AirSpy

[Voyager]

This is where I'm at, totally missed or not see the option to use a difference carrier and did not know it was coming from HK, I would have given the shipping more thought. I got my notice of tracking on Jan 7 on the HK side. I'm still waiting and looks like will still be a while, still new to SDR I love my Elad FM2 for HF and excited to do the same for vhf/uhf with the airspy my needs are simple so I get a lot of enjoyment just snooping around the bands.

Same here. I even asked before ordering where it ships from, but never got an answer. For all I knew it shipped from within the USA. That's what is the most frustrating - I did my due diligence, and got stuck waiting.

Youssef asked us to be patient, but it's been over a week with no update on any of the tracking sites, and it's still showing on two of them that it's awaiting origin shipment. The third only shows one line and says it shipped, but no notice since of any activity. One says it shipped, but there is an update saying it is still awaiting shipment.

Much more time and I will have no choice but to decide if this trust is worth the potential $200 loss. I think 2 weeks plus is more than enough time to get at least into the hands of USA customs.

I suggested a faster shipping method used by many shippers from China, but costs about the same, and was asked if I was serious.

Would I recommend the AS to others? Definitely not using anything but DHL as the shipper. The "Registered Air Mail" shipping is slower than Media Mail from China. I would have thought the opposite.

 

[widowsson]

Same here. I even asked before ordering where it ships from, but never got an answer. For all I knew it shipped from within the USA. That's what is the most frustrating - I did my due diligence, and got stuck waiting.

Youssef asked us to be patient, but it's been over a week with no update on any of the tracking sites, and it's still showing on two of them that it's awaiting origin shipment. The third only shows one line and says it shipped, but no notice since of any activity. One says it shipped, but there is an update saying it is still awaiting shipment.

Much more time and I will have no choice but to decide if this trust is worth the potential $200 loss. I think 2 weeks plus is more than enough time to get at least into the hands of USA customs.

I suggested a faster shipping method used by many shippers from China, but costs about the same, and was asked if I was serious.

Would I recommend the AS to others? Definitely not using anything but DHL as the shipper. The "Registered Air Mail" shipping is slower than Media Mail from China. I would have thought the opposite.

Try this, which I found in the yahoo group:

"when you log into your acct and check your tracking number click track where it says powered by aftership click on aftership it opens another window with another tracking number and says try this number..."

I did and found out my Airspy is in Jersey City. Hopefully, I'll have it in a few days.

I hope this helps.

 

[Voyager]

I saw that, and asked where to click, but got no reply. Do you know where to click on the Aftership page?

If you are talking about on the iMall page, and the Aftership page is the second one, I've been tracking on that page since day one. It's not a different tracking number, though - it's the same one. And that new page says "Origin Post is Preparing Shipment". To me, that means it's still in HK.

 

[AA6IO]

Been tracking my AirSpy that I ordered a couple of days ago via DHL. Left mainland China on day ordered, in Hong Kong yesterday, and this afternoon already cleared customs here in Los Angeles. So hopefully should have in next couple of days. We will see.
Steve AA6IO

 

[osros]

Just got an update, it's in my state so maybe Monday. Woohoo.

 

[Voyager]

Just heard from someone else whose tracking didn't show anything for 10 days, and like mine was shiping that the origin post was preparing shipment, then showed local scans. As tomorrow is 10 days since my last scan, I'm hoping to see some activity soon. Of course, tomorrow is a holiday in the USA, so I may have to wait until Tuesday.

Makes you get that warm, fuzzy feeling inside when registered packages go untracked for over a week...

Oh, and that other buyer's tracking showed no customs scans.

But, at least there is progress. If I buy another one, DHL it is!

 

[widowsson]

I saw that, and asked where to click, but got no reply. Do you know where to click on the Aftership page?

If you are talking about on the iMall page, and the Aftership page is the second one, I've been tracking on that page since day one. It's not a different tracking number, though - it's the same one. And that new page says "Origin Post is Preparing Shipment". To me, that means it's still in HK.

Yes, on that second page, click on the word " Aftership".

 

[AA6IO]

Well I can recommend DHL. Ordered my AirSpy on 1/15 Thursday. Just received the AirSpy from DHL 4 days later on 1/19 (Monday). Not bad from China via Hong Kong. Will try it out tonight.
Steve AA6IO

 

[Voyager]

Yes, on that second page, click on the word " Aftership".

If I click on the word AFTERSHIP, it just takes me to their home page.

 

[garys]

Mine came today in the mail. Certified, signature required. Well packaged, by the way.

I'm still not sure about the performance, though.

I plugged the Airspy in and the software failed to install. Then I downloaded the latest version of Zadig and ran that. That fixed the first problem.

Then of course I connected the antenna to the output, not the input. Which explained the no receive problem.

After I dug around and found a BNC to SMA connect and a Type F to BNC connector, I got that sorted out. That kludge might explain the relatively poor reception compared to the NooElec R820T. I'll order an adapter cable from Amazon later today.

I dialed up a 900Mhz MotoTrbo site I've been monitoring for a couple of weeks. Good signal into my antenna and the NooElect had no problems receiving signal there.

Not so the Airspy. Part of that is definitely settings and maybe some of it is the connector mess. Hopefully further playing with the settings and the new connector will improve the situation.

First the bad. 10MSPS results in choppy audio with a lot of errors using DSD+. Setting that to 2.5MSPS fixed the audio and reduced the number of errors. I'm also running with the following settings,

IF gain =9
Mixer and LNA gain are set to auto.
Decimation is 4.
Actual sample rate is 625. KSPS

Audio is mostly clear with just a hint of digital tone to it.

I played around with the Zoom, Range, and Offset settings in SDR#. That pretty much got the display in SDR# back to what I was used to with the NooElec.

I still haven't tried any other bands, so I don't know how the Airspy performs there.

Anyone have any suggestions or ideas for further tuning or adjusting?

 

[Voyager]

Did you read all the info here?
Quick start guide | airspy.com

 

[garys]

Did you read all the info here?
Quick start guide | airspy.com

Anybody can read the directions! :lol:

That actually helped explain the controls quite well. I started with the recommended base settings and then tuned up and down from there. I have a pretty good signal and decoding now.

The limitation now is probably my Win7 laptop. It's an older refurb HP, so there are some limitations to it. I'll probably try it with my ASUS Win 8 computer, which is much newer, but the older machine is my "SDR" computer.

Thanks.

 

[Voyager]

I know it goes against our "guy DNA", but sometimes you gotta read them.

 

[garys]

I know it goes against our "guy DNA", but sometimes you gotta read them.

:lol: I actually got close just fooling around with the controls, but it's even better now.

Later in the week, I'll try it on some VHF and UHF DMR systems and see how it works.

 

[widowsson]

If I click on the word AFTERSHIP, it just takes me to their home page.

I have more information on this...

After clicking on the orange "TRACK" button on the "view order" page, a small popup will appear that says "Hong Kong Post". For me, there is also a blue banner that says "In Transit". Under that, there is an AfterShip link, which, if you click on it, will present you with the exact same information in the small popup, but in a newly-loaded web page.

Below and to the right of the AfterShip link, I see the words "Powered by AfterShip". (In this case, "AfterShip" is in orange text, it is a hyperlink.) If you click on this orange "AfterShip" hyperlink, it takes you to another page that says "Track & Notify". It is on this page where you'll see text that says:

"Try this: 1Z0944330393796358 or add this track button to your site." This is where it gets very interesting.

At first, I figured, yippee, here is my tracking info. When I copied the tracking number into a Google search, it appeared to give me valid tracking data. In fact, on 01/17/15, I posted here "I did and found out my Airspy is in Jersey City. Hopefully, I'll have it in a few days."

Well, that was totally not correct. As it turns out, each click of that orange "AfterShip" hyperlink will give you a new, seemingly randomly generated and seemingly valid tracking number that returns actual UPS tracking data. But, it has absolutely NOTHING to do with your Airspy shipment. It's totally bogus. There seems, at least so far as I've found, no validated way to track these shipments.

So, I continue to wait with no idea where my Airspy might be. I hope they at least send me a fortune cookie for the delay and bogus tracking information.

 

[mancow]

I've been messing with mine again using the scanner plugin. It rips across the entire 225-400 milair band in 4 seconds and will stop on ANYTHING active instantly, log it and record it. It's pretty damn amazing.

 

[osros]

Just got mine today. Did some messing around I also was thrown off a bit, it seemed deaf but playing with the settings and quick start it came to life and got a better understanding of whats going on. So far happy played in the FM band and some VHF my needs are simple so far but seems to work good.

 

[osros]

I've been messing with mine again using the scanner plugin. It rips across the entire 225-400 milair band in 4 seconds and will stop on ANYTHING active instantly, log it and record it. It's pretty damn amazing.

Just started with Milcom, this sounds real good. Got a 780 searching for active freqs now but could be quicker. I will have to try that plugin.

 

[Forts]

I too thought mine was deaf when I first tinkered with it, but after coming to a better understanding of the various IF/ixer/LNA settings it works quite well. I still get stepped on pretty good by a nearby paging tower, but that's all part of the game. I was quite surprised at some of the pretty darn clear signals that I could pull out of what just looked like background noise on the waterfall. I've been using SDR Console more of late, it seems to be a little less power hungry than SDR#. It's also slick as can be being able to use more than one VFO at a time. On my Core i5 laptop, SDR Console feeding DSD+ usually has the CPU load at around 20%.

 

[mancow]

Just started with Milcom, this sounds real good. Got a 780 searching for active freqs now but could be quicker. I will have to try that plugin.

The key is an external broadband antenna. You need something that will get up and away from local noise and pull in some signals otherwise it will keep getting stuck on hash and crap.