Tag Archives: Aerial-51 ALT-512

ALT-512 QRP transceiver review in RadCom

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If you’re a member of the Radio Society of Great Britain (RSGB) you may have seen my review of the ALT-512 QRP transceiver in the March 2020 issue of Radcom. This was my first review for Radcom after having been invited to submit a review at the 2018 Hamvention.

I love Radcom so was pretty chuffed to see my review in the March pages:

I had the ALT-512 here at SWLing Post HQ, on loan from the manufacturer, for the better part of six months. I got to know this little radio inside-out. I’ve operated it in the field, in the shack and covered ever mode including FT-8 contacts during portable operations and even in a high school classroom.

Operating FT-8 with my ham radio class high school students last year. The ALT-512 is a digi-mode champ. With a very modest indoor mag loop antenna we averaged about 110 miles per watt.

The ALT-512 is a versatile, sturdy little rig–designed and manufactured in Bulgaria. I really only had minor complaints about this transceiver. I saw a bright future for this little rig. It was well-designed and backed by a company and team of ham radio operators that had already successfully launched several other transceivers.

Then the unexpected happened…

Early last month, I learned that the ALT-512’s main engineer and designer, Dobri Hristov (LZ2TU), passed away.

If you own the Sky SDR or LD-11, you may have communicated with Dobri at some point when you needed technical support.  Dobri was a well-respected fellow and distinguished ham radio operator/DXer. I corresponded with him quite a few times in the past.

Sadly, when Dobri passed away, he took the ALT-512 with him.

Here’s the announcement from Aerial-51’s website.

I think the ALT-512 would have been very successful and competitive in the European market and beyond.

Dobri passed away as the March 2020 issue of Radcom was being printed. He never got to see it, but I’d like to think he would have been quite proud of his little transceiver. In the end, I think it was an overall positive review.

You can judge for yourself: Aerial-51 recently published a copy of the ALT-512 review with permission from the RSGB.

Radcom

If you’re into ham radio and are looking for a top-shelf publication, consider joining the RSGB and subscribing to Radcom. I highly recommend them even though their judgement was obviously impaired when they invited me to write a review–! 🙂

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Initial impressions of the ALT-512 QRP transceiver

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So the ALT-512 QRP SDR transceiver has landed at SWLing Post HQ. This little rig is on loan from Aerial-51 and I’ll be spending the next month or so putting it through the paces.

I can already tell that the ALT-512 has some strong points:

  • It’s incredibly portable and easy to take to the field, providing you have a battery and resonant antenna (or external ATU).
  • The color backlit display is quite readable at any angle despite being rather information-dense.
  • I really like the waterfall display. It’s large enough to be quite useful.
  • The ALT-512 can connect directly to your computer for digital modes like FT-8. No external sound card needed.
  • The menu system contains a wide array of features and options for granular tweaks and modifications.
  • The ALT-512 includes the European 4 meter band.
  • Although I prefer using headphones with small radios, the ALT-512’s small internal speaker does a fine job.
  • Rob Sherwood tested the ALT-512 (indeed, this very unit) recently and added it to his receiver test data. It performed quite well especially considering the price.

Any negatives so far?  Nothing major:

  • No internal ATU or battery options. At this price point (799 EUR), I wouldn’t expect either of these.
  • The ALT-512 is not general coverage. This is a negative for those of us who like SWLing, but a positive for ham radio use as the ALT-512 sports band-specific bandpass filters to reject out-of-band strong stations. You can tune to some stations above the 40M band and also the full mediumwave band and below (down to 100 kHz), although I wouldn’t expect stellar performance in those regions.

So far, I’m very pleased with the ALT-512’s performance.

Next, I’ll be taking it to the field and see how easily I can activate a few POTA (Parks On The Air) sites! Stay tuned!

Click here to check out the ALT-512 at Aerial-51.

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The ALT-512: A new QRP transceiver

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There’s a new QRP transceiver on the market: the twelve band ALT-512 by Aerial-51.

At first glance, you’ll see a similarity between the ALT-512 and the LnR Precision LD-11/Aerial-51 SKY-SDR. The LD-11 and SKY-SDR, are very similar, save the LD-11 is marketed to North America (via LnR) and the SKY-SDR to Europe. The SKY-SDR had several iterative upgrades, most importantly the dual-threaded software used in the firmware, which cut CPU latency in half. Both the LD-11, SKY-SDR and now the ALT-512 are made in Europe.

Click here to read my review of the LnR Precision LD-11.

ALT-512 Waterfall display (Photo: DJ0IP)

According to Aerial-51, the new ALT-512 is built on the LD-11/SKY-SDR platform, has the same chassis design but has many improvements over the SKY-SDR:

  • 4m Band
  • 2.4 in. Color Display
  • Improved receiver pre-amplifier
  • 2 transistors in the transmitter PA (was 1)
  • Waterfall in addition to the Pan-Adapter Bandscope
  • 4 additional front-panel buttons
  • User friendly front-panel adjustment of often used parameters (formerly embedded within the software menu)
  • FULL TS-2000 command set implementation
  • Built-in Sound Card; Digi Modes run using only one USB-2 cable connected to the PC. No additional hardware required.

If the ALT-512 performs as well as or better than its predecessor, it’ll certainly be a great little QRP radio.

Pricing has not yet been posted, but Aerial-51 plans to make this transceiver available in the next few weeks.

Click here to check out the ALT-512 on the Aerial-51 website.

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