G8JNJ
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- G8JNJ
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Wonder what this is at 5300Khz? - its always there.
For transmit purposes, it's all about antenna efficiency, and radiating as much of the applied RF power in the direction you want it to go.
For reception purposes, it's all about the Signal to Noise Ratio, and a good transmit antenna may not always be a good receive antenna.
The natural noise floor on the LF bands is relatively high, especially in urban areas, and even quite small antennas can still be performance limited by the surrounding noise floor.
Rather than concentrating on large antennas, you may get better results with a smaller antenna in an electrically quieter location. Some experimentation is required, to get the best results.
Balanced antennas are generally better than unbalanced ones, and end fed wires have a reputation as being noise magnets.
If you do wish to install one, this diagram may provide some suggestions about minimising unwanted noise.
Regards,
Martin
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Please protect your KiwiSDR 2 from the high-level RF fields of nearby transmitters
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Does this PSU seem adequate for two KiwiSDR's?
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Mouse wheel to tune the frequency? [added in v1.694]
I should have clarified the way it works a bit better.
Pushing the mouse wheel down whilst rotating it enables the opposite mode to the default that has been chosen. in OpenWebRX.
Having the possibility to tune using the mouse opens up other possibilities such as making your own VFO knob, using the optical encoder recovered from a scrap mouse, or buying one of the more expensive ready-made commercial items.
If it could be implemented in a way similar to that of OpenWebRX , then it would still retain the mouse wheel zoom option for those who prefer it, but offer an alternative for folks who would like to use mouse wheel tuning.
Try it and see for yourself.
If you open up the settings pane in the control panel, you should see the "Hold mouse wheel down to tune" tick box. Also set the tuning step size in the controls section, 500Hz or 1kHz is useful for SSB, as most folks use 'rounded up' frequencies.
I'm not specifically requesting this feature, as I don't wish to add to John's already massive workload of much more important issues, but I can understand the appeal of it.
Regards,
Martin
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Adding Kiwi to my website
Hi All,
Details of my 'Loop on the ground' (or technically just above it) can be found on this webpage.
https://www.g8jnj.net/loop-on-the-ground
Treat the page as a preview as it's more of a working notebook and not really fit for publication yet.
It may also contain some errors and content that will eventually be removed if I decide it's not really worthy of inclusion.
I hope it may encourage other KiWi owners to experiment, as I've found it to be about 10dB more sensitive than typical 1m diameter loops. Although it's still about 5dB below the sensitivity required to hear galactic noise throughout the 20-30MHz frequency range.
The S/N stats on http://rx.linkfanel.net/ (although not very accurate) currently show my KiWi and LOG to have a value of just under 32dB, which is probably amongst the best of all KiWi's worldwide.
For comparison purposes most Kiwi's using 1m loops shown on the site typically manage around 20dB and most E-Probes achieve about 15dB.
You can take a listen to my KiWi using a 10ft per side loop and pre-amplifier on this url http://southwest.ddns.net:8073
Regards,
Martin - G8JNJ