Ham Radio 2024 at Friedrichshafen proved a great opportunity to gather customer feedback by chatting with a constant stream of visitors. SDRplay was there with demos of the lastest SDRconnect client and server software running on a number of platforms including Windows, Linux/Raspberry Pi and MacOS.  Of special interest was our abilty to show the excellent LF performance of the new RSPdx-R2 by connecting remotely to one in the UK,  and demonstrating how clearly NDB signals could be received.

At the show, we were guests of CJ Elektronik – Funk24 but I was also able to spend time with two of the other SDRplay resellers, Bonito and Funtechnik Dathe,  on their stands.

Above: Windows , Raspberry Pi 4  and MacOS demos

Lots of people came up to me saying they already had at least one or two, some even more RSPs!  Many people wanted to share their positive experiences of using SDRconnect and the new RSP1B which was very satisfying. Interestingly more than half of those who already had units had not yet tried SDRconnect, so this was a great opportunity to show it to them.  There were also many people still enjoying SDRuno who came with their questions.

Here is a selection of the comments made to me:  “What’s the difference between the RSPdx and the RSPdx-R2?”, “What’s the difference between the RSP1B and the original RSP/RSP1A? “, “I like the simplicity of SDRconnect compared to SDRuno”, “I want to use the RSP as a panadapter but I don’t have RX out on my transceiver – what do you recommend for a T/R switch”,  “Oh yes, I use my RSP for Q100” (wanting our s/w to handle frequency offsets to represent signals above 2GHz),  “Oh your software runs on Raspberry Pi?, great”,   “When is rig control coming”, “I want brighter colours”, “The SDRconnect S-meter (green bar) is dim compared to SDRuno”, “I want RDS”  or “I need RDS for FM DXing, especially the PI code”, “Will there be a DAB module soon?”, “I really want plugins/modules for 433MHz so I can decode weather station info/ car wheel tyre-gauge info/Tetra”, “I wish I could set and keep filter settings”, “Where is the server software?” (not realising it’s with the download )  and “When will there be plugins/modules for SDRconnect?”   These are mostly things we have heard before and we hope to address the majority of them in the coming months with website improvements, updated video guides and/or software updates.

Above: l to r: Christian, Jon, Matthaus and Rike from Funk24

I also enjoyed  meeting, (for the first time)  Dino, from Hamradioshop.it, our Italian reseller and Salvador, from Astroradio, our Spanish reseller.   I also met Manuel, from our Swedish reseller, Limmared, whom I’d met before. We really appreciate the hard work and dedication of our European reseller network.  Other meetings which were very interesting included our friend Frank Werner Krippendorf who has done so much work on linux software for RSP users. He now works for https://aaronia.com/ whose customers sometimes need access to low cost hardware.  I also met with Marcus Mueller, GNU radio architect who was very enthusiastic about RSPs as a serious hardware option for GNU radio users – we will work together to update the links and wording on the GNU radio tutorial site.

In summary, many thanks to everyone who came to say hello and for all the feedback and comments.

Above: Jon and Dennis from Bonito in front of their SDRconnect demo

Above: Jon and Daniel from Funtechnik-Dathe

Above: Jon with Dino from Hamradioshop.it