Is there a compact lightweight HF SSB receiver out there? Sorry, I’m probably being lazy, but I’d be interested in anything handheld sized. It needs to be self powered, I’m guessing a Raspberry PI with built in screen and dongle might be a homebrew solution? Or an old school receiver?
You could do it with a raspberry pi and SDR dongle. The pi 3b plus a UPS extension board would do it, giving a real time clock plus off grid power.
KM4ACK Build a Pi software or alternatively HamPi would give you a suite of radio software.
You could control it via VNC viewer installed in a phone or tablet over a kwireless hitspot on the Pi. This would give you a nice waterfall. You’d need to use headphones for listening, or add a small speaker. Pi’s don’t have built in sound cards.
A nice project, but maybe a bit clunky and delicate for the field.
I run a similar set up (without the SDR) for SOTA data modes.
I love building stuff as much as operating, so I spent the whole winter building a SOTA HF digital mode setup based on a homebrew 5W WSPR Tx (ESP32 processor) that I then extended to FT4/FT8, with an RSP1A to handle the Rx side and a tablet to control the whole shebang.
But have I used it ? Nope, 23 activations this year and I’ve stuck to 2M FM !!!
I happy for someone to point out it’s not possible, I’m not sure myself tbh. Better that the functionality was built into the rig I guess. Does the IC-705 allow recording of both ends, with your voice after any pre-processing? It could be excuse I need…
Regardless, it would be nice to know of lightweight receivers that could be used in a travel capacity. It clearly needs to be substantially lighter than a standard rig to be of any benefit.
Never looked into SWL options, so every answer is good.
Yes it does. The recorder function is described in the Advanced manual which is a free download. It starts on page 5-1.
This is a recent example of my dreadful radio skills. It always amazes me how easy it is when listening to the recording to hear how clear everything is. But on a summit my ears fill with wax. This was on 40m.