Dust of that old Netbook

[DRL-XM43]

Once DSD+/FMP24 achieved a single dongle possibility for trunk tracking it got me to thinking about an old project I had on the shelf.

Years ago I was gifted an Acer Netbook (AOA 150) which by and large was not useful since it has only a 1.6 Ghz single core processor and a usable RAM of 1012 MB and is a X86 platform. It came with XP and was tedious to use.

So along the way I have tried to make it useful and for a long time it has served as a 24X7 Dump1090 and ACARS "server" feeding various Internet plane tracking apps.

I have also tried various alternative OS because the original project was to have a usable "throw in the trunk" small, mobile "scanner" machine capable of most digital and analog AM/FM scanning and decoding.

So with renewed hope I recently settled on Win 8.1 as the OS -it actually performs better than the original XP.

That being said I am happy to report that between Trunk88 and DSD+ fastlane the little engine is decoding perfectly - I am seeing about 50% usage of resource (RAM/Processor) with both programs Trunk88 with 2 dongles and DSD+ FL using 1 dongle.

I find this project most satisfying LOL, I am frankly amazed at how well this is working....

So dust of them very old fad netbooks and breath new life into them.

 

[poltergeisty]

I first tried DSD+ many years ago on my Dell Mini 910. Now it's a local FTP server who's storage is a SD card. It also has PhoneTray to monitor my phone (yes, I still roll a landline) and it will block telemarketers, etc. I also use Nomorobo as well.

I was interested in installing Kali to a Netbook, but through my reading it sounds not very good.

Right now I have a Latitude E6410 laptop on 24/7 that record audio from my scanner using the old but tried and true Xcorder. I may go netbook with this setup. Thing with a netbook is that the flash-based storage is finite. In the six years or so I've had my netbook running 24/7, I've had to replace the HDD twice. It's a good thing I clone it to a USB stick with AOMEI Backupper. So when I get my new HDD from eBay I just clone back like noting ever happened. It's odd that the drive would go dead because the FTP storage is on a SD card and I have the page file disabled.

 

[lviper]

Funny you should post this. Just yesterday I finally fired up an ole Asus Eee PC901. It has XP on it and I just loaded DsdPlus FL on it. Works like a charm. I now have a portable scanner that can listen to almost anything.

 

[KK4JUG]

I've been using my 10-year-old Acer netbook for radio programming for years. I have Sentinel, Chirp and several RT Systems programs on it. It has a 6+ hour runtime and has never failed me.

 

[a417]

They are perfect for that, have a Macbook Pro (12,1) running arch and a full suite of SDR software & GNURadio for most road games, and had an Acer Aspire One (man that thing was awesome) running Debian with the stripped down SDR software for when I had to be light & fast.

I would massively try to dissuade anyone to continue using a medium like SD card for high volume writes, as that has been proven to shorten lifespan of the devices....but YMMV, and this is the internet.

 

[riccom]

Acer Netbook (AOA 150) which by and large was not useful since it has only a 1.6 Ghz single core processor and a usable RAM of 1012 MB

well here is the issue, the system will not be very good in decoding digital, i would recommend a dual core or dual threaded cpu. atoms are not very good for anything and not for a task sdr is gonna hit it with.

 

[DRL-XM43]

well here is the issue, the system will not be very good in decoding digital, i would recommend a dual core or dual threaded cpu. atoms are not very good for anything and not for a task sdr is gonna hit it with.

it is what it is, it probably should not..... but it is decoding digital (all types) and trunk following great. I did add a USB speaker bar which makes it sound fantastic.

 

[slicerwizard]

well here is the issue, the system will not be very good in decoding digital, i would recommend a dual core or dual threaded cpu. atoms are not very good for anything and not for a task sdr is gonna hit it with.

You obviously haven't tried it. I ran TRUNK88 and DSD+ on an Atom N450-based netbook for years without issue. And Atom processors are dual threaded, so you're contradicting yourself.

 

[poltergeisty]

I would massively try to dissuade anyone to continue using a medium like SD card for high volume writes, as that has been proven to shorten lifespan of the devices....but YMMV, and this is the internet.

I know about that possibility but so far I've been lucky. It's been in use for at least 6 years. I may buy another and clone to it as a backup. I don't write to the SD card all that often so perhaps that's why it's lasted that long. Been thinking about a nettop to replace the netbook.