Olivia is the digital communications mode on shortwave (high frequency sub band, or, HF) for amateur radio operators who want more than the “Check Propagation” FT8 mode. This video is an introduction that was presented to the Raleigh Amateur Radio Society ( https://www.rars.org/ ) on December 12, 2023, presented by Tomas Hood, NW7US

Olivia information can be found, here:
https://OliviaDigitalMode.org

Olivia, a Multi-Frequency Shift Keying (MFSK) radioteletype digital mode, is an amateur radioteletype protocol designed to work in difficult (low signal-to-noise ratio plus multipath) propagation conditions on shortwave radio (i.e., high-frequency, or HF) bands. The typical Olivia signal is decoded when the amplitude of the noise is over ten times that of the digital signal! It is commonly used by amateur radio operators to reliably transmit ASCII characters over noisy channels (slices of high-frequency spectrum — i.e., frequencies from 3 MHz to 30 MHz; HF) exhibiting significant fading and propagation phasing.

The Olivia digital modes are commonly referred to by the number of tones and the bandwidth used (in Hz). Therefore, it is common to express the Olivia digital mode as Olivia X/Y (or, alternatively, Olivia Y/X ), where X refers to the number of different audio tones transmitted, and Y refers to the bandwidth in Hertz over which these signals are spread. Examples of common Olivia modes are, 8/250 (meaning, 8 tones/250-Hertz bandwidth), 16/500, and, 32/1000.

The protocol was developed at the end of 2003 by Pawel Jalocha. The first on-the-air tests were performed by two radio amateurs, Fred OH/DK4ZC and Les VK2DSG, on the Europe-Australia propagation path in the 20-meter shortwave radio amateur band. The tests proved that the Olivia protocol (or, digital mode) works well and can allow regular intercontinental radio contacts with as little as one-watt RF power (when propagation is highly-favorable). Since 2005, Olivia has become a standard for digital data transfer under white noise, fading and multipath, flutter (polar path) and auroral conditions.

Olivia can perform nearly as good as the very popular WSJT mode, FT8, and better than FT4.

See you on the waterfall!

73 de NW7US

 The weather here for the weekend was not too great so why not spend some time on the radio? I found the Croatian 9A DX contest to take part in. The solar forecast was not promising but I thought why not spend a few hours on the radio on Saturday and see what happens? Turns out the contest was busy and I managed to practice my CW contesting.  

Below are the results:

Hello and welcome to the 526th installment of Linux in the Ham Shack. In this short topics episode, the hosts discuss symbol rate restrictions, new extra class pool questions, ffmpeg, OpenBao, GridTracker and much more. Thanks for turning in and have a great week.

73 de The LHS Crew

In this episode, we join Martin Butler M1MRB, Chris Howard (M0TCH), Martin Rothwell (M0SGL), Frank Howell (K4FMH), Bill Barnes (WC3B) and Leslie Butterfields (G0CIB) to discuss the latest Amateur / Ham Radio news. Colin Butler (M6BOY) rounds up the news in brief and the episode's feature is Quansheng UV-K5 SDR

We would like to thank an our monthly and annual subscription donors for keeping the podcast advert free. To donate, please visit - http://www.icqpodcast.com/donate

• Ofcom Amateur Radio Consultation Statement
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• ARRL RF Safety Committee Develops New Guidelines to Communicate RF Safety
• HAMSCI Releases First Solar Eclipse Findings
• ‘First light’: NASA receives laser-beamed message from 10 million miles away
• New Amateur Extra-Class Question Pool Released
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AmateurLogic.TV Episode 188 is now available for download.

AmateurLogic’s Annual Christmas Extravaganza. Tommy upgrades his N5BOC Hotspot with a new Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W and it’s fast. Emile updates his hotspot with the WPSD Project. ALTV’s 2023 Gift Guide for last minute shoppers and slackers. Sampling the tastes of the holidays.

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Closing out 2023, here are the top five blog posts at k0nr.com during the year. Some people may see this as a lazy way of creating one more blog post for the year without much effort and they would be right. These posts are the top five viewed during the year but may have been written earlier than that.

Top Five Blog Posts

Leading the list is this blog post…a perennial favorite that seems to make the top five each year. This particular article is tuned for Colorado but also provides a link to an article covering the topic for the USA.

Choose Your 2m Frequency Wisely

Moving up to second place, this post explains how the FCC rules get in the way of having one radio that does everything.

One Radio To Rule Them All (Ham, GMRS, FRS, MURS)?

In third place, this is another popular article that provides an introduction to 2m SSB operating.

Getting Started on 2m SSB

This article that announced the North America Adventure Frequency continues to get much attention.

North America Adventure Frequency: 146.58 MHz

This article talks about the many things you can do on the 2-meter ham band, beyond just FM.

The 2 Meter Band: Much More Than FM

Editors Choice

Just for good measure, I am including one more post that I think is notable.

How’s That North America Adventure Frequency Working?

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

73 Bob K0NR

The post Top Five K0NR Blog Posts for 2023 appeared first on The KØNR Radio Site.