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For $20 you can an RTL-SDR stick, though you'll need an upconverter to get to the shortwave bands (~$50). It's still cheaper than most other SDR kits.
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Apr 2, 2014 17:37
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It's ok, HD-SDR is nicer anyway.
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May 2, 2014 16:32
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Zamujasa posted:
Take the AA9PW online practice exam on repeat until you have most of the question pool memorized.
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May 2, 2014 20:00
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General Tofu posted:Oh, if it helps, here's a rough diagram, not to scale, of the setup. Try to mentally picture that I also tested the tablet with this setup, and the diamondy antenna with me on a park bench, far away from the PC (and a good 500 feet from any other electronics, unless you count a streetlight) with similar results. Put the ferrite choke around both conductors, find a better ground and check your gains as stated earlier- overdriving the input can spill strong FM carriers into other bands. I found a lot of phantom carriers coming from networking hardware, so if you have anything nearby that uses ethernet cables try unplugging them. Switching power supplies are noisy as gently caress, I tend to use my laptop on battery power for lower noise listening. Your antenna is more than halfway towards being a magnetic loop, so you may consider building a proper mag loop to pick up weaker signals and aim the null of the antenna towards noise sources for a better SNR. Cutting your antenna to a length that is resonant around your main frequency of interest will help cut noise too. Really the problem with these cheap dongles is dynamic range, so anything you can do on the front end to clean up the signal is golden. A strong signal in another band can overload the receiver when you're looking elsewhere. A low-noise amplifier or pre-selector would be great. The supplied antenna is actually pretty decent for what it is for the native sensitivity of the dongle, the real fun comes with an HF converter which should run you about $50, I use the one made by nooelec. Random wire antennas tend to work better on HF than the VHF/UHF stuff you're looking at now, though in general wire length matters more for transmission than reception. You might also get cleaner signals with better quality connections- soldered and shielded connections over twisting wires together with e-tape. All of these suggestions/purchases are easily leveraged into the radio hobby if you choose to get your ham license too (do it).
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Nov 27, 2014 07:46
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AstroZamboni posted:Art Bell's new show starts tonight! 5085 khz, midnight eastern! Trying real hard to stay with it, but there is some 20db worth of white noise sweeping up and down the frequency here.
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Jul 21, 2015 05:33
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I ended up streaming it off the web while watching the interference dance around on the air with my SDR dongle. It was cool to hear something on shortwave that isn't a fundie preaching session or a right-wing rally speech, finally a program with interesting topics and guests.. A+ would listen again.
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Jul 22, 2015 05:25
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Something Awful was called out on Art Bell tonight for Slenderman.
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Sep 17, 2015 07:26
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Art Bell is hanging it up for good... Again.
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Dec 12, 2015 06:03
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BigHustle posted:Ten bucks says he comes back again after he gets bored of getting no attention from people. nah, I'm pretty sure he burned some bridges with this one. I suspect it is decision made from a cumulative effect of: - doing the show has had a negative impact on his family life - the overall quality of the guest list has been in decline for the last few weeks - frustration with callers not answering when put on air or following basic protocols - being old - being paranoid - opportunistic leveraging of a minor crisis or the deliberate elaboration of it in order to establish a narrative that absolves him of the guilt for quitting, as is his historic pattern. I don't doubt there have been gunshots from some random nuts driving around in the desert, or a crazy fan wanting to peek in the window during the show, or someone who thinks it is funny to call in a threat to his home phone. I do have doubts that the incidents are the same person or even related, but there is simply not enough evidence in support of or against the situation either way, and his word alone is all anyone has to go by. Intuitively, though, the whole thing is suspect and no police reports have yet been found to support his claims.
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Dec 13, 2015 14:46
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