HFU HF Underground
Technical Topics => Equipment => Topic started by: ThaDood on July 26, 2025, 1849 UTC
-
http://hermeslite.com/ and https://www.eham.net/reviews/view-product/14724 HUH!!!! On the drive home last night, on the CB, local CB'ers were talking about this SDR rig. Huh, intriguing, but did they have to give this rig a name where it sounds like a type of beer?
-
I own one, and IMO it is the best SDR for the price. Excellent receive and transmit quality and the software is nice to work with. The only issue is finding something to amplify the 5 watts can be kind of difficult.
-
Hermes and Square both use same software and outperform the flagship radios from the big amateur manufacturers, why spend thousands? Xiegu and 60dbm make amps to get you to 100 watts. Best radios I have ever owned.
(https://i.ibb.co/V06fPGGR/3stack.jpg) (https://imgbb.com/)
rgg
-
I am not into SDRs and don't have one -- which means I, of course, don't have a Hermes.
But I've heard several hams on 40 and 20 meters who have them, and the sound and clarity they put out is excellent.
And the guys who use Hermes SDRs in their hamming swear by them. They apparently are that good.
-
i love mine.. we need a better option for a amp tho.
-
What are the exact receiving and transmitting frequency limits ?
-
love mine it rips :)
-
What are the exact receiving and transmitting frequency limits ?
Reception: The HL2 can receive frequencies from approximately 130 kHz to 38 MHz, according to eHam and RTL-SDR.com. However, the useful bandscope range is limited by the ADC's sampling rate, which in the default firmware is 76.8MHz, providing a spectrum view from 0 to 38.4MHz.
Transmission: The HL2 supports transmitting within the range of 1.8 MHz to 30 MHz, encompassing the standard HF amateur radio bands (160-10 meters
-
Thanks Radiogaga for the frequency limits of the HL-2.
BTW, the 'standard ham bands' are not standard worldwide, even in HF. I'm always stunned to see US hams ignoring that.
-
The Hermes has a selectable region, so you can have the correct limits for your country. It also has out of band TX easily enabled in software.
-
I don't mean to necro a thread, but I received one yesterday and have been playing with it today.
Holy shit. I was doing some barefoot reduced power tests to my airspy. I had a 44.1kHz cquam signal going, and it sounded absolutely pristine, CD fidelity analog audio centered right on 6900khz. I had the amp at 200mw, as low as I could get it, and it absolutely dominated. You'd never know it was being sent over a shortwave frequency.
I literally bought the thing to play with exotic weird modulations. My overall broadcast goal is to do eSSB with a reduced carrier, which also sounds damn good compared to the old Yaesu I've given up on using for music.
There are decent amplifier options if you look, and some have built ones that go straight from 5w to 500w without any intermediate amplification. Theres the juma, the juma clone (rs928), the xiegu, etc.. The unit by itself can put out 5w, and that's a lot easier to pull up, especially considering it's a pure and clean well modulated signal.
The selling point for me was I'm in full control of the modulation parameters. If I want a 10kHz wide SSB signal with a 10khz DRM flanker to simultaneously transmit from the same antenna, I just make the flowgraph in gnuradio, hit play and it transmits it exactly how I designed it. The HackRF was a fun toy that brought me into the fold of how this stuff works, but this is the real deal. Pristine audio with absolute flexibility, digital, analog, it doesn't matter, it just outputs whatever you tell it to put it. I could, in theory, do full motion digital TV over shortwave with it... Probably not a practical use of spectrum and would likely be shit quality due to needing significant video compression to try to cram it into as little spectrum as possible, but its absolutely possible. It has absolutely reignited my passion for this hobby.
Plus it's entirely remotely controlled, literally not even a single button on it. Theres nothing stopping me from just tossing it into an outdoor enclosure with some batteries, solar panels, a 5G modem in a pcie Ethernet sled and connecting it back through tailscale to my local network.
For "underground" users, this is the Cadillac of setups for KIA prices. It's light, portable, and the most flexible radio you can get. And with fanatic sound quality? Im definitely drunk on the kool-aid, and I've barely even scratched the surface.
Highly recommended.
-
I love mine :)