WVDXA Mtg. – “Radio in a Box” Technology
Today the WVDXA’s “Virtual” Meeting contained a presentation by Hal, W8HC, on some Fantastic New Technology for DX’ing. It is called “Radio in a Box” (RIB) and it is absolutely amazing! The basic idea is that a complete radio station is contained in a Pelican case including power supplies, a Flex 6700 series SDR, a 1.5 kW amp, Ethernet and Data Control hardware, a water cooling system to keep the box from getting too warm, and a 900 MHz Wi-FI Radio Bridge. This concept allows the equipment to exist on, say, an island (along with antennas and a generator) while the operators are onboard a ship anchored off-shore and they control the station remotely.
This means no people are living/camping on the island and that means there is a minimum environmental impact on the island. The so-called “footprint” of the operation is minimized and no time is wasted setting up and maintaining the support infrastructure for the operators. Only once a day will 2 people be needed to visit the island, top off the generators, do maintenance and make inspections.
Hopefully this new technology will allow the activation of super rare entities that currently do not allow a DX’pedition to operate because of the impact to the fragile environment of the location. The system has the capability to operate up to 6 separate stations over the single Wi-Fi link.
This presentation describes the recent operation from C6AGU in the CQWW CW Contest and the ARRL 160-M CW Contest where 4 RIB’s were used. Nearly 10,000 QSO’s were made during the entire operation and the concept was deemed a 5-Star Success!
The following link is to the recording of this WVDXA Meeting Presentation (minus the first 20 minutes.) It is 55 minutes long and contains the comments at the end of the meeting as well. Click on the link and then enter the Passcode.
https://us02web.zoom.us/rec/
Passcode: ZycM!+s1
There were 31 attendees in today’s “Virtual” meeting including hams from all over the state of West Virginia as well as, CA, GA, OH, AL, PA, IA, NC, IN, and FL! This was one of the best “Virtual” meetings of the WVDXA so far.
