[Discuss-gnuradio] choosing hardware for demos, ham purposes

[Daniel Pocock]

Hi,

Up to now the equipment I've been using has included the RTL-SDR dongle,
Ham-It-Upconvertor, ATU and the UR5LAJ Band Pass Filter and I've had a
lot of interest when giving talks about it at FOSDEM, Mini DebConf and
other events.

I'm now looking to get transmit capability and would welcome any ideas
about what to buy (SDR, amps, and any accessories), I would really
appreciate any suggestions anybody can make.

There is some flexibility in my budget but I don't want to be wasteful
and pay for features I'm never going to use.

Key things I have in mind:

- portability (size, weight) - being able to transport most or all of my
kit in hand luggage when I fly or when I'm walking around at an even
like FOSDEM

- achieving both RX and TX on bands from 80m / 3.5MHz up to 13cm /
2.4GHz, preferably with a single SDR, but I might consider having two
SDRs, e.g. one for HF and another for everything else

- using the main analog modes for a ham (e.g. SSB, narrow FM) but also
receiving a variety of narrow and wide band digital signals

- clock stability for narrowband operation, e.g. SSB on HF bands

- full duplex is highly desirable

- suitable for use with laptop CPUs (only 2 cores) when portable

- choosing portable power amps for HF, VHF and UHF.  5W and UHF and 10W
on HF, VHF is sufficient.

- deciding how to power everything, at some events I can rely on people
to bring me a 12V power source but I may also carry a 12V battery.  When
doing a demo that doesn't require the amplifier, it would be nice to
leave the battery at home though.

If anybody can comment on which devices to shortlist, devices you've
used or devices I should exclude, that would be very welcome.

Regards,

Daniel