RTL-SDR dongle's

Having fun with a dongle 

There are few things in this world that you can do on a budget. However the DVB Digital dongle is available on  amazon.co.uk  and on e-bay and most of them are capable of receiving from 24MHz to 1.4GHz . Now that PC 's and laptops have got good processing power,good sound cards and good graphics cards  it is now  possible to decode those invisible radio waves that are all around us , and to do that there are copious amounts of software out there to decode anything you can hear with a decent Arial, NOT I hasten to add  an antenna , with an Arial  you can receive on a wide band   like from say 28 to 30 MHz now that's a 2 meg band width  and is fine for listening, an antenna is tuned to transmit and receive on a very narrow band. Below is a screenshot of a program called HDSDR and it's quite an intuitive program easy  to use and easy to setup and gives you quite a nice display .

Tracking Aircraft

The fact that it can be used to  listen to  HF/VHF/UHF/SHF frequencies  is just icing on the cake.There are the ever popular RTL1090 that decodes the Mode -S from the aircraft, there is the very popular Plane Plotter, but you only have 21 days to use it  and this site here will help you to set it up.There is a program out there called adsbSCOPE and with it comes an alternative to RTL1090 ADSB# .I like that program  as its easy to set up and customize to your own liking  and below is a screen shot of mine. I don't recommend you take a laptop and dongle to the viewing gallery of any major airport as their security has a funny way of looking at it and could mean the confiscation of your equipment.

The location of my aerial and the receiver is in the town of Keighley and I am 8 floors up about 118 mtrs above sea level  the  I made the aerial with these plans here   and as you can see I was getting a lot of "hits".

Its not expensive and is quite interesting in an amateur radio kind of way ,and you don't need to be an amateur to understand how to set it up and operate it all. well I hope you like  this blog, please leave a comment .

(c) m1pac productions  2014 

The Aftermath

What Reamains is hope

Almost a month after the demolition of the venerable towers that stood at this location I decided to go and investigate the aftermath of the destruction. I had purchased a new camera and the germ of idea came to me.

"Go to where the two towers were demolished and take some pictures of what it's like there now !"

Now being Friday the 29th of November I drove up to the site  in my Ford Focus  as you can see in Fig 1 .It may be  possible  for more than one car to park there one advantage is  getting away from the car park at the bottom. 

This means you are out of the way of the walkers  and able to operate  relatively undisturbed, although  there is a path to the trig point that runs parallel.

I figure about a good solid year should see the site a bit more stable than it is at the moment . I  managed to turn the car around but I had to stay on the hard standing gravel that was left, Wander off the path  on a vehicle that isn't a 4x4 and You are STUCK, wander off the gravel  on foot and  as you can see in fig 13 My foot sunk about 6 inches into the mud.!

The View is stunning in the height of summer,and if you can get up there in winter .

The site is  1200ft above sea level  and  open to the elements so that means lots of wind , rain, snow etc. One of my Ideas was to gather the boulders and build some kind of shelter for the  poor radio hams that might use the site.

Somehow I can't see that happening; although, there are shelters on the tops of the Three peaks for the mountain goats, sheep  and SOTA operators, so you never know .If it happens  well I hope they dedicate it to me .

Standing on the big rock I did take panoramic photo's of the view but they turned out boring .I am still looking into how to stitch them together  to make it so you can look round with the cursor keys , if I manage I will post it  here .

Fig -1 The only tower  and its owned by the northern power grid

Its not Quite a quagmire YET .

Although in some places it is a little SOFT 

I wonder where that tiny TX horn is pointing ?

AHH over there .... just in case you cannot see them  ,  RAF Menwith Hill,
Known locally as "The Golf Balls "

Yes I played a little radio whilst I was up here,  I used my VX-7R tri -band handy and Talked to M6STZ on GB3WY 

Some of these could be moved into a better location.

Maybe they could be made into shelter ?.

They are to heavy for me to move though

NO  I didn't drop it .

I think that is what's left of the right hand towers base.

The way back down .

Fig 13  one foot of the path and "SQUELCH"

They really moved  the remains of the foundations about .

Big .

the lone tower and Fraija. That's the name of my car 

Funny that ,a piece of square concrete under the bracken, Hmm

That is a BIG boulder.

You can't really see just how BIG these things are .

Even though I was well wrapped up the biting wind was getting to my nether regions, "My finger tips" 

Now is THIS Whetstone gate ? 

Or THIS   ?

maybe THIS is it ?

Well folk's thank you for reading , I know my journalistic skills leave something to be desired, but bear with me . I like writing these blogs and getting out and about, most of them are Amateur radio related even.

All pictures copyright m1pac (c) m1pac productions 2013