Category: Digital Modes (Inc: FT8, DMR, YSF, DStar, Etc)

  • Ham Radio Apps for APRS Tracking on Your Phone

    Part of our Getting On The Air guide. You do not need a radio with a built-in TNC to get onto APRS. A collection of solid phone apps lets you track, message, and monitor the APRS network directly from a device you already carry everywhere. How Phone-Based APRS Actually Works Most APRS phone apps connect…

  • LoRa APRS: A Different Take on Long-Range Tracking

    Part of our Getting On The Air guide. LoRa APRS blends two technologies that most hams already know separately, traditional APRS and LoRa radio hardware, into something that behaves a bit differently from either one on its own. How It Differs From Traditional APRS Standard APRS runs on 144.390 MHz in the US using AFSK-modulated…

  • Getting Started with JS8Call: Setup and Your First Contacts

    Part of our Getting On The Air guide. JS8Call takes the weak-signal decoding strength that made FT8 popular and points it at a completely different goal: real keyboard-to-keyboard conversation over HF, not just a quick exchange of signal reports. How It Differs From FT8 FT8 is built around a rigid, automated exchange format, callsigns, grid…

  • Getting the Yaesu FT-857D on FT8 with WSJT-X

    Part of our The Yaesu FT-857D: The Complete Guide. What You Actually Need The FT-857D predates USB audio interfaces, so getting it onto FT8 means bridging two separate connections: a CAT cable for rig control and a sound card interface for audio in and out. A USB sound card interface like a Digirig handles both…

  • FT8 Contesting: How Digital Contests Actually Work

    Part of our Getting On The Air guide. Most hams who run FT8 do it casually, working stations one at a time while doing something else with half their attention. Contesting on FT8 is a completely different animal. It is fast, structured, and genuinely competitive, and understanding the difference will save you a frustrating first…

  • RadioID.net and DMR ID Registration: A Step-by-Step Walkthrough

    Part of our Getting On The Air guide. Before you can transmit on DMR, whether through a hotspot or a repeater, you need a DMR ID. This trips up a lot of new hams because unlike a callsign, it is not something the FCC assigns you automatically. It is a separate registration you have to…

  • Choosing a Power Supply for a DMR Hotspot

    Part of our Getting On The Air guide. A DMR hotspot is a small, low-power device, and it is tempting to assume any old USB charger will power it fine. In practice, a genuinely inadequate power supply is one of the most common causes of hotspot instability, random reboots, and connection dropouts. Why Current Rating…

  • Pi-Star vs. WPSD: Why I Switched My DMR Hotspots

    Part of our Getting On The Air: Modes, Operations, and Making Contacts guide. I ran Pi-Star for a long time before switching over, and now every hotspot I own runs WPSD. Both projects do the same underlying job, but a couple years of running both back to back has made the differences pretty clear to…

  • Brandmeister vs. TGIF: Comparing the Two Big DMR Networks

    Part of our Getting On The Air: Modes, Operations, and Making Contacts guide. If you’ve spent any time programming a DMR codeplug, you’ve run into these two names. Brandmeister and TGIF are the two networks that carry almost all of the DMR traffic hams actually talk on, and if you’re setting up a hotspot for…

  • EchoLink vs AllStarLink: Which VoIP Linking System Is Right for You?

    Part of our Getting On The Air guide. Both EchoLink and AllStarLink let you talk to hams and repeaters anywhere in the world using nothing more than a phone or an internet connection. That’s about where the similarities end. I’ve ran both and after using them for a while I’ve got real opinions about where…

  • Nexus: One Free Program Trying to Replace Your Whole Digital Shack

    Nexus is a free, open-source program from KD9TAW that tries to fold your decoder, logger, mapper, alerter, and panadapter into one app. Here is what I found after digging into it.

  • What Is QSO One (qso1.net)?

    Part of our Getting On The Air: Modes, Operations, and Making Contacts guide. If you’ve been in any DMR or AllStarLink group lately, you’ve probably seen someone mention QSO One. It’s a free app for Windows and Android that gets you on several digital voice networks without a radio, a hotspot, or any hardware at…

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