SKY KING – SKY KING / DO NOT ANSWER . . .

I do so want a discone antenna – and THIS is quite a discone antenna . . .

Maybe I can talk my CFO aka Blushing Bride into one of these – I’m not holding out hope for a Collins built 70 footer – LOL!

Been working on the radio room and just about have it in it’s final iteration – what an ongoing mess – but it will be pretty cool once it is done – just about down to cable management to finish it up . . .

Left to right – Pi5 – Pi4 – windows box – windows box – going to grab a second Airspy HF+ Discovery for the Pi4 – the Airspy out performs “dongles” to such an extent that there it makes zero sense to me to try to use them -the Pi4 running the Pi4 OS & SDR++ build from HERE and it runs well. I’m going to install DragonOS from HERE on the Pi5 and then I will have to agonize over which SDR to purchase for hunting in the gigahertz range and which discone antenna to get for it as it will be used primarily for uhf and up listening. And looking at the projected weather forecasts I don’t believe anymore antennas are going up before spring.

Cable management? You have got to be kidding – picked up a pair of usb switches as there simply is NOT enough room on the bench – 4 keyboards / 4 mice / a number pad – what a mess! And add power cables – coax – speaker wires – antenna switches – really got out of hand in a hurry!

I keep telling myself SWL ( here, have ONE of my daily reads ) is only a hobby – it’s only a hobby – it’s only a hobby . . . And if you really want to go down a rabbit hole? HERE or HERE will will also help you on your journey . . .

A final twisted thought for this post : Think of your antenna ( system ) as a transmitter – it captures electromagnetic energy and transmits said energy to your radio(s) – think of it as a transmission system going to your radio – think of it as a whole “system” that needs to play nice together – antenna / coax / grounding / radio . . . I listen to “stuff” every day that most people don’t even have a clue is out there . . .

it’s only a hobby – it’s only a hobby – it’s only a hobby – it’s only a hobby

Have Fun! – Run the Gun! – and remember – Fish Heads are Cheap!!

Friday Music / CabaRay Nashville x 2

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!!

Thank You Baby Jesus That I Live in America – Not Some Commie Enclave!

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!!

KBS on 15575 – Random Wire vs Loop And Some Pi4 Stuff . . .

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!!

Been Busy . . .

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!!