Re: [IRCA] Testing New SDR software

[Barry McLarnon <bdm@xxxxxxxxxx>]

I haven't jumped on the SDR bandwagon yet, and most of my reasons are the 
same as mentioned by Russ.  Unless you are exceptionally affluent, it's hard 
to justify spending that kind of money on a hobby activity.  Aside from that, 
there is the apprehension that having an SDR could become a huge time waster.  

Like Russ, I make extensive use of timed recording.  Virtually every day, I 
record the periods around TOH from just before sunset until at least an hour 
after sunrise.  When reviewing the recordings, I listen from a minute before 
each TOH until just after TOH, and if it sounds promising, I do further 
listening, especially in the period where stations typically come out of a 
news break.  Just to do a reasonably thorough job of reviewing one day's 
worth of recordings takes a considerable amount of time, and that's for a 
single tuned frequency.  If I had an SDR recording that covers 100+ channels, 
I can imagine the temptation to check one more, and another after that, and 
maybe just one more... before you know it, you've run out of hours in the 
day, and neglected other important things that you should be doing.  In 
short, too much of a good thing.  Sure, you just need to exercise some self-
discipline to avoid slipping into this trap, and we all know how easy that 
is. :-)  I think SDR's are perfect for expeditions to special listening 
locations where you want to make the most of the limited time available, but 
for routine monitoring, having that full band recording capability is a bit 
scary!

Lastly, with 2300+ stations logged from this location, I've heard all the 
easy ones, and many of the not-so-easy ones.  These days, I'm usually going 
after a specific target, which involves careful phasing to null out a pest on 
a given channel.  This applies to timed recording as well as live listening.  
Since this setup applies to a specific channel, having the capability to 
record many channels at once wouldn't really be much of an asset.

Having said all that, I can still think of a few instances where having an 
SDR would be nice.  The main one would be when there is some very unusual 
propagation happening, which can bring in some new stations without the use 
of phasing.  This is especially true of auroral events, which have been 
exceedingly rare in recent years, but likely will become somewhat more 
frequent as we head towards the next sunspot peak.  The next time one 
happens, I'll probably be kicking myself for not having an SDR to make the 
most of the event.  The SDR would also be useful for GY hunting, to grab all 
6 GY channels at once... but again, there's that time element involved in 
checking the recordings.

Anyway, that's how I see it.  In the long run, though, I'm sure that 
resistance is futile!

Barry

-- 
Barry McLarnon VE3JF  Ottawa, ON
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