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Rocky & HDSDR
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Hi All
I am using a Softrock Lite II with above which was working very well, till this weekend with a Dell 1525 laptop, it suddenly started to have? spikes on the screen and not working with radio. And the laptop does not have a mic built in, but I found that if I talked or tapped on the laptop the spikes would increase and go up in size. This is doing it without the radio connected as well. So has anyone come across this problem if so please let me know. Thanks ? |
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开云体育You may want to check your mixer settings and make sure that all input aside from the line input are disabled.On 11/23/2015 11:37 AM, d.jon1949@... [softrock40] wrote: ? -- Cecil - k5nwa |
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James Bennett
开云体育I had an issue with spikes all over the display screen with my Ensemble RXTX. It would only happen occasionally. It happened while using Rocky, HDSDR, and Quisk. After a LOT of head-scratching, it turned out to be a ground loop issue with my equipment. I have a solar charge controller hooked up to a battery bank, along with an MFJ 4245MV power supply - a KI0BK power gate module controls who charges the batteries - the sun or the MFJ. Turned out that when the sun was charging the batteries, I got the spikes. As soon as the sun was down, the spikes went away. So, when the spikes were there and the sun was doing the charging, I unplugged the MFJ from the 117v wall outlet - spikes were gone. To cure the problem, I wound the output 14v from the MFJ through five 2-1/2 inch mix 31 ferrite donuts about six times. Now the spikes are gone, no matter if the sun is out or not. You may have a similar issue some where in your shack - a grounding issue.Jim / W6JHB
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开云体育On 11/23/2015 11:37 AM,
d.jon1949@... [softrock40] wrote:
Hi All ?I believe that, if you check, the Dell 1525 does have a built-in microphone.? It also has a microphone jack.? Sounds like the audio mixer has the wrong input selected. 73, Milt W8NUE |
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Alan
Original Message -----
Subject: Re: [softrock40] Rocky & HDSDR What do you mean "center spike"?It has the center spike problem. I have tried everything to get rid of it and nothing works. A very sharp spike like a needle? This is often seen and some software can hide it. It is not important. Or, a broad mound spreading from the centre? Like a hill with slopes up and down? This is often due to ground loops, sometimes interference. 73 Alan G4ZFQ I have also put the software on 2 desktops and they are doing the same thing, I am lost with what to do about it? |
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开云体育My experience has shown that the center spike comes from noise on the power supply. ?It couples from the USB cable and from what ever is on the DC coming from the power supply. ?I put ferrites on both cables. ?I coiled up the excess. I experimented with the positioning of the cables relative to each other and with other cables in the shack. ?I got the biggest improvement when I supplied power to the SDR with a 12 volt gel cell battery independent of the house current supplying the rest of the shack.Good luck. Dave, K4TO
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Hi Alan
It is like you said a broad mound and when you tap or talk the spike goes up and down and widens at the same time. And as I have said there is no mic in the computer. It was not doing this when I first ran the Softrock Lite II receiver it ran well for about 2 weeks then it started. 73 Derek,KD3GZ? Ex G4DVC |
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If it is a laptop it has a mic some3where On 24 November 2015 at 12:33, d.jon1949@... [softrock40] <softrock40@...> wrote:
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Jose (Ct1aos)
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Alan
Original Message -----
Subject: Re: [softrock40] Rocky & HDSDR Derek,It is like you said a broad mound and when you tap or talk the spike goes up and down and widens at the same time. And as I have said there is no mic in the computer.It was not doing this when I first ran the Softrock Lite II receiver it ran well for about 2 weeks then it started. I always get confused, a spike in my language is really sharp. But you are describing what you would see if there is a microphone present and the sound mixer is configured to activate it. I can not imagine any other possibility if it actually reacts to sound without touching anything. I forget what OS you have, right click the speaker icon, select Recording Devices and mute the microphone. 73 Alan G4ZFQ |
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Peter Johnson
开云体育Hi Derek.Just looked at a friends Dell 1525 and the user manual, and his has two microphones built into the lid above the screen two very small holes are the the give-away signs where the microphones are located. 73 Peter F1VKK On 24/11/2015 13:33, d.jon1949@... [softrock40] wrote: Hi Alan |
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Phil
I'll echo that (a mic somewhere). I have two older Acer laptops here. One is my emergency back-up for this desktop, the other is wifey's email/web machine. Both have mics and webcams (and they date back to 2008).
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Every laptop I've had or worked on for others had at least a mic. . . 73 de Phil, KO6BB (Web Page) PRESENT RADIOS: Grundigs: S-350 (~2006), G6 (2011) & S450DLX (2014). HOMEBREW: 7 Tube+Rect Regenerative RX for LF (built 2015) Icom: IC-735 Transceiver (~1990). Icom: R-75 With Cascaded 250 & 125Hz CW Filters. (~2005) Icom: IC-7200 Transceiver (~2015). Radio Shack: DX-380 digital portable (~1990). SDR: Softrock Ensemble II LF (built from a kit 2015). Zenith: Royal-7000 Transoceanic Portable (~1968). ACCESSORIES: HOMEBREW LF-MF Pre-Amp, MFJ-993B HF Auto-Tuner. HOMEBREW 8 Hz Audio Filter. ANTENNAS: 88 foot Long Ladder-line fed dipole at 35 feet AGL for MW/SW. HOMEBREW Active Mini-Whip at 36 Feet AGL for LF/MW/SW. HOMEBREW 37 foot "Low Noise Vertical" at 11 feet AGL for LF/MW/SW. Merced, Central California, 37, 18, 37N 120, 30, 6W CM97rh On 11/24/2015 12:38 PM, Jose Bonanca jabct1aos@... [softrock40] wrote:
If it is a laptop it has a mic some3where |
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It has the center spike problem. I have tried everything to get rid of it and nothing works.The problem is usually current flowing on the screen of the audio cable. Investigate by disconnecting everything from your Softrock including the audio cable. 1) Connect the audio cable. There should be no difference. 2) Connect the USB cable. You may see a difference now. There could be two reasons. You may have a magnetic field that induces a current in the ground loop you have formed with the two cables. Try to make a tight bunch of the cables to minimize the area for magnetic pick-up. There could be a voltage difference between soundcard ground and USB ground. Try to connect them to each other at the computer with a fairly thick wire (2 mm or so.) Make the wire as short as possible. Another alternative is to connect a fairly thick wire in parallel with the screen of the audio cable. Run it in a tight bunch with the other cables. Ultimately there should be no difference when the USB is connected. 3) Connect the cable to the power supply. The supply must be running, but the +12V disconnected so you only connect to the ground in the Softrock. There should be no difference. If you see any difference you have formed another ground loop. There are several ways to eliminate this. You can try to route the DC supply cable via the computer and connect its ground to USB ground or soundcard ground on the computer. Then run it in the bunch together with the other cables. You may connect a 1k resistor between the minus side of your psu and computer ground. (Nothing else connected, but psu running.) Measure the voltage across the resistor. It should be very small. Also measure the DC resistance between psu ground and computer ground (Nothing else connected, but psu running.) Resistance should be very high. 4) Connect the +12V to the Softrock. You should see some wideband noise and some extra noise at the center ( 1/f noise) but not very much. 5) Connect the screen of your antenna cable to the Softrock while leaving the center conductor un-connected. This should not make any difference with respect to step 4. In the most probable case that you find that it makes a difference, connect 0.1 uF between RF gnd and analog GND in the Softrock: (The relevant part starts about two and a half minute into the video.) With the capacitor in place you should no longer see any difference when connecting the antenna screen to RF ground on the Softrock. If the capacitor does not help, route the antenna cable via the computer and connect its screen to computer ground. 6) Your computer is not at ground potential with respect to your antenna. It is necessary to put a choke or a low capacitance transformer to prevent currents on the antenna cable from reaching the antenna. The choke/transformer should be outside your house if possible. and the screen of the antenna cable should be grounded near the antenna. The problems of sending conducted interference on antenna cables and related things are illustrated in these 4 (long) videos: Good luck:-) 73 Leif |
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I forgot to add under 4) that you might try a big electrolytic capacitor
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on the 12V input of the Softrock. Use a thin cable or add 0.1 ohms in series with the 12V line. The capacitor should have an impedance well below 0.1 ohms at audio frequencies. 4700 uF or something. If the capacitor helps it might be a good idea to look for a better power supply... 73 Leif It has the center spike problem. I have tried everything to get rid of it and nothing works.The problem is usually current flowing on the screen of the audio |
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Good morning Phil
Well I wish to thank you and everyone that told me there was a mic somewhere in the computer, well I found out it does have one after reading the manual. So I turn off the internal sound card and I am now using a USB sound card. It is now working very well without any spikes or hash. Thank you all |
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Hello d.jon1949@...,
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If you go into the sound settings and look to see if there is a menu item to set Stereo Mix on and off, you may find it's set to on, which can give issues with ham apps using audio. It's also useful though in that you can use it instead of a virtual audio cable to pipe things like FLDIG to the computer sound stuff. Glad you RTFM'd and found the microphone :) Best Regards, Chris Wilson. 2E0ILY
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