MHV WebSDR receiver

Projects
1

@jambulance and I, hopefully also @batau will be setting up a WebSDR receiver which will eventually be listed at http://websdr.org/

I hope to obtain or build a discone antenna that’s good for roughly ~50MHz-1.2-ish GHz over the next couple of Tuesdays.

It’s likely we’ll need to build filters to our bands of interest; the space is located near a lot strong signals Eg. mobile phone cells, WiFi, etc. which won’t help our already mediocre SNR in the cheap USB RTL-SDR dongles we’ll be using.

But in the first instance, I just want to throw up a discone antenna for VHF/UHF, possibly 50MHz, and see what it looks like on WebSDR.

I’ve posted to the CRARC list to see if anyone has an antenna they’d like to donate or allow me to buy cheaply; do let me know if you know of someone who might have something we can use.

2 Likes
2

What sort of coax will you be needing for this.

Would 75ohm rg6 quad shield be suitable, or is 50ohm stuff required?

I still have most of a spool of 75ohm rg6 that i have used around the house and would be happy to donate some of it to the project if needed.

Also have a small spool of (new) LMR400 (50ohm) at my Dad’s place in Tasmania which i assume could be of use, only problem is it would cost a bit to post it back here.

Also this is the SDR project also on hackaday that also seems interesting…


3

UPDATE: Bob has donated a DIY discone antenna :smiley: It’s on the metal table, if you get to the space before I do on Tuesday we should take it inside.

I think you should bring the RG6 along, we need some for testing, I’m just reluctant to use it for long-term cabling once we get something mounted.

SatNOGS sounds awesome! I’m pretty excited about building something like that once we get some WebSDR going.

4

I saw the antenna there, if i was thinking i would have taken it inside!
yep can defiantly bring the spool and/or some offcuts along.