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This is a thorny subject, and I could write a thesis on it. I have already made my position clear to John, but I'll raise a few points here to further the discussion.

Open-source / FOSS is generally a great concept, kids these days like having stuff for free. Music streaming is perhaps one of the best examples. However, the problem is how to make money from it, and many small artists are still arguing about that one.

The principle of collaborative free software is good, as long as everyone contributes, less so when one person does the work, and everyone else sits back and makes use of it. In the workplace, most people know who is actually doing the bulk of the work, and who is just doing the bare minimum, or "clock watching".

John is in a difficult position, where the Opensource software, supports hardware, which he sells to make an income.

When you buy a KiWi you also get for free, a superb level of support from its enthusiastic developer (John), and unfortunately competing products like this, building on his work, but sold at low cost, for short term gain, will impact the long term survival of his business, including the other services he provides, such as TDoA, which run on his servers, at no additional cost to users.

By contrast, most of the previous KiWi clones have fallen by the wayside, despite assurances from the companies producing them, that they would not stop supporting their products. They try to make a quick "buck", then loose interest as sales decline.

The current competitors have used the KiWi code, and introduced some innovations in their own product, but these really only benefit the competing hardware, they do not directly feedback into the KiWi code, product or features. Their software is flaky, and response to significant bugs is usually patchy at best.

I don't think John can compete on the hardware side. Designing, building and selling hardware will always be difficult when competing against certain regions of the world. Low production costs, scale of manufacturing, circumventing import taxes and duties when shipped to other countries, and lack of respect for IPR, all add into the mix.

However, the time and effort he has put into developing the KiWi, since it's original fork from OpenWebRX, needs to be rewarded in some way, and I don't think that in future that can be achieved through the manufacture and sales of the hardware. Some way needs to be found to protect his IPR, provide a source of income, and cover the costs of him providing aftersales support, software updates, and the running costs of the services he provides for free such as TDoA and proxies etc. A subscription for support services, could be one way of achieving this, but in the meantime, protecting the parts of his code that he can, without infringing the Opensource parts, should definitely be considered.

Personally I'd risk doing this, and wait to see what happens, if someone objects then just fix the bit that is problematic, but in many cases it would be "the pot calling the kettle black", so I don't think it would be a major issue.

I'm all for respecting the law, and various formal or informal Open source agreements, however this shouldn't allow an individual to be taken advantage of, especially if they are good-natured and willing to go above and beyond what is required to make a profit, for the benefit of the community as a whole.

That is not fair, and should not be accepted by anyone with a social conscience, or sense of justice.

I could say an awful lot more, but this summarises my position, and I hope it will lead to a more meaningful debate.

Regards,

Martin

There was an extensive thread regarding the 393WA

https://forum.kiwisdr.com/index.php?p=/discussion/comment/17852#Comment_17852

"I would like to invest in the W6LVP"

Also pretty average IMHO, I'd go for LZ1AQ, used Wellbrook or Cross Country Wireless.

Check out the Loopantennas IO group, ready built PCB's on offer at decent prices.

Regards,

Martin

When using an MLA-30, I don't think you can have too much gain :-)

Auto waterfall settings can have you chasing your tail. So I tend to set the KiWi waterfall & Spectrum display to manual, zoom fully out to see the whole spectrum, then set the maximum waterfall level to -20dB and the minimum to -110dB. This gives a good baseline for comparison with other KiWi's when the same settings are used on them too.

Don't worry about the noise increasing, you should see some, especially in an urban environment.

Just aim for a 6dB increase in the noise floor on the upper HF bands 20-30MHz, when the MLA-30 is powered up.

As I said before, turn the bias tee control to maximum gain, and then just use the amplifier gain control to achieve the best overall performance.

Regards,

Martin

The gain control on the bias tee is a passive one, so it's probably best to set that for minimum attenuation and maximum signal levels anyway.

Then adjust the gain control on the loop amplifier board.

There is no point adding more gain than necessary in the loop amplifier, only to counteract it by applying attenuation later in the signal chain.

Ideally, you should aim for approximately 6dB increase in the KiWi noise floor at frequencies around 20 to 30MHz, when the antenna is powered.

Any more than this, and you will not improve the Signal To Noise Ratio, but you will be eating away at the receiver's dynamic range, and making it more prone to overload on strong signals.

A 6dB increase in noise floor, when the antenna is connected, is the "sweet spot" to aim for.

Regards,

Martin