>>> HF <<< 
ham radio shortwave PACTOR AMTOR GTOR RTTY MT63  program 
with self-decoding CW elbug function
and F6FBB mailbox interface

Hallo friends, 
HF is a linux ham radio fsk digimode program,
which can do also the realtime ARQ modes without a ptc, 
only with a soundcard and a pc and linux. 

The heart of the program has originally been made by Tom Sailer, many thanks Tom! 
> > > DOWNLOAD< < < 

There are some great things in hf:
  • hf's terminal hfterm can connect via TCP/IP with the BBS mailbox program F6FBB (well-known from packet radio), so you can use hf as an automatic pactor / amtor mailbox.
  • automatic receive / transmit and beacon functions
  • 3 calibration tools, which also can be useful for many other purposes:
    dcf77rx, also with the 'no-mmap'-option, can also to set the system time after the German DCF77 radio clock beacon.
    a circuit to build a little longwave -> 4 MHz converter is included.
    reffreq uses any reference tone 20 -22000 Hz.
    ratecal1 (by Pawel Jalocha) uses pulsed signals, calculates your real soundcard samplerate directly.
  • The elbug decodes your keying. Good for training. Also with mousekeys. Also as simple console program 'elbug' in the package (for paddle only).

There are some difficult things in hf:
  • hfkernel, the coding/encoding part of the hf package, is programmed in a very close-to hardware way, which means, it will not run with all hardware, especially in newer boxes. Try your oldest one!
  • It may also not like some newer libraries... try your oldest linux!
  • hfterm, the terminal, is made for old GTK 1.2 GUI (graphical user interface), which can also cause problems with newer linux distributions.
  • So - it might be a lot to do, you see.
  • On the other hand, hf's modes AMTOR, GTOR and PACTOR-1 are somewhat historic, they are not so often used any more. There are other digimodes, like PSK-31, which has a narrower bandwidth and good transfer quality. There are commercial PACTOR-2 and -3 which depend on a PTC.
  • This, and also the fact that I love my family and my work, and they need me more, led me to stop maintaining hf since 2007.
  • Maybe someone will integrate some nice parts of hf, like the pactor-1 mode or the elbug, for example, into Tomi Manninen's gmfsk, which is a nice up-to-date multimode program.
  • If you have any questions, please contact me, I hope I still can help you a bit. Enjoy it but also take it easy!

How to install
hf-<version>.tar.gz:
tar-zxvf hf-<version>.tar.gz
cd hf-<version> 
./configure
make
(as root) make install
hf-<version>.rpm:
rpm -i hf-<version>.rpm
In case "MMAP" error with fsk modes: enter '-n' into the config menu at general/kerneloptions.
Documentation
F1 opens HF-HOWTO.txt (English)  or  DE-HF-HOWTO.txt (German).
man hf, man hfkernel, man dxf77rx, man dcf77gen  and more, all in the package.


Guenther Montag dr.g.montag@gmx.net