Hide the flashing blue LED
Some day, I hope that son #3 will forgive me. Or get his own place. His room is particularly well placed for “infrastructure” updates, and I keep finding nooks and crannies to store things that have fans and wires and flashing lights. Good thing he’s a sound sleeper.
From his space, I have a weather cam, and a small server, and now a complete SDR. The addition of a new black box (albeit with a silver finish) meant that I had to find available network ports, an open USB port (for power) and proximity to the coax that connects the vertical antenna to the house. Success. And with the lights out, I didn’t really notice the addition. The son test will come.
I’ve added a receiver to the shack. The need to know pushed me to contact Alex 4Z5LV and request that he send me an AFREDI SDR-NET by airmail, which took just over a week. I played the patient game for the last couple of nights, but now that the weekend is in place, the need to find the various little adapters and whatever reached the top of the to-do list. I’m now listening to some CW on 40 meters, from a fully networked receiver. No more tied to one place in the house. I know, I’m not transmitting, but that will follow.
Some things for those who want to follow my lead. Disable the DHCP in the unit, or your home network will get really flaky. Try to hide that flashing blue LED away, until such time as the firmware updates add it as an option. And get ready for a really quiet receiver (point of view noise floor).
