I’m a believer in true knob and button radio interfaces… and I’m not the only one. A small team, formed around Stu, K6TU developed the Contest Knob, which is now today manufactured by FlexRadio Systems under the name FlexControl. In this interview K6TU reveals the ideas behind the Flex-Control and describes in detail the steps from the design to the industrial production. Download the MP3 or subscribe in iTunes to my podcast!
PowerSDR-UI lifts the FlexRadio experience to a totally new level. Since the first release of PowerSDR-UI an avid community is forming it selve around the project. Literally, I receive now everyday feedback from new users expressing their appreciation. In this post you will find pictures which have been provided from satisfied PowerSDR-UI users. These pictures shall inspire and help you to set up your DJ Console.
The FiFi SDR is a second generation allband HF receiver. Beside it’s QSD it comes with a onboard soundcard and a powerful ARM Cortex M-3 CPU which leaves a lot of room for experiments. I was glad to win Kai-Uwe, DF3DCB one of the FiFi-SDR founders for an interview. Curious? Then download the download the MP3 or subscribe in iTunes to my podcast!
At the end of last year I announced the “proof” that Software Defined Radios also can have buttons and knobs. At that stage the software was still a prototype and not ready for a public release. In the meantime I was working hard to eliminate bugs and implement further improvements. By today I’m happy to announce the release of PowerSDR-UI beta. This is a call for beta testing. Please feel free to download the software and participate in the beta testing phase!
The User Interface of computers suck when it comes to Radio Controlling. In January 2010 I got so annoyed by being forced to control the radio with keyboard and mouse that I finally decided to look for something else. Now, almost one year later I’m happy that I can present you an interesting alternative. The interface costs less than 100 USD, is commercially available and improves the overall SDR experience significantly.
How does it come that such a promising technology like SDR just does not take off? SDR promises great transceiver performance, flexibility for an affordable price. So what is the problem? Read on!
The SDR-Cube is a brand new Software Defined Radio which is able to process and (de)modulated RF signals without a PC, but with all the benefits of an SDR. The SDR-Cube was introduced to the public in September during the TAPR Digital Communications Conference (DCC). After going through the presentation I was immediately thrilled by this tiny little cube. From my perspective this device is so important that it desired greater explanation. I’m very happy that the founder George, N2APB volunteered to record an interview with me. The interview lasts about 75 minutes and is full of valuable information, mainly but not only about the SDR-cube. Don’t forget to have a look into the shownotes below!
Last weekend I was invited to speak at the Contest Universtity in Friedrichshafen, Germany. This year I tried to visualize a rather abstract topic, the influence of technologies on the art of contesting.
Mainly two topics are discussed: Information Management and Software Defined Radios.
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On my ongoing search for SDR appliances, I discovered a couple of weeks ago an SDR (Softrock & Linux) based Beacon Monitoring System. The system is making use of the NCDXF Internation Beacon Project (IBP) which consists of 18 timely synchronized automated transmitters, located around the world. It monitors the signals on the various bands and generates in real-time a graphical chart showing the signal’s strength. The chart is uploaded to a webserver and accessible for everyone through the Internet. Lately I had the possibility to interview the author of the system, Atsushi (JN1SDD). In this interview he revealed with great deepness how the system is build up. I hope you will enjoy this interview as much as I did!
If you are using Ubuntu Linux you might have problems to open the Dutch WebSDR page. The problems appears in both, Firefox and Chrome. Canonical does not ship the Sun’s Java Runtime Environment anymore with Ubuntu. Instead they included OpenJDK and IcedTea, a Java Web browser plugin. Unfortunately, IcedTea does not work with the WebSDR Java Applet. However, there exists a solution. Read how I fixed the problem.
Three years ago I added a Software Defined Radio (Softrock Clone) to the 455kHz intermediate frequency of my FT1000MP shortwave receiver. The idea was to use it as a spectrum scope in conjunction with CW Skimmer. Unfortunately the solution has one big disadvantage: I can’t use it with Win-Test my favorite Contest Software. In a detailed investigation I found out why CW Skimmer and Win-Test can not be used simultaneously with the same Radio. Now, about past 30 month later, the situation has improved. However there is still one little change necessary to finally be able to use CW Skimmer and Win-Test with (my) FT1000MP. Read in this article what has changed and what is still missing (my wish)!
This week I had the pleasure to interview Martin, IW3AUT. He’s the developer and founder of the Italian PMSDR Software Defined Radio receiver. In this interview you will get a look inside a successful SDR project. You will read about the design goals, the milestones of the project, the problems which Martin encountered an how he solved them. Enjoy the interview!
I decided to have a deeper look into Flexradio’s SDR Software PowerSDR. PowerSDR is published as open source under the GPL license and was written under Visual Studio 2003 against the old .NET 1.1 Framework. Unfortunately, the code was never migrated to a higher Version of Visual Studio. The last couple of days I had enough time to dive deep into the source code and finally make it compilable under Visual Studio 2008. In this post I’ll share the details with you.
[This article has been updated on 7/April/2010]