[Elecraft] Cheap and Easy SDR

[Pete Smith N4ZR]

Try kb9yig.com.  He has a couple of Softrocks that fill the bill.  For 
US$21 you can get a receiver kit that can be built for any band you 
want.  For US$67 you get a bandswitching receiver kit. Very complete 
kitbuilding instructions and software setup info are available on the 
website.  One of these was my first surface mount kit, and it was 
amazingly easy.

I just read the "dongle" article in this month's QST, and frankly, I 
don't *get* it.  The dongle itself only receives 67 MHz up, and you must 
build a converter for the HF bands.  The author makes a lot of 
eliminating the requirement for a sound card, but almost all computers 
now come with at least 48 KHz sound cards that will do a quite 
satisfactory job, so you can defer the decision on a wider-band card 
until later.

73, Pete N4ZR
Check out the Reverse Beacon Network at
http://reversebeacon.net,
blog at reversebeacon.blogspot.com.
For spots, please go to your favorite
ARC V6 or VE7CC DX cluster node.

On 12/14/2012 4:28 PM, Kevin Cozens wrote:
> On 12-12-13 01:51 PM, Wayne Rogers wrote:
>> I've been watching and waiting for someone to broach this subject.  Bob
>> Nickels, W9RAN, wrote an article in January QST about using the DVB-T
>> dongle as an SDR.  Anyone looked at using this for a spectrum display on
>> the K3?  Thoughts?
>
> I am interested in trying out an SDR and am thinking of building my 
> own. I don't get QST but I did stumble across a USB style DVB device 
> in my research of SDR radios. From what I recall, it was of possible 
> use in receiving VHF/UHF frequencies. That would make it unlikely to 
> be usable with an Elecraft radio.
>
> You might also be referring to a different dongle than the one I saw, 
> in which case what I said above may not apply.
>