[Lowfer] LF Receivers?

[craig wasson]

I strongly recommend a software defined receiver if you want to get into any
digital signal processing, or really any receiving.

I have the SDR-IQ and recommend it highly.  Unfortunately it looks like the
price has gone up since I bought mine - it's listing for $525 now.  Still
well worth it.  Receives 500 Hz to 30 MHz extremely well.

Mine is rock-solid with less than 1 hz drift in a 24 hour period.   Once you
get it calibrated you can get much better than 1 hz accuracy.  When they ran
those moonbounce experiments at 6 MHz you could clearly see the doppler
shift as the moon passed overhead.  And doppler shift from path length
changing on LW broadcast stations is much more of a factor than receiver
drift so you can't really ask for more.

It has a 192 KHz receive window which lets you tune multiple stations at
once.   If you are doing work with QRSS or other weak signal stuff you can
tune two frequencies in a 192KHz range and if you use a wide SSB mode you
can even run multiple copies of something like Spectrum Lab and tune 4 or
more frequencies at once.   I put one decoder at 136 KHz and the other at
185 KHz and I can monitor just about everything at once.

Or tune one decoder to 185 KHz and tune around finding new NDBs on the
other.   If you don't feel like staying up all night DXing NDBs you get a
big terabyte hard drive and record  the whole 190-382 KHz spectrum overnight
and do your DXing the next day or next week.

I have not used the other SDRs people mentioned but I assume they are
similar.  I experimented with a really cheap SDR that interfaces with a
sound card and was not happy with the results, so get a "real" one.  To me
an analog radio vs an SDR is like a 4-function pocket calculator vs a
4GHz PC with 8 processors running vmware.

But that's just me.

Craig (N6IO)








On Mon, Dec 20, 2010 at 5:34 PM, Bill & Becky <wmarvin at hickorytech.net>wrote:

> Hi Group  I'm in the process of replacing my TT 320D receiver.  I'm looking
> for opinions on which receiver for LW QRSS, NDB and below 6MHz.
>
> I do not fancy getting a Transceiver because of the added cost and I'm not
> interested in SSB/CW HF QSO's
>
> I'm looking for time tested experience by you.........where the rubber
> meets the road.
>
> You may send your thoughts off list to  wmarvin at hickorytech.net
>
> Best Holidays to All
>
> Bill  KB9IV
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