Ham Radio Deluxe 5.0 Beta released

Ham Radio Deluxe is a suite of free Windows programs providing computer control for commonly used transceivers and receivers. HRD also includes logging, mapping, satellite tracking access to the DX cluster and digital modes working. It is a big toy box of amateur radio software all squeezed in to one program. The latest stable version is 4.1 and although they claim it may not work with Windows 98 and requires Internet Exploder I run it perfectly well under Win 98se and Firefox.

I don’t expect to be quite as lucky with the new version but the specifications on HRD 5.0 are going to make a lot of people happy. The first beta version was released on 4^th July and there is an extensive bug and to do list on the site. Target date for the official full release is 1^st October 2009 so unless you are a beta testing type of person who does not throw his PC out of the window when confronted with a frozen machine steer clear. There are some big changes with Rotator support, Satellite Tracking, Logbook (with DX Cluster, Audio Recorder, Sunspot Data), HRDLOG.net - web interface to the new v5 logbook all now stand alone programs, making the main program a much slimmed down exe file.

There is no need to wait until October for an up-date however as support for HRD is continuing to be supported until at least 2011 and version 4.2 should be out later this month with support for new radios such as the IC-7200. Support for the IC-7600 will follow when it is available.