Hermes SDR

Some people have a set of skills Ijust simply won't own. These are in the design and build of complex cicuits that do stuff that most of us say WOW!

I bumped into one of those peoplea few days ago, Kevin, M0KHZ. Kevin is heavily into SDR and more specically HPSDR - High Performance Software Defined Radio. He was also the person who showed me how to solder SMD's and made it look so simple it gave me the confidence to ruin a few pads and components. Most of which he generously donated to me from his stockpile.

At last years Dayton convention he and a few dedicated others showed a prototype Hermes SDR that was simply breathtaking (at least the box in his shack that he showed me had me wanting one immediately). Since then he mentioned that the project team had been battling with some problem with the boards and as a result needed a lot of head scratching. This thinking time is nearly over and the fruits of his and the rest of the teams labour is at an end. With a bit of luck this years Dayton will have an update.

If you'd like to know more about Hermes and HPSDR then follow this link. I've no real clue as to how it all works, I can certainly follow a block diagram but the rest of it is well over my head, I'm just fascinated with the end result. It may not be your thing and if it isn't you must agree that this type of experimentation demonstrates the unique nature of this hobby. Homebrewing for me is building an antenna from scratch or a simple kit or cable. For others its at the bleeding edge of RF technology. For others its the integration with computers or building cheap and simple sub watt transmitters that get the other side of the world. Whatever the flavour I challenge anyone to come up these levels of innovation, I can only think of astronomy!