries email list with the hashtag #zrbeacon.

If you’ve read this far in your email client, save yourself some frustration and click the link at the start of this issue to launch this issue in a web browser. That enables you view the entire newsletter, not just the initial portion that your email client is willing to display.

Weekends Are For Amateur Radio!

Have a great weekend, all of you co-conspirators in Zero Retries Interesting Amateur Radio activities!

Western Washington USA (Seattle metro area to the Canada border) has experienced record new flood levels this week and continuing through this weekend. We just got a helluva lot of rain, including the nearby mountains which melted snowpack. All that extra water couldn’t be absorbed quickly so it goes to the rivers, which overflow their usual boundaries. Several low-lying cities in Whatcom Country are completely flooded. Thanks to those Zero Retries readers that checked in with Tina and I - our house is safely away from flood danger and we’re doing fine.

Steve N8GNJ

Zero Retries Email List

By Steve Stroh N8GNJ

Image courtesy of groups.io

Now it can be told. I’ve teased / hinted this project periodically for the past year (at least). I’ve finally created the Zero Retries email list:

https://groups.io/g/zeroretries

I intend that the Zero Retries email list will replace Substack comments as Zero Retries transitions to a new publishing platform in 2026. I don’t intend to enable comments on the new publishing platform. On the new publishing platform, from the beginning I will direct comments to the Zero Retries email list.

A secondary purpose of the Zero Retries email list is to extend and continue discussions about Zero Retries Interesting topics.

Why Set Up a Zero Retries Email List?

Basically… I am not a subject matter expert about most of the things I write about in Zero Retries. Zero Retries only exists because there is so much interesting Technological Innovation in Amateur Radio… and I am mostly just reporting out about those developments.

I’ve had some help over the years in writing about Zero Retries Interesting developments, such as my wonderful friend and Zero Retries Pseudostaffer Kay Savetz K6KJN contributing a monthly column in Zero Retries about cool new stuff coming into Digital Library of Amateur Radio & Communications. But folks willing to write an article for Zero Retries are rare (compared to the amount of innovation that’s actually happening).

Thus, setting up the Zero Retries email list provides a venue, a community to mention Technological Innovation in Amateur Radio - that’s less formal / scary than writing an article in Zero Retries. And… when someone posts something, folks can immediately interact with the poster / subject, to the enrichment of us all.

An Email List? On the Cusp of 2026?

For those that think that email lists are an electronic discussion system straight out of the previous century… you’re right.

The 21st century preferred electronic discussion system seems to be Discord.

I get that, and don’t disagree.

This is especially painful because my new Amateur Radio friends in the GNU Radio community that I met at GRCon 2025 were pretty unanimous that they don’t have any bandwidth for email lists. Their only venue for communicating amongst themselves about Amateur Radio use of GNU Radio… is Discord.

In short, a groups.io email list is the solution I’ve chosen for the first implementation of a Zero Retries community. I don’t have the personal bandwidth for maintaining a Zero Retries presence on Discord. I wish I did!

As a recommendation for the Zero Retries email list, a Zero Retries reader, via private email, said it well:

The Zero Retries mailing list is awesome. Not only does it free comments from Substack, but it frees general comments from any particular ZR issue. Makes it more of a “community”. Not to mention all the other great things about mailing lists: searchable, archive-able, etc.

One thing I really love about groups.io is when there is an interesting discussion, it can be cleanly linked to with a URL that can be shared out.

I intend to continue at least a cursory Zero Retries presence, and some interaction, on Mastodon and Bluesky - apologies to followers there - I’ve been less than diligent of late about posting updates.

Why Not the Substack Comments System?

In my opinion, the Substack comments system is poorly implemented. Comments are silo’d into each individual issue, the existence of a comment system isn’t very visible, there’s no continuity from issue to issue, and the signup process with Substack is onerous (from reports I’ve gotten from readers who wanted to comment, and gave up trying to create an account to be able to comment).

In addition, one of the best parts of Zero Retries is that there are now nearly 3400 readers who are email subscribers, and untold number of readers who aren’t email subscribers, reading via RSS, social media, pass-along, etc. Thus the new Zero Retries email list is a way to begin forming a community within the Zero Retries readership. Zero Retries readers… and co-conspirators for technological innovation in Amateur Radio, can “discuss amongst themselves” and support each other, on the Zero Retries email list.

Priority of Onboarding Participants

The first few waves of invitations to join the Zero Retries email list have already gone out to Founding Members, Pseudostaffers, Paid Subscribers, ZRDC attendees, Guest Authors, and those who have offered insightful comments (on Substack) since Zero Retries 0220.

Note that Substack commenter names aren’t directly translatable to [Substack] email subscribers, so for some of you “insightful commenters” I was not able to find an email address to invite you.

My goal with the Zero Retries email list is keep the signal to noise ratio high on the list. Generally, I’d like to keep the discussions to the same subjects discussed in Zero Retries - “Zero Retries Interesting”.

Floodgates Open - Briefly

I briefly… (hilariously, in hindsight) imagined manually vetting all applicants as (nearly 3400!) email subscribers to Zero Retries, but that’s not feasible.

But I don’t want to enable automatic additions to “anyone” - that’s a de facto invitation for the list to be spammed. Thus, my temporary compromise is between manageability and spam protection is…

between Friday 2025-12-12 and Sunday 2025-12-14…

I will suspend manual approval of new subscribers.

After that window, manual approval for subscriptions will be reinstated.

My thinking is that notification of the existence of the Zero Retries email list will be published first in this issue of Zero Retries, offering regular Zero Retries readers a reasonable chance to subscribe quickly to the Zero Retries email list with no barrier.

Article Tagging

I hope to make good use of hashtags (#) on the Zero Retries email list.

One example is:

#hfdata

which displays discussions of the use of HF data communications.

For each story in Zero Retries, instead of the Substack

Comments from Zero Retries 0231

button I’ve used to date, I’ll be displaying an email link with a hashtag of the current Zero Retries issue and a general hashtag about the subject. For example:

To comment on this article on the Zero Retries email list, click here.

This process will be a work in progress for some time.

The List Sounds Interesting, But I’d Rather Not Subscribe

If you’re a “I’d rather not put my email address out in the open on an email list” kind of person, or you prefer to “lurk” (passively observe)… I understand.

Note that the archives of the email list are public:
https://groups.io/g/zeroretries/messages
so anyone can follow the conversations on the list.

Also, the archives of the email list are accessible via RSS:
https://groups.io/g/zeroretries/rss

While there will be some overlapping discussion with other email lists (and other discussion systems), detailed discussion (such as troubleshooting) will be deferred to email lists / discussion systems that are specifically for supporting specific topics.

One example is troubleshooting Dire Wolf technical issues should be deferred to the Dire Wolf Software TNC email list - https://groups.io/g/direwolf.

The Zero Retries email list will be very much a work in progress - for months.

Some future work:

Appointing moderators; eventually the spammers will come.
Populating the Wiki of other email lists / discussion systems for supporting specific topics better than on the Zero Retries email list.

To comment on this article on the Zero Retries email list, click here.

What’s New at Digital Library of Amateur Radio & Communications — December 2025

By Kay Savetz K6KJN
Internet Archive’s Program Manager, Special Collections

DLARC has added an enormous trove of publications from AMSAT, the Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation, with the gracious permission of the organization. Formed in 1969, AMSAT designs, builds, launches, and operates satellites carrying amateur radio payloads. In addition to keeping amateur radio in space for 55 years, AMSAT has created a variety of publications, many of which are now in the DLARC library.

DLARC now offers a tantalizingly, nearly complete collection of the AMSAT Amateur Satellite Report newsletter — from the first issue in February 1981 through issue 193 in 1990. (Only three issues are missing: 147, 189, 190…and any past issue 193 if those were published.)

And! DLARC has added 96 issues the AMSAT Journal, bringing it to 228 issues in the AMSAT Newsletter and AMSAT Journal collection. Also in that collection are 19 issues of Orbit, a glossy magazine sporadically published by AMSAT from 1980 through 1984. Thanks to Paul Stoetzer, N8HM, AMSAT’s Executive Vice President, for helping make all of these items available in DLARC.

While we’re on the topic of satellite communications, we’ve added a bunch of historical satcomm material donated by Hank Magnuski KA6M. These include several drafts of the the AMICON System Specification draft (“This is a draft version of specifications for use of the data communications special service channel (L2) on the AMSAT Phase III satellite, the communications medium which serves as the foundation of the AMSAT International Computer Network (AMICON).”) And a 1985 document describing NASA’s Advanced Communications Technology Satellite Program (ACTS). And a AMSAT Orbital Prediction Program in BASIC and Pascal programming languages. There’s plenty more satellite communications history in this amazing collection from KA6M.

All at once, the QSL collection at DLARC has grown from a smattering of cards here and there to an impressive collection of more than 50,000 cards and verifications. It started when the Badger Amateur Radio Society, a student organization at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (W9YT), scanned and uploaded more than 17,600 QSL cards, some apparently going back to the club’s founding year of 1930. The collection includes beautiful card designs from all over the world. More details about the digitization and archival project of the BARS QSL cards is at https://qsla.hadleyso.com.

Around that same time I heard from the National Radio Club (“the world’s oldest and largest medium wave DX Club”) which wanted to mirror their collection of QSL cards and verification letters. Ta da, DLARC’s new National Radio Club Verifications collection contains more than 38,000 cards and letters from ham radio stations, mediumwave, and broadcast AM/FM stations worldwide.

Apparently all this effort somehow put the idea of sharing QSL cards into the universe, because Joseph Harris of Columbus, Ohio scanned dozens of his dad’s QSL cards from circa 1955-56, and my buddy Bill Lange started scanning his dad’s card collection. You, too, can scan your (or your family member’s) QSL card collection and share them in the DLARC library. It’s pretty easy, can be done in little batches, and is a great way to preserve your family’s legacy as part of the radio hobby.

I’ve written about our collection of Bexar Wire, the newsletter of the San Antonio Radio Club, before. The club has been around a long time, and club members managed to unearth earlier editions of the newsletter: we were able to scan 144 additional issues of “San Antonio Radio Club Bulletin” and “The Exciter” spanning 1955 through 1978. We’ve also added dozens issues of the California Historical Radio Club Journal — the issues now span nearly 50 years, 1975 through 2024.

Also we’ve scanned 130 issues of The Horn Speaker, “the newspaper for the hobbyist of vintage sound and electronics” published by Jim Cranshaw N5FSL. It started circa 1969 with the title Antique Radio, and was soon renamed The Horn Speaker with the April 1972 issue. We have sporadic issues from 1973 through 1997. These issues are part of the lot donated to DLARC by the SPARK Museum of Electrical Invention [in Bellingham, WA].

In a separate Internet Archive project, folks have been working hard to scan issues of ERIC from microfiche. ERIC is “Educational Resources Information Center”, an online library of education research and information, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education since 1966. This project has revealed a number of items of interest to ham radio, so I’ve added them to DLARC: including the Newsletter of the Language by Radio Interest Group. (“LBRIG Newsletter consists of news items, short articles, general information, and opinions on the subject of language learning by radio. Subjects discussed include guidelines for selecting and purchasing shortwave equipment, where to obtain broadcast directories…”) Here’s the first year of issues and volume 2. Here’s a 200-page document on Building Telegraphs, Telephones, and Radios for Middle School Children and Their Parents. Also, here’s a 1986 treatise on Amateur Radio Satellite Communications, and one from 1984 on Antenna Construction and Propagation of Radio Waves.

Next month brings a new year! In 2026, written works published in 1930 will move into the public domain in the United States. Can’t wait to share new old public radio material with you.

DLARC want list: https://archive.org/details/dlarc-wantlist

To comment on this article on the Zero Retries email list, click here.

📡 The TPRFN Connection: December 2025 Newsletter

By Glenn Allison N3MEL

Happy Holidays from The Packet Radio RF Forwarding Network!

As 2025 winds down, we celebrate another year of growth and increased resilience in our RF-Only digital messaging network. The holiday season is a perfect reminder of the importance of reliable connections, and that is precisely what we are building together!

🌐 Network Update: Crossing the Digital Divide

The TPRFN is closing out 2025 with strong performance and a commitment to expand our fully RF-forwarded backbone. Our objective remains clear: providing a stable, independent digital messaging layer for EMCOMMs (Emergency Communications). The primary challenge is time; there is a lot I would like to see get done in 2026, but having both a full-time job and a side seasonal business makes it difficult to get it all done. If there is anyone that would like to help with getting the profiles updated please let N3MEL know, the template is basically created just need to track down the current stations data.

📈 November PKTNET Check-in Results

The November PKTNET Exercise demonstrated excellent coast-to-coast message handling, relying exclusively on VARA HF links between our Hub stations.

Key Success: We saw some network latency for cross-region BBS-to-BBS message forwarding in 2025 due to solar storms. However, VARA continued to show its strength , giving the network its ability to continue to pass its traffic.
Areas for Improvement: Propagation challenges on both 40 & 80 meters during a 24 hour period highlighted the need for more regional hub stations in the central US to better support NVIS paths.
Action Item: The November 2025 PKTNET Results are now available on the TPRFN website. Be sure to check them out at this link: click here

📈 2026 TPRFN Projects!

Skywarn: Working on the details for handling Skywarn Spotter Reports using the BPQ RMS Service or if there is an internet outage somewhere in the network can be forwarded to different regions for delivery options. More info coming on this after the 1st of the year. But to get things started we have a prototype html to text spotter report available for testing at this link: click here
NTS Messages: Need to get the full list of network stations that can handle NTS Traffic so that those that don’t know where to forward them if you happen to receive one.
Profiles Page: Working to get all the Hub Stations profiles up to date and added to a downloading document for field users to keep in their Go Kits.
Polling Stations: Would like to get the Polling Stations profiles posted as well.

🚨 Call to Action: Seeking New Hub Stations!

Are you a station with a reliable HF setup, a dedicated server running BPQ32 (or equivalent), and a passion for digital resilience? We are actively seeking new Hub stations, especially in the following areas, to bolster our redundancy and fill coverage gaps:

See the current coverage map at this link: click here
ANY AREAS: with no stations are up for grabs. Use our ‘ Contact Us ‘ link to contact us if you have an interest.

Join us in making the TPRFN the most reliable, internet-free digital messaging network in the amateur radio community! Please fill out the inquiry form on our website to get started.

🛠️ Tech Corner: BPQ Node Security and Maintenance

With the new year approaching, now is the perfect time for basic node maintenance.

Password Review: Ensure your BBS and Node passwords are up-to-date and complex. Although we operate in a trusted network, good digital security habits are critical.
Software Updates: Please check for the latest versions of BPQ32 and your chosen modem software (VARA HF, ARDOP, PACTOR, etc.). The developers frequently release patches that improve stability and speed.
Antenna Tune-Up: Winter weather can be tough on antennas. A quick check of your SWR and cable connections now can prevent a failure during a critical communications event.

🗓️ December Events: Practice Makes Perfect

Don’t let the holiday cheer distract you from getting on the air! December offers excellent opportunities to test your gear and practice digital modes:

Dec PKTNET: Starting a week early this month due to the Christmas Holiday. Starting Sat Dec 14^th 00:00 UTC. For this month’s instruction: click here

🤝 Happy Holidays and 73!

Thank you to every sysop and participant for their dedication to building this essential network. Your commitment ensures that amateur radio remains a relevant and powerful tool for resilience in the face of any emergency.

We wish you and your families a safe, warm, and happy holiday season!

The TPRFN Network Team

Web: http://tprfn.net
Email: tprfn@winlink.org

73 de Glenn Allison N3MEL
(tprfn) The Packet Radio Forwarding Network
EPA Hub Station
www.tprfn.net
Emergency Coordinator
Chester County ARES/RACES
www.w3eoc.org

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Zero Retries YouTube Channel Is Live

By Steve Stroh N8GNJ

Another project long in gestation, the Zero Retries YouTube Channel is live:

https://www.youtube.com/@ZeroRetries

Like many things, once you work up your courage and settle in for a few hours of patience and frustration at the keyboard (aided, at times, with an adult beverage), setting up a YouTube channel turns out to have been more daunting in concept (dread) than in practice.

I really should have attempted this years ago.

It did take a couple of hours of careful menu selections, including setting it up in a private browser tab so as not to confuse the creation of this new YouTube channel with my personal YouTube history or my gmail email address / Google ID.

ZRDC 2025 Conference Videos

The first thing done was to upload the videos from ZRDC 2025, and they’re now in a playlist:

Zero Retries Digital Conference 2025

Future Zero Retries Videos, Including Zero Retries Intro to… Series

There will be many more videos uploaded to the Zero Retries YouTube channel in the coming months, including the start of the Zero Retries Intro series. Zero Retries Intros will be short (the goal is 5-10 minutes) video presentations, narrowly focused on one Zero Retries Interesting topic. Intros are not intended to be in-depth treatments. rather an overview of the most relevant points of a topic.

There won’t be perfect alignment with the Zero Retries Guides pages, but pretty close. Eventually there will be a Guides page, an Intro video, and a chapter in my book-in-progress Zero Retries Guide to Amateur Radio in the 21st Century.

An example of a Zero Retries Intro topic is the 6-pin MiniDIN connector that’s found on some Amateur Radio VHF / UHF radios (and modems) to provide flat audio for higher speed data communications (such as VARA FM) over VHF / UHF. This is (regrettably, in my opinion) usually called the “Data” connector (Wikipedia and others call it the “9600 port”, but the signals on that connector are analog “flat audio” with no (input) pre-emphasis (like the microphone input) or (output) de-emphasis (like the speaker output) applied to the audio signals.

Another example of a Zero Retries Intro topic would be why repeaters work so well to enhance wide area radio communications… and why digipeaters work barely, but generally poorly, in networks because of the Hidden Node Problem.

A third example of a Zero Retries Intro topic, to keep to the short, narrowly focused theme of the Intros, explain how Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) single channel repeater works, such as a few versions of Digital Mobile Radio (DMR) repeaters and radios can be made to work on a single channel using the first DMR time slot to receive, and the other DMR time slot to transmit, simultaneously.

I’m really looking forward to doing many Zero Retries Intro videos. I think they’re the ideal blend of text, graphics, and presentation. One thing that’s nicer about the Intros is that you can watch them as many times as necessary to understand the topic, and each one will have a link to the slide deck online, and all relevant references such as the Wikipedia article on the Hidden Node Problem, and of course, can be discussed at length on the new zeroretries@groups.io email list.

And to answer a question / comment / criticism of my presentations being too text-heavy, plaint heard and I’m going to resort to asking an AI to create graphics to illustrate the points in the Intro videos.

To comment on this article on the Zero Retries email list, click here.

44Net Connect is Live!

John Burwell KI5QKX, ARDC’s 44Net Program Manager, on the 44Net email list:

We’re pleased to announce that 44Net Connect (formerly, “The PoP Project”) is now live. This service provides a streamlined way for licensed hams to use 44Net resources using modern, secure networking tools.
https://connect.44net.cloud/
We’re admitting users in batches to start. If you’d like to give it a try, head to the 44Net Connect dashboard https://connect.44net.cloud/ to sign up and join the registration queue.

A huge thank you to Adam Lewis KC7GDY, who originated the concept; Zachary Seguin VA3ZTS, a chief collaborator; and John Hays K7VE SK, whose expertise and efforts were significant in bringing 44Net Connect to reality. We’d also like to recognize the 2024 and 2025 TACs and PoP subcommittees, who helped shepherd this project from “what if” to production-ready, and the beta testers who shared valuable feedback along the way.

We’re excited to see how you’ll use 44Net Connect and appreciate everyone who helped make it a reality.

This doesn’t seem to be the official announcement from ARDC - I’ll assume a bigger announcement targeted at the more general Amateur Radio population and media will be forthcoming.

Thus I’ll forgive KI5QKX for burying the lede a bit in this announcement:

44Net Connect is free for Amateur Radio users, for Amateur Radio activities.

Free static IPv4 addresses (if you’re an Amateur Radio Operator, intending to use a 44Net Connect IPv4 address for Amateur Radio use)!

This is significant! For example, you can only get a static IPv4 address from Comcast if you sigh up for the Comcast Business tier of service.

I had been calling this service 44Net VPN, but that was always a functional description (44Net Connect is, functionally, a Virtual Private Network - VPN).

That said, admittedly this name - 44Net Connect is a cooler name as it lets you “connect” via 44Net.

Note that 44Net Connect is not Internet access. To use 44Net Connect, you have to already have Internet access. 44Net Connect is a functional layer supplement to your existing Internet access.

Also, there are no services provided by 44Net Connect - it is a solution to be able to use static IPv4 addresses from the 44Net IPv4 address pool, via any Internet connectivity. This is especially relevant for Internet access systems that used Carrier Grade Network Address Translation (CGNAT) that make it impossible to “come in” via IPv4 to a user’s Internet systems - such as Starlink.

Note that when applying for 44Net Connect, you have to be verified as being an Amateur Radio Operator (have a current license). 44Net Connect will undoubtedly be inundated with applications, so please be patient (and kind) if it takes a while.

To comment on this article on the Zero Retries email list, click here.

FCC Allocates 60-Meter World-Wide Amateur Band Approved at WRC-15; Continues Amateur Use of Four Additional 60-Meter Channels…

From the Editor: I’m citing the ARRL story on this development rather than creating an original story because ARRL (mostly) does a better job, from more depth, than I can offer on this development.

ARRL News - 2025-12-11:

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on December 9, 2025, released a long-awaited Report and Order adopting a new amateur radio spectrum allocation in the 60-meter band that was approved for world-wide use on a secondary basis in the WRC-15 (World Radiocommunication Conference 2015) Final Acts. The Commission also agreed with a petition from ARRL The National Association for Amateur Radio® to continue to allow amateur operations on four existing 60-meter channels outside the international allocation with a full 100 watts. The new rules will go into effect 30 days after publication in the Federal Register, when amateurs may then begin using the allocation.
Specifically, the Commission allocated 5351.5 - 5366.5 kHz (60 meters) to the amateur service on a secondary basis with a permitted power of 9.15 watts ERP. The Commission also authorized amateurs to continue using four existing channels outside of the 5351.5 - 5366.5 kHz band centered on 5332, 5348, 5373, and 5405 kHz on a secondary basis with a permitted power of 100 watts ERP. There are no antenna restrictions but antenna gain must be used to calculate ERP.
The 60-meter allocation is available to amateurs holding a General Class or above license. The maximum permissible signal bandwidth is 2.8 kHz.
Amateurs are cautioned that this allocation is strictly on a secondary basis, and amateurs must avoid interfering with non-amateur stations using this spectrum. This obligation includes the responsibility to monitor for such stations using appropriate receiver bandwidths. The FCC emphasized that “allowing amateur operations in this band while fully protecting incumbent primary Federal operations is our priority, and even intermittent interference in this band could jeopardize important Federal operations.”
The Commission left open ARRL’s 2017 Petition for Rulemaking to implement this WRC allocation (RM-11785), stating that “we expect the Commission may address any necessary power adjustments for the new 15 kilohertz international allocation in that proceeding.” ARRL will be observing operations in the new band to evaluate the effect of the 9.15-watt limit and already has been monitoring the regulations and experiences of amateurs in other countries.
Finally, in the same Report and Order, the FCC updated 420 - 450 MHz coordination and contact information for geographic areas where the peak envelope power (PEP) of amateur stations operating is generally limited to 50 watts. There was no substantive change to the areas covered by the power limitation.

See the link for additional background from ARRL on the new 60m band.

I was tipped off to this development within hours of it being posted on the FCC website by a Zero Retries trusted source. I had glanced at the email from “trusted source” at an early hour (their emails are always interesting), and upon seeing this development, came instantly awake. Allocation of new spectrum for Amateur Radio operations by the FCC is a significant development!

The most Zero Retries Interesting aspect of this development from the FCC is a mention of digital modes in justifying the comparatively low transmit power levels of the new US 60m band:

Some commenters argue that, due to the use of newer and more efficient digital modes, weak signals are not an impediment to sending information and the 15 W EIRP limit proposed by the NTIA is sufficient.

See page 23 for that mention.

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Zero Retries Guide to Amateur Radio HF Data Communications

By Steve Stroh N8GNJ

A significant issue for Zero Retries readers, given Zero Retries is published serially in weekly installments, is the lack of continuity on specific subjects. No one can be expected to plow through 4 1/2 years of back issues of Zero Retries to get up to speed on a subject mentioned in Zero Retries. The Zero Retries Guides pages (in development) address that issue.

My thanks to Wes Plouff AC8JF for inspiring this Zero Retries Guide by asking some good questions:

Last year, the FCC lifted the baud rate limitation for data modes on all HF bands except 60 meters. I know there is some activity on HF packet radio. Is there now any significant HF packet activity at data rates higher than 300 baud, and is there any emerging consensus on rates and frequencies? There may yet be more life in this “old” technology. Your readers (and I) might like to know whether HF packet radio is changing.

Instead of replying to AC8JF with a one-off private reply

Heck Yes, there’s a lot going on in Amateur Radio HF data communications that’s a lot better than 300 bps AFSK packet radio!

Thus I began writing this Zero Retries Guide, and the info came pouring out, and now not only can AC8JF benefit from that info, but anyone / everyone can.

The Zero Retries Guide to Amateur Radio HF Data Communications page is one of the first of (an extensive, eventually) set of reference pages about some Zero Retries Interesting subjects, projects, and concepts.

I got the inspiration for the Zero Retries Guides series a couple of years ago when I was asked to write a very small portion of the ARRL Handbook 100th Edition regarding a data communications mode. I realized that what I was writing was much more broadly applicable and useful, and shouldn’t be confined to looking something up in the ARRL Handbook.

The intent of the Zero Retries Guides is to be able to drop a reference to a Zero Retries Guide page into a discussion in Zero Retries about a new development being discussed. For example, this is what I’ll be posting in articles as I develop additional Zero Retries Guides:

For background information on this subject, see:
Zero Retries Guide to Amateur Radio HF Data Communications

Those that are already knowledgeable of a subject in an article can just keep reading about the new development. Those that don’t have much background on the new development can click on the Zero Retries Guide link to get up to speed on the subject.

The benefit to me is that I don’t have to dig out previous references in Zero Retries (Substack’s search tool is maddeningly poor) or craft a new background paragraph for each article where there’s already some existing background.

A second, and even more significant benefit to me is that in creating a Zero Retries Guide page, I’m doing 95% of the work of creating a chapter of my forthcoming (2026 - I promise!) book The Zero Retries Guide to Amateur Radio in the 21st Century.

To comment on this article on the Zero Retries email list, click here.

ZR > BEACON

By Steve Stroh N8GNJ

Short mentions of Zero Retries Interesting items.

Random Wire Newsletter Announces EtherHam Website

Image courtesy of etherham.com / Tom Salzer KJ7T

Tom Salzer KJ7T in Random Wire 160:

A change for the better
Time for a grand experiment. And what is it? It is a separation of the Random Wire mailing list for this newsletter from the content in the newsletter. Details are available at A positive change for Random Wire subscribers but here’s the TLDR (too long, didn’t read): the Random Wire newsletter will continue to be transmitted via Substack subscriptions, but articles will be individually posted at a new website called EtherHam. Reasons for doing this are in the positive change article linked above.
As you read through this newsletter, I think you’ll see how this works. There are fewer images in the newsletter, as well as less text. If you want more, just click to get more.
I hope this change will make it easier for subscribers to ingest what’s most interesting to them. While it increases my workload slightly, the change will also provide more resiliency to this effort. Let’s see how this goes for a bit and then I’ll check in with you about whether it is working for you.
In the shorter pieces below, click the section title to read the more complete version at EtherHam.com, or find the Read More link at the end of each piece. You can also hit the Like link at the bottom of any article on EtherHam to help others as they consume the content.

Whew! This is another “now it can be told” development that I couldn’t talk about publicly until now. KJ7T’s development of EtherHam has been in development for months. I’ve been providing feedback to KJ7T about EtherHam, and I’m glad I can finally confess to knowing about it and help publicize it.

My TL;DR description of EtherHam is “reference for ~~all~~ most things related to Amateur Radio Over Internet (AROI). KJ7T, his Random Wire newsletter, and now EtherHam are my go-to references for most things Amateur Radio Over Internet, such as participating in Amateur Radio talk groups via Internet - with, or without, transmitting radio signals on Amateur Radio spectrum.

A great example is KJ7T’s article Part 2: Getting started with the SharkRF M1KE.

Kudos to KJ7T and congrats on the debut of EtherHam!

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ARRL to Host 2026 HamSCI Workshop at Central Connecticut State University

John E. Ross KD8IDJ in the 2025-12-11 issue of ARRL Letter:

ARRL The National Association for Amateur Radio® will host the 9th Annual HamSCI Workshop, March 14–15, 2026, at Central Connecticut State University (CCSU) in New Britain, Connecticut, with activities also occurring at ARRL Headquarters in nearby Newington. Organizers for the Ham Radio Science Citizen Investigation (HamSCI) community are working hard to put together a memorable event that will bring together amateur radio operators, citizen scientists, students, and professional researchers.
This year’s theme, “Discovering Science Through Ham Radio,” highlights the vibrant intersection of amateur radio and scientific discovery. The 2026 workshop will showcase achievements across the community, including the latest advances in ionospheric research, Personal Space Weather Station development, meteor scatter propagation studies, and the expanding use of technology and techniques for real-time radio propagation sensing.
Participants can expect more than 50 oral and poster presentations, invited tutorials, and a Saturday evening banquet featuring a keynote address from a prominent member of the community. Attendees will also enjoy a visit to ARRL’s national headquarters, with tours of the ARRL Lab, W1HQ Radio Laboratory, and opportunities to get on the air from W1AW – the Hiram P. Maxim Memorial Station. Most attendees will participate in person, with a virtual option to be announced.

See the link for more details about HamSCI 2026. Tina KD7WSF and I attended HamSCI 2025 and we really enjoyed it. The energy of the young student science and technology oriented Amateur Radio Operators was infectious and energizing.

Repeating from my Request To Send editorial at the beginning of this issue:

It’s so cool to see that ARRL has resumed actively sponsoring technical conferences relating to Amateur Radio!

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K1VL SDR - Now With Over 36 [Web SDR] Receivers

A new Web-888 SDR server with six meter capability is now online!
You are seeing this page because all 24 of the K1VL KiwiSDR receivers are at, or near, capacity. If so, please try another of the K1VL servers to see if there’s an available slot. You can also camp on a fully utilized Kiwi server and wait for a slot to become available or you can “listen in” on a current receiver session with limited control.
There is an additional OpenWebRX+ SDR server tuned to 80 meters during nighttime hours (Eastern U.S. time) and 40 meters during daytime hours (Eastern U.S. time) to support many more listeners.

I stumbled onto this site doing background research for Zero Retries. Click the link in the title to see links to K1VL’s web SDRxs.

This is just what one (motivated and talented) Amateur Radio can offer!

Followup email with K1VL:

I’m sharing my RF environment with fellow hams and other radio enthusiasts.
I am quite active on AREDN and host a supernode as well. I’m having a blast testing out 802.11ah on 900 MHz and setting up WireGuard connections to access 44Net.
Keep up the good work on Zero Retries!

To comment on this ZR > Beacon item on the Zero Retries email list, click here.

Remarkably Zero Retries Interesting Issue of ARRL QST - 2026-01

My friend and Zero Retries Pseudostaffer Ren Roderick KJ7B alerted me to check out the 2026-01 issue of ARRL QST for an article on the OpenTNC project.

To my surprise, reading through this issue of QST, there were a number of Zero Retries Interesting articles. I browse through most issues of QST in a few quick minutes due to the lack of Zero Retries Interesting content.

But this issue was different, including:

A letter - Digital Mode Discovery (about FreeDV RADE being very effective in dealing with the rising noise floor on HF bands in urban areas),
The OpenTNC: An Open-Source Packet Radio Controller by David Platt AE6EO,
An Introduction to THz (Optical) Communications by Irwin Math WA2NDM,
Microwavelengths column - Travel Antennas for Microwaves by Paul Wade W1GHZ,
A Homemade 6.4-Meter EME Dish by Henryk Kotowski SMØJHF,
Future-Proofing ARES: Starlink Roam for Support of Deployments by Bob Famiglio K3RF,
Club Station column - Boosting Engagement with Build Nights by Danny Davis, KD5W,
Ham Media Playlist column - The Comms Channel by Steve Goodgame K5ATA.

OpenTNC Project - Pretty Cool

The OpenTNC project is pretty cool and creator David Platt AE6EO did a great job with that article for the QST (and the general Amateur Radio audience)! The overall design and capabilities of the OpenTNC is pretty cool:

Completely open source design - see GitLab page.
Five status indicators (a homage to the TAPR TNC-2)
1200 bps and 9600 bps data rates
Incorporates FX.25 Forward Error Correction
KISS protocol interface
USB data connection (the Raspberry Pi Pico)
The compute module is a Raspberry Pi Pico
“Deflate data compression” (had to look that up)

See also The AE6EO OpenTNC project page with some interesting mentions such as

DAMASK packet scheduling mode for KISS- connected nodes

and

DAMA
It wouldn’t be difficult to add DAMA-slave capability, so that the TNC would honor a “You are connected in DAMA mode” response from the remote peer (DAMA master), and would transmit only immediately after being polled by the master. Unfortunately I lack access to a DAMA-master system to use to test out this mode.

That said…

I’m encouraged that ARRL is offering more Zero Retries Interesting content in QST.

I’m discouraged that the only folks that will ever get to see that Zero Retries Interesting content in QST is the < 20% (and declining…) of US Amateur Radio Operators that are ARRL members.

I continue to posit that for ARRL and other publishers with periodical material sequestered behind a paywall, their problem isn’t potential piracy of their content, its that their content, not being viewable easily on the Internet by interested folks, make such content irrelevant to the vast majority of current and potential Amateur Radio Operators.

Thus… as Zero Retries Interesting as the 2026-01 issue of QST was, I’m compelled to continue to recommend the SARC Communicator as an Amateur Radio “magazine” to those new to Amateur Radio… because it has content equivalent to QST articles and columns, and anyone can view it without hitting a paywall.

Discussion About New Packet Radio (NPR)

From a private email discussion - the person didn’t give me permission to use their name.

I’ve read your articles on NPR and I like the idea. But, in many ways I see it as similar to IP400.
The challenge I see with both is the application. What is the problem being solved with this technology? What will attract people to it? Why should they want it?
For example, I’m not sure how many people are using VARA FM for anything beyond WinLink or FLMsg.
I looked at the site selling the NPR hardware, they make no mention of software that supports these modems or the protocols that can take full advantage of the increased speed.
I think this is a problem of engineers designing something because they can. This isn’t limited to NPR or IP400. Someone comes up with a great idea, and they make it work, but there isn’t a framework around it. Without that framework the technology doesn’t help people.
This is the opposite of your Superpeater idea. It is a great idea, I think it would be great. But, there isn’t a repeater controller that would support it, nor is there a radio that would fully support it.
Going back to NPR, I think the question needs to be asked. How will hams use these modems in their daily lives? What problem do they solve?
Don’t get me wrong, I’m super excited about the technology. I’m just afraid the technology won’t be used, not because it doesn’t work, rather because there is no application that makes the technology important for hams. Does that make sense?
What are your thoughts?

My response:

Good questions / observations.
NPR is exciting exactly because it isn’t a new mode. 🙂
It’s finally that transparent, high speed bit pipe, implemented on VHF / UHF, that we’ve needed for a long time.
It’s got an Ethernet port for connectivity - not fussy USB with drivers needed, just bog standard Ethernet.
And it uses bog standard TCP/IP for addressing.
Ethernet bits in, RF bits out, and vice versa.
It has just enough native networking to create a digipeater capability if that’s needed in a particular local topology.
Keep in mind the original use case that NPR was developed for - an alternative radio access into Europe’s HAMNET microwave network. All the fun happens on HAMNET… not because of you buying and using an NPR radio.
All of that will be familiar to NewTechHams - no arcane TNC knowledge to spelunk, no fussing with RS-232 from the previous century, etc.
So we can do anything with NPR that we want. Web server, BBS, email, chat server, etc.
The same is true with AREDN - it’s just “Ethernet connectivity” conducted over Amateur Radio spectrum.
As for SuperPeater…
Yes there is a controller that will support it - it’s called a Raspberry Pi 5. 🙂 Seriously, everything I envision for SuperPeater is mostly implemented in software and existing (RF / modem) hardware.
For the user portion, use whatever (fastest) radio you have to uplink, and use a RPi whatever with an RTL-SDR dongle to download. I haven’t researched a wideband data mode for the SuperPeater downlink yet, but there are many laying around. Perhaps (I really, really hope) IP400’s OFDM mode will emerge to meet this need.
My problem with evangelizing these concepts is that I think best in text… and that only works with a small subset of today’s Amateur Radio population. I need to do videos, Videos, VIDEOS… and more videos to walk people through the ideas.

The Zero Retries Guide to New Packet Radio is yet another Zero Retries Guide that’s in development. So much fun writing projects, so little time…

Somebody asked about people’s ‘unusual hobbies’ – 21 bizarre ways to use up your free time

You’ll never guess what the #1 choice of “unusual hobbies / bizarre ways to use up your free time” was 🤣

‘Amateur Radio (sometimes called Ham Radio). You have to pass a test to then get a license, but it enables you to build your own radio equipment or use pre-made kit and communicate locally or across the world without having to use the internet.
If you time it right, you can even contact the astronauts onboard the International Space Station, or use the space station as a relay to then talk to other amateurs. You can bounce signals off the moon, send slow scan TV pictures, send data etc.’
–Primary_Choice3351

Comments Summary From Previous Issue

13 comments; this will be the last time I feature this section.
Comments on battery backup basics.
Comments on IPv6 usage.
Not writing off HF.
YouTube lists (now, you can know what I watch and recommend).

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Zero Retries 0231

Steve Stroh N8GNJ — Sat, 06 Dec 2025 08:01:20 GMT

About Zero Retries

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In this issue:

Some Zero Retries Interesting Trends For 2026

Battery Backup Power Basics

Linux Handheld Transceiver (LinHT)
New Packet Radio for 2m, 70cm, and 23cm Bands
AREDN Local Area Networks / Extensions on 902-928 MHz Using 802.11ah / Wi-Fi HaLow
NewTechHams as an Increasingly Visible, and Influential Bloc Within Amateur Radio
An FCC Petition for Rulemaking for Deletion of VHF / UHF Bandwidth Limits and Symbol Rates
Interesting Projects to Follow in 2026
- GTDATA
- RADE Over Baseband FM (BBFM)
- ka9q-radio
- Movement towards an Amateur Radio Geosynchronous Earth Orbit payload

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Paid Subscribers Update

My thanks to Justin AI6YM for becoming a new Founding Member Subscriber 0022 to Zero Retries this past week!

Founding Member Subscribers are listed in every issue of Zero Retries!

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My thanks to Scott Nacey KK6IK for restarting as an Annual Paid Subscriber to Zero Retries this past week! KK6IK also included this nice message:

[Zero Retries] is the best, most leading edge commentary on today’s Ham Radio. Keep it up.

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Financial support from Zero Retries readers is a significant vote of support for the continued publication of Zero Retries.

Zero Retries Administrivia Bulletin

Progress is being made to move Zero Retries to another web / blog / email newsletter hosting system beginning in 2026 - under a new domain (still in progress).

www.zeroretries.org will remain in place until such time as all the content can be cleanly ported over to the new hosting system. It would be too much to move it all concurrent with setting up the new hosting system.

More administrivia bulletins will be posted in each issue this month. There’s a big announcement I’d hoped to make this week, but it needs a bit more behind-the-scenes preparation before announcement, and this week just went by way too fast.

Amateur Radio (In the 21st Century) Elevator Pitch

Comment exchange in Zero Retries 0230 with John Simmons NI0K. I said:

Funny you should use the word “spark”. If you’re building a campfire from scratch, your “spark” doesn’t do much good to light a “fire” unless there’s some “tinder”. As I’ve explained, I think for most of us it’s a dead end to try to interest the average person into Amateur Radio, especially legacy Amateur Radio (HF, CW, voice operation, etc.). So I don’t try that approach - don’t try to talk up Amateur Radio to the average person.
My approach is to watch for an opening (”tinder”) with potential NewTechHams - techies, EE students, software engineers, Makers, STEM students (or parents or instructors). Then try to apply the “spark” of talking up radio technology that they might have some familiarity / interest in - Meshtastic, long distance Wi-Fi, etc. If the “spark” catches that “tinder” then “fan the flames” to try to ignite the “fire” - relevant, technological aspects of Amateur Radio . Gently explain that Amateur Radio is all about experimenting with radio technology - building your own radios, figuring out your own types of radios with software (GNU Radio), etc.

Obviously there’s a lot more work to be done with a distilled description of relevant Amateur Radio activity in the 21st century. All of that probably needs to be distilled into a tri-fold brochure that can be inexpensively reproduced as double-sided color printing at Fedex Office, with some sexy photos like LinHT, cubesats, Raspberry Pi WSPR transmitter, TinyGS satellite ground station, AREDN microwave networking, DLARC online Amateur Radio archive, etc. Maybe even work in a mention of Zero Retries and at least one cool Amateur Radio YouTuber.

Zero Retries Interesting Amateur Radio Clubs - Sci-Tech Amateur Radio Society (STARS)

One of the minor missions of Zero Retries is to highlight Amateur Radio activities and organizations that are relevant to Amateur Radio in the 21st century. Thus technology-focused Amateur Radio organizations are particularly Zero Retries Interesting, like Sci-Tech Amateur Radio Society (STARS) of Natick, Massachusetts, USA. Not only is STARS’ website informative and up to date, but they chose a really cool domain name - stars.radio!

Image courtesy of New England Sci-Tech.

STARS is just one of three radio technology related clubs associated with New England Sci-Tech 1 (NEST):

New England Sci-Tech is a non-profit STEM education center and maker space dedicated to project-based, hands-on learning for youth and families across the New England community. Our mission is to promote development of a STEM-literate and skilled citizenry ready to meet the needs of the 21st century and beyond.

The other two radio technology related clubs are:

Wireless Technology Club:

A series of workshops that gets hands on with wireless tech, electronics, and radio communications. Come join us as we tinker and learn together. No license needed. Workshops can be taken a la carte, as they interest you.

New England Amateur Radio (NEAR):

NE1AR provides educational services to the amateur radio community including license exams, courses, and technical support. NE1AR is colocated with New England Sci-Tech in Natick, MA.

In my opinion, New England Sci-Tech has their mission and the involvement of Amateur Radio dialed in perfectly - their primary focus is youth and Science Technology Engineering and Math (STEM) activities that supplement K-12 education:

[Bob Phinney] founded NEST to provide access to enrichment opportunities to supplement what is experienced in school to expose K-12 students to the more exciting aspects of science and to spark interest and enthusiasm for STEM.

Thus, the three radio technology related clubs associated with NEST are just another set of interesting STEM activities.

Thus, kudos to the respective leadership of NEST, STARS, WTC, and NEAR for doing an excellent job of “framing” Amateur Radio as a relevant and interesting activity for STEM students.

Whither IP400?

I’ve been asked a few times recently:
“What’s happening with the IP400 Network Project? You were so hung-ho about it earlier this year.”

Short answer - I have no idea.

At this point, like almost everyone else, I’m just an interested observer hoping to hear some (good news) progress reports. But at the moment, no news is forthcoming from Alberta Digital Radio Communications Society (ADRCS), IP400’s sponsoring organization.

The IP400 Network Project seems to be in limbo, or at least that’s the impression one gets from:

The most recent update on the project was at ZRDC 2025 on 2025-09-13, now nearly three months ago.
At ZRDC 2025, the “Mini Node II” was stated “In Production October 2025”, (see slide 12) but I’m not aware of that unit being available. The IP400 Order Form says:
We are SOLD OUT until further notice.
The final cut off date for the current hardware is Sept 12th.
ADRCS did a “hostile takeover” of the IP400 email list and with that, open discussion about IP400 seems to have ceased.
The most recent status update on the IP400 web pages is dated 2025-06-30.

Hopefully ADRCS is hard at work behind the scenes, making good progress, empowered by their US$60,000 grant from ARDC in 2025-05.

ADRCS published a quarterly newsletter in October 2025, so perhaps early in 2026 there will be another issue with an update on IP400.

Weekends Are For Amateur Radio!

I’m not sure how much Amateur Radio fun is in store for this coming weekend as Western Washington is bracing for a (new phrase for me) Godzilla atmospheric river. We’re queued up to receive a week or more of normal rainfall compressed into days. Fortunately, that precipitation will arrive as rain rather than snow (except in the mountains)… this time. Fortunately our local rivers aren’t expected to be pushed past flood stage; many rivers south of us are inevitably going to flood.

Have a great weekend, all of you co-conspirators in Zero Retries Interesting Amateur Radio activities!

Steve N8GNJ

Battery Backup Power Basics

By Don Rotolo N2IRZ

Contains no AI-generated content, except one instance of the word “the”.

When the electric utility and weather cooperate, power is plentiful. But lose those bets and we’re in the dark, with UPS systems beeping plaintively, and us wondering how long the phone will last.

This won’t be an exhaustive treatment of standby and backup power, but a broad introduction to most of the things to consider. And the very first step is deciding what exactly will need power, how much power it needs, and ~~how much money~~ how long you want (or need) to be able to power it. But first, some terminology.

We’ll be talking about batteries, and they are rated in Ampere-hours (Ah), which is a measure of the battery’s capacity. It is not a measure of energy, as it disregards the voltage, but if we decide that our backup power system will universally run at 12 volts, we’re fine with Ah.

Of course, if you have a generator powered by some kind of chemical fuel – gasoline, propane and natural gas are common – then you have as much power as the generator can deliver for as long as you have fuel for it. An automobile can be pressed into service as a 12-volt source in a pinch, and some electric vehicles and work trucks consider this a feature. But all of those power sources are fairly well-understood, so here we will focus on the less understood black magic of battery-backup.

If given two batteries, the one with the higher Ah rating contains more energy, making this rating convenient for comparisons. But using that rating to size your battery is a rookie mistake. To understand why, consider how this rating is derived.

Small (5-100 Ah) lead-acid batteries are typically used for battery backup. They are not light, but they are (relatively) inexpensive and safe, with a useful energy density. The Ah rating is based on a controlled discharge over 20 hours while maintaining a known minimum voltage. Other batteries (different chemistries, different sizes) often use different time periods. So, if a particular battery was able to maintain a terminal voltage of at least 10.5 V at a constant discharge rate of 1 A for 20 hours, it gets a 20 Ah rating.

Taking our 20 Ah battery, we know it should deliver 1 A for 20 h. But if we increase the discharge current to, say 20 A, how long will it last? Hint: Not 1 hour, as it is not quite linear. As discharge current increases, the Ah capacity decreases. Conversely, as current decreases, Ah capacity increases. So, expecting to power your station, which draws 20A, for one hour using a 20 Ah battery will lead to great disappointment.

The graph below shows this relationship with a particular 100 Ah lead-acid battery, using the term “C” for its rated capacity (100 A). This means that with a 20 Ah battery, C is 20 A, and with a 55 Ah battery, C is 55 A, so with our 100 Ah battery, “1C” means a 100 A discharge rate.

For our 100 Ah battery, a discharge rate of 5 A (0.05C or C/20) means it takes about 20 hours to drop to 1.75 v/cell (10.5v), giving us 100 Ah (5 A * 20 h) while a 200 A (2C) discharge takes about 13 minutes to drop to 1.30 v/cell² (7.8 v), giving us only about 43 Ah according to the graph. Note that a LiFePO4 battery is ‘stiffer’, losing less capacity (in Ah) as discharge rate C increases...but the fundamentals are very similar. So your 20 Ah battery will only be delivering about 9.5 volts after 33 minutes of delivering 20 A, around half of what you might expect.

OK, so now that we understand that battery ratings might be far more optimistic than we thought, we need to do some calculations to determine just what we need for our battery system, a process known as sizing. In essence, we multiply how many Amps of DC current we need by the number or hours we might need it for, and use that value to drive the needed battery capacity.

For a simple example, an LED light uses 120 mA (0.12 A). I want to be able to use it for 16 hours a day. For each day I need it, I need a (real, not rated) capacity of (0.10 * 16 =) 1.92 Ah.

A more complex example is a radio: It uses 600 mA in standby (receiver ready but no signal received), 800 mA with a received signal at typical volume, and 8.5 A during transmit. We estimate that it will be in standby 30% of the time, receive 50% and transmit 20%. For your estimates, try to be accurate for your actual usage, but keep in mind that your usage pattern might be different than when the mains power is on.

Doing the math, this radio typically uses (0.6 A * 0.3) + (0.8 A * 0.5) + (8.5 A * 0.2) = 0.18 + 0.4 + 1.7 = 2.28 Amps on average. If we operate for 1 hour we need 2.28 Amp-hours of real capacity. If we want to power the radio for 10 hours, we need 22.8 Ah of real capacity.

You need to do your own math and figure out how many Ah you will actually use. I recommend actual current measurements, not relying on manufacturer ratings. If you have equipment that must be powered by 120 volts AC, you also have to consider the conversion efficiency of your inverter, typically around 80%, with high-quality equipment approaching 95%.

Using a PowerSonic DCG12-100 12 V 100 Ah lead-acid battery as an example, the data sheet (available at < https://www.power-sonic.com/product/dcg12-100/?preview=true >) shows that at a discharge rate of 16.4 A one can expect a capacity of 82 Ah to a terminal voltage of 10.2 v. This means that if we draw around 16 A, the manufacturer says the battery voltage will remain at least 10.2 volts for five hours.

If five hours (and 10.2 v) is enough, we’re golden. If, say, 15 hours is needed, you need three of those batteries. 50 hours? Ten batteries. Higher minimum voltage than 10.2? Use the spec sheet and graph to determine actual capacity for a given discharge rate and end voltage, then do all the math again. Pretty simple, but not so inexpensive. Of course, as the batteries age, their capacity diminishes. And it would be a best practice to up-rate your current requirements by 20% or so, to ensure you have enough capacity available over time.

Once again: If you have a charging source for your batteries – generator, car, waterwheel, whatever – independent of the power mains, your battery need is reduced and your operating time can increase.

Care and charging for your batteries is absolutely required. You would be wise to limit the charging rate to that specified by the manufacturer, typically 0.2C for lead-acid. A lower charging rate does less harm to the battery, but we have to balance that with time to fully recharge. Manufacturers often specify a charger, or one can use a good quality constant voltage power supply, keeping the voltages within the limits defined by the manufacturer (13.5-13.8 V for a lead-acid battery in standby). For other battery chemistries, constant voltage (which is cheap and simple) is typically not an option: Use what the manufacturer says to use, and especially with all lithium-chemistry batteries, as these need special charging characteristics. No sense setting the shack on fire.

If you want to use solar power, similar calculations are needed, as is a solar power battery charge controller. I’ve consumed too much space here already, but I’ll write about that in part 2. Let me know if you find this info useful and interesting.

Endnotes:

While there are many testing standards, for similar batteries (size, chemistry) the test methods are the same or comparably similar. For small lead-acid batteries, a 20 h discharge is typical, at controlled temperature (around 68F/20C) with a final voltage of 10.5 V (1.75 v/cell – a 12 V lead-acid battery has six cells in series). LiFePO4 batteries are typically tested to a final voltage of 2.5 V/cell
As the discharge rate increases, the final voltage decreases, so for a 2C discharge a typical standard is 7.8 V (1.3 v/cell)for a lead-acid battery. The graph shows the differing final voltage standards used.

Editor’s Postscript: I’m grateful to Zero Retries Pseudostaffer N2IRZ for this article. He wrote it as a detailed response to my “lightly researched” statements about run time, etc. in my article in Zero Retries 0226 - My New 2025 Standby Battery Power System. N2IRZ took me to task on several assumptions I stated in the article and I largely defer to his much greater experience with this subject, and his professional engineering background. That said… I remain slightly skeptical that it’s not quite a direct comparison between the performance characteristics of SLA / AGM batteries versus LiFePO4 batteries such as the Bioenno Power BLF-1240A. But “empirical research” such as putting together and learning the capabilities of my new 20262 Standby Battery Power System is part of the fun of Amateur Radio.

Some Zero Retries Interesting Trends For 2026

By Steve Stroh N8GNJ

I was recently asked for speaking points for a requested presentation in early 2026, and that caused me to write down some “top of mind” trends for 2026.

Linux Handheld Transceiver (LinHT)

The LinHT is a Software Defined Transceiver in the form factor of a handheld (portable) radio. For the proof of concept phase, LinHT is designed as a replacement circuit board for a popular, inexpensive handheld radio (Retevis C62), though there is nothing unique about that particular radio; it was chosen solely as a proof of concept vehicle. LinHT runs Linux as its internal operating system, and incorporates GNU Radio for creating new types of radio technology (and replicating existing radio technology).

I expect the LinHT project to remain the most important, impactful project currently in development within Amateur Radio in 2026. The impact of the LinHT eclipses new commercial products such as the FlexRadio Aurora, Kenwood TM-D750A, or the Icom IC-7300MK2 despite the huge engineering and development budgets of those products for a single and simple reason - the LinHT is targeted at NewTechHams, and those other (expensive) products are not. Despite the fact that LinHT is funded only through donations and is being developed by three talented individuals, it’s simply too good and powerful an idea; it will inevitably become mainstream when one brave manufacturer offers a LinHT, and many others quickly follow.

The impact of the introduction of packet radio on Amateur Radio has faded somewhat now. Most Amateur Radio Operators who were active at the introduction of Amateur Radio Packet Radio in the mid-1980s have forgotten how much of a step change Packet Radio was in Amateur Radio. The introduction of Packet Radio was dramatic, one of those seminal before / after moments. It wasn’t like the introduction of SSB (just another voice mode), or solid state components (more reliable, but not really different).

When LinHT completes its development phase and begins to get deployed as a mainstream technology in Amateur Radio, everything will change, like it did when Packet Radio was first introduced. We’ll finally have that “universal radio” that the concept of Software Defined Radio has promised. New modes, new capabilities, will happen at the speed of software because unlike proprietary Software Defined Radio embedded in “mainstream” Amateur Radio units, the NewTechHams will be driving the evolution of the LinHT and its successors.

While development on M17 continues, some of that development work is being subsumed into LinHT as “just another mode” that LinHT will be capable of.

Zero Retries reference pages for LinHT and M17… and Packet Radio… are in progress.

New Packet Radio for 2m, 70cm, and 23cm Bands

New Packet Radio (NPR) is a high speed data communications radio system designed by Amateur Radio for the unique environment and requirements of Amateur Radio. NPR fills a niche between higher speed packet radio systems that use conventional FM radios (top speed, 25 kbps with VARA FM), and repurposed commercial microwave units (10s of Mbps). NPR achieves 100 kbps - 1 Mbps on Amateur Radio VHF / UHF bands.

NPR debuted in 2019, and is in use, but not widely in the US (my perception only). I think that situation will change in 2026 thanks to new versions of NPR now available from Localino - New Packet Radio NPR-H 3.0 (2m), New Packet Radio NPR-H 3.0 (70cm), and soon, New Packet Radio NPR-H 3.0 (23cm).

These units are data radios. The Localino units are reasonably priced (

A Zero Retries reference page for New Packet Radio is in progress.

AREDN Local Area Networks / Extensions on 902-928 MHz Using 802.11ah / Wi-Fi HaLow

AREDN is modern (multi-megabit TCP/IP) radio networking, but is “limited” (depending on local topology) by the requirement of placing network hubs on high locations with an optical line of sight between user and network hub.

In my opinion, the ability to use AREDN technology on the (mostly, North America) 902-928 MHz band is a game changer for AREDN networking. While it’s not “absolute”, this band does not require an optical line of sight between nodes (some tree penetration is achievable). The AREDN capability means gateways between 5 GHz AREDN nodes and 902-928 MHz nodes can easily be implemented by connecting Ethernet ports between two (or more) units. Thus local area AREDN networks can now be formed in areas that have extensive tree cover.

A Zero Retries reference page for AREDN, including 802.11ah / Wi-Fi HaLow units, is in progress.

NewTechHams as an Increasingly Visible, and Influential Bloc Within Amateur Radio

After several years of promoting a new “type” of Amateur Radio Operator for which I created the term NewTechHams, this new “bloc” in Amateur Radio is becoming more visible, and more influential within Amateur Radio.

There was a beloved and oft-quoted phrase amongst the early Internet builders:

The Internet treats censorship as damage, and routes around it.

The equivalent among NewTechHams is:

NewTechHams treat legacy Amateur Radio attitudes, activities, and self-imposed restrictions as irrelevant, and are establishing their own version of Amateur Radio of the 21st century.

In 2025, I saw a lot more NewTechHams influence within Amateur Radio, and expect that to accelerate in 2026.

A Zero Retries reference page for NewTechHams is in progress.

An FCC Petition for Rulemaking for Deletion of VHF / UHF Bandwidth Limits and Symbol Rates

Various FCC Requests For Comments in the past two years have resulted in well-reasoned comments, with standing, to the FCC with the recommendation that current bandwidth limits for Amateur Radio VHF / UHF bands, and symbol rates, be deleted.

But those are mere recommendations… advice… to the FCC, with no mechanism for changes to the FCC Part 97 regulations for Amateur Radio to actually commence.

To change the FCC Part 97 regulations requires a formal Petition for Rulemaking from an outside party to be submitted to the FCC.

In 2026, there will be two “enabling” factors for such a Petition for Rulemaking:

(Version 3.0) New Packet Radio units from Localino for 2 meters (144-148 MHz) and 70 centimeters (420-450 MHz) bands are now available.
An ongoing FCC initiative to
… eliminate certain outdated, obsolete, and unnecessary rules.

With the Localino units, Amateur Radio can effectively demonstrate that its ability to experiment with technological innovation in Amateur Radio is being directly hampered by the bandwidth and symbol rate limitations. The Localino units can only operate with a minimum of 100 kHz bandwidth. That’s not a limitation for other countries such as Canada, which don’t have bandwidth and symbol rate restrictions. But, it prevents the New Packet Radio 2 meter version from being used in the US as the current maximum bandwidth limit on 2 meters is 20 kHz.

If Amateur Radio carefully crafts a Petition for Rulemaking that is compliant with the the FCC initiative (also known as Delete, Delete, Delete) in “surgically” removing mentions of bandwidth limitations and mentions of symbol rate limitations for the Amateur Radio VHF / UHF bands…

The FCC may be receptive to such a Petition for Rulemaking because such deletions would “count” towards the FCC’s ongoing effort to remove unneeded regulations.

Some key elements to such a Petition for Rulemaking:

Citation that other countries’ Amateur Radio regulations, especially Canada, do not have bandwidth limits or symbol rate limits applied to the VHF / UHF bands, with no adverse effects.
Citation of the previous comments in FCC proceedings that support such changes.
Citation of the innovation to be gained within Amateur Radio that can proceed with such changes.
The results from testing done via a Special Temporary Authority test of the use of the Localino units on 2 meters and 70 centimeters with no adverse impact.
(Hopefully) widespread support from a number of “name brand” organizations within US Amateur Radio.

As a possible extended effort for the above might be to “surgically” remove mentions of onerous notification requirements for use of the US 219-220 MHz Amateur Radio band, as well as removing the 100 kHz channelization for this band, allowing the full 1 MHz to be used as one block. That removal of channelization won’t change the nature of this band as used exclusively for point-to-point operation. Between this much more usable 219-220 MHz band and the US / Canada 1.25 meter (222-225 MHz) band, it may be possible for Localino to create another variant of New Packet Radio hardware for 1.25 meters and thus finally realize the potential of 219-220 MHz for high speed (1 MHz channel with 1 Mbps raw data rate) point to point links.

A Zero Retries reference page for this Petition for Rulemaking is in progress.

Interesting Projects to Follow in 2026

GTDATA (also known as MMDVM-TNC) is a project to implement faster speeds on Amateur Radio VHF / UHF bands using some advanced techniques such as improved waveform and integral Forward Error Correction (FEC). GTDATA continues the paradigm of using FM radios with “flat audio” connections. Another feature of GTDATA is that it is implemented for MMDVM units, and thus can be used with FM repeaters. Some modes of GTDATA are interoperable with modes available on NinoTNC. Jim Mclaughlin KI6ZUM of ZUMRadio and Steve Stroh N8GNJ of Zero Retries are collaborating to test, document, and promote more use of GTDATA in 2026.
A Zero Retries reference page for GTDATA is in progress.
RADE over Baseband FM (BBFM) is a project to apply the Radio Autoencoder (RADE) technology developed for FreeDV to use on VHF / UHF FM. Basically, BBFM is next generation digital voice technology, and is entirely open source. The voice samples on the linked page are compelling; superior to current algorithm-based (and especially proprietary) vocoders.
ka9q-radio is a innovative use of Software Defined Receivers to create a virtual, multichannel receiver that can effectively receive all channels in a VHF / UHF band simultaneously, limited only by the receive bandwidth of the SDRx. What’s been needed for more widespread use of ka9q-radio in VHF / UHF is to create a ka9q-radio appliance application - ka9q-radio plug and play. To date, ka9q-radio has been more widely adopted for use on HF SDRx units, but for various reasons, ka9q-radio is needed on VHF / UHF. For example, to use a Localino New Packet Radio unit on 2 meters requires a 100 kHz (minimum) channel. Using ka9q-radio to simultaneously receive all 2 meter channels can find 100 kHz portions of 2 meters that are not currently in use, and thus a NPR transmission could commence.
A Zero Retries reference page for ka9q-radio is in progress.
Movement towards an Amateur Radio Geosynchronous Earth Orbit payload or satellite for the Western Hemisphere… or giving up on the idea. I can’t quantify this perspective very well, but 2026 seems like the closing of a window for this idea. Either there will be some substantial movement towards this goal in 2026, with some organization or group to “go public” with some goals and progress… or simply give up on the idea. I think this quote, attributed to W.C. Fields, applies:
If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Then quit. There’s no point in being a damn fool about it.

If an Amateur Radio GEO for the Western Hemisphere doesn’t seem like a realistic prospect in 2026, what may well “take its place” for higher bandwidth satellite experimentation, is the use of Starlink, especially the Starlink Mini user terminal. This is no different conceptually than the widespread use of Internet for Amateur Radio Over Internet activities, with some interesting differences:
- Starlink is much more reliable than typical consumer Internet because of lack of dependencies on terrestrial infrastructure that is easily damaged (power outages, fiber cuts, fires / floods / hurricanes / earthquakes, etc.) This is especially true with Starlink Mini being able to be powered by 12 volts or USB-C.
- Starlink, especially Starlink Mini is highly portable. If you develop a small, portable peer to peer infrastructure node (example, VOIP server), you can just “pick up and move” your infrastructure - mini rack, power (battery), and Starlink Mini.
- Each Starlink user terminal automatically assigns a number of unique, semi-static (?) IPv6 addresses, both WAN and LAN. Thus peer to peer networking can be established between individual Starlink user terminals.
- Starlink is steadily deploying inter-satellite links so that wide area networking can be effective and not necessarily dependent on Internet infrastructure. Thus a number of users in a region using Starlink Mini user terminals can build out the equivalent of an AREDN radio Wide Area Network (WAN) using Starlink.
- Starlink has become “experimenter-friendly” with its Standby service tier - 500 kbps with no transfer caps, for only $5/month. I’ve experimented a bit with my new Starlink Mini set to Standby service, and it’s amazingly usable, including being able to watch YouTube videos.
- If needed, the forthcoming 44Net Virtual Private Network can provide compatibility with IPv4 systems and networks.
- Starlink, because it isn’t Amateur Radio, can be used by network / satellite / radio experimenters, not just Amateur Radio Operators, with no restrictions on encryption, commercial use, music, rebroadcast, and other Amateur Radio restrictions.
- Starlink can provide all modern communications methods via peer-to-peer - voice, video, web, chat / messaging, email, etc. - no real dependence on Internet infrastructure.

Zero Retries reference pages for Amateur Radio GEO for Western Hemisphere and Starlink are in progress.

Again, the above are just some of “top of mind” trends for Zero Retries Interesting Amateur Radio in 2026. I’ll have a more complete overview of my expected trends in 2026 in one of the January, 2026 issues of Zero Retries.

ZR > BEACON

By Steve Stroh N8GNJ

Short mentions of Zero Retries Interesting items.

HamSCI Meteor Scatter Experiments 2025-12-12 and 13

From ARRL Letter 2025-12-04:

The Ham Radio Science Citizen Investigation (HamSCI) is seeking operators and monitors to participate in a series of upcoming meteor scatter (MS) experiments. Operations will take place on December 12 - 13, 2025, over a 48-hour period — during the Geminids meteor shower. This is a combination ‘special event’ and a contest to generate contact data during meteor scatter events using 10 meters (28.145 MHz) and 6 meters (50.260 MHz). Suggested operating procedures can be found at www.hamsci.org/msqp. No special station equipment is required but the experiment uses the MSK144 operating mode as part of the WSJTX suite. The functionality is much like using FT8 and is easy to use. For more information on the operating guidelines for the activity, visit www.hamsci.org/msqp-rules.

HamSCI continues to do interesting work that makes Amateur Radio relevant in the 21st century.

Pycom Radio Controller

Steven Dodd M0SNZ on the amsat-bb email list:

I’m the developer of Pycom Radio Controller - https://pycom.stevendodd.net; software that allows you to control an Icom 9700 radio remotely via a USB serial connection. There is a focus on remote full duplex doppler control for satellite tracking with integrations for Hamlib rigctl, Gpredict, CSN S.A.T, SatPC32 and WSJT-X. it’s available for both Windows 10/11 and MacOS.
Making Amateur Radio Accessible
Although there are many reasons why you might want remote control, the motivation for creating this software was a desire to operate satellites specifically linear satellite and finding a lack of support from currently existing software on the market.
In 2018 I had a surfing accident and was pulled out of the sea by a lifeguard from RNLI https://rnli.org/find-my-nearest/lifeguarded-beaches/chapel-porth-beach. I was left paralysed with a spinal cord injury from the neck downwards. I’ve recovered sufficiently to be able to use a trackpad awkwardly with the middle finger on my left hand however turning dials and pushing buttons on a radio is a little bit beyond me. Using Pycom Radio Controller remotely allows me to operate successfully without limitations.

I’m a fellow trackpad fan. To me it’s so much more intuitive and fluid to use a trackpad than a mouse or trackball. Apple’s trackpads are especially usable.

My thanks to Zero Retries Pseudostaffer Jeff Davis KE9V for pointing out this mention. Pycom Radio Controllers sounds pretty cool!

Unofficial IETF draft calls for grant of five nonillion IPv6 addresses to ham radio operators

Simon Sharwood in The Register:

Early in the history of the internet, the powers that be granted amateur radio operators over 16 million IPv4 addresses. Now a proposal has emerged suggesting the same community be granted a substantial chunk of the IPv6 numberspace.
The proposal to give amateur radio operators some IPv6 addresses emerged in an IETF draft that appeared in early November. It’s not an official IETF position because anyone can propose a draft policy.
Sole author Preston Louis Ursini, who operates the Paducah Internet Exchange and participates in internet policy development processes, points out that amateur radio operators need an addressing system and the IPv4 bloc assigned to the community has done the job for years.
…
In his IETF draft, Ursini points out that amateur radio operators have built practices and procedures around 44/8, and that for various reasons it would be impractical for the community to use RIRs to acquire IPv6 for its future needs.
He nonetheless suggests that the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) should reserve the 44::/16 bloc of IPv6 addresses and work with the RIRs to develop “a coordinated global policy framework” to make it all work.
…
In conversation with The Register, Michaelson said Ursini’s draft doesn’t represent a huge chunk of the IPv6 numberspace, which covers 2¹²⁸ addresses. Ursini’s proposal asks for a mere 2¹¹² addresses – five nonillion of the 340 undecillion addresses available under IPv6.
The suggestion is, however, unusual.
Michaelson thinks it’s nonetheless worth considering this idea, because the amateur radio community has a long history of doing interesting things that later become useful in other contexts. He also told us he thinks Ursini’s idea is running ahead of debate, and that the internet community will soon need to consider some matters – especially as humanity builds more networks in space and needs to consider how radio networks with lots of latency will interact with the rest of the internet.

Wow… Amateur Radio got (credibly!) mentioned in that bastion of information technology journalism, The Register 🤣

This suggestion - reserving a bloc of IPv6 addresses for Amateur Radio use, similar to 44Net for IPv4, keeps coming up repeatedly. To date, ARDC has gently demurred.

Becoming more knowledgeable about the nuances of IPv6 (the least I need to know to be an effective user of my IPv6 capabilities with my two Starlink user terminals), is on my list for 2026.

My thanks to Zero Retries Pseudostaffers Ren Roderick K7JB and Steve Monsey N0FPF who both mentioned this to me nearly simultaneously.

Hot Iron #131 November 2025 Now Available

This issue is really an eclectic collection of useful tidbits for those of us who love to experiment and build as part of our Amateur Radio activities.

I’m grateful to Hot Iron Technical Editor Peter Thornton G6NGR for having made a number of references to recent Zero Retries issues. Once I got my email for the new issue, I realized where a number of new subscribers to Zero Retries in the UK had come from.

Hot Iron is one of the publications I list in the Zero Retries Directory of Independent Open Amateur Radio Technical Media.

Amateur Radio Handheld Radio as a modular option of a new electric car

I’m a fan of Marques Brownlee, a well-spoken and refreshingly non-hyperbolic YouTube creator and tech reviewer. His latest review was of an Xiaomi electric car that’s currently unavailable (for purchase) in the US. I recommend the video - draw your own conclusions about the quality of this vehicle, and the implications.

Brownlee makes an interesting point that the overall software and user-facing tech of this vehicle is excellent. Prior to expanding to electric vehicles, Xiaomi made mobile phones, so the vehicle designers really embraced good user interface design, including tactile controls such as switches for common functions.

One of the funnier bits of the video was Brownlee explaining the various modular options of the vehicle… including a handheld UHF two way radio (7:22):

Image courtesy of Marques Brownlee

Really… as Brownlee explains it, this handheld radio is just one of many different modular options available for this vehicle.

(Brownlee is apparently not an Amateur Radio Operator as he didn’t recognize the significance of the displayed frequency given that he was doing his vehicle testing in the US. If I wanted to have a bit of fun, I’d reach out to Xiaomi public relations and thank them for supporting Ham Radio… and enjoy the confusion on their part.)

One of the nice aspects of this vehicle is that there are apparently a number of magnetic docking points on the interior for mobile phones. But they could probably also support a wireless control head for a two way mobile radio. Or maybe Xiaomi will offer a mobile radio as another modular option for this vehicle.

Remote Receivers

Amateur Radio humorist3 and Zero Retries Pseudostaffer Jeff Davis KE9V:

Fred: I heard you check into the Possum Trot Net on 40 meters this morning. Didn’t know you hung out there. Odd thing, I could copy you fine, you’re practically local. But I couldn’t hear anyone else on the net. Propagation must be pretty poor today? How many folks regularly show up?
Tom: We had about thirty check-ins this morning. But you won’t have much luck copying everyone directly. We’re spread out over about 2000 miles.
Fred: Really? 2000 miles is pretty impressive for 40 meters phone at 9am. What’s this about not being able to hear everyone directly?
Tom: We all use remote receivers. You log onto a Web page that lists a bunch of remote receivers that can be streamed over the internet. We all are connected via a net logger application that lets us make a list of check-ins so everyone knows who’s next. For instance, when it gets turned over to Sylvia in Chattanooga we all switch to a remote receiver in southern Tennessee to listen to her transmission. After her we might switch to Dale in Phoenix and listen via a receiver in Arizona, and so on. The system works really well so long as you have a solid net connection. Band conditions don’t really matter much for us.
Fred: Seems to me it might be easier with that large a crowd that you would all move to GoTo Meeting or something like that. You could even see each other using video that way!
Tom: Whoa! Hold on there Fred, that doesn’t sound like a suggestion fit for a “real ham”. We want to communicate using our radios, not the internet. You start doing that and next thing you know, ham radio is dead and everyone will be talking to each other online using computers. We’re real hams, we use our radios and the ionosphere to communicate!
Fred: Uhhh, yeah…but… Never mind. See you down the net logger…

Amateur Radio Over Internet! It’s not just for those durn NewTechHams 🤣

MySat Kit, your first personal satellite

Build your own satellite!
MySat is a fully functional small satellite (CubeSat) STEM kit for space fans.
Meet MySat Kit, your first personal satellite. The simple operation and step-by-step assembly allows even non-technical users to work with their satellite.
Understanding space technology is vital for the future of humanity. It’s also a way to have fun exploring new tools and technologies.
Why did we create the MySat Kit?
My Sat Kit is your personal 2-in-1 satellite: a construction set and a model of a real 4x4x4 inch satellite that can be assembled without any special knowledge. We want to show that space technology is available not only to billionaires, but also to amateurs, students and space fans.
All production is in-house. We keep all operations under control to ensure high quality and perfect production time. Our small laboratory has everything you need for production and testing, as well as people who do their job professionally and with love.

This was mentioned in the Saveitforparts YouTube channel.

This is pretty cool! Not cheap, but at least all the parts are available for purchase and it looks like it can be easily assembled and shown off as just another cool radio technology thing, relevant in the 21st century, that Amateur Radio Operators can do.

ClubExpress - All-in-One Management for Clubs and Associations

I discovered ClubExpress from researching New England Sci-Tech (NEST) mentioned in this issue’s Request To Send section.

ClubExpress makes it easy to bring people together. Manage membership, events, communication, payments, and your website — all in one platform designed to help clubs and associations thrive.

I have no background with, or any additional knowledge of ClubExpress other than New England Sci-Tech seems to make very good use of it to support their makerspace and ancillary activities. ClubExpress seems to handle the most troublesome aspects of managing non-commercial organizations such as Amateur Radio clubs in the 21st century:

Website, especially specialized activities (such as the radio organizations as just one part of NEST). NEST’s website seems modern-looking, responsive, phone-friendly.
Organizational calendar(s)
Finances / dues
Membership management
Member communications including email
Social media

What makes ClubExpress different is that it’s an integrated service platform, not just a web host with some services grafted on. Thus (I’ll guess…) there is real support available when the “update the website” duties inevitably have to transition to a new volunteer within the club and the club isn’t hostage to a member’s second cousin who offered the club cheap (and inexpert) website design and hosting.

Dues handling is another issue that I’ve seen really screw up Amateur Radio clubs that would benefit from a clean “collect the dues by a neutral party, deposit them directly into a club account” capability.

ClubExpress seems to have thought out the support experience for non-commercial organizations and would seem to be a great help to Amateur Radio clubs who are flailing to manage the overall club experience… mostly online… in the 21st century.

Fold in being the ability to distribute specific areas of responsibility to multiple individuals, effective calendaring for a range of activities, email management (no more using a volunteer’s personal email to bcc all of the club members for email bulletins) and integrated social media, and ClubExpress seems to be an effective solution to many of the headaches and frustrations of keeping members of a non-commercial organization connected and informed using the norms of the 21st century.

Comments from Zero Retries 0230

Comments Summary From Previous Issue

27 comments!
Ku & Ka bands satellite bands (12–18 GHz & 26.5–40 GHz)
VARA and VarAC use is very utilitarian
GEO satellites should (?) use active regeneration and Time Division Multiplexing
Neighborhood kids… are interested in digital comms, space comms and anything that looks like a cell phone.
Further discussion of Amateur Radio renting a commercial GEO transponder.
Umbrella organization that helps to tie all the various specialty modes / products / innovation together?
VarAC Clusters can integrate multiple instances of VARA.
Ham Radio elevator pitch.

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Keywords for this Issue

Zero Retries 0231 dated 2025-12-05

Amateur Radio, Data Communications, Digital Communications, Digital Voice, DV, Ham Radio, N8GNJ, Packet Radio, Radio Technology, Software Defined Radio, Software Defined Receiver, Steve Stroh, Zero Retries, Zero Retries Digital Conference, ZRDC 2025

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My wife Tina KD7WSF and I tried to do a similar thing with the local makerspace, and we weren’t able to overcome the… inertia… of the (then) leadership to support a new Amateur Radio organization associated with the makerspace. Thus we’re a bit envious of New England Sci-Tech’s success with forming affiliated radio technology organizations.

I had fully intended to update my Standby Battery Power System in November 2025, with the procurement of the new battery and new charging system. But November went by very quickly, and December will be completely saturated. Thus this will be the 2026 Standby Battery Power System.

Honestly… to me, at times, KE9V borders on Mark Twain wise societal observations within Amateur Radio.

Zero Retries 0230

Steve Stroh N8GNJ — Sat, 29 Nov 2025 04:31:10 GMT

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Young People Aren’t Interested in Amateur Radio

I was asked to comment on an essay that began with the title above. Rather than critiquing the essay, I replied:

I think that the phrase “Young people aren’t interested in Amateur Radio” is incomplete.
I think a more accurate phrase would be “Young people aren’t very interested in legacy Amateur Radio activities.”
Legacy Amateur Radio:
Mostly has the public perception of Amateur Radio from television series Last Man Standing, ALF, and even The Munsters. From those popular cultural references, Amateur Radio is seen as a quaint, retro-tech activity with almost no relevance in the era of broadband connected pocket supercomputers, broadband everywhere, and the prevalence of conversations via text rather than verbal.
Is mostly talking / casual conversation or contesting or DXing.
Is mostly taking place on HF (too often, pejoratively characterized as “Real Ham Radio”).
Mostly does not involve digital or data modes.
When information about digital or data modes are sought out, the most common result is legacy packet radio circa early 1980s - 1200 bps AFSK (slow, failure prone, doesn’t scale) including legacy APRS.
Are mostly operational activities rather than experimental or technical activities.
Many interesting aspects of radio experimentation in this era such as Meshtastic are not (formally) part of Amateur Radio.
Amateur Radio emergency communications don’t reflect the existence and rapidly increasing usage of modern robust communications capabilities such FirstNET, Iridium, and Starlink (especially the very portable Starlink Mini).
Thus, agreed, most “young people” aren’t interested in Amateur Radio as reflected above.
It’s not easy for “young people” to discover aspects of Amateur Radio that are relevant and interesting to them, such as:
Advanced data modes such as AREDN and New Packet Radio that enable high speed data communications networks independent of the Internet, cellular, and satellite communications.
Open source activities such as FreeDV / RADE, M17 Project, and the very exciting LinHT open source Software Defined Radio in the form of a “walkie talkie”.
How using GNU Radio with an Amateur Radio license enables new and exciting different radio technology to be experimented with (over wide areas, in VHF / UHF spectrum, with higher power levels than unlicensed spectrum).
Demonstrating interest and capability in experimenting with radio technology in Amateur Radio can help establish credibility when competing for jobs in industries (such as defense, telecommunications, cybersecurity) that involve radio technology.
The trick (poor terminology, I know) to get “young people” interested in Amateur Radio is to not to promote the same old, same old legacy Amateur Radio activities that are irrelevant to them. Instead, promote aspects of Amateur Radio that are modern in the 21st century and relevant to them (and society).
We’re getting better at the latter, but we really have a long way to go.

Completely independently, there was this comment by Chuck Till K4RGN posted this week regarding Zero Retries 0229:

The majority of people completing my club’s license classes and passing the exams are not particularly interested in HF CW and SSB. They’re only mildly interested in VHF/UHF analog FM.
I’m not saying that operations from the 1950s-1970s will go away entirely, but it’s going to be a monotonically decreasing percentage of the hobby -- especially as the Baby Boomers die out.
Stick to your target.

My reply:

The majority of Amateur Radio Operators in the 2020s are captive to their (incomplete, in my opinion) worldview that what Amateur Radio IS, is mostly HF, CW+SSB, with a sprinkling of VHF / UHF voice (FM + Digital), and the very, very occasional “interesting” mode such as satellite, EME, microwave DX, and a tiny sliver of data such as APRS or Winlink.
For some time, I thought what was needed to gain more “mindshare” about Zero Retries Interesting areas of interest within Amateur Radio was to expose them to it. But now, in the fifth year of publishing Zero Retries, I’ve come to realize that such exposure results in perhaps 3% “oh, I didn’t know about that - sounds interesting” and 97% “oh, that’s not really Amateur Radio / I’m not interested in that at all”.
Thus I’m no longer attempting “promotion of Zero Retries Interesting subjects” to general Amateur Radio audiences. I now do so only on request groups that request such a presentation because they know of Zero Retries and related subjects such as LinHT. Instead I’ll be promoting Zero Retries Interesting subjects to potential NewTechHams audiences such as the local annual Linux conference.

In a conversation I had this week, I was trying to explain both facets of Amateur Radio and I think it boils down to a dichotomy - Legacy Amateur Radio (basically the same Amateur Radio activities that were relevant in the 1970s) and the NewTechHams and OldTechHams that I mostly write for here in Zero Retries. There is some middle ground of folks that enjoy both “Legacy” and “TechHams”, but that crossover audience is pretty small.

Speaking solely for myself, I’ve come to the conclusion that I no longer think that “exposing legacy Amateur Radio” to Zero Retries Interesting topics of interest to NewTechHams (and again, OldTechHams) is an effective use of time, energy, funds, and resources. An example is Hamvention - my primary takeaway from Hamvention, including attending Hamvention 2025, is that Hamvention is almost entirely a celebration of legacy Amateur Radio (admittedly, a big celebration) with only occasional new technology Zero Retries Interesting topics showcased there. One example from Hamvention 2025 was the FlexRadio Aurora. But that’s all the “NewTech” that readily comes to mind from Hamvention 20251.

Thus, I think that promoting Zero Retries Interesting topics, projects, and activities mostly to NewTechHams, can only be effective when directed into specialized venues that are (at least potentially) relevant to NewTechHams, such as:

Text publications such as Zero Retries, Random Wire Newsletter, The Communicator newsletterzine,
Conferences such as Zero Retries Digital Conference, DEF CON conference, GNU Radio Conference,
Tech-focused YouTube channels such as TechMinds and saveitforparts,
Tech focused podcasts such as Ham Radio Workbench
Future focused technical organizations such as ARDC.

Spotted in Passing…

Loïc Féjoz F4JXQ in his QRZ.com profile:

Favorite source of information: https://www.zeroretries.org/

Thank you F4JXQ!

Mount Diablo Amateur Radio Club Presentation

Tina and I had a good time talking to MDARC last Friday about Zero Retries, ZRDC, our impression of MDARC’s Pacificon 2025 conference, LinHT, and other topics. I haven’t yet updated the slide deck with URLs and other references, but I will do so soon, and make it available here in Zero Retries and to MDARC for their archive of the presentation.

Weekends Are For Amateur Radio!

Nothing special in mind in N8GNJ and Zero Retries Labs this weekend other than recovering from having piled up many leftover projects, and of course, a great Thanksgiving meal(s) and hosting some good friends for an extended visit.

Have a great weekend, all of you co-conspirators in Zero Retries Interesting Amateur Radio activities!

Steve N8GNJ

More Thoughts on a new (Western Hemisphere?) Amateur Radio GEO

By Steve Stroh N8GNJ

A comment on Zero Retries 0229 by Loïc Féjoz F4JXQ directed me to AMSAT-DL’s FutureGEO proposals repository of responses to AMSAT-DL’s request for proposals (inputs regarding FutureGEO).

Use Millimeter Wave Bands?

Reading through some of the proposals, I’m surprised that it’s being seriously considered to use millimeter wave bands like 77 GHz for an Amateur Radio satellite or payload in Geosynchronous Earth Orbit (GEO), and thus accessing a new Amateur Radio GEO payload should be more challenging to access than the use of 2.4 GHz uplink and 10 GHz downlink used by the QO-100 Amateur Radio payload at GEO above the Eastern hemisphere.

On paper (the proposals), it probably sounds good that Amateur Radio should use its microwave spectrum. But consider… the wavelength of 77 GHz is 3.9 mm / 0.15 inches. Thus imagine the precision required to hit a GEO satellite (perhaps a “micro GEO” satellite) antenna at a range of 35,786 km from the ground, or a roof, or an apartment balcony. Just a mild gust of wind could easily move the dish antenna out of alignment with the satellite.

Thus, to me, the use of millimeter wave bands like 77 GHz for accessing a GEO is a total non starter. Such a bleeding edge system could only possibly appeal to the hardest core microwave experimenters who can build a very, very robust ground station to build an effective 77 GHz ground station.

For the rest of us, it’s challenging enough, but practical enough, to imagine using 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz as an uplink, and 10 GHz as a downlink to access a GEO payload. Just a basic comparison with the wavelength (and resulting dish, and pointing accuracy required for 77 GHz (3.9 mm / 0.15 inches). Per ChatGPT:

2.4 GHz wavelength: ~ 122 mm / 4.8 inches
5.5 GHz wavelength: ~ 55 mm / 2.2 inches
10.5 GHz wavelength: 29 mm / 1.1 inches

Accuracy to GEO with an Amateur Radio built ground station antenna with those wavelengths seems reasonable to me, especially compared to accuracy required at 77 GHz.

No Significant Provisions for Data?

The other surprising / disappointing observation in reading through the proposals is that there’s a near total exclusion of digital / data modes for proposed new Amateur Radio GEO satellites.

Huh? Do the individuals creating such proposals not send emails every day? Do they not text multiple times per day? Do they not access the web multiple times per day?

The proposals seem to imagine that folks using a new Amateur Radio GEO satellite mostly want mostly to chat (voice)? I really don’t think so - see the storylet Young People Aren’t Interested in Amateur Radio in Request to Send above.

To me, the primary utility of an Amateur Radio GEO satellite or payload for the Western Hemisphere is that it can be a data communications system (as in, transporting any digital mode - voice, video, data, text chat…) that can provide a reliable link, using Amateur Radio spectrum, between any Amateur Radio Operator / multiple Amateur Radio Operators in North America. Or, depending on the specific GEO orbital slot chosen (or mandated by sharing offered), the Eastern portion of North and South America and Western Europe and Western Africa using Amateur Radio spectrum.

Amateur Radio is rapidly losing relevance in society.

Ultimately, amateur radio must prove that it is useful for society.
Dr. Karl Meinzer DJ4ZC.

Doubly so for use of the precious resource of a satellite operating at a precious orbital slot at GEO.

We Probably Don't Have a Decade

In my opinion, Amateur Radio doesn’t have a window of a decade to wait / plan / execute for an Amateur Radio GEO for the Western Hemisphere. In my (highly unqualified, regarding building and getting satellites into orbit) opinion, the window of opportunity for an additional Amateur Radio satellite / payload at GEO for the Western Hemisphere will have closed within five years. By 2031 or so, Amateur Radio of that era won’t want, or need, an Amateur Radio GEO.

The ~~enemies of~~ competition for the utility / use case of a new Amateur Radio GEO within the NewTechHams that might potentially be interested in using (and building a ground station for) a new Amateur Radio GEO are:

Internet, including increasingly capable and matter of fact, and easy to use Amateur Radio Over Internet (AORI) systems. AROI works worldwide, including between any two Amateur Radio Operators / groups of Amateur Radio Operators - like a GEO. An example of this trend is the SharkRF m1ke unit and its future competitors. This is a fully Amateur Radio unit, but its access system is conventional Wi-Fi and Internet.
Mobile Networks, including Push to Talk (PTT) services over mobile, both apps on phones and dedicated devices that resemble portable Amateur Radio VHF / UHF radios. PTT over Mobile works worldwide, including any two Amateur Radio Operators / groups of Amateur Radio Operators - like a GEO.
Starlink, especially Starlink Mini. Starlink Mini is inexpensive (retail is ~$220) and Starlink can be used in “Standby” mode for $5/month for unlimited use 500 kbps. Starlink works worldwide, including any two Amateur Radio Operators / groups of Amateur Radio Operators - like a GEO.
Combination of all of the above. Apple offers text messaging and other basic communications with its modern iPhones. Starlink and T-Mobile offer text messaging and other basic communications in a partnership that Starlink satellites use T-Mobile spectrum from Low Earth Orbit. Starlink just recently acquired its own cellular spectrum that may enable Starlink to become another mobile carrier… worldwide via its Starlink satellite constellation (primary) and partner with terrestrial mobile networks (secondary).

Instead of timelines that potentially stretch out a decade (or more), there needs to be a sense of urgency to get an Amateur Radio GEO into orbit in a matter of years. If not, Amateur Radio will have to accept that the window for an additional Amateur Radio GEO satellite / payload has closed and that the options above are more practical, more cost-effective, more usable, and generally more interesting, than an Amateur Radio GEO satellite / payload.

Half Measures for Some Interesting Amateur Radio GEO Applications?

Instead of a full Amateur Radio GEO satellite / payload, there may be some utility / interest in using an existing GEO satellite transponder2. The following presupposes:

Some entity would pay the fees required for Amateur Radio to be able to use an entire transponder,
Uplink to the transponder would only be via conventional (commercial) uplink transmitter with only controlled, authorized (licensed) commercial uplink transmitters.
Receivers would be inexpensive and relatively easy such as direct broadcast satellite antennas and receiver units (such as Dish Network / DIRECTV).

Imagine what Amateur Radio could do with a (6 MHz) transponder on a GEO satellite positioned for optimum coverage of the Western Hemisphere:

Partition the 6 MHz of transponder bandwidth to allocate 1 or 2 MHz to be used for Digital Amateur Television. The uplinked video content could consist of live presentations (what we do now with Zoom teleconferences such as RATPAC, now), recorded video presentations (what we do now with YouTube videos such as AmateurLogic.TV), and various feeds from Digital Amateur Radio Television (DATV) repeaters such as the W0BTV Digital Amateur Television Repeater in the Boulder, Colorado, USA area (that can only be received if you live in that area).
File Flood Protocol - stream files, block by block, with Forward Error Correction similar to flamp (Fast Light Amateur Multicast Protocol) and Othernet (formerly, Outernet). Any file that might be of use to Amateur Radio could be broadcast - directories of repeaters, open source maps, global list of Winlink Radio Message Servers (RMS), global callsign directory (perhaps once per week), global directory of new Amateur Radio articles, YouTube videos, podcasts, etc.
Live stream of dynamic data such as Low Earth Orbit (LEO) Amateur Radio satellite orbit information, APRS, perhaps even audio streams (I don’t know how much bandwidth these occupy) of various, selected, perhaps all (?)Internet talk groups, selected portions of Amateur Radio HF bands, rotating image displays such as shack photos, QSL cards, etc.
Aggregation of all available Amateur Radio bulletins - Amateur Radio Newsline, ARRL, Amateur Radio weekly,

The basic idea is to leverage what can be done on an experimental basis for Amateur Radio Operators getting experience with GEO satellites…

in the near term - the next couple of years.

Commence the howls of “but, that’s not Amateur Radio”.

Correct. Thanks for pointing that out. But as counterpoints…

Amateur Radio over Internet (AROI) systems (Internet talk groups) use Internet in whole or in part. The transport portion of those systems is not Amateur Radio, but thousands of folks are using those services to have fun and experiment with radio technology.
General Mobile Radio Service (GMRS), Citizens Band (CB), and Family Radio Service (FRS) also aren’t Amateur Radio, but thousands of folks are using those services to have fun and experiment with radio technology.
Meshtastic, MeshCore, and Reticulum also aren’t Amateur Radio, but thousands of folks are using those systems to have fun and experiment with radio technology.
There are numerous microwave networks using unlicensed spectrum at 5 GHz that are operated as hobby / not-for-profit networks that aren’t Amateur Radio, but thousands of folks are using those networks to have fun and experiment with radio technology.
Repeater networks often rely on cellular Internet to link individual repeaters into repeater networks. Cellular networks aren’t Amateur Radio, but thousands of folks are using those repeater networks to have fun and experiment with radio technology.
Increasingly Starlink is being used for interconnecting geographically separated Amateur Radio systems such as tunnels between otherwise disconnected AREDN networks. Starlink isn’t Amateur Radio, but thousands of folks are using those AREDN networks (partially linked by Starlink) to have fun and experiment with radio technology.

All of the above systems and networks have some overt, partial, or potential overlap with Amateur Radio. I’m sure the common thread is clear… using those systems or networks to have fun and experiment with radio technology.

Using a commercial GEO satellite transponder for Amateur Radio experimentation is no different from those examples. It would be used to have fun and experiment with radio technology.

What I think Amateur Radio needs to do is to embrace a bias for action about an Amateur Radio GEO satellite / payload for the Western Hemisphere in the short term - no more than five years. Or else accept that the window for another Amateur Radio GEO has closed, and move on to other activities / projects that actually can be implemented.

Given that there currently does not seem to be any sense of urgency by Amateur Radio space-related organizations to attempt another Amateur Radio GEO, there doesn’t seem to be any harm in forming a new organization to attempt another Amateur Radio GEO with a sense of urgency to complete such a project in no more than than five years.

ZR > BEACON

By Steve Stroh N8GNJ

Short mentions of Zero Retries Interesting items.

29 MHz DATV

John Desmond EI7GL via email:

Thanks for your weekly Zero Retries newsletter, I always find it a good read on a Saturday morning.

I think the whole ethos of promoting digital communications is exactly what is needed in amateur radio and you’re one of few people doing that.

I just put up a post on my blog about DATV signals from Belgium being received in Greece.

Digital Amateur TV experiment between Belgium and Greece on the 29 MHz band - Nov 2025... https://ei7gl.blogspot.com/2025/11/digital-amateur-tv-experiment-between.html

Frans, ON4VVV is looking for interested parties in the USA who might be willing to try and receive his DATV signal on 29 MHz. I was thinking there might be someone in your Zero Retries audience?
My Radio Blog is https://ei7gl.blogspot.com/

I’ve fallen behind on my Amateur Radio RSS feeds, thus I’m grateful that EI7GL reached out via email about this project. EI7GL’s blog is one of many that offer Zero Retries Interesting information. Amateur Radio, writ large, has an annoying bias that “X just can’t be done, or Y just isn’t practical"… which alternately amuses or annoys the folks like ON4VVV that are doing such things that “can’t be done or aren’t practical”.

Looking for Beta Testers – Secure Node-RED Access Without a VPN

Dave Ginsberg N3BKV via email:

I’m working on a remote Node-RED controlled station for a large club and I needed a simple, secure access solution that doesn’t require members to use a VPN. To solve this, I’ve put together a RPi installation script that deploys a complete access stack using widely supported, off-the-shelf components: Let’s Encrypt, Traefik for TLS termination and Authelia for authentication.
With this setup, members simply visit a webpage, authenticate and are routed directly into the Node-RED dashboard, there are no VPN clients, no port forwarding and minimal maintenance for admins.
I’m looking for feedback from the community and a few beta testers before rolling it out to the club. If this sounds useful for your station or a similar application, please take a look and let me know what you think: https://github.com/n3bkv/44Net-Secure-Portal.

I hope that some Zero Retries readers can assist N3BKV.

VARA Digipeater Setup and Testing (video)

Joe Hamelin W7COM via email:

Good walkthrough.
KK4ODA Ham Radio YouTube Channel
Description:
This video demonstrates how to set up a VARA FM digipeater and use it to connect to a remote VARA FM gateway that would otherwise be unreachable.

I haven’t watched this video, but I trust W7COM’s recommendations.

EvoHam.com Is Live – And We’re Just Getting Started

Don Trynor VA3XFT:

A fresh, modern resource for digital voice operators in amateur radio.
Welcome to the Future of Digital Voice in Amateur Radio
Today marks an exciting milestone for the amateur radio community: the official launch of EvoHam.com, a modern online destination dedicated entirely to digital voice technologies in ham radio.
After a successful beta period, EvoHam.com is now officially live – and while the site is still growing, new guides, reviews, tools, and resources will be added every week as the platform expands. This is only the beginning.
Whether you’re a beginner exploring your first DMR handheld or an experienced operator experimenting with M17 or FreeDV, EvoHam brings everything together in one place – guides, reviews, tutorials, tools, resources, and news.
The site is expanding quickly, with fresh content rolling out regularly as we work toward building the most complete digital voice resource in amateur radio.
What You’ll Find on EvoHam.com
EvoHam.com is designed to be a comprehensive, easy-to-navigate resource for all major digital modes. Here’s an overview of what’s available today – and what’s continuing to grow:
Beginner-Friendly Guides
Our guide library covers all major digital voice modes, including DMR, D-STAR, Yaesu Fusion, P25, NXDN, M17, and FreeDV.
Each guide breaks down how the mode works, what equipment you’ll need, and how to get on the air.

Post publication update: I had meant to compliment VA3XFT on the modern-looking, responsive design of EvoHam.com. That kind of design ethos isn’t common for Amateur Radio projects.

This is an ambitious project, and I wish VA3XFT well with it. He is covering a lot of ground with all the variations of digital voice in Amateur Radio.

VA3XFT explained the raison d’être of M17 pretty well:

But each of these modes came with a catch: they were built by commercial manufacturers using proprietary codecs and closed systems. You could use them, sure, but you couldn’t look under the hood, tweak the firmware, or build your own compatible radio.
That’s where M17 comes in – a digital voice mode with a very different spirit. Instead of a company logo behind it, M17 was born from the passion of amateur radio operators who wanted to take digital voice back to its roots: open, experimental, and entirely community-driven.

But with such a broad subject, there are bound to be some issues or gaps. I did a Quick Look at the the article M17 for Beginners: A Step-by-Step Guide for New Hams, and spotted this issue:

As of July 2025, the MMDVM firmware no longer supports the M17 protocol due to upstream project changes. If you’re running an older firmware version (prior to July 2025), M17 may still work through the standard configuration interface by selecting “M17” as your digital mode and choosing a reflector (such as M17-USA or M17-CAN).
For new builds, however, M17 is currently supported only on hardware using the CC1200 transceiver chip. These newer boards are specifically designed for M17 compatibility and offer better modulation performance and reliability when linking to M17 reflectors.

This isn’t correct, or at minimum, it’s incomplete by not mentioning the availability of the WPSD-M17 Community Fork that can restore M17 functionality to most MMDVM hotspots.

It was surprising that EvoHam.com doesn’t mention the TETRA digital voice mode system. TETRA isn’t commonly used by Amateur Radio in North America, but it’s apparently in use by Amateur Radio Operators in Europe. Similarly, P25 isn’t commonly used in Europe, but it’s in use by Amateur Radio Operators in North America.

Also, EvoHam.com doesn’t cover dPMR - Digital Private Mobile Radio, or some early digital voice modes / units such as the AOR ARD9000MK2 Digital Voice Modem.

A minor issue is that EvoHam.com doesn’t mention experimental Amateur Radio digital voice options such as Opulent Voice, RADE Over Baseband FM (BBFM), and the (still in the specification stage) GTDV from the developer of MMDVM.

To be fair, EvoHam does say:

… easy-to-navigate resource for all major digital modes.

Thus it’s reasonable not to mention “not mainstream” options for Amateur Radio digital voice, but the intention of EvoHam.com seems to be a single point of reference for Amateur Radio digital voice modes. Thus if it were me, I would be at least mentioning those modes.

Kudos to VA3XFT to creating EvoHam.com and especially for including an RSS feed for the site - that will make it reasonable to keep up with its evolution. I will certainly be mentioning EvoHam.com and referring folks to it for info on Amateur Radio digital voice.