F.Y.I. ================================================= [QRP-L] Our new kit ... the SoftRock-40 George Heron N2APB n2apb-2 at clearviewcatv.net Tue Aug 23 23:07:22 EDT 2005
Well, ever since starting to coordinate with the kitting team on the NJQRP reflector, I've been bombarded with emails begging for details of the little receiver we are getting ready to kit up ... it's called the "SoftRock-40", designed by Tony Parks KB9YIG and Bill Tracey KD5TFD.
The SoftRock-40 is a small 1" x 2.3" pcb, low-cost, good performance 40m "software defined radio" receiver that plugs into a computer USB port and delivers I-Q audio signals to the computer's sound card. The hardware downconverts and quadrature samples a 48 kHz swath of RF that is fed to the soundcard of the computer. The software running on the PC is a slightly-modified PowerSDR Console "open source" program, designed for use by Flex-Radio for their SDR-1000 transceiver. See the "front panel "of this radio at http://www.flex-radio.com/ ... and this is the same software that runs the SoftRock-40 :-) It performs final tuning, filtering, AGC and demodulation of the I & Q quadrature audio signals coming from the hardware. Gerald Youngblood (K5SDR), Frank Brickle (AB2KT) and our very own Bob McGwier (N4HY) did an astounding job on the powerful PC software that make the SoftRock-40 such a powerful receiver!
The idea that Tony and Bill had was to promote SDR technology, along with the SDR-1000 hardware and its mating PowerSDR Console software, as an inexpensive way for QRPers everywhere to sample the technology. The AmQRP Club is pleased to step in to help in this effort by offloading Tony from the small number of prototype kits he's been providing thus far ... in this way, anyone with $23, a soldering iron and a PC will be able to try out Software Defined Radio! We have the SoftRock-40 as a full feature cover article in Homebrewer CD Magazine issue #6, which is nearly ready for duplication and mailing. We even have an hour-long audio interview of the two designers on the CD for subscribers to listen to. The radio is an unbelievable performer and a ton of fun to operate.
This "minimalist SDR" receiver kit will cost $23 (US & CAN) and $28 (DX) and we'll have *plenty* of them in about 2 weeks, I think. We'll start taking orders this coming Monday ... stay tuned to the lists and to the AmQRP website for details on this.
For now, since we do not yet have the SoftRock-40 kit web page ready, you can get a flavor of the project by checking out http://www.n9vv.com/SoftRock-40.html. The production version of the kit board is a little different, but all the same principles are employed.
73, George N2APB & Joe, N2CX =================================================
