The K1RA/KW4VA KiwiSDR had been on the air 24×7 since 2017. In the summer of 2019 I took a close lightening hit and had been off the air until Nov. 2019. In June 2022 my home town was hit by 80 mph straight line winds taking down numerous trees on and around my property. These held several wires antenna systems (long wire, dipoles & loop) which were all destroyed. In August 2022 I managed to put up a temporary wire vertical for reception. After rebuilding my SDR system (2x KiwiSDRs, 2x RaspSDRs, 2x RedPitayas) on a new rack tray it’ll be sporadically back on the air going forward.
Over the years I’ve seen thousands of connections, but rarely do I receive any emails, or comments from SDR users regarding its usefulness, good or bad. I’m considering whether to make this service full time again as it takes money and time to keep the equipment and antennas in good shape, as well as dedicate bandwidth to host the connection. Your feedback would be appreciated!
Please consider responding to this survey by emailing a copy of the survey with answers to K1RA@K1RA.US
- How often in hours per week do you use the K1RA/KW4VA KiwiSDR?
- Is it better, worse or the same as other online KiwiSDRs in terms of HF reception, sensitivity and selectivity?
- Is the streaming quality good or bad, that is do you experience any drop outs?
- Do you have issues obtaining a connection to the SDR because of no available slots? If yes, how often?
- Do you need the 0-30 MHz HF waterfall display for your SDR reception usage?
- Have you been connected to the non-waterfall SDR streaming channels? If yes, does that diminish your online SDR experience?
- Do you use any of the KiwiSDR extensions? If yes, which ones (TDoA, FSK, CW decoder, Navtex, FAX, WSPR, S-meter, Beacon Scan)?
- What is your main reason for using online SDRs?
- Would you consider donating $1 a month to keeping this SDR system online?
- Please provide any other comments or suggestions.
Thanks for your comments and support! Any donations would be appreciated via PayPal.
73
andyz – K1RA
p.s. – I’m aware of AM broadcast band interference in the 2-5 MHz spectrum. My location is ~2 miles from a daytime 20 KW station on 1420 Khz (WKCW) and a 6 KW station on 1250 KHz (WRCW). These two stations create some severe overload which I’ve attempted to attenuate, but cannot completely get rid of. Therefore you will see various images of these around the bands.