For a long time now I have been thinking about buying an SDR radio. I have plenty of low cost RTL dongles, they represent great value for money and are good for experimenting with the concept of SDR but when it comes to listening to steaming digital audio over several frequencies rapidly on lets say…
I must have been ditty ordering from Radio*****!
I ordered an AW07A antenna analyser from a well known radio supplier in China, the price was very cheap compared to others on the internet, just under $170 USD at the time which I thought was a real bargain. On impulse, I bought it and then when searching around the internet I found a few…
Crystal Scanner Heaven.
This is definitely the largest collection of scanners I have ever seen. Feast your eyes on this little lot, the collection of enthusiast Gerrit Van Den Ham from The Netherlands. When I seen this collection on the internet I contacted the owner Gerrit who lives in a town called Rhenen which is on…
SuperYagi Airband Antenna.
My latest purchase was a new antenna dedicated to the civilian airband 108-136 MHz. I had made J-Pole antennas before using ladder line, heavy copper wire and scrap copper pipe and even speaker wire but all were rough and ready types not very much in the way of care was taken in the construction. The…
Realistic PRO-2005 Repair. (Unit A).
Realistic Pro-2005 Scanner Repair. UNIT A. “Alpha” One of the great scanners of the 1990s, Manufactured by GRE communications Japan for Tandy/Radio Shack. The Pro-2005, like the almost identical Pro-2006 was known to be particularly good on AM airband, nice tone from the top mounted speaker. Much loved by its owners, The Pro-2005 and Pro-2006…
Tecsun PL-600 Modifications.
UPDATE 20/9/2020 This item is FOR SALE on Ebay UK Item Number : 254724509989 Here is a short video from Toaday Sunday 20th September with the radio tuned to Shanwick Oceanic Volmet Weather on 5.505 USB. The Tecsun PL-600 is a great HF radio for the price, some time ago I gave a…
Scanner Greats.. Yupiteru MVT-7000 brought back to life !
In the early 1990s ,The Yupiteru MVT-7000 multiband scanner had an almost cult following amongst Aircraft Enthusiasts and Marine Band Listeners, especially with hobbyists based in the Netherlands. From memory, I think some parts of Europe received the MVT-7000 many months before the UK versions with UK 240 volts AC mains charger plug started appearing…
Two SMA Dongles Compared.
Here we have a look inside the Flightaware Prostick (Top) and the RTL-SDR.COM v3 (Bottom). At first glance, these look very similar, both use the Rafael Micro R820T2 tuner IC and both use SMA antenna connections but each dongle has features that set them apart. Here is a closer look of the two. The…
R820T2 DVB-T usb dongle SDR comparison.
Some time ago I purchased a couple of R820T2 DVB-T usb dongles for using on 1090mhz with my home adsb monitoring station. When hooked up to a headless raspberry pi they chug away feeding the squitters with no major issues 24/7/365. They are cheap, easy to obtain and are good fun for trying out SDR…
Vintage data scanning : Lowe Airmaster 2000 ACARS Decoder.
Following on from my earlier post on the Realistic PRO-2006 scanner I wonder how many home spotters out there bought a Lowe Electronics Airmaster 2000 ACARS decoding package. Revolutionary in its day, it comprised of some software (freeware I think) on a floppy disk and an demodulator dongle distributed and sold by Lowe Electronics, Matlock….
HF Propagation Conditions