The Amateur Radio Software Award (ARSA) committee is pleased to announce that OpenWebRX, a project led by Jakob Ketterl DD5JFK, and OpenWebRX+, a project led by Marat Fayzullin KC1TXE, have been selected as the winners of the 5th annual Amateur Radio Software Award. The award recognizes software projects that enhance amateur radio and promote innovation, freedom, and openness in amateur radio software development.
Nominations were numerous for the 2024 award and after careful consideration the committee decided to name OpenWebRX and OpenWebRX+ as winners. These projects allow access to radio reception from around the world, whether they are ham operators, shortwave listeners or somebody curious about radio waves. The committee is impressed with the ease of installation, simplicity of use, and overall features that are provided.
The history of these projects showcase the benefit of open source software. OpenWebRX was originally created by András Retzler but due to the demands of his career he decided to discontinue its development. Jakob Ketterl took over the OpenWebRX project and continues to maintain and improve OpenWebRX. Marat Fayzullin’s OpenWebRX+ builds on top of Jakob Ketterl’s OpenWebRX adding support for additional communication modes and advanced features. Both projects are currently separate allowing implementers of hosting sites to choose between the simple core version or the enhanced version without difficulties while allowing the developers to focus on their projects goals.
Jakob Ketterl plans to use the award money to purchase new hardware for the build system of the OpenWebRX project. Recently he added a number of avionics related modes (ADS-B, VDL2, HFDL), a new decoder for DAB (European digital broadcast standard), the ability to decode RDS / RBDS, and a new experimental data interface in the form of MQTT that is intended to allow third-party processing of the information that is received via OpenWebRX. Learn more about OpenWebRX at https://www.openwebrx.de/.
Marat Fayzullin's goal for OpenWebRX+ is to support as many communication modes as possible without the need of tweaking multiple pieces of software. In his own words: “In a way, I view OpenWebRX+ as a real-life ‘tricorder’ for the radio spectrum.” Learn more about OpenWebRX+ at https://fms.komkon.org/OWRX/.
The ARSA committee is already looking forward to next year's award and welcomes input and nominations for future awards.
The Amateur Radio Software Award (ARSA) committee is pleased to announce that GridTracker, a project led by Stephen Loomis N0TTL and the GridTracker.org team, has been selected as the recipient of the 4th annual Amateur Radio Software Award. The award recognizes software projects that enhance amateur radio and promote innovation, freedom, and openness in amateur radio software development.
The committee received many nominations for the 2023 award, and after careful consideration, GridTracker was chosen as the winner. The committee was impressed by the breadth of features in GridTracker, the innovative graphic interface, and its ability to make amateur radio more fun.
GridTracker is a tool that visualizes WSJT-X amateur radio traffic like FT8 and contacts from log files, making it easier for radio amateurs to track their contacts and participate in contests. Its unique approach to visualizing radio traffic adds a new dimension of enjoyment to the radio art.
To learn more about GridTracker, visit https://gridtracker.org. As part of the award, Stephen Loomis N0TTL has requested that a $300 grant be donated to NAMI of Oregon, a non-profit organization dedicated to improving the lives of individuals and families affected by mental illness.
The ARSA committee is already looking forward to next year's award and welcomes input and nominations for future awards.
The Amateur Radio Software Award (ARSA) committee is pleased to announce the recipient of the 3rd annual Amateur Radio Software Award to David Rowe, VK5DGR, and his project, Codec 2.
The award committee went through extensive consideration of all nominations received. We had a very competitive pool of nominated projects to choose from. Factors considered include innovation, impacts on amateur radio and community involvement.
Codec 2 is a foundational project for digital voice communication on HF and VHF. It provides a royalty-free and open source codec suitable for digital voice application in amateur radio. Codec 2 enables other software and hardware projects to utilize digital voice communication without the barriers of licensing, usage fees and vendor lockdown.
"As well as speech compression software, the Codec 2 library also includes a variety of modems integrated into the FreeDV protocol to support robust open source digital voice over HF radio," explains David. "We are working on improving the quality, and lowering the SNR required for HF digital voice."
With Codec 2, David has made significant contributions to amateur radio by helping to move the community beyond the vendor controlled digital voice ecosystem and enabling other innovation previously prevented by patents. David Rowe and key contributor Mooneer Salem, K6AQ, created FreeDV, a program for digital voice communication over HF, as a reference implementation. Codec 2 is also used by the M17 team for digital voice in their VHF/UHF/GigaHertz communication protocol and applications.
Visit https://www.rowetel.com/codec2.html to learn more about Codec 2.
The ARSA committee is proud to present the 2022 Amateur Radio Software Award Certificate and an award grant of $300 to David Rowe, the project owner and core contributor of the Codec 2.
We are looking forward to next year's Amateur Radio Software Award. Input and nominations for future awards are welcome.
ARSA committee is pleased to announce the recipient of the 2nd annual Amateur Radio Software Award to Jordan Sherer, KN4CRD, and his project, JS8Call.
The award committee has considered numerous factors in choosing this year's winner, including the project's impact on furthering the interests of amateur radio, innovation, and community involvement.
JS8Call is a full-fledged weak-signal digital communication application for amateur radio operators. In the spirit of open-source, Jordan extended the popular FT8 protocol instead of reinventing the wheel. During the 5 years of development, JS8Call has become a new tool for ARES function and cultivated a community of radio enthusiasts for digital communications. Jordan's work on JS8Call provides important innovation to advance the art of radio in the digital field. JS8Call is licensed under GPLv3 and can be freely downloaded at http://js8call.com.
The ARSA committee is proud to present the 2021 Amateur Radio Software Award Certificate and an award grant of $300 to Jordan Sherer, the project owner and core contributor of the JS8Call application.
We are looking forward to next year's Amateur Radio Software Award. Input and nominations for future awards are welcome.
The Amateur Radio Software Award committee has announced Anthony Good as the winner of the 1st ever Amateur Radio Software Award for his project K3NG Arduino CW Keyer. This award is given annually to projects that enhance and adhere to the spirit of amateur radio by creating innovative, free and open software.
K3NG Arduino CW Keyer is awarded for its innovation to rekindle CW with connections to maker culture and ham radio operators alike. It generates enthusiasm for people to get into CW and amateur radio in general. Anthony’s design allows the keyer to be run on readily available and low cost hardware. The extensive documentation, the open source code, and active email community make the project ideal for learning and tinkering. Anthony encourages collaborative work by engaging the community and welcoming contributions. The project has been active since 2013 and has enjoyed continued contributions from its code committers.
The award committee has deliberated many factors when choosing the recipient, including its impact on furthering the interests of amateur radio, innovation, and community involvement.
The award committee is presenting the award certificate and award grant of $200 to Anthony Good, the project owner and core contributor of the K3NG Arduino CW Keyer.
We are looking forward to next year's Amateur Radio Software Award. Input and nominations for future awards are welcome. Be sure to visit our website https://amateurradiosoftwareaward.github.io/ for further information about the award. Anthony’s K3NG Arduino CW Keyer software is located at https://github.com/k3ng/k3ng_cw_keyer.
NOTE: The award does not resemble an endorsement that the software meets the requirement. While the software was reviewed as with the award rules in mind, no in depth audit of the software has been made.