Check the thrift shops and such as well. I'm serious. My company just donated ~100 2.4 GHz Pentium 4 machines to Goodwill and one of the local YMCA's. The machines are going to be cleaned, fixed up (most are OK, a few need some TLC... like the one I dropped during the move, oops) and then sold to the public.
...no, we didn't donate ALL of them to charity. I got 3, including a new one for the shack. Bought them for $50 each. (The firm is donating all the funds from employee sales to the same charities). So, it doesn't hurt to ask around. Even in this economy, companies are replacing machines in mass, and often, you can get a good system for pennies on the dollar. 73 -----Original Message----- From: kf...@njdxa.org [mailto:kf...@njdxa.org] On Behalf Of Dick Flanagan Sent: Thursday, May 07, 2009 4:34 PM To: andersonw...@sbcglobal.net Cc: DX CHAT Subject: Re: [DX-CHAT] Logging, spotting PC At 08:21 AM 5/7/2009, Tom Anderson wrote: >Any suggestions what I need to look for as far as extras, like a video >card, etc? I would go to your local computer shop--the neighborhood type who will build you what you want from scratch. Tell they you want a fairly fast machine (2+GHz) with a reasonable amount of memory (2+GB). You want: (4) RS-232 serial ports (4+) USB-2 Ports (2+) Firewire Ports (2) decent 16-bit sound cards (2) decent video cards. Ideally both with analog and digital outputs or one with analog and one with digital. (2+) SATA disk drives (2+) external SATA ports Windows XP Pro (small shops aren't stuck with Vista) Let the shop decide which video and sound cards to actually get. Tell them you are doing real-time data sampling, so you need good stuff but nothing near the best. They know the market and what will get you the most bang for your buck. Specify SATA drives and ports as they are faster and more reliable. If you have room on your operating desk, get two LCD flat-panel displays. It's always nice to be able to have your radio control on one screen and your program control on the other. A general rule of thumb is you can't have too much speed, too much memory, too much disk space or too many I/O ports. This setup will probably cost you $1500 by the time you factor in the displays. If the price comes in too high, just tell the shop you need to dial everything back a notch to the next cost point until you find a system you are comfortable with. I can't emphasize enough the need to avoid the big box stores. Go to your local computer shop that services local businesses. They usually run around in a little car or truck with their name blazoned on it and are hard to miss. Standard disclaimers apply. Batteries not included. Dick -- Dick Flanagan K7VC d...@k7vc.com ----------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe or subscribe to this list. Please send a message to imail...@njdxa.org In the message body put either unsubscribe dx-chat or subscribe dx-chat This is the DX-CHAT reflector sponsored by the NJDXA http://njdxa.org ----------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe or subscribe to this list. Please send a message to imail...@njdxa.org In the message body put either unsubscribe dx-chat or subscribe dx-chat This is the DX-CHAT reflector sponsored by the NJDXA http://njdxa.org -----------------------------------------------------------
