I was playing with GNU Radio, the USRP and the WBX daughterboard tonight preparing for the tests of the 5.7/5.8 GHz receiver setup tomorrow. For some reason that I can not remember, I have decided to tune in to 432.471 MHz – the UHF frequency of the OZ7IGY beacon, which is located approximately 50 km (24 mi) from me.
I knew I could receive it even when I am inside using my FT-817 but I didn’t really expect to receive it with the USRP+WBX. Well, I was wrong. Already with the lousy multi-band whip I could hear it. It wasn’t strong but I could hear it. I decided to try with the Arrow antenna and voila, suddenly I could receive it with 40+ dB SNR!
Watch in high definition on YouTube or get the 80 MByte .mov file.
The software was a slightly modified version of the simple CW receiver I posted yesterday, implemented in GNU Radio Companion. The modification consisted of adding a waterfall display after the band pass filter. I have included the GNU Radio flow graph at the end of the video, the one below is without the waterfall display:
So, what do you think, how does the CW sound in a so simple software defined radio?