HF Digial

Olivia Digital Mode MFSK

BenLeave a comment

Yes, this popular girl name is actually an Amateur Radio term.

Christian, DK8EW, put me onto Olivia after we chatted on VARA HF. I had heard about Olivia before, but he encouraged me to give it ago.

Soon I made contact with VK4XP and must say it is a great digital format, though I understand a lot feel voice to voice is better (as I do). That said, this digital mode doesn’t require as much bandwidth, so has the potential to go further. The typical Olivia signal can still be decoded when the amplitude of the noise is over ten times that of the Olivia signal which is amazing.

Olivia is part of the family of MFSK modes and has a high redundancy Forward Error Correction system similar to MT63. The MFSK family is very large with many modes, so it can make it very difficult to work out which is which when you hear it. Olivia works really well on poor HF paths.

Olivia digital modes are commonly referred to by the number of tones and the bandwidth, in Hertz, used. Therefore, it is common to express the Olivia digital mode as Olivia X/Y (or Olivia Y/X ), where X refers to the number of different audio tones transmitted and Y refers to the bandwidth in hertz over which these signals are spread. Examples of common Olivia modes are 8/250 (meaning, 8 tones/250-Hertz bandwidth), 16/500, and, 32/1000. There are three popular Olivia modes, which is 8-FSK, 16-FSK and 32-FSK, that have three, four or five bits per symbol.

Olivia QSO Formats

Format Bandwidth / TonesAudio Centre Marker (Hz)BaudDecode S/N Radio (dB)Speed WPM
500/16*75031.25-1319.5
1000/32*100031.25-1224.4
500/875062.5-1129.3
1000/16100062.5-1039.1
500/4750125-1039.1
250/862531.25-1414.6
* Is the most common Olivia format in use currently

Here is a video that will give you more information:

While Olivia could acutally be used anywhere in the data allocated area on HF, however you may not find anyone if you are not on the right frequency. Below is the suggested calling frequencies used around the world:

I’ve typed to many people around the world on this mode and surprised how well it works when conditions are not great. The software tells you if there is another conversation on the band also which is handy.

There are a few protocols, like using BTU (back to you) on your last line and some shortcut typing which isn’t the same as the youth of today use in text messages!

While I still prefer voice contacts with people, at least this option is a conversation and something different when conditions are not favourable.

What are your thoughts on this mode? Have you tried it? Have you had success? What radio and band did you try?

If you enjoyed that, here are some other interesting reads: