I'm not even sure the "old" way of analyzing receiver performance is entirely
germane to SDR because the radio is very different in system concept than a
standard analogue radio. Yes there are points where the system can be made to
break, but the points of "breaking" in a test are simply definitions not
necessarily real things.
Part of the "problem" with numbers is the manufacturers have learned to
manipulate them. They build their systems in order to beat the numbers. It's
why every friggin radio in the universe except the Flex now has a "roofing
filter", but the numbers are in some respects artificial and not complete.
Like Rob says its the radio that you turn on when you go in the shack that is
the radio for you. This being driven by the numbers is not necessarily smart.
When Polio was endemic people were kept alive with iron lungs. If we did not
explore outside of the box ideas and were simply engineering driven, we would
not have come up with vaccines. We would have come up with real efficiently
engineered iron lungs. There is no "test" of an iron lung that is germane to a
vaccine.
We have seen in this very thread the problem. At some point the "numbers"
devolve to a Ford v Chevy kind of thing, a competition of trivialities. I
think the W4TV post has some of that kind of tenor. Others claim to believe
Rob over the ARRL. I can't say I disagree with that because my knowledge of
Rob is that he is interested in honestly advancing the state of the art. I
believe the ARRL is interested in selling advertising, but the point is a test
is merely a way to compare some limited aspect of function across systems and
as such may not really inform you about the system. An automotive example:
You can test a rail dragster's turning radius and compare it to a Honda, but in
the end who cares what the turning radius is of a car that is made to go real
fast in a strait line? All you need is "enough" to keep the lateral forces
balanced as you scream down the strip
73 W9OY
____________________________________________________________________________________
Shape Yahoo! in your own image. Join our Network Research Panel today!
http://surveylink.yahoo.com/gmrs/yahoo_panel_invite.asp?a=7
_______________________________________________
FlexRadio mailing list
FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz
http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz
Archive Link: http://www.mail-archive.com/flexradio%40flex-radio.biz/
FlexRadio Knowledge Base: http://kb.flex-radio.com/
FlexRadio Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com/
