Interesting lunchtime net today, and I thought I'd provide a quick update on the club's KiwiSDR usage.
All four primary slots were filled today at 13:30, and all tuned to the lunchtime net - myself, Barry, Bob and Russell. There were also three additional 'campers', so seven people listening at the same time - a record for our SDR as far as I'm aware. 'Campers' are users who have no control over the receiver settings per se, but can piggyback onto one of the four primary audio output channels. I'm not 100% sure of how many campers are possible in total, but I believe it's three per primary user in this 'mode', which would give a maximum of sixteen users, but don't quote me on that - it may be less.
Beyond the basic maths of the chosen schema, there is a practical limit on the bandwidth of both the device itself and the maximum combined upload capacity of the Internet connection at the hall. I doubt very much whether we're approaching the latter, but the former is an unknown.
Just to recap briefly on previous articles, the Kiwi can be set up in one of three modes. One is an experimental high-quality audio only mode, which is great, but limits the number of users to just three. Not much use to us. The second mode is what it's set to right now - four users with regular audio quality and all with the graphical waterfall display.
The third mode is eight concurrent users. Whilst this mode allows eight primary users, only two of them (first come, first served) get the nice waterfall display. As we're regularly seeing more than four users wanting to access the SDR at a time, I'm going to switch it to this mode and see how it works out. It's just a trial, but if it works well and usage levels continue as they are it's probably the best option, above limitations notwithstanding. This mode will be switched on this morning (Saturday 1st October). I'm not sure how many campers this mode will support but I guess we'll find out as the club's SDR becomes ever more popular.
Other than that, I hope everyone's enjoying the new facility.
Band conditions were relatively good on Friday, with Bob (5&3 QSB) David (5&5 QSB) and Barry (4&3 QSB) all breaking through the KiwiSDR/Wellbrook noise level from time to time. I'm very happy with how it's performing generally speaking.
On other topics, I can hook Bob up occasionally for remote access to my Yaesu, but more often than not, I'm either testing developmental data modes and software on another band, testing other hardware SDR's on one of my loops, or using LoRa devices on ISM bands - none of which are compatible with 100W of HF out of the FTDX10. Remote operation of my HF station also requires exclusive use of the radio's single USB connection, which means I can't simultaneously run raw data or even standard digimodes etc. Hope that clears that up. That's why I'm often also listening on the SDR.
If any other full-licence-holding member wishes to book a slot with me to experience how it works, give me a shout. You'll need a Windows 10 or 11 PC with enough horsepower and enough disk space to install the SCU-LAN10 software.
As a final aside, there are another two contributions to the SDR transceiver fund incoming, so if you haven't donated yet, please consider helping to speed us on our way to the target.
I'm glad David likes the website too, by the way. Thank you for your kind comments.
Berni M0XYF
