{"id":22153,"date":"2016-11-10T16:12:55","date_gmt":"2016-11-10T20:12:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/?p=22153"},"modified":"2016-11-10T16:12:55","modified_gmt":"2016-11-10T20:12:55","slug":"portable-shortwave-spectrum-capture-for-the-urban-city-dweller","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/2016\/11\/portable-shortwave-spectrum-capture-for-the-urban-city-dweller\/","title":{"rendered":"Portable shortwave spectrum capture for the urban city dweller"},"content":{"rendered":"

A guide by London Shortwave<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\"Portable<\/a>

Capturing the shortwave spectrum out in the field.<\/p><\/div>\n

Radio interference is a major problem in big cities when it comes to indoor shortwave reception. One effective solution I have found is to head for the local park and engage in scanning the bands there. However, since my time for making such outdoor trips is limited, I would always feel like I am missing out on a lot of radio action by monitoring a single frequency, which is all you can do with a standard shortwave radio. There are so many signals out there \u2014 which one should I go for? This inspired me to put together a lightweight, portable set-up that would let me capture large chunks of the shortwave radio spectrum out in the field, which I could later explore in detail. After two years of experimenting with various Software Defined Radio (SDR) technologies I am pleased to report that I finally have a solution that works well for this purpose.<\/p>\n

A good SDR can give the user access to large portions of the radio spectrum via a graphical user interface. The user can then either process a specified part of it in realtime or record the chosen spectrum window in its entirety onto disk and analyse it later with the supplied software. Here is a short video showing the playback of one of such spectrum captures I made in a London park in September 2016. Note the final part where I zoom out to show the entire recorded frequency range (covering two broadcast bands with one ham band in the middle!):
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A ham from Thailand HS1LCI talking to another in France at 1747z 07\/09\/16 (2x6m dipole RX ANT) #OutdoorSpectrumGrab<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/ZaIOa9rZp9<\/a><\/div>\n

\u2014 London Shortwave (@LondonShortwave) 9 September 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n