WE PAUSE NOW FOR A BRIEF STAR WARS VIDEO
 

AND NOW, WE RETURN TO NORMAL RADIO CHATTER...



 

SDR WEBSITES

SDR (Software Defined Radio) radios are all the rage now, from $30 receive-only-to-very-expensive transceivers. In the very beginning many folks said that SDR wasn't a "Real" radio, but times have changed.

With a small monetary purchase you can buy one of the lesser expensive receive units found on Amazon, Ebay, (and just about anywhere else you'd find radio equipment for sale), but you can also get a feel for what SDR is all about through several Internet locations around the country / world.

I found several sites just by Googling "SDR Internet", and now keep them in my favorites for quick access. Why would you be interested in "Receive Only"? Well, besides trying it out, when band conditions are rather dead I enjoy listening to QSO's and Nets while doing something else in the shack, or, on my tablet while on the couch.

Once, while checking in on a 14.300 net I had a hard time making the Net controls audio due to local interference, but was able to hear him via one of my SDR Web-links easily.

To save you a Google search, here are a couple links:

K3FEF WebSDR in NE Pennsylvania - This was the first one I linked up with. You'll hear 160-17 meter coverage, CW-AM-AMnrw-USB-LSB-FM, with the ability to save certain frequencies and modes so that they'll be easily accessible later.

 

 

Northern Utah WebSDR #2 - This site covers 20-6m with a link to the other location which will give you coverage up to 2 meters!

 

 

 

Aside from that you may find that catching up with Nets that were once local to you is fun, and sometimes you run across QSO's that tend to take on a life of their own, day-after-day, and if you've caught any of these on WebSDR's before you may already know where I'm headed - 3885 AM "Late Afternoons w/Clark and friends". (a smorgasbord of topics).

 

It is no coincidence that several WebSDR sites default to 3885 on AM, with one site in particular giving you a listen, and a chatroom just for that - WebSDR - Radio Engineering, located in Townsend, MA and run by Steve, WA1QIX.

 

Enjoy your SDR listening!

 

 

 



A DETOUR FROM RADIO TO:

"THE BLUES"

20 yr. old Christone "Kingfish" Ingram - Outside Of This Town

SHORT POST
















( BELOW - VIA YouTube, VIA "SDR_PLAY" blog, from 2017):

"Testing to see how bad powerline internet connections can be for HF reception.

These devices allow you to use your house power cables as a convenient Ethernet connection for sharing the internet. However they are extremely noisy and can wipe out the entire HF band. Also known as powerline networking and powerline communications (PLC).

Using a TP-Link Powerline Adapter, Wellbrook Loop Antenna and Airspy R2 with SpyVerter to show the spectrum. The last part of the video shows a 20 MHz view in the wide band viewing software SpectrumSpy.

Interestingly it appears that the amateur radio (ham) frequencies are actually carefully notched out and those frequencies remain relatively clean. But international shortwave radio is still wiped out which is bad news for SWL hobbyists. In the video you can see where the ham bands are by the red marking blocks in SDR#.

It doesn't seem that the device is designed poorly, but rather that it simply just uses those shortwave frequencies to transmit the network data."

SUN FORECAST MAY 15-17

 

DO YOU NEED A NEW / LARGER BATTERY

 

FOR YOUR BAOFENG?

 

I happened upon a "Sale" today regarding a heavy-duty battery replacement for certain Baofeng HT's (like the BF-8HP).  I don't when it ends, but I decided to order one for my BF-8+ because...it was so cheap!

It is $16.89 on AMAZON, and there is a $5 coupon. If you click on the coupon before checking out, the cost is only $11.89 +tax (and in my case, being a Prime member, no shipping charge).


I've owned Baofeng HT's for at least 7 years or so. Every time I think about getting rid of it and buying an HT from the "Big 3" I force myself to remember that I really don't use HT's much at all, so I would truly be wasting money on something that had Fusion or D-star.

Just click (above) on Amazon for the link.

20M CONTESTS ARE "AFOOT"....














Popped into the shack briefly to check email when I heard activity on 20 meters. I took a few minutes to make a few contacts  calling for the "New England QSO Party".

The first contact was made by tuning the MLA by ear. Afterwards, I was surprised to find that due to being mistuned my output was really only a couple watts (vs. 15).

I decided to tune the antenna properly, then made one more quick contact before writing this post. AA1ON is really doing a sustained 57-59 as I'm typing!

Thank you Payton, and Martin, for the returned call.

 

 

 

A QUICK NOTE...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm working on my antenna "sojourn" blogpost which has quickly become plural, making them "blogposts".

 

When I started to write the article I realized that I should start at the beginning of my search for an indoor antenna, then work my way to the conclusion (my MLA). Hopefully I'll get PART ONE posted in the next week -

 

 

73,

 

Woody