Update ..

So its been a few days since my last post and I’ve made more progress on the Softrock RXTX Ensemble kit. I completed a number of stages, including:

• Frequency dividers
• RF I/O and switching
• RX QSD (mixer)
• RX OpAmps and Output
• TX OpAmps

Being that the RX side of things is complete, I hooked everything up to my laptop and tested out the receive functionality. Well, I tried to test it anyways. You see, I get very poor reception in my apartment and generally don’t get to pull in anything more than noise. When I tested, this was no exception. Just to be sure that it was working however, I decided to give a brief TX on my FT-857D at 5W through my apartment dipole. Lo and behold, I saw the signal on the SDR waterfall.

My intention is to give my out-the-window dipole another try, this time, starting with slightly longer wires to trim. I am hoping to cut the antenna for 14.070MHz and would love to see a natural SWR of less than 1.5 before antenna “tuner”.  That may not be possible due to coupling between my antenna and, well, everything around.

I’ve got the day off, so maybe I’ll get some work done on the antenna this afternoon.