Radio World: Time to “sound off to the FCC about using all-digital on the AM band”

5 Replies

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Dan Robinson, who shares the following note posted by Paul McClane at Radio World:

For those who want to sound off to the FCC about using all-digital on the AM band — either “fer it” or “agin it” —- the comment deadlines now are set.

Comments are due March 9, reply comments are due April 6.

As RW has reported, the FCC recently released a notice of proposed rulemaking to establish rules governing all-digital broadcasting by AM radio stations in the United States.

Read the NPRM here. The NPRM number is 19-123.

Click here to read at Radio World.

As we mentioned yesterday, this proposal is certainly in the final stages at this point.

Spread the radio love

Popular KiwiSDR portal now requires ham radio license: alternatives

7 Replies

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Dan Robinson, who discovered via Gilles Letourneau’s YouTube Channel that the popular SDR.hu KiwiSDR portal now requires registration and a ham radio callsign.

I almost didn’t believe this at first, but then checked on the SDR.hu FAQ page to find this message:

What is a callsign and how do I get one?

An amateur radio callsign is issued by the appropriate authority in your country (e.g. FCC in the US). The amateur radio callsign allows you to both transmit and receive with amateur radio equipment, and you need to pass an exam to get one. (If you are not familiar with this, please search Google about amateur radio.)

Can I access the receiver list if I do not have a callsign?

No.

Why do I need a callsign to access the receiver list?

The purpose of the site is to serve amateur radio. I decided to restrict access to the receiver list in order to protect the site and its purpose in the long term.

To be clear: this doesn’t imply you need a callsign to access the KiwiSDR network. This only applies to the SDR.hu KiwiSDR portal operated by András Retzler. I’m guessing he’s doing this to regulate his site’s resources. (See UPDATE below.)

Alternative KiwiSDR Portals

kiwisdr.com/public/ provides a list of all active KiwiSDRs.

As Dan points out, there are a number of other KiwiSDR portals that do not require registration or a call sign.

Here are a few:

If you prefer another KiwiSDR portal, please comment with a link. I’ll try to update this post with any new additions.

UPDATE – Many thanks to Cristiano Amaral who shares this update sent by Andras to all of the OpenWebRX contributors:

Hello,

You are receiving this e-mail because you were listing a public OpenWebRX receiver on SDR.hu in the last 3 months.

I wanted to let you know that the OpenWebRX project is discontinued [1], which means that it will not receive any updates (including security fixes) from me. I hope that you will be able to run your receivers without problems in the next years, and hopefully the community will be able to help each other even if I’m not working on the project anymore.

It is also important to know that starting from next year, Python 2, a dependency of OpenWebRX is not maintained either, at least officially by the Python team [2], as it is deprecated in favour of Python 3.

If you want to keep running your public receivers securely, you should be looking for a Python 2 fork that is still patched against the latest security vulnerabilities. There is a possibility that Anaconda [3] or Red Hat [4] will keep patching Python 2.

As a note, you can also find unofficial Python 3 ports of OpenWebRX online, though I’m not involved with those either.

Thank you for participating in the project, and I wish you a Happy New Year!

VY 73!

Andras, HA7ILM
—
sdr.hu

Spread the radio love

Mission RGO One: Impressions, availability, pricing and upgrades

9 Replies

Readers might recall that I picked up a Mission RGO One 50 watt transceiver from Boris (LZ2JR) at the 2019 Hamvention. I’ve been helping Boris and his team evaluate this Bulgarian-manufactured general coverage transceiver since then.

I’ll be writing a comprehensive review of the Mission RGO One for The Spectrum Monitor magazine later this year, but in the meantime I thought I’d post a quick update.

I’ve gotten a number of emails from readers asking specific questions about this transceiver and its availability/pricing. Here are a few answers to your questions:

Is it a good one?

This is the most common question, of course.

In short: the Mission RGO One has exceeded my expectations. The RGO’s noise floor is low, the dynamic range high, the audio pleasant, and the ergonomics are top-notch. As I said in a previous post, you can tell the RGO One was designed by an active ham radio operator. The radio is a pleasure to use and harkens back to the days of benchmark pre-SDR transceivers.

Keep in mind I have a very early evaluation model and it’s due a firmware upgrade. The only negatives I’ve experienced are ones I would expect as we flesh out minor firmware bugs. Indeed, most all of these have been sorted already.

I’ve used the RGO One in both the shack and in the field and find it’s a capable radio in both situations.

In fact, last year I taught a ham radio class to a group of home-schooled high school students. Of course, I wanted to offer them proper on-the-air time so they could experience a little HF radio magic. My radio of choice was the RGO One for its ease of use and excellent built-in audio.

I took the class outside and we connected the RGO One to a resonant portable 20 meter vertical. One of the very first SSB contacts we made was with a ham radio operator in Slovenia–with solid 5 by 9 reports on both ends. After that, my students were hooked! (In fact, four of my seven students have since passed their ham radio license exam! I’m incredibly proud of them.)

If you’re curious how well the RGO One holds up during contest conditions in CW, I highly recommend checking out this CQWW report by John (AE5X).

Market niche

With a large number of QRP and 100 watt sub-$1000 transceivers on the market–including the Elecraft KX2, Yaesu FT-818/FT-891, Icom IC-718/IC-7300, to name only a few–where does the Mission RGO One fit in?

Good question.

In my mind, what makes the RGO One unique is the fact that it has the price, weight, and form factor of a field-portable, front-panel QRP transceiver, but is capable of pumping out a full 50 watts of power without an external amplifier.

The RGO one is lighter (about 5 lbs) and draws less current on receive than most comparable 100 watt general coverage transceivers.

I see the RGO One becoming my choice radio for most Parks On The Air (POTA) field activations this year. In the past, I’ve used my beloved Elecraft KX2 for NPOTA and POTA activations because it’s extremely portable and incredibly versatile. I’ll still use the KX2 for activations that require hiking or in situations where I can’t easily set up a tabletop radio, but I can’t tell you how many times I wish I had a little more TX output Since the RGO One can provide up to 50 watts out, it’ll give me a little more “juice” when conditions demand.

Availability and pricing

At present, there are a limited number of early production Mission RGO One transceivers in the wild. The company is in the process of scaling up production.

To that end, you will now find a Mission RGO One pre-order form on their website.

The price is 790 Euro (roughly $880 US) plus shipping. There will be two shipping options: directly from Bulgaria, and from the USA in mid-May 2020. These units will all be fully factory assembled and aligned.

It’s my understanding that eventually there will be a modular kit version of the RGO One and the price will be much less than that of the assembled unit.

Internal ATU option

The RGO Team is also in the final stages of producing an optional high-performance internal ATU.

I have no details about pricing or availability yet, but I will be testing this ATU in the shack and in the field later this year. After I’ve evaluated the ATU, I will publish my full review of the RGO One in The Spectrum Monitor magazine.

Do you enjoy the SWLing Post?

Please consider supporting us via Patreon or our Coffee Fund!

Your support makes articles like this one possible. Thank you!

Spread the radio love

Final step for proposed rule to allow AM broadcasters to use all-digital transmissions

6 Replies

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Paul Evans, who notes:

The Federal Register has today published the proposed rule for AM stations to go digital. This is close to the final step.

https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/01/07/2019-27609/all-digital-am-broadcasting-revitalization-of-the-am-radio-service

Comments before 2020-03-09, replies by 2020-04-06.

Thanks for the tip, Paul!

Spread the radio love

Tamitha Skov: “An Earth-Directed Solar Storm & A Holy Grail”

Mindaugas Macijauskas’ stunning radio poster

Radio Romania International’s 2019 Person of the Year

1 Reply

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, David Iurescia (LW4DAF), who writes:

I’m sending you the following Radio Romania International article about the designation of the Personality of the year 2019.

The chosen one was Greta Thunberg.

(Source: Radio Romania International)

Dear friends, Radio Romania International continued its traditional poling of listeners on short wave, the Internet and Social Media, asking you which person you think left their imprint on the world in a positive way in 2019. The political leaders proposed for the title of ‘Personality of the Year 2019’ included Pope Francis, Romania’s president Klaus Iohannis, the Ukrainian president Volodimir Zelensky, the Chinese president Xi Jinping, the Romanian Prime Minister Ludovic Orban, the prime-ministers of India and Pakistan, Narendra Mody and Imran Khan respectively, the former Italian deputy prime-minister Matteo Salvini, the German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and the Italian senator Liliana Segre, a Holocaust survivor.

The athletes nominated included the former world no. 1 Romanian tennis player Simona Halep, the Canadian tennis player of Romanian descent Bianca Andreescu and the former great Romanian footballer Gheorghe Hagi. The former president of the European Central Bank Mario Draghi, the entrepreneur Elon Musk and the Romanian-born German singer Peter Maffay were also nominated by our listeners.

Based on the proposals made by a majority of respondents to our poll, the personality of the year 2019 has been designated the young Swedish environmental activist on climate change, Greta Thunberg. Our listener Ralf Urbanczyk, from Germany, wrote about her: “No other person has polarized attention this year as Greta Thunberg has. Everybody has talked about her: regular people, scientists and researchers, the media. She’s been present in people’s lives more than any other person. I appreciate the fact that she can mobilize people and trigger discussions.”

Click here to read at the RRI website.

Spread the radio love