[Flexradio] 1.3.14 X2 Delay

[Kurt Vangsness]

Hi,
  I've been using 1.3.14 with no problems but noticed one small thing. 
If you select Enable X2 TR
Sequencing and then deselect it, you will still get the X2 Delay when 
you transmit. I doubt many will run
into this - I only did because I'm playing around with using X2-7 to 
turn on my external amp. This can be

very low on the fix priority list! Congrats on a very nice release!
  73,
Kurt KC9FOL

Re: [Flexradio] Low Power on SSB

[Kurt Vangsness]

John,
  What about the Behringer UB 502? It looks like would also do the job 
(only has a 2 band EQ though) and
the price at musicians friend is $35.00. I've been successfully using 
the "crank the mic gain up" approach with
the delta 44 (and a Shure mic) with good reports but am still 
considering a preamp for more control.


  73,
   Kurt KC9FOL

[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 
Larry,
 
The device I recommended at Dayton is a Behringer UB 802 mixer. It has 
a 3 band EQ, Pre amp, and more. It sells for $50 from places like the 
Guitar Center or on-line at Musicians Friend.
 
A computer mic will work fine with the SDR and your Santa Cruz card. I 
have a $9 wireless mic I bought off the Internet and it works nearly 
as well as my studio mic.
 
 
Don't concern yourself with mic gain setting numbers--use whatever 
number gets you to at least 80% of MIC input meter.
 
The mic can be plugged directly into your sound card  [use MOX button 
to key radio]. Switching is automatic.  You may have changed a setting 
in the sound card mixer.  Give Eric a call, he can help you with 
correct settings.
 
john w5gi




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[Flexradio] ImportDatabase error in 1.4.3

[Kurt Vangsness]

I just installed 1.4.3 and in the initial Wizard loaded the database I 
was using with the 1.4.2
console. An exception window popped up with the following message. I've 
saved a screen capture
of the detailed stack trace if needed (couldn't cut&paste from this 
dialog box). I clicked on the OK
button and it gave the usual "database imported successfully" message 
and all looks OK...


73,
  Kurt KC9FOL

The Microsoft Jet database engine cannot find the input table or query 
'UCB'. Make sure it exists and that its name is spelled correctly.


at System.Data.OleDb.OleDbCommand.ExecuteCommandTextErrorHandling(Int32 hr)
... [ stuff deleted here ] ...
at PowerSDR.DB.ImportDatabase(String filename)

[Flexradio] Wave file playback ideas

[Kurt Vangsness]

I've really enjoyed using the wave file playback feature but had a 
couple of thoughts that

might make it more useful and wondered what others thought.

First, with the "wrap around" behavior of tuning through the recorded 
bandwidth,  it is very easy to loose track
of "where you are" in the spectrum in  the panadaptor. I'm thinking that 
a vertical bar at the original center
frequency at the point when the wav file is  would be nice. As you tune 
through the panadaptor spectrum,
the vertical bar would move accordingly left or right on the panadaptor 
so that the original point of reference

would be preserved.

The other thing that would be nice would be to encode the original 
center frequency at the time the Record
button was first pushed (filename will get pretty long with both the 
date/time and frequency though). Perhaps
we could change to 24 hour UTC time and get back the 2 digits being used 
for AM/PM.


Both of these ideas kind of fall apart if any tuning occured while the 
recording was going on, but I'd be

happy with that limitation.

One other thing - what happens to a Wave file record if you transmit 
while recording? I'd try it out but when it
comes to transmitting I'm just a little shy of triggering unusual 
behavior. I'm guessing that nothing is recorded

for the duration of transmitting.

  73,
Kurt KC9FOL

Re: [Flexradio] Parallel Port Address

[Kurt Vangsness]

Mike,
One thing to watch out for is that in the past, the console would never 
maintain my non standard
parallel port setting when upgrading to a new version and loading in a 
previous database - it would
instead use the default parallel port address. Eric had added my non 
standard address (BC00)
to the drop down  list and then it worked, so I haven't had to worry 
about it - but since yours isn't

on the list you will probably see this problem in the future.

  73
  Kurt KC9FOL


Mike King - KM0T wrote:


Well Ill be darnedThanks Guys!

Awesome weekend tech support on the reflector!

73

Mike - KM0T

- Original Message - 
From: "FlexRadio - Eric" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

To: "'Mike King - KM0T'" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Saturday, July 23, 2005 6:33 PM
Subject: RE: [Flexradio] Parallel Port Address


Mike,

You should be able to just type the address into the combobox and it should
work.  Let me know if it doesn't.

Eric


-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Mike King - KM0T
Sent: Saturday, July 23, 2005 6:29 PM
To: FlexRadio
Subject: [Flexradio] Parallel Port Address

Hi all, Im pretty sure I blew my Parallell port on my Motherboard, so I
added a PCI to Parallel card today to the system.  However, the card sets
and grabs address that are not legacy vintage, i.e. DF38-DF3F, which is not
an address availble in the SDR software setup menu.

Because of this I cant get the SDR-1000 console to respond to the parallel
port, and XP wont let me change the address range.

Is there way to add choices for the I/O address range within the SDR-1000
console setup?

Thanks!

73

Mike -KM0T EN13vc


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[Flexradio] Behavior of NR and ANF in Binaural mode

[Kurt Vangsness]

Does anyone else notice that if you are listening to sideband and select 
Binaural (BIN) and then select
noise reduction (NR) it only appears to impact the left channel audio? 
Likewise ANF appears to only
suppress the unwanted carrier in the left channel audio? This may be 
completely normal and expected -

just curious.

73,
  Kurt KC9FOL

[Flexradio] Strange toggle to BIN mode after TX

[Kurt Vangsness]

I was trying to work some of the Route 66 stations this evening and 
after switching back to receive
from a transmit my headphone audio sounded  exactly like BIN mode. The 
BIN button was not engaged and
manually enabling it and disabling the BIN button had no effect. I was 
about to get back to normal
operation by hitting MOX to transmit and then going back to receive one 
more time. Note that I had
NB enabled at this particular moment to overcome some local impulse 
noise. Other repeated transmissions
with or without NB enabled did not cause this behavior again. My 
configuration is PowerSDR 1.4.4,
Delta 44 on a Pentium 4 2.4 Ghz 1 GB RAM. I use the MOX button on the 
console to key the rig and

use the X2 TR line to key my HF Packer external amplifier.

   73,
   Kurt KC9FOL

P.S. The W6D station was operating a new rig and thanks to the 
panadaptor display I was able to see
that he was putting out a DSB signal (with a suppressed carrier). 
Although I wasn't able to
work him tonight (band faded out pretty quickly) I did send him an 
email so hopefully he can correct

 his transmission.

Re: [Flexradio] Strange toggle to BIN mode after TX

[Kurt Vangsness]

Another data point on this one. I was listening to 20 meters tonight and 
was reading
slashdot.org in a browser (mozilla) and when I exited the browser, the 
radio jumped into
the same "binaural" mode. I put "binaural" in quotes because this time I 
played around a
bit more before I did something to clear it and it isn't really binaural 
mode. I found that although
the audio in the headphones sounded binaural, clicking the BIN button 
provided additional
seperation that went in and out as I selected and deselected the button. 
The real clue was that
clicking on NR or ANF (with BIN not selected) worked as normal - if this 
was really binaural
mode, the NR or ANF don't work correctly when in binaural mode. I 
finally cleared it by going from on to
standby and then on again. I also looked at the delta 44 control panel 
while in this mode and all

was normal.

By the way my process priority is set to High and CPU usage was low 
through this.


  73,
 Kurt KC9FOL



Kurt Vangsness wrote:

I was trying to work some of the Route 66 stations this evening and 
after switching back to receive
from a transmit my headphone audio sounded  exactly like BIN mode. The 
BIN button was not engaged and
manually enabling it and disabling the BIN button had no effect. I was 
about to get back to normal
operation by hitting MOX to transmit and then going back to receive one 
more time. Note that I had
NB enabled at this particular moment to overcome some local impulse 
noise. Other repeated transmissions
with or without NB enabled did not cause this behavior again. My 
configuration is PowerSDR 1.4.4,
Delta 44 on a Pentium 4 2.4 Ghz 1 GB RAM. I use the MOX button on the 
console to key the rig and

use the X2 TR line to key my HF Packer external amplifier.

   73,
   Kurt KC9FOL

P.S. The W6D station was operating a new rig and thanks to the 
panadaptor display I was able to see
that he was putting out a DSB signal (with a suppressed carrier). 
Although I wasn't able to
work him tonight (band faded out pretty quickly) I did send him an 
email so hopefully he can correct

 his transmission.

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Re: [Flexradio] Version 1.4.5 beta

[Kurt Vangsness]

I see the same thing but only when I select the 80 button. The other 
band buttons appear to be
working for me, but when I click on 80 I get the "Error reading BandInfo 
table." popup. Clicking
the OK button results in a display of Error below the VFO A frequency. I 
also found that for some
reason after importing my 1.4.4 database, the preamp reverted to the Off 
setting.


  73,
 Kurt KC9FOL


José Dumoulin wrote:


Hi friends
I installed the new version (1.4.5) and choosed to import the database 
from version 1.4.4.

When launching powerSDR, I get a Database error :
Error reading badinfo table.


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Re: [Flexradio] D-44 Kit Preliminary assembly documentation and support files

[Kurt Vangsness]

Eric,
 I just finished putting the interface kit together - it was a breeze 
to assemble and it works great. With the
standard D-44 box, anytime I touched my desk lamp near my radio I got a 
60 cycle hum in the

radio audio. With the interface kit the problem is gone.

My only small suggestion on the instructions is that some may find it 
confusing where to insert the jumpers
to select the various grounds. Either a picture or diagram might be 
helpful. I'd be happy to snap a picture

of mine (I used speaker ground) if that would be useful.

Again, thanks Tony, Eric and any others who put this together!

  73,
 Kurt KC9FOL


ecellison wrote:


Folks

I completed the preliminary documentation for the D-44 interface kits 
and uploaded to the public area of hamsdr.com. Also use the links 
below to download the schematic, preliminary assembly document, snap 
of the PCB design and also the actual ExpressPCB design which will 
require that you download the Free ExpressPCB design package to view.


I had problems with the macro capability of my camera giving enough 
detail of the board to be of use. I'll try again with the camera and 
setup. I guess I also am going to have to invest in some graphics 
design tools (smile).


Text Preliminary Kit Manual

http://flex-radio-friends.net/Upload/d44kit/D44-InterfaceManual1-1.pdf

Schematic Version 1.1

http://flex-radio-friends.net/Upload/d44kit/delta44_interface_V1-1sch.JPG

Version 1.1 PCB design screenshot

http://flex-radio-friends.net/Upload/d44kit/d44_interface_1-1.jpg

Express PCB design of Version 1.1 board

http://flex-radio-friends.net/Upload/d44kit/delta44_interface_V1.1.pcb

All suggestions are welcome as we gain experience with using this kit.

Eric - AA4SW



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Re: [Flexradio] Delta 44 Interface card

[Kurt Vangsness]

Joe and David and others,
 I found the same thing here. Initially I tested receive only but found 
the same thing when I

tried to transmit.

 73, Kurt KC9FOL

Joe - AB1DO wrote:


David,
I have noticed same. When directly plugging mic into d44 interface card, I 
had to add a 3rd jumper closes to the mic connector to ground the otherwise 
floating shield of the mic cable. When connecting the mic through a preamp 
to the d44 interface card the mic jumperwas unnecessary as the preamp 
grounded the cable shield.


73 de Joe, AB1DO

- Original Message - 
From: "David W Gardner" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

To: 
Sent: Monday, October 03, 2005 08:09
Subject: [Flexradio] Delta 44 Interface card


 


Hello to All :  When connecting the card I found that in order to
transmit in ssb I had to jumper the via's for the mic ground.  Is this
the experience of others?  If not, share your experience.
Dave-W4DWG

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[Flexradio] 1.4.5 Preview 6 DIGU transmits LSB or USB

[Kurt Vangsness]

[ I'm resending this - looks like the first one got lost ]

I noticed that although DIGU sets the filter up in the upper sideband, 
when transmitting
it can transmit on the lower sideband (or at least the panadaptor 
display appears to show this).
If you select LSB and then select DIGU and then hit MOX you will see 
what I mean. Selecting
USB and then DIGU appears to correct this behavior (or is this a feature 
;-) DIGL has the

same behavior of transmitting on the memory of the last selected sideband.

 73 and thanks for all the great work!
Kurt KC9FOL

[Flexradio] 1.4.5 Preview 6 DIGU transmits LSB or USB

[Kurt Vangsness]

I noticed that although DIGU sets the filter up in the upper sideband, 
when transmitting
it can transmit on the lower sideband (or at least the panadaptor 
display appears to show this).
If you select LSB and then select DIGU and then hit MOX you will see 
what I mean. Selecting
USB and then DIGU appears to correct this behavior (or is this a feature 
;-) DIGL has the

same behavior of transmitting on the memory of the last selected sideband.

  73 and thanks for all the great work!
 Kurt KC9FOL

Re: [Flexradio] Website

[Kurt Vangsness]

Some of the forum posts are still available in Googles cache. If you 
enter the following search in google:


site:www.flex-radio.com  forum

you can then click on the cached link and view the page. Probably not a 
complete cache of the
forum but something if anyone wants to find some of the more memorable 
posts and save them away.
I also checked the internet archive wayback machine (www.archive.org) 
but they only had two dates of
www.flex-radio.com and for some reason there was an error accessing 
those. Sigh.


 73,
   Kurt KC9FOL


ecellison wrote:


Phil Lee et al.

I am also sad to see the website go and do enjoy reading Larry's exploits
etc. I am especially sad at the loss of content which probably could have
been served up in another way. It is not only a chronologic historic record
of the radios revolution, but also still had a good deal of useful content.

Ah Well!

Eric2


-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Lee A Crocker
Sent: Thursday, December 01, 2005 6:03 PM
To: FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz
Subject: [Flexradio] Website

Larry

Why don't you set up a regular blog at one of the
blogsites like "blogger", and include the url in a
signature file.  I am interested in your 80M exploits,
and the blog would be a more natural method of
recording them as opposed to a series of reflected
emails.

Blogger is trivial to set up and its free.  


73  Lee W9OY

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Re: [Flexradio] Website

[Kurt Vangsness]

I just refined my google search a bit further by using the following:

site:www.flex-radio.com viewtopic

the results are now only the forum posts. Around 1920 results show up 
(don't know how many

are dups though).

 73,
   Kurt KC9FOL

Kurt Vangsness wrote:

Some of the forum posts are still available in Googles cache. If you 
enter the following search in google:


site:www.flex-radio.com  forum

you can then click on the cached link and view the page. Probably not a 
complete cache of the
forum but something if anyone wants to find some of the more memorable 
posts and save them away.
I also checked the internet archive wayback machine (www.archive.org) 
but they only had two dates of
www.flex-radio.com and for some reason there was an error accessing 
those. Sigh.


 73,
   Kurt KC9FOL


ecellison wrote:

 


Phil Lee et al.

I am also sad to see the website go and do enjoy reading Larry's exploits
etc. I am especially sad at the loss of content which probably could have
been served up in another way. It is not only a chronologic historic record
of the radios revolution, but also still had a good deal of useful content.

Ah Well!

Eric2


-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Lee A Crocker
Sent: Thursday, December 01, 2005 6:03 PM
To: FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz
Subject: [Flexradio] Website

Larry

Why don't you set up a regular blog at one of the
blogsites like "blogger", and include the url in a
signature file.  I am interested in your 80M exploits,
and the blog would be a more natural method of
recording them as opposed to a series of reflected
emails.

Blogger is trivial to set up and its free.  


73  Lee W9OY

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Re: [Flexradio] Beta 8, DirectX, new AGC, use of FFTW3

[Kurt Vangsness]

Bob/Eric,
 I did a bit of comparison between different versions I had installed 
and found

that on my hardware, preview 8 runs with about the same CPU consumption
as preview 1. Preview 7 was a significant cpu hog on my config for some 
reason.
fft_wisdom was run on all versions and I imported the preview 7 DB into 
preview 8 and
all settings were the same. Anyway, it looks like on my hardware the 
directx change it had
no negative affect and so far I'm quite happy with it. Thanks for all 
the hard work guys!


  73,
Kurt KC9FOL


CPU v 1.4.4  :  ~18%
CPU v 1.4.5 preview 1:  7 to 10%
CPU v 1.4.5 preview 7:  35.5 to 37.5%
CPU v 1.4.5 preview 8:  6.3 to 10.9%

XP pro
Pentium 4 2.4 Ghz
1GB RAM
directX 9
NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 4000 video card
screen resolution 1280x1024
delta 44

Robert McGwier wrote:


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
www.qrpradio.com

"I fail to see why doing the same thing over and over and getting the 
same results every time is insanity: I've almost proved it isn't; 
only a few more tests now and I'm sure results will differ this time ... " 



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[Flexradio] CW tone wavering

[Kurt Vangsness]

I'm finally starting to play around a little bit with CW and in 
preparation I'm trying things out with my radio putting < 1 watt out 
into a dummy load (I have an external amp which is off for these tests) 
and am monitoring my transmission from another receiver. I'm noticing 
that my transmitted CW tone is not steady - almost as though the 
transmitted frequency is wavering. I don't notice this with other CW 
signals received on the radio I'm using to monitor so I have to assume 
it is my transmitted signal... The resulting effect is almost like a CW 
transmitter with a very unstable LO.


I tried an experiment monitoring the LO from the sdr-1000 (while the 
sdr-1000 was in receive) from the same receiver and it does not exhibit 
the same variations in tone.


One (possibly unrelated) thing I've noticed on my sdr-1000 is that I 
appear to be getting fairly strong interference from a local AM station 
on the sound card input. In the panadaptor display I can see the carrier 
at the bottom of the display (when tuned to the lowest frequency before 
the radio retunes the DDS). With my radio connected to a dummy load 
(noise floor is down at the bottom of the display), the carrier shows up 
around -85 dBm! I've made a wave capture of the I&Q and tuned to the 
carrier and verified that it is a local AM station. I'm wondering if it 
is possible for a strong signal like this on my audio cables to somehow 
cause the tone/frequency changes I'm observing on my transmitted CW 
signal. Any ideas (both on the CW instability and in getting rid of the 
AM signal on the sound card)?


  73 and Happy Holidays,

Kurt KC9FOL

Configuration details: P4 2.4 Ghz, 1GB RAM, Delta 44.

Re: [Flexradio] Frequency

[Kurt Vangsness]

John,
I see similar behavior. From a cold start I'm off freq by hundreds of HZ 
and after something like 2 to 3 minutes there is a sudden shift and 
everthing is on freq and relatively stable. I've always been surprised 
that it is such a sudden shift and not a gradual shift as the osc. warms up.


  73,
  Kurt KC9FOL


Jerry Harley wrote:

I know this has been beaten to death but  I never saw anyone say what 
they are experiencing.
I had a big problem in the beginning it was off by 278kc, after the 
component change I'm off 200 and drift up to dead on in less than 15 
minutes.  From the 15 minute mark on I see no drifting.

Jerry Wa2tti


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Re: [Flexradio] Frequency

[Kurt Vangsness]

Jim,
  Just sitting there - It always happens and only once, after that 
everything is stable. My DDS has the heat sink (ECO-ed) so I still 
suspect it is just an unusual behavior of my oscillator.

   Kurt KC9FOL


Jim Lux wrote:


At 10:00 AM 1/29/2006, Kurt Vangsness wrote:


John,
I see similar behavior. From a cold start I'm off freq by hundreds of HZ
and after something like 2 to 3 minutes there is a sudden shift and
everthing is on freq and relatively stable. I've always been surprised
that it is such a sudden shift and not a gradual shift as the osc. 
warms up.



A sudden shift?

Are you commanding anything, or is it just sitting there?

On my radios, sudden shifts were almost always due to the the 
temperature of the DDS.  If it gets too hot, it stops responding to 
the commands correctly.  Doesn't outright fail, but seems that some 
bits don't get through.  My radios are the older heatsink-less 
varieties, and even a small air flow (from one of those tiny 1U high 
40mm fans) entirely fixes the problem.




Jim, W6RMK

[Flexradio] Unusual Noise Floor Increase on Some GUI Actions

[Kurt Vangsness]

This is going to sound strange but in playing around with the new CWX 
feature tonight (very nice by the way!) on 20 meters I noticed something 
that is present in 1.4.4 and the other 1.4.5 previews that I have 
installed. When I select an input area on the console (for example the 
RIT area where you can enter a numeric value) and hit return, (or click 
on the Notes button in the CWX tab) there is a noticable rise in the 
noise floor on the panadaptor for about 1 second and a slight audiable 
whoosh sound that goes along with it. This only happens when tuned 
somewhere between 13.800 Mhz and 15.000 Mhz. I'm guessing this must be 
some sort of EMI generated by my computer or perhaps LCD display on 
these particular actions, although I can't create anything at all like 
it with any other actions on PowerSDR (e.g. buttons, list boxes etc) or 
when running any other apps on the computer or doing similar actions in 
those other applications! Anyway, not a big deal but more of a curiosity.


By the way, many compliments to the Flex-radio team and contributors to 
the latest PowerSDR releases. It has become a very professional product 
that is really a pleasure to use! Bob & Phil, comparisons of the ALC on 
older versions against the latest shows an amazing difference - it is great!


  73,
 Kurt KC9FOL

P.S. Config is Pentium 4 at 2.4 Ghz, 1GB RAM, Delta-44, SDR-1000 
1W,RFE,HF-packer AMP

Re: [Flexradio] Unusual Noise Floor Increase on Some GUI Actions

[Kurt Vangsness]

Ug, Leave it to me to mess up a compliment - replace ALC with AGC below!
   73,
Kurt KC9FOL


Kurt Vangsness wrote:

This is going to sound strange but in playing around with the new CWX 
feature tonight (very nice by the way!) on 20 meters I noticed something 
that is present in 1.4.4 and the other 1.4.5 previews that I have 
installed. When I select an input area on the console (for example the 
RIT area where you can enter a numeric value) and hit return, (or click 
on the Notes button in the CWX tab) there is a noticable rise in the 
noise floor on the panadaptor for about 1 second and a slight audiable 
whoosh sound that goes along with it. This only happens when tuned 
somewhere between 13.800 Mhz and 15.000 Mhz. I'm guessing this must be 
some sort of EMI generated by my computer or perhaps LCD display on 
these particular actions, although I can't create anything at all like 
it with any other actions on PowerSDR (e.g. buttons, list boxes etc) or 
when running any other apps on the computer or doing similar actions in 
those other applications! Anyway, not a big deal but more of a curiosity.


By the way, many compliments to the Flex-radio team and contributors to 
the latest PowerSDR releases. It has become a very professional product 
that is really a pleasure to use! Bob & Phil, comparisons of the ALC on 
older versions against the latest shows an amazing difference - it is great!


  73,
 Kurt KC9FOL

P.S. Config is Pentium 4 at 2.4 Ghz, 1GB RAM, Delta-44, SDR-1000 
1W,RFE,HF-packer AMP




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[Flexradio] Questions on SSB mic settings and operating manual

[Kurt Vangsness]

I'm going through the "Voice Transmission Operation" section of the 
1.6.0 Operating Manual to get familiar with the latest changes and have 
a couple of questions;


Step 5 on page 137 states that with TX Meter set to "Mic" adjust for 
peaks at 100%. When I select "Mic", the readings are in dB not %. I'm 
assuming that I should adjust for 0 dB peaks? The section also mentions 
using the "MIC In Gain" control on the audio tab of the setup form to 
adjust. In my case (Delta-44) this is greyed out (as is the Line In 
control).


 73,
   Kurt KC9FOL

Re: [Flexradio] [hfprojects] Re: PA-100 (5W AMP) Update

[Kurt Vangsness]

Ken and others,
 I'm starting some experiments with my 1 watt sdr-1000 and a prototype 
PA-100 that Virgil sent me. I currently have the HF packer amp and have 
been very happy with it (I built it with a input Pi attenuator that had 
minimal attenuation but still 50 ohms) and find that the "1 watt" out 
from the sdr-1000 (which is really more like 700 or 800 mW) just doesn't 
drive the HF packer amp to its full potential. I plan to use the PA-100 
to boost the sdr-1000 output to drive the HF packer. I'm going to 
rebuild the pi attenuator for the HF-packer to drop the 5W out from the 
PA-100 to the 1W needed by the HF-packer.


So far, I have run some basic tests with the PA-100 attached to J1 on 
the BPF board on the sdr-1000 (this is the external PA output that you 
mentioned is used to connect the Flexradio 100W PA). I find that it is 
very easy to get 5W out of the PA-100 driven from the sdr-1000. For my 
initial tests I used the PA-100 RF sensing to engage the PA-100 on 
transmit and that worked fine on key down but as I found before with my 
HF-packer, SSB doesn't work as well (not enough power to engage it 
reliably) so I plan to use the sdr-1000 X2 PTT line (on the external 
control connector) to control the PA-100. I suspect that I will be able 
to use it as I have on the HF-packer by connecting it to what is pin 5 
on the opto-isolator in the PA-100 schematic (my board doesn't have the 
opto-isolator). With the opto-isolator it could probably go to pin 1 of 
J6. This approach has worked very well with my HF-packer which uses 
essentially the same circuit for keying the transmitter.
I'm also looking at the "white wire" that is attached to the junction of 
D7 and R9 on the PIO board (and I assume is used as PTT to activate the 
Flexradio 100W PA) but need to study how I would use that further.


I'll post some pictures and further details when I have completed my 
testing. I'll be very interested in your experiences with it and the 
sdr-1000 as well. By the way, you mention using it as a stand-alone 5W 
sdr-1000, don't forget that the PA-100 still needs a set of low pass 
filters for each band. It can drive another amplifier that has a low 
pass filter but can't be used alone without one. I understand that the 
filter board from the HF-packer can be used directly on the PA-100 but 
that requires manual band switching and might be a bit inconvenient to 
install in the sdr-1000 case. Another approach would be to make use of 
the control leads from the RFE board to control a set of filters with 
relays. Might need some software changes to the PowerSDR console to make 
that work though.


I've cross posted this to the FlexRadio reflector as well in case others 
there are interested in the PA-100 and its possibilities.


  73,
  Kurt KC9FOL


wb6mlc wrote:


--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], "k5oor" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> The PA-100 (0.1 to 5W Wide-band amp) is now available as a 5W AMP
> home construction project. Delivery is May. I can bring your project
> and hand deliver at Dayton or mail it to you. It would be a kick to
> meet you. I will be at the Friday vendor night for FDIM2006
> (QRPARCI). That is at the Holiday Inn Fairborn Dayton.
>
> We have suficient builders already signed up exceeding
> our required minimum for the project startup.


Hi Virgil,


This is great news for all!  I am working on what connections are
necessary for SDR-1000 owners to use from their RFE board, or the
older BPF board for internal interfacing to the PA-100 Preamp.
There is a dedicated relay contol line meant for the Flex accessory
amp that could be used to trigger the optoisolator.One could also
connect a parallel wire to the 1 watt driver's relay coil terminals.
There is already a handy mini molex two terminal jack on these boards
for providing the exciter RF (100mw) for the PA-100 input. Also, a
prepunched hole for a panel mounted BNC jack is available on the back
panel. 12VDC can be stolen from the terminal block already available
inside the enclosure. Hookup instructions from the PDF file used
for installing the Flex accessory amp can be downloaded by the users.

I will try to compose a PA-100 specific instruction file for those
wishing to use it as a Preamp. For a stand-alone amp, they will need
to figure out how to mount the filter board in an outboard box with
the band selection rotary switch, or drill a new hole into the
existing front panel.  Either DIY method should be satisfactory for a
stand-alone 5 watt QRP SDR-1000 rig. QRP enthusiasts should now
have plenty of power to make plenty of contacts with a decent wire
antenna.

73,

Ken WB6MLC








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[Flexradio] Install of K5OOR PA-100 5W Amp in 1W SDR-1000

[Kurt Vangsness]

I've heard of a number of others that are using (or are interested in) 
K5OOR's PA-100 kit with the original QRP 1W SDR-1000 so I thought I'd 
post a note about how I installed one in my SDR-1000. The PA-100 is a 
broadband amp that will produce 5W output with 100mW input (it can 
probably be driven higher than 5W with some additional cooling).  I use 
the PA-100 to drive Virgil's other amp kit, his HF Packer 35 watt amp. 
I've uploaded some pictures to the hamsdr.org page under my personal 
download directory (KC9FOL) so you can see how I installed it (pay no 
attention to the folder name "AGC Ideas" - I didn't realize that I could 
type in a folder name so I guess I'm stuck with that one).

Virgil's PA-100 amp can be keyed in one of two ways; it can sense the 
incoming RF and trigger its transmit relay ("VOX" mode), or an external 
PTT line (darlington to ground) can be used to key the AMP through a 
optoisolator on the PA100.

I wanted to put the PA-100 inside of the SDR-1000 enclosure and also 
wanted to use a PTT line from the SDR-1000 to key the amp since the 
SDR-1000 in SSB doesn't always trigger the VOX circuit on the PA-100 to 
kick in. The SDR-1000 provides a PTT line that is perfect for this on 
the external X2 connector but I use that to key my HF-Packer external 
amp and also did not want to run wires from the outside of the enclosure 
to the inside. The SDR-1000 RFE board has a connector (J6) that contains 
control leads that FlexRadio uses to control their internal 100W PA 
amplifier, so I decided to "hijack" the PTT lead (pin 7 on J6) from that 
connector to key the PA-100. This was easier said than done. The 
SDR-1000 PowerSDR Console software only raises that pin on transmit if 
the internal PA option is selected in the PowerSDR console software. 
Enabling that option without the amplifier does not work since the 
software monitors a fwd/rev SWR line containing a serial stream from an 
A/D converter on the FlexRadio 100W PA. Instead, I modified the PowerSDR 
console to provide a new option in the General setup tab to "enable RFE 
PTT" that enables that pin during transmit. FlexRadio is not interested 
in including this in their official console distribution but I can make 
the changes or a replacement PowerSDR.exe available to anyone who wishes 
to give this a try. Also, Jeff (WA6AHL) has incorporated the changes 
into his console. Note that there are other control leads on the RFE 
connector that could be used in a similar way to control a low pass 
filter board (like the super packer low pass filter board that Virgil is 
kitting) with some additional control logic and software changes. Since 
I'm using the PA-100 to drive the external HF-Packer, I don't need low 
pass filters at the PA-100. Another option if someone is happy with the 
5-10W that you can get from the PA-100 with the SDR-1000 is to use the 
low pass filter board from the HF-Packer. Virgil sells this as a 
separate kit. The only downside is that it is a manual (switched) filter 
and you would need to be creative to mount it within the SDR-1000 case.

The PTT lead from the RFE board is a TTL +5 volt lead which needs to be 
run through a darlington pair driver to be used to complete the path to 
ground on the PTT lead on the PA-100 on the optoisolator chip. I have a 
prototype PA-100 that Virgil sent me that does not have the 4N33 
Optoisolator so I have built that circuit on my little interface board 
along with the ULN2003A chip that I'm using as a darlington driver. This 
is the little perf board in the pictures - disregard the 5 volt 
regulator on the board - I thought I was going to need +5 on the board 
but ended up not needing it. If anyone needs the (very simple) schematic 
for this let me know.

The PA-100 and the interface board are currently attached to the case 
using a couple of existing holes in the bottom of the case - each board 
is only attached with one screw but it is good enough for the nice calm 
life of my sdr-1000 on my desk :-)

The input to the PA-100 is 50 ohms (a resistive pi network provides 50 
ohm termination with minimal loss). I ran a short run of coax with 2 pin 
connectors on each end (and some small ferrite beads thanks to Virgil) 
from J1 on the SDR-1000 BPF board to the input on the PA-100. You can 
see the connection to the SDR-1000 BPF board in the picture:
< *http://www.hamsdr.com/personaldirectory.aspx?id=307 >*. It is the 
cable going to the green BPF board on the left with the black 2 pin 
connector. For output, I ran another short run of coax (again with some 
ferrite beads) with a 2 pin connector on the PA-100 side and a BNC 
connector and installed it in the existing back panel hole on the 
SDR-1000 enclosure that is normally for the FlexRadio 100W amp. Keep in 
mind that once you have attached the PA-100 to the SDR-1000 BPF J1 
connector that you must leave the existing QRP BNC connector on the back 
of the SDR-1000 unconnected since the PA-100 now provides 50 ohm 
termination 

[Flexradio] USB Interface Problems

[Kurt Vangsness]

I recently acquired a USB Interface cable from another Flexer and am 
having some problems with my SDR-1000 when using it and want to make 
sure it isn't some cockpit error or something (I don't think there is 
any problem with the USB Interface cable). My SDR-1000 (early 1W 3 board 
stack with RFE and case added) has been working well with an PCI add-on 
parallel port adaptor. I installed the USB driver from the Flex-Radio 
web download page and selected the USB adaptor checkbox in setup. At 
first, things worked well - then I switched the preamp settings and the 
noise floor dropped way down and all signals disappeared.  Changing the 
preamp to various settings had little effect. I then turned the PowerSDR 
console off and on several times and finally normal operation was 
restored. Subsequent changes to the preamp setting worked normally and 
did not result in this same behavior. Listened to various bands for a 
while and decided to try transmitting. Plugged my UB802 preamp in and 
PowerSDR reported that the USB connection was gone. I exited PowerSDR 
console and then noticed a dialog box that stated that the USB interface 
had been disabled (box came up under the PowerSDR console). Decided to 
reboot my computer in case something was messed up in the USB 
connection. When the PC was back up, started PowerSDR again (after power 
cycling the SDR-1000). Went into Setup and checked USB Interface box 
again. Turned on PowerSDR, no signals on the panadaptor and now the 
noise floor is at -65 dBm (normally was around -120 for the band I was 
on)! I can hear relays clicking when I go from Standby to On in PowerSDR 
but no impact on display. Exited PowerSDR and restarted. Now it is 
working fine again...

Any ideas?

73,
 Kurt KC9FOL



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[Flexradio] Noise Blanker and large S9+ signals outside of passband

[Kurt Vangsness]

I've noticed that when NB or NB2 are engaged, large (S9+) signals that 
are outside of the filter end up interacting with the noise blanker 
causing the noise floor to vary in proportion to the amplitude of the 
large signal. For example, if clicking the NB results in a 6 dBm 
decrease in the noise floor, the amplitude changes in the large signal 
outside of the passband will cause the noise floor within the passband 
to increase by as much as 6 dBm. It would be nice if the noise blanker 
could be restricted to only operate within the passband. This wouldn't 
be an issue if the noise blanker was so darn good on PowerSDR! ;-) 
Anyone else see this same behavior or do I have something configured wrong?

73,
  Kurt KC9FOL


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