Hello all, and welcome to the official release of Scott's Radio Room for 2023. To quote my favorite mentors, who else but The Three Stooges, "It's stupendous! It's colossal! It's mediocre!" With that, here we go...bear with me, this will be nauseatingly a lot longer than you want to deal with, I assure you...
Here's the big picture. The desk pre-existed from the last go-round. It rolls out, primarily from the left side, to allow access to all of what you see from the back side. The old 12U racks have been replaced with a 3 bay 4U rack from Audiorax. Shout out to @N9JIG for causing me to spend even more money; thanks pal. However, well worth it. Not the cheapest piece of furniture I've ever bought for my radio setup but WELL worth it if you like to rack stuff. As you can see, "The Monolith" that has come and gone for years is back in earnest as well, but more on that in a bit. Four monitors support four computers. Things I would like to improve on here would be to lower the monitors down closer to the top of the Audiorax furniture, and add a mixer to eliminate the individual speakers shown. I did get a Behringer 1602 for this and it was not happy with all of the scanners you see, especially the SDS200. Not sure why but for the moment I scrapped the project.
Here's a closer view of the Audiorax furniture and the main monitoring station. As Rich C. has mentioned the monitors are just a tad high for long term comfort. I can live with it for now and I'll only report back when/if I don't make improvements to this and subsequently wind up in traction. Stay tuned. The two sets of Bose Companion speakers support the four PC's used in the setup, as each speaker set allows for two different inputs. Great bang for the buck and sound with these speakers, in my humble opinion. The thing that looks like a roll of toilet paper is actually one of three TP-Link Deco wifi mesh devices. I went wireless and eliminated a great deal of interference that my former wired LAN was creating, even with Cat 6 shielded cables. Some of the other devices were killing me. I have tried very hard this time to eliminate as much RFI as possible and have made some amazing strides with some interesting fixes, such as simply different length HDMI cables, changing to a Dell Port to HDMI cable in one case, and about 25,000 or so snap on chokes. That may be an embellishment but at least 23,000 were actually used. The monitor on the right supports an Intel NuC i7 with 32GB and a 1TB SSD. It is the main PC and is shown here running WSJT-X and Gridtracker for FT-8 amateur use. On the left is another Mini-PC, this one a Dell Optiplex 7050 with an i7 processor, 16GB of RAM, and a 256GB SSD. It primarily runs the FMPA software from DSD+ FL for searching area trunked systems, both business and public safety. I also use it for spectrum analysis with SDR#.
Closer view of the "digital" side of the setup. The 536 does the primary scanning as most of my area is still analog. The SDS200 lays in wait for CoMIRS to make it to Cape Cod, when it will become the #1. For now it does some auxiliary scanning and monitors various digital systems or licensees. As shown earlier, each scanner has its own speaker, something I intend to eventually improve on.
The centerpiece of the monitoring station is the Icom IC-R8600. Yes, I know, it's about the 500th one I've owned since they came out but I really truly (I hope) think (I think) I'm going to keep this one. I have learned of its incredible value to me by simply using it as it is and not trying to dump the scope out to a larger monitor through SDR software. As it is in its own right it is as formidable as a consumer level receiver can be, and it is here to stay (almost surely).
When the 8600 is running, so is this. I use the 12kHz IF out of the receiver which is fed out via USB. I use SDR# software with the "Baseband from Sound Card" input selected. When it runs, I tune to 12 kHz. Then I run SDR#'s DSD interface. Finally, I run the KGTone software as well so I can instantly decode CTCSS and DCS tones. When I use the 8600 for searching, if I come across a digital signal I just lower the volume and let DSD+ FL do the decoding work. In this way my 8600 can indeed receive DMR signals. I let it use DSD for decoding P25 and NXDN as well. If I am specifically monitoring a P25 signal with the 8600 though there is no substitute for its internal decoder, the finest sounding P25 I have heard from a radio that I can (sorta) afford.
Not sure how long messages from RR can be these days before I exceed the size, so before I bung this up and have to start over again I'll continue in part two!
Here's the big picture. The desk pre-existed from the last go-round. It rolls out, primarily from the left side, to allow access to all of what you see from the back side. The old 12U racks have been replaced with a 3 bay 4U rack from Audiorax. Shout out to @N9JIG for causing me to spend even more money; thanks pal. However, well worth it. Not the cheapest piece of furniture I've ever bought for my radio setup but WELL worth it if you like to rack stuff. As you can see, "The Monolith" that has come and gone for years is back in earnest as well, but more on that in a bit. Four monitors support four computers. Things I would like to improve on here would be to lower the monitors down closer to the top of the Audiorax furniture, and add a mixer to eliminate the individual speakers shown. I did get a Behringer 1602 for this and it was not happy with all of the scanners you see, especially the SDS200. Not sure why but for the moment I scrapped the project.
Here's a closer view of the Audiorax furniture and the main monitoring station. As Rich C. has mentioned the monitors are just a tad high for long term comfort. I can live with it for now and I'll only report back when/if I don't make improvements to this and subsequently wind up in traction. Stay tuned. The two sets of Bose Companion speakers support the four PC's used in the setup, as each speaker set allows for two different inputs. Great bang for the buck and sound with these speakers, in my humble opinion. The thing that looks like a roll of toilet paper is actually one of three TP-Link Deco wifi mesh devices. I went wireless and eliminated a great deal of interference that my former wired LAN was creating, even with Cat 6 shielded cables. Some of the other devices were killing me. I have tried very hard this time to eliminate as much RFI as possible and have made some amazing strides with some interesting fixes, such as simply different length HDMI cables, changing to a Dell Port to HDMI cable in one case, and about 25,000 or so snap on chokes. That may be an embellishment but at least 23,000 were actually used. The monitor on the right supports an Intel NuC i7 with 32GB and a 1TB SSD. It is the main PC and is shown here running WSJT-X and Gridtracker for FT-8 amateur use. On the left is another Mini-PC, this one a Dell Optiplex 7050 with an i7 processor, 16GB of RAM, and a 256GB SSD. It primarily runs the FMPA software from DSD+ FL for searching area trunked systems, both business and public safety. I also use it for spectrum analysis with SDR#.
Closer view of the "digital" side of the setup. The 536 does the primary scanning as most of my area is still analog. The SDS200 lays in wait for CoMIRS to make it to Cape Cod, when it will become the #1. For now it does some auxiliary scanning and monitors various digital systems or licensees. As shown earlier, each scanner has its own speaker, something I intend to eventually improve on.
The centerpiece of the monitoring station is the Icom IC-R8600. Yes, I know, it's about the 500th one I've owned since they came out but I really truly (I hope) think (I think) I'm going to keep this one. I have learned of its incredible value to me by simply using it as it is and not trying to dump the scope out to a larger monitor through SDR software. As it is in its own right it is as formidable as a consumer level receiver can be, and it is here to stay (almost surely).
When the 8600 is running, so is this. I use the 12kHz IF out of the receiver which is fed out via USB. I use SDR# software with the "Baseband from Sound Card" input selected. When it runs, I tune to 12 kHz. Then I run SDR#'s DSD interface. Finally, I run the KGTone software as well so I can instantly decode CTCSS and DCS tones. When I use the 8600 for searching, if I come across a digital signal I just lower the volume and let DSD+ FL do the decoding work. In this way my 8600 can indeed receive DMR signals. I let it use DSD for decoding P25 and NXDN as well. If I am specifically monitoring a P25 signal with the 8600 though there is no substitute for its internal decoder, the finest sounding P25 I have heard from a radio that I can (sorta) afford.
Not sure how long messages from RR can be these days before I exceed the size, so before I bung this up and have to start over again I'll continue in part two!