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:
(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]
(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.[…]
Commenting on our post about the FCC Noise Floor Inquiry, SWLing Post contributor, Steve Yothment writes:
One of the definitive documents on Radio Noise is the ITU-R Recommendation on Radio Noise, version P.373-12. This (latest) version is dated 07/2015, so it’s only a year old. You can download it [as a PDF] here. It has a lot of info on natural and man-made radio noise.
My favorite graph from the document is shown below:
It shows the level of radio noise vs. frequency for good and poor conditions. It can be rather surprising how noise, even under the best conditions, can be quite excessive on shortwave frequencies. For example, the best case noise level for 10 MHz is about 30dB above the Johnson Noise level. (That’s the noise level from just a resistor at room temperature.) That’s why the noise level in your shortwave receiver’s speaker gets so much higher when you attach the antenna!
That is fascinating, Steve! It’s no wonder we struggle with noise issues–even in the best of times, it appears.
Many thanks to SWLing Post reader, Bill, who shares this public notice from the FCC:
Comment Deadline: August 11, 2016
The FCC’s Technological Advisory Council (TAC), an advisory group to the FCC operating under the Federal Advisory Committee Act, is investigating changes and trends to the radio spectrum noise floor to determine if there is an increasing noise problem, and if so, the scope and quantitative evidence of such problem(s), and how a noise study should be performed. In this public notice, the Office of Engineering and Technology (OET) announces the TAC’s public inquiry, seeking comments and answers to questions below for the TAC about radio spectrum noise.
Click here to download a PDF of the full notice.
It’s at least encouraging that the FCC is investigating radio noise/interference–a serious issue for radio enthusiasts. Note that the comment deadline is August 11, 2016.
Thanks again for the tip, Bill!
(Source: Southgate ARC)
Spain’s national amateur radio society the URE has made annual compilations of its magazine Radioaficionados available for free download
PDFs of the magazine are available from 2001 to the end of 2015.
To download each year click on the Descargar buttons at
http://www.ure.es/component/docman/cat_view/110-revistas/156-.html?orderby=dmdate_publishedURE website in Google English
http://tinyurl.com/SpainURE
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Mario, who notes this first appearance of the LNR Precision LD-11 transceiver on eBay.
I must say, I’ve been using the LD-11 for the past couple of months and have been pleased–it’s a fun little radio with the added bonus of broadcast band reception (see my previous post). I’ve used it in no less than four NPOTA activations.
Mario and I do not know this eBay seller, but it appears the seller is in decent standing with eBay. In the past 12 months, the seller has had one negative review that appears to have been in error (the comment in questions was very positive, but marked as negative by a new eBay user). Do your research if you consider bidding.