Moved house - new shack setup!

[@danedewaard8215]

Great! Enjoy the new!!! That drawer of SDRs warms my heart!

[@FrugalRadio]

Ha ha. It was actually fun to count the SDRs. No wonder my wife says I'm obsessed 😉

[@RadioRake]

Can't wait to see your new shack in operation. Always enjoy your videos Rob, take care!

[@FrugalRadio]

Thanks John.

[@lambdaprog]

I see the Airspy radios look happy in their new home. Be safe!

[@FrugalRadio]

Cheers prog. Hopefully they'll all get wired up in the not-too-distant future!

[@nickh4308]

Best of luck with your new home Rob looking forward to the new content, hope you find your box of connectors !

[@FrugalRadio]

Thanks man. I think I've found the box they are in, but haven't dived in there yet!

[@alainbroekema5000]

Great new home Rob, nice radioroom setup, I wish you and your family all the best !

[@FrugalRadio]

Cheers Alain!

[@Ordinaryfiveeight]

Congratulations on the new house and health to enjoy your equipment. Looks fantastic. Thanks for the great and very educational videos.

[@FrugalRadio]

Thank you William.

[@thewind-ne8rh]

Nice look so far Rob good health and luck with the new location

[@FrugalRadio]

Cheers!

[@EverydayJ1786]

New setup looks amazing Rob !

[@FrugalRadio]

Hopefully it will be when it's all connected!

[@KonstantinSDR]

A large supply of SDR is great!

[@FrugalRadio]

I agree!

[@trentinrodriguez4620]

Nice setup man!

[@FrugalRadio]

It's always changing, but yeah, is good to have a bit of space and a few radios!

[@Kodaira99]

Great channel. Could you do a video on what electrical wiring / connections one should request in a new construction home to build the perfect shack? SWL and Ham

[@FrugalRadio]

Oh, that's a tough one. I'm not well versed enough to do that video. Perhaps ask on some of the HAM specific channels. Some of those chaps have it well thought out and planned, and it certainly would be easier to install during new construction.

[@KarlWitsman]

LOVE it! I guess that I need to get a few more computers now. HA HA HA. I always wanted something like this, but I'd have to clean up my current mess first.

[@FrugalRadio]

Good luck with getting your kit cleaned up!

[@borisvokladski5844]

I thought I had a lot of screens on my desk (3x monitors and one laptop). Thanks for expanding my SDR aviation knowledge . The only "problem" is, that I need to travel ~ 20 km with my new L-band antenna to the nearest high hill to get a good Inmarsat signal.

[@FrugalRadio]

Oh, that's a bummer. Time for a remote setup I guess! Got a friend that would host it for you? Perhaps you could stream the data back to your house via a Raspberry Pi or other SBC.

[@borisvokladski5844]

​@@FrugalRadio Yes it is. Good idea. It is an autumn project to set up some kind of rtl_tcp at my parents house, where I have my shared backup server. I have a good mix of Orange Pis and Raspberry Pis to play with. The elevation of the aviation relevant Inmarsat satellites are quite low ( < 9 °) here in Denmark. It is therefore I need to go high. But I have a bunch of other projects I can play with over the Internet.

[@FrugalRadio]

I like the sound of your plan. It also sounds like you already have the equipment you will need. Enjoy the Autumn project!

[@bodstrup]

Oh No !. Put up cable trays on the walls before the furniture. Plan ahead, one set of trays for AC, another for coms cables - well apart. Perhaps run a grounding cable around the wall, so you can have common ground. Good planning and prep should reduce noise a lot. Would love to have space, time and money to re-do my work room :-)

[@FrugalRadio]

Separating the AC & RF cables is a great idea. I haven't heard of cable trays though. Can you send me a link in the comments?

[@bodstrup]

@@FrugalRadio First the 'cable tray' - probably have another name in English - you know them when you see them: www.bauhaus.dk/rev-ritter-kabelbakke-15x-30-mm-2-m-hvid about 2 meter long plastic tray with lid that peels off. Remove the lid, mount one for AC and one for data beneath the tables. Cut small holes in the bottom of the tray if you need to exit a table somewhere along the length. When the lid is replaced, the cutout is hidden For all those annoying power supplies, I mounted a 'picture shelf' about 1 foot below the table surface - on the wall. Added a power strip above it. Now I can put all the separate power supplies for monitors, network switch, radios etc on that shelf - well hidden unless you sit on the floor. Have a hole in the table (as it is permanently mounted flush with the wall - for cables coming up from the shelf. Picture shelf: jysk.dk/opbevaring/hylder/billedhylde-agedrup-115x7-hvid Each element is 115 cm long and 7 cm wide, perfect for smaller power supplies etc.

[@FrugalRadio]

@bodstrup these are fantastic ideas. I actually have a couple of those Jysk picture shelves already that are waiting to be repurposed. Now they have an assignment ;-) I'm letting the cables be a mess right now, but I am determined to follow through with this idea. I love it. If you've got photos of your setup, can you upload them somewhere? I'd love to see the final setup!

[@jtc51]

Can’t wait for new content to come. Looks like you have your hands full

[@FrugalRadio]

Sure do! And back to work this week as well, so busy indeed!

[@alanmarion49]

I think you moved (back) to Canada. What's you QTH? Just asking because I am in South Vancouver and 97.6W INMARSAT 4-F3 Elevation: 28.5° Azimuth (true): 147.8° (~ SE) looks challenging -- just ordered the RTL-SDR L-Band Patch Antenna v2 and thinking Elevation is a bit too low -- any thoughts? BTW your videos shine.

[@FrugalRadio]

Yes, back in Canada 🙂, Alberta. As long as you don't have mountains south of you, it should work just fine. That satellite is the primary coverage for this region. The 54W bird may be more challenging from Vancouver. Let us know how you get on! PS thanks for the cmment on the videos!

[@Michael-hv8uo]

Hi Rob, I am fairly new to SDR and have just subscribed to your amazing channel. Very informative indeed. At the moment i only have a generic SDR but hope to upgrade soon. A question though if you don't mind please? Is there any way i can monitor as low as 12khz? I have been looking at up converters but not found any suitable as yet. Thank you for all the great info.

[@FrugalRadio]

Hi Michael, thanks for subscribing to the channel. 12 kHz is pretty low, and the RTL-SDRs definitely won't be stable enough down there. I would recommend one of the 'step up' SDRs, although as you mentioned, you could use an upconverter. Although the NooElec upconverter I have has a lower freq limit of 100 kHz. The SDRPlay RSP1A goes down to 1 kHz. The RSPdx is even more capable in the VLF band, from what I've read. I'm very fond of my AirSpy HF+ Discovery, which goes down to 0.5 kHz.

[@Michael-hv8uo]

@@FrugalRadio Hi Rob, Thank you for your very quick and informative response. I will look into these units. The reason i am wanting 12khz and above is to check the frequencies of vlf metal detectors. Thank you again very much appreciated. Please keep up the great work :)

[@FrugalRadio]

Thanks for your kind words. Good luck with the metal detector project!

[@Michael-hv8uo]

@@FrugalRadio You are very welcome sir and thank you also. Just to clarify though if i may. My main interest in sdr is scanning the radio spectrum and hopefully decoding data. The metal detector side was just an idea. I have a frequency counter which will cover 12 khz but the output power from a metal detector is so low it will not pick it up.

[@OldSchoolNI]

Looks well, only thing missing is a few additional ears to consume all the audio. Yet to find a solution to that problem!

[@FrugalRadio]

Yep, and I've been thinking about that too. I'm going to see if I can find some software that would receive multiple inputs, and allow me to prioritise certain channels. If I can set the various auto ducking parameters correctly, active radios will be passed through at a level in line with their priority, but if everything else is quiet, an active translation on any radio will be audible. I know some sound boards have that capability (only for 1 key channel). Perhaps there's a solution out there for more channels...

[@thewind-ne8rh]

@@FrugalRadio i have a audio mixer on my humble system (nothing like yours) 4 stereo x 8 mono input with control room head phone and main out put .for control and main speakers i use powered Walwart type not too powerfull for headphones i use bluethooth wireless rx/tx and head set earbuds

[@FrugalRadio]

Sounds like you thought it out well. Bet it works real well!

[@thewind-ne8rh]

@@FrugalRadio can send recomindation if you would like

[@dilushasamarasekara9533]

It's been a month bro... Get it together already...😂 I'm waiting for the next video... Learned a lot from your videos... Keep up the good work...👌 Can you please do a in depth guide for antennas for various frequency bands and best way to set up them for multiple sdrs using splitters... Thank you...

[@FrugalRadio]

Yeah, it's been a while. Hopefully not too much longer until the next video. Thanks for your comments and continued interest.

[@dilushasamarasekara9533]

@@FrugalRadio Good luck...!!!

[@AspergersStudio]

Would love to know what you do for work, that you can afford all this tech?????

[@FrugalRadio]

Lol, I work for a non profit. No big paycheques for me, ha ha. Just stuff that has been slowly accumulated or donated over the years.

[@RedLine_Renesis]

Why do you never look at the camera?

[@FrugalRadio]

Still learning the ropes!

[@sirac19]

why is there too more than one of many things ?

[@FrugalRadio]

Having multiple units of each allows for greater flexibility. If you look over some of my previous videos, you'll see how each SDR is assigned a specific function. Some systems require 2 dongles to monitor them. As for the scanners, the old analog ones monitor the local aviation channels - one for Ground, one for Tower, one for Arrivals & Departures, another for Terminal etc.

[@sirac19]

@@FrugalRadio 👍👌

[@tonymagnier9846]

Jeez youtube pay well lol

[@FrugalRadio]

If only it was KZbin paying the bills! Working 2 other jobs is the reality!!!