Remember Mr. Carlson’s excellent video of the Sony CRF-320 restoration? Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Ken McKenzie, who shares a link to the latest Mr. Carlson video–a Yaesu FT-1000MP repair:
The Japan Radio Company NRD 525 receiver. Photo: Universal Radio
Many thanks to SWLing Post reader, Ivan, who writes:
[U]niversal radio has a used NRD 525 for $699.
If I had the time to use it I would have picked it up already. These are so hard to come by and represent the best of the shortwave listening era.
I’ve never owned a JRC NRD-525, but I’ve heard good comments about the radio and its performance. The NRD-525 can be found in Universal Radio’s Used Radio List. No photo of the actual unit has been provided, but the condition is listed as “good.” Universal Radio is a trustworthy retailer, so used equipment can be purchase with confidence. Indeed, all of their used equipment (save items marked “as-is”) come with a 60 day limited warranty.
I’ve just learned that my buddy Jeff, over at the Herculodge, has reviewed the Sangean WR-2.
Jeff writes:
I haven’t had a Sangean WR-2 in a year because a year ago Southern Cal Edison fried all the electronics on our block doing unauthorized work. They had to pay tens of thousands of dollars to residents. I was paid about $400 for the loss of some of my electronics, including my Sangean WR-2.
[…]I decided to get my beloved black WR-2 back. This radio, which I first purchased in 2005, is one of those radios that marks my entry into being “radio-minded,” a guy who is very aware of the radio performance hierarchy.
(Source: SDRplay Press Release)
SDRplay is pleased to announce the official release of SDRuno for the RSP. SDRuno is the new name for the RSP compatible version of Studio1, the rights to which we obtained and announced on 28th April. SDRuno contains native support for the SDRplay RSP and no extra plugins are required. Third party hardware can also be supported via the ExtIO interface, but with reduced functionality.
SDRuno provides a rugged and flexible, high performance SDR receiver capability and boasts some excellent features:
Over time, we plan to add many more features to SDRuno to enhance the user’s experience of this very powerful piece of software. This software runs on Windows and we don’t yet know how easy it will be to migrate it to other platforms but this is something we will be investigating.
SDRuno will be made freely available to all current and future users of the RSP – to download a copy – simply go to http://www.sdrplay.com/windows.html
Our support for SDRuno in no way lessens our commitment to support HDSDR, SDR Console, Cubic SDR or ANY other software solution where the authors are willing to work with us. We fully recognise that many people have strong preferences for particular pieces of software and we do not want to do anything to undermine the options that people have to use their favoured software packages. Indeed, our view is quite the opposite. Our objective remains aim to have our hardware platforms support any and every SDR package out there. This of course may not be possible, but it is our philosophy and part of the ethos of our company.
About Studio 1:
Studio1 was developed in Italy by SDR Applications S.a.s. and has hundreds of happy customers around the world. Studio 1 is known for its user friendly stylish GUI, CPU efficiency and advanced DSP capabilities, including features not available on other SDR software packages.
About SDRplay:
SDRplay limited is a UK company and consists of a small group of engineers with strong connections to the UK Wireless semiconductor industry. SDRplay announced its first product, the RSP1 in August 2014
www.sdrplay.com
Email: [email protected]
Many thanks to SWLing Post reader Cap, who writes:
This little gem just popped up on eBay UK, it’s working and looks to be in very good condition and is also open to offers:
[More info about the Mark 328 (a.k.a. MK.328) can be found here.]
This follows on from the FS5000 spy radio you posted about in April.
If I had a respectable amount to offer this Seller, I think I would.
True–by today’s standards–the Mk.328 isn’t a high-performance receiver. It’s single conversion and probably not über-sensitive.
Still, it’s a working piece of Cold War history and, back in the early 70s, probably packed the biggest punch for the size. I bet it’s over-engineered and will probably outlive most of us.
Mighty tempted to make an offer. I should probably distract myself about now. Thanks, Cap! 🙂
(Source: ARS Technica)
by Rupert Goodwins
It’s a good time to be technical. Maker communities are thriving around the world, tools and materials to create and adapt are cheaper and more powerful now than ever, and open source hardware, software, and information mean that if you can think it, you can learn how to do it and then make it happen.
For one group of technological explorers, this is more than just a golden age of opportunity: it’s providing the means to save one of the oldest traditions in electronic invention and self-education, one that helped shape the modern world: amateur radio. That matters.
Radio amateurs get a sweet deal, with effectively free access to many gigahertz of the same radio spectrum that companies pay billions for. They’ve earned it. Throughout the history of electronics, they’ve been at the borders of the possible, trying out ideas that commerce or government deem impossible or pointless—and making them work. One example of hundreds: Allied military comms in World War II needed a way to reliably control the radios used by front-line forces, replacing tuning knobs with channel switches. Hams had the answer ready and waiting: quartz crystal oscillators. (That’s part of computing history too—you’re probably using about ten of them right now.).
[…]Then, there’s backup. Take the European HAMNET, for example. That’s a four-thousand-node high speed data network covering a large part of continental Europe and providing full IP connectivity at megabit speeds. It connects to the Internet—ham radio owns 16 million IPV4 addresses, believe it or not—but is independent of it, doing its own robust and flexible routing. If the Internet was to go away, HAMNET would still be running. The same’s true of nearly all ham radio infrastructure: when everything else fails—power, comms, roads—ham radio is still there, and these days it can be a full-fat digital medium.[…]
SWLing Post contributor, London Shortwave, just published an interesting post on his blog. He begins:
I have been regularly recording the small spectrum window containing the endangered stations I mentioned in one of my previous posts. Three days ago I noticed something strange: a morse code transmission superimposed onto the Voice of Turkey’s signal on 9460 kHz.[…]
Click here to read his full post and listen to the audio clip.