It was an easy operation to pick up RF3 (separate RX input on the HL2) from the header connecting the N2ADR filter board to the HL2 via mini-coax to a separate SMA on the back panel of the HL2. I didn't pay more than 50 GBP for any one of them (actually picked up two on eBay for £40 GBP for both, so 20 GBP each) so they are available and they can all be configured to take split RX/TX in/outs as standard which nicely suits the HL2 RF1 and RF3 external connections.
#Hackrf one deaf full#
By careful browsing of used markets, I've slowly managed to acquire a full set of cheap transverters, Microwave Modules for 6m, a different one for 4m (G3WPO design), MM again for 2m and also MM for 70cm. I could leave it running piaware but the area has so many people doing ads-b reporting that it's really a waste of electricity to do so.įor myself, not sure what the situation is in the USA, but here in the UK it's fairly easy to come by good quality but perhaps slightly older transverters as many were produced in the 80s and 90s, principally by manufacturer Microwave Modules. It seems to do a competent job at VHF aviation monitoring it would also need a preamp with bandpass filter for the aviation band. I've also tried it to do other aircraft monitoring but it could not even receive the local airport's ATIS signal consistently. I was running piaware (aircraft ads-b monitoring image for rpi) and it wasn't doing that well until I bought the outboard preamp with bandpass filter. IMO without a preamp it is not a very good VHF/UHF receiver. It was fun to play with for a while but it now sits on a shelf and only occasionally gets plugged in. As per the radioberry thread I'm looking for an app to gather the data from the HL2 to do that. My goal is to replace the HF+ with a second HL2 with multi-band automated monitoring. I bought the MFJ SDR TXRX switch and it is on the RX port running wjtx most of the time whereas the HL2 is on the TXRX port. I installed the VNC server and I have gqrx feeding data into wsjtx for ft4/ft8 stuff that I can monitor over my wifi via vnc, and if you set up a RealVNC account you can access it from anywhere on the Internet. It was a clean out of the box experience although I do have some prior linux and rpi experience so maybe I'm not the best judge of ease of use. I have built the gnuradio stack for it from source and that went fine, but most of the time I am using it with a raspberry pi 3b with the 'pisdr' image. I am quite happy with the Airspy HF+ for HF monitoring. The combined noise is not ideal but should be interesting to Splitter to combine the multiple RX outputs into one single 28Mhz IF to the HL2, tuning multiple Virtual receivers to each digital mode frequency, now spread around a bit so show on 1 spectrum.
I can retune the LO in each transverter slightly to land the Xvtr IF frequency slightly above or below normal then use a The advantage of using the HL2 is I can RX also so can upload spots on FT8 and WSPR for the 1 selected RX band.Īn enhancement to this I am contemplating- I control my transverters with an external GPDSO disciplined LO source.
We have no beacons around here on VHF in the Seattle area. Is active, only 6 or 8 times an hour, I get elevated noise floor on the K3 side, but it has not affected normal daily operation so I am planning now to add control to the HL2 to switch transverters, or possibly transmit on 2 in parallel, 2M and 1296 likely. I am able to chat on 144.200 and do FT8 on the big rig. The antennas are both beams pointed the same direction but 30ft apart.
It compares well with my Q5 5-band transverters and K3 running WSJT-X on the same bands. I am using SparkSDR with to be a 2M WSPR beacon (144.489MHz), and also monitorįT-8 (!44.174Mhz). First I started with a 50MHz to monitor for openings, but now I have a 2M Xvtr connected. I am currently running my HL2 with transverters, one at tie for now.