My WEBSDr Is Now Online.

SlowBlowin

Hey ML is that SDR overloading at the moment because you are transmitting ?

I managed to track down the signal (3.7549) to ei3ibb with on8ei was that you ?

SlowBlowin

SlowBlowin wrote: »

Hey ML is that SDR overloading at the moment because you are transmitting ?

I managed to track down the signal (3.7549) to ei3ibb with on8ei was that you ?

Yes it was indeed, nothing I can go about it, the SDR's are in the shed and it's too far to walk to disconnect the Antennas. Not to mention a pain in the ass every time I want to transmit.

deaglan169

im really interested in getting a bonito megaloop myself what size of loop are you using? also would it be as effective in a hpusing estate or will i most likely be plagued with noise

deaglan169

deaglan169 wrote: »

im really interested in getting a bonito megaloop myself what size of loop are you using? also would it be as effective in a hpusing estate or will i most likely be plagued with noise

I have the 10 meter loop.

Get it as far from the house and any house as you can.

Loops are good they can be quieter but remember , I'm in as an electrically quiet area as you'll find it will still pick up noise if it's bad enough.

If you get a Kiwi SDR you'll need to power it from a linear power supply of about 8 amps 5V regulated. The modern switch mode supply will cause noise particularly up 0 - 3 Mhz and probably above and it can cause severe interference.

If you get a normal sdr you will power it from the laptop and this itself can cause noise through the usb , some are worse than others.

SMP or switch mode supplies are a headache for radio amateurs, led lights, mobile chargers, laptop chargers some older LCD tv's, the LED ones are usually fine.

Anyway, a good antenna is most important and the Bonito is a good choice.

Malin SDR is back online, 200 meter beverage should be good for all the MW DX'ers.

http://malinsdr.ddns.net:8073/

Popoutman

Deleted User wrote: »

Malin SDR is back online, 200 meter beverage should be good for all the MW DX'ers.

http://malinsdr.ddns.net:8073/

Lovely noise floor for the VLF and LF - any idea which neighbour has installed the Ethernet over Powerline stuff? At least the major use of this SDR is below where that QRM kicks in.

The Aeronautical HF bands used by Shanwick are also clear of that QRM - and really clear on picking up those transmissions.

Popoutman

Popoutman wrote: »

Lovely noise floor for the VLF and LF - any idea which neighbour has installed the Ethernet over Powerline stuff? At least the major use of this SDR is below where that QRM kicks in.

The Aeronautical HF bands used by Shanwick are also clear of that QRM - and really clear on picking up those transmissions.

Sounds to be much higher than he's interests, he's a LF/MW man. The Antenna isn't too sensitive above the 49 SW meter band anyway.

dxhound2005

I tried 1494 kHz on the night of 29 Nov to see if there was any sign of the low power pirate from Dundalk. Nothing heard from that, but a couple of Chinese voices as mentioned in this link, 26 Nov. I haven't heard them since.

https://mediumwave.info/news.html

Plenty of Canada and US stations on the 10 kHz splits, especially in the mornings, when European signals are weaker. Depending on conditions they won't fade out completely until about noon here during the short daylight days.

SlowBlowin

Mad_Lad - In case you missed it:

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2058039819

SlowBlowin

ML as someone who likes evaluating/testing antennas can you make a recommendation.

The storms are just too much for my windom, which is now broken. I want something that is easy to drop for storms so I am after endfed, that can cope with Kerry weather, between 35 - 40m long. I am not bothered by power rating (mainly QRP) and I operate from 80 - 10m.

Anything you have tried that might be suitable for me ?

Thanks

SlowBlowin

SlowBlowin wrote: »

Mad_Lad - In case you missed it:

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2058039819

I did miss that , thanks for letting me know will reply later.

SlowBlowin

SlowBlowin wrote: »

ML as someone who likes evaluating/testing antennas can you make a recommendation.

The storms are just too much for my windom, which is now broken. I want something that is easy to drop for storms so I am after endfed, that can cope with Kerry weather, between 35 - 40m long. I am not bothered by power rating (mainly QRP) and I operate from 80 - 10m.

Anything you have tried that might be suitable for me ?

Thanks

I've had my End Fed come down due to my rope fraying on branches and I can see it wearing again , this is the limiting factor for me not the antenna itself.

Next time I'm going to use that steel washing line with the plastic insulator that certainly won't break. I have a pneumatic launcher that I can fill with about 60 Psi using abicycle pump, I got it on Ebay from the US and boy is it good , it uses a lead weight and fishing reel. Without it I'd never get my antenna over that 65 foot pine tree in the garden , not a hope.

Anyway, yes most important good rope or this steel washing line. I have to get it somewhere.

The End fed I use as my main antenna is the myantennas.com EFHW 8010 from the USA. But you can also find similar from hyendcompany.nl in the netherlands, and those antennas, their 8 band one has a capacitor and you can choose where you want 80 meters to be resonant, CW portion of the band, 3.7 Mhz or 3.9 for the 75 Meters US band.

https://www.hyendcompany.nl/antenna/multiband_8040302017151210m/product/detail/156/HyEndFed_8_Band__200_Watt_Black_Clamp#prod

I have the portable mini 100 Watt 4 band from hyendfed.nl and it works a treat when portable.

And I was given , by another ham their 5 band MK III which I have ran to the sitting room, it's only 20 meters long and has a coil for 80m and it works pretty well for a 20 meter long antenna on 80m. But obviously it's a compromise antenna for 80m , on 20 and 40 meters I've no problem making contacts to North America with only 20 watts so if you have the space the full 134 foot long 8 band from hyendcompany or myantennas.com will do the trick nicely indeed.

My antenna is mounted as some sort of sloper in a North/South West/East Config, highest point about 60 feet , lowest point about 3 feed which is where the box with UNUN is and I have it grounded there.

These antennas unlike your Windom are resonant on all the said bands but a tuner might be needed in some circumstances depending on config to flatten out the swr. I could get away with no tuner at all, highest swr is 2.5:1 on the higher portion of 80 Meters.

These antennas use 49:1 UNUN unlike your traditional end fed which uses a bunch of radials , these EFHW require 0 radials and the 49:1 seems to be what makes the magic happen and give them their multi band capability they work on multiples of wavelengths, so 3.5 mhz x 2 gives you 40 meters and so on.

They don't however work very well outside their resonant frequency and become very inefficient however I have been able to work the myantennas.com on 160 meters with and external tuner , it can send RF back in the house though so you'd want to watch your power , use a choke etc but for all I work 160 Meters the performance is quite satisfactory, it is 1/4 wave for 160 but the difference here is the UNUN makes it inefficient outside the resonant frequency.

There is a UK company someone here made me aware of not long ago too, much the same , I would give them a shot , can't go wrong at the price.

So to sum it up,

if you have the space, the U.K antenna would be top of my list at the price, they got good reviews and probably use the same 49:1 UNUN as the others so would be much the same except much cheaper.

https://ukantennas.co.uk/product/multi-band-end-fed-antenna-with-mounting-bracket-80-40-20-17-15-12-10m/?v=d60f753e9835

If space is limited then the hyendfed.nl would be a super choice. their 5 band MK III, it's 20 meters long and covers 80M but you'll need a tuner above 3.6 Mhz but should be easily handled by any modern transceiver with built in tuner.

You shouldn't have to drop these antennas in a storm, mine is up since May and it fell back in September due to inadequate ropes and while they are still there I mush use them to pill over stronger rope/wire.

Another important thing is not to pull the antenna too tight, let it sag because trees will pull it apart when they blow around in the wind.

Read the myantennas.com reviews on the site and also eham and also the other reviews from hyendfed and uk antennas.

Hope this post wasn't too boring lol.

Greenman

Deleted User wrote: »

Yes it was indeed, nothing I can go about it, the SDR's are in the shed and it's too far to walk to disconnect the Antennas. Not to mention a pain in the ass every time I want to transmit.

Nice to get a mention. 73's to all SWL's, Hams and others.

John ON8EI

Greenman

Greenman wrote: »

Nice to get a mention. 73's to all SWL's, Hams and others.

John ON8EI

Thanks for dropping by John, I must try get on the radio later if you're on after 9 Pm let me know.

deaglan169

i have to say since my rekindling interest in mwdx and using your sdr for reference against my wellbrook it simply blows it away on mw in particular the megadipol has it on mw, is it just in the standard configuration 2.5m wire up and down?

deaglan169

deaglan169 wrote: »

i have to say since my rekindling interest in mwdx and using your sdr for reference against my wellbrook it simply blows it away on mw in particular the megadipol has it on mw, is it just in the standard configuration 2.5m wire up and down?

Sorry, only seeing this now, or perhaps meant to reply but something distracted me.

Yes, the megadipol is standard, it's not up as high as it should be and the bottom leg is curled up a foot at the bottom but still works well, sometime I'd like to get it higher.

Unfortunately the megadipol only works vertically mounted, it will work as a normal horizontal dipole but signal levels will be way down so I wouldn't mount it horizontally.

Couldn't figure out where a lot of noise in my SDR was coming from intermittently but discovered a bad baby monitor PSU, absolutely horrific how they can be allowed to sell this crap that does not comply with regulations.

Next, a Samsung Tablet charger, a fast charger, the 9 volt one. An old Samsung tablet, the normal 5 volt one I had was quite clean unless very close to it but the newer type fast charge one is just ridiculously bad.

Took me a while to figure out the samsung charger was a cause of a lot of the bad noise.

Some of these power supplies are so bad that they allow noise to travel out the electrical wiring in the house using this wiring as a gigantic antenna.

jmcc

Deleted User wrote: »

Couldn't figure out where a lot of noise in my SDR was coming from intermittently but discovered a bad baby monitor PSU, absolutely horrific how they can be allowed to sell this crap that does not comply with regulations.

Next, a Samsung Tablet charger, a fast charger, the 9 volt one. An old Samsung tablet, the normal 5 volt one I had was quite clean unless very close to it but the newer type fast charge one is just ridiculously bad.

Took me a while to figure out the samsung charger was a cause of a lot of the bad noise.

Some of these power supplies are so bad that they allow noise to travel out the electrical wiring in the house using this wiring as a gigantic antenna.

There's free Spectrum Analyser software available ( https://www.sdrplay.com/downloads/ ) for the SDRPlay that might be of use if you have an SDRPlay to hand. They are great SDRs. It is quite a useful bit a of kit and costs a lot less than a 2GHz spectrum analyser.

Regards...jmcc

jmcc

jmcc wrote: »

There's free Spectrum Analyser software available ( https://www.sdrplay.com/downloads/ ) for the SDRPlay that might be of use if you have an SDRPlay to hand. They are great SDRs. It is quite a useful bit a of kit and costs a lot less than a 2GHz spectrum analyser.

Regards...jmcc

I Had two SDR Play, the original and the RSP1A, swapped them both for an antenna for sitting room Ham radio install. But made sense, he didn't want the antenna for some reason and I didn't need the sdr plays. It's a bloody good antenna but anyway works very well for me.

SlowBlowin

Deleted User wrote: »

Couldn't figure out where a lot of noise in my SDR was coming from intermittently but discovered a bad baby monitor PSU, absolutely horrific how they can be allowed to sell this crap that does not comply with regulations.

Next, a Samsung Tablet charger, a fast charger, the 9 volt one. An old Samsung tablet, the normal 5 volt one I had was quite clean unless very close to it but the newer type fast charge one is just ridiculously bad.

Took me a while to figure out the samsung charger was a cause of a lot of the bad noise.

Some of these power supplies are so bad that they allow noise to travel out the electrical wiring in the house using this wiring as a gigantic antenna.

Years ago when ADSL was new in the UK we had a line into the office. It worked well for a few months then was crap. We complained for ages to BT who eventually, after some fruitless visits, sent the old boy engineer out. He had a big leather bag like a doctor, pulled out an old am radio and walked around the office with it. He quickly stopped by a power supply (powering a Chinese camera) and said, turn that off. Immediately the SN ration of the router improved and out ADSL worked again. He said 80% of problem adsl faults were caused by noisy switch mode power supplies.

Same happens now I believe, a chap who works with me now said this was rampant when he was working with Eircom, think this was FTTC he was working on. But like that it would drive the internet nuts.

It's a much larger issue than People think, god only knows what these PSU's would do near medical equipment.

SlowBlowin

When you open up the PSUs they nearly always have un populated filters on the PCB. They put the components in to pass any needed testing then leave them out during production.

Yes and some of them even have no space on the board for filter components at all.

Worst of all is the E.U leave it to the manufacturers themselves to "test" their components so that they comply with CE specs, so in other words, anyone can stick a CE mark on something, but, it's actually meaningless, typical E.U looking out for companies just like they did the car companies with their bogus NEDC emissions test which hugely favoured the car manufacturers while the public get poisoned.

Listening to Radio Clube Dopara on 4885 Khz from Brazil, Coming in quite clear. They are using a 5 Kw transmitter. I can hear their live stream from their site so I know it's Radio Clube Dopara.

dxhound2005

There is another SDR Ireland North West, probably in Sligo. Could be there for a while but I only found it recently. On 1494 kHz there is a Sligo pirate relaying Coast FM from Tenerife. It is also very good for American stations on medium wave.

It has a note recently that their antenna is lowered because of the weather.

An interesting setup, I wonder how it works at night ? usually Ham style antennas are very bad for the Kiwi or any SDR because the gain is usually much too high. When I connected my myantennas.com EFHW to the Kiwi it drove it bananas at night, completely over loaded.

Perhaps he has some filtering on the antenna, it would be interesting to know, obviously gain will be down if his antenna is lowered, it's quite windy here so I'd imagine there it's a lot less having said that I have not lowered my EFHW. Too much hassle.

deaglan169

dxhound2005 wrote: »

There is another SDR Ireland North West, probably in Sligo. Could be there for a while but I only found it recently. On 1494 kHz there is a Sligo pirate relaying Coast FM from Tenerife. It is also very good for American stations on medium wave.

It has a note recently that their antenna is lowered because of the weather.

you answered my question came on to post where it was tx from defiantely strongest on his sdr, his location is swinford going by locator square, its a great signal to myself in newry on wellbrook loop also day and night

dxhound2005

deaglan169 wrote: »

you answered my question came on to post where it was tx from defiantely strongest on his sdr, his location is swinford going by locator square, its a great signal to myself in newry on wellbrook loop also day and night

I said Sligo because it has been reported as Sligo on this site over the years. Swinford appears to be fairly close to Co Sligo.

https://mediumwave.info/news.html

IRELAND
Since last Friday 24th January, I have been hearing “Energy FM” which is sourced from Tenerife, being relayed by a transmitting facility based in County Sligo Ireland, reactivated on 1494 KHZ. This small low power transmitter has been often on air for short bursts relaying various stations, and then has then disappeared for very long periods of time.
With the allowing of many new am licences in Ireland as from January 2020 it may well be that this channel will be permanently on air. Watch this space.
Dave Angell (30/01-2020)

You might be hearing the station in Dundalk also on 1494. It is a massive signal in the town, but in Newry on my car radio it is very weak. If you drive towards Dundalk you will certainly hear it. It plays old recordings of pirate stations, mostly Radio Sovereign, and recordings from former Irish pirates like Carousel. On the weekends that Manx Radio does their Radio Caroline specials, it usually carries Caroline as well.

I have never heard it identify, and it seems to be a hobby pirate. It has moved to various frequencies just above the MW band e.g. 1615 kHz and 6318/6320 and 6525 shortwave, but always returns to 1494.

Kiwi SDR Update.

3.ie have blocked the kiwi ports and I do not want to have to try changing ports or use their reverse proxy service because of all the People who have bookmarked my Kiwis these links would no longer work.

So because of this and the hassle I'm having with 3.ie lately I have been looking for another 4G provider, I have no possibility of fixed line internet and do not want to go with local wireless providers because I don't want to get into a years contract and risk end up getting 1 Mbs down and probably less up because the internet providers advertise "up to" this gives them the freedom to offer as little speeds as they like while I'm expected to pay full whack and if I cancel my payments they will get debt collectors to harass me and take me to court. Disgraceful allowing these companies away with this.

Anyway, I have found Voldafone have come down a lot with their prices and offer 20 Gb for the same 20 Euro a month the problem is that they don't have an online store so I can't buy the modem because their local store is closed.

SlowBlowin

Deleted User wrote: »

Kiwi SDR Update.

3.ie have blocked the kiwi ports and I do not want to have to try changing ports or use their reverse proxy service because of all the People who have bookmarked my Kiwis these links would no longer work.

So because of this and the hassle I'm having with 3.ie lately I have been looking for another 4G provider, I have no possibility of fixed line internet and do not want to go with local wireless providers because I don't want to get into a years contract and risk end up getting 1 Mbs down and probably less up because the internet providers advertise "up to" this gives them the freedom to offer as little speeds as they like while I'm expected to pay full whack and if I cancel my payments they will get debt collectors to harass me and take me to court. Disgraceful allowing these companies away with this.

Anyway, I have found Voldafone have come down a lot with their prices and offer 20 Gb for the same 20 Euro a month the problem is that they don't have an online store so I can't buy the modem because their local store is closed.

Hi ML

When they did this to me (blocked ports for CCTV viewing), a few years back, I found out that if you change the APN in the connection to a different value then you would get a true external address, not a NATed private IP. Not sure if it still works, but try these (I used the second one) they did result in different, public, IPs:

3ireland.ie (Three phone SIM)
3internet (Three data SIM, public IP address*)
3broadband.ie (Three data SIM, private IP address)
nbs.ie (former NBS data SIM, private IP address)
internet (business phone & former O2 phone SIMs)
open.internet (former O2 data SIMs, private IP address)
open.internet.public (former O2 data SIMs, public IP address*)