Skywave Linux 5.0.0 to Arrive Within Hours

Fellow Linux and SDR users, Shortwave Listeners!

I have finished building the newest, Debian Sid based, version of Skywave Linux. That's right - we're off Ubuntu and now a rolling release derived from Sid / Unstable. The new iso is smaller, faster, and fresher. Updates to the website are in progress; here on SourceForge, expect an iso and readme files to be uploaded shortly.

Version 5 is about bringing in the signals, then doing something with them. If you are in a noisy radio environment or without monster antennas, or simply too far from the stations you want to pick up, internet SDRs are the solution. Between the KiwiSDRs, WebSDRs, and SpyServers, the number of people tuning in to hear stations across the globe can number as high as 2000 at any time, and sometimes substantially more. Decoding packages ate installed, so you're not limited to voice or CW signals. If you haven't done so yet, try the modes available in Fldigi, WSJT, or JTDX. Their effectiveness during times of solar flares is so much better than SSB or AM...

The radio streamer script has gotten some nice tweaks since the last Skywave Linux release. My first concept of it was to bring up favorite stations on specific internet SDRs, opening in Firefox. Today, hitting the keybind (keys Super + Shift + S) brings up SuperSDR instead, and connects to a receiver near the desired station. Not a preset SDR, but one selected automatically for proximity and SNR score. It isn't perfect yet. It seems that some KiwiSDRs block non-browser clients. Some others filter out the mediumwave broadcast band or block fun freqs like 11175 kHz. LOL, it appears that toxic 7200 kHz is not blocked anywhere.

Wallpaper for this version is an image of the Armstrong tower, sometimes called the Alpine tower, over the Palisades - the New Jersey side of the Hudson River near New York City. I must have flown past it a thousand times as a budding flight instructor, back in the 1980s. The tower is historic, as Edwin Howard Armstrong developed the concept of frequency modulation into a useful technology and made the first wide band FM broadcasts from there. That, from the man who brought us the superheterodyne radio. That, from the same man who brought us the regenerative receiver and cracked the once puzzling theory of amplification in vacuum tubes.

Cheers,
Phil C / AB9IL
Skywave Linux