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Today, we learned of the site’s closure. Here’s the message posted at SDR.hu:
The SDR.hu project has been finished
I’d like to say a big thanks to everyone who joined my journey with this project!
I hope you had a good time listening on the site, and learnt some things about SDR. The purpose of this site was to provide a technological demonstration for amateur radio operators about Software Defined Radio, and I hope this goal has been reached. As this website was a one-person hobby project, with my tasks and responsibilities growing, and my focus moving to other projects at which I hope to make a greater positive impact, I’m unable to further develop SDR.hu and protect it from abuse.
Furthermore, I think this site has some good alternatives now. Nevertheless, in my opinion amateur radio receivers should be shared with strict access control in the future.
If you have more questions, feel free to consult the FAQ.
73!
Andras, HA7ILM
SWLing Post contributor, Mark Fahey, shared the following message sent by Andras to all KiwiSDR owners in the database this morning:
Hello,
You are receiving this e-mail because you were listing a receiver on SDR.hu in the last 3 months.
I wanted to let you know that the SDR.hu project is discontinued.
This is because I have to focus on my PhD and unfortunately I don’t have enough time anymore to maintain the website and protect it from abuse.
If you have questions, there’s a FAQ on the front page: https://sdr.hu/
For KiwiSDR users there is another listing service available on the KiwiSDR website: http://kiwisdr.com/public (I’m not involved with this one.)
Thank you very much for having participated in the project!
VY 73!
Andras, HA7ILM
Alternative KiwiSDR Portals
Fortunately, there are a number of other KiwiSDR portals that do not require registration or a call sign. Here’s a list:
Personally, I only used the SDR.hu map view to keep track of KiwiSDR sites and found it quite useful because I typically select sites based on geographic location.
The Priyom.org map uses the full window, is uncluttered and easier to navigate.
If you click on a KiwiSDR site, you’ll see a pop-up window with basic site information. If you hover the cursor over that site info, another window will pop up with current details about the receiver, number of users, antenna, SNR, and GPS clock (see above).
This is now my favorite way to geographically surf KiwiSDR sites.
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.
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
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