[Discuss-gnuradio] nice sounding radio in my apartment

[cswiger]

Gang - Just have to brag, I'm listening to a gnuradio live in
my apartment that rivals my TenTec RX320, and *much* more
flexible to boot ;)

The project came together in the last few hours using

1) Antenna - a small swl magnetic loop. The loop antenna is
great for noisy areas like mine with neighbors and light dimmers,
lots of digital hash, etc, unlike a voltage probe antenna, the
usual short whip with amp active antenna. The loop is tuned
so you get wideband noise rejection right at the source, plus
can be turned to null out interference.  Plans for one here:

http://www.kr1st.com/swlloop.htm

An important part is the coupling link as described which
is matched into 50ohm coax and just makes things easier. After
the loop and about 6 ft of rg-58 is a 15db homebrew amp:

http://www.qsl.net/wa1ion/amp/w7iuv_amp.htm

2) A 80mtr filter (not absolutely necessary but it also improves
the noise figure), then

3) A Minicircuits ZHL-32A for another 29db gain, then

4) the usrp.

I'm using the previously announced hf_explorer_4.py to get lsb, usb,
isb or am at the touch of a button and about +-300khz wide tuning
about a center freq. The loop with a 20-365pf cap covers about
3.8-14.5Mhz.

--Chuck
kb4new