开云体育

The Teensy SDR project is worth doing if you want a complete radio in a
box.

Ken VA3SK

Hello,

I'm definitely enjoying the softrock/tiny-linear combination. I never had a rig with a panadapter before, and it could get addicting. What's not addicting is the forest of little circuit boards, pods and cables on my desk. This mess just begs to be
packaged in an enclosure that looks like a radio.

As a first cut - I'm thinking of sticking the Softrock board, a usb sound card, and the tiniest possible USB hub - in a box.

For a later project - it sure would be cool to have it in a box with a computer & display - hence a complete radio. I see people have done that with a Teensy....?

- Jerry KF6VB

It's my home project. It started out as a set of items:
1. A Chinese linear amplifier kit. Here's a link:
2. An HFsignals.com "Raduino" card, with an Arduino Nano and a 2.8" touch screen
3. A switchable LPF from a defunct Icom IC746pro transceiver
4. A very simple "glue" board that I designed to interface the Raduino to the LPF - to choose the filter
5. Custom software that I made by - basically - stripping out all the excess transceiver stuff out of the HFsignals software.

I modified the Chinese linear by upgrading it to a BLF278 that I had laying around. I also changed the power feed to a
ferrite choke/transformer and eliminated the primary center tap on the output transformer. And took one turn off the
secondary to lighten the load...and raised the drain supply voltage from 12V to 32V. I mounted the linear RF board on a heat sink the same size as the board and packaged the whole thing in a really small box ( hence the "Tiny" moniker ). And mounted a fan on the back.

The Tiny Linear produced 150W when driven by my Elecraft K2 outputting 5W. Unfortunately, the heatsink was really not adequate for that power level, and I fried the BLF278 :(. A new PA transistor got it back online, and doing 25-30W driven by the Softrock - it's just coasting.

If one wanted to build one, I can supply the software. I also have a Gerber for the glue board - which isn't quite there, but enough of it is there to be useful. The main thing - this particular LPF requires +12V drive to each relay that you activate. This is somewhat harder than pulling a relay pin low. I wound up with each relay being driven by a PNP TO-220 pass transistor - two resistors and a snubber diode. In an ideal world, I should have been able to do it with a TO-92 transistor - 2n3906 maybe - but the combination of experimentation and fumble fingers fried some of those - I got tired of it and stuck in big transistors :).

Most of us as a rule do not have LPFs from defunct HF transceivers laying around, and there are Chinese kits for that too. I bought an assembled one, but their QC was lacking. I had to do a bit of reverse engineering to get it working right. Basically, they had stuck in wrong parts. The 5-pole Chebyshev tables at the back of the ARRL handbook were invaluable. One advantage of the Chinese LPF kit is that relays are activated by GROUNDING them - much easier. I could have eliminated my whole forest of transistors with a single ULN2003. Well, there might be positive drive ICs out there....I didn't look THAT hard.

I had a spare Raduino card because I had bought an upgraded one for my Ubitx transceiver from W0EB. The upgraded Raduino has a Teensy 4.1 CPU card, which absolutely runs rings around the Arduino Nano. But the Nano was powerful enough to switch the LPFs from the touch screen, display the drain current of the chip on a bar graph, and display a "TX" annunciator. When I build the 600W linear that I'm kitting up, I will definitely use an upgraded Raduino - it will have enough horsepower to do automatic LPF switching by measuring the incoming frequency.

- Jerry KF6VB

I was going to say and ask the same thing. The Tiny Linear sounds interesting.

Dave
KB9GPM

Hi all,

As the subject line sez, I am looking for a RXTXv6.2 20m_30m kit built or not. I would also consider a non-working unit as price is kind of an issue for me.

If you have one, please reach out to me.

Many thanks!

--
"Of all the things I've lost in life, I miss my mind the most!"
Very best 72/73 from Vermont. .
Bob de k2ki
k2ki@... (Primary Email)
k2ki.bb@... (Secondary: Goes to my cell)
Grid: FN34LW
NEQRP#: 911
4SQRP#: 2292
FP#: 4214
SKCC#: 12195
NAQCC#: 2337
Sasquatch#: 769
30CW#: 190
100WattsID#: 4675
SOC#: 1312

I haven't heard of The Tiny Linear. Do you have a link to it?

Dave
W2IJL

So - with the help of the Tiny Linear - I made my very first QSO with the Softrock. Being mindful of its sensitivity to ground loops, I installed an optocoupler at the PTT output of the AtTiny. I superglued it to the top of the board, fed it with a 1.2K resistor, and soldered a cable with an RCA jack to it.

Worked fine. The Tiny Linear took the Softrock's 2W and magically transformed it to 25W - which people can actually hear :).

Wow - Rocky even does semi-break. It's called "Vox", but you hit the key in CW mode and it transmits.

Trying some CQ's on 40M...no answers. 2 watts just isn't much. I wonder if I dare use this thing with my Tiny Linear?
The Tiny Linear is a home project - a somewhat modified Chinese linear kit with a touch screen and an LPF from a
defunct ICOM rig. Packaged in a truly tiny box. It does 150W with 5W drive. So the Softrock might reasonably drive it to 60W.

I will have to stick it on a spectrum analyzer and verify that any spurious outputs are not too bad. It's easy to be lax and yet not bother anybody with 2 watts. 60W is a whole other story.

...and this is weird. Just for yuks, I commented out the si570Calibration line in Rocky.ini, by putting a # at the beginning. Restarted Rocky, and it's dead nuts on. Well, about 20Hz off. That's good enough for me!

So - the only software I've found that reasonably transmits with the Softrock is "rocky". It's not fancy, but it fully supports
transmit, including a keyer that works with a paddle plugged into the softrock.

HOWEVER - I am not able to calibrate the frequency of the Si570. Let's assume that my generator ( actually, a tinySA ) is set to 6.88MHz. The softrock sees its strong signal at 7.013MHz. I click on tools->si570 calibration. A little box appears with a couple of text boxes: "Displayed Frequency"( can't edit it, it's just wherever the frequency cursor is pointing ) and also "True Frequency". I dutifully enter the frequency that my generator is actually putting out, hit "OK", and....nothing. No difference.

Maybe if I edit the "si570Calibration" field in Rocky.ini? Right now, it's "Si570Calibration=0.205920063688709".

- Jerry KF6VB

I just had yet another project fail because of a bad connection to a toroid - where the insulation didn't burn off properly. I've had it. I bought one of those motorized strippers for enameled wire. It just came in. It's a Chinese copy of an expensive German tool. Works great for anything thicker than say 26AWG. With really thin wire, you have to be careful, because it can just chop the wire off. Which could be a disaster if you have the exact length of wire you need - coming out of a laboriously wound toroid.

For really thin wires, Knipex makes a manual pinching stripper that looks pretty good. I was on the fence... might still get one of those.

On Fri, Aug 27, 2021 at 07:46 PM, jerry@... wrote:

If not, what's the hot ticket for SDR software to use with the softrock?

I use this...

On 27/08/2021 19:46, jerry@... wrote:

Can HDSDR be made to transmit?

Yes.
Although CW may require modification.

73 Alan G4ZFQ

OK, I fixed it. It was transformer T6. One of the leads was not connecting to its circuit board land. Now receive is much improved, and it actually transmits! I am seeing two watts output on 40M. But not with HDSDR :(.

I have only gotten transmit working with "rocky", which is primitive. HDSDR does hit the PTT on the softrock, but does not
seem to actually supply it with any baseband audio.

Can HDSDR be made to transmit? If not, what's the hot ticket for SDR software to use with the softrock?

Cleaning out some odds and ends:



I have a M-Audio Audiophile AP192k sound card with the M-Audio break-out
cable and two 1/4" male to 3.5mm female (stereo) adapter cables available.
It's an older card and only supported by Win7 drivers:




Price $20 plus shipping.
PayPal to gntennese@...
Please reply directly to me, not the list.
Shipping cost to be determined from British Columbia, Canada.

..... Garry VE7VAU

I have but one remaining SoftRock kit:
SoftRock Lite:
30m v6.2 - 1 available, nearly built, needs two torroids wound & soldered to the PCB; $10.
PayPal to K4IDC@....
Please reply directly to me, not the list.
Prices include shipping from 37076.

Many thanks to all who've responded & purchased the kit inventory from me.
--
Thank you,
Robin K4IDC

Good Morning Group,

So far no one has showed an interest in the 4 MHz to 8 MHz receiver board detailed below. Being USB powered makes it handy to use and with it's Si570 clock any center frequency in the 4 to 8 MHz frequency range can be entered from the SDR programs. The spectrum lost due to the additional center frequency noise is quickly compensated for by entering a center frequency away from the desired signals.

I hate to see this useful little SDR receiver board sitting unused so I will offer it again at a reduced price. The new price is $30 which includes mailing cost to either a Canadian or US purchaser.

If interested contact me directly.

Regards,
Tony, kb9yig

The sound card has been sold.

Robin Midgett K4IDC

Updated 8/9/21:

SR_40_R 455kHz I.F. (1 available) $10

SoftRock Lite:
30m v6 - 1 available, nearly built, $10

SoftRock Lite II Combined Receiver, $20; Kit can be built for 160m, 80m or 40m, includes 464kHz. crystals for 455kHz. I.F. (1 available)

PayPal to K4IDC@....
Please reply directly to me, not the list.
Prices include shipping from 37076.

--
Thank you,
Robin K4IDC

I have a M-Audio Audiophile AP192k sound card with break-out cable available. I bought it second hand, never used it.
Since it's an older card, it seems that Win7 drivers are all that's available for it:
$25 shipped, PayPal.
Please reply directly.
--
Thank you,
Robin K4IDC