Tim, Brian, The light is now burning bright. Thanks for the explanations.
I'm not a Windows guy. So when I set up the Flex and its software minions (HRD, N1MM, etc), I dove into the morass of Windows control panels, sliders, check boxes, preferences windows, and lots of jargon, with a dash of VAC as well, and kept trying different settings until it worked. The KB articles helped a lot. That was 18 months ago. Ever since then, I've been pretty much unwilling to touch it for fear of breaking something. But, I just summoned up the courage and did a little playing around - found an old PC mike that came for free with some soundcard, plugged it in, and now when I talk into it the F3K transmits SSB! Cool. I have to make up an adapter for my Heil headset and see how that works. I understand that the Flex A/D converters are excellent. But PC ones must be usable too, since they do the work when remoting a station, with lower audio quality of course. I don't have a Flex-1500, so I can't check this. But if a Flex-1500 user really wants VOX, can't they get that now if they use a mike plugged in to their PC rather than the Flex like I just tried with my F3K? Or is that function somehow disabled when using a Flex-1500? It seems to me that the Flex-1500 does support VOX today, although in certain limited configurations. It seems to me that customers might prefer to have a less-than-excellent VOX than none at all. 73, /Jack On Mon, 2010-11-15 at 23:13 +0000, Tim Ellison wrote: > See my comments below > > > -Tim > > > -----Original Message----- > From: flexradio-boun...@flex-radio.biz > [mailto:flexradio-boun...@flex-radio.biz] On Behalf Of Jack Haverty > Sent: Monday, November 15, 2010 5:34 PM > To: Brian Lloyd > Cc: flexradio@flex-radio.biz; sgho...@optonline.net > Subject: Re: [Flexradio] Why no VOX capability on the Flex-1500? > > {Assuming the 1500 and 3000 architectures are similar except for Firewire vs > USB) > > [Tim] The have similar components, but they are very different too. > > I've never really understood why the mike and speaker/headphones plug in to > the Flex rather than the PC. Of course, if your PC lacks any audio > interfaces, it wouldn't be possible, but most PCs have at least on-board > audio these days, which is good enough for Skype-ing, watching movies, etc. > > [Tim] All a sound card is really doing is providing A/D and D/A conversions > and a mixer function. Because the A/D and the D/A converters are in the > radios themselves; sound cards are not needed as they would be redundant. > This is how the first generation SDRs, like the SDR-1000 worked. Most PCs > are not *all* PCs. > > The PC is where all of the audio is processed anyway, with EQ etc., so it has > to go through there. Seems like the most efficient configuration would be to > plug audio devices in to the PC. There would be a difference in quality, > depending on which box's ADC and DAC were better. > > [Tim] No it isn't. See my comment about where the A/D and D/A conversion > happens. Also the A/D and D/A converters in the FLEX-5000 are MUCH better > than what is in a PC. It is a professional grade ADC and DAC. The audio > being processed by PowerSDR is entirely in the digital domain. > > Is it possible through some magic of settings in various windows to route > audio from mike/headphones on the PC to and from a Flex - i.e., using > mike/headphones/spkr with a Flex without using the Flex's own audio jacks? > Seems like this routing already happens when you use VAC with digital modes. > Will it also work for SSB/AM/FM? > > [Tim] Yes, you can use VAC. That is how people remote PowerSDR today over > the Internet > > Perhaps this just works, and I only just realized it... Doh. > > [Tim] I see a light bulb clicking on :-) > > In fact, now that I think of it, I've already sent SSB audio sourced from the > PC to the Flex by using N1MM as a voice keyer. Shouldn't be much different > with a live mike. > > [Tim] The bulb is getting brighter :-) > > Such a configuration might make VOX possible with the 1500 - i.e., if the PC > monitors the mike audio from a PC audio port rather than just > from the USB. > > [Tim] Nope, that isn't going to happen. The VOX issue with the FLEX-1500 is > a hardware limitation with the CODEX I/O. Also there are some programmatic > challenges with PowerSDR having to manage the AF gain of a third-party sound > card. We see how well that is working out now with the Delta-44 sound card > running the SDR-1000 and the changes made to the sound card driver that broke > the audio control panel interaction with PowerSDR when they updated to Vista. > Also you would have additional audio latency and sample rate conversions > passing the bit streams through a sound card. Architecturally, it isn't a > better design just because you want to use your radio speakers to listen what > your computer has to say. An audio switch box or a second pair of speakers > is a better option > > I'm also wondering if it would improve performance with a > less-than-screaming PC, by offloading some of the I/O processing needed to > move the audio signals through the USB/Firewire path. > > [Tim] A radio without a microphone input? The "no knobs" issue was bad > enough :-) I do not think removing two data streams from the Firewire or > USB interface is going to make that big of a difference in CPU utilization. > That A/D or O/I process still has to occur somewhere. You are just moving > the process to a different subsystem in the "radio system". Sound card take > CPU too. > > Or am I missing something obvious.... > > [Tim] Not necessarily obvious. This is just how it was designed to work. > > 73, > /Jack > > > On Mon, 2010-11-15 at 13:01 -0800, Brian Lloyd wrote: > > On Mon, Nov 15, 2010 at 12:54 PM, <sgho...@optonline.net> wrote: > > > > > Thanks Ray and Brian! > > > > > > > You are welcome. > > > > There are four "audio" channels in the 1500. During RX two carry the > > I/Q data from the 1500 to the PC. The other two are used to send the > > audio back to the headphone jack. There are no spare audio channels > > for the microphone during receive. On TX the audio channels from 1500 > > to PC are freed up (no > > RX) so one is used for mic audio. Without an audio channel for the mic > > during RX there is no way to do VOX. > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > FlexRadio Systems Mailing List > FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz > http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz > Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/flexradio%40flex-radio.biz/ > Knowledge Base: http://kc.flexradio.com/ Homepage: http://www.flexradio.com/ _______________________________________________ FlexRadio Systems Mailing List FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/flexradio%40flex-radio.biz/ Knowledge Base: http://kc.flexradio.com/ Homepage: http://www.flexradio.com/
