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Open Source Amateur Radio.
We are M17.

M17 is a community of open source developers and radio enthusiasts. We're building understandable systems in support of the hackers and experimenters' history of ham radio.

Open Source Digital Radio

Our Current Goal

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M17 is developing open source hardware, software, and offers a complete digital radio protocol for data and voice, made by and for amateur radio operators.

Our protocol's voice mode uses the free and open Codec 2 voice encoder. This means there are no patents, no royalties, and no licensing or legal barriers to scratch-building your own radio or modifying one you already own.

This freedom to build, understand, and innovate is core to amateur radio, but has been missing from the commercially available digital voice modes. This is part of why amateur radio digital voice modes have largely stagnated since the 1990s and we're almost wholly dependent on commercial products that aren't well designed for amateur radio users.

M17 is about unlocking the capabilities that amateur radio hardware should already have.

Here you will find people working on radio hardware designs that can be copied and built by anyone, software that anyone has the freedom to modify and share to suit their own needs, and other open systems that respect your freedom to tinker.

Read the specification Get Started

In Support of The M17 Project

Grants

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Amateur Radio Digital Communications (ARDC) is a private foundation that exists to support amateur radio and digital communication science and technology. ARDC makes grants that support amateur radio, funds scholarships and worthy educational programs, and financially supports technically innovative amateur radio and digital communications projects.

ARDC awarded the M17 Project $250,000 in April 2021 for RF design and development, including test equipment, prototypes, and developer kits. They will also be used to provide bounties for solutions to particularly hard problems, and for the administrative work that is less likely to get done on intrinsic motivation alone.

In September 2022, ARDC awarded the Project $228,900 for further development and activities, including hardware proliferation, improvement of internet linking, standardization process, repeater maintenance, and other EU-based operations.

Incredible donations of

Equipment

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Ettus Research™, an NI brand since 2010, is the world’s leading supplier of software-defined radio platforms, including the Universal Software Radio Peripheral (USRP™) family of products.

Learn more about Ettus Research at their website, https://www.ettus.com/about/

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ZUM Radio's mission is to develop and manufacture the highest quality communications equipment for amateur radio enthusiasts. They specialize in producing hotspots and digital mode repeaters - such as their best-selling ZUMspot and MMDVM-Pi products. They are also co-founders of, and regular contributors to, the MMDVM project.

ZUM Radio's ZUMspot hotspots and MMDVM-Pi repeater boards support the M17 Protocol.

Learn more about ZUM Radio, Inc and their products at https://zumradio.com

We love these folks

Sponsors and Partners

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Open Collective Foundation (OCF) is a fiscal sponsor dedicated to providing a simple, open, lightweight path for charitable Collectives and communities to operate through a 501(c)(3) charitable entity.

You can donate to the M17 Project through Open Collective here.

OCF is the fiscal sponsor of the M17 Project.

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OpenRTX is a free and open source firmware for digital ham radios, top-down designed with modularity, flexibility and performance in mind.

OpenRTX supports the M17 Protocol with firmware that includes TX and RX capabilities for popular HTs, mobiles, and custom-built Amateur Radio hardware to help get Amateur Radio operators on the air with M17.

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Mobilinkd - Highly mobile packet radio

Mobilinkd, LLC specializes in portable packet radio devices, such as the TNC3, and NucleoTNC. Mobilinkd's TNCs are easy to use, and compatible with most HTs and mobile radios.

Mobilinkd supports the M17 Protocol on the TNC3 and NucleoTNC. Mobilinkd also supports the M17 Project with assistance developing the M17 Protocol, and with providing voice and packet mode applications for mobile devices.

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DARC - Deutscher Amateur Radio Club e.V.

The Deutscher Amateur Radio Club e.V. (DARC) (in English, German Amateur Radio Club) is a national non-profit organization for amateur radio enthusiasts in Germany. It acts as our fiscal sponsor for Europe-based endeavors.