RTL SDR

Well after reading up that certain PC usb TV DVB dongles were found to be able to be used as SDR's I took the plunge (as we are radio experimenter's aren't we :) and bought the Netsky TV28T Pc Tv Dvb USB dongle from eBay for £10 !!! Much cheaper than the Funcube dongle at £140.

Now, remembering I'm a total newby to amateur radio thanks to google I was able to get the dongle up and running under HSDR and SDR# within about an hour. I connected it to my SRC HF 360 antenna (80m-6m) but didn't see too many blips on the spectrum analyser so have ordered a scanning antenna that works on the freqs the dongle works at ( about 60mhz - 1.8ghz )

Special Callsign : Queens Jubilee Year

Special Callsign : from 00.00 BST 5 May 2012 to 23.59 BST 10 June 2012 i will be using the callsign MQ6ODC in recognition of the Queens Jubilee.

The log will be held here and updated daily.

To recieve one of my cards there are 2 options (SWL's also welcome to request a card)...

Option 1. Send your card to me (include your address) and i will send one in the post.

Option 2. if your not sending your card but would like one of mine please send a S.A.S.E and i will get it off to you.

73 Glenn MQ6ODC (M6ODC)

ARISSat-1/KEDR SSTV Signal

After checking the latest prop conditions (not been good here) and seeing the A index high and the K index low i saw a link to the Amsat website. After a quick browse thru i saw that it was possible to hear and recieve SSTV image from the satellite...

I connected up my 2m aerial into my Yaesu FT 897D and tuned to 145.950 and fired up MMSSTV and here is the the first pass pic i recieved.

It was recieved at 3:50pm on Sunday 4th Sept 2011 and i cant wait for a closer pass to hopefully get a readbale picture.

Back at it...

After a few boring months recovering i am slowly getting back to the radio :) with the last few days running WSPR (http://wsprnet.org/drupal/) to check the radio is sending and recieving ok.

Here is a picture of my trace on 20m @ 1watt for 2-3 hours! to see where i can be heard and who i can hear back.

WSPR 20m @ 1watt

No Activity

Hi,

Nothing much happening radio wise at the moment as I have Shingles :(

I'm currently on a course of anti viral's and hoping I will start to feel better soon...

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Up and a running....

Well the radio has been back about a week now and i haven't posted much as i have been playing with the PSK31 data mode using MixW software..

Its very simple to set up and once you have your macros sorted your off and running ;). All you do is tune to a frequency, watch the waterfall appearing and click on a line to read the qso and find out the information (Callsign) to start a QSO... Below is a screenshot of the QSO's happening around 14.070 (the lines indicate the conversation which MixW converts from binary to readable text..

It's just 1 of the amazing Digital Modes our hobby encompasses and i will post about HellSchrieber Digital Mode once ive had some results.

Not much happening...

Well the LDG 897-Plus ATU stopped working last Friday. After making my first HF qso with M0PAW the following morning I switched everything on and the tuner's LED constantly flashed and would not tune at all.











So I'm stuck with only a few usuable bands (20m-10m) with a low swr so I haven't used the radio very much as I'm cautious about using it. Hopefully the tuner should arrive back mid next week.

I also sent off my documents to the ARRL this week so that I can continue to install Logbook of The World and start saving this DX Qso's for the DXCC award :)


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