On Tue, 10 Jun 2008 22:51:02 -0400, Joe Subich, W4TV wrote: >I hate to disagree with Simon but I do want to answer the old >wives' tale about internal sound cards and laptops ...
I agree, Joe, but do so on the basis of far less information than you and Simon, both of whose work I have a great deal of respect for. Sound cards are wildly variable in their quality and characteristics, and virtually all have pin 1 problems. But if you understand how audio level matching works and do the bonding I recommend to eliminate the hum and buzz voltages that exist between equipment that you're interconnecting, most computer sound cars, laptop or otherwise, will work very well. My piece on interfacing is http://audiosystemsgroup.com/HamInterfacing.pdf It is a Power Point for a tutorial I did for a local ham club. The tutorial also exists as text -- it's in Chapter 7 of the RFI tutorial -- Solving Problems in the Shack. Both of these pdfs are written to help hams UNDERSTAND the issues, and provide simple step by step solutions. http://audiosystemsgroup.com/RFI-Ham.pdf is the tutorial. BTW -- my limited sample of laptops over the past 10 years has been almost entirely with Thinkpads, specifically T20-series and T40-series. I bought them new and paid big bucks, but they are now available as used, off-lease units with a legal version of Windows at very modest cost. The T20 and T30 series have a COM port. Later ones do not. Another BTW -- I am told that most laptop mfrs farm out their sound cards to a third party mfr, and they're a commodity. That adds to the wide variation. 73, Jim Brown K9YC _______________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Post to: Elecraft@mailman.qth.net You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com
