Saturday, March 09, 2024

SDRconnect Preview Look - The Server

As I mentioned in my first post about the SDRconnect Preview, I hadn't looked much at SDRconnect's server function. Today I have. Now, SDRplay are very good at making tutorial videos. How to set your RSP up as a server is described in detail here so I'll focus mainly on what I regard as strengths and weaknesses from a user's point of view. A few key points are worth mentioning.

  • The server can be configured for use in your internal LAN, or across the Internet (WAN). Say you have multiple PCs connected to a LAN in your radio room, then any PC can connect to the server as long as SDRconnect is installed. 
  • A LAN or WAN server will be set up either in IQ mode (corresponding to the IQ bandwidth of the RSP) or in Audio mode. IQ mode is obviously more useful in a LAN than in a WAN environment as it would require an extremely fast internet connection to sample say 10 MHz over the WAN.
  • Up to 8 simultaneous users are allowed, so you may ask: Can't I replace my KiwiSDR with this one? Take care though, because only the first connected user has full control of the RSP. Users 2-8 can tune around within user one's selected bandwidth, change modes, bandwidth etc but are at the mercy of user no. 1 not changing the frequency band.
  • Beware the dreaded CGNAT! No, I hadn't heard about it before either. Carrier-Grade NAT is a workaround for ISPs since the pool of IPv4 addresses is exhausted. When you set up your server, you have to look for the necessary public IP address. If you see something like the port numbers in section 2 in the image below, you are in trouble.


        There are workarounds, but they may be expensive. I won't delve more into this now, but the                   Internet  is at your disposal should you want to learn more.

  • After setting up the server and testing if connectivity is ok, it's time to get running. It is well described in the video I linked to above. My personal opinion is that it is unnecessarily tedious to start the server. Maybe it's a compromise because SDRconnect is multi-OS, I don't know. Anyway, after keying ".\sdrconnect --server", this window shows up on the PC hosting the server: 

  • There are loads of parameters one can use to set up the server, but you need to use the Terminal window for all this. It could be that you only need to set up this only once, in which case it may not be too much of a hassle. The last frequency range is remembered upon restarting the server, so you don't have to start on 100 MHz every time.
My own setup (which is temporary) is from a relatively cheap and modest speed fibre connection via a TP-Link router. The public IP address from my ISP is dynamic and will change over time, so I chose to use a dynamic dns provider. Everything on my setup is cabled.

Is the server stable? I haven't tested it long enough to tell. What I do know, is that if the router reboots, the server will disconnect. I have set the TP-Link to reboot every night, because I'm 170 km away from it, and consumer-grade routers are not 100 % fail-safe. It tends to "freeze" once every several weeks. A nightly reboot has proven to be a very good solution for 24/7 operation. It would indeed be nice if there was a workaround to provide server to restart and restore connectivity.

I have also had one instance of the terminal window not responding, resulting in a loss of connection and having to restart the terminal window. At this instance, both the local and remote PCs reported OK on the connectivity test, but returned an error message when actually trying to connect.

To end this post, here is a "panorama" of two displays showing two types of configurations at two different locations at the same time. To the left is the LAN (local, although it is labelled "remote") IQ client at the KONG HQ; to the right the WAN (labelled "internet") client at home, also running IQ mode.



Sunday, March 03, 2024

SDRconnect Preview Software - A Primary Look

SDRPlay's current proprietory software for their SDRs is SDRUno - a program consisting of many more or less independent windows that can be moved around, and possibly tied together - in any case it always looks like a mess on my PC desktop and the lettering is hopelessly small for a modern PC monitor, hence I never use it for my RSPdx. Nice then, to have HDSDR and SDR Console to do the job. Others may feel differently about this - I'm not the judge.

The past few months though, another software has begun to emerge from SDRPlay: SDRconnect is their multi-platform (Windows, Mac, Linux) 64-bit software with built-in server capacity. So, while at the KONG HQ this early March weekend, I took some time to play with it.

First off, the full display (click on image for a larger version)


The layout consists of three sections: Primary SP, Aux SP and Recording, in addition to a Control panel that can be toggled on and off. The sections can be resized relative to each other. SDRUno users will recognize the "Bands" control which has been supplemented with a keypad. An IQ or audio recorder is now easily available to the lower right - at the moment the functions are very rudimentary but at least it's there and not hidden in "Scheduler". And as you can see, it works.

By the way, at the time of testing the software I was on 6185 kHz for a reason: Young Finnish radio enthusiast Joakim Wickström was granted permission to set up a temporary SW station from Raasepori on Finland's southwest coast, 1230 km away from me. His 15-watt transmitter was heard with a weak, but stable signal and was also heard in Austria. RealMix Radio is the ID to look out for.

A brief test on the MW band was next:


There is a "Toggle Assymetric Filter" function  (top red circle) which allows full flexibility on both sides of the bandwidth settings, in both AM, SAM, USB and LSB mode (those I tested). With it enabled, I was able to keep a wide bandwidth for a readable signal from CJWI Montréal 1410 while keeping the stronger signal on 1413 out. I was actually quite pleased with the result. You can't move the passband itself (yet?) though, like you can with the Perseus software. There is also a Notch Filter function which I haven't tested.




Another MW view here, WWKB Buffalo NY 1520 with signals on 1510 and 1530 as well, this time with "Toggle Preview Filter" on (red "circle") and Control Panel toggled off. At this time of the morning, almost all European stations are gone.

Both visually and operationally SDRconnect is a huge improvement over SDRUno. What potential users should note is that only 64-bit systems are supported, and Windows users should note that there is no support for pre-Windows 10 systems. Hence, I suppose that SDRConnect is an alternative to and not a replacement for SDRUno. At least for now.

Server functionality has not been tested yet.

But remember: It's a preview for dog's sake! Now is the time for SDRPlay users to report inconsistencies and omissions.

More info from the manufacturer here.

Thursday, February 15, 2024

Radio, Radio!

Not much to report from a storm-ridden area. Storm-ridden in two meanings - solar storms and wind storms! Since earth weather doesn't encourage any outdoor activities like jogging, I decided to sit down with my Spotify and see if I could set up a playlist with radio related music.

There was a lot to choose from! I compiled 50 tracks spanning different genres as far apart as Donna Summer and Frank Zappa, including two versions of Bob Seger's "Rosalie", celebrating CKLW broadcast legend Rosalie Trombley. Here is Radio Radio! if you're a Spotify user. Enjoy three and a half hours of (mostly!) great music!




Saturday, October 28, 2023

KONG47 - Day Nine

This is going to be a short one, friends.

As mentioned in yesterday's post, we arranged breakfast for ourselves and our friends from Finland at 09 local today. They then headed back to their basecamp in Aihikiniemi whiile we carried on with searching for interesting stations. Conditions weren't the best, but from the previous night's recordings we did find KCSP Kansas City MO 610, KTSM El Paso TX 690, KMHI Mountain Home ID 1240, KCSF Colorado Springs CO 1300, KENN Farmington NM 1390 and KMIC Houston TX 1590. More to follow. 

Another visit to the sauna today, to make sure we are clean and representative when we travel home on Sunday evening and Monday morning. While at the sauna I wanted to catch the full moon, and I think I succeeded quite well with this unedited shot from my mobile phone.

Photo taken from the Kongsfjord Guesthouse sauna

Afterwards, we ate dinner, a lamb's thigh baked in the oven for 7 hours, with root veggies paste. Nice one! For dessert, my own apple pie with cream. We had one (or actually two) bottles of L'Ancien Le Buissy Beaujolais with the meat, and the rest of the Castelnau de Suduiraut with the dessert.

Weather: Calm, -2 Celsius and dry. Another nice day! Tomorrow will the last full day for the KONG crew, and I will be leaving as early as around 18 local. Before that, we have to dismantle the beverage antenna and equipment at the Mount Loran site.

KONG47 - Day Eight

A bit late this time, but yesterday was busy.
Propogation continues to be variable, and the North America Yaslog from the previous night on Mount Loran illustrates this. Not the most exciting conditions, but there are always surprises once you dig around on the recordings. "Noted in passing" include KBOW Butte MT 580, KSJK Talent OR 1230, KCCR Pierre SD and KFBC Cheyenne WY 1240, KTRC Santa Fe NM 1260, KPRK Livingston MT 1340.

Mount Loran Yaslog from 20:00 to 13:00.

So, why were we busy? We had guests for dinner! And it wasn't just any dinner, but King Crab dinner! And it wasn't just any guests, but Mika Mäkeläinen and Jim Solatie! They arrieved at 17:00 local after a 4-hour drive from their Aihkiniemi DX-pediton site in Finland. Just to visit us! Or maybe it was the prospect of an epic dinner. And epic it became - maybe not for the world but certainly for us five. Below are the gang of five as we prepare for the starter, a home made (by OJ) Västerbotten Pie with salmon roe, red onion and sour cream. Delightful wines were brought in from Finland - with the pie we enjoyed the Alsace Grand Cru Riesling 2019.

(From the left) Mika, Bjarne, OJ, Ole, Jim

The main course was King Crab Carbonara, and after baking the crab looked like this:

How can you not love this...

For the main course our visitors had brought one Crémant D'Alsace Muré and the Domaine Laroche Chablis Premier Cru. Another great choice!

For dessert, another home-made-by-OJ course, Crème brûlée with which we enjoyed a Malmsey Madeira and the Castelnau de Suduiraut 2016.

But actually, the meal started a bit earlier, with the host (me) given the task (or forced to) do something he's not very good at... watch this:



That bottle was a Taittinger Champagne. Another excellent find from our friends. The rest of the evening was spent discussing DX-ing, geopolitics, listening to recordings and telling awkward Norwegian jokes about the Finns.

And we're not done yet! We'll meet again in a short while for a prober breakfast with sourdough bread (OJ-style), eggs & bacon, tea & coffee, cheeses and jam.

Thursday, October 26, 2023

KONG47 - Day Seven

A lot more variable propagation overnight - which means that the ionosphere is unstable. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? We shall find out! But first:

Digging Gold From Previous Days Dept: KFRE Lubbock TX 580 (probably never heard in Europe before) and KGNC Amarillo TX 710. Never heard in Norway before.

From today: Not too much so far; KXSP-NE 590, KHOW-CO 630, WHKM-MI 970, KORT-ID 1240, KTMM-CO 1340. So, today an unstable ionosphere wasn't the best choice. But who knows what will show up when we go through recordings more thoroughly!

After collecting the hard drive from Mount Loran, we took a detour to Berlevåg to supplement some food, anticipating Friday's arrival of the Special Guest Stars, or should we say Special Star Guests!

Today's dinner then! For starters, Salmon Tartare, with Kim Crawford white wine from New Zealand.. The main course is a KONG signature dish, tender loins from reindeer calves, with a paste from root veggies, red wine sauce with mushrooms and lingonberry jam. And a magificent 2020 Rosso de Montalcino. For dessert... well we decided to postpone dessert. A man can only eat so much. So, below are the reindeer tenderloins before and after:

Reindeer loins before...

And after (90 seconds on each side):

Reindeer loins after

Some are/may be interested in our selection of beer. This one may be of interest for DX-ers, since Yakima is home of 1460 KUTI, a station often heard here but now apparently silent. Amundsen Brewery on the other hand is very Norwegian.


And that's all we have for now, except another pre-sunrise photo from this area. By the way, weather was calm, cloudy but dry, and temperatures a tiny bit on the lower side of the zero mark. Possibly a little cooler tomorrow, but very light winds. Our guests will enjoy their drive.



Wednesday, October 25, 2023

KONG47 - Day Six

First off, a photo from a the living room, around 45 minutes after sunset. Those familiar with northern latitudes will know that the twilight periods are much longer than further south.

I had a very nice 6-km run just as the sun was setting - chilly at -4 and some wind but with proper clothing you can run in almost any temperature.

Excellent signal levels from North America overnight, and amazingly the highest levels were noted 4 hours after sunrise! Now, high signal levels and lots of stations aren't the same as logging new ones. Propagation was spread wide, from the north-east to Alaska, and with conditions like that the dominant stations tend to... well, dominate. A few nice ones noted though, such as KDRO Sedalia MO 1490, KFH Witchita KS 1240, KLIK Jefferson City MO 1240, KCKM Monahans TX 1330 and KPUR Amarillo TX 1440, KHTS Canyon Country CA 1220.

Good signals from the Pacific early in the day, but the NHK-1 local ID at 10:00 left us with nothing of interest. More so the NHK-2 sign-off at 14:40, notably 1125 Tottori, 1377 Yamaguchi, 1386 Okayama, 1475 Iida and 1539 Masuda (Matsue relay).

After a few days in the wild, nothing feels better than a proper sauna! Great service from Kongsfjord Guesthouse who offered us their excellent facilities off-season.

Proper sauna...

So, what did we have to eat today? Starters: An old aquaintence: Roasted sourdoug bread rubbed with garlic, generous amounts of hummus and fried artichokes on top. And some fresh parsley.

And then, a new one!  Fried cod loins with mashed root veggies (potatoes, sweet potatos, celeriac, turnip), carrot sticks fried in honey, and a red wine sauce! And of course a red wine, a Langhe Rosso 2020. Excellent stuff! It may be a keeper!

Weather: -4 to -5 Celsius, various wind but sunny. Looks like tomorrow will be same, same.

Early Wednesday morning (before sunrise, very similar to the first picture)


Tuesday, October 24, 2023

KONG47 - Day Five

 So, the quite good conditions continue, but rain and sleet showers last night brought some noise that limited reception quite a bit. But that's how it is in this area. Asia/Pacific first: Very good signals from Tonga-1017, Marshall Isl-1098 and Fiji-990. The NHK-1 local slot at 10:00 brought a number of stations like Enbetsu-792, Wakkanai-927, 963-Aomori & Hachinohe-999 (relay of  Aomori) in addition to those already heard.

The Mount Loran Files were collected at around 14 local, and brought another night with good signal levels - and a few new stations! One station defintely worthy of mention is 250-watt daytime, 110-watt nighttime KMCD Fairfield IA 1570 with a very potent signal well into the morning here. Some other nice ones were KFIR Sweet Home OR 720, KATH Frisco TX 910, KNDN Farmington NM 960, KCFO Tulsa OK 970 and KBUF Holcomb KS 1030. The list will be longer.

So, what did we have to eat today? Well, for starters we had Bruschetta on OJ's sourdough bread. The main course was baked cod loins with bacon, potatoes and green pea purée. For dessert, chocolate pudding with custard. Calles Riesling was the wine of choice for the main course, Amaretto for the dessert.

Weather was quite nice today after some rain and sleet showers overnight. Calm, partly cloudy and +1 Celsius. Outlook for tomorrow is a bit colder, but little or no wind - certainly quite unusual in these parts.

To end this blogpost, a few pictures. The first one was taken by OJ en route to Mount Loran. Last week there was a proper autumn storm in this area, combined with extra high tide. So, the ocean swells did some serious damage to the road, throwing boulders up to 200 kg on to the road, and crippled the road fences like they were aluminium foil as you can see on the picture. Luckily the storm didn't wash away the road altogether, so the "Berlewegians" can still get out of Berlevåg to see the world. And more importantly: We have access to Mount Loran!



Kaltes Auto

Northwest: Wind park

South: Neighbours


Monday, October 23, 2023

KONG47 - Day Four

Improvement! The previous night brought nice signal levels from the western part of North America (notably the MST and PST time zones). In addition we could collect a full night's worth of super low noise recordings from Mount Loran. Definitely worthy of mention are KION Salinas CA 1460, KLOC Turlock CA 1390, KMYC Marysville CA 1410.  From Mount Loran: KXXX Colby KS 790 ID just 3 minutes before power-down at sunset, KJLT North Platte NE 970 and KSCB Liberal KS 1270.

Signals from Asia and the Pacific came early, with good signals from Tonga-1017 and Marshall Isl-1098. The 10:00 UTC NHK-1 local ID slot wasn't too interesting, but we noted JOFP Fukushima 1323 and JOJP Tsuruoka 1368.

So, what's for dinner? Leftovers! Leftovers from the fabulous lambshank in Barolo dinner yesterday. But let's start with the starters! Goose liver paste on sourdough bread. Btw, this is OJ's version of a proper sourdough bread!



The rest of the lambshanks were combined with various vegetables into a stew of epic proportions. We mixed chopped carrots, sweet potatoes, celeriac, turnip, leek and red chili into a hot stew. The bones were left outdoor for Michael Fox (actually that's the children's term for the fox, "Mikkel Rev", which incidentally translates into that famous actor). For dessert, another batch of cheeses, together with some great Port wine.

I forgot to take pictures today (again!!), so here is today's 6-km run this afternoon. I spotted a reindeer on the track, it shouldn't be here.


Weather: 2-3 Celsius, medium breeze from the north, dry. Looks like it's going to stay above zero tomorrow as well.

KONG47 - Day Three

Now, what is it with DX-peditions and propagation? Another disappointing night and day towards North America. Asia/Pacific came early, at around 08:00 with Tonga-1017 and a few from Japan, but then signal levels dropped. At the NHK-2 sign-off at 16:00 we noted a few of the less powered stations like JOSB Kitakyushu 1602, JOID Oita 1467 and JOAC Nagasaki 1377, all 1 kW. Signal levels from the Chinese megastations were weaker than usual, which is always a good thing.

We noted the previous day that the Mount Loran setup had suffered high noise levels due to a damaged feedline. Bite marks suggest someone from the Animal Kingdom was hoping for a snack. After a fix by OJ and Ole the usual low noise levels were restored, and we're already looking forward to the overnight IQ recordings!

Personally I run a bit, and after two days in physical inactivity it was time to do an 8-km run in studded running shoes (from Sarva) around Kongsfjord in these conditions:


Dinner: We started off with Salmon Tartare, and then this...

Prior to the 5-hour cooking. Two bottles of Barolo, six lambshanks

4 hours - nearly there

Lambshanks in Barolo is certainly a winner, and today's dinner will be based on leftovers. For dessert we had home made Chocolate Mousse. Naturally we chose Barolo red wine for the starter and main course, while an Amaretto was a perfect companion to the Mousse.

Weather: Breezy, heavy showers of rain and sleet early in the day but it cleared up. Temperatures just above zero, but cold enough to form a thin layer of ice on the road - hence the studded running shoes.