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ValhallaSmith
Aug 16, 2005
Anyone use the softrock40 rxtx or lite? It seems like a fairly decent setup for 30-60$. It is a SDR radio and has fairly decent support for most of the ham SDR software packages out there.

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ValhallaSmith
Aug 16, 2005

blugu64 posted:

No but I'm intensely curious. Buy it and post about it?

Probably.

The softrock basically captures the entire 40 meter, 80 meter or 160 meter bands. Sends that info out to your sound card and then filters that down into tunable channels. Also it lets you do things like this:
Thats a crap load of CW signals going on.

ValhallaSmith
Aug 16, 2005

blugu64 posted:

no no no.....that just sexy. $30-$40 eh? Is the software included?

Yea, it can run with flex-radio's software, rocky and others. Most of them are free. Keep in mind that this thing is fairly dependent on your sound card. It will work with almost any but it works best with a card that has a 192khz sampling freq. 96khz and 48khz will still work though.

Ordering info is on the yahoo group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/softrock40/

Oh, and if you just want a receiver then its only 10$. Each Softrock lite can only do 1 band though. Is my best choice to do 80m or should I do 40m?

ValhallaSmith fucked around with this message at 21:28 on Jun 15, 2007

ValhallaSmith
Aug 16, 2005

Jimmy Smuts posted:

After doing some research on the softrock, it seems too good to be true.

What's the catch? Is it difficult to build from a kit? Prone to interference? Limited set of freqs?

The kit doesn't seem to be overly difficult. If you have never done any SMT boards before it might be a little bit of a challenge but doable. The main thing with the softrock is you have to build it to support a particular band or two. I'm building a lite receive only version and I have to pick what band I want it to work in. The RXTX version can do 2 bands.

You also need to have a decent sound card in order to get the most out of it. The Delta-44 is a common one used, as is the FA-66. The key attributes you want for the sound card are a low noise floor and a 192khz sample rate for maximum performance. You can get away with cheapo integrated audio on your motherboard though to start off.(48 or 96 khz).

There are a few mods and other things you can do to them. Also they are common enough (1000's) that the software writers usually support them. Also you might want to put it in a box of some kind.

I ordered mine today (softrock lite 80m) and once I get it together I'll post something about it.

ValhallaSmith
Aug 16, 2005
Well my softrock lite kit just showed up. I'm waiting for the soldering iron I ordered to arrive now (Metcal SP200). Would anyone like a little walk through on putting these things together? Also what kind of antenna should I make for this? I have somewhat limited space right now so I was thinking of just doing a magnetic loop. It still has to be a pretty decent size because its being build for the 80m band.

ValhallaSmith
Aug 16, 2005

meatpotato posted:

Hey guys, taking the thread a little off topic here, but has anyone tried building a transmitter? I've seen several VERY simple plans which are really an audio transformer and a crystal oscillator with a 9 volt for the power supply. I tried making one, but I think my crystal oscillator is bad as I can't hear anything and it gets very hot. Good thing I ordered about 9 new ones from FOX as free samples. They should get here soon and I'll report back once I have some results.

I know there are more complex designs, but I'm short on components and want to do this on the cheap. I read somewhere that class C amplification would be the most efficient, but I don't specifically know what that is. When I get some parts (maybe from my work) I'll try to build some of the more developed designs.

You can get a Softrock40 in two bands for 30$. Its an SDR based radio so you would need a halfway decent soundcard. 192khz sample and 24-bit is perfect but it can work with 48khz at 16 bits. I built the receiver only version which is 10$ and it worked ok, though I don't have a very good soundcard for it. Also I think I did something wrong putting it together but I finally got an oscilloscope so hopefully I can fix it soon.

So I guess it depends on what you are looking for. Right now I'm in a mood to build test equipment so I'm working on a 10$ low noise 0-30V 1.5A power supply kit.

ValhallaSmith
Aug 16, 2005

TetsuoTW posted:

Here's one for the more expert ears here. While out at one of my preferred out-of-town listening spots, I picked up a weird sound on 9565k, listening between 0937-0939z. I don't recall hearing this on the interference samples posted in the OP (IIRC), and I'm puzzled as to what it is. I've popped a recording up on Tindeck - the first 30s are in standard AM, then after that I flicked through LSB and USB for the rest. Does anyone have any ideas?



Sounds more like intentional jamming than anything else.

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ValhallaSmith
Aug 16, 2005

Exi7wound posted:

I MUST have the online SDR for my very own!

How are they doing this? How can I do this? It's just the most amazing thing...

What do I need to buy in order to do this kind of thing at home??

(/relurk)

I don't think there is anything out of the box available yet. If you can program you might start up a project.

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