My WEBSDr Is Now Online.

Joe Dolan on 1476 now.

SlowBlowin

The price of a good setup... I cant get on, too many users !!

SlowBlowin

SlowBlowin wrote: »

The price of a good setup... I cant get on, too many users !!

You can't get onto mine , emerald ?

There are 2

http://emeraldsdr1.ddns.net:8073/

http://emeraldsdr.ddns.net:8074/

There are 3 free slots on the 8074 sdr.

Apologies for the electric grid noise. Hopefully I can get it sorted in a couple of months possibly more.

dxhound2005

He has two receivers.

http://emeraldsdr.ddns.net:8074/

SlowBlowin

Sorry forgot about the other one, got on eventually.

All copied re: noise, but I have to say you have the quietest 160m SDR I have seen/heard.

Thanks

SlowBlowin

SlowBlowin wrote: »

Sorry forgot about the other one, got on eventually.

All copied re: noise, but I have to say you have the quietest 160m SDR I have seen/heard.

Thanks

Yes top band seems to be unaffected, and so do parts of other bands. It shows up on 80 Meters but not everywhere.

Another SDR online, this time using SDR Play RSP1A and SDR Console and the Amazing Bonito MA305 Whip which is only 22 cm long !

Rough installation which will at times not work or have the Antenna disconnected, very much a "Test"

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=109684056#post109684056

SlowBlowin

Hey ML

I have not been able to get on (both addresses) for several days, is there a known issue ?

SlowBlowin

SlowBlowin wrote: »

Hey ML

I have not been able to get on (both addresses) for several days, is there a known issue ?

Not that i’m Aware , I’ve been able to log in at work with no issue all week.

I have had issues where if someone is logged in I can’ Connect via LAN when at home but I have it set that up to 4 users can connect which might be too much for my connection anyway as the bandwidth it uses is vastly more than the Kiwi.

So will you do me a favor and try connect at some point today and if you can’t connect let me know , maybe give me a heads up and I will monitor the server end when you are trying to connect.

Or might be better to arrange it at some point tonight. But try in the meantime anyway. I’ll go through the logs to see if anyone managed to connect in the last 12 hrs.

SlowBlowin

OK, I am happy to arrange it tonight if you want.

It resolves to an IP, but then does not connect, all I get is:

This site can’t be reached emeraldsdr.ddns.net took too long to respond.
Search Google for emerald dr ddns net 8073
ERR_CONNECTION_TIMED_OUT

It could be something amiss with my ISP's routing, FYI the other Kiwi radios I try work. I do miss using your setup, as I have said before the noise is better than most other SDRs.

Let me know a suitable time and I will try and connect again.

SlowBlowin

SlowBlowin wrote: »

OK, I am happy to arrange it tonight if you want.

It resolves to an IP, but then does not connect, all I get is:

This site can’t be reached emeraldsdr.ddns.net took too long to respond.
Search Google for emerald dr ddns net 8073
ERR_CONNECTION_TIMED_OUT

It could be something amiss with my ISP's routing, FYI the other Kiwi radios I try work. I do miss using your setup, as I have said before the noise is better than most other SDRs.

Let me know a suitable time and I will try and connect again.

Ah silly me, I was thinking of the Airspy I have online via SDR Console lol.

And you know what ? yes I had issues during the week and I had to reboot both kiwi's to get them back online. It never dawned on me.

Ok so now the issue is I have ran out of credit, I have new credit waiting to put in however now I have another issue in that I can't call a lot of Irish numbers with lycamobile so time to get rid of them and when I send SMS I my number doesn't show up , a U.K number shows up and people don't know it's me and don't reply. Lycamobile is annoying but it's 15 a month and the auto renewal was handy.

So now I'm going to Tesco mobile. I don't want to pay 30 a month for something I don't really need because I use the house WiFi at home which is on 3 mobile 4G which I had to connect via external antenna on 10 foot pole to get proper connection.

I got mega fast free WiFi at work which I really only use for updates and then I use the laptop all day for using the Kiwi or Airspy SDRs so 15 a month is all I need.

Anyway, I should have the Kiwi's back online within 2 hrs when I can get a phone that works so I can update the credit. In the meantime I'm going to get a tesco sim.

Sdrs back up.

SlowBlowin

Deleted User wrote: »

Sdrs back up.

Now working great here, thanks very much.....

Picking up on my sdr http://emeraldsdr.ddns.net:8074/

RUV I think they call it in Iceland ? on LW 189 Khz .

The RAS 2 Stream if you check out their site. https://www.ruv.is/english

Interference from adjacent stations + lightning, use USB and adjust the bandwidth or try AM and adjust the bandwidth.

dxhound2005

Deleted User wrote: »

Picking up on my sdr http://emeraldsdr.ddns.net:8074/

RUV I think they call it in Iceland ? on LW 189 Khz .

The RAS 2 Stream if you check out their site. https://www.ruv.is/english

Interference from adjacent stations + lightning, use USB and adjust the bandwidth or try AM and adjust the bandwidth.

They are also on 207 kHz, the other side of Radio 4. I usually get a better signal on 207.

dxhound2005

dxhound2005 wrote: »

They are also on 207 kHz, the other side of Radio 4. I usually get a better signal on 207.

Ah never checked to see what that was, thanks. The Megadipol is quite good on LW.

The Megaloop antenna is dead, I will do some fault finding before I send it back to Bonito.

If anyone is looking for a good receiving antenna I might hook up the myantennas.com end fed, the EFHW 8010, it's a great receiving antenna !

I will see if I can hook it up to my Airspy and get it online and paste the link here but there's a lot of messing around with Raspberry PI's etc, this I don't have a lot of time for.

I would love another Kiwi online but they are expensive and I have 2 already but they are just great pieces of kit, honestly, the ease of operation, having the full spectrum , it's just great + once you get it online it just works and works and works without issue, well, until there's a power cut and then it might corrupt it and you have to set it all back up again, but I have a USB power brick I much hook up to them which will keep them powered on until the power comes back, only issue is that they won't be online because I have no 12V backup for the modem but at least power should stay to the Kiwis.

They can be backed up to Micro SD of course which I still did not do !

None of the other SDR's are as good to get online, the SDR Play has no remote software and the Airspy remote operation is not nearly as good as the Kiwi.

The SDR Console offers an amazing Remote experience but the bandwidth requirements even using compression are high and the Remote user has to have the same software only running on a Windows machine, it's buggy and I had tonnes of QRM from both the Laptop and Laptop PSU and a Linear PSU for the laptop would be expensive and I have a linear for the Raspberry PI and Odroid.

I just wish the Kiwi wasn't so expensive , I may however sell the Airspy HF+ and SDR Play RSP1A if anyone is interested make me an offer, the filtering on the Airspy is really good.

Popoutman

I've recently gotten into SDR, after a brief foray back at the start of the DVB-T dongle era.

Mad_lad - thank you for making your SDRs available, as it's giving be really good comparisons to make between your antennas and my own.

I went along the route of cheap dongle -> RTL-SDR dongle+antenna kit -> RSP1a -> Airspy/Spyverter -> Kiwi; and the antennas went from jury rigging a dipole onto the RTL SDR through a cheap Chinese miniwhip, to a better Chorio miniwhip, to running a 20 randomwire in the suburban garden, to stringing a 30m sloper from the gutters to the end wall. I'm currnently awaiting delivery of toroids to put on the coax feeds to reduce the noise from the room with all the computers.

Given I have a handful of Pis to play with, I have set up an ADS-B receiver with a colinear coax antenna and an LNA, and I get to see to ~170nm out, and ~900-950 aircraft a day uploaded to Flightradar. I'm also working on getting either of the Airspy or the RSP1a properly networked, though spyserver works pretty well, it is missing some configuration items available when connected locally. I've also seen that the Linux support on the RSP1a is less useful than I'd like. I'm not really in a position to code new servers, though I am a Linux admin by trade.

One thing that surprises me about the SDR Console server software is that it will not give me >3Mhz bandwidth, even when locally connected via USB3 on an 8-core 24Gb Xeon desktop. There's definitely some streamlining possible in that code. I think I'll have to set up an Intel Nuc or similar for decently-performing network access on the 10Mhz devices.

The Kiwi is just fantastic, and I really like that there's ongoing development, and the Tdoa plugin is great. I'm not advertising online yet, until the performance is up to standard

I'm eventually going to get a proper manufactired antenna, just have to see how well a cheap Chinese MFA-30 loop performs, as that is currently inbound.

All of that, and I'd like to get the license to actually use the Baofeng and pixie kits that I have waiting.

Again, congrats on having one of the best-performing Kiwis out there. Certainly gives me something to aim for. Any idea what happened to the Bonito loop?

Of these four antenna, which would you recommend? The Bonito miniwhip, the Bonito dipole, the Bonito loop, or a Wellbroop loop?

Also - the HF+ sounds interesting and I may contact you regarding that..

Popoutman

Popoutman wrote: »

I've recently gotten into SDR, after a brief foray back at the start of the DVB-T dongle era.

Mad_lad - thank you for making your SDRs available, as it's giving be really good comparisons to make between your antennas and my own.

I went along the route of cheap dongle -> RTL-SDR dongle+antenna kit -> RSP1a -> Airspy/Spyverter -> Kiwi; and the antennas went from jury rigging a dipole onto the RTL SDR through a cheap Chinese miniwhip, to a better Chorio miniwhip, to running a 20 randomwire in the suburban garden, to stringing a 30m sloper from the gutters to the end wall. I'm currnently awaiting delivery of toroids to put on the coax feeds to reduce the noise from the room with all the computers.

Given I have a handful of Pis to play with, I have set up an ADS-B receiver with a colinear coax antenna and an LNA, and I get to see to ~170nm out, and ~900-950 aircraft a day uploaded to Flightradar. I'm also working on getting either of the Airspy or the RSP1a properly networked, though spyserver works pretty well, it is missing some configuration items available when connected locally. I've also seen that the Linux support on the RSP1a is less useful than I'd like. I'm not really in a position to code new servers, though I am a Linux admin by trade.

One thing that surprises me about the SDR Console server software is that it will not give me >3Mhz bandwidth, even when locally connected via USB3 on an 8-core 24Gb Xeon desktop. There's definitely some streamlining possible in that code. I think I'll have to set up an Intel Nuc or similar for decently-performing network access on the 10Mhz devices.

The Kiwi is just fantastic, and I really like that there's ongoing development, and the Tdoa plugin is great. I'm not advertising online yet, until the performance is up to standard

I'm eventually going to get a proper manufactired antenna, just have to see how well a cheap Chinese MFA-30 loop performs, as that is currently inbound.

All of that, and I'd like to get the license to actually use the Baofeng and pixie kits that I have waiting.

Again, congrats on having one of the best-performing Kiwis out there. Certainly gives me something to aim for. Any idea what happened to the Bonito loop?

Of these four antenna, which would you recommend? The Bonito miniwhip, the Bonito dipole, the Bonito loop, or a Wellbroop loop?

Also - the HF+ sounds interesting and I may contact you regarding that..

Hi Popoutman, You're welcome, I put a "lot" of money into the SDR's the Linear PSU's added more cost but boy was it worth it, you can't really power an SDR radio with a switch mode power supply, the difference is night and day believe me.

This as you know will be your greatest challenge, eliminating noise, get the SDR's away out of the house if you can, get a portable MW radio and go around the house and find sources of noise, LED bulbs, keep well clear of all unknown crap woodies and general hardware store LED bulbs , stick to branded names, the likes of Philips and Osram are excellent.

Led floodlights can be a disaster and can cause a lot of noise 100+ meters away, I sh1t you not, stick to halogen. Unless it's running for hours a night it's not worth the high cost to buy a poxy led light to save a few cent in electricity.

These lights are illegal and do not comply to regulations......

Mobile phone chargers, again, branded, samsung, Iphone chargers are not too bad unless reasonably close but cheap ones can send noise through the electric wiring in the house and beyond, these are also illegal but nothing is done to stop the importing of this crap.

Laptop power supplies etc, old skool fluorescent backlit LCD tv's and plasma are nasty and can cause noise 50+ meters from the device !!!

The Bonito Loop amplifier box got water inside so it's on it's way back to Dennis in Bonito who is going to fix it or give me a new one.

SDR Console was amazing to operate remotely but I had issues with my old Dell core i5 laptop that was causing a lot of noise and I had issues with it dropping out etc so I wasn't going to spend the guts of 200 Euro's on a linear PSU for the laptop but the laptop itself was causing QRM but sdr console offered a true SDR experience when operating remotely but for DX it has to be quiet so It had to go.

Interestingly, I don't seem to have any issues with the IC-7300 remotely which is using the same old dell laptop as the server but it has one big ass filter on it's power leads which might help.

I am in the process of setting back up the Raspberry Pi and spyserver for the HF+ and might have that up and running by tonight and I will be using the Bonito MA305 Whip, a truly astonishing antenna for the size of it, I'm always amazed by it. I find Spyserver on the pi buggy and have to regularly reboot the pi, teamviewer is handy and also handy for rebooting the IC-7300 server.

Which antenna would I recommend ? hmmm, I like them all lol.

The Megaloop is good for NVIS and some DX and it's more sensitive on the higher frequencies for some reason than the megadipol, I must have a chat to Dennis about that.

The megadipol is great for DX and also the tiny Ma305 whip, the Megadipol is harder to install because it needs to be mounted vertically and not horizontal like a dipole, the signals are much stronger mounted like that.

You can also get the fantastic myantennas.com EFHW 8010, it's a wonderful Shortwave listening antenna, as well as ham radio antenna. You should be able to get it in the U.K or Europe via Ebay. It's a good antenna and good NVIS and DX.

The Bonitos are excellent and with all antennas you need a quiet location.

The Kiwi is great, can be installed anywhere as long as there is power and internet. It's a bit noisier and harsh on the ears than the Airspy HF+ which has wonderful audio filtering and that makes the difference.

The SDR Play RSP1A is a great little radio too and I like SDR Uno a lot.

there's a New Airspy HF+ out too with stronger image rejection.

RTE's LW 252 can cause images on my Kiwi. It's a big ass signal !

I'll post back when I have the MA305 and PI back up.

I nearly forgot, I have no experience with a wellbrook, but the Bonito is easy to install as it uses wire and not a rigid loop. The Wellbrooks are good but I have been less than impressed with most of them on the Kiwi but this could be a lot to do with their location, attic mounted, housing estate, apartment, powered by Switch mode power supplies etc.

While I'm waiting for my Bonito Loop preamp to return repaired, check out the myantennas.com EFHW 8010 connected to the Kiwi.

http://emeraldsdr1.ddns.net:8073/

Have fun and let me know what ye think.

Did anyone listen to the kiwi with the EFHW 8010 connected ?

I listened yesterday evening and 80m Ham was excellent but later the overload was incredible , it greatly effected performance, some MW stations from the U.K coming in at 50 db over........

Download sdr sharp, the latest version and connect to my Airspy HF+, it called Emerald SDR 3. It's using the Bonito MA305. You won't have the same control as the kiwi if someone is using it already usage will be limited.

The Kiwi needs an attenuator but it shows just how good ham radio receivers are to deal with such strong signals, I thought the EFHW8010 wasn't so good on LW/MW but now I know the Icom IC-7300 is using filters on LW/MW to reduce these strong signals , it's a shame the Kiwi has no attenuator, really a shame.

There is some gain on the EFHW 8010 !

I was listening to the Spserver and HF+ with the Bonito MA305 and I could hear LW252 in places, so the HF+ doesn't completely eliminate images, the new one is supposed to be better.

The RSP1A has filters to knock out MW which does help a lot but don't think it works on LW. , I haven't used that in ages.

If anyone wants an Gen I SDR Play, RSP1A or Airspy HF+ PM me and make an offer, look around and see what they go for first. But you need a good antenna.

The QRM from the ESB pole is really gone insane, they're coming out Tuesday to investigate, I really hope they fix it , if I shake the pole I can replicate the problem but it's much more constant now.

Popoutman

The HF+ does give nice clean signals when not overloaded.

A notch filter for 252 can apparently be constructed from an LC notch filter as per the attached zip file containing an svg file. Supposedly the component values used are standard and available ones. About -18dB from 247 kHz to 256 kHz according to the calculator.

Calculated from this webpage: https://rf-tools.com/lc-filter/

Hope that helps.

I went looking at this as well as my miniwhip is also reaching near-saturation with 252LW, and I'm hoping to build one of these when my stack of random through-hole inductors arrives from Aliexpress later this month, and I've got a NanoVNA en route as well so I can quantify me toroid builds for RFI suppression. It'll be a fun and interesting time when those bits arrive....

Popoutman

Popoutman wrote: »

The HF+ does give nice clean signals when not overloaded.

A notch filter for 252 can apparently be constructed from an LC notch filter as per the attached zip file containing an svg file. Supposedly the component values used are standard and available ones. About -18dB from 247 kHz to 256 kHz according to the calculator.

Calculated from this webpage: https://rf-tools.com/lc-filter/

Hope that helps.

I went looking at this as well as my miniwhip is also reaching near-saturation with 252LW, and I'm hoping to build one of these when my stack of random through-hole inductors arrives from Aliexpress later this month, and I've got a NanoVNA en route as well so I can quantify me toroid builds for RFI suppression. It'll be a fun and interesting time when those bits arrive....

Thanks and Let me know how it goes, Yes I will investigate this option.

I have also noticed imaging on the Airspy HF+ from 252 also, the newer HF+ has filters built in to maybe solve this.

I now have the Bonito MA305 tiny Whip connected to http://emeraldsdr1.ddns.net:8073

I now have the Odroid Xu3 setup with Spyserver and the Bonito MA305 antenna.

Download sdr sharp and you will see my server on the map, Emerald SDR 3 , Carlow. It's a lot quieter than the Raspberry Pi B+ but I am using a linear PSU with the Odroid.

Give it a go.

I'm using it with SDR Console and I like it, I might setup a DDNS address and then post that here so people can use SDR Console instead.

Hansanter

Mad Lad,


I made good use of your HF+ over the past few days and found it excellent. Signals are much cleaner than I can get here at home in north co. Dublin.
I've also setup my own spyserver using an Rpi3B+ and an Airspy R2. I currently have it connected on my UHF milsat yagi antenna (with filtered preamp for that band). Just testing it all out at the moment with a view to placing it in my parents house soon (with an omni V/UHF antenna), as it's much nearer to the city.


Also... I'll get that antenna to you soon.



H./

Hansanter

Hansanter wrote: »

Mad Lad,


I made good use of your HF+ over the past few days and found it excellent. Signals are much cleaner than I can get here at home in north co. Dublin.
I've also setup my own spyserver using an Rpi3B+ and an Airspy R2. I currently have it connected on my UHF milsat yagi antenna (with filtered preamp for that band). Just testing it all out at the moment with a view to placing it in my parents house soon (with an omni V/UHF antenna), as it's much nearer to the city.


Also... I'll get that antenna to you soon.



H./

Excellent, glad it was of use to you.

Did I tell you I have the spyserver now running on my Odroid XU3 Lite ? have a Linear PSU connected to that, wasn't happy with the RSP 3 B+ and SMP. But the Odroid is good, way faster than the Pi or even Pi 4 I believe, and Emmc flash too.

You can connect via the spyserver network, still have the Bonito MA305 whip connected.

No rush on the Antenna, take your time do it right.

I can also use SDR COnsole to connect to the spyserver, pretty handy.

The little MA305 whip is great esp on LW/MW.

The Megadipol on the Kiwi is better at pulling in DX.

Should have the Megaloop back by the weekend.

BTW, are you not going HF with your Airspy, or just Vhf/UHF ?

dxhound2005

There is a big RTTY contest on 28 and 29 Sept, and the amateur bands are full of signals. The web SDR's can decode the exchanges.

Select FSK in the Extension drop down menu, and choose the amateur band. Shift is 170, baud rate 45.45 and encoding ITA2. Tuning is very precise, and transmissions are very short.

deaglan169

are the sdrs down for maintenance?

deaglan169

deaglan169 wrote: »

are the sdrs down for maintenance?

No, must have ran out of broadband credit.

I will not get a chance to top up until later. thanks for bringing it to my attention, I have not logged in today.