Digital modes on the radio are a bit of a Black art. In my quest to expand my radio options while camping. I discovered and purchased an 817-iPad interconnect cable and it arrived just before our trip. I’ll expand on that in another post, essentially it’s signalink type device for my iPhone/iPad.

I haven’t really played with digital modes while at home. So to try them when away was novel. A number of apps exist for different digital modes for iOS devices. RTTY, AX.25 Packet and PSK31 as well as SSTV and other less common modes.

So I packed up the radio and iPad and went for a walk with the gear, set up portable under a tree by the river and connected it all up to see how I could go. I choose the Psker app and this has macros. A waterfall display and seems to get the best reviews on the App Store.

I tuned to 14.070 and watched signals appear on the waterfall display. Selected a free spot and pressed the CQ button. The radio switched to TX and I was going. It finished and I waited. Nothing. Hmm. What next. I tried again and then got a reply. James vk2jn in Sydney answered my call. We had a quick exchange. While I got used to how the software and the mode works. So, the device, cable and app all work! Now to expand to some dx contacts and see what else I can manage. Something to better explore into the future.