Software Defined Radio SDR for 11 Meter

[Eldorado828]

Just wanted to add a point that may be controversial but if you are digging into SDR for the first time go Linux. Windows just sucks for damn near everything but gaming and the software (free software) that Linux offers for the HAM and SDR user are unmatched. I can't think of anything I could do via SDR under Windows that I couldn't do much better on Linux. If you want to learn something learn to run your SDR on Linux and skip the shit OS and old and buggy software and drivers.

Man I really appreciate your advise and I'm sure it's great advise. My PC is Windows, and that already gets me all flustered and screwed. I may start with what I've got and move ahead as it goes.

Or I'll end up

 

[MadNachos]

Try the "live" Linux options. You copy an image to a USB stick then boot from it. Everything is ready to go and it won't change anything in your Windows install. It is all just run in RAM.

 

[Pez]

Just wanted to add a point that may be controversial but if you are digging into SDR for the first time go Linux. Windows just sucks for damn near everything but gaming and the software (free software) that Linux offers for the HAM and SDR user are unmatched. I can't think of anything I could do via SDR under Windows that I couldn't do much better on Linux. If you want to learn something learn to run your SDR on Linux and skip the shit OS and old and buggy software and drivers.

I can't say I agree with that personally. I have run both, and I have settled on Windows for SDR use. I have had absolutely no issues at all, and I am running heaps of different SDR applications and decoding software. It has been faultless. I have been running this way for many years now.

Installing software on Linux can be a absolute PITA if you are not familiar with Linux. Windows makes that part easy.

But, YMMV, and it is very much personal preference. (If you are not very confident with Windows or Linux, then the "live" Linux options MadNachos suggested are a good choice - you can't really break anything with those!)


73

 

[MadNachos]

I can't say I agree with that personally. I have run both, and I have settled on Windows for SDR use. I have had absolutely no issues at all, and I am running heaps of different SDR applications and decoding software. It has been faultless. I have been running this way for many years now.
But, YMMV, and it is very much personal preference.
73

Fair enough but I just can't think of anything SDR related that can't be done better in Linux for free and you can build your own versions of software with your own modifications if you want/need to. I just think Windows should be used the least possible and especially if you need to run old versions to use particular drivers.

But if it works it works.

About 20 years ago I tapped the discriminator on a scanner (Pro-95? 97?) to decode pager transmissions in the SoCal area. I had a pretty nice antenna farm in Hunt Beach and I could grab everything from Ventura to San Diego. Fed it into a Win machine for decoding. That was interesting. And Win only at the time.

 

[Pez]

Fair enough but I just can't think of anything SDR related that can't be done better in Linux for free and you can build your own versions of software with your own modifications if you want/need to. I just think Windows should be used the least possible and especially if you need to run old versions to use particular drivers.

But if it works it works.

About 20 years ago I tapped the discriminator on a scanner (Pro-95? 97?) to decode pager transmissions in the SoCal area. I had a pretty nice antenna farm in Hunt Beach and I could grab everything from Ventura to San Diego. Fed it into a Win machine for decoding. That was interesting. And Win only at the time.

I would say that I'm a 'power user'. You would struggle to run all of the things in the list below on Linux, that all run perfectly well on my Windows PC's. (Unless you use emulation like WINE on Linux, but that would require a huge amount of configuration)... But again, I do see the value in Linux and I do use it for some things (on a few Raspberry Pi's, etc.) I just couldn't daily-drive Linux, because around half the things I need in radio, don't natively exist in Linux....

 

[MadNachos]

I would say that I'm a 'power user'. You would struggle to run all of the things in the list below on Linux, that all run perfectly well on my Windows PC's. (Unless you use emulation like WINE on Linux, but that would require a huge amount of configuration)... But again, I do see the value in Linux and I do use it for some things (on a few Raspberry Pi's, etc.) I just couldn't daily-drive Linux, because around half the things I need in radio, don't natively exist in Linux....

Fair enough! The right tool for the job is the right tool that you know. And WINE is seldom the best option. Frankly I just fire up a VM using Vagrant and my Ansible scripts if I need to run a Win program...quicker and better than WINE.