AmateurRadio.com

It has been some time since I have posted but it has been very busy out this way as we are moving. It has been packing, packing and more of the same!! The move is underway  so I'm looking at 2-3 weeks before VE3WDM is back up and running. We are still in a condo but the good news is we are 100 feet higher with a clear east/north east exposure.
See you soon once all the unpacking is done.

To get the rig up and going it's not like most dial and knob rigs were you plug it in, turn it on and start spinning the VFO. This as most SDR rigs there has to be a talking relationship with the rig and PC. Lets start with the PC because there is going to be software on your PC that the SDR rig will have to communicate with and to do it well your PC should meet certain spec's.

My new adventure arrives

  IARU contest was in full swing and I felt it was a great time to see if my I.P. address both static and dynamic as well as the good old Subnet mask was going to bring me joy! I started the PC and with the pushing of a few buttons I was up and going. I am the proud owner of a new Expert Electronics SunSDR2 Pro. So the cat is out of the bag as some had already guessed my new adventure is SDR radio. For real VFO spinning and button pushing I still have my Elecraft KX3.  Expert Electronics has currently 4 transceivers, the MB1, SunSDR2 Pro, SunSDR2 and SunSDR2 QRP. I chose the SunSDR2 Pro for a few reasons first being the MB1 was way out of my price range. I wanted a bit more than QRP power so the SunSDR2 QRP was out of the question. The U.S dealer is NSI communications and on their site the SunSDR2 Pro was on sale as well! I order the rig and it took about a week to make it up to me in Canada. Before it was shipped Yuri from NSI communications called me just to let me know if there was any issues with setup to call him. He also advised me to download and start reading the manuals.

The SDR radio is a learning experience for me and I’m sure it is going to be the way of the future and I’m a slow learner so I wanted to get on the wagon soon. I “tried” to set the radio up on my own to have it communicate with my PC and it just went from bad to worse. I had to get the rig to communicate with my PC via the Ethernet card. I have two Ethernet cards and was getting them intermixed until I was lost. I didn’t want to get frustrated as this is a huge learning curve BUT I did give in to emailing Yuri about my situation. He promptly called me and set up a time to use Team viewer and take over my PC to figure out the issue. Within 15 minutes he had my PC and SDR radio “talking” with each other.

SunSDR2 pro

The SunSDR2 Pro tops out at 20 watts and includes VHF and a lot more that you can read about from this LINK. As I was saying at the start of this post the IARU contest was on this weekend and I threw my SDR rig into the action. This contest gave me an opportunity to see how the receiver stacked up on a busy band. I was impressed and very much enjoyed using the second independent receiver/transmitter.
I was not an active participant in the contest I was there to see how the receiver preformed. Next I want to get my contest software and logging software on board with the SDR radio. Some draw backs I have found with this rig is.....at this point in time there is no QSK and there is no one button split operation. For split it involves a few button pushes. I have been told and read on the forum that these issues are known and solutions are being worked on.

Using the 2  receivers

At times it did not go as anticipated

The fun begins

All I can say is the adventure continues..........my first stop on this journey is going well beyond the left/right mouse clicking, seeing messages on the PC that say "are you sure you want to save these changes" and finally finding out the hard way that I should never had saved the changes!! The best way I can explain this part of the adventure is.......when I am building  Ikea furniture and at one point things are just not fitting together. You find the reason is because 10 or so steps prevues you either  forgot a part, placed it in backwards or put the wrong part on. To correct this you have to disassemble to 10 steps back and correct the issue. With the PC it's easy to see things are not working as they should or as they used to be BUT ITS THE GETTING BACK PART!!
At this point (don't get me wrong I'm still having a blast) I am learning about all about static IP address, Dynamic IP address, just plan old IP address and finally Subnet mask. Oh and believe me I never knew how fast things can go wrong if your not really sure about these settings and the numbers you place in set empty spaces.

The numbers game begins

The post office delivered my change of direction this week. I’m very excited as this is going to be a 180 degree turn for me. This may sound odd but this box contains something that at times will frustrate me, take me in a direction I have never been before, expand both my  knowledge and skill and I hope as I will be retiring next year keep me amused and occupied for years to come. Below is a picture  the weller soldering iron preping some cable with Anderson power pole connectors........hmmmmm how on earth does Anderson power pole connectors fit in with my 180 degree turn?????

I decided to put my Elecraft K3, Elecraft P3  , K-pod and LP-Pan up for sale!! It may sound odd but I was very close to the K3 and it served me very well. The support at Elecraft is amazing along with many rig software updates. The gear was sold one piece at a time. First it was the LP Pan that was sold and soon after the Elecraft P3 was sold and then the K-pod was gone. Just today the Elecraft K3 was shipped out. What is left is a vacant spot on the left side of the radio desk.........hmmmm is it still called a radio desk with no radio??? Why this drastic move you ask.....well the solar cycle is at a low, I do have some real challenges in the condo with a compromised antenna and when I looked over at the roll top desk that used to hold the K3 I just was not moved to go and turn it on. I came to the conclusion I needed a new challenge, something to give my learning curve a challenge. So what am I off to next.........stay tuned to find out!

It's true with Amateur radio there is a learning curve, depending on the background that you bring to the hobby the curve can be shallow or a very deep one. I don't shy away from the "curve" as it makes the hobby very interesting and a challenge. Because amateur radio is very deep no matter what there is always a learning curve for us all. This is a great  because with most things once the interest and challenge is gone one tends to move on to something else. Funny thing about ham radio is your interest and challenge in the hobby can hit a downward swing BUT within the same hobby there are new challenges and interests.....such as the low solar cycle some may loose interest in certain HF activity but then gain a huge interest in something like FT8!
Here is a personal learning curve for me regarding this hobby....many times I have looked at the shack and said "there are some items here that I seem to be not using and are collecting dust" My thought is to convert those items into ham bucks by selling. Having said that here is my learning curve, there have been way to many times  I have sold an item or two or three and then a short time later was in dyer need of said sold item. In some cases I have had to purchase once again the same item I sold. My learning curve or my take away is just hold onto it for a little bit longer as you may end up needing it again!