Reflections about a remote shortwave listeners station

It should be more correct, the system was not running anymore, so it was changed.

The disaster with the Trekstor tablet since November has now come to an end. Even after the second inspection of the device - shortly after it came back from the 1st - at Trekstor no error could be found. My subsequent in-house inspection revealed that the battery is no longer providing enough power to power the SDR and WiFi adapters. Unfortunately, the battery is excluded from the warranty, permanently installed and obviously not available as a spare part. Even an external current hub is no longer useful.

The device is still functional and useful for other purposes, but unsuitable for the remote station. The dream of a functioning station based on low power consumption has to be redesigned. The solar-powered 12 V DX system needs a new heart.

About the progress of my efforts to build a small but nice station in the garden, I will continue to report when I have found and tested appropriate devices.

Maybe I'll get new ideas and suggestions at Ham Radio.

Until then, the break screen remains here.

I wish all of you reading this a great time - and maybe you'll see each other in Friedrichshafen!

73, Willi

A new solar panel creates more energy, and a thankful discovery. During the installation of the 50 Wp panel, I discovered an unclean line connection at the 1st 100 Wp solar panel. It was the reason for more than a year accepted but insufficient charging situation. With the 2nd panel and the now clean wire, the current strength of about 0.7 A could be increased to an adequate 3.0+ A. In full sunshine this is a quadruple of the energy supply. The charging time of the batteries will be shortened by a few days. In addition, a large 4.7 Ah notebook can be operated almost lossless during the day.

The new panel in the middle of the picture, on the left a 15 Wp panel for a pond pump. Both panels are connected in parallel.

Also new is a 47 Ah car battery, which can serve as a reserve for the two 100 Ah liquid / gel batteries.

That was quite a piece of work until the refurbished station was allowed to present itself as in this picture. The new heart of the station, a 7-port USB 2.0 hub with 12V / 5V seperate output, reliably controls the current flow to the ELAD FDM-S2. A new linearly regulated 5-V power supply ensures in the background that this works smoothly. The Trekstor Tablet still hangs on a conventional 5-V power supply without any RF interference detected so far. I used the opportunity to lay cables and devices even better than before. A downer remains: SDR-Console V.3 can not be persuaded to timed automatic recordings. It never stops with the station work. But first I'm happy that everything is up and running again - time for DX!

Due to problems with the tablet I decided to start the built of a air-sun-collector. The device replaces the woodburner inside. The pole in the middle is part of the 45 m horizontal loop.