Looks like a great time – check it out HERE – we would have to drive a little out of the way to stay in America ( and not venture into the communist enclave of Illinois ) but it might be worth the weekend road trip . . .
The food looks like dinner theater fare – nothing to write home about – but it looks like it will eat . . .
Have Fun! – Run the Gun! – and remember – Fish Heads are Cheap!!
I think I will go pick out a firearm today – pay for it – do a 4473 – show my concealed carry permit – and take it to it’s new loving home . . .
It’s NOT common sense – it’s communist sense!
Have Fun! – Run the Gun! – and remember – Fish Heads are Cheap!!
Really good assortment for you folks – Enjoy!
Have Fun! – Run the Gun! – and remember – Fish Heads are Cheap!!
Here is the station we are looking at/listening to . . .
Switched over to the wire antenna . . .
And here’s the loop antenna . . .
Do you remember the 3 most important rules of real estate – Location / Location / Location?? SWL ( Short Wave Listening ) has the same sorta thing – the 3 most important rules of SWL? Conditions / Conditions / Conditions . . . And this morning conditions were decent to good – at least around 15Mhz.
I changed no settings on the SDR software – simply switched between the 2 antennas, so to answer YOUR question – a properly set up random wire can and will give excellent performance – but the random wire is omnidirectional as long as you stay under a 100 feet or so – but there is no slewing the antenna side to side to reduce interference. Both antennas have Flamingo AM and FM filters from Nooelec / available here – they do make quite a difference – the reason I have separate sets for each antenna is to be able to compare either antenna with and without. If I put the filters after the switches I can only have them in line with or out of line with both antennas.
If you are not using some type of tuner with a wire antenna – to be able to change the capacitance and or inductance as to what the radio is “seeing” – then when dealing with poorer conditions or lower strength signals or both – then you are limited to increasing the gain by software – and up comes the noise floor along with the signal strength. And that is where a powered loop with a good LNA ( Low Noise Amplifier ) comes into it’s own. Just about every review I could find on the RF-PRO-1B rated it good – and a lot of that is because of the engineering and design that went into the LNA – it works very well pulling those low level signals out of the noise floor – and not raising the noise floor so high that you still have a chance at hearing them.
Still in the middle of a battle with HDSDR software on windows – I have gotten to the point where it’s getting scrubbed off the box and reinstalled – I will start fresh with it. The Pi4 just continues to impress me – I downloaded a Pi4 OS onto a fresh micro sd card ( still have my factory OS intact ) that has SDR++ already set up on it – so I went ahead and installed CubicSDR software on it and promptly trashed the audio – oops. The audio still works for YouTube and everything else – just won’t work for either SDR program . . .
If nothing else I will re image the card and start over – no biggy . . . And of course now I’m lusting after a Pi5 to put together a 4 terabyte NAS – either like this / or like this – I’m just putting this out here – if some strange fate takes me – thoroughly check out my Blushing Bride – she watches all those true crime whodunnit channels and she has 2 spiral notebooks full of tips and tricks – just saying . . .
Have Fun! – Run the Gun! – and remember – Fish Heads are Cheap!!
And another Sleepcore for you – Yay!
Have Fun! – Run the Gun! – and remember – Fish Heads are Cheap!!
Some neat stuff for you . . . Enjoy!
Have Fun! – Run the Gun! – and remember – Fish Heads are Cheap!!
Good stuff for you folks – Enjoy!
Have Fun! – Run the Gun! – and remember – Fish Heads are Cheap!!
Actually been busy getting the bench where it needed to be – and running over to Hot Springs ( south of Rapid City – not Arkansas ) – got my ex son-in-law a radio or two set up so he can start listening to some short wave stuff. That is more or less in place until spring when he – and his checkbook decide how much of what antenna(s) he wants to rig up on a more permanent basis . . . ( and yes, I’m working on a complete list / tutorial – two parts – random wire then a loop type antenna ) ( random wire antenna is pretty straight forward – more of a nuts and bolts thing / there are a lot of loops out there – the install is more or less the same for all of them – the hardest part is which one?? – I went the buy once cry once route when I upgraded from the MLA30+ – and quite pleased with the performance of the DX Engineering RF-PRO-1B – YAMMV – LOL! )
The right and center monitors are running off of these two computers –
SDR# software installed and running on both so I can compare different SDR’s to each other – the SDR# software install on the little one is tweaked out just about perfect – yes I know – hope I didn’t just jinx it . . .
Actually getting the SDR# software on the larger computer dialed in pretty close – when I swap the Airspy Discovery over to it there are still some differences – but I’m getting closer with it.
The larger one – center monitor – I am in the process of installing different SDR software programs on so I can get an idea of what the different “flavors” do differently – HDSDR is not liking what I am trying to do – sound card issues – but I’ll keep hacking away at it and I hope to eventually get it going WITHOUT bricking the computer – LOL!
The left monitor is what I was using my laptop for ( repurposing the laptop into a “portable” sdr ) – looking up stations and different stuff while I am running SDR’s – I took what was a “spare” monitor and replaced the laptop with . . .
. . . through the magic of stick on velcro and Best Buy – and the fact that I just didn’t want yet another refurb from amazonia I picked this up . . .
Let me guess Bruce – you are going to try an all in one computer / monitor / SDR setup running a Pi4?
Well now that you mention it . . .
There is a ton of stuff out there to work with to do just this task – so it should not be too difficult to get it ( SDR ) going – yeah right . . .
The whole affair shouldn’t be too bad – there is a lot of helpful sites out the to help configure the OS for sound – like this for one . . .
The majority of the time the Pi box will be used for station look ups – frequency look ups and such – but – if I want to run three separate radios at a time, well . . .
Right now I can use the large desktop computer to run an SDR and do other tasks – it will be interesting to see what the Pi4 will be able to do as far as multi-tasking . . .
Things should slow down some as winter creeps in – or drops in like a load of bricks – got the little ghosts and goblins all topped off with candy last night. Curtis and Oliver were having a good time – all the little hoomans came to see them – they never quite understood the costume thing – the little hoomans smelled right but looked strange – but they had fun anyway!
Have Fun! – Run the Gun! – and remember – Fish Heads are Cheap!!
Did any of you folks get any of this stuff for presents? – Enjoy!!
Have Fun! – Run the Gun! – and remember – Fish Heads are Cheap!!
Enjoy!
Have Fun! – Run the Gun! – and remember – Fish Heads are Cheap!!
Guns, Fun, Food and More