The receiver
Sixteen people can listen at once
OTAMA will carry a KiwiSDR 2 on its own antenna — the whole shortwave spectrum, open in a browser, free, from a paddock with no noise floor to fight. None of it exists yet.
What a KiwiSDR actually is
A software defined receiver that hears everything from the bottom of the dial to 30 MHz at once, and serves it over the web. You open a page, you get a waterfall of the whole spectrum, and you tune by clicking on it. No software to install, no account, nothing to buy.
The useful part is that it is not one radio taking turns. It is sixteen independent channels — sixteen people can be listening to sixteen completely different frequencies, in different modes, at the same time, and none of them affects the others.
Each one independently tuned. Shown empty because the receiver does not exist yet.
Why put one somewhere quiet
This is the whole argument for the station, and the receiver is where it shows up most plainly. A shortwave receiver in a suburb hears the suburb: solar inverters, LED globes, phone chargers, the lot — a wall of hash that buries everything faint. The same receiver in a paddock hears the ionosphere.
You do not need to own the radio, drive to the paddock, or hold a licence to benefit from that. You need a browser.
The plan
- ReceiverKiwiSDR 2 — one, to begin with — not yet bought
- Channels16 simultaneous users, independently tuned
- Coverage0 – 30 MHz, continuous
- AntennaA dedicated end-fed half wave, separate from the transmit antenna
- AccessOpen in a browser, free, no account
- StatusPlanned — nothing installed
IKARA already runs this, and you can use it today while OTAMA is still on paper — sdr.ikara.vk1hf.com. OTAMA's will work the same way.
Navy first
When the sixteen channels are full, they are full — and when that happens, serving and ex-Navy personnel get priority. This station is named after one of your boats; it seems the least it can do.
There is a way around a full receiver. Get in touch for the secret sauce — ian@iangilchrist.net. Double duffs if you are polite about it.
Serving, ex-serving, any branch, any navy. If you wore the uniform, say so and that is enough.
When
After the site is settled. The order is: find the land, get power and the Starlink in, put the DX Commander up and the Aurora on air, then the receiver and its own antenna. The receiver is not the hard part — the paddock is.
If you have one, the landholders page explains exactly what would go on it.
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