CARDPUTER ADV + QMX for FT8 on the go
I have been searching for a reliable FT8-portable option for over a year. Purists will ask why, and my answer is that I am still CW illiterate, and there are just some times I am on a summit and it takes me over an hour of calling CQ to get my 4 contacts (SOTA). FT8 is a solid solution (confirmed by SotaMAT being able to spot me in difficult situations), but the current Android apps, FT8TW and FT8CN haven’t been updated since 2025 and have not been reliable for me: I believe it is Android, and not the apps themselves, which will negotiate audio poorly, sometimes working and sometimes not working at all, or providing way too little audio drive to even push 1w.
For months I have been obsessing over the idea of building a “cyberdeck” using a Raspberry Pi 3 and small screen and keyboard, so that I can have a complete computer running Linux at a lower weight than my Microsoft Surface. Premade cyberdecks do currently exist, but most cost over $300, and are essentially made of parts I almost already have. Then Ham Radio Crash Course posts this VIDEO.
Now I have a Cardputer ADV in hand, which is an ESP32 based handheld device with a full keyboard, internal battery, screen, WiFi and Bluetooth. The first thing to note is that the Cardputer is smaller than the QMX! You will need a MicroSD card, and it needs to be formatted to FAT32: if your card is over 32GB then you may need a utility to get it formatted to FAT32, I used Guiformat on Windows 11. Download Mini FT8 HERE (click the green button and download ZIP), or just click on the “release” folder and choose a version and download the *.bin file and the manual. You only need to place one *.bin file on the SD, and I would save the PDF manual to your phone. Adding the MiniFT8_V2.0.4.bin to the SD card with Launcher installed on the esp32 is what Josh recommended in his video, but it should also be possible to load MiniFT8 directly to the esp32 so that it has full hardware control, but surprisingly my settings (callsign) are kept even using the Launcher.
The PDF manual has descriptions of most of its functions, but a cheat-sheet would look like a composed version of this:
Turn on Cardputer/Launch Mini-FT8.
Menus:
- Mini-FT8 V1.3.2
- S – Status (Operate)
- R – Rx page
- T – Tx page
- M – Menu (Setting)
- Other: Q/C/B/N/O/D
- Power on Mini-FT8 and double-check the Menu settings are correct.
- Press S → go to the Status page.
- Press 5/6 → Set Time/Date (UTC).
- Press 3 → select band (Active band is configured in Menu page 3).
- Press 2 → Connect to QMX.
o Then power on the QMX - Press 2 → Sync to QMX.
o If you don’t see “Sync to QMX”, it means there is no connection. - Press 4 → tune the antenna (if needed).
- Press 1 → enable Beacon (Even or Odd slot) if you’re doing POTA/SOTA activation.
- Go to the Rx/Tx page and have fun.
only transmits on Tx screen, only receives on Rx screen
Now, does it work with other radios? As of June 2026 it only supports the QMX, QDX and the KH1. Even though the CAT commands the QMX uses are Kenwood generics, I think the support will remain with these three rigs.
After contacting the developer, AG6AQ, I was able to get the CAP-LoRa-1262 added as a GPS device so that you can get your Midenhead grid locator and time sync. Mini-FT8 also supports the GPS-only M5Stack dongle. So in firmware v2.1:
G – GPS information, with coordinates and Maidenhead,
O – press 4 to connect to the GNSS-LoRa CAP.
I expect we will see a final version of the software in the next couple of months, and later this year M5Stack will release the Cardputer Zero, which is a Raspberry Pi powered version, and essentially is the holy grail Linux cyberdeck priced around $100 USD (yes, I already put in my earlybird pledge on the Kickstarter campaign). I look forward to seeing small screen releases of WSJT-X for it.
Filed under: blog,Uncategorized - @ June 28, 2026 2:14 pm