We are thrilled to announce that Matthew Wishek NB0X has been awarded the prestigious 2025 ARRL Technical Innovation Award by the American Radio Relay League (ARRL) Board of Directors. This distinguished honor recognizes licensed radio amateurs who develop and apply new technical ideas or techniques that advance the state of amateur radio technology.
Matthew received this recognition for his innovative contributions to amateur radio digital communications, specifically his development of an open source minimum shift keying (MSK) implementation for software-defined radio.
Matthew’s primary achievement centers on his work with the pluto_msk project, a sophisticated MSK modem implementation designed for the Analog Devices ADALM-Pluto SDR platform. This project represents a significant advancement in efficient digital communications for amateur radio, particularly for the Opulent Voice (OPV) digital voice and data protocol.
MSK modulation is a type of continuous phase modulation that eliminates phase discontinuities, resulting in superior spectral efficiency compared to traditional FSK and other binary modulations. Matthew’s custom hardware description language (HDL) implementation targeting the AMD Zynq 7010 system on chip, maximizes performance and resource utilization. The design has multiple sophisticated components including numerically controlled oscillators (NCO), Proportional Integral (PI) controllers, power detectors, and exponential moving average filters.
Equally significant is Matthew’s pioneering modem module approach to HDL design. This architectural approach makes a large positive difference in how digital signal processing systems are designed and implemented in FPGAs. The modem module approach is the systematic creation of reusable, well-defined building blocks that can be combined for a variety of communication protocols. While many projects and people pay lip service to modularity, Matthew’s execution and leadership in this area have supercharged ORI’s work.
All components are freely available, fostering collaboration and continued innovation in the amateur radio community
The ARRL Technical Innovation Award recognizes not just technical achievement, but also contributions that benefit the broader amateur radio community. Matthew’s work exemplifies both criteria
Matthew’s innovations in modular HDL design and MSK implementation provide a solid foundation for future developments in amateur radio digital communications. His work demonstrates how modern software-defined radio platforms can be leveraged to implement sophisticated communication techniques that were previously the domain of commercial and military systems.
The amateur radio community benefits enormously from contributions like Matthew’s, which not only advance the technical state of the art but also provide practical, implementable solutions that enhance our communication capabilities.
Congratulations to Matthew Wishek on this well-deserved recognition of his outstanding technical contributions to amateur radio!
The American Radio Relay League (ARRL) is the national association for amateur radio, connecting hams around the U.S. with news, information and resources. The ARRL Technical Innovation Award is presented annually to recognize exceptional technical innovation that advances amateur radio.