[MRCA] Moose $ Squirrel is 7 Years Old

[Robert Nickels]

On 11/11/2017 9:31 PM, B. Smith wrote:
> K2DSR had a nice receiver on line  and I've been using it for 
> "magnetic loop"  signal strength  and bearing testing perhaps you 
> could use it to monitor the M & S net.
> http://k2sdr.homelinux.com:8073/

Thanks - now if only by Thursday I can remember that noon your time is 
11AM my time!

A bit OT but I think the following may be of interest to MRCA members:

The problem most Web-based SDRs have is the tradeoff between audio and 
video information quality and the compression needed for transfer via 
the internet.    The developer of the Airspy SDR and SDR# software has 
invested a lot of energy into an improved solution and the results are 
really impressive.   For example, I've listened to FM broadcast stations 
from Paris and elsewhere with excellent fidelity and no drop-outs for an 
hour at a time.     To try listening to remote SDRs using SpyServer, 
just download the free SDR# package from https://airspy.com/download/ 
and select "SpyServer" as the Radio choice.   K2SDR also has an 
Airspy+SpyVerter  which can be tuned to any frequency between 0 and 8 
Mhz with (IIRC) 10 simultaneous users.   Just copy his SpyServer address 
from the webpage and paste it into the box in SDR#.    SDR# runs on PCs 
with Win 7 or newer and does not require installation or modify the 
registry, so you can just delete it anytime you wish.

Compare the two,  especially note the smoothness and quality of audio, 
lack of compression artifacts, and responsiveness. Also, you can select 
any desired Bandwidth from all 8 MHz down to a few KHz to meet your 
needs, and at the click of a button you can record the audio, or the 
entire baseband (reduce the bandwidth first to avoid creating gigantic 
files!).   This is the best tool I've found for assessing the 
performance of a radio, because you can not only hear what the audio 
sounds like, but playing back the baseband signal allows you to check 
sideband and carrier suppression, look for spurs, etc.   Add one of the 
supported SDRs and you can do the same for radios on your bench.

Now back to listening to the news on WABC...

73, Bob W9RAN