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Sometimes you feel like a nut. Sometimes you don’t. Luckily, Richard’s miraculous recovery from the Creeping Death outweighed Russ’s totally miserable Ides of January, resulting in a listenable episode with a bunch of content–mostly thanks to elcaset, a listener of the show, via IRC. There’s also a bit about svxlink using a Raspberry Pi (yes, it is possible and completely functional) and lots of information about upcoming events. We’d like to thank everyone you who submitted feedback, including The Radio Gangsta, who we also hope will get some much-needed psychological attention soon.

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73 de The LHS Guys

Sony ICF-2010

I’ve owned many of the classic shortwave receivers throughout the roughly 40 years that I have been a SWL.  Most of these I passed on to friends and relatives, while others were sold at hamfests, and on eBay.  I know that my beloved Panasonic RF-2200, is still used by my sister-in-law Alice.  My late brother Paul kept it prominently displayed on the counter for years.  My Sony ICF-6500 lives in Wisconsin, in the hands of a good friend that wanted to get in to shortwave listening.  Others, I’m not so sure as to the whereabouts, but hopefully they are still in use (with exception given to my National HRO-60 which I know was lost in a flood).

Of all of these, the one I frequently regret selling was my Sony ICF-2010.  The 2010 is still considered to be one of the best portable shortwave receivers around, and rivals many tabletops.  I sold mine on eBay during what we’ll call a dark time  in my life a number of years back.  I purchased the 2010 new at Gilfer Shortwave in NJ, in-person.  Now, as I see working examples sell for upwards of $350 on eBay, I have relegated the replacement of this radio to a status of someday, along with several other things that I want but do not need at the moment.  It would be a nice addition to my collection though, considering it is a great receiver.  It has a synchronous detector, separate USB/LSB modes, and 100Hz resolution, and portability.

Last week while watching new postings on eBay I saw one come up.  This example was listed as for parts or not working.  Upon reading the description, I noticed that the seller indicated the radio to be completely dead.  Now, in the world of radio repair, completely dead is usually better than many other states of being.  Especially in the case of the 2010, which is known to have battery compartment issues.  Anyway, I grabbed the radio immediately for a VERY reasonable price.  It arrived last night, and as I suspected, the problem was battery compartment related.  The 2010 runs on 3 D-cells, and 2 AA-cells.  The AA cells are listed as the computer batteries.  One thing about the 2010:  If you want to run it on AC power alone, you still HAVE TO have the AA-cells in place.  One of the plastic supports for the AA battery contacts had broken from the housing.  It is still held in place with a ribbon-

sized piece of plastic though, causing it to tilt at an angle back and forth like a loose tooth.  I temporarily fixed it with a piece of compressed foam and some plastic tubing.  The radio works great!  Better I think than my early example from years ago.  I have a couple of questions for the radio community though.First of all, what should I glue the AA-cell support back in place with?  I would try crazy-glue (or any generic cyanoacrylate), but I know that it will sometimes react with some commercial plastics, making the problem even worse.  I was thinking of using Gorilla Glue, but I would need to devise a clamping method.  I know some of you out there have dealt with such things before.  What do you use?

Second, the radio arrived with a loop antenna of some kind.  I have put pictures below.  It is approximately 21 inches long, made from PVC pipe with two endcaps.  On one end is an F connector and on the other end, an eye-hook.  I scrounged in my adapters and was able to hook it up.  It definitely improved reception on a few bands.  Has anyone seen one of these before?  Is it a commercial product, or homebrew?  What is the bandwidth?  And, if no one knows, what is the best method for determining its properties?  Feel free to answer in the comments.

My father was not a technical guy.  He knew numbers.  In the early days of our family business, my mother kept the books, and answered the phone at the house, while dad revolutionized the dental products business in the northeast.  My brother Paul ran the stockroom, and I would help, usually reluctantly in the beginning, with some of the basic tasks that a nine-year-old could handle.  My oldest brother Lee joined later, and became, and still is, one of the best Dental Equipment specialists in the business.  You see, dad took his skills as a supermarket manager, and combined it with the business model of SnapOn Tools, and created MoDent, and for more than 15 years, made the competition wonder how he pulled it off.  Dad passed away in California in 2009, and in his honor today, I would like to re-post something radio-related from my own blog I wrote about him.  Happy Father’s Day dad!

(Dad’s Sony was originally published here at my blog Fofio! in April of 2011)

My father grew up in the ‘Radio Era’ which made him more radio-aware than my children are now. He was by no means a hobbyist, but knew enough to tell good from bad. He knew that AM radios had to be turned for best reception, and a good swiveling whip antenna was necessary for FM reception. For him, the radio needed to be able to pick up his NPR stations, WCBS-AM, and get the Mets games when he was on the road.

I ran a sales territory for our family business. As Dad got older, he eventually came off the road, and ran the company from inside. Every now and then though, he would schedule to ride with one of his salespeople to keep an eye on things. He rode with me for few days once on my Northern New Jersey run. Thursdays on that run, I would sometimes stop at the offices of Gilfer Shortwave, and chat with the Jeanne Ferrell & Paul Lannuier. I had purchased several radios there over the years, and would buy the various shortwave books and guides from them as they were released.

That one Thursday that Dad came along, he got a kick out of Gilfer, and all of the radios. He and Paul talked for a bit, and he purchased a Sony ICF-SW20. Partly because he really liked the quality of the little radio, and partly because I think he liked the folks at Gilfer as much as I did.

Dad had this radio from then, till he passed away in December 2009. It was his main radio. I saw it on his nightstand, in the bathroom, and on trips back east to visit us. Even with all of the selling and swapping I’ve done lately with my radio collection, I will never get rid of this radio. To me it was an acknowledgment from dad that my interests in radio were appreciated, and is a memory of the man I miss. It currently lives on my desk at work, sometimes called to duty for news, and music. Thanks for the radio Dad! I’ll pass it down the line someday to Alec.

The Sony is still on my desk at work.  Another note here:  Dad always wanted me to get my ham license, and even bought me the equipment when I was a kid to encourage me.  I wish he was around to see how much I enjoy this hobby, and how it has helped me find some of the best people I have ever met.  73 dad!  

I received a Soft66LC4 SDR receiver for evaluation. The review of this radio will be in 3 parts, initial impressions, usage test, and full technical test. Here are my initial impressions.

The Soft66LC4 is the newest SDR receiver from Kazunori Miura JA7TDO. There have been several revisions of this inexpensive

Soft66LC4

SDR over the last couple of years. The evaluation unit came in about a week from Japan in a plain envelope with no documentation or software. You are expected to refer back to JA7DTO’s website for help. Although the setup is a bit complicated, it wasn’t too bad for me since I deal with a lot of control software that uses USB-to-serial connectivity. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that my Dell laptop’s internal sound card can process at 192khz, giving me a full 192khz of visible bandwidth.

The Soft66 is a bit larger than an Altoids tin. JA7TDO’s eBay store states that you have to finish the case yourself and drill holes, but it seems that he is doing this for you now. There is an SMA antenna connector, a mini USB port, and an indicator light on one end. On the other end is a 3.5mm audio jack, and a hole for access to an adjustment pot for RF gain. I found that my sample needed a slightly longer mini USB plug as the first one I tried did not stay in well.

Driver installation can be quite complicated but I intend to help him with this by writing up some easy-to-follow instructions. One issue that exists with this SDR for now, but will probably be resolved soon, is that there isn’t a way to control the SDR with WinRAD yet. You have to use the separate control application which makes the process a bit clunky. I believe that once more of these newer LC4 models are out there there will be support for WinRAD and other SDR Applications, as there were for the previous Soft66 radios.

Initial usage tests at my location were favorable, considering my lack of a decent antenna (about 10M of wire in a tree outside my window), and excessive RFI at my location.  I hope to get out to a more remote site to perform the detailed usage review in a more interference-free environment.  Coverage is from 500 khz to 70 Mhz.  For now, the control app does not warn you if you enter a frequency outside that range, but simply crashes.  Luckily, this does not lockup the controller, and you simply need to relaunch the application.  I was able to receive MW AM stations, CW, SSB, data, and AM on the amateur bands, and plenty of SW BC.  I did not try WinRAD’s DRM feature yet.

I’ll try to get this set up for remote access if possible, but for now, with no way to control it other than with the supplied application, I will hold off.  Special thanks to Kazunori Miura for supplying the test sample so quickly, and to my friend WA2CDL, who offered to perform the technical testing.

On JA7TDO’s eBay store these radios sell for $108 plus shipping, and are fully assembled. Well worth the money as long as the proper DLL files are made available for using it with WinRAD. A more extensive test will follow.

eBay store link:  http://stores.ebay.com/HAMShopJapan?_rdc=1

Soft66 page: http://zao.jp/radio/soft66lc/

–Neil W2NDG

George visits the Twit.tv studios and interviews Randy Hall, K7AGE. Tommy visits the Huntsville Hamfest. Jim builds an Audio Isolation Interface. Peter shows us the DATV QSO Party.

It's the holiday season, and our gift to our listeners is a brand new podcast. During my time at Ohio Linux Fest back in September, several of the participants who visited the Linux in the HAM Shack booth provided topic ideas for the program. I recently dug those topics up and Richard and I will be tackling them over the next few episodes. In Episode #026, the topic we decide to visit is shortwave listening, including hardware and Open Source software for that very purpose. SWL is a way for non-hams to approach the hobby without encountering mic fright, and a way for existing hams and non-hams alike to explore the world of radio frequency communication, whether it be foreign broadcasts, pirate radio, amateur radio or time beacons. With several manufacturers of equipment still in business, SWL is by no means a lost art, and may be an interesting extension to the amateur radio hobby for those who don't currently participate in it.

Several thank yous go out to those who donated to the Dayton Hamvention 2010 fund. With my upcoming matching contributions we'll be about halfway to our goal. Please keep those donations coming, even after we've met our goal, so we can continue to improve our equipment, our hosting and our program. As always, thank you for downloading Linux in the HAM Shack. Please send us your feedback and questions, and please tell everyone you know about us--through word of mouth, blogging, social networking, whatever it takes. Our listenership continues to grow, and we hope that trend continues for years to come.

73 de Russ, K5TUX