KiwiSDR for SWL - Short Wave Listening

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The KiwiSDR platform enables you to listen to radio from anywhere around the world. This is particularly useful if you want to hear your actual "on the air" transmission and fine tune your audio settings - both transmit power and TX audio equalizer if your radio supports it. My FlexRadio does.

This morning I was calling CQ on 30M and RBN showed my signal spotted in Samoa and New Zealand at 11dB and 14db respectively. Conditions per Log4OM2 were Kp:2 (Quiet) A:13, SFI 136 Sunspot 44. OK but not great given where we have been in Solar Cycle 25.

Using the KiwiSDR Map, I found station ZL1ROT on line in New Zealand with an 80M HF antenna and a S/N Score of 31.  All channels were busy so I had to wait in queue for a few minutes before getting access to the receiver.

You can see my CW signal on 10.119 in the KiwiSDR screenshot below.   The settings are all default except the mode set to CW and the zoom set to zoom to band.  Connected to KiwiSDR: Software-defined receiver at ZL1ROTRotorua, New Zealand | Grid RF81cx, ASL 285m,  SNR 34:32 dB. 

I recorded the signal and exported the stations RX audio by clicking on the red semi-circle next to the green speaker icon.  Pretty cool to be able to hear myself calling CQ from 12,472 km away.

This is why ham radio is so amazing.  CW makes it even better!

CQ CQ de WX7V WX7V WX7V K



73  Chris de WX7V

RBN:


KiwiSDR / SDR Map:


Technical Details for the KiwiSDR : Wide-band SDR + GPS cape for the BeagleBone Blackplatform are here.

PS :  I will also be using KiwiSDR to test the transmit audio and CW on a new FX-4CR SDR HF Transceiver radio in development from BG2FX.  

During the first test I made 10 QSOs I made on SSB several ops told me there was distortion in my audio and I need to get that fixed.    

KiwiSDR will enable me to test various settings for Mic gain, TX power and Mic position.  Distortion is normally caused by  holding the Mic to close to the mouth.


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