My living room listening shack, Token, Part Deux

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Token

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In a recent thread with a question about the X-Keys Jog & Shuttle Pro I had a need to pull up my old “Living room shack” thread ( http://forums.radioreference.com/pictures-your-shack-mobile-setup/196623-my-living-room-shack.html ) for a picture of the X-Keys. And I found out that PBase appears to have lost the link to my overall listening shack picture. So, time for an update.

The picture here is slightly newer than the pic in the original thread, but still not up to date. Not shown are the second R-75 and the return of the Kenwood TS-2000x to the shack (it was out in the Bronco for a couple years) instead of the Kenwood TM-742A.

I call this my main SWL/Ute area, it is set up primarily for listening and is in a corner of the living room. Yeah, there are a few of transmitters here, but the main goal of this desk is listening. The ham shack, where the majority of the two way capable gear resides, is in a converted spare bedroom. Years ago the listening area was in the same spare bedroom with the ham shack, but I spend a lot more time listening than transmitting, and the wife got tired of me being out of sight for hours at a time. Said something about if she wanted to be ignored and live alone she would not have married me in the first place, so I had to move the listening gear out to a more common area.

Since most of my listening today is using SDRs the area is a tad computer and monitor heavy. My listening is mostly utility oriented, and the SDRs make finding the transient signals of that type of service so much easier.

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The coverage is 10 Hz to 3000 MHz, no gaps, also the ability to monitor a couple of microwave ham bands if needed (up to 3 cm). The equipment shown (either hardware or control panels on monitor) includes 2x RFSpace SDR-IQ, RFSpace SDR-14, Microtelecom Perseus SDR, WInRadio G31DDC SDR, 2x WinRadio WR-1550e, WinRadio WR-1000i, WinRadio WR-3550e, Alden SR-501 Synthesized HF RX, Yaesu FRG-7700, Icom R-75, Realistic DX-302 (now replaced with second R-75), Hallicrafters CR-3000, Yaesu FT-2000, Kenwood TS-600, Kenwood TM-742A (now replaced with Kenwood TS-2000X), Realistic Pro-2021, Realistic Pro-2004, Icom R-7000, and Icom R-8500. A second R-8500 is under the desk as a dedicated remote feed.

A comment about the multiple mice. This setup uses 5 computers, 4 monitors, 4 mice, and one keyboard. I use a KVM to switch the keyboard to all of the PCs, I use another KVM to switch one monitor and one mouse between two of the PCs, and I use a separate mouse for each of the four main SDR PCs. I have tried KVMs, I have tried Synergy, and I have tried a few other combinations. I find it works best from the SDR operations standpoint to have a dedicated mouse and monitor. It may not seem like it would be, but it does work out best being able to just lift a hand and control the SDR I need.

The X-Keys Jog & Shuttle Pro (center of desk) is used with the WinRadio G31DDC, and works exceptionally well in this application. All of the basic receiver functions can be accessed via push button and the Jog and Shuttle allow tuning and controlling an SDR just like a knob and front panel of a traditional radio would. The best of both worlds.

original.jpg


I really do need to get a more up to date image up, but that would take time away from listening ;)

T!
 

Token

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Mojave Desert, California, USA
Can you pick up cell phones with win radio.Just curious.


That is a not so simple question ;)

As KMA said the end result is no, you would not be able to HEAR cell phone conversations with any of the WinRadio gear. However, you can "pick up", as in receive, the transmissions on some of my WinRadio equipment.

So, which WinRadio are you talking about? I quoted 5 pieces of WinRadio gear, some of them will receive cell phone freqs and others will not. The G31DDC and the WR-1000i will not receive cell phone frequencies (G31DDC is HF/SW only, tops out at 50 MHz, and the WR-1000i is cell blocked), but both of my WR-1550e's and my WR3550e will receive cell phone frequencies.

However, there are very few old analog cell phones still connecting to any system, so all that can be heard is the digital data stream of the digital models. And realistically that is not going to be something you can decode, even when the radio will receive the right frequency.

Not going to touch on the legality in the US of tuning these transmissions, even the digital ones.

T!
 
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