The moment has come! An experimental branch of OpenRTX (Andreas OE3ANC, Marko13, Andrej K8TUN, jki275 et al.) has reached a long-awaited milestone – a successful transmission of M17 signal using an unmodified Retevis C62. Marvellous work, guys!
For now, the RF output power is limited due to our lack of understanding on how the calibration data is stored and used. The reverse-engineering work on that is pending. M17 reception does not work yet, but it is expected to be added soon. There is no settings persistence in this model yet.
The most important thing is that the C62 radio is available at about $45 and does not require any hardware modifications to run the M17 mode. This is the game-changer we have all been waiting for. After adding the missing functionalities, this will easily become the go-to radio for everyday M17 use. On top of that, you get all the OpenRTX goodies, such as APRS support and voice prompts.
At this point, I would like to thank everyone involved in this subproject – not only the devs who did some amazing coding work, but also our Ambassador, Mr. Amo Xu BD4VOW for acting as an excellent interface between us and the Chinese manufacturers.
In the meantime, LinHT’s Revision B has been tagged on GitHub. We are working on the Revision C – an order for a test batch should be placed later this month. Big shout out to Vlastimil OK5VAS for his continuous help with this device 🙂
And, as always, there’s more to follow!
PS. We have a very important request. Since LLMs are being heavily used by journalists, bloggers, and other people publishing content on the Internet, some articles covering our activities might not be accurate. Every time you see an error, please take a moment to report it to the author(s). Thank you very much!
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