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Showing posts from August, 2016

Bringing new life to my station - SDRPlay & SDRuno

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I have decided to explore the world of SDR and my first venture into this arena was with the rather sensibly priced SDRPlay RSP at £127.20 including VAT and delivery. I have been really pleased so far with my experience and even more so that I have been able to sync the new RX up to my existing FT-1000mp Mark V setup to give me a band scope and additional RX using SDRuno software and the Ominirig connection server to share the CAT data with the radio.  I have already been asked how I have setup the station so produced this graphic to help explain how I set it up. The PC is nothing amazing and is an old cast off from a family member as I usually am a Mac user and wanted a PC to run some basic software in the shack.  I have made use of the RX antenna in and out from the FT-1000mp Mark V to split the RX and return it to the main radio and send half to the SDR. OK there are some losses but then they are marginal and can be turned on and off using the RX switch on the front of the Yaesu. It

RSGB field day changes 2017

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I have been reading September's Radcom this morning and read that there are changes due to RSGB field day contests. I personally would like to see catagories for small stations and short term ops. Say 8 hours and QRP and battery efforts with additional points for the hard time these stations face. Perhaps similar to the catagories used in ARRL field day.  I am appealing for QRP users who are RSGB members to support my thoughts and see if we can get a section more supportive of the types of operation we do.  Here is a copy of the email I sent to Steve  White G3ZVW Dear Steve, (Steve.g3zvw@gmail.com) I have been reading about changes to field day contesting and would like to offer my input as a keen field day opp who has given up going out and about.  I would like to suggest provision in both contests for small short term stations rather like the ARRL field day with a score multiplayer for QRP and battery power alone encouraging individuals such as myself to head out into the country