The goal is to enjoy as much of the pandemic-shortened 2020 baseball season as I can via listening to far-away AM stations through SDR receivers.
I'm continuing to use the baseball section of my commonplace book to keep track of who's broadcasting where, and where you can listen to KiwiSDR or WebSDR receivers to tune in those broadcasts.
Two big changes in my listening since last year.
For East Coast stations, I'm more and more relying on listening through the WebSDR at K3FEF in Northeast Pennsylvania. WebSDR's can readily handle 50 or more simultaneous listeners, so there's less chance of congestion. This particular listening post will pick up stations from Connecticut to Washington DC.
In the KiwiSDR world, there are more and more Kiwi's that are using advanced technology to squeeze out more listening channels than the typical 4 channel setup. N6GN in Fort Collins runs a Beaglebone AI KiwiSDR setup that offers 14 simultaneous users. The usual tradeoff is that you get less of a spectrum waterfall display and more audio channels.
Some teams are easier to follow than others. I don't have a good way to copy Padres games, except via their Spanish language station. Phillies daytime games can be picked up via a station in Scranton, but 2000 watt WEJL drops down to 32 watts at night, not much of a powerhouse. Receivers do wink in and out from time to time, so any given listening suggestion is not a guarantee.
It's weird to listen to games, knowing that the crowd noise is synthetic, and knowing that some teams like the Marlins have had a piece of their season wiped out due to COVID-19. But it's still baseball - a weird, slightly mutant baseball, with seven inning doubleheader games and men on base to start extra innings.
Comments