KiwiSDR Conference Talks: KiwiSDR and it’s GPSDO, TDoA Geo-Location and GNURadio Sources

Thank you to John ZL/KF6VO (creator of the KiwiSDR) for submitting some interesting KiwiSDR related conference talks that might be of interest to some readers. If you were unaware the KiwiSDR is a US$299 HF SDR that can monitor the entire 0 - 30 MHz band at once. It is designed to be web-based and shared, meaning that the KiwiSDR owner, or anyone that they've given access to can tune and listen to it via a web browser over the internet. Many public KiwiSDRs can be found and browsed from the list at sdr.hu or by signal strength and location on this website. One of the most interesting KiwiSDR features is it's TDoA capabilities, which allow users to geographically locate HF transmitters.

Introduction to the KiwiSDR and Bodnar GPSDO

Rob Robinett, AI6VN, gave a talk at the HamSCI Workshop 2019 (USA) “Introduction to the KiwiSDR and Bodnar GPSDO”. In addition to Kiwi basics he shows a live demo of the performance advantages in using an external GPSDO as the Kiwi ADC clock. A line-of-sight measurement of frequency/time station WWV in Colorado using the Kiwi’s internal GPS-compensated crystal oscillator (XO) is compared against using an external Bodnar GPSDO. The Kiwi’s IQ display extension shows the frequency/phase difference between the ADC clock, internal or external, and WWV. Rob also discusses the publicly available (kphsdr.com:8074) eight Kiwi installation he made at coastal radio station KPH north of San Francisco. 

Introduction to the KiwiSDR

KiwiSDR as a new GNURadio source and TDoA geo-location

Christoph Mayer, DL1CH, is the author of the Kiwi’s TDoA algorithm. His talk “KiwiSDR as a new GNURadio source and TDoA geo-location” was given at the Software Defined Radio Academy (SDRA) as part of HAM Radio 2019 in Friedrichshafen, Germany. He includes a very technical description of the TDoA process used by the Kiwi including a live demo of direction finding a 16 MHz over-the-horizon-radar (OTHR) signal from Cypress.

Christoph Mayer, DL1CH: KiwiSDR as a new GNURadio Source

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Kenny C

i had a kiwisdr, the radio is great, i loved it, but mating it to a little bitty under-poweredS beaglebone SBC was a bad idea, that little beaglebone could barely handle running the kiwisdr, that kiwisdr needs a more powerful computer to run it, i would suggest the developers find the most powerful off the shelf SBC to run it, or consider an x86_64 PC which would have more processing power like an intel nuc