[MNham] SDR, Part 5 & VVLF.

[Doug Reed]

I didn't really pay to much attention to the difference between Softrock 
versions. I was mostly interested in the frequency range they covered 
and what was available at the time. The only reason I even noticed was 
because of a talk Bill K0AWU gave about 15 months ago about using a 
Softrock v7 board as a panadapter for a 2M-10M transverter he was using 
for moonbounce. That got me looking and I found a lot of nifty projects 
people are doing with software defined radio and software aided test 
equipment. I've got a DDS-60 as well but haven't used it for anything.

FB on the 510KHz station. I used to read quite a bit about the lowfer 
stations but never got around to trying to receive them. I see the 
newest methods are again using sound card software to receive the 
signals and decode them. I think I tended to be most interested in 
propagation monitoring so an all-digital approach has the most interest 
for me.

I haven't been paying attention to the email groups so I hadn't seen the 
announcement about SAQ being on the air. Doing it in the summer sounds a 
little counter-productive if you want maximum people to hear it. At 
least off-hand I assume 17KHz is badly effected by summer storms like 
lowfer is. Maybe not.... I did find a few web sites about VVLF 
monitoring to be interesting. Especially since the receiver is a 
computer sound card. I lost my bookmarks, but I think it was a European 
site that I liked best. It had a lot of articles about building various 
front-end preamps and types of limited-space antennas. What I liked best 
was the article that mentioned recycling a solar garden path light to 
provide power for the remote preamp in order to eliminate feeding noise 
into the system from an AC power supply. That was a permanent and cheap 
solution to the problem of using remote batteries at the preamp or 
feeding it from the house.

I do need to go back and read the recent email about the "Scottie's 
Spectrum Analyzer." For the most part I can borrow or use use one from 
work, but building an instrument from scratch and using computer 
software to operate and display the readings does have some interest. 
And I seem to recall they expected to have the tracking generator 
feature working sometime this summer. That will do most of what I 
want.... So far the homebrew VNA projects don't cover the frequencies 
I'm interested in....

Good luck with the PCB.

73, Doug.

WE0H wrote:
> I bought a Version 5 Softrock a while back. It is still in a kit. I 
> did build a DDS-60 when that came out. Haven't wired it to a 
> controller yet but the board is complete. Super busy working on a 
> 505-510kc station here as I am on the ARRL Part 5 experimental license 
> for 600 meters. Verifying a board layout for an improved transverter 
> and gonna have to do the iron on process yet tonight so I can etch a 
> board in the morning.
>
> What's new in the Version 6 Softrock? I haven't even looked at any of 
> it until a couple days ago. Been so busy with the 600 meter station.
>
> Are you going to listen for the SAQ signal on July 1st? 17.2kc CW? I 
> have seen the signal before but couldn't hear it. I believe I was 
> using SpecLab and a direct connection antenna to mic jack.
>
> Mike