Just go to http://soldersmoke.com. On that archive page, just click on the blue hyperlinks and your audio player should play that episode.
http://soldersmoke.com
I've been playing around with a little $13 DVB-T SDR Dongle receiver. These devices normally tune 24 MHz to 1.7 GHz, but I modified the first one I had so that it would tune the HF bands. Pete then sent me another one, which I vowed to keep unmodified, thinking that it would be fun to use it to listen to the many small Cube-Sats that are up there. Most have downlinks (and Morse Code beacons) in the 470 MHz range. I whipped together a simple ground-plane antenna for this band (One 6 inch copper wire as the receive element with 4 five inch groundplane elements).
I then went to the "Heavens Above" website, plugged in my location, and clicked on "Amateur satellites." This gave me a very accurate schedule of satellite passes. I started listening.
First I heard (and saw in the HDSDR waterfall) the CW beacon of the Prism satellite at 7:05 am EDT today. Prism is from the University of Tokyo and was launched from Japan.
Cubesat XI-IV was heard at 0813 EDT. The Cubesats are from Japan and were launched from Russia.
ITUsPAT was heard at 1422 EDT. The I is for "Istanbul"
Finally, I monitored a pass of the Japanese FO-29 satellite aka JAS-2 at 1611. Wow, this was like old times on the RS-10 and RS-12 satellites. Lots of CW and SSB stations in the downlink passband. Lots of fun.
At 470 MHz the Doppler shift of a low-earth orbit satellite is quite noticeable, and helps confirm that you are in fact receiving sigs from an orbiting device.
I thought it was pretty cool to take a $13 DVB-T Dongle, connect it to a small, copper-wire antenna, and use it all to receive signals from some 4"x4"x4" cubes in orbit of the Earth.
I find the dongles tend to be a little insensitive and easily overloaded particularily when I try to increase the gain of their onboard LNA. I have found the use of TV distribution amplifier brings my dongle to life. I have been using the Channel Master Mini 1 amplifier
I don't know how well the generic $10 types would work but I suspect that their specs (i.e. noise figure, etc) are not quite a good. Of course, closer to the antenna the better but for the time being mine is located close to the dongle and it does make a real difference.
You might also find you can easily copy the polar orbiting weather satellites with your dongle NOAA19, 18, and 15 are the currently operating ones and software such as wxtoimg makes it easy to turn recordings into images. Of course you could also use a virtual audio cable and pipe audio from your SDR application directly into wxtoimg. A simple antenna for 137mhz and the above or similar amplifier could get you going very easily.
"SolderSmoke -- Global Adventures in Wireless Electronics" is now available as an e-book for Amazon's Kindle.
Here's the site:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004V9FIVW
Heavy Metal in the April QST!
-
So, last night, in bed, I'm leafing through the latest issue of QST, an
activity that's typically more finger exercise than eye exercise—flip,
flip, flip...
Replies from the Ergonomics vs. Performance poll
-
Yesterday, I posed the following question and asked for your input: “Which
aspect of a QRP radio holds more importance for you: its ergonomics (ease
of use...
March 28, 2024. Just another Day at the Office.
-
FT-8 with a RPi Zero W
Given the FT-8 achievement maybe even QUISK would work on the RPi Zero W
for a really small SDR Transceiver.
But all that g...
Pacific Odyssey: Latest Novel by DXer Ralph Perry
-
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Ralph Perry, who shares the
following announcement: Big news here is that after five years of hard
work, yesterday ...
The GM3OXX “Oxo” Transmitter
-
As well as the small stash of finished projects that grace my living space,
I also have two small boxes containing various boards. Some of them are
boards ...
Handy breakout board for Raspberry Pi Pico
-
Just picked up a few of these breakout boards. I'm not sure that I like the
screw terminals but it is handy having LEDs on each GPIO pin. I'm really
gettin...
Repairing a dead Kenwood TS-850S
-
Recently, a Kenwood TS-850S - a radio from the mid-early 1990s - crossed my
workbench. While I'm not in the "repair business", I *do* fix my own
radios,...
A 51S-1 Restoration Story
-
I came across my Collins 51S-1 in a big junkyard in Ankara, Turkey around
2012. It was in a pile with a lot of other electronic scrap, probably from
one o...
New QRP Cluster Online From OM0ET and OM6APN
-
By DX EXPLORER
DX EXPLORER
Paul OM0ET and Peter OM6APN recently launched a new cluster dedicated to
QRP operations. Have a look and I hope you will enjoy...
3D Printing The Hadley 114mm Newtonian Telescope
-
Yes, we’re building a 3D Printed Newtonian Telescope called Hadley. It’s
being printed in PETG and in the video below, I give a quick tour. My build
isn’...
3D printed project boxes
-
I have been busy with some other things that have kept me away from
electronics projects for quite a while. Now I can get back to them, but
realize I n...
Daylight Again – An all Analog Radio
-
What’s all this? In 10 seconds, A high performance, 7MHz, 5 watt SSB rig
Draws just 24 mA of current 90 dB dynamic range, 80 dB close-in dynamic
range 3D ...
Adding Enclosure to your sBitx Boards Order
-
The early buyers of the sBitx board set who bought it for $270 USD might
want to also add the enclosure (box) for in the kit. What you will now get
is a f...
Digi-chirp! Digital synthesis of ‘nostalgic’ CW
-
The bottom ends of 80, 40 and 20m are not what they used to be. For
starters, the busiest part is the digital segment where computers talk to
computers – l...
-
A Simple Speech Processor
(For QRP/SSB Homebrew Transceivers )
Over the last few weeks I had been thinking to build a small AF speech
processor to add to...
A New Look for your uBitx!
-
Adding a "Cool Blue" Display to your uBitx!
The standard "green background" with black lettering frequently reminds me
that I suffer from Chronic seasickn...
Bill,
ReplyDeleteI have started doing this same thing recently.
I find the dongles tend to be a little insensitive and easily overloaded particularily when I try to increase the gain of their onboard LNA. I have found the use of TV distribution amplifier brings my dongle to life. I have been using the Channel Master Mini 1 amplifier
http://www.channelmaster.com/Antenna_Cable_TV_Amplifier_p/cm-3410.htm
I don't know how well the generic $10 types would work but I suspect that their specs (i.e. noise figure, etc) are not quite a good. Of course, closer to the antenna the better but for the time being mine is located close to the dongle and it does make a real difference.
You might also find you can easily copy the polar orbiting weather satellites with your dongle NOAA19, 18, and 15 are the currently operating ones and software such as wxtoimg makes it easy to turn recordings into images. Of course you could also use a virtual audio cable and pipe audio from your SDR application directly into wxtoimg. A simple antenna for 137mhz and the above or similar amplifier could get you going very easily.
here is a link to some I have recently copied:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/x45p5mh44196tke/AADHedh7SBm7ZmP_32F3GOM_a?dl=0
cheers, Graham ve3gtc