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sdr.hu is now REALLY closed for non-amateurs

Or so it seems, as I am now longer able to log into the account I have. It appears that someone (Retzler?) has an idea that only amateurs should be allowed to operate web receivers. Nothing wrong with amateurs, but the attitude behind the descision is flawed. It is prejudiced and discriminating. I am strongly tempted to remove my two Kiwis from sdr.hu, since the resource obviously doesn't want me there. And to be fair, right now I am deeply unmotivated to the whole idea of websdr, including my own.
HB9TMC

Comments

  • edited January 2020
    looks to me that there is a technical issue.... i now get error 404 when i click on login (and im a licensed amateur) ...
    Ok forget that, there seems to have been change on the website and I didnt refresh ...
  • My apologies for the first post on the subject. I had a mix-up of passwords and jumped to conclusions without taking time to evaluate the situation. Not proud of myself...
  • so all ok now, no need to be a HAM?
    Only need to authenticate (with all the hackers going around maybe not a bad idea to start with) ...
  • The FAQ says
    Can I access the receiver list if I do not have a callsign?
    No.


    I don't like this decision and won't sign up.
  • Has anybody contacted him and asked for a reason? Maybe he was getting abused by non-hams?
  • Read the FAQ (https://sdr.hu/register#faq) and note the emphasis on no commercial, government or military use of the list. Doing some rudimentary checking on ham callsigns is really his only option. Then look at his blog (https://blog.sdr.hu) and the discussion of his battles with the ethics of open source over the years.

    We at KiwiSDR are happy Andr?s allows us to use his work and that he continues to be a Kiwi profit-sharing partner since our startup in 2016.
    KA7U
  • I don't understand some of the outrage about this.

    Sure it's annoying and disappointing for some, but it's Andr?s's website and his decision, so I don't have a problem with it.

    There are other alternatives and some of these are actually better, but they just need more publicity, which was perhaps difficult whilst Andr?s's was seen to be the main 'official' focal point for OpenWebRX based SDR's.

    Change always brings about new opportunities :-)

    Regards,

    Martin - G8JNJ
  • One of those less well known but excellent alternatives is directKiwi created by llinkz.
    (https://github.com/llinkz/directKiwi)

    The program allows you to select any of the available Kiwi receivers on a map interface GUI and get the streaming audio signal, with a mouse click you can obtain the current SNR estimate as used to be available on Marco's IS0KYB website using his micro -kiwi-waterfall routine and it shows the not so frequently updated SNR measurements from rxfanel page.

    I have been using this for quite some time to find the better performing Kiwi's bypassing the obviously manipulated voting method that occurred at sdr.hu

    73, Ben

    PowernumptyG0LUJcathalferrisrz3dvp
  • Further to John's comment re. Andreas' FAQ: Are there indications that for instance SIGINT services are using the KiwiSDR network? If that is the case, I suppose there is no way that the owner can identify a non-hobby connection? I live in an area (NE of Norway, near the Russian border) where SIGINT activities have always been very high. So in a way I'm maybe not surprised.
  • An article in 'Jane’s Intelligence Review' last year certainly points in that direction. A snippet of that article can be found in the link below. Written by one of Jane's editors it might carry some weight.

    link: https://www.janes.com/images/assets/042/83042/Software-defined_radios_point_way_for_simpler_direction_finding.pdf
    Powernumpty
  • This is the originating authors personal website.

    https://planesandstuff.wordpress.com/
  • Those are silly reasons to exclude non-hams from the list. Also, everyone should be aware that there are search tools which can find KiwiSDRs on the open internet. Shodan comes to mind as a popular one, but there are other crawlers.

    In the past, I had my own lists of WebSDRs and Kiwis which were independent of any opt-in lists.


    Phil AB9IL
  • Phil... be aware that in some cases the website's host or local government can impact these decisions, not simply the page's author
  • Phil
    If you haven't managed to make a backup of sdr.hu, as probably most people, then use https://web.archive.org/ mark the date before closing the project and it's ready, I checked it works.
    There is also the https://www.receiverbook.de/ project which is actually a continuation of OpenWebRX and there you can add your receivers
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