I was a DirecTV satellite customer for over 20 years. When it was finally time to switch to a streaming service (I went with DirecTV Stream due to the sports content), I decided to put the dish hardware mounted on the roof to use for the radio hobby. These satellite dish mounts are engineered very well for supporting moderate-sized antennas with nice wind support. Plus, the high quality RG6 and low-loss splitters in use that run the coax throughout the house can be repurposed. After taking the dish off the mast, I put up a discone antenna that I had sitting on the shelf for years. The one I used is similar to this 25-1300 Mhz one on Amazon which is about $75.
The vertical mast is just a short piece of antenna mast from Home Depot and the mast Double Jaw Clamps are also from Amazon for about $15. Since my plan was to use this antenna as a receiver, the existing coax is pre-run and free, so I just used it. My main purpose was to use this setup with the Airspy R2, but since the coax was also run to the home theater in the family room, I decided to use it as the FM Broadcast antenna for my home theater receiver. This works great and I now have HD FM reception!
I also had existing TV coax run into the den where I had a DirectTV receiver which was ditched. This coax was used for the Airspy R2, which covers 24-1700 Mhz. This device is more than an inexpensive RTL-SDR, but the performance specs are amazing, including 8Mhz RX bandwidth. The device is really small.
You can run Airspy SDR# on just about any platform that can support the hardware specs, but since I had a Raspberry PI400 just sitting in the drawer, I decided to use it to run a Spy Server with the Linux ARM64 app which is free. The installation instructions were straight forward, and in a few minutes I had SDR# 64 bit on my Windows 11 laptop connected to the server over the wireless network. I've installed several SDR# plugins, including Frequency Manager, the CTCSS and DCS decoder.
If desired, you can use a public DNS with either port-forwarding or a VPN to make this setup available over the internet. There are security settings to make it publicly available, if desired. I like this setup because I can take my laptop anywhere on the property and monitor anything in the frequency range.
Common Uses for Airspy / SDR# Setup
Obviously, this makes a great general purpose, wide banded receiver. But there are other cool things you can do with this setup. For example, let's say you want to monitor 6 meters for band openings...you can do that. Or use it as a panadapter for your VHF/UHF station to spot signals. I've tried using it to "see" the Amsat birds with mixed success, which has more to do with the antenna I'm using than anything else. I've also used it a scope to evaluate and test beta radios, like the Retevis MA1, which had many weird initial problems with PL tones. My testing using this setup helped me provide valuable info back to the factory so they could improve the firmware. Recently I used it to adjust the Reference Oscillator setting in my Icom IC-7000 to help me get the radio dialed back on frequency for 2m and 70cm SSB use! That entire procedure took less than 10 minutes becaeuse I was able to hear and see my signal while making the adjustment in the menu. Of course, I listen to local emergency services, including the California Highway Patrol, which operates around 40Mhz. It works great. Sometimes I just pan around the bands to see what kind of odd signals are out there - I can listen to air band, local Port of Los Angeles / Long Beach traffic, and local businesses running FRS radios, lol.
This is a great setup for radio enthusiasts. If you already have coax run through your house from cable tv or satellite, figure out a way to use it. If you have a dish mount you're not using, repurpose it for something. You can even find these dish mounts for cheap on social media swap sites or yard sales...they really work well! Maybe this post will inspire someone to think about about trying new.
The vertical mast is just a short piece of antenna mast from Home Depot and the mast Double Jaw Clamps are also from Amazon for about $15. Since my plan was to use this antenna as a receiver, the existing coax is pre-run and free, so I just used it. My main purpose was to use this setup with the Airspy R2, but since the coax was also run to the home theater in the family room, I decided to use it as the FM Broadcast antenna for my home theater receiver. This works great and I now have HD FM reception!
I also had existing TV coax run into the den where I had a DirectTV receiver which was ditched. This coax was used for the Airspy R2, which covers 24-1700 Mhz. This device is more than an inexpensive RTL-SDR, but the performance specs are amazing, including 8Mhz RX bandwidth. The device is really small.
You can run Airspy SDR# on just about any platform that can support the hardware specs, but since I had a Raspberry PI400 just sitting in the drawer, I decided to use it to run a Spy Server with the Linux ARM64 app which is free. The installation instructions were straight forward, and in a few minutes I had SDR# 64 bit on my Windows 11 laptop connected to the server over the wireless network. I've installed several SDR# plugins, including Frequency Manager, the CTCSS and DCS decoder.
If desired, you can use a public DNS with either port-forwarding or a VPN to make this setup available over the internet. There are security settings to make it publicly available, if desired. I like this setup because I can take my laptop anywhere on the property and monitor anything in the frequency range.
Common Uses for Airspy / SDR# Setup
Obviously, this makes a great general purpose, wide banded receiver. But there are other cool things you can do with this setup. For example, let's say you want to monitor 6 meters for band openings...you can do that. Or use it as a panadapter for your VHF/UHF station to spot signals. I've tried using it to "see" the Amsat birds with mixed success, which has more to do with the antenna I'm using than anything else. I've also used it a scope to evaluate and test beta radios, like the Retevis MA1, which had many weird initial problems with PL tones. My testing using this setup helped me provide valuable info back to the factory so they could improve the firmware. Recently I used it to adjust the Reference Oscillator setting in my Icom IC-7000 to help me get the radio dialed back on frequency for 2m and 70cm SSB use! That entire procedure took less than 10 minutes becaeuse I was able to hear and see my signal while making the adjustment in the menu. Of course, I listen to local emergency services, including the California Highway Patrol, which operates around 40Mhz. It works great. Sometimes I just pan around the bands to see what kind of odd signals are out there - I can listen to air band, local Port of Los Angeles / Long Beach traffic, and local businesses running FRS radios, lol.
This is a great setup for radio enthusiasts. If you already have coax run through your house from cable tv or satellite, figure out a way to use it. If you have a dish mount you're not using, repurpose it for something. You can even find these dish mounts for cheap on social media swap sites or yard sales...they really work well! Maybe this post will inspire someone to think about about trying new.
