Re: [Flexradio] Fw: Re: PowerSDR 1.18.1 Release notes
Hi! Me too! I like Janus/Ozy with SDR-1000. Should we just skip over versions 1.18.1 and upwards until version 1.20 release arrives? Ahti OH2RZ 2009/6/22 keega...@juno.com keega...@juno.com: Hello, I also agree with Joe and Ronald. I to use the Janus/Ozy sound card. 1.18.0 works fine but 1.18.1 give and error about no audio devise. In the set up there is a selection for the Janus/Ozy set up. Bob AC8O -- Forwarded Message -- From: roland etienne roland.etie...@free.fr To: 'Joe - AB1DO' ab...@optonline.net, flexradio@flex-radio.biz Subject: Re: [Flexradio] PowerSDR 1.18.1 Release notes Date: Mon, 22 Jun 2009 21:34:58 +0200 Hello, I think exactly the same as Joe, I use my SDR1000 with Ozy/Janus as sound card and control, and I am a bit frustrated as I cannot play with PowerSdr 1.18.1! What can I do? 73, Roland, f8chk. -Message d'origine- De : flexradio-boun...@flex-radio.biz [mailto:flexradio-boun...@flex-radio.biz] De la part de Joe - AB1DO Envoyé : lundi 22 juin 2009 21:09 À : flexradio@flex-radio.biz Objet : Re: [Flexradio] PowerSDR 1.18.1 Release notes I noticed that in 1.18.1 support for HPSDR hardware has been removed in FlexRadio's official release. Although I certainly understand this from a commercial standpoint I would like to plead for one exception and that is the use of the Janus/Ozy sound card in combination with the SDR-1000. The reasons are the following: There are still SDR-1000 users out there and many have added the Janus/Ozy soundcard to add a superior ADC/DAC when compared to any audio device. Additionally, selecting Ozy as the control device enables the SDR-1000 user to replace all computer connections to the SDR-1000 with one single USB cable. Although HPSDR has gone on to develop several more cards, many SDR-1000 users have only purchased the Janus/Ozy combo specifically for the purpose of enhancing their SDR-1000 experience. Especially when FlexRadio supported Janus/Ozy. Maintaining support for Janus/Ozy enables users to continue the enhanced experience of a FlexRadio device (SDR-1000), sustains FlexRadio's statement of supporting all legacy devices as PowerSDR develops and may even lead to future upgrades (FLEX 3000/FLEX-5000A). Although Janus/Ozy were not developed by FlexRadio, nor were any of the other sound cards and Janus/Ozy was (is?) a supported sound card if I'm not mistaken. At least, it is still in the list of sound cards to select in PowerSDR's start-up wizard (but selecting it seads to a PortAudio error). Cernatinly, an HPSDR version of PowerSDR is available elsewhere (where?), which is great for those interested in HPSDR. But SDR-1000 users are interested in FlexRadio - and why drive such users away from FlexRAdio towards HPSDR? 73 de Joe - AB1DO - Original Message - From: Tim Ellison telli...@itsco.com To: flexradio@flex-radio.biz; flexra...@yahoogroups.com Sent: Monday, June 22, 2009 13:37 Subject: [Flexradio] PowerSDR 1.18.1 Release notes It is recommended that everyone should review the PowerSDR release notes before installing a release. If there are dependencies or caveats, they are noted there. For PowerSDR 1.18.1, the Release Notes are found here in the Knowledge Center. http://kc.flex-radio.com/KnowledgebaseArticle50419.aspx -Tim - W4TME ___ 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.flex-radio.com/ Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.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.flex-radio.com/ Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.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.flex-radio.com/ Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com/ Click to get free auto insurance quotes from top companies. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2131/fc/BLSrjnsHEaERunU1bcL36aC7joFy5gfCnk5ttguAwX4jyiDMCI81NTdva5S/ ___ 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.flex-radio.com/ Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com/ ___ FlexRadio Systems Mailing
Re: [Flexradio] Upgrades and bug fixes to test
Hi Phil and Bob, 2009/3/18 Phil Harman p...@pharman.org: Hi Bob, Just tried the latest test code. A HUGE improvement in the AGC performance - sounds just great - many thanks. Now, about the speech compressor.. :) ... or clipper?! See these interesting measurements of K3: http://www.cliftonlaboratories.com:80/elecraft_k3_speech_processing.htm 73, Ahti OH2RZ ___ 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.flex-radio.com/ Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.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.flex-radio.com/ Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com/
Re: [Flexradio] K-3 setup vs Flex setup
Thank you Lee for bringing up this valuable feature of the Flex and other SDR equipment. Proper use of compression (or clipping) together with equalizers and filters makes high power amplifiers unnecessary in many cases. Try this concept and you'll find that you can manage in DX pileups with much less of output power. The DSP can make this function better than those clumsy hard wired processors of the yesteryears. Since some time already I'm using 10 W only. Please, don't pollute the scarce nature's resource, the electromagnetic spectrum. Save and use small and smart power on HF rather than heat waves on the infrared bands. ;-) 73, Ahti OH2RZ 2009/3/18 Lee A Crocker lee_croc...@yahoo.com: Ahti OH2RZ recently sent a link to an article that looked at the K3 speech processor. http://www.cliftonlaboratories.com/elecraft_k3_speech_processing.htm I found it interesting you need a room full of test equipment to analyze the K-3's performance. With the Flex radios you need to turn on the bandscope, and use the recorder. Here are a couple my blog entries that look at the versatility of the Flex system http://w9oy-sdr.blogspot.com/2009/02/audio-2.html http://w9oy-sdr.blogspot.com/2009/03/vomax-schmomax-gimme-equation.html http://w9oy-sdr.blogspot.com/2009/03/recording.html The article on the compander is how the Flex does its processing. The others do not address the issue directly but show how easy it is to analyze your signal. 73 W9OY ___ 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.flex-radio.com/ Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.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.flex-radio.com/ Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com/
Re: [Flexradio] blown SDR-1000 final opamp
Pete, Dudley, I used protection circuit outside the SDR-1000 in the both audio cables. It was with a 100 ohm current limiting resistor and two opposite parallel connected strings of 3 silicon diodes (1N4148). Nominally this limits the input voltage to 2.1Vpp. In my case also the unit from the first production run showed parasitic oscillations that were cured by grinding off some copper foil around the input/output pads to reduce the ground capacitance. Additional 3 units from the later production runs are completely stabile. Ahti On 10/12/2008, Pete Ferrand [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Ahti, Dudley: I'm using a Delta 44. That's interesting, I had been thinking the amp failed due to output issues as I've rarely seen opamps fail due input drive problems. I hadn't checked the circuit but in most designs the would have been limited at some earlier stage. Ahti, how did you set up the diodes? Back to back from the high side of the input transformer to ground, or across the differential inputs or? While this is an easy fix to implement and does make the circuit more robust as I asked I doubt it will fix the issue. I will give it a try though. In both cases where the chip failed the drive setting was less than 10 and the rig was in tune mode for a few seconds. In addition, for the almost half year I've had this working the rig was terminated in a 50 ohm resistor in the linear. In both cases where it failed the radio was working into some other load. If it's extreme swr sensitivity or possibly parasitics I can guess at the causes but I do not know what the logical troubleshooting procedure would be. -Pete -Original Message- From: Ahti Aintila [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Dec 9, 2008 11:54 PM To: Dudley Hurry [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: Pete Ferrand [EMAIL PROTECTED], flexradio@flex-radio.biz Subject: Re: [Flexradio] blown SDR-1000 final opamp Dudley and Pete, The absolute maximum differential input voltage for OPA2674 is +/-1.2V. For that reason I used clamping diodes for protection in one instrumentation application of SDR-1000 when I was not sure the operators remember to keep the sound card output at reasonable level. Be careful though not to distort the signal. 73, Ahti OH2RZ On 10/12/2008, Dudley Hurry [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Pete, You did not mention what sound card you are using, but if the sound card output is too high you can easily overdrive the low level driver, particularly the PreSonus can drive more than 4 volts peak to peak.. 73, Dudley WA5QPZ Pete Ferrand wrote: Ahti: Thank you for taking the time to reply. My radio has the OPA2674 and that is what it had originally. The issue is not one of a short circuit, but most probably one of dealing with a high impedance load which would send the voltage up beyond what the part can handle. At least that's what I'm guessing; I'm not sure of the correct troubleshooting procedure for this kind of fault. My hope was that someone has figured out how to make the circuit more robust but since yours was the only reply and there's no mention of it in the archives I suppose that hasn't happened. 73, -Pete WB2QLL Somers, WI -Original Message- From: Ahti Aintila [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Dec 9, 2008 4:54 AM To: Pete Ferrand [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: flexradio@flex-radio.biz Subject: Re: [Flexradio] blown SDR-1000 final opamp Pete, The very old SDR-1000 units have OPA2677 as the final amplifier and cannot stand short circuit. The newer radios use OPA2674 that has internal short circuit protection. Anyhow, ask Flex people directly, they know better the difficulties with some of the first production units. 73, Ahti OH2RZ On 09/12/2008, Pete Ferrand [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Some months ago I blew the final opamp in my 1W SDR-1000 whilst matching it to a linear. Wasn't happy about that but since I accidentally hooked up the attenuator resistors wrong I wasn't too surprised since the rig saw a very high impedance. Worked fine ever since. Unfortunately I'm less happy about blowing the amp this morning, about a half year after that first incident, whilst trying it on six meters for the first time. Without the linear which doesn't cover six. Just wanted to see if I could work a couple locals. As far as the MFJ-269 showed there was a perfect match into the ATU but when I increased the power beyond about a tenth of a watt output the opamp popped again. Besides the time and money aspect, the circuit board clearly can't take a lot of parts replacements. Has anyone figured out how better to protect this part? Or some better solution. This is a four stack including the rfe board, older version with nylon spacers. Thanks. -Pete WB2QLL Somers, WI ___ FlexRadio Systems Mailing List FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz Archives: http://www.mail
Re: [Flexradio] blown SDR-1000 final opamp
Gerd, I completely agree with you. Nevertheless, the following excerpt from the data sheet may help understanding the instability problems: DRIVING CAPACITIVE LOADS One of the most demanding and yet very common load conditions for an op amp is capacitive loading. Often, the capacitive load is the input of an analog-to-digital (A/D) converterçincluding additional external capacitance that may be recommended to improve the A/D converter linearity. A high-speed, high open-loop gain amplifier like the OPA2674 can be very susceptible to decreased stability and closed-loop response peaking when a capacitive load is placed directly on the output pin. When the amplifier open-loop output resistance is considered, this capacitive load introduces an additional pole in the signal path that can decrease the phase margin. Several external solutions to this problem have been suggested. When the primary considerations are frequency response flatness, pulse response fidelity, and/or distortion, the simplest and most effective solution is to isolate the capacitive load from the feedback loop by inserting a series isolation resistor between the amplifier output and the capacitive load. This does not eliminate the pole from the loop response, but rather shifts it and adds a zero at a higher frequency. The additional zero acts to cancel the phase lag from the capacitive load pole, thus increasing the phase margin and improving stability. The Typical Characteristics show the Recommended RS vs Capacitive Load and the resulting frequency response at the load. Parasitic capacitive loads greater than 2pF can begin to degrade the performance of the OPA2674. Long PC board traces, unmatched cables, and connections to multiple devices can easily cause this value to be exceeded. Always consider this effect carefully, and add the recommended series resistor as close as possible to the OPA2674 output pin (see the Board Layout Guidelines section). BOARD LAYOUT GUIDELINES Achieving optimum performance with a high-frequency amplifier like the OPA2674 requires careful attention to board layout parasitic and external component types. Recommendations that optimize performance include: a) Minimize parasitic capacitance to any AC ground for all of the signal I/O pins. Parasitic capacitance on the output and inverting input pins can cause instability; on the noninverting input, it can react with the source impedance to cause unintentional band limiting. To reduce unwanted capacitance, a window around the signal I/O pins should be opened in all of the ground and power planes around those pins. Otherwise, ground and power planes should be unbroken elsewhere on the board. 73, Ahti OH2RZ On 10/12/2008, Gerd Loch [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I have accidentially made all sorts of mismatching the output from my OPA2674 and never have blown it. Running audio with Ozy/Janus and more than 1W rf-output. Maybe the reason is that you have overdriven the audio input. Gerd, DJ8AY -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Pete Ferrand Sent: Wednesday, December 10, 2008 4:16 AM To: Ahti Aintila Cc: flexradio@flex-radio.biz Subject: Re: [Flexradio] blown SDR-1000 final opamp Ahti: Thank you for taking the time to reply. My radio has the OPA2674 and that is what it had originally. The issue is not one of a short circuit, but most probably one of dealing with a high impedance load which would send the voltage up beyond what the part can handle. At least that's what I'm guessing; I'm not sure of the correct troubleshooting procedure for this kind of fault. My hope was that someone has figured out how to make the circuit more robust but since yours was the only reply and there's no mention of it in the archives I suppose that hasn't happened. 73, -Pete WB2QLL Somers, WI -Original Message- From: Ahti Aintila [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Dec 9, 2008 4:54 AM To: Pete Ferrand [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: flexradio@flex-radio.biz Subject: Re: [Flexradio] blown SDR-1000 final opamp Pete, The very old SDR-1000 units have OPA2677 as the final amplifier and cannot stand short circuit. The newer radios use OPA2674 that has internal short circuit protection. Anyhow, ask Flex people directly, they know better the difficulties with some of the first production units. 73, Ahti OH2RZ On 09/12/2008, Pete Ferrand [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Some months ago I blew the final opamp in my 1W SDR-1000 whilst matching it to a linear. Wasn't happy about that but since I accidentally hooked up the attenuator resistors wrong I wasn't too surprised since the rig saw a very high impedance. Worked fine ever since. Unfortunately I'm less happy about blowing the amp this morning, about a half year after that first incident, whilst trying it on six meters for the first time. Without the linear which doesn't cover six. Just wanted to see if I could work a couple locals. As far as the MFJ-269
Re: [Flexradio] blown SDR-1000 final opamp
Pete, The very old SDR-1000 units have OPA2677 as the final amplifier and cannot stand short circuit. The newer radios use OPA2674 that has internal short circuit protection. Anyhow, ask Flex people directly, they know better the difficulties with some of the first production units. 73, Ahti OH2RZ On 09/12/2008, Pete Ferrand [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Some months ago I blew the final opamp in my 1W SDR-1000 whilst matching it to a linear. Wasn't happy about that but since I accidentally hooked up the attenuator resistors wrong I wasn't too surprised since the rig saw a very high impedance. Worked fine ever since. Unfortunately I'm less happy about blowing the amp this morning, about a half year after that first incident, whilst trying it on six meters for the first time. Without the linear which doesn't cover six. Just wanted to see if I could work a couple locals. As far as the MFJ-269 showed there was a perfect match into the ATU but when I increased the power beyond about a tenth of a watt output the opamp popped again. Besides the time and money aspect, the circuit board clearly can't take a lot of parts replacements. Has anyone figured out how better to protect this part? Or some better solution. This is a four stack including the rfe board, older version with nylon spacers. Thanks. -Pete WB2QLL Somers, WI ___ 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.flex-radio.com/ Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.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.flex-radio.com/ Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com/
Re: [Flexradio] blown SDR-1000 final opamp
Dudley and Pete, The absolute maximum differential input voltage for OPA2674 is +/-1.2V. For that reason I used clamping diodes for protection in one instrumentation application of SDR-1000 when I was not sure the operators remember to keep the sound card output at reasonable level. Be careful though not to distort the signal. 73, Ahti OH2RZ On 10/12/2008, Dudley Hurry [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Pete, You did not mention what sound card you are using, but if the sound card output is too high you can easily overdrive the low level driver, particularly the PreSonus can drive more than 4 volts peak to peak.. 73, Dudley WA5QPZ Pete Ferrand wrote: Ahti: Thank you for taking the time to reply. My radio has the OPA2674 and that is what it had originally. The issue is not one of a short circuit, but most probably one of dealing with a high impedance load which would send the voltage up beyond what the part can handle. At least that's what I'm guessing; I'm not sure of the correct troubleshooting procedure for this kind of fault. My hope was that someone has figured out how to make the circuit more robust but since yours was the only reply and there's no mention of it in the archives I suppose that hasn't happened. 73, -Pete WB2QLL Somers, WI -Original Message- From: Ahti Aintila [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Dec 9, 2008 4:54 AM To: Pete Ferrand [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: flexradio@flex-radio.biz Subject: Re: [Flexradio] blown SDR-1000 final opamp Pete, The very old SDR-1000 units have OPA2677 as the final amplifier and cannot stand short circuit. The newer radios use OPA2674 that has internal short circuit protection. Anyhow, ask Flex people directly, they know better the difficulties with some of the first production units. 73, Ahti OH2RZ On 09/12/2008, Pete Ferrand [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Some months ago I blew the final opamp in my 1W SDR-1000 whilst matching it to a linear. Wasn't happy about that but since I accidentally hooked up the attenuator resistors wrong I wasn't too surprised since the rig saw a very high impedance. Worked fine ever since. Unfortunately I'm less happy about blowing the amp this morning, about a half year after that first incident, whilst trying it on six meters for the first time. Without the linear which doesn't cover six. Just wanted to see if I could work a couple locals. As far as the MFJ-269 showed there was a perfect match into the ATU but when I increased the power beyond about a tenth of a watt output the opamp popped again. Besides the time and money aspect, the circuit board clearly can't take a lot of parts replacements. Has anyone figured out how better to protect this part? Or some better solution. This is a four stack including the rfe board, older version with nylon spacers. Thanks. -Pete WB2QLL Somers, WI ___ 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.flex-radio.com/ Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.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.flex-radio.com/ Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.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.flex-radio.com/ Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com/
Re: [Flexradio] 40m QRM
David, If you are using any UPS equipment or any other switched mode power supplies, try to switch them off. Ahti OH2RZ On 29/11/2008, David Beumer W0DHB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Folks I'm trying to track down the source of some nasty QRM that appears as an 4khz wide carrier that meanders through 40m with 2nd ,3rd and 4th harmonics on 20, 15 and 10. I've got a screen shot of waterfalls of 40m (Top) and 20m(bottom) showing the signal at URL: www.wa3fdb.net/40mQRM.htm I'd appreciate any clues as to what it is .. I don't believe it is anything internal to the 5000A. It is strong enough on 20 m that it prevents digital mode reception. I'm located about 40 miles NNW of Denver, grid DN70kc . I'm also checking with folks in a 10 mile radius or so to see if they can hear and/or see it. Thanks Dave - W0DHB ___ 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.flex-radio.com/ Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.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.flex-radio.com/ Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com/
Re: [Flexradio] K9DUR Voice Keyer v1.1
On 01/07/2008, Ray, K9DUR [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Version 1.1 of my voice keyer program is now available for download from my web site: http://www/qsl.net/k9dur/downloads.htm Hi Ray, Thank you for the useful info. This is the correct URL: http://www.qsl.net/k9dur/downloads.htm 73, Ahti OH2RZ ___ 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://kb.flex-radio.com/ Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.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://kb.flex-radio.com/ Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com/
Re: [Flexradio] K8RA P4 Paddle with Flex5000
On 26/06/2008, Jim Lux [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The key words when working with relays are debouncing, contact wetting currents and contamination control of contact materials. Contrary to the common belief, silver is not the best material for low voltage contacts (24 V) due to the high breakover voltage of the naturally developing silver oxide and silver sulphide layers. Gold works much better with low voltages and low wetting currents, but is suspectible to mechanical wear. Use vacuum protected read relay contacts whenever applicable. I hadn't ever thought about it before, but devising a rock solid interface to any sort of contacts that someone might hook up to it is quite an engineering challenge. Usually, you're designing for some small subset, or you actually get to pick the contacts. I'd guess that you want a fairly decent voltage (12Vish) with a decent current (10mA), but your input circuit also needs to tolerate transient voltages, etc. Something like an Optoisolator diode with an optional pullup (which is what they use on a lot of industrial PLCs). That would give you galvanic isolation, too, which is nice. Jim Jim, Optoisolator is a good solution, but even those need some kind of debouncing circuitry, as well as reed relays (sorry for my earlier mispelling: read relay!). Ahti ___ 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://kb.flex-radio.com/ Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com/
Re: [Flexradio] articulation and bandwidth
Peter, Tim and All, My settings for Elecraft K3 TX equalizer are following for high noise/DX pileup conditions: 50 Hz -16 dB 100 Hz -16 dB 200 Hz -12 dB 400 Hz ±0 dB 800 Hz + 9 dB 1200 Hz +16 dB 2400 Hz +16 dB 3200 Hz -16 dB After that there is 2,7 kHz roofing filter. The compression setting is put to the maximum 30. I have used similar kind of settings also for SDR-1000. I'm using a dynamic microphone with a practically flat frequency response. Remember however, that the optimal settings depend on the personal voice. Remember also that these settings are not for HiFi, but only for efficient punch with limited TX power and bandwidth through high noise and QRM. Since 1970's Im using same kind of equalizer settings together with the old fashioned RF-clipper during the years in all of my heavily modified analog rice box radios and I'm usually getting easily through the pileups with only 100 W output power. Now the DSP can do the same thing much better and in a more elegant way. Please, read the KB articles Tim is referring to: http://support.flex-radio.com/Downloads.aspx?fn=speech-processing.pdf http://support.flex-radio.com/Downloads.aspx?fn=filter-clipped-speech.pdf (Thanks Tim for putting those articles to the KB!) 73, Ahti OH2RZ 2008/6/5 Tim Ellison [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Ahhh Grasshopper. The KB is all knowing. It should have all that your heart desires. http://kb.flex-radio.com/article.aspx?id=10343 -Tim -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Peter G. Viscarola Sent: Thursday, June 05, 2008 3:42 PM To: flexradio@flex-radio.biz Subject: Re: [Flexradio] articulation and bandwidth I've been following the discussion of SSB intelligibility with much interest. While I don't think I'm game for reading the journal articles, I *would* appreciate some practical EQ advice... I think I heard somebody say cut at 150 and also bump at 2300 (was it)?? I'm not asking for a prescription, obviously, but I know it'd help ME to get some starting values, de Peter K1PGV ___ 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://kb.flex-radio.com/ Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.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://kb.flex-radio.com/ Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com/
Re: [Flexradio] The inherent muddiness of typical amateur transceiver
On 6/3/08, Brian C [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: That said, everyone knows wider bandwidths should not be employed on very crowded amateur bands, nonetheless, the key to intelligibility and fidelity is b a n d w i d t h. Hi all, Actually, IARU recommends max. bandwidth of 2700 Hz on ham bands below 28 MHz. If you obey the rules and don't want to drown the information content of your transmission into the mud, you better equalize your signal in a smart way. I apologize for referring again to these two old and good articles that every phone (SSB) operator should read and understand: http://kotisivu.dnainternet.net/ahti/sdr-1000/filtclip.pdf http://kotisivu.dnainternet.net/ahti/sdr-1000/speechproc.pdf Of course those articles discuss analog signal processing, but the same ideas apply to the DSP radios as well - actually much better. Study the TX equalizer and compressor setup possibilities of PowerSDR of Flex and K3 of Elecraft. It is really a pity that the both manufacturers have not given any recommended (default) SSB equalizer settings along the principles discussed in the given articles. Ahti OH2RZ ___ 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://kb.flex-radio.com/ Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.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://kb.flex-radio.com/ Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com/
Re: [Flexradio] SSB Tx Audio Punch
On 05/01/2008, Greg - ZL3IX [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I am still using a very old SVN with my HPSDR, so have not experienced these recent problems. Personally, I am in favour of using the envelope tracker, which I believe is implemented in COMP, rather than CPDR. The envelope tracker seems to be the closest we get to analogue RF clipping, which is still my favourite. I do not like companding, as it is very difficult to obtain enough compression without introducing harmonic distortion, which detracts from intelligibility on DX contacts. I am toying with the idea of not using any compression with PowerSDR, and using an outboard RF clipper, either analogue RF, or possibly the software version by Alex, VE3NEA. Unfortunately, my own coding skills are not adequate, or I would be writing a DSP version of an RF clipper myself, and offering it to the project. Does anyone with better skills than mine feel like trying that? 73, Greg, ZL3IX Greg, Unfortunately I am in the same situation with you - no software skills. Since early 70's I'm using so called RF clipper (home built) in the IF chain of all Japanese transceivers I have had. So far some earlier and short transmitting trials have not made me convinced about the correct function of the SSB process of the PowerSDR, so I have refused to use otherwise so excellent SDR-1000 for transmitting. I want to admit, that during the last few months I have not tried any new SVNs. However, after some private communication with John, W5GI, I believe that FlexRadio finally understands what kind of DX-sound we need and want. Maybe, SVN1875 already is good. I am still waiting that the version will be reasonably bugfree and suggested settings will be given with good explanations in the Knowledge Base. Just some more patience and FlexRadio will do that! 73, Ahti OH2RZ ___ 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://kb.flex-radio.com/ Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.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://kb.flex-radio.com/ Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com/
Re: [Flexradio] 11kHz DC noise
On 26/10/2007, Gerald Capodieci [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I apologize for being so late with this question or to repeat it again but, please someone point me to a definition of 11kHz DC noise and what problem it causes. I'm sure I have the problem too. I just don't recognize it. Thanks - Jerry Jerry, Some sound cards or SDR-1000/sound card combinations have very low frequency noise or hum (or even some small DC offset). That causes a hump on the left end of the Panadaptor noise floor (11.025 kHz down from your reception frequency in the older versions of PowerSDR or 9 kHz with the new PowerSDR). You may not see it, if your sound card has 48 kHz (or lower) sampling frequency, because it is outside your Panadaptor range. Switch on 96 or 192 kHz sampling, if your sound card can do it, then you may see it. In most cases this hump is just a cosmetic fault and does not make any harm to your normal bandwidth operation. If you want to get rid of the hump, buy the Flex-5000 or use HPSDR's Janus/Ozy combination with the SDR-1000 to replace the sound card. 73, Ahti OH2RZ ___ 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/ ___ 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/
Re: [Flexradio] New Bandplan effective Jan 2008
Jon, Take it positively. Isn't it good that you have the excellent digital filters in your Flex Radio? With the 2.4 kHz SSB filter you can pass safely your 300 Hz to 2.7 kHz audio modulation to the ionosphere and rest safe that you don't splatter around with your unnecessarily broad transmission and disturb your fellow hams on the neighboring channels. And by the way, I really wonder that some still, after more than 60 years of amateur SSB, want to use double sideband with full carrier outside anywhere else than in Faraday cages of some Radio Museums. Best regards from the RF-congested Europe, Ahti OH2RZ On 17/10/2007, K6JEK [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: That band plan is a really awful thing. Why have a Flex Radio? The plan calls for 2.7 kHz SSB bandwidth and 6 kHz AM (and not much of that). You sure don't need a Flex radio to do that. Perhaps we can derail this thing. Jon On Oct 16, 2007, at 6:35 PM, KQ8RP wrote: Sure glad I own a SDR!! http://www.qrz.com/ib-bin/ikonboard.cgi?act=STf=3t=171194 Scott Gordon Phone: (888) 428-6622 Fax (866) 505-7171 http://www.srgproperty.com -- next part -- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.flex-radio.biz/pipermail/flexradio_flex-radio.biz/ attachments/20071016/4bbdb970/attachment.html ___ 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/ ___ 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/ ___ 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/
Re: [Flexradio] Prototype VFO Dial
Hi Bill, Great idea to make it a real product! That will have a lot of customers, I believe, because: a) SDR needs at least one knob, b) I have three years' successful experience of this concept. I modified a Logitech USB mouse wheel like this picture shows: http://kotisivu.dnainternet.net/ahti/sdr-1000/VFOknob.jpg 73, Ahti OH2RZ On 28/08/07, FireBrick [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: If you have been reading my posts re: struggling to develope a system where I can return to contesting as I did before venturing into the realm of SDR. I've had mixed results trying to be a 'Two Handed Contester'. Today, I developed a new approach, by building a vfo type dial that mimics the big hardbox radios to some degree. By applying some Green Technology and a product from 3M, I think this will work. I have a working prototype and a production design version available for your study and suggestions. They can be viewed at www.qsl.net/w9ol/FODial.zip I can take preproduction orders. - West Virginia State Motto: One Big Happy Family. Really! - Bill H. in Chicagoland webcams at http://76.16.160.118:8080/ weather at http://hhweather.webhop.org ___ 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/ ___ 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/
Re: [Flexradio] USB-parallel drop out.
David, Perhaps a heavy common mode choke at both ends of your USB-to-parallel cable will help. See: http://kb.flex-radio.com/article.aspx?id=10273cNode=8F5A7W 73, Ahti OH2RZ On 06/08/07, David Hilton-Jones [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I know that this issue has been raised before but would appreciate hearing peoples solutions. My PC (Dell E521) doesn't have a parallel port. It has only two PCI slots - one is used for a modem (we live too far away from the exchange and can't get Broadband so have dial-up!), the other for the Delta 44. So, I use the Flexradio supplied USB-parallel adaptor. It is a pain! Even when not using the computer for any other purpose, the adaptor may drop out. Power SDR then has to be shut down and restarted, and told the adaptor is in place. If you don't shut it down, but just go to Setup, it won't accept ticking the adaptor box. Any tips/tricks gratefully received. 73 David, G4YTL ___ 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/ ___ 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/
Re: [Flexradio] audio punch
John, Gerald and All, John is right about the commercial broadcast like frequency response of the SDR-1000 transmitter. Instead of John's statement about the traditional amateur radios, I would like to say that in their frequency response basses are already somewhat attenuated, which means that the higher frequencies are pre-emphasized up to a certain corner frequency, beyond which the frequency response goes down rapidly. That will add the audio punch, which I like. I sincerely believe that this is also the explanation what Stig was asking for. Another additional property of the SDR-1000 decreasing the punch, is obviously the accurate feed forward control of the peak power that prevents transmitting signal going to the clipping level. As you know, software defined radios can be put to different tasks. To me it is mostly a measurement instrument like a spectrum analyzer and an excellen receiver - especially having now the Janus/Ozy connected to the radio. Sometimes I would like to use it also as an efficient ham band transmitter, but according to my (not so humble) opinion Flex has so far almost completely ignored the needs of serious DX hunters by delaying the introduction of a multichannel equalizer combined to a feed forward compressor that was already started almost four years ago by the initiation of Phil Harman. I think, it is a shame, if Flex-5000 will be entered to the marketplace without at least a promise of a quick update to this optional feature. My very best regards to all and especially to Gerald, Ahti OH2RZ On 04/06/07, John P Basilotto W5GI [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: It simply is in the adjustments. Traditional amateur radios have pre-emphasis in the audio, i.e there is a certain amount of bass already there. The SDR1K is flat as a pancake. When you add bass, either externally or with the built-in EQ, you are simply adding pre-emphasis. The SDR1k was designed to be flat just like a commercial broadcast transmitter. John P. Basilotto W5GI Marketing and Product Manager FlexRadio Systems 512-535-5266 -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Stig Rasmussen Sent: Monday, June 04, 2007 1:28 PM To: Ahti Aintila; Dale Boresz Cc: flexradio@flex-radio.biz Subject: Re: [Flexradio] audio punch Hello, please stop this. :-) I dont want any discussion around ESSB / and or DX-pileups modulation. Whats best etc. My point is only to state the fact that SDR-1000 handle bass-less modulation much less punchy than other traditional transceivers, f.example my TS-870 or IC-746PRO. Same power-meter used. Thats it! If there is an explanation I would like to hear... Stig -Opprinnelig melding- Fra: Ahti Aintila [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sendt: 4. juni 2007 10:26 Til: Dale Boresz Kopi: Jim McLester; flexradio@flex-radio.biz; Stig Rasmussen Emne: Re: [Flexradio] audio punch Stig and Jim, Dale is telling the plain truth, if your main interest is getting your signal through in noisy conditions and DX pileups. The basses convey very little speach information, but eat up the limited power of your transmitter. Unless you want to broadcast a Hi-Fi music program on ham bands use a good quality multi-channel equalizer to attenuate the lower frequencies of your modulation. And if you want real information carrying audio punch, you may use a PROPERLY MADE compressor or even RF clipper. However, never use compressors and/or clippers, if the the basses are not attenuated. Almost four years' time already I have tried to convince our Flex software wizards and gurus to implement an integrated audio processor that would enhance the speech signal intelligibility in noise at least as well as explained in the following ancient articles. Sorry for this repeated use of the bandwidth, but please, please, read carefully and understand these: http://kotisivu.dnainternet.net/ahti/sdr-1000/filtclip.pdf http://kotisivu.dnainternet.net/ahti/sdr-1000/speechproc.pdf My understanding is that these functions can be implemented by the DSP means much more elegantly than 30 years ago by the hardware means. I sincerely hope that some of our software experts would take my request seriously. 73, Ahti OH2RZ __ NOD32 2305 (20070601) Information __ This message was checked by NOD32 antivirus system. http://www.eset.com ___ 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/ ___ 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
Re: [Flexradio] audio punch
Stig and Jim, Dale is telling the plain truth, if your main interest is getting your signal through in noisy conditions and DX pileups. The basses convey very little speach information, but eat up the limited power of your transmitter. Unless you want to broadcast a Hi-Fi music program on ham bands use a good quality multi-channel equalizer to attenuate the lower frequencies of your modulation. And if you want real information carrying audio punch, you may use a PROPERLY MADE compressor or even RF clipper. However, never use compressors and/or clippers, if the the basses are not attenuated. Almost four years' time already I have tried to convince our Flex software wizards and gurus to implement an integrated audio processor that would enhance the speech signal intelligibility in noise at least as well as explained in the following ancient articles. Sorry for this repeated use of the bandwidth, but please, please, read carefully and understand these: http://kotisivu.dnainternet.net/ahti/sdr-1000/filtclip.pdf http://kotisivu.dnainternet.net/ahti/sdr-1000/speechproc.pdf My understanding is that these functions can be implemented by the DSP means much more elegantly than 30 years ago by the hardware means. I sincerely hope that some of our software experts would take my request seriously. 73, Ahti OH2RZ On 04/06/07, Dale Boresz [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Stig, I think your power meter is misrepresenting your power levels. I suspect that you are not using a peak-reading power meter, and that your power meter's ballistics are such that it averages the peaks more efficiently at the low audio frequencies than it does at the midrange and upper frequencies, thereby making it appear that when you boost the low end, you're getting extra talk power. Most likely, all that you are doing is concentrating the bulk of your transmitted energy into a very narrow range of frequencies that are in fact chewing up a lot of power and inflating your meter reading, but actually reducing your 'talk power'. The panadapter of the SDR-1000 has been a very interesting tool for me, as I have noticed may stations that have as much as a 20 to 30 dB peak at the low end of their transmitted frequency range (say around 40 to 70 Hz) and are showing S9 on the meter. However, the part of their signal which is actually carrying the intelligibility is in fact averaging around S4. (S9 minus 30 dB). If the excessive peak was removed (the lower frequencies would remain - they just would not be boosted so much), the remainder of the audio passband could be amplified all that much more, such that the average of the remainder of the passband carrying intelligibility would in fact really average out to S9 instead of S4. Note though: Unless you are using a true peak reading power meter (something like a Coaxial Dynamics 83000-A) or an oscilloscope to monitor peak power, it will look as though you are transmitting at a much lower power level since the actual peaks will not be properly displayed. Attempting to drive everything harder to make the power meter read higher will result in a very distorted and severely over-driven signal. 73, Dale WA8SRA ___ 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/ ___ 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/
Re: [Flexradio] Attempted removal
On 02/06/07, Jim Lux [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: At 03:15 PM 6/1/2007, k5nwa wrote: I just had someone that attempted to remove me from the Flex radio Heh.. happens all the time, apparently (twice for me recently). Maybe it's worth it for the list manager to look at the source of the unsubscribe requests? Maybe they all come from one IP address? James Lux, P.E. That happened to me, too! Ahti, OH2RZ ___ 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/ ___ 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/
Re: [Flexradio] Audio Punch
Hi Greg et al, FINALLY! Ihave been waiting for 4 years that other flexers start get interested. As an old hardware man I have been talking about RF clipping alot. I want to admit that the time of this method is over already during this SDR era, but that function in the more sophisticated software form was still missing until Alex, VE3NEA, made his Voiceshaper. Still, again I want to give these links that help to understand why we weak signal fans are missing the function of this brutal RF clipper and look forward that Alex's Voiceshaper will be an integral part of all SDR equipment. Here are the links: http://kotisivu.dnainternet.net/ahti/sdr-1000/filtclip.pdf http://kotisivu.dnainternet.net/ahti/sdr-1000/filtclip.pdf 73, Ahti OH2RZ On 31/05/07, Greg - ZL3IX [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Frank Mayer wrote: I wonder if this type of circuit CAN be written in software. Hi Frank, Indeed it can. In my previous employment we used one that was written in DSP assembler for the 56002 (not by me unfortunately, although I did give the algorithm inputs). It was very effective. 73, Greg ___ 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/ ___ 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/
Re: [Flexradio] Audio Punch
Frank, I'm no software man, but I suppose that it can be done. 73, Ahti OH2RZ On 31/05/07, Frank Mayer [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I am not familiar with the voice shaper. Is this supposed to be incorporated into the SDR? - Original Message - From: Ahti Aintila [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Greg - ZL3IX [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: flexradio@flex-radio.biz Sent: Thursday, May 31, 2007 5:26 AM Subject: Re: [Flexradio] Audio Punch Hi Greg et al, FINALLY! Ihave been waiting for 4 years that other flexers start get interested. As an old hardware man I have been talking about RF clipping alot. I want to admit that the time of this method is over already during this SDR era, but that function in the more sophisticated software form was still missing until Alex, VE3NEA, made his Voiceshaper. Still, again I want to give these links that help to understand why we weak signal fans are missing the function of this brutal RF clipper and look forward that Alex's Voiceshaper will be an integral part of all SDR equipment. Here are the links: http://kotisivu.dnainternet.net/ahti/sdr-1000/filtclip.pdf http://kotisivu.dnainternet.net/ahti/sdr-1000/filtclip.pdf 73, Ahti OH2RZ ___ 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/ ___ 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/
Re: [Flexradio] Low recieve
Frank, My best guess is the preamplifier on the RFE-board. Unless the schematic diagram is not recently updated, there are protection diodes (1N4148) before the input capacitor (C47) of the amplifier, so maybe they are broken, too. You possibly can repair it yourself. See these ECOs for help: http://support.flex-radio.com/Downloads.aspx?id=102 http://support.flex-radio.com/Downloads.aspx?id=109 73, Ahti OH2RZ On 17/05/07, Frank Mayer [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I have had my SDR for about 6 months now and last night night it was subjected to a static discharge during a thunderstorm. Not a direct hit but enough to affect the receiver. Now it has very low sensitivity. Are there any known causes for this (blown diodes or RF amp transistor in the front end)? Or does it need factory repair. Frank WA3JBT -- next part -- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.flex-radio.biz/pipermail/flexradio_flex-radio.biz/attachments/20070517/386eda1e/attachment.html ___ 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/ ___ 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/
Re: [Flexradio] Low recieve
Sorry, my memory made me a trick. The protection diodes are not shown in the original schematic. They are shown only in the ECO001 and ECO025. Please, FlexRadio, update and publish the schematic diagrams of the SDR-1000. 73, Ahti OH2RZ On 17/05/07, Ahti Aintila [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Frank, My best guess is the preamplifier on the RFE-board. Unless the schematic diagram is not recently updated, there are protection diodes (1N4148) before the input capacitor (C47) of the amplifier, so maybe they are broken, too. You possibly can repair it yourself. See these ECOs for help: http://support.flex-radio.com/Downloads.aspx?id=102 http://support.flex-radio.com/Downloads.aspx?id=109 73, Ahti OH2RZ On 17/05/07, Frank Mayer [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I have had my SDR for about 6 months now and last night night it was subjected to a static discharge during a thunderstorm. Not a direct hit but enough to affect the receiver. Now it has very low sensitivity. Are there any known causes for this (blown diodes or RF amp transistor in the front end)? Or does it need factory repair. Frank WA3JBT -- next part -- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.flex-radio.biz/pipermail/flexradio_flex-radio.biz/attachments/20070517/386eda1e/attachment.html ___ 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/ ___ 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/
Re: [Flexradio] Low recieve
Willi and Frank, The DC Spark-Over Voltage of SA05-C-T52-A-301-M is specified 200V±20% and typically the max. device voltage of the preamps is as low as 5-6V. A properly located microgap surge absorber may prevent big disasters, but still for low voltage transients protective diodes will be needed, too. 73, Ahti OH2RZ On 17/05/07, Willi Reppel [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi Frank, To protect the receiver of my SDR1000 I stalled ahead of the RF-amplifier a microgap surge absorber element in discharge tube. See the below link. http://www.koaproducts.com/english/catalogue/sa.htm It may be the right opportunity to install one of these when you unpile the board stack of the SDR1000 for repair. gl de SM6OMH Willi - Original Message - From: Frank Mayer [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: flexradio@flex-radio.biz Sent: Thursday, May 17, 2007 12:35 AM Subject: [Flexradio] Low recieve ___ 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/
Re: [Flexradio] RF output with no mic in SSB
On 20/04/07, Hulen Smith [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: harder with a measure of safety, it is also very sensitive to low rf levels. Is there anyone who has figured out a way to completely eliminate this low level of rf from the SDR-1000 when no modulation is present? It's almost like a balanced modulator in an unbalanced condition. Yea yea yea, I Hulen, I have noticed that. My guess is that the carrier leakage may come due to any internal hardware unbalance of the QSE circuit (sampling pulse width, internal Ron resistance, circuit capacitance, transformer, etc. and their combinations) that cannot be completely cancelled by the software. The power dependence seems to indicate some thermal influence to the sampling switch. Because I use my SDR-1000s more for receiving rather than transmitting, the minor leakage doesn't disturb me. So I did not want to add any balancing components. Any other opinions, suggestions and/or findings? 73, Ahti OH2RZ ___ 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/ ___ 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/
Re: [Flexradio] Sound card input Voltage
Cecil, A convenient on-line calculator for signal level conversions is this: http://www.analog.com/Analog_Root/static/techSupport/designTools/interactiveTools/dbconvert/dbconvert.html 73, Ahti OH2RZ On 15/04/07, Sami Aintila [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Usually for audio applications dBm should be referenced to one milliwatt into a 600-ohm load. (Your dBm figure is using 50 ohms). In order to avoid confusion when we're measuring voltages, it's better to not use dBm at all. For voltages, it's probably easiest to use dBV referenced to one volt RMS. (There's also dBu which is equivalent to dBm @ 600 ohms.) To answer your original question, while the Delta 44 may not be a typical sound card, its input range (peak-to-peak) seems to be 11 Vpp. That's about 5.5 Vpeak, 3.9 Vrms, +12 dBV (+14 dBu). The maximum input level is 6 dB lower when using the consumer setting in D44's control panel. And using the lowest setting means another -6 dB. That would be 0 dBV == 1 Vrms. Maybe that's pretty close to a typical (cheap) sound card. 73, Sami OH2BFO On 4/15/07, k5nwa [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: What is the full scale input to a typical sound card? I'm thinking it's +10dBm or .7V, am I off my rocker? Cecil K5NWA www.qrpradio.com www.hpsdr.com Blessed are the cracked, for they shall let in the light. ___ FlexRadio mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] 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/ ___ FlexRadio mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] 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/
Re: [Flexradio] Sound card input Voltage
Dave, The link works for me, but you may try this: http://www.analog.com/en/DCDesignToolsDisplay/0,3091,,00.html ;ten go to Audio/Video Products and select dBm/dBu/dBv Calculator. Good luck, Ahti OH2RZ On 15/04/07, [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Original Message Cecil, A convenient on-line calculator for signal level conversions is this: http://www.analog. com/Analog_Root/static/techSupport/designTools/interactiveTools/dbconvert/dbconvert. html Using the link brings up up an error page from Analogue Devices (so it's found the right site, just the page no longer exists) saying Error We are sorry! The page you are looking for could not be found. Is there an alternative URL for the calculator please? Thanks - Dave (G0DJA) ___ Tiscali Broadband only £9.99 a month for your first 3 months! http://www.tiscali.co.uk/products/broadband/ ___ FlexRadio mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] 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/
Re: [Flexradio] Preamp issue - Results
Dana, it looks to me that you may have a problem with the filter switches either on the BPF or the RFE boards. Due to bit errors and/or unreliable connections wrong filter(s) get selected. That has happened to me. 73, Ahti OH2RZ On 03/03/07, N1OFZ [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: When we calibrated with the XG1 both radios (SDR-1000s) showed the received signal at S9 after calibration. The 10 dBm difference was on a signal we tuned to on the air. I think it was on 20m. I have not yet had a chance to get the radio back on the air at my home to compare to the Yaesu. Hopefully this afternoon when the kiddie and XYL take a nap! Thanks, Dana N1OFZ ___ 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 Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com/ FlexRadio Knowledge Base: http://kb.flex-radio.com/ ___ 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 Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com/ FlexRadio Knowledge Base: http://kb.flex-radio.com/
Re: [Flexradio] Filter measurements
On 18/02/07, Bill Tracey [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The basic FFT bin size is 11hz, so for a filter 30 hz or Bill, That is a minor difference, but anyhow, I have a question just for understanding better: If the sampling frequency is 48 kHz and the number of bins is 4096, would the bin be 48000/4096 Hz = 11.72 Hz wide and consequently 44100/4096 Hz = 10.77 Hz wide with 44.1 kHz sampling? Please advice so that I can use correct numbers in my calculations. 73, Ahti OH2RZ ___ 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 Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com/ FlexRadio Knowledge Base: http://kb.flex-radio.com/ ___ 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 Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com/ FlexRadio Knowledge Base: http://kb.flex-radio.com/
Re: [Flexradio] Outboard audio equipment
Thank you, Eric and John, I'm patiently waiting for the better 10-band EQ, but don't hurry. The highest priority is the MODULAR PowerSDR. Just wanted to say that the 15-band version was pretty good a couple of years ago. Also I want to remind why I like a multiband EQ, not because of the nice sounding Hi-Fi voice, but the punch through DX pile-ups: http://kotisivu.dnainternet.net/ahti/sdr-1000/speechproc.pdf http://kotisivu.dnainternet.net/ahti/sdr-1000/filtclip.pdf 73, Ahti OH2RZ On 02/02/07, Eric Wachsmann [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: We originally had a 31-band (and a 15-band) option for the EQ. But it didn't work very well. We scaled it back in favor of having a simpler version that performed at a level we were satisfied with. One bird in the hand is worth two in the bush kind of thing... I'm sure we'll eventually have more than 3 bands, but I doubt we'll ever get back to 31 as that was overkill in 99% of the cases with our radio/software. Eric Wachsmann FlexRadio Systems ___ 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 Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com/ FlexRadio Knowledge Base: http://kb.flex-radio.com/ ___ 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 Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com/ FlexRadio Knowledge Base: http://kb.flex-radio.com/
Re: [Flexradio] [KB] Two new Knowledge Base articles have been posted
Tim, Thank you for the excellent articles regarding the optimal voice settings. As an avid SSB user and supporter and opponent of the double sideband AM since the mid 50's, I have been wondering why the people want to waste the scarcest nature's resource of HAM-radio, the electromagnetic spectrum, by sending unnecessary broad badwidth and high power at audio frequency bands that don't convey the information efficiently. In addition to those articles, I want to remind you of two other texts that help understanding the importance of proper EQ and signal processing, if you want to transmit the highest intelligibility at the lowest peak limited power: http://kotisivu.dnainternet.net/ahti/sdr-1000/filtclip.pdf http://kotisivu.dnainternet.net/ahti/sdr-1000/speechproc.pdf Since 1970 I am using these principles in all my home-brew rigs and even modified my rice-boxes. Unfortunately I have not yet been able to implement that feature in my several SDR-1000s. 73, Ahti OH2RZ On 07/01/07, Tim Ellison [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: To all, Two new Knowledge Base articles related to optimal voice operation have been posted. The first, Q10342 - Why is there a 160 Hz Notch Filter for Phone Use? http://kb.flex-radio.com/article.aspx?id=10342, explains why there is a notch filter for this frequency in the PowerSDR EQ. The second, Q10343 - Rules for EQing Voice for Optimal Phone and AM Operation, http://kb.flex-radio.com/article.aspx?id=103423 goes into great detail of how to set your EQ for voice recording and broadcasting. -Tim KB Administrator ___ 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 Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com/ FlexRadio Knowledge Base: http://kb.flex-radio.com/ ___ 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 Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com/ FlexRadio Knowledge Base: http://kb.flex-radio.com/
Re: [Flexradio] SDR-1000 clone ...
Krister and Willy, I totally agree with your opinions otherwise, but the copy or clone should always in ALL respects be an improvement over the original design. That the German copy is not. Obviously the worst mistake Mr. Dipl.-Ing. H.-J. Kneisner made is that he did not know or understand that Frank's DttSP is not public domain. If we call Mr. Kneisner's clone immoral, much better is not FlexRadio's decision to pull off the receive only and 1W versions as well as selling the boards as a set of two, three or four. I uderstand the inventory burden, but perhaps the prices should be adjusted accordingly. BTW, I am using four sets of SDR-1000 as: a) an industrial measurement device where only TRX board is used, b) a ham band 1W transceiver and an RF spectrum analyzer, c) a general coverage HF monitor receiver and d) the fourth with the 100 W module is going to function as my desktop ham band transceiver together with my desktop computer. Still I would need a self contained back-pack radio to replace and conquer the domains of rice-boxes. For a reference, here is the copy of Willi's message: -- I do not understand Flex-Radio´s move either. There is a large potential for selling a receiver-only version without 1 W or 100 W PA to radiotic individuals like VLF, LF, MW, short-wave listeners and beacon hun-ters which are excluded as possible buyers because they are not licensed hams. To this group of non-radiant radio enthusiasts the SDR1k is barely known and they are barred out already before the goods news of its existence reaches them. Hope that so many replies to this topic lets Flex-Radio reconsider its move. vy 73 es gl SM6OMH Willi -- 73, Ahti OH2RZ On 06/01/07, [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hmm... definitely an interesting situation, perhaps a bit more complicated than it seems at first. Could be some work for lawyers here as well. But what kind of infringement might have been committed by the German company? I could be wrong now, but I don't think Flexradio owns any hardware patents related to the radio, many if not all circuit details have been rather extensively published years ago. Maybe someone else has one or three patents, though. In electronics it's practically impossible to do anything at all without infringing some patent, seems that the tiniest little trivial detail has been patented by someone. Flexradio probably has one or more copyrights for the hardware design. But at least the German company did not violate any PCB copyrights, their design definitely is not a direct copy. Perhaps there is a copyright violation re the schematic drawings, difficult to say without detailed comparisons. Of course, the ethical considerations are even more interesting than the legal ones, and here we could be skating on some pretty thin ice. Is it unethical to use the PowerSDR with any hardware not purchased from Flexradio? In my ever so humble opinion this attitude would be a bit too extreme. The PowerSDR is used in the HPSDR project as well, with completely different hardware. The difference, though, is that HPSDR is noncommercial, at least for now, whereas the German company is taking advantage of the PowerSDR to hawk their commercial product. On the other hand, I really don't think the German company will receive a large number of orders from the US of A, and the price is not exactly undercutting Flexradio either. As for publishing the existence of the SDR-1000 clone, I did it because there was a lot of valid concern regarding the discontinuation of the 1W version. I thought this list is a forum for the exchange of ALL Flexradio-related information, and didn't see any reason for self-censorship. And finally, let me add that I have nothing but the greatest admiration and respect for the outstanding and truly groundbreaking work done by the Flexradio team. However, I don't think we need to canonize the original design and put it above all criticism. EVERY design is always a compromise, and so there's always one or more details that could have been done otherwise or even better. For instance, one has to admit that the original 3-board design is a real kludge, however I'm NOT saying I'd have done it better at the time. At least in this detail the German clone is an improvement, like it or not. But I'm sure the Flexradio team is already busy at work with some amazing new design that will receive the deepest admiration of us all, and sell like hotcakes, too! Best regards, Krister OH2MLQ ___ 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 Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com/ FlexRadio Knowledge Base: http://kb.flex-radio.com/ ___ FlexRadio mailing list
[Flexradio] DSP Windows?
Eric and the whole Software Team, Thank you for the great v. 1.8.0. Nothing to complain - and that's something that I usually don't do. Just a question this time: I followed the recommendation of Eric and Bob and let the PowerSDR build the mdb-file instead of transferring my previous one. I noticed that the default DSP window was Hanning instead of Blackman-Harris that I have been using earlier. Wouldn't Blackman-Harris give a better skirt selectivity? What is the other side of the coin? My warmest Season's Greetings, Ahti OH2RZ ___ 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 Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com
Re: [Flexradio] DSP Windows?
On 23/12/06, Robert McGwier [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: final filter design. It is my opinion that the Blackman-Harris filter design is optimal for our needs. Bob, Thank you. I have the same opinion, but wanted to be sure. I will change back to Blackman-Harris. Xmas! Ahti OH2RZ ___ 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 Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com
Re: [Flexradio] [KB] A new Knowledge Base article has been posted
The updated BandText table is contained in a small MS Access database and must be copied or exported to your working PowerSDR database (powersdr.mdb). This file has been supplied courtesy of Ahti, OH2RZ ___ 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 Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com Many thanks to Tim Other thanks go to Bodo, DJ9CS, who made the table. I acted just as an editor and a middle man. 73, Ahti OH2RZ ___ 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 Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com ___ 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 Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com
[Flexradio] Any mdb-file with Region 1 frequencies?
Hi Flexers, Has anybody Access, time and interest for making a downloadable general purpose (or even personalized) mdb-file with IARU Region 1 frequency allocations? 73, Ahti OH2RZ ___ 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 Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com
Re: [Flexradio] Question about RF pre-amplifier
On 17/12/06, [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Question about RF pre-amplifier Arial [0 or -10dB] [RF preamp] [mixer] [amplifier X dB or X+Y dB] Soundcard Peter, That is almost right. The RF preamp is always on, but [amplifier X dB or Y dB]. 73, Ahti OH2RZ ___ 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 Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com ___ 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 Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com
Re: [Flexradio] Why not a Multi Region BandText installation?
Gordon and other Flexers, Thanks a lot. I received the BandText table from Bodo, DJ9CS, and found an unused ACCESS in my office computer. Now the new PowerSDR.mdb works already. Maybe, Tim or Bodo are going to upload the table to the Knowledge Base. However, I think that PowerSDR installation should already build the proper mdb-file according to the selected Region number. Not very many hams have access to the ACCESS. 73, Ahti OH2RZ On 17/12/06, Gordon Lois Duff [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I have Access and am willing to do this, but it will have to wait until January 1. Gordon, KA2NLM ___ 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 Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com ___ 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 Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com
Re: [Flexradio] Why not a Multi Region BandText installation?
On 18/12/06, Marzan, Edwin [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Greetings, Could one just delete the existing table and replace it with the new table? If that is the case I'll try it on my own system and if it works I'll be willing to do the swap for others as well. That's it how I did it. Using MS Access I opened the PowerSDR.mdb file, clicked open the BandText table, deleted the the content of the table and pasted my own data. 73, Ahti OH2RZ Gordon and other Flexers, Thanks a lot. I received the BandText table from Bodo, DJ9CS, and found an unused ACCESS in my office computer. Now the new PowerSDR.mdb works already. Maybe, Tim or Bodo are going to upload the table to the Knowledge Base. However, I think that PowerSDR installation should already build the proper mdb-file according to the selected Region number. Not very many hams have access to the ACCESS. 73, Ahti OH2RZ On 17/12/06, Gordon Lois Duff [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I have Access and am willing to do this, but it will have to wait until January 1. Gordon, KA2NLM ___ 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 Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com ___ 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 Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com
Re: [Flexradio] Schematics
Schematics and ECOs found by using Knowledge Base search. Why to make it so difficult? I could not even use the same user name that I earlier registered for Forum. Ahti OH2RZ On 07/11/06, Ahti Aintila [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Eric, I miss the schematics and all ECOs. Why not put them downloadable as they were earlier? Actually, the schematic diagrams should be updated to reflect the present situation with all the ECOs included. At the same time the resolution should be increased so that the component values and finer details of the circuitry would have better legibility. 73, Ahti OH2RZ On 07/11/06, Eric Wachsmann [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Jon, I'll contact you off-list with the information. Eric Wachsmann FlexRadio Systems -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] radio.biz] On Behalf Of K6JEK Sent: Monday, November 06, 2006 6:10 PM To: 'FlexList' Subject: [Flexradio] Schematics Where are the schematics? My esteemed and Flex-famous friend Jeff, K6JCA, has a nice set of schematics. Now that I've toasted something in my Flex I'd like to get a set to in the hopes that I can do some untoasting here instead of sending the box back to Texas. But I can't seem to locate the schematics on the web. Where are they? What's toasted you ask? Something in the X2 driver. I built my own UCB (why did I do this?) and in the process of trying it out I got something wrong. Now pin 7, PTT out, goes from O.L. to 5M on transmit, hardly sufficient. I enabled pin 1 on transmit thinking dang I've toasted the driver for pin 7 I'll use pin 1 as a substibute. Guess what it does once enabled. Yes, O.L. to 5M on PTT. How interesting. Jon, K6JEK ___ 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 Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com ___ 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 Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com ___ 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 Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com
Re: [Flexradio] Schematics
Eric, I miss the schematics and all ECOs. Why not put them downloadable as they were earlier? Actually, the schematic diagrams should be updated to reflect the present situation with all the ECOs included. At the same time the resolution should be increased so that the component values and finer details of the circuitry would have better legibility. 73, Ahti OH2RZ On 07/11/06, Eric Wachsmann [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Jon, I'll contact you off-list with the information. Eric Wachsmann FlexRadio Systems -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] radio.biz] On Behalf Of K6JEK Sent: Monday, November 06, 2006 6:10 PM To: 'FlexList' Subject: [Flexradio] Schematics Where are the schematics? My esteemed and Flex-famous friend Jeff, K6JCA, has a nice set of schematics. Now that I've toasted something in my Flex I'd like to get a set to in the hopes that I can do some untoasting here instead of sending the box back to Texas. But I can't seem to locate the schematics on the web. Where are they? What's toasted you ask? Something in the X2 driver. I built my own UCB (why did I do this?) and in the process of trying it out I got something wrong. Now pin 7, PTT out, goes from O.L. to 5M on transmit, hardly sufficient. I enabled pin 1 on transmit thinking dang I've toasted the driver for pin 7 I'll use pin 1 as a substibute. Guess what it does once enabled. Yes, O.L. to 5M on PTT. How interesting. Jon, K6JEK ___ 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 Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com ___ 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 Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com ___ 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 Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com
Re: [Flexradio] list has been quiet?
Are we already addicted to the Flexradio reflector? Ahti OH2RZ On 01/11/06, Tom Thompson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Jim Lux wrote: Just a test.. Jim, W6RMK James Lux, P.E. Spacecraft Radio Frequency Subsystems Group Flight Communications Systems Section Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Mail Stop 161-213 4800 Oak Grove Drive Pasadena CA 91109 tel: (818)354-2075 fax: (818)393-6875 ___ 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 Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com Yes, Jim, I thought maybe the reflector was down. Tom W0IVJ ___ 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 Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com ___ 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 Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com
Re: [Flexradio] High SWR indication and loss of keying
On 16/10/06, Jim, W4ATK [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: RFI elimination is trial and error. 73 Jim, W4ATK Yes, Jim, so it is! In my case one common mode choke was not enough. I tried two cokes first at the radio end and then at the computer end. The best result was with one choke at both ends. It obviously depends on the mode of the RFI coupling due to different routing of the cables. Jon, Thank you for informing about the Amidon materials. 73, Ahti OH2RZ ___ 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 Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com ___ 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 Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com
Re: [Flexradio] High SWR Problem...
Ferrite can help in the case of common mode interference problems. I am using several turns of USB cable wound in double E-core ferrite (Grade N27) at BOTH ends of the cable. http://kotisivu.dnainternet.net/ahti/sdr-1000/USBfilt.jpg If you have no E-core, you may use big toroids with several (3-4) turns. The best solution, of course, would be proper groundings and routing of the cables, but that is usually more easily said than done. 73 Ahti OH2RZ On 16/10/06, Scott [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: If I key the rig with the mouse I have no issue. But if I key the rig with my footswitch it keys and unkeys the amp. I have put ferrit cores on both the footswitch and the amp circuit but doesn't seem to help. But I key with the mouse it all works fine. So the RF seems to be getting back into the SDR. On Sun, 2006-10-15 at 20:48 -0400, Scott wrote: Funny you sent this today. I had this happen to me on 40m and 75m today. Only when I am running my CLipperton. This has not happened to me before. But I am using a new V1.6.3 and my 160m loop antenna came down saturday so had to put it back up and I shortned it about 8 feet. So now I may just have RF getting into the USB cable. Not sure if its related to what your seeing but same thing is going on. 73's Scott On Sun, 2006-10-15 at 20:23 -0400, Pete wrote: While experimenting with a multiband wire antenna today, I ran into a problem. On one of the bands the radio reported high swr (I think this was on 10m) when I went into tune mode. PowerSDR then displayed a dialog indicating that the USB connection was no longer functional (can't remember the exact text). I seem to remember there were some problems reported recently where users were having USB disconnect problems but I don't remember them being related to reported high swr. It was necessary to go into setup and check the usb box again in order to get the radio to operate normally. This is the only time I've ever experienced any problems with the usb to parallel connection. Just wondering if this is something others have seen, before I file a bug report. Pete, N3EVL ___ 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 Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com ___ 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 Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com ___ 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 Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com ___ 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 Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com
Re: [Flexradio] Option to remove dB display?
Dan, Let me comment some statements in this discussion: On 07/10/06, [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: that we have great analog signal meter, I'd like the option to remove the dB signal level display Why to hide the absolutely best and most useful display feature of the whole SDR-1000?! I need dBm for my measurements. 73, Ahti OH2RZ Ahi, Is this box (SDR-1000) a piece of bench test gear or a radio? Both. If it will help you would you like me to send you a copy of the latest HP catalog? Thanks, but no need, I have them. On the other hand, I cannot afford these H(igh) P(rice)/ (Agilent) products. My problem is I can't work the CQP Contest (and score worth a darn) while watching the flickering display. Sorry for your concentration difficultes. Now I got a good explanation and answer to my simple question Why to hide Thanks for the many options of PowerSDR, you have already got some advice how to get rid of the SMTP flickering rate of the displays. Here are some more to slow down the flickering by adjusting: - Display Mode AVG and/or Peak, - FPS of the main display and use Averaging, - Meter Delay, - Averaging Time, - Multimeter Analog Peak Hold, - Digital Peak Hold, - Average Time. After using more than three years SDR-1000 and owning four (4) of these boxes I am, in general, happy about the options, we are so many users with different opinions and preferences. However, I think that FlexRadio has wasted too much time and efforts for modifying the GUI when the MODULAR SOFTWARE still waits for the completion - three years after the first promise! PS: well.. don't whine, you asked for it... Very well said! I cannot put it better. 73, Ahti OH2RZ ___ 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 Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com
Re: [Flexradio] Option to remove dB display?
On 05/10/06, Wayne Roth [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Now that we have great analog signal meter, I'd like the option to remove the dB signal level display Why to hide the absolutely best and most useful display feature of the whole SDR-1000?! I need dBm for my measurements. 73, Ahti OH2RZ ___ 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 Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com ___ 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 Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com
Re: [Flexradio] clock ticking from sdr-1000
Cecil, Good joke, but don't Shock us. Any silly search machines may connect us to a wrong group of people due to careless dirty words. 73, Ahti On 30/09/06, Cecil Bayona [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Douglas Shock wrote: Why does my SDR-1000 sound like a ticking watch when powered off? Did I get more than I ordered here? Doug / K0ZU FlexRadio Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com Was it shipped from the * division? -- ___ 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 Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com ___ 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 Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com
Re: [Flexradio] FlexRadio Digest, Vol 17, Issue 24
Willi, Thanks for remembering! Linear power supply/voltage regulator is always a good solution for low noise applications. Unfortunately, sometimes we cannot use them. Actually, now I'm using the original chopper with better filtering. You may add 47uF capacitor parallel to C7 and double the values of L2, L3, C8 and C9. Be careful though, the chopper DC1 (NMA1215S) is very sensitive to all kind of overloads - even to the higher inrush current of the output filter capacitors! That's why higher inductance values will be needed. My suggestions are beyond the recommendations of the manufacturer and naturally, you violate the guarantee rules of FlexRadio, too. Anything you modify is totally at your own risk and responsibility. It may be my good luck only, that this modification has worked three years in my oldest SDR-1000 and about two years in the two other sets. For anybody else I suggest buying (or building) a quiet power supply with well filtered output voltages +13.8V and ±15V (±12V). 73, Ahti OH2RZ On 25/09/06, Willi Reppel [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Chris, This subject has already been a topic three years ago on the Forum and so far I remember ___ 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 Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com ___ 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 Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com
Re: [Flexradio] DC/DC Converter (DC1)
Hi Tim and Ross, Let me copy what I answered to Cris and Willi few hours ago: -- Willi, Thanks for remembering! Linear power supply/voltage regulator is always a good solution for low noise applications. Unfortunately, sometimes we cannot use them. Actually, now I'm using the original chopper with better filtering. You may add 47uF capacitor parallel to C7 and double the values of L2, L3, C8 and C9. Be careful though, the chopper DC1 (NMA1215S) is very sensitive to all kind of overloads - even to the higher inrush current of the output filter capacitors! That's why higher inductance values will be needed. My suggestions are beyond the recommendations of the manufacturer and naturally, you violate the guarantee rules of FlexRadio, too. Anything you modify is totally at your own risk and responsibility. It may be my good luck only, that this modification has worked three years in my oldest SDR-1000 and about two years in the two other sets. For anybody else I suggest buying (or building) a quiet power supply with well filtered output voltages +13.8V and ±15V (±12V). 73, Ahti OH2RZ On 25/09/06, Willi Reppel [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Chris, This subject has already been a topic three years ago on the Forum and so far I remember -- On 25/09/06, Tim Ellison [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I think it is more prevalent than not. The noise is real easy to find when the rig hasn't warmed up and you have it on a dummy load. In the Panadapter you can watch the little hump wander you the band until the radio starts coming to temperature and then back down. As the radio warms up, its rate of travel slows down to almost a crawl. Eventually it settles in a frequency range and wanders around in it. I see this behavior all the time on 20 meters, and have observed it on other bands as well. -Tim --- Tim Ellison Integrated Technical Services -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Ross Stenberg Sent: Monday, September 25, 2006 10:56 AM To: flexradio@flex-radio.biz Subject: [Flexradio] DC/DC Converter (DC1) I have noticed this being discussed as an issue several times. It appears that not everyone is affected by the meandering signals. Some are worse than others or not even noticed. Is this a known issue or are they just isolated occurrences? 73 Ross K9COX ___ 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 Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com ___ 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 Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com
Re: [Flexradio] A plea for a cable-free experience (was Re: Iambic Keyer)
Larry, Jim, Joe, Actually, in principle I agree all you said. Nevertheless, let me express my opinion about the HPSDR project. It is now really overly complicated and space hungry concept, especially due to that ATLAS motherboard. However, at this phase of DEVELOPMENT this kind of solution makes anything possible. It is an excellent general purpose tool, not the final product! As soon as the submodules are available, I think, will be the time to design some more convenient interconnection systems tailored for the actual application. Then possibly each of us can easily be his or hers own tailor or seamstress. 73, Ahti OH2RZ On 25/09/06, Joe - AB1DO [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Larry, it sounds like what you are looking for is what is currently developing at HPSDR (see www.hpsdr.org ). A ham dedicated ADC/DAC (sound card) board and controller board are currently being prototyped. Last week a replacement board for the SDR-1000 PIO card was suggested with enthousiastic response. The combination will result in only one USB cable going from the SDR-1000 to the PC - no more audio cables, no more parrallel cable. It is still early days and it may take a little while for everything to develop to the point where the boards can be purchased (most likely through TAPR). At this stage it is also unclear how much technical prowess will be required to make it all work (h/w and/or s/w skills)but at least you don't stand alone in your plea. Only drawback: is that to combine everything, you'll need a larger enclosure. Exactly how large remains to be seen. Thought this might interest you, 73 de Joe - AB1DO - Original Message - From: Larry Loen [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Jim Lux [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: flexradio@flex-radio.biz Sent: Monday, September 25, 2006 08:53 Subject: Re: [Flexradio] A plea for a cable-free experience (was Re: Iambic Keyer) Jim Lux wrote: At 07:48 PM 9/24/2006, Larry Loen wrote: David Ackrill wrote: Guy Olinger, K2AV wrote: I've thought long and hard about this note. I believe the main issue here is simple -- while the software has improved by leaps and bounds, we have only the most modest changes to the hardware. Last night, even with all my experience, I had a major heartache. The CW was stuck on. After reseating the parallel cable maybe three times (and reseating everything else and rebooting Windows inbetween), it finally went away. Imagine my consternation with a week to go before leaving town. And, I was about 80 per cent sure of the solution at the start! The cables, their care and feeding, and the sheer complexity of remembering the 25 leading things that can go wrong as they come loose are far and away the biggest problem with owning this otherwise wonderful rig. I think many of us have forgotten how much of a problem it can be to deal with all of it. We get it going, it glitches once in a while (it does at my QTH anyway), we get really busy figuring it out. And, when we do, it goes away for a while. I know it's asking a lot, but we do need that Flex 2000 of my dreams where the sound card function is brought inboard and the entire communication takes place as data bytes over a USB cable as an ordinary PC peripheral. That is, an on-board D/A and A/D process, all run in a manner like a printer or any other PC peripheral. Whether it is a chosen sound card or a real D/A A/D pair, I don't care. Whatever meets the need. It probably means some modest CPU in there, too. So be it. I would support this.. put a Mini-ITX mobo in the package with the radio and give it an ethernet interface and I'd be a really happy camper. As long as the Mini-ITX is separate from what I'm asking for, analogous to what is done with the Dell package, I have no problems with this. But, I want the radio _itself_ to be portable or at least reasonably transportable. That means a 12v unit and also a unit as a whole that can be put into the bottom of a carry on bag for an airliner. Something physically not much bigger (maybe not bigger at all) than the current unit. I just want it very _slightly_ smarter in roughly the same package. I want it to be just a little more like a conventional radio and not outsmart ourselves with added complexity. Conceptually, take out the 2m transverter and insert the A/D D/A CPU-based package in its place. That's all, at least physically. Start adding in a full Mini-ITX PC as a single, indivisible unit and the whole suggestion becomes more problematical. Flex (whatever it does) is not going to have a gigantic product line. I vote for a KISS USB peripheral approach because it would acutally serve a _wider_ menu of needs. As I read Jim's idea, there's still a second computer involved anyway, so the Mini ITX, as a platform has more minuses than plusses, I think. Besides the sheer nightmare of the wires that motivates this
Re: [Flexradio] Image Null Calibration.
On 14/09/06, Tim Ellison [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: So anyone have a good recommendation for a stable signal generator that won't break the bank? -Tim Tim, Why not use Analog Devices evaluation board for AD9952 http://www.analog.com/en/prod/0,,770_843_AD9952%2C00.html? Does USD250.00 break the bank? 73, Ahti OH2RZ ___ 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 Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com ___ 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 Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com
Re: [Flexradio] Help - Hardware Guys
On 15/09/06, Kevin Hobbs [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On the SDR-1000RFE v1.4 PCB, I found 2 diodes attached to a trace between K14 and C47 . the other end of both diodes go thru the PCB near T2, but they aren't soldered top or bottom . the PCB bottom solder mask has been scraped away where the diode leads thru to the bottom, but no solder. Is this a factory thing or a mod / upgrade that the previous owner got part way thru? I do not see these diodes in the RFE schematic? I assume soldering them in is a good idea? I doubt this is the problem I was looking, but who knows. Kevin, It seems to me that the previous owner has not done the modification properly. The diodes before the RX preamplifier should clip any high voltage spikes before they damage the sensitive amplifier. See the Engineering Change Order (ECO-001): http://www.flex-radio.com/Download/Hardware%20Documentation/ECO/ECO001%20RFE%20Input%20Protection.pdf Good luck and 73, Ahti OH2RZ ___ 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 Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com ___ 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 Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com
Re: [Flexradio] USB Adapter Disabling itself for no apparent reason?
On 04/09/06, Gerald Capodieci [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I've found this problem with USB connections. I simply unplug the device and plug it back in then it usually connects. Hi Tim, Gerald and all, That is good advice, but don't forget to check the USB connection on the set-up window. However, it is irritating that all the small switching transients coming from the mains power circuits trigger the USB adapter off. There is no better help but good grounding of your house mains power system, and even better in your hamshack for your computer, all peripherial equipment, the radio itself, of course, and finally the RF-ground. How to lay out all the grounding cables and points and draw the signal cables to avoid grounding loops, that is more art than science. Every location is different, I simply can't give any suggestions. If you cannot eliminate the transient, you still can suppress its influence to the sensitive USB circuits. The apparent reason of your problem is the common mode transient current that somehow got coupled to your USB cable. You can reduce the coupled current (and the interference) by increasing the common mode impedance of the cable. Use ferrite chokes at both ends of the cable. I use four turns of cable around the center pole of a double E-core made of grade N27 ferrite. http://kotisivu.dnainternet.net/ahti/sdr-1000/usbferrite.jpg Good luck and 73, Ahti OH2RZ ___ 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 Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com ___ 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 Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com
Re: [Flexradio] I/Q imbalance and calibration
Jim,
Thank you very much for your mathematical treatment of the I/Q
balancing matters. That is really the weak point of the otherwise
excellent SDR-1000. To me personally, it means so much that as soon as
I realised this more than about 3 years ago I refused to transmit
before manually correcting the I/Q balance at the frequency. You know,
I am mentally sick in this respect long time! Since the early days of
SSB when the signal was generated by home made equipment I had for
convenience even front panel controls for phase and balance
adjustments!
Now that I have been experimenting with Active Integrating Quadrature
Sampling Detectors (ISD for short and simplicity) I can clearly see a
slanting noise floor graph on the display, raising up towards the
increasing negative frequencies, i.e. towards the DC-frequencies.
When using 96 or 192 kHz sampling there is a narrower or wider hump
visible on the display at around 11 kHz. I have been thinking that the
hump is due to higher phase and amplitude erros at low IF-frequencies
and due to sampling pulse errors at higher RF-frequencies.
Just came into my mind, do we actually need any lowpass filters after
the DDS and do we need sinus and cosine outputs? Would just accurately
controlled quadrature 180° wide clocking pulses do the trick with a
lot less of critical filter components?
Then there is some more complication in the QSD circuits. Most of them
sample the signal in four short 90° narrow slices when it can be
handled by two 180° wide pulses. That is the way I'm sampling in my
IDS experiments.
Please, wise answers to my silly questions!
73, Ahti OH2RZ
On 27/08/06, Jim Lux [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Put some analysis of the variability of the DDS LO filters out on my website.
It's a draft still: comments appreciated.
http://home.earthlink.net/~w6rmk/sdr1000/index.htm
Take home message so far.. At least from the DDS LO side of things, you
don't need a huge number of calibration points across the HF band in order
to get good image rejection. {of course, this depends on what you think
good is...grin}
While there can be pretty substantial differences in phase between I and Q
sides due to component variations, once you know what the difference is
(e.g. by calibrating), the difference doesn't change a lot over the entire
range.
If someone has any information on the temperature characteristics of the
components (in particular, what's the temperature coefficient of the caps),
I can roll that into the analysis.
Jim Lux, W6RMK
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Re: [Flexradio] Zero IF: 1/f noise
Peter, To Sami's comment I want add my purist's 0.02 Euro worth: 1/f noise is real, but cannot be easily seen in the present implementation of the SDR-1000 hardware. As a good designer Gerald has hidden it by: 1) putting the preamplifier gain so high that the noise coming from the front end masks all other noise and 2) selecting the IF frequency (11.025 kHz) well away from the worst 1/f noise area. Already these design decision were enough to make a pretty good receiver for the average ham radio operator on HF bands. Adding the front end gain increases the dynamic range at the weak signal end but limits it with the strong signals as the QSD can stand only about 1.5 Vrms. Ignoring everything else, the 20 kHz wide noise of the output stage alone without signal is about 8.5 uVrms. That calculates roughly to 105 dB blocking range before the sound card. Not bad! But because I know that better is possible with normal price and off-the-shelf components, I wait for the results of the JANUS project. Possibly some minor hardware modifications and adjustments will be necessary in the SDR-1000 to match the promised 120 dB dynamic range of JANUS. 73, Ahti OH2RZ On 24/05/06, Sami Aintila [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 5/24/06, Peter Martinez [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I am really not convinced that 1/f noise is 'physics' in the same sense as, for example, thermal noise is physics which we can't fight. Who says you can't fight thermal noise? Just use liquid nitrogen or helium to cool your circuits! On a more serious note: Of course different circuits will exhibit different noise characteristics, but that doesn't make 1/f noise any more less physics than thermal noise. All this discussion may be beside the point, however, because I don't think 1/f is a very significant problem in sounds cards or SDR-1000. exhibit what we term 1/f noise and others don't seem to do so, so I speculate that if we are careful we can design it out. I can see it in my cheapo MP3+, Sami sees it, but Alberto's plot of the Delta 44 spectrum and my results on the Firebox don't show any significant low-frequency noise. Actually, I don't see any 1/f noise. Or maybe very little, but most of the near-DC noise is 50 Hz and its multiples just like you suspected in a previous post. I'm fully aware that my grounding setup is nowhere near perfect, but I know many SDR-1000 users have similar or even worse problems. I have done a WAV file of an SSB signal received 15dB above noise, received on my SDR1000 into the Firebox using Zero-IF software, and there's no sign of a noise peak in the centre. I have done this kind of demonstration myself. It works, but I obviously can see and hear some noise. But please send your file directly to my e-mail address. There's one more reason why using a non-zero IF can be useful. If you're using zero IF, you have to use the exact DDS tuning word that takes you to the frequency you're listening to. But some tuning words will generate a lot of spurs, and there's no way you can avoid them. With non-zero IF you can have 40 kHz (or 90 kHz) of DDS frequencies to choose from. Of course, the current PowerSDR software doesn't yet offer this possibility. 73, Sami OH2BFO ___ FlexRadio mailing list FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz Archive Link: http://mail.flex-radio.biz/pipermail/flexradio_flex-radio.biz/ FlexRadio Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com ___ FlexRadio mailing list FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz Archive Link: http://mail.flex-radio.biz/pipermail/flexradio_flex-radio.biz/ FlexRadio Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com
Re: [Flexradio] Zero IF SDR
Another reason for using IF higher than 0 Hz is the high inherent noise level of typical transistors and opamps at low frequencies (so called 1/f-noise). This and the leakage of the VFO signals made me to move away from the zero-IF in my early switching (and Tayloe) mixer experiments. Fortunately, before spending too much time for re-inventing the wheel came Gerald's famous first article in QSX - and here I am! Now is the time to modify the wheel! 73, Ahti OH2RZ On 21/05/06, Frank Brickle [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The DSP software is already capable of 0 Hz IF, and has been since its earliest version. IIRC the 11025 Hz IF is primarily a consequence of the frequency response of typical soundcards, which start rolling off somewhere in the vicinity of 200-300 Hz. 73 Frank AB2KT Peter Martinez wrote: From G3PLX: The software that comes with the SDR1000 uses an 11.025kHz intermediate frequency. I understand the reasons for doing it this way, but even before the SDR1000 appeared I was doing software radio with an I.F. of zero. By this I mean that the sine and cosine RF oscillators were set right in the middle of the wanted signal, not offset by 11kHz. This may sound impossible to those who were brought up with analogue RF, but that's because it could never be done with analogue circuitry. With DSP it's actually easier to have the 'IF' frequency down in the audio band than to push it up where you can't hear it. The big advantage of zero IF is that the 22kHz image response problem vanishes. Any slight amplitude or phasing unbalance in the Tayloe sampler just results in an equally-slight amount of in-band distortion. The strongest image-frequency signal you ever need to reject is the wanted signal itself. You don't need to worry about a much stronger unwanted signal 22kHz up the band. When I got the SDR1000 kit (I got a very early one), I used it with this technique, and the results were excellent, except for one thing. It took me a while to trace the problem, but I found it in the end and the cause was a surprise. The problem showed as noise around the centre-frequency of all received signals, but it varied across the bands, and was absent when I unplugged the antenna. It was so bad that it made the receiver unusable on some bands with some antennas. But if I used the SDR1000 to tap-off and demodulate the intermediate-frequency of another receiver, it worked perfectly. The cause was oscillator radiation. The DDS oscillator (right in the middle of the wanted signal) was radiating, intermodulating with all kinds of low-frequency noise sources external to the receiver, and the resulting unwanted products (either side of the oscillator frequency) were re-radiated into the antenna. The effect is well-known to anyone who has ever experimented with home-brew direct-conversion receivers, where it usually shows as a raw power-line buzz in the speaker. It's possible that this effect may well have shown in the early work on SDR and it may have been one reason for offsetting the passband by 11kHz in the present software. The fix is to stop the local oscillator radiation. Screening helps a lot but another way is to add an RF stage, or configure the receiver as a superhet with the Tayloe sampler at the I.F. frequency. My early SDR1000 kit didn't have a pre-amp and I understand the current kits do. The local oscillator radiation is probably considerably lower on the present kits, so the zero-IF technique would probably work a lot better than it does on mine. Has anyone here who is writing his own SDR software tried this on the latest hardware? I can provide more details of the zero-IF technique if required. All the well-known modes can be implemented this way, both for receive and transmit. Maybe the present SDR software could be patched to implement zero-IF, or my own zero-IF software could be run in parallel on another soundcard. Would anyone like to have a go? 73 Peter ___ FlexRadio mailing list FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz Archive Link: http://mail.flex-radio.biz/pipermail/flexradio_flex-radio.biz/ FlexRadio Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com ___ FlexRadio mailing list FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz Archive Link: http://mail.flex-radio.biz/pipermail/flexradio_flex-radio.biz/ FlexRadio Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com ___ FlexRadio mailing list FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz Archive Link: http://mail.flex-radio.biz/pipermail/flexradio_flex-radio.biz/ FlexRadio Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com
Re: [Flexradio] Zero IF SDR
Typo correction: ... article in QEX... Ahti OH2RZ On 21/05/06, Ahti Aintila [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Another reason for using IF higher than 0 Hz is the high inherent noise level of typical transistors and opamps at low frequencies (so called 1/f-noise). This and the leakage of the VFO signals made me to move away from the zero-IF in my early switching (and Tayloe) mixer experiments. Fortunately, before spending too much time for re-inventing the wheel came Gerald's famous first article in QSX - and here I am! Now is the time to modify the wheel! 73, Ahti OH2RZ On 21/05/06, Frank Brickle [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The DSP software is already capable of 0 Hz IF, and has been since its earliest version. IIRC the 11025 Hz IF is primarily a consequence of the frequency response of typical soundcards, which start rolling off somewhere in the vicinity of 200-300 Hz. 73 Frank AB2KT Peter Martinez wrote: From G3PLX: The software that comes with the SDR1000 uses an 11.025kHz intermediate frequency. I understand the reasons for doing it this way, but even before the SDR1000 appeared I was doing software radio with an I.F. of zero. By this I mean that the sine and cosine RF oscillators were set right in the middle of the wanted signal, not offset by 11kHz. This may sound impossible to those who were brought up with analogue RF, but that's because it could never be done with analogue circuitry. With DSP it's actually easier to have the 'IF' frequency down in the audio band than to push it up where you can't hear it. The big advantage of zero IF is that the 22kHz image response problem vanishes. Any slight amplitude or phasing unbalance in the Tayloe sampler just results in an equally-slight amount of in-band distortion. The strongest image-frequency signal you ever need to reject is the wanted signal itself. You don't need to worry about a much stronger unwanted signal 22kHz up the band. When I got the SDR1000 kit (I got a very early one), I used it with this technique, and the results were excellent, except for one thing. It took me a while to trace the problem, but I found it in the end and the cause was a surprise. The problem showed as noise around the centre-frequency of all received signals, but it varied across the bands, and was absent when I unplugged the antenna. It was so bad that it made the receiver unusable on some bands with some antennas. But if I used the SDR1000 to tap-off and demodulate the intermediate-frequency of another receiver, it worked perfectly. The cause was oscillator radiation. The DDS oscillator (right in the middle of the wanted signal) was radiating, intermodulating with all kinds of low-frequency noise sources external to the receiver, and the resulting unwanted products (either side of the oscillator frequency) were re-radiated into the antenna. The effect is well-known to anyone who has ever experimented with home-brew direct-conversion receivers, where it usually shows as a raw power-line buzz in the speaker. It's possible that this effect may well have shown in the early work on SDR and it may have been one reason for offsetting the passband by 11kHz in the present software. The fix is to stop the local oscillator radiation. Screening helps a lot but another way is to add an RF stage, or configure the receiver as a superhet with the Tayloe sampler at the I.F. frequency. My early SDR1000 kit didn't have a pre-amp and I understand the current kits do. The local oscillator radiation is probably considerably lower on the present kits, so the zero-IF technique would probably work a lot better than it does on mine. Has anyone here who is writing his own SDR software tried this on the latest hardware? I can provide more details of the zero-IF technique if required. All the well-known modes can be implemented this way, both for receive and transmit. Maybe the present SDR software could be patched to implement zero-IF, or my own zero-IF software could be run in parallel on another soundcard. Would anyone like to have a go? 73 Peter ___ FlexRadio mailing list FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz Archive Link: http://mail.flex-radio.biz/pipermail/flexradio_flex-radio.biz/ FlexRadio Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com ___ FlexRadio mailing list FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz Archive Link: http://mail.flex-radio.biz/pipermail/flexradio_flex-radio.biz/ FlexRadio Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com ___ FlexRadio mailing list FlexRadio
Re: [Flexradio] Zero IF SDR
Peter, You are right about the 22 kHz image in transmission. That is why I am reluctant to transmit without checking (and adjusting) the attenuation on the used frequency. With the preamplifier board the leakage of the sampling signal still can be detected by my other receivers. In practice it is no problem on the usual noisy bands. That is true also with the 1/f-noise, if you are running with the gains now used in the SDR-1000. In my earlier experiments with zero-IF I tried to maximize the dynamic range without any preamplifier. Then the 1/f-noise determines your weak signal performance. The maximum signal will be about 4 Vpp at the 200 ohm level that the QSD sees and can handle. This makes about 0 dBm at the antenna connector. Just for an explanation, this experiment was made for a commercial instrumentation project handling about 20 kHz bandwidth. If you have a SoftRock receiver available, you may tune across the 0 Hz IF. With the present high gain opamp you hardly can see anything special. Try to set the gain to 0 dB, then you possibly will find a difference. Measure the signals before the sound card. 73, Ahti OH2RZ On 21/05/06, Peter Martinez [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: From G3PLX: I just checked my two soundcards for the low-frequency roll-off. My new Firebox is 2.4dB down at 1.8Hz and the MP3+ is 1.5dB down at 1.2Hz. And that was done quickly by linking line-out to line-in, so it includes the LF roll-off of the transmit side too. I am quite certain the music business wouldn't touch a soundcard that rolled-off at 200Hz. The LF roll-off is really not a problem for zero-IF anyway. Even if you put the oscillator right in the centre, which theoretically puts a deep narrow null in the passband, I defy anyone to notice it's there on an SSB signal. There are ways to eliminate this null completely, but I really don't think we need to do it. To Ahti: I have never seen 1/f noise in my zero-IF work (I designed such a receiver before I retired, for HF GMDSS working). The local oscillator radiation problem looks just like 1/f noise, but that can be fixed once it is recognised. It's also possible that poor post-mixer design could result in supply-line noise being a problem (this has a 1/f spectrum), but the post-mixer amplifier design of the SDR1000 kit is excellent in this respect. If 1/f noise was present, it would show as a noise peak at the centre of the output spectrum. There is no such peak. If, as Frank says, the SDR1000 software can do zero-IF already, has anyone done any tests with it? What were the results? Were there any problems? Has the local oscillator radiation problem gone now that the RF amplifier is in place? I think it's worth looking at this area again. The 22kHz image problem will be tolerated by SDR1000 fans but this is surely not a proper solution. My GMDSS receiver would not have gained it's approval certificate if the operator had to balance the image rejection each time he changed bands! 73 Peter ___ FlexRadio mailing list FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz Archive Link: http://mail.flex-radio.biz/pipermail/flexradio_flex-radio.biz/ FlexRadio Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com ___ FlexRadio mailing list FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz Archive Link: http://mail.flex-radio.biz/pipermail/flexradio_flex-radio.biz/ FlexRadio Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com
Re: [Flexradio] 16 versus 24 bit audio
Thanks to everybody for the most interesting and educating discussion. Nevertheless, I am not happy until the JANUS version with AK5394A is in my hands and I have modified the QSD and the following amplifier. Best regards and special thanks to the HPSDR group for the good work done so far, Ahti OH2RZ On 20/05/06, Philip Covington [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 5/20/06, Peter Martinez [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: From G3PLX: Let me close this topic before Phil accuses me of cruelty to dead horses. Before I aquired a 24-bit card, I honestly believed that 24-bit cards would be 8 bits better than 16 bit cards. When I did get one recently, I was surprised to find this wasn't the case. Jim is right. 24 bit cards may only be slightly better than 16-bit cards. I have learned something this week. 73 Peter Hi Peter, Well, I may have been a little too strong in making that statement (dead horse)...it was early morning here...no coffee yet consumed... etc... ;-) The FlexRadio Forum has some interesting discussions in the past about different sound cards and what to expect. It is pretty much true that some 24 bit cards are marginally better than some 16 bit cards. It also would be accurate to say that some 24 bit cards are worse than some of the better 16 bit cards. 73 de Phil N8VB ___ FlexRadio mailing list FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz Archive Link: http://mail.flex-radio.biz/pipermail/flexradio_flex-radio.biz/ FlexRadio Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com ___ FlexRadio mailing list FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz Archive Link: http://mail.flex-radio.biz/pipermail/flexradio_flex-radio.biz/ FlexRadio Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com
Re: [Flexradio] Interesting artifact
Tim, This sounds like interference coming from the 12 V to +/-15 V DC to DC converter (NMA1215S) on the PIO board. I have added some extra filtering, but still sometimes can see and hear it wandering across the panadapter window at a level -155 dBm. Naturally, that low level can be seen only without antenna connected to the SDR-1000. In the normal listening it disappears under the noise coming from the antenna. 73, Ahti OH2RZ On 12/05/06, Tim Ellison [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I observed an interesting phenomenon this evening and I wonder if my assumption is on track. When I started up my SDR1K this evening, I had it connected to a dummy load to do a little audio testing. On the Panadapter, I noticed a signal 500 Hz wide that was about -100dBm in intensity that sounded like a whistle. I could really hear it because the noise floor was about -138dBm. The signal never changed in intensity, but was rapidly increasing in frequency. I checked on another radio and the signal was definitely in the SDR1K. I started tracking it at around 14.190 KHz and followed it up the band. As it crawled up the band, the rate of frequency change decreased, but the intensity never did. I tracked it to all the way to 14.290 KHz where it finally stabilized its frequency change. This whole process took about 20 minutes to complete. At this point I started transmitting and the peak jumped to 14.335 KHz. Once I quit transmitting it started to drop again to stabilize around 14.328 KHz. So it looks like this phenomenon is very likely temperature dependent. Am I correct to assume that this phenomenon is related to DDS thermally instability?? If it is DDS related, shouldn't the intensity of this signal decreased in intensity as it stabilized or should this S5 signal always be here? Should this DDS noise be this strong in intensity? I am just trying to figure out if this is normal operation of do I have some other problem. Any comments and opinions are welcome. -Tim --- Tim Ellison mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Integrated Technical Services http://www.itsco.com/ Apex, NC USA 919.674.0044 Ext. 25 / 919.674.0045 (FAX) 919.215.6375 - cell PGP public key available at all public KeyServers Skype: kg4rzy ___ FlexRadio mailing list FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz Archive Link: http://mail.flex-radio.biz/pipermail/flexradio_flex-radio.biz/ FlexRadio Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com ___ FlexRadio mailing list FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz Archive Link: http://mail.flex-radio.biz/pipermail/flexradio_flex-radio.biz/ FlexRadio Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com
Re: [Flexradio] RoHS Tin Whiskers was Re: July 1
Bill, You are right, at least partially. There is a big risk of tin whiskers shorting the narrow gaps between the fine pitch lead-free solder joints, unless the manufacturers know exactly their materials and can strictly control the process. There are positive examples since several years when some leading Japanese manufacturers voluntarily changed over to lead-free assembly in their consumer electronics. So far no alarming reports. It is true, higher temperatures put a lot more stress to the material and components, but that is not the fault of politicians. The industry itself made wrong decisions when selecting the alloying materials for the lead-free solders used now generally in the RoHS process. There is a material and soldering process that would work riskless and even at much lower temperatures. It is called Transfusion Bonding that is using bismuth instead of lead for alloying the solder joint. In this process you tinplate the solderpads and componets and then add a thin layer of bismuth over tin. Reflow at +180 deg C, bismuth starts to melt already at 139 deg C, it diffuses quickly into the tin forming a thin alloy layer. All the time bismuth continues its diffusion into the tin matrix, thus the molten mix becomes very lean Bi-Sn alloy that forms reliable bonds. Also, as the ally becomes leaner, its melting temperature increases. Actually, even after the temperature is lowered the bismuth diffusion continues until the alloying is uniform across the whole solder joint. The remelting temperature of resulting bond is very close to the melting temperature of pure tin, +132 deg C! This about 1% content of bismuth in the alloy can relax the internal energy of the crystal structure and prevent tin whisker formation. Why this process is not used generally in the industry? The answer is, it was invented 10 years ago in the wrong place and hurted interests of big international companies that already invested huge amounts of dollars, yens, pounds, etc in tin-silver-zinc alloys. Seldom the best technolgy wins, only big money talks. Those who are interested, may read more in the publications of the IEEE. Look for Professor Jorma Kivilahti, Helsinki University of Technology. Unfortunately those articles are not freely available, unless you are a subscriber of the IEEE publications. I found only one free article that shortly mentions this method: http://www.ept.tkk.fi/Research/Publications/55_Paper.pdf 73, Ahti OH2RZ On 01/05/06, William Bordy [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I have been following the RoHS requirements and one issue I see rarely discussed is the Tin Whiskers issue. For those that are not familiar with it please see the following WEB site: http://nepp.nasa.gov/WHISKER/background/index.htm It appears that with the switch to no-lead that the reliability of the equipment will be substantially reduced. This appears to be what happens when politics drive science. 73, Bill Bordy NJ1H -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Lyle Johnson Sent: Monday, May 01, 2006 10:28 AM To: Jim Lux Cc: FlexRadio Subject: Re: [Flexradio] RoHS was Re: July 1 Bob, I assume you're talking about RoHS, which bans lead (except in certain very narrow situations, not applicable here) in electronics. I don't know much about how Gerald makes the boards for the SDR1000, but I wouldn't think that changing to no-lead solder is a big issue... Actually, it is a big issue. Turns out that no-lead solder manufacturing processes require more heat, and normal FR-4 PCBs tend to delaminate, so you must use high-temperature fiberglass. This is available, just more expensive -- 20% to 50% higher cost per board. Fewer facilities are available to manufacture assemblies in a RoHS compliant way, and willing to certify same, so those costs go up. In the case of my DSPx, the quotes I have for the raw PCB cost are double and the assembly costs will more than double what I am currently paying. The components used in the product must all be RoHS compliant. And it isn't just about lead. There are six commonly used substances that are banned or severely proscribed. Normal passivation processes used for aluminum, for example, contain banned substances, so even the case may be affected. 73, Lyle KK7P ___ FlexRadio mailing list FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz Archive Link: http://mail.flex-radio.biz/pipermail/flexradio_flex-radio.biz/ FlexRadio Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com ___ FlexRadio mailing list FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz Archive Link: http://mail.flex-radio.biz/pipermail/flexradio_flex-radio.biz/ FlexRadio Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com
Re: [Flexradio] RFI in SDR1000
Bill, If the normal clamp-on chokes don't help, you may use double ferrite E-cores, wind several turns of cable and close together with ahdesive tape. See this: http://kotisivu.dnainternet.net/ahti/sdr-1000/USBfilt.jpg. This trick works well with my USB-to-PIO adapter proto. Larrys advice may help even better. 73, Ahti OH2RZ On 16/04/06, Bill Nagle [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I am experiencing some severe r-f problems with the flex at any external linear amp power above 100 watts carrier (AM). When the rf feedback starts it causes a repeating echo in the listeners end receiver. The first echo is the normal flex delay but then it builds on itself into multiple echos. There is no problem with my other setup in the same location using an ft1000d into a similar L4-b linear. I have used the TDK ZCAT2035 clamp on rf chokes profusely around all of the cables in and out of the flex but the problem still exists. Does anyone have a suggestion for a better choke than the tdk or other suggestions? Setup is delta44 on a 2.8gig w/512m ram. Bill Nagle [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ FlexRadio mailing list FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz Archive Link: http://mail.flex-radio.biz/pipermail/flexradio_flex-radio.biz/ FlexRadio Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com
[Flexradio] Calibration: Is this a bug in 1.4.5.18?
Is this a bug or a new feature? The Level Calibration of the preview 18 with -70 dBm signal gives me following signal levels on the Spectrum display with different preamp gains: Off: -70 dBm Low: -80 dBm Med: -70 dBm High: -80 dBm If I transfer the mdb-file from the version 1.4.5.16, all gain settings show the same -70 dBm. 73, Ahti OH2RZ
Re: [Flexradio] Fwd: PowerSDR Beta Preview 13 has been Released.
Gerald and Paul, I don't have the DUBUS article around. How exactly is the compression done in SDR-1000? According to my understanding the compression will increase the INBAND intermodulation distortion, unless the audio spectrum is sliced to narrow subbands that are individually compressed and then combined. Naturally, after the processing the final brick wall filter is compulsory. By the way, I miss the multichannel TX equalizer! 73, Ahti OH2RZ - Original Message - From: Gerald Youngblood [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: 'Paul Wade W1GHZ' [EMAIL PROTECTED]; FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz Sent: Thursday, February 09, 2006 4:40 PM Subject: Re: [Flexradio] Fwd: PowerSDR Beta Preview 13 has been Released. One thing that is very different in the SDR-1000/PowerSDR from Leiff's excellent article is that our final brick wall filter is AFTER all speech processing, including ALC. This means that it filters out most of the splatter before it ever gets amplified. I verified this on a spectrum analyzer yesterday at very high levels of processing and ALC compression. 73, Gerald Gerald Youngblood, K5SDR President FlexRadio Systems 8900 Marybank Drive Austin, TX 78750 Ph: 512-250-8595 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: www.flex-radio.com -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Paul Wade W1GHZ Sent: Wednesday, February 08, 2006 10:46 PM To: FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz Subject: [Flexradio] Fwd: PowerSDR Beta Preview 13 has been Released. anyone thinking about ALC or speech processing should read Speech Processing for SSB Transmitters by Leif Asbrink, SM5BSZ in the 4/2005 issue of DUBUS 73 paul Date: Wed, 08 Feb 2006 16:10:41 -0600 From: Eric Wachsmann - FlexRadio [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [Flexradio] PowerSDR Beta Preview 13 has been Released. X-Originating-IP: [216.229.20.12] Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz Reply-to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Organization: FlexRadio Systems X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook, Build 10.0.2627 X-BeenThere: FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz X-Antivirus: avast! (VPS 0606-2, 02/07/2006), Outbound message X-Antivirus-Status: Clean X-AntiAbuse: This header was added to track abuse, please include it with any abuse report X-AntiAbuse: Primary Hostname - www3.qth.com X-AntiAbuse: Original Domain - verizon.net X-AntiAbuse: Originator/Caller UID/GID - [47 12] / [47 12] X-AntiAbuse: Sender Address Domain - flex-radio.biz X-Source: X-Source-Args: X-Source-Dir: X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.6 List-Post: mailto:FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz List-Subscribe: http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-r adio.biz, mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] List-Unsubscribe: http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-r adio.biz, mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] List-Archive: http://mail.flex-radio.biz/pipermail/flexradio_flex-radio.biz List-Help: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] List-Id: Flex Radio Users flexradio_flex-radio.biz.flex-radio.biz X-Antivirus: avast! (VPS 0606-2, 02/07/2006), Inbound message X-Antivirus-Status: Clean PowerSDR Beta Preview 13 has been Released. This release fixes the ALC problem. Please read the release notes carefully. Also, several good articles are linked below about peak to average power ratio for the average male voice. Thanks to those of you that responded to Gerald's request for bugs. We have a good list to work from now and will be working on those issues before releasing v1.6.0. Please do not duplicate your reports unless something about your original report has significantly changed in this release (Preview 13). Eric Wachsmann FlexRadio Systems Download Installer: http://www.flex-radio.com/download_files/PowerSDR/Install/Pow erSDR_Beta _ v1.4.5_Preview_13.zip Source: http://www.flex-radio.com/download_files/PowerSDR/Source/Powe rSDR_Beta_ v 1.4.5_Preview_13_Source.zip Release Notes: http://flex-radio.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1948 SSB Power Article: http://flex-radio.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=6376#6376 ___ FlexRadio mailing list FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz Archive Link: http://mail.flex-radio.biz/pipermail/flexradio_flex-radio.biz/ FlexRadio Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com ___ FlexRadio mailing list FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz Archive Link: http://mail.flex-radio.biz/pipermail/flexradio_flex-radio.biz/ FlexRadio Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com ___ FlexRadio mailing list FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz Archive Link: http://mail.flex-radio.biz/pipermail/flexradio_flex-radio.biz/ FlexRadio Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com
Re: [Flexradio] Auto Mute Idiosyncracies
Dale, This 60 ohms to ground most probably indicates a hardware fault. The parallel interface cannot drive that low impedance to the logical 1 level. Earlier, before I changed away from the parallel cable to USB connection, I had difficulties that I corrected by soldering a 3.3 kohm pull-up resistor between Vcc (pin X2-14) and S3 (pin X2-12). Actually the pin X2-12 is also connected to X1-15 on the PIO board, so make sure the parallel cable is disconnected when you measure the resistances. 73, Ahti OH2RZ - Original Message - From: Dale Richardson [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Flex Radio FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz Sent: Monday, January 30, 2006 1:17 AM Subject: [Flexradio] Auto Mute Idiosyncracies I still have not been able to get the auto mute function to work correctly. When you set up the SDR as receive only and enable the auto mute box on Setup-General-Options page the SDR goes into mute. This is the case when the plug in X2 is disconnected. An ohmmeter reading of X2-12 to ground indicates 60 ohms. If I set up the SDR with PTT disabled on the Setup-General-Options the receiver no longer mutes. Disabling the PTT also disables the auto mute function. Can anyone else verify this? I have tried various combinations of settings but nothing works. The 60 ohm reading seems low to me. Maybe a diode is blown. Any ideas? 73, Dale AA5XE ___ FlexRadio mailing list FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz Archive Link: http://mail.flex-radio.biz/pipermail/flexradio_flex-radio.biz/ FlexRadio Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com
Re: [Flexradio] Mute / Squelch / Eq
Willi, Thank you for the information. More than 30 years I have used home made clippers in the IF part of my all SSB transceivers with a proper audio equalizer in the microphone channel. I hope that SDR-1000 would give me a better digital version of that feature. The following articles are worth reading: http://kotisivu.dnainternet.net/ahti/sdr-1000/speechproc.pdf http://kotisivu.dnainternet.net/ahti/sdr-1000/filtclip.pdf 73, Ahti OH2RZ - Original Message - From: Willi Reppel [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Ahti Aintila [EMAIL PROTECTED]; FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz Sent: Monday, January 23, 2006 10:43 AM Subject: Re: [Flexradio] Mute / Squelch / Eq Ahti, The need of more equalizer channels was also discussed intensively on the 80 m band meeting of German SDR1k users last weekend. I heard here that K5SDR, Gerald, is coming to the Friedrichshafen trade show this year and hopefully he has time and opportunity to listen to what is going on here on HF bands in the old countries. Best 73 de SM6OMH, Willi - Original Message - From: Ahti Aintila [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz Sent: Sunday, January 22, 2006 9:41 PM Subject: Re: [Flexradio] Mute / Squelch / Eq The new EQ's are amazing,considering that they are only 3 channels. Behringer could take a lesson for their vx2000 processor. Bill Nagle [EMAIL PROTECTED] More TX equalizer channels needed for the optimal noise penetrating communications quality! Our HF DX-bands are not the best place for broadband Hi-Fi transmissions. 73, Ahti OH2RZ ___ FlexRadio mailing list FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz Archive Link: http://mail.flex-radio.biz/pipermail/flexradio_flex-radio.biz/ FlexRadio Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com
Re: [Flexradio] Mute / Squelch / Eq
The new EQ's are amazing,considering that they are only 3 channels. Behringer could take a lesson for their vx2000 processor. Bill Nagle [EMAIL PROTECTED] More TX equalizer channels needed for the optimal noise penetrating communications quality! Our HF DX-bands are not the best place for broadband Hi-Fi transmissions. 73, Ahti OH2RZ
Re: [Flexradio] Coal in my stocking
Hi Larry, Due to the failure of the parallel port data communication you may get a wrong relay or semiconductor switch - and correspondingly some wrong filter - to pass your signal. That would explain the attenuation. My recommendation is the USB to parallel adapter. Happy new year and 73, Ahti OH2RZ - Original Message - From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: FlexRadio - Eric [EMAIL PROTECTED]; FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz Sent: Tuesday, December 27, 2005 8:54 AM Subject: Re: [Flexradio] Coal in my stocking Eric, I have the K6GGO box with 4 board stack and 100 watt PA driven by the D44 card using Eric2 interface card. When the PA calibrates properly the audio line out is less than a volt P/P if I remember. It only goes to 2 V P/P when the RFE gain has fallen off. As I said I need to make a better test setup and take some written data. Getting to have too many variables to remember it all. What I don't understand yet is why it will sometimes get to 30 meters before it fails and other times it dies on 160. I need to do a better job of grounding things now as I have a lot of cables strung around between the computer, the SDR1000 on the bench and the scope in the test rack. Time Passes- OK, now have a 1 inch copper braid strap between the players in this game. When the rig is working properly in Calibrate I get 1.4V P/P audio into the box, 0.6 V P/P RF at the input to the RFE board and 5.5 V P/P out the BPF board into the PA. This gives 40 to 60 watts out say on 80 meters. I calculate the gain of the RFE as 19 db. When it doesn't work I get a gain of 9 DB. It is intermittent but usually fails at 30 meters. Sometimes at 160 meters. The drive from the TRX board seems consistant with the audio input. I need to figure out how to get PortMon working to look at the parallel port to see if the relays are always getting the proper signals for each band. I would think a non working relay would give no signal through the string. I can also pull the RFE board and bench test it to see what is wrong. What are the signal levels at the input and output of the RFE board for a 60 watt nominal output? Any other software tests I can do? And WHY ARE YOU MESSING AROUND WITH THE SDR BUNCH WHILE YOU ARE ON HOLIDAY? Dealing with this crowd is like herding cats. 73, Larry K2LT From: FlexRadio - Eric [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 2005/12/26 Mon PM 11:34:36 WET To: [EMAIL PROTECTED], FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz Subject: RE: [Flexradio] Coal in my stocking Larry, If you are measuring that much output on the cable that goes to the radio labeled To Line Out, but you are likely overdriving the audio. Are you using the Delta 44? If so, is it set to -10dBv Output as specified in the Delta 44 Quick Start Guide (www.flex-radio.com/delta44/delta44.htm)? Eric Wachsmann FlexRadio Systems -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, December 25, 2005 11:41 PM To: FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz Subject: [Flexradio] Coal in my stocking I don't have a fireplace much less a furnace down here but I got lump of coal in my stocking for Christmas. Running the PA calibrate routine gave me a failure window. Investigation shows that the RFE board sometimes doesn't produce its advertised gain. Sometimes the failure is on 160 and other times it will get to 30 meters before the failure. I've been monitoring the audio input which gets to 2 + volts P/P and the RF into and out of the RFE board. When it works there is the 25 db of gain. When it doesn't it seems to be low gain, 5 db or so. I'll make up a better set of probes to get into the RFE board tomorrow and use the dual trace scope to get hard numbers. Don't think the problem is software, I reloaded 1.4.4 and the database and messed around with other settings and no success. No luck with 1.4.5v9 either. Receive works fine. Thats why I missed the net. Had the operating station torn apart to make up the test setup for my lump of coal. By the way, it was 78 F here this afternoon, a really nice day. Merry Xmas Larry K2LT ___ FlexRadio mailing list FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz ___ FlexRadio mailing list FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz
[Flexradio] Audio Processing for SSB
The SSB modulation came to the telecommunication in the purpose of saving frequency spectrum and reducing transmitting power without sacrificing the signal intelligibility. It seems to me that during the years and decades the knowledge of processing the signal for optimal communication grade frequency/power spectrum has almost vanished down and under. Fortunately, at least our clever software wizards still understand better than we, the appliance operators, what and how to do it for HF-ham radio communication. I uploaded to my homepage a couple of ancient articles that may be fun reading to the newcomers for the basic understanding why and how the signal has to be processed: http://kotisivu.dnainternet.net/ahti/sdr-1000/speechproc.pdf http://kotisivu.dnainternet.net/ahti/sdr-1000/filtclip.pdf The first article is amateur radio oriented and from ZL1BN in Ham Radio, February 1975. This and the more recent good work of our AGC guru, Phil VK6APH, shows that the real understanding has survived well down under in Australia and New Zealand. Now the ideas born in the tube (or valve) age are experiencing a rebirth with the better tools of DSP and the Flex software team working as the midwives. Thanks FlexRadio letting this happen! Happy Boxing Day and 73, Ahti OH2RZ
Re: [Flexradio] Change to floats in Preview 9, speed up, and EQ
Hi all, audiophiles included (like myself), Just wanted to remind that any HF equipment doesn't deserve to be called SSB transceiver if it has no equalization of the transmitted signal. It is extremely important in SSB DX work when you want to get through the QRM and other noise. As Bob let us understand, SSB, AM and FM DO NEED shaping. We do not need flat frequency response for the best intelligibility with the legally or technically limited powers and bandwidths. In addition to the frequency shaping we need amplitude compression or even clipping. Read this article from 1970's, it is still true: http://kotisivu.dnainternet.net/ahti/sdr-1000/filtclip.pdf . Now with the DSP tools we can make everything in a more elegant and efficient way. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year with the wonderful presents from FlexRadio, 73, Ahti OH2RZ - Original Message - From: Robert McGwier [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Tim Ellison [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz Sent: Friday, December 23, 2005 8:29 PM Subject: Re: [Flexradio] Change to floats in Preview 9, speed up, and EQ Gerald, Frank, Eric, and I have come to an agreement on what the new EQ will look like. It will not be like a ISO centered RANE lookalike( but not function-alike !) but will provide the necessary shaping so that you do not get this very flat response that sounds so different on TX from that which people are accustomed to (they are accustomed to at least a bit of preemphasis and some other shaping). The new EQ will be 10 bands or less and not work above 6 KHz. We will concentrate on those areas where SSB, AM, and FM needs the shaping. It will be implemented using 512 sample buffers to limit latency to 11 ms. This was NOT that different from the delay through the low frequency filters in the IIR version. Expect this out in preview 10. Your results are consistent with mine. We are taking cache hits 1/2 as often on average and the total memory bandwidth demands are down under 50% from before. Slow off chip (not cache) memory was a big limiting factor before. The use of floats in the optimized FFTW routines more than make up for the slightly loss of speed when the floating point unit is used to do floats/doubles. Many functions automatically promote to doubles so this can be a net loss. In this case, the overwhelming increase in speed in FFTW3 more than makes up for the occasional sin/cos promotion to double and then conversion back to float. Also, we just left the oscillators running as doubles so the phase wrap glitch occurs once a week! On my wife's sempron, with almost no cache, the lowered memory bandwidth demand dropped it from 65% to 25%. Thanks and again, our apologies for not testing the EQ after the change. Bob N4HY
Re: [Flexradio] Beta 8, DirectX, new AGC, use of FFTW3
Bob, With the changes in Preview 8 the good RX of the SDR-1000 is now GREAT! My system is: Pentium 4, 3.2 GHz, 1024 MB DDR, XP Pro SP2, Radeon 9550 256 MB, w/RFE, Waveterminal 192X, WDM-KS, USB-to-PIO. The CPU loadings are: - Display off 3.9% - Spectrum 5 FPS 4.7% - Spectrum 15 FPS 6.3% Well done! Thanks for this Christmas present, 73, Ahti OH2RZ - Original Message - From: Robert McGwier [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: KD5NWA [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz Sent: Saturday, December 17, 2005 3:12 PM Subject: Re: [Flexradio] Beta 8, DirectX, new AGC, use of FFTW3 Let me say this once since it has not been made explicit. Whether or not DirectX helps you or hurts you is COMPLETELY dependent on the quality of your video card and its driver. If you driver and video card do lots and lots of texturing and rendering, etc. in hardware, it will give you a huge cut down in CPU. If you own a POS video card, to match the POS mobo for the sound card, expect no help from this setting. Please continue to use GDI. (POS == piece of slime, otherwise substitute your favorite) On my laptop, the CPU % moves up and down from 1% to 10% with much more variance than before. However, previous to our use of FFTW3 and DirectX, it was a steady 40%. This latest version is an overall MASSIVE win. The agc is now the FULL two track specification that Phil proposed. The implementation has undergone many iterations and the fast track came together in the last two weeks while sitting in my hotel room in Marburg, Germany. Frank and I attended an AMSAT meeting there where it became absolutely clear that SDR is the future of amateur radio satellites. Phase 3E will use an SDX (software defined transponder) and AMSAT's current Eagle proposal is a software defined satellite. Now if we could only get Software defined launches! Back to the AGC, Phil lives in the land down under. This means that he and I are inverted! Phil suggests setting the fast attack threshold to twice that of slow track to target the same signal. Phil used AGC voltage (the more negative, the more AGC limiting). I use gain. Furthermore, my gain is voltage multiplier. His AGC was dB and inverse gain. The results were like those of the JPL engineers who spoke metric on one side and feet/yards on the other and sent the Mars mission into the dirt. This is entirely my fault and Phil's spec has been fine since day one. I really like the new sound this gives. Thanks so much to Jeff for his constant probing of the agc and his EXTREMELY useful software analysis and critical remarks. Also to Dale for his continued testing and remarks and measurements. Four days ago they gave me their latest comments and measurements on overshoot and I hope we successfully captured the necessary changes in release 8. If not, we are still learning. What I can say is this is a sweet sounding agc now and we should all send our thanks to Phil, VK6APH. Eric is busting his rear end on getting DirectX to work. Like all things, Microsoft works extremely hard to obfuscate as much as possible. I am becoming more and more convinced that you get the secret keys to the kingdom of their documentation, and probably code examples, only as a result of attending this huge thousands of dollars developer courses. Monopolies stink. There is absolutely NOTHING worse than the documentation for WDM-KS. DirectX is slightly improved with the managed directX is an abomination. It silently wrecked the floating point coprocessor and we were pointing the finger at FFTW3 until Eric found a page or two full of complaints about the idiotic silent behavior and then implemented the (behind the hidden handshake and thousands of dollars of training) hidden flag that stops this behavior. Bob N4HY KD5NWA wrote: I just tried Beta 8 on my SR-40 and turned on Direct X, maybe I'm missing something here but my panadapter works just fine, everything is working fine. After turning the panadapter on I doubled checked and the setting is still on Direct X, I don't see a difference when turning it on or off as far as CPU usage. Cecil Bayona KD5NWA
Re: [Flexradio] Mute for SDR Receiver
Larry wants to use separate receivers and transmitters - possible different antennas for the receiver and transmitter. In this situation for protecting the receiver, it must be completely isolated from the antenna during the transmitting time by a good antenna relay, PIN diode switch or high voltage PhotoMOS switch. Also, for best protection the receiver antenna terminal should be shorted using same kind of devices. I have used NAIS or Panasonic PhotoMOS AQV204 that can stand 400 V and switches in less than 100 µs. See: http://www.datasheetarchive.com/semiconductors/pdfdatasheet.php?Datasheet=387760 Naturally, carefully designed sequencing and switch driver circuits will be needed. Still, due to switching transients a good RF mute may be necessary. 73, Ahti OH2RZ - Original Message - From: Jim Lux [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Larry W8ER [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; 'Flex Reflector' FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz Sent: Wednesday, December 14, 2005 11:16 PM Subject: Re: [Flexradio] Mute for SDR Receiver At 08:28 AM 12/14/2005, Larry W8ER wrote: Eric .. I would like to eliminate all other receivers from my ham shack. The Flex is the best. Occasionally I like to fire up an old boatanchor AM transmitter or something other than the Flex transmitter. I am looking for a way to mute the Flex receiver. Killing the audio is fairly simple but in doing so the Flex hears the big local signal and upon return to receive, the AGC has to recover and so forth. A good clean mute is what I am after. I think the confusion might be with what mute means, because I think most folks thought it meant shutting off the AF output, but what you mean is an RF mute, or at least one that freezes the AGC. Jim ___ FlexRadio mailing list FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz
[Flexradio] Website
Website is now OK, but where is Forum? 73, Ahti OH2RZ
Re: [Flexradio] Firebox max input signal?
Hi Dan, I was wondering the same specification of the PreSonus Firebox, but did not ask them. Thanks for doing that. Obviously Firebox has better dynamic range than Delta 44 (higher max level, lower noise?). However, the best specifications I have seen is with AKM chip set as given in your link below (123 dB dynamic range with +23 dBu maximum input signal ≈ 31 Vpk-pk). Since the Tayloe detector (QSD as Gerald says) can handle about 4 Vpk-pk and we optimally could use gain of 31/4 = 7.75 (+17.8 dB) between the best practically available sound card and the sampling detector. We should also find a better amplifier to replace INA163, because it is too noisy at these low gains. So far I have not found any pin to pin replacement, but I am experimenting with two OPA2227's as dual balanced output amplifiers assembled on a small circuit board. Naturally a minor surgery has to be done to the TRX board. I wonder, why TI suggests OPA2134 together with PCB11804? It has higher noise than OPA2227. By the way, my sound card is WT192X that has AKM chip inside and can take 31 Vpk-pk. 73, Ahti OH2RZ - Original Message - From: Tayloe Dan-P26412 [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz Sent: Tuesday, November 08, 2005 12:41 AM Subject: Re: [Flexradio] Firebox max input signal? Here is the information that I got about the PreSonus Firebox line inputs. It looks like it is good for +18 dBu or about 17.4v pk-pk maximum. In contrast the Delta 44 is rated to +14 dBu or about 11v pk-pk. - Dan, N7VE -- For Line inputs (0dBFS=+18dBu) , we are performing something very similar to the datasheet you refer to. We attenuate the signal by approximately 5.5x to fit into the converter. Best Regards, Jonathan Hillman [EMAIL PROTECTED] PreSonus Audio Electronics 225-216-7887 x. 117 From: Tayloe Dan-P26412 [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, November 07, 2005 2:15 PM To: jonathan hillman Subject: RE: Maximum input to the Firebox? I have looked at the manufacturer (TI, Cirrus Logic, AKM etc) specifications of several of the best 24 bit A/D devices currently on the market. On of the things that I noticed is that although the A/D input is rated at 0-5v, the reference designs of the parts often show an input buffer that has a gain of less than 1 in order to allow the input to go to a level of greater than 0-5v (5v pk-pk). Example http://focus.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/pcm1804.pdf figure 44 or http://www.asahi-kasei.co.jp/akm/en/product/ak5394a/ek5394a.pdf figure 13. The AKM figure 13 above shows an attenuation of about 5.3x (input R=3.3K, feedback = 620+91 ohms, gain of ~0.188x). I can see that this might be needed since line level devices such as a mixer board often are capable of relatively high outputs. A Heath-Allen mixer console (http://www.allen-heath.com/DL/ml4000ug_ap4314_4.pdf - see page 12) is rated at an output of +23 dBu, where 0 dBu is 0.775v RMS (1.096v pk or 2.192v pk-pk). Thus +23 dBu translates to ~ 31v pk-pk of audio. Thus, I might expect the line input buffer to the A/D converter to have attenuation rather than gain. I am simply trying to find out what the input buffer stage of the A/D converter looks like (gain and voltage limits) in order to best match my output to the line input of this box. - Dan Tayloe ___ FlexRadio mailing list FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz
Re: [Flexradio] CAT CONTROL CHECK BOX P3 P4
Hi Willi (et al), Correction to your message: HP's RPN calculators are from the past millennium. Ahti OH2RZ - Original Message - From: Willi Reppel [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, November 05, 2005 11:43 PM RPN was already used on HP´s desktop calculators in the sixties of the past century. Willi
Re: [Flexradio] Receiver dies 2 min after power-up, ideas?
I can confirm Eric's statement. One of our three SDR-1000 systems had this problem. Cooling down the AD9854 helped temporarily. Then I installed a bigger heatsink that worked a couple of weeks until the synthesizer got damaged so badly that it did not work any more with any version of the PowerSDR software. Amazingly though, with one of our own small test program it still worked. However, for fully functional tasks of the PowerSDR the chip had to be replaced. For locating the malfunction, perhaps my private message earlier to Wayne may help if anybody else happens to have this same problem: -- Wayne, This is just an educated guess. Try to measure the quadrature DDS signals at U1B pin 6 and U1A pin 7. If no square wave signals present, use cold spray for cooling AD9854. If that brings the signals back, you should know the problem. Use the cold spray very selectively to one component at the time, because the overheating problem may be also on the less expensive components. -- Good luck, if you decide to repair the radio yourself. Safer method may be what Eric suggests. 73, Ahti OH2RZ - Original Message - From: Eric Wachsmann - FlexRadio [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: 'Wayne Roth' [EMAIL PROTECTED]; FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz Sent: Friday, September 30, 2005 11:30 PM Subject: Re: [Flexradio] Receiver dies 2 min after power-up, ideas? This is exactly what it looks like when/if the DDS quits running. Contact us directly about getting the unit serviced. You might look through the various ECOs on the private downloadp age if your unit is not up to date. Eric Wachsmann FlexRadio Systems -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] radio.biz] On Behalf Of Wayne Roth Sent: Friday, September 30, 2005 1:57 PM To: FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz Subject: [Flexradio] Receiver dies 2 min after power-up, ideas? My SDR-1000 (an older rev box with RFE, no PA or tuner, parallel port interface) receives fine for the first couple of minutes then goes deaf. Cycling the DC power restores the receiver for another couple minutes, then it dies again. Just before it craps out, the baseline as viewed on the spectral display raises from -130 to about -70 a couple times along with an increase in the white noise, then drops to -140. All frequencies appear to be dead. Restarting the software has no effect, so it's a hardware issue. I have yet to open the enclosure and get the scope out, just wondering if anyone has seen this, or has a suggestion on where to start looking. Best Regards, Wayne WA2N / 5 Austin Tx ___ FlexRadio mailing list FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz ___ FlexRadio mailing list FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz
Re: [Flexradio] Receiver dies 2 min after power-up, ideas?
Jim, I agree, this was really a very strange failure in our case. We found out that the circuit did not function with our test program if the sinc and multiply options were included. When we removed those functions from the control program, both I and Q signal were present. We also noticed that the total current consumption was considerably lower. Unfortunately I did not make any notes, but if I remember it correctly it was slightly above 500 mA. After a lot of measurements, optical inspections, mechanical stressing (twisting, shocking, vibration) I am pretty much convinced that it was the failure of AD9854. Unfortunately I have no possibilities of etching the package open for microscopic inspection of the bare die. 73, Ahti OH2RZ - Original Message - From: Jim Lux [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Ahti Aintila [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz Sent: Saturday, October 01, 2005 5:07 PM Subject: Re: [Flexradio] Receiver dies 2 min after power-up, ideas? At 06:09 AM 10/1/2005, Ahti Aintila wrote: I can confirm Eric's statement. One of our three SDR-1000 systems had this problem. Cooling down the AD9854 helped temporarily. Then I installed a bigger heatsink that worked a couple of weeks until the synthesizer got damaged so badly that it did not work any more with any version of the PowerSDR software. Amazingly though, with one of our own small test program it still worked. However, for fully functional tasks of the PowerSDR the chip had to be replaced. Thermal damage that results in a partial failure? This brings up an interesting question. Is there some sort of simple diagnostic program or process that could be used to determine if this has occurred? Did you do any sort of failure analysis on the part that was removed? 73, Ahti OH2RZ James Lux, P.E. Spacecraft Radio Frequency Subsystems Group Flight Communications Systems Section Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Mail Stop 161-213 4800 Oak Grove Drive Pasadena CA 91109 tel: (818)354-2075 fax: (818)393-6875
Re: [Flexradio] Audiocards, USB, etc.
Hello Lyle, Yes, my card is Waveterminal 192X from ESI (EGO Systems Inc.) http://www.esi-pro.com/contact.php It has the native ASIO 2.0 driver, too. Of course, the compatibility with SDR-1000 is not the best, but somehow I can manage with it. 73, Ahti OH2RZ - Original Message - From: Lyle Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Ahti Aintila [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: Tayloe Dan-P26412 [EMAIL PROTECTED]; FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz Sent: Sunday, September 25, 2005 11:54 PM Subject: Re: [Flexradio] Audiocards, USB, etc. Hello Ahti! In my previous message the input signal specification should read: AKM (Asahi Kasei) recommends before the ADC (AK5394A) a balanced input buffer (NJM5534) that reduces the input signal from max ±12.7Vpp to ±2.4Vpp. Sorry for ignoring the + and - signs. Are you using a commercial soundcard that includes the AK5394A? If so, please tell me which one it is. 73, Lyle KK7P
Re: [Flexradio] Audiocards, USB, etc.
Thank you Dan and Jim for the good comments. Sure I noticed how difficult it is to measure the sound cards without proper instruments. The clipping (or compression) levels are easy, but the noise in the present computer environment and with signals approaching the thermal noise levels are challenging. Instead of measuring the audio card only I decided to continue with the whole SDR-1000 system. I recorded 1) the noise floor (dBm/500 Hz) with audio card input cable input connected to the radio and the antenna connector terminated to 50 ohm and then 2) with a signal to radio until clipping or compression was indicated at the line-in connector of the radio or at the SDR-1000 own measurement systems. The results were: Preamp Setting HIGH, -140 dBm/500 Hz, -26 dBm, INA163 out 25 Vpp Preamp Setting MED, -130 dBm/500 Hz, -16 dBm, INA163 out 25 Vpp Preamp Setting LOW, -130 dBm/500 Hz, -13 dBm, INA168 out 4.8 Vpp (1.4 dB compressed) My conclusion is that the QSD can take about 4 Vpp until it starts to saturate and my sound card can take 29 Vpp, so the amplifier after the QSD could have 17 dB voltage gain for optimal results. The front end gain need to be adjusted accordingly. Dan mentioned:... ideally 130 to 145 db to match the blocking performance of other rigs This should be our target and to achieve that we need audio cards handle signal from tens of nanovolts to tens of volts. I estimate, the accuracy of the above measurements is about 1 dB. The measurements were made with PowerSDR 1.4.5 console with unmodified RFE. These figures serve as the reference when comparing the results of the ECO-25 modifications. 73, Ahti OH2RZ - Original Message - From: Jim Lux [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Tayloe Dan-P26412 [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Tayloe Dan-P26412 [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Ahti Aintila [EMAIL PROTECTED]; FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz Sent: Saturday, September 24, 2005 6:20 AM Subject: Re: [Flexradio] Audiocards, USB, etc. At 05:40 PM 9/23/2005, Tayloe Dan-P26412 wrote: I would think that on top of the audio blocking test we also want to run audio IP3 tests and audio IP2 dynamic range tests as well to make sure that the distortion characteristics are at least as good as the SDR1000 front end. - Dan, N7VE Such tests would be useful, but are quite challenging to make for high performance systems. You can take two general approaches: 1) Obssessively account for all the error sources, use very clean sources, etc. so you can truly know that what you've measured is just the unit under test, and not quirks of the experimental setup. 2) Measure it in a typical setup, in which case the performance will certainly measure out worse, but at least it's representative of what you'll really get. Consider that if you're looking for 140 dB relative levels, you're looking for signals of a 0.1 microvolt on a 1 volt signal. I've done DC measurements to 6 digits, and it's, frankly, an ordeal. You'd also need sources that are that good, which is no easy matter, especially if you want to cover the full frequency span of the device (several decades). For instance, the SRS DS360 claims -100dBc distortion from 10mHz to 20 kHz. It's not too pricey at about $3000.
Re: [Flexradio] Audiocards, USB, etc.
Hi Riho and Bob, If I am not mistaken, the dynamic range of the loopback measurement in this case may be limited by the DAC that happens to have noise about -106 dBA. Another limiting factor is the maximum signal before clipping. The important parameters for our SDR-1000 receivers are the noise and clipping levels of the ADC. Almost all ADC's in higher class audio cards with balanced input have reasonably low noise but the clipping level may be too low. According to my measurements with Waveterminal 192X the clipping level is +22 dBu and the noise at 24 kHz bandwidth is less than -103 dBu. The measurements have been made with carefully balanced input and isolating audio transformers at the input and output connections. Sorry, I don't have the A-weighing filter. Due to the home made signal generator and low noise instrumentation amplifier I cannot guarantee the correctness of my measurement values, but clearly the limitations seem to be on the SDR-1000 hardware side. 73, Ahti OH2RZ - Original Message - From: rihob., es7aaz [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz Sent: Friday, September 23, 2005 7:15 PM Subject: Re: [Flexradio] Audiocards, USB, etc. Hi, Bob: Esi Juli unbalanced loopback @ 24-bit, 48 kHz mode: http://www.hot.ee/es7aaz/Juli.htm P.S. It was RMAA 5.4 when I did this measurement. Rgds, Riho, ES7AAZ.
Re: [Flexradio] Vers 1.4.3 Power Down Glitch
I have same kind of problems since the early versions of PowerSDR. In my case the system may hang already when starting the program. Usually the CPU loading goes up above 50% before I click STANDBY to ON. If at this phase I can use the Task Manager. If clicking ON, the CPU loading goes to 100% and Task Manager (or anything) does not respond. I have to make a hard reset. This happens almost daily and more frequently if running longer times or using other programs in the mean time. My configuration: Pentium 4 3.2 GHz, 1024 MB DDR, XP Pro SP2, Waveterminal 192X and Realtek AC97, Radeon 9550 256 MB, w/RFE, Waveterminal 192X ASIO, USB to Parallel converter. 73, Ahti OH2RZ - Original Message - From: Dale Richardson [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Flex Radio FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz Sent: Thursday, July 28, 2005 6:41 AM Subject: [Flexradio] Vers 1.4.3 Power Down Glitch Sometimes when powering down the SDR the program hangs up. The power on light remains lit and the program freezes. I have to go to windows task manager to close the program. If I try to bring up the program again I get a window that says there are other PowerSDR instances running. I have to shut down the computer to clear this. This is not an isolated occurence as it has happened at least 5 times. The longer I run the program the more frequent it happens.
Re: [Flexradio] Problem with SDR in MOX
No MOX problem after having 3.3 kohm connected between X2-14 and X2-11. 73 de Ahti OH2RZ - Original Message - From: Eric [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: 'FlexRadio - Eric' [EMAIL PROTECTED]; 'Mike King - KM0T' [EMAIL PROTECTED]; FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz Sent: Friday, July 22, 2005 6:00 PM Subject: Re: [Flexradio] Problem with SDR in MOX Let me correct myself by noting that Gerald's message is more correct. It is not powering off the radio that puts it into PTT, but rather having an unterminated parallel port/cable that causes problems. Eric
Re: [Flexradio] RFI Issues
Wally and all, Since receiving the SDR-1000 in July 2003 I am fighting the RFI, spurious, noise and common mode issues and no final and universal solution yet! So far I try to manage with isolating transformers in I/Q lines (input and output), ferrite beads in parallel cable as well as the USB to Parallel cable, strictly a single point grounding system (star configuration) and on top of all I have a 7.5 kVA UPS system for powering my office/lab/hamshack. IMHO, these problems are related to the fact that no theoretically clean star groundings can be created and ground loops eliminated, mainly due to the common practice of connecting together the Protective Earth (PE) and Signal Earth already inside the electric/electronic appliances, especially the PCs. PLEASE, NOTE! The problems are not alone with the SDR-1000 only. My Yaesu and Icom equipmet suffer these problems, too, as soon as I connect the PC to them. Whatever systems I have had, a careful routing of cables, experimentation with the grounding points, common mode and differential mode filtering, signal line balancing and shielding were needed. When it comes to the RFI, keep all radiating wires and cables as far away from the hamshack as practical. A lot of wonder antennas may have essential part of radiation coming from the feedline - Carolina Windom included. Sorry Wally, I have no ready made solution for you. Believe me, all these requires good understanding of the theory, but that is not enough. Finding the optimal wiring in our wireless hobby is art that beautifies the science. Who would make the optical fiber interface for our SDR-1000 so that we don't need to be artists and scientists at the same time? 73, Ahti OH2RZ - Original Message - From: Wallace Watson [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz Sent: Tuesday, May 31, 2005 11:54 PM Subject: [Flexradio] RFI Issues Greetings All, I have had my SDR-1000 now for approximately 3 month and find the receiver very pleasurable to use. New additions are being made to the software for the radio adding to it's functionality. My computer is an HP/Compaq Celeron 2.4Ghz with 512Mb of RAM. I initially purchased a Creative Labs Audigy 2ZS card but I never installed it in the computer, instead when the M-Audio sound card was mentioned on TeamSpeak and posted in the forum I decided to purchase and install it instead. Prior to the Dayton Hamfest I ordered a Behringer UB802 mic preamplifier/mixer for SSB use vice installing a second sound card in the computer. I hooked up the Behringer mixer the day I returned home from the Dayton Hamfest. I also had switched to using the USB cable for use with the SDR-1000 prior to this. I have since begun making contacts on 80 and 40 meter bands on SSB and experimenting with CW using the automatic memory and keyboard modes with the SDR-1000 with the 100 watt amplifier. I have been experiencing RFI problems when I switched to using 30/20/15/10 meters with my primary antenna system, a Radio Works Carolina Windom. The antenna vertical radiator terminates immediately overhead my family room which serves as my ham shack. The RFI problem manifests itself as follows: When using the USB cable between computer and radio, when I transmit on 30 meters or above the radio begins by transmitting and then I get a High SWR indication on the display and the radio reverts to the Standby mode. I am unable to switch the radio back on via the software Standby/ON button, I must instead disconnect/reconnect the USB cable from the computer or reboot the computer. I have been semi-successful at reducing/partially eliminating this problem by reducing output power to approximately 35 watts. In an attempt to eliminate this problem I switched back to using the original parallel cable between the computer and radio, with this cable in place on 30 meters and above I am able to go into transmit at the 50 to 100watt level and the radio will transmit in SSB or CW but will shut down the 100watt amplifier while in operation, when I come out of transmit mode to receive the receiver is no longer receiving signals, I must switch off the radio and back on using the Standby/ON button on the SDRConsole. If I reduce power to an approximate 35 watt level, the radio functions normally. I have a second antenna, a tape 40 meter dipole, this antenna is usable on 40 and 15 meters only. With this antenna I have completely normal operation on 40 meters and with the Carolina Windom, I have completely normal operation on 80 and 40 meters. I have 3 other radios at my location, a Kenwood TS-440S, a Kenwood TS-450S and an old Yaseau FT-101EX and have experienced no problems on the air utilizing any of these radios. I believe my next step is to order and install the Radio Works ground isolators in the hopes that this will eliminate my apparent RFI/ground loop problem which are interfering with my operation of the SDR-1000 radio. I have no option to move the Carolina Windom antenna. I do
