Will RADE Be the Next SSB?

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Will RADE Be the Next SSB?

Every so often a mode comes along that genuinely threatens to reshape how we talk on HF. Fifty years ago, that mode was single sideband, which overtook AM as the dominant voice mode largely because it packed a signal into roughly half the bandwidth. Now there's a new contender aiming to do the same thing all over again.

FreeDV has introduced a new digital voice mode called RADE — short for Radio Autoencoder — which occupies half the bandwidth of an SSB signal, while reportedly delivering more natural-sounding speech than earlier digital voice modes have managed.

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From Morse to Micropython: RSGB Marks National Coding Week 2026

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Amateur radio and coding have always had more in common than people give them credit for — both are about learning a language, building something that works, and troubleshooting when it doesn't. This September, the RSGB is leaning into that overlap.

National Coding Week runs from 14th to 20th September 2026, and it's a great excuse for radio amateurs of every age and skill level to build a bit of confidence with digital skills and dip a toe into programming.

To mark the occasion, the RSGB Outreach Team has put together three coding activities designed specifically for National Coding Week. Whether you've never written a line of code in your life or you're already comfortable behind a keyboard, there should be something in there for you. The activities are available to all members now at http://www.rsgb.org/coding, and they'll also be shared directly with youth groups — a nice nod to getting the next generation of hams thinking about the software side of the hobby, not just the hardware.

Changes to AMSAT TLE Distribution

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Two Line Elements or TLEs, often referred to as Keplerian elements or keps in the amateur community, are the inputs to the SGP4 standard mathematical model of spacecraft orbits used by most amateur tracking programs.

Weekly updates are completely adequate for most amateur satellites. TLE bulletin files are updated daily in the first hour of the UTC day. New bulletin files will be posted immediately after reliable elements become available for new amateur satellites.

More information may be found at https://www.amsat.org/keplerian-elements-resources/.

Thanks to Joe Fitzgerald, KM1P, AMSAT Orbital Elements Manager for forwarding the above information.