Ardopcf v1.0.4.1.3 includes lots of changes from the previous release. See changelog.md for a description of everything that has changed. Some of the biggest changes should not be noticed by users. These changes included discarding a lot of unused and broken code, and restructuring the entire code base to aid future development work.

I'm very happy to see how many people are trying ardopcf. Ardopcf v1.0.4.1.2 was downloaded over 1600 times. Hopefully everybody using that version will now upgrade to this new release. There are still lots of opportunities for continued work. So, keep watching for additional future releases.

IMPORTANT: Check your command line options.

Several obsolete command line options are no longer available, and one new option was added. See the new documentation for Command Line Options for a description of all currently usable options. The new --nologfile or -m option causes ardopcf not to write log files. The --hostcommands or -H option provides a replacement for discontinued options and provides access to the full set of Host commands. A section of that document describes how to use the --hostcommands option. Pay special attention to the CONSOLELOG and LOGLEVEL commands, since the arguments to these commands have also changed due to a complete rewrite of the logging system.

Improved Documentation

While there is still plenty of opportunity for further improvement, the documentation for ardopcf has been greatly expanded. See the main page for the ardopcf Github repository, which contains links to the various new documentation pages. These pages include descriptions of how to install, configure, and run ardopcf, as well as how to build it from source for both Windows and Linux users. Please let me know if you find errors in of this documentation.

Performance improvements

Maintaining compatibility with other Ardop implementations limits the scope of possible performance improvements available to ardopcf. However, this release of ardopcf does provide a few incremental improvements. Fixing a bug in the sending of 16QAM.2000.100 data frames may improve performance in very good band conditions. Improvements to the Memory ARQ system, which uses a combination of data retained from failed attempts to decode a data frame along with data from each additional transmission of that same data frame to improve the likelihood of successfully decoding it, may significantly improve performance in poor or changing conditions whenever a data frame is repeated. Fixes related to FEC data frames used by programs like ARIM and gARIM should eliminate some issues that previously caused loss or corruption of received data.

A few different bugs were found that resulted in ardopcf not always sending a station ID frame when it should have, and not always respecting user settings for whether or not to follow these with CW/Morse Code ID. These are corrected for improved legal compliance.

Production of binaries

I've learned more about the limitations of distributing binaries for both Linux and Windows since the last release.

The Linux binaries included with this release should work if your computer/OS uses glibc version 2.31.1 or later. Use ld --version to check what version your system uses. Users of systems older than this will need to compile ardopcf from source.

If you aren't sure whether your ARM (Raspberry Pi) system is running 32-bit or 64-bit Linux, then getconf LONG_BIT will print either 32 or 64. If you download the wrong binary, it won't work.

The Windows binaries included with this release should work with all Windows 10 and 11 systems. If you use an older version of Windows, you may need to install the Windows Universal C Runtime update to use these binaries.

All Windows 11 and most Windows 10 systems are 64-bit. So, the 32-bit Windows binaries are only needed for a few Windows 10 systems, but may be needed for more Windows systems older than this. To find out if a Windows 10 operating system is 32 or 64 bit press the Start button and select Settings, click on System then on About and read the line starting with System type. A 64-bit Windows system can run either the 32-bit or 64-bit binary, but it will run the 64-bit binary more efficiently.

Thank you

Thank you to everyone who has supported the ongoing development of ardopcf through pull requests containing code and documentation, creation and commenting on issues, and for feedback through the users subgroup at ardop.groups.io. Special thanks to Colin S., for both his extensive code contributions and for his comments that have helped me to better understand software development tools and issues including several things that I didn't know that I didn't know.

Ardopcf v1.0.4.1.2 contains several new features as well as bug fixes since v1.0.4.1.1.

Several command line options are deprecated by this release. These options still work in this release, but will likely be eliminated in a future release of ardopcf. So, watch for the error messages that will be printed to the console and to the debug log files if you use any of these deprecated command line options. Those error messages indicate how to replace the deprecated options with the new -H or --hostcommands option. Please stop using the deprecated options now. The ardopcf help listing seen by using the -h command line option also describes which options have been deprecated and how to replace them.

A major new feature of this release is Webgui, a new web browser based graphical user interface for ardopcf. To enable this feature use the -G or --webgui command line option followed by a port number. I've been using -G 8514 which makes the Webgui port one less than the default 8515 port used for the ardopcf host interface. Then point your browser to localhost:8514 to begin using the Webgui. The "Show Help" button there provides additional details.

See changelog for descriptions of all of the recent changes.

Each executable is a single file that requires no explicit installation. However, after downloading the appropriate file for your 32 or 64 bit hardware and operating system, you may want to rename it to simply ardopcf for Linux or ardopcf.exe for Windows.

ardopcf v1.0.4.1.1 is a minor update, mostly to correct the mis-numbering of the first release of ardopcf. That release was mistakenly given a version number of v2.0.3.2.1. It should have been given a version number derived from of v1.0.4.1. This mistake was due to a bug in the code repository's structure and Peter LaRue's (my) failure to better understand the ARDOP versioning scheme. I apologize for that. So, while this release does not add significant new features, I strongly urge anyone using v2.0.3.2.1 to replace it with this v1.0.4.1.1.. The version number is written to the console and debug log file, and is also passed to host programs such as Pat Winlink. So, avoiding continued use of the mis-numbered first release may avoid future confusion.

See changelog for a description of what has changed. Most of the changes are only minor adjustments to what is written to the console and debug log. An improvement was also made to the ability to decode certain WAV file recordings, which may be useful for diagnostic purposes.

This ardopcf release, as well as the earlier release under the incorrect version number of v2.0.3.2.1 are intended to conform to the original (V1) ARDOP specification, not the less commonly used ARDOP_V2 specification. As such, ardopcf should be compatible with all Winlink stations that support Ardop. If ardopcf is used with ARIM or gARIM or any other program that supports multiple Ardop versions, instructions should be followed for use with Ardop v1.x implementations.

Each executable is a single file that requires no explicit installation other than placing it someplace in the path that your computer searches for executables. For Linux, either ~/bin/ or in /usr/local/bin/ are probably good choices. After downloading the appropriate file for your 32 or 64 bit hardware and operating system, you may want to rename it to simply ardopcf for Linux or ardopcf.exe for Windows.

The ardopcf_arm_* files have been tested on Raspberry Pi models Zero, Zero 2, and 4B.

PLEASE DO NOT CONTINUE USING THIS RELEASE.
This release was mis-numbered as v2.0.3.2.1 when it should have been given a version number derived from V1.0.4.1.
The later release v1.0.4.1.1. is better/newer that this v2.0.3.2.1. Sorry for the confusion.

ardopcf v2.0.3.2.1 is a fork of ARDOPC from the g8bpq/ardopc repository. See changelog for a description of what has been changed.

Each executable is a single file that requires no explicit installation. However, after downloading the appropriate file for your 32 or 64 bit hardware and operating system, you may want to rename it to simply ardopcf for Linux or ardopcf.exe for Windows.

The ardopcf_arm_* files have been tested on Raspberry Pi models Zero, Zero 2, and 4B.