This is where I'm going to post my radio projects. Looking to make a SDR with an arduino and a programmable oscilator. Honestly I don't know exactly what I'm talking about but I am going to figure it out.


2013 - 04 - 27
Got my realteck 2830u today. Nice to have radio to fall to when I couldn't get a broken bolt out of my crankshaft. The included antenna was crap - the wire going to the antenna was working as more of an antenna than the antenna itself. After just contacting the built in connector with the pl259 from my outside antenna and getting better reception i soldered a pigtail with a so239 connector to the board around the existing jack.
I was able to pick up local repeaters and radio stations much better after doing this. Still trying to find optimal settings in sdrsharp to pick up data.

2013 - 04 - 22
So I did some more reading today about receiving the packets and it looks like I should have all the hardware (minus maybe an audio interface cable). Looking for the best way to aim the antenna during the pass. Considering mount options and dreaming of building a pc controlled servo based auto aimer. Would go great with one of those rt sdr radio recievers I've been reading about. Could auto adjust for doppler shift and position automatically for all passes. Till then I will be winging it, whenever i get some evening passes that is.

2013 - 04 - 21
Was able to hit the Mount Equinox repeater this evening. Nice to get a reply. Seems if I get a strong recieve signal from a repeater I'm able to hit it despite only 5w on the HT through the yagi hung over the dec in vertical position and 50' of rg58. Also signed into a traffic net on 147.270. I'm also trying to figure out what my next step in amateur radio is. I'm leaning towards a transciever for the HF bands but I just laid out money to get started up with a 2/70cm handheld and some antennas for that. Going to poke around with some of the echolink stuff. Also the antares sucessfully launched today. Video here:

I will hopefully be trying to recieve the data the microsat payloads will be transmitting. Check out phonesat.org for details.

2013 - 04 - 19
So I made my first legally sanctioned transmissions in the vhf spectrum. Hit a repeater in troy on the way home (i was within a mile or so of it though broadcasting from the handheld antenna in my car) and signed into a traffic net at home using my tape measure /pvc antenna. I have no idea how efficient it is though I'm getting decent signals from directions I wasn't expecting and am talking to people at a distance I was skeptical about (this is without properly tuning the antenna). Was also able to chat with some nice folks via a lake george repeater. Learning way more than I ever thought I would about radio waves and electronics engineering in general. Starting to plot a SDR build - something I know very little in practice but am starting to accumulate components anyway.
Link to antenna build: Tape measure yagi