My WEBSDr Is Now Online.

12-01-2018 1:49pm

I may seriously investigate this Windom Antenna, though the location could have an impact on receiving RNI too.

I'l love to figure out how to get the antenna switcher working, have Windom for above 7 Mhz and Bonito below. Bonito is far, far quieter receiving antenna and great below 7 Mhz. I'd love to play with one of the Wellbrook Loops also.

jmcc · 12-01-2018 2:17pm

Got an RSP2. Amazing piece of kit. The new RSP1A is supposed to be quite good too. May string up some dipoles as it is quite sensitive at HF.

Location does matter and the rule of thumb is generally the higher the better. The Bonito seems to be an active whip antenna but the performance reports seem quite good on it.

Regards...jmcc

12-01-2018 11:02pm

I have the original RSP1, A really good SDR but I have not used it much at all kind of awkward with Kids around , I don't have a shack set up yet and the boys are 2 and 3.5 so they'll wreck anything they get their hands on so I use the Kiwi all the time as well as my normal radios. I love having a real radio. I can hide the radios away easily, I could too the SDR but it's more of a pain having to have it connected to the laptop all the time + it picks up noise from the laptop my other radios and Kiwi SDR don't.

I'm using the Bonito 10 Meter Megaloop FX not the MA305 Whip which is better than the boniwhip , the MA305 got really good reviews too , remarkable for such a small antenna but needs to be used in an electrically quiet area free from the noise of switch mode power supplies.

I don't think height matters so much for HF as the signals mainly come from the ionosphere, these days mounting the antenna in a noise free location is of much greater importance.

Loop antennas such as the Wellbrooks or Bonito are a lot less susceptible to this noise generated by modern electronics.

21-01-2018 3:39am

Conditions great tonight, Radio Havana Cuba coming through brilliantly on 6165 Khz. Great Jazz , part of their English broadcast on a Saturday Night. This is a good station , I like their English Broadcasts.

6000, 6165, 5040 and 6100, 6145 Khz Khz from 23:00 - 08:00 1 hr show repeated. Not all frequencies live at once.

Will most likely need outdoor antenna. 20-30 feet of wire out the window up a tree will do if you don't live in an area with high electrical noise from electronic equipment.

Good conditions, great working nights sometimes, get to catch lots of interesting stuff. High bands are good tonight.

22-01-2018 5:47pm

Bonito MegaActive MA305 now live, bit of a rough quick installation in a tree.

This antenna is bloody tiny !!! Very impressive, how the hell can they get it to perform so well ?

http://emeraldsdr.ddns.net:8073/

22-01-2018 9:27pm

The MA 305 Performance is simply amazing for a 40 CM antenna, I got the larger element.

It's noisier than the Loop and picks up noise from the Electric car charge point that is hardly audible if audible at all on the Loop. But for the size the performance is hugely impressive probably equal or close to a long wire antenna.

I intend to use it with the SDR Play which it might be more suited than the Kiwi SDR.

Being an E-Field antenna it might not suit you if you live in an area with lots of noise from electronic equipment, this is where the MegaLoop FX comes in but it's a lot more expensive.

30-01-2018 5:52am

Picking up ESPN Radio on 1640 from Mississippi.

According to wiki it's 10 Kw Day and 1Kw night !

10-02-2018 8:23am

Here's a few screen shots of some DRM transmissions I managed to decode.

Particularly interesting is Radio Kuwait in Stereo It sounds simply amazing over this distance on Shortwave and sounds better than some of RTE's Internet streams in crap old MP3 low bitrate. The signal wasn't stable though as band conditions are not ideal at this time but later in the day it will get much stronger so if anyone can try later please do it's amazing listening to stereo on Shortwave !

I think Radio Kuwait change to the 19 Meter band later in the day,still in DRM.

The software is here https://www.rtl-sdr.com/tutorial-drm-radio-using-rtl-sdr/

Follow the instructions and don't forget to add the faad2_drm.dll file into the DREAM folder or the Audio will not Decode.

Radio France International sounds ok but is in Mono and also Radio Romania International. I didn't manage to decode the BBC world service , they might be having issues.

By the way, DRM allows for much better quality.

10-02-2018 8:27am

Particularly interesting is that Radio France International are transmitting with only 1 Kw of power or at least that's the information I can find, pretty amazing.

29-04-2018 3:29pm

Update :

I now have the amazing tiny little Bonito MegaActiv MA305 Antenna connected temporarily , for now.

I have it set up in the sitting room because this is where I have the antenna cabled while I listen in the evenings to my other sdr, SdrPlay or Airspy HF+ or normal radios. The Kiwi is normally connected up in the shed with the Bonito Loop antenna which is a bit quieter alright but this Whip is just amazing for it's size.

This antenna is only 40 cm, I have the coax shield grounded which is important for an Efield antenna because it's more sensitive to man made noise and static from Thunderstorms.

I worked mighty hard to ensure there is as little interference as possible, I live in the country and most of the noise sources in the house are gone or reduced to the absolute minimum. I bought linear power supplies from China to power the Broadband modem and Kiwi SDR. Binned noisy phone chargers etc.

Some people won't be so lucky and neighbours will have devices that will make listening very difficult from lw right through to the SW bands.

Anyway, I'll try leave it connected to the whip antenna for a day or two.

http://emeraldsdr.ddns.net:8073/

29-04-2018 9:30pm

I went back to the 22 cm whip, the 40 cm was overloading the SDR but it still performs brilliantly for a 22 cm antenna ! :eek:

Conditions are not fantastic for weaker stations on some bands due to bad Thunderstorms on the Continent in North East France , North West Germany heading into the Netherlands. Causing lots of static.

Anyway, Bonito have discontinued the MegaActiv MA305 for the MA305FT.

The FT introduces an FM trap for areas with strong local FM stations. So it will attenuate the entire FM band buy 20-30 dB.

That probably looks like the only new feature + a claimed small improvement in the electronics but really, the MA305 is so good it doesn't really need many improvements , considering it's 22 cm it performs as good as wire antennas up to 100 feet or more and some of these antennas are much, much noisier than the Bonito Loop or MA305 whip.

Very useful for people in apartments or in small gardens or for someone who doesn't want to install a large wire antenna which can be a bit of a pain but really, from listening to a lot of SDR's online the Bonito antennas perform superbly however as always, local man made noise in built up areas might make it a lot more difficult to install the tiny MA305 and instead the MegaActiv Loop FX might be the better option.

dxhound2005 · 30-04-2018 12:04am

As a fan of medium wave you will probably be pleased to know that there is a transmitter on the air from somewhere in Ireland on 1494 kHz. It was heard in Sligo last weekend, and is fairly strong on your receiver. Carrying Laser Hot Hits on Sunday. I can't hear it in Dundalk because there is another very local pirate on the same frequency for the last few weeks.

Your receiver got another brief mention on the World of Radio report recently.

http://www.w4uvh.net/dxld1816.txt

30-04-2018 10:13am

That site is maintained by Glenn Hauser so it's pretty cool to get a mention from him ! :-) he has his own sw transmission is it on Sundays ?

Funny you mentioned Laser on 1494, I was listening to Laser briefly yesterday evening on SW around 6204 Khz if I remember correctly and they mentioned their MW frequency 1494 Khz.

As the BBC moves away from MW and other local stations in the U.K it will open up a lot of spectrum to pirates and I wonder will anyone care about pirates on MW ? I doubt it unless they gain substantial listenership.

Absolute radio got approval for reducing MW power and closure of some transmitters.

The Brits are really hell bent on killing MW but listeners don't want this and prefer MW as it works and provides good coverage.

Is it really that much cheaper to run DAB than MW ?

How many stations can you have in the DAB spectrum anyway ?

The quality of it here isn't the best but listening to RTE Gold on DAB in the car is adequate I have to say.

I much prefer analogue MW to crappy highly compressed digital any day, it sounds so bad and hard on the ears.

I wonder will many stations change to digital on MW ? probably not as you still can't buy a DRM radio. I have one, A Gospell GR-216 and it works pretty damn well.

There's a station on 1071 Khz from France testing DRM on MW but the last time I checked there was no audio, signal was good at certain times especially considering it's only 20 Kw.

28-05-2018 2:50pm

Testing new Antenna, Dennis from the company Bonito in Germany who kindly gave me a test sample of their new Megadipol MD300DX.

I'm getting some fantastic DX on MW, picking up U.K stations as little as 1 Kw at times.

Can pick up on World Music radio in Denmark on SW 5840 Khz which is just 100 watts, coming in clear at times, obviously later this evening is a better time for the 49 Meter band.

Let me know what you think of this new antenna, it's also a very quite antenna and produces excellent SNR throughout the entire SW spectrum !

http://emeraldsdr.ddns.net:8073/

amradio · 26-06-2018 11:05pm

Your SDR is great, gets lots of use!

26-06-2018 11:25pm

Cheers, thanks for that !

Yes it's getting quite popular, people from all over the world log into it and I regularly can't log in myself because it's busy lol.

I have intermittent issues which I think is coming from a neighbours transformer which is getting worse, so I asked the ESB to investigate, hopefully they will. When I go around with my portable radio it the noise , a buzzing, is loudest at the transformer but sends the noise down the electric wires.

If you use the noise blanker and set it to 100 uS and Threshold to 70% it should eliminate some noise.

29-07-2018 3:02am

There's been an update to the Kiwi SDR platform, you can read about it here, truly fascinating stuff. I'll never get bored of Shortwave !!!

https://www.rtl-sdr.com/kiwisdr-tdoa-direction-finding-now-freely-available-for-public-use/comment-page-1/#comment-108857

lets see if this works, in the 120 m Shortwave band a signal 2381 Khz, Using the heat map I was able to eliminate certain receivers out of the equation, so I used these receivers, “JO20iu websdr.ucll.be:8073” “JO10qm hainaut-picardie.ddns.net:8073 ” “JN37af javaradiofrance.ddns.net:8073”

I got this location on the map 50°24’00.0″N 4°15’00.0″E a location in Belgium.

After a little hunting I saw the shadow of this rather large Antenna in at this exact location, 50°22’55.1″N 4°14’31.4″E , only for the shadow it would be rather difficult to find and the antenna is large.

So what do people reckon , is this the signal I hear on the 120 Meter SW “commercial” band of 2381 Khz ? This signal has been broadcasting for a long time and should it really be in the commercial band like so many other signals ? This could be useful for hunting down these unwanted signals in the broadcast bands.

If this is the signal from this transmitter then I must say that I’m bloody well impressed !!!

Seán MacSuibhne · 29-07-2018 11:23am

Well god bless your eyesight! All I see is trees here:

https://www.google.com/maps/place/50%C2%B024'00.0%22N+4%C2%B015'00.0%22E/@50.4000034,4.2494519,119m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0x0!8m2!3d50.4!4d4.25

29-07-2018 8:23pm

Deleted User wrote: »

There's been an update to the Kiwi SDR platform, you can read about it here, truly fascinating stuff. I'll never get bored of Shortwave !!!

https://www.rtl-sdr.com/kiwisdr-tdoa-direction-finding-now-freely-available-for-public-use/comment-page-1/#comment-108857

lets see if this works, in the 120 m Shortwave band a signal 2381 Khz, Using the heat map I was able to eliminate certain receivers out of the equation, so I used these receivers, “JO20iu websdr.ucll.be:8073” “JO10qm hainaut-picardie.ddns.net:8073 ” “JN37af javaradiofrance.ddns.net:8073”

I got this location on the map 50°24’00.0″N 4°15’00.0″E a location in Belgium.

After a little hunting I saw the shadow of this rather large Antenna in at this exact location, 50°22’55.1″N 4°14’31.4″E , only for the shadow it would be rather difficult to find and the antenna is large.

So what do people reckon , is this the signal I hear on the 120 Meter SW “commercial” band of 2381 Khz ? This signal has been broadcasting for a long time and should it really be in the commercial band like so many other signals ? This could be useful for hunting down these unwanted signals in the broadcast bands.

If this is the signal from this transmitter then I must say that I’m bloody well impressed !!!

Seán MacSuibhne wrote: »

Well god bless your eyesight! All I see is trees here:

https://www.google.com/maps/place/50%C2%B024'00.0%22N+4%C2%B015'00.0%22E/@50.4000034,4.2494519,119m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0x0!8m2!3d50.4!4d4.25

Lol look again, I gave two sets of ordinates, the first was the one the program gave me on the SDR and the 2nd was after some hunting.

This is the GPS coordinates of the transmitter exactly. 50°22’55.1″N 4°14’31.4″E

It won't pin point the exact location like GPS.

I tried other signals last night and I wasn't as successful because you need more receivers in some locations.

Open my SDR http://emeraldsdr.ddns.net:8073/

The trick is to find a signal on the SDR, say a strange digital signal, then open extension" TDoA" double click on some sdr's on the map and see if they're receiving the signal, if it's stronger than it's being received on say, My SDR then you know it's closer to the signal, next try a few other SDR's around it in a circle and see if those are equally as strong , then click on "Submit" on the bottom left of the screen in the little window.

Then after it finishes it will show a map with a estimate of where the signal is, it will be in a red sort of zone or hot spot where the signal is thought ot come from, so then you try other receivers in this location , you can try 4 or 5 this time.

Then try Zoom into the map un-tick "show heatmap" so you'll be able to see the map clearly and happy hunting.

I guess I got lucky because the antenna was pretty tall and creating a large shadow.

What you can try do is to google transmitter sites such as BBC or RTE LW 252 Site and have a look on satellite on google maps to give you an idea of the type of thing to look out for.

dxhound2005 · 29-07-2018 10:33pm

I saw the other forum where you were advised that the signal is the Dutch Navy. It is also on this list.

http://qrg.globaltuners.com/?q=STANAG+4285&s=1

The 120 metre band is not allocated for broadcasting in Region One, Europe, Russia, Africa. So it can be used by utility stations.

29-07-2018 10:53pm

dxhound2005 wrote: »

I saw the other forum where you were advised that the signal is the Dutch Navy. It is also on this list.

http://qrg.globaltuners.com/?q=STANAG+4285&s=1

The 120 metre band is not allocated for broadcasting in Region One, Europe, Russia, Africa. So it can be used by utility stations.

Thanks, I see the reply now, I didn't get an email notification of a reply.

Oh well, better luck next time. I guess I'll have to play with it more.

30-07-2018 12:21am

Here's a gread PDF on how to use the plugin, nice to see my receiver being used for this haha.

https://dk8ok.files.wordpress.com/2018/07/tdoa_firstexperiences5.pdf

Seán MacSuibhne · 02-08-2018 2:20am

OK I see now. Sorry for that. Will have great fun with this in a few days

Seán

02-08-2018 9:44am

Seán MacSuibhne wrote: »

OK I see now. Sorry for that. Will have great fun with this in a few days

Seán

Yeah it's pretty cool, the greatest issue is the lack of Kiwi SDRs which will hopefully grow over the years but still, I got to within 40 miles of WWCRs transmitter at the Cumberland River in Nashville, with more playing around I might have got closer. I think it was nearer Clarksville where it dropped the pin on the map.

I think the trick is to eliminate all those in the green part of the results map and not use those for that particular transmitter again.

What I did for WWCR, I think it was 5890 Khz or something close, was to use a Kiwi in The east of the U.S, one in Europe and one in Asia and it pointed me in the direction of North America so then I used only U.S Kiwis and then got closer to Nashville.

You can practice with say, BBC R4 on LW 198 Khz, look up where the exact transmitter location and then compare your results.

Let me know how you get on. have fun !

09-08-2018 10:09pm

I've major QRM from ESB line somewhere, I thought I found the pole responsible but now I'm not so sure.

If anyone can tell me how to get the ESB to fix this please let me know, I contacted them several weeks ago with a link to my SDR and an audio recording and they hadn't got the decency to contact me, apart from an Acknowledgement email that's all I heard.

I also believe it's effecting my 4G internet !

It's intermittent but it at times it's pretty constant.

It's getting worse. It's hardly detectable now but was very bad a while ago and funny enough my internet works ok now.

09-08-2018 10:22pm

11272 Khz now, not as bad as it was and sounds a bit different.

http://emeraldsdr.ddns.net:8073/

dxhound2005 · 25-11-2018 11:25pm

Plenty of good reception on medium wave from North America. Better on the SDR in Donegal. 930 kHz is an easy one from Canada. Stations are every 10 kHz starting at 550 up to 1700 kHz, but there are some channels e.g. 630 and 900 which are also European. If it can be divided by 9 it is European.

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

I thought it must be another USA or Canada station on 570 kHz but it turns out to be Greenland. Confirmed from their website audio. I can also receive this on my ordinary radio in Dundalk.

https://knr.gl/kl/knr-radio

26-11-2018 12:00am

Yep good SDR, beverage antenna, he's a very interesting fellow, I got his Kiwi SDR online for him.

He used to work for the Coast Guard up there in Malin Head and was the radio operator of the station up there.

He's more interesting in MF around 500 Khz and operates around 500 Khz where Malin used to transmit. His beverage is good for those frequencies. I never checked it out on MW but I will.

He seems to suffer a lot less interference from Spanish stations. I hear Energy on 1395 coming in quite clear on his 120 M beverage lol.

Needless to say, the Guy from energy doesn't seem to visit my SDR nearly as much any more lol.

I could hear it fine on the megadipol antenna if it were not for some Spanish station.

26-11-2018 12:14am

I forgot to post here but if anyone doesn't know by now I have two Kiwi SDR's online now. One using the Bonito Megaloop FX using 10 meters of wire and a MegaDipol inverted dipole, both from Bonito in Germany, good antennas, low noise.

The Megaloop is better for local Ham operators on 80 meters and the Megadipol seems to do better above say 40 meters ham but it's interesting to compare the two.

The Megadipol kindly sent to me to test out from Dennis Walters of Bonito Germany !

The two antennas can really help dig DX signals out.

Here they are here.

Megaloop FX [URL="emeraldsdr1.ddns.net:8073"]emeraldsdr1.ddns.net:8073[/URL]

MegaDipol [URL="emeraldsdr.ddns.net:8074"]emeraldsdr.ddns.net:8074[/URL]

26-11-2018 12:30am

I hear 930 Khz in Canada at times on the Malin SDR , switch between LSB and USB and it can sometimes come in clearer as it reduced some QRM from adjacent stations.

I can hear it on mine sometimes but not as good.

My WEBSDr Is Now Online.

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