I recently got a Raspberry Pi and a few accessories to try digital modes with.  So far, it has been an early success.  I had played around with Arduinos before and had a lot of fun.  I got the Pi 3 Model B and so far it has blown Arduino out of the water.  I was able to install Raspbian onto an SD card easily and get it up and running.

The other accessories I got included a 7-inch touchscreen and a case.  My goal is to be able to do digital modes while camping/mobile and running off of a battery.  The biggest pain was hauling a laptop around to accomplish this, and being limited to the lifespan of the laptop’s battery.  With the Pi, I will need to plug it into the same battery I’m transmitting from, so I’ll need to factor that in.  However, to be able to do this from a small device will be perfect.

A test on FT8 was a moderate success.  When the bands were on the slower side it kept right up and I was able to make a successful contact.  However when there were multiple signals it had trouble decoding fast enough.   If the band was crowded, it would take about 3-4 seconds into the next cycle before fully decoding.  I’d imagine there’s a fix to this that some google-ing will solve.  I’ll post more when I figure it out.

I’m also going to try getting a RTL-SDR setup, and try out some other modes as well.  More to come.