Anan-10

I had a Flex 3000 sitting on the shelf.  I no longer have computers with firewire.  I saw an add on QTH.com from a college student at Purdue who wanted a Flex 3K.  Since I went to Purdue in 1970, I made him a good deal, and sent the Flex on its way to its new home.  On the same day as I made the Flex deal, a Anan-10 showed up on QTH.com,  I have been considering giving this style of SDR a try.  The way it works is kind of a cross between the Flex 5K/3K and the Signature series.  The deal was reasonable so I made the buy.

Apache Labs is the company that makes the Anan series.  The Anan-10 is a single SCU (spectral capture unit) radio with a 10W nominal transmitter,  You can read more here   The hardware design is from the HPSDR (high performance SDR) group.  OpenSDR means the hardware is open similar to open software.  The radio is run by a version of PowerSDR called PowerSDR_mrx.  Again open source.  

The radio arrived and I paired it with a LDG- Z-11pro tuner I had sitting on the shelf.  

I downloaded PowerSDR_mrx and installed it, and I thought I was all set.  I was wrong.  I hooked up the Anan-10 to one of the ethernet ports of my computer and was stopped dead.  I could not get my computer to talk to to the Anan.  I tried all manner of tricks to get the computer and radio to talk.  Apache Labs sells hardware, and this is important, once you buy the hardware getting the radio running is your responsibility.  There is no help desk ticket support staff to hold your hand.  However there are a couple of Yahoo Groups devoted to Anan.  I checked into one of the groups run by KC9XG and we proceeded to try and get this radio running.  I spent 30 hours trying this and that, no luck.  I was contacted by Mukesh KE3VG who happens to also be a friend of Don K7MX who is well embedded in the Flex organization for testing purposes.  He also mans the Orlando Hamfest so if you ever go to Orlando you will get a chance to talk to Don.  SDR is a small world!  Any way Makesh had me download teamviewer which is a remote desktop program and skype and we proceeded to solve the problem.  So even though there is not official support, hams being who they are went above and beyond to get the job done!  I had to massage the subnet in one of my ehternet ports and make the address static to get things peculating.  

Here is a shot of PowerSDR_mrx all connected to the Anan-10.   I connercted my 43 ft vertical to the LDG tuner and memorized setting for each band 80-6.  My first contact was a V44 in St. Kitts & Nevis on 30M with a blistering 10W.  I need to spend a LOT more time with this radio.  I am able to run both the Flex 6300 and the Anan-10 at the same time on different antennas.

And yes I can watch the Anan transmit while viewing on the Flex

Very clean signal 

and as well I can watch the Flex transmit to the Anan.

Also beautifully clean.  So over all it should be interesting to see how these 2 radios stack up.

73  W9OY