User Manual

Spectrograph. It also works well with RF-Space’s SDR-14 but they have become somewhat
obsolete.
After working with the Quantum Access PC I think it is a good option for low powered operation
but when you add up all of the options, I believe a new low-end laptop is cheaper. You’ll get a
hard drive, monitor, keyboard, etc. And more than one USB port. The newer PCs are certainly
getting more energy efficient except the Windows versions are mostly Windows 10. One bad
feature of Windows 10 is it doesn’t like some versions of the old reliable software used in the
hobby. And another which is disastrous is that it wants to download software updates and
REBOOT. The only way to overcome that is go wireless LAN and tell it that you’re on a
metered (pay-as-you go) network. I run all of my PCs with the manual update option. Once in a
while an update appears to reset that and I have found a PC rebooted and no longer recording
data.
Most of the software I have featured in past columns can be adapted for other interesting radio
astronomy monitoring using a variety of receivers. Experimentation is where the fun is.
Radio Astronomy Hobby Book List
Here’s a list of books of my shelves that may interest and assist your journey into the hobby. A
search on ABE Books or other sellers often finds fairly inexpensive used copies. Though the
books may be somewhat dated, they offer a good background in the concepts.
The New Astronomy by Paul and Lesley Murdin, pub. by Thomas Y. Crowell Co., 1978.
Radio Astronomy by Steinberg and Lequeux, pub. by McGraw-Hill Electronics Series, 1963.
Big Ear by John Kraus, pub. by Cygnus-Quasar Books, 1976.
The Big Dish: The Fascinating Story of Radio Telescopes by Roger Piper, pub. by Harcourt,
Brace & World, Inc., 1963.
The Radio Sky and How to Observe It by Jeff Lashley, pub. by Springer,
The Amateur Radio Astronomer’s Handbook by John Potter Shields, Crown Publishers, 1986
Clocks in the Sky: The Story of Pulsars by Geoff McNamara, pub. by Springer, 2008.
Introduction to Radio Astronomy by John Potter Shields, pub. by Howard Sams Pub., 1976.
Amateur Radio Astronomy by John Fielding, pub. by the RSGB, 2011.
The hobby can take you in many directions over time and having a good reference library is
handy. The web certainly provides the latest and greatest details, but there’s nothing like a good
book when your computer is busy monitoring Jupiter.