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SDR Setup issues with SoftRock Lite II and Yaesu FT-301D

George Blake
 

Greetings. I own a Yaesu FT-301D and saw an article about adding a SoftRock Lite II. I am a newbie to SDR but I have been in electronics a long time and know how to install and use hardware and software.



So, I purchased and built the board as instructed. This version is a modification from the 30 Meter version. It has a 11 MHz Crystal and uses a 1/3 under-sampling technique.

I was finally able to install it. The first thing i found is that his instructions are a little vague. I connected the SRL II to where he eluded to (Filter module input) and quickly discovered it is wrong. Where he says to connect it is AFTER a 20 KHz Filter at the input to the Filter Board where the 9 MHz IF comes in. With only 20 KHz of signal it wasn't going to end well. The YAesu blanks out the Receiver on Transmit so RF power is not the issue.

I moved it to the IF Input pin and have plenty of spectrum now. Another issue is that the SRL II has a 50 ohm input that pulls the IF down. The IF is a higher impedance and is floating due to every connection being capacitively coupled. So, I built a FET RF Buffer circuit. It works great. No issues with impedance mismatch and plenty of drive. S-meter is well into 90%.

Now, the problem is setting up the software. I don't quite understand all of the settings. Running the raw install from the get-go I get plenty of spectrum and waterfall display and I can hear something, but no clear output like all of the YouTube videos show. I have the input set for LINE IN as I am using the Line In on the back of my Dell T3500. It has the SOUNDMAX chipset and is supposed to sample up to 196 KHz. The I/Q is set as default separate for now. I don't have the SIAO drivers yet. I am thinking that could be the issue?

I usually am on 40 Meters at 7.185 MHz because of various NETS I am on.. I set the L.O. for the same as well as the Tuning setting. I was hoping it would pop right in, but I still cannot hear much discussion.

Setting is: 40M, 7.185 MHz / 7185 KHz, LSB.

So, that's my story and I'm sticking to it. Hardware is in and seems to work correctly. SDR software is installed (several versions out of frustration) and MAY BE working. Not really sure. Computer needs some updated drivers.

My T3500 has 24 GB of RAM and works fine. No crashes.

Thank You.

73's.

George Blake
W6BDD
 

Now, the problem is setting up the software. I don't quite understand all of the settings.
George,

You do not say what software you are using.
My settings using HDSDR

Stick with 48KHz sampling until you get it working properly. Turn off Windows sounds and stereo mix, any special effects.

73 Alan G4ZFQ
George Blake
 

I have several since I could not figure out if it was a hardware issue or a software. I have HDSDR, WinSDR, SDRadio.

The FT-301D's IF is about 9 MHz. The SRL II Oscillator is 11 MHz, but it is 1/3 undersampling. Not sure what that does to the tuning.

No, the FT-301D does not have electronic tuning. It is all Analog. No USB or Ethernet cponnectivity.

Thanks.

George Blake
George Blake
 

My bad. The Crystal is 11.9 MHz.
 

The FT-301D's IF is about 9 MHz. The SRL II Oscillator is 11 MHz, but it is 1/3 undersampling. Not sure what that does to the tuning.
No, the FT-301D does not have electronic tuning. It is all Analog. No USB or Ethernet cponnectivity.
George

Sorry, did not think that it might be that old:-)
Then the SDR tuning will be fixed and not show the rig's frequency unless you set it manually, only practical if you rarely move frequency.

There will be an offset between your IF centre and the SDR centre. I think one of Tony's crystals needed 96KHz sampling to include the IF centre.
You should try tuning the rig to a signal and find it on the SDR.
Overloading could be a reason for bad results.

73 Alan G4ZFQ
 

Good Afternoon Group,

The mention of 1/3 subharmonic sampling and SDR tuning made me pause. I think I use to know this but it seems at almost 81 years old lots of things don't stay in my memory very long.

Here is the result of an experiment:

Rocky 3.8 in use showing a spectrum display with an RX II receiver board.

RX II setup so that the BP filter for 8-16 MHz is used for any center frequency commanded between 4-16 MHz.

Center frequency of 15.003 MHz commanded and WWV is a strong signal at 15 MHz on the Rocky spectrum display.

Center frequency of 5.003 MHz commanded and now a fairly strong WWV signal shows at 5.0012 on the Rocky spectrum display as well as weaker WWV signals at 4.997 MHz, 5.0 MHz and 5.009 MHz.

The WWV audio time announcements and other audio tones seem to be about the same when listening with the center frequency set to either 15.003 MHz or 5.003 MHz.


Does this make sense?

Regards,
Tony, kb9yig

On Dec 4, 2021, at 3:43 AM, Alan G4ZFQ <alan4alan@...> wrote:

The FT-301D's IF is about 9 MHz. The SRL II Oscillator is 11 MHz, but it is 1/3 undersampling. Not sure what that does to the tuning.
No, the FT-301D does not have electronic tuning. It is all Analog. No USB or Ethernet cponnectivity.
George

Sorry, did not think that it might be that old:-)
Then the SDR tuning will be fixed and not show the rig's frequency unless you set it manually, only practical if you rarely move frequency.

There will be an offset between your IF centre and the SDR centre. I think one of Tony's crystals needed 96KHz sampling to include the IF centre.
You should try tuning the rig to a signal and find it on the SDR.
Overloading could be a reason for bad results.

73 Alan G4ZFQ
George Blake
 

Gee, maybe you should have read what I wrote first and invesrtigated the radio before commenting? Then you would have known what I was talking about?
 

George,

Tony Parks is the father of the SoftRock series of receivers so he have investigated the radio quite well.

Probably you?ll have to test your Softrock receiver with an antenna and practice quite a bit with the software that you plan to use. Once you are used to it you can connect the SoftRock to the Yaesu radio and have the software fixed at 9 MHz so you can see your IF centered. Since there is no digital connection to the radio you cannot read the frequency your radio is tuned in the SDR software, but there are configurations that make possible to indicate 0 when you are in the IF so you have to mentally add or subtract any offset to the frequency indicated by your radio.

Regards,

Ignacio EB4APL

El 05/12/2021 a las 1:40, George Blake escribió:
Gee, maybe you should have read what I wrote first and invesrtigated the radio before commenting? Then you would have known what I was talking about?


--
El software de antivirus Avast ha analizado este correo electrónico en busca de virus.
 

Correction to my last message: The Softrock II Lite is crystal controlled, so you cannot tune it, I was misled by the SoftRock that I use that is synthesizer controlled. It is too late here but I can do the calculations tomorrow and can tell you where the center of your IF is located.

Regards,

Ignacio, EB4APL

El 05/12/2021 a las 3:14, EB4APL escribió:
George,

Tony Parks is the father of the SoftRock series of receivers so he have investigated the radio quite well.

Probably you?ll have to test your Softrock receiver with an antenna and practice quite a bit with the software that you plan to use. Once you are used to it you can connect the SoftRock to the Yaesu radio and have the software fixed at 9 MHz so you can see your IF centered. Since there is no digital connection to the radio you cannot read the frequency your radio is tuned in the SDR software, but there are configurations that make possible to indicate 0 when you are in the IF so you have to mentally add or subtract any offset to the frequency indicated by your radio.

Regards,

Ignacio EB4APL



El 05/12/2021 a las 1:40, George Blake escribió:
Gee, maybe you should have read what I wrote first and invesrtigated the radio before commenting? Then you would have known what I was talking about?


--
El software de antivirus Avast ha analizado este correo electrónico en busca de virus.
 

Ok, now the time here is good for responding, yesterday it was very late (3:23 AM).

I have recovered the info of my Softrock 40 receiver (first model) and the SoftRock II Lite that is the model that you are using, basically both are the same.

The Softrock Lite II for use with the 9 MHz IF of transceivers uses a 11.981 MHz crystal and 1/3 sub-harmonic sampling. Sub-harmonic sampling is used as a means to avoid high frequency crystals and while this produces a reduction of sensitivity this is not a problem here where there is plenty of gain before the SR. Also this technique is used in the 20m and 30m versions of the SR without problems.

Being crystal controlled, the center frequency of the SR is fixed and the tuning is done entirely inside the software. This center frequency is 11.981/4*3 = 8.925 MHz. With your sound card you have +/- 192 kHz margin around this center frequency, so you can tune from 8.733 to 9.117 MHz. Since the FT-301 D has a 1st IF of exactly 9.0 MHz, when you tune the software to this frequency you will receive in the SR the same that you have in the FT-301, regardless of the frequency it is tuned.

The software that I have used for this type of application was HDSDR as I found that was quite flexible. Take in account that the LO frequency that you enter in the software does not tune anything (the crystal rules here) and it is only used for the display calculations. I cannot duplicate the set up? now since I do not have any 9 MHz IF rig here, but I remember that I had configured the HDSDR to show 0 at the center frequency so you can see how far away are the signals from the analog rcv tuned frequency as in a classic panadapter.

I don't know why the demodulated signals were distorted, but once you have the software running correctly we can figure out the cause.

Regards,

Ignacio EB4APL

El 05/12/2021 a las 3:23, EB4APL via groups.io escribió:
Correction to my last message: The Softrock II Lite is crystal controlled, so you cannot tune it, I was misled by the SoftRock that I use that is synthesizer controlled. It is too late here but I can do the calculations tomorrow and can tell you where the center of your IF is located.

Regards,

Ignacio, EB4APL


El 05/12/2021 a las 3:14, EB4APL escribió:
George,

Tony Parks is the father of the SoftRock series of receivers so he have investigated the radio quite well.

Probably you?ll have to test your Softrock receiver with an antenna and practice quite a bit with the software that you plan to use. Once you are used to it you can connect the SoftRock to the Yaesu radio and have the software fixed at 9 MHz so you can see your IF centered. Since there is no digital connection to the radio you cannot read the frequency your radio is tuned in the SDR software, but there are configurations that make possible to indicate 0 when you are in the IF so you have to mentally add or subtract any offset to the frequency indicated by your radio.

Regards,

Ignacio EB4APL



El 05/12/2021 a las 1:40, George Blake escribió:
Gee, maybe you should have read what I wrote first and invesrtigated the radio before commenting? Then you would have known what I was talking about?


--
El software de antivirus Avast ha analizado este correo electrónico en busca de virus.
George Blake
 

Ignacio,

That all sounds logical. It sounds like I need to open up the Audio
Sampling Rate from 96K to the maximum. I think it is around 197K.

I don't believe I said distortion? I said the SSB was inverted and I cannot
switch them. I have to select USB for LSB, and LSB for USB. There is no
distortion.

However, the S-Meter IS running quite high. Maybe I should back the volume
adjustment back a bit? That probably is the level input.

Thanks.

George

On Sun, Dec 5, 2021 at 9:29 AM EB4APL <eb4apl@...> wrote:

Ok, now the time here is good for responding, yesterday it was very late
(3:23 AM).

I have recovered the info of my Softrock 40 receiver (first model) and
the SoftRock II Lite that is the model that you are using, basically
both are the same.

The Softrock Lite II for use with the 9 MHz IF of transceivers uses a
11.981 MHz crystal and 1/3 sub-harmonic sampling. Sub-harmonic sampling
is used as a means to avoid high frequency crystals and while this
produces a reduction of sensitivity this is not a problem here where
there is plenty of gain before the SR. Also this technique is used in
the 20m and 30m versions of the SR without problems.

Being crystal controlled, the center frequency of the SR is fixed and
the tuning is done entirely inside the software. This center frequency
is 11.981/4*3 = 8.925 MHz. With your sound card you have +/- 192 kHz
margin around this center frequency, so you can tune from 8.733 to 9.117
MHz. Since the FT-301 D has a 1st IF of exactly 9.0 MHz, when you tune
the software to this frequency you will receive in the SR the same that
you have in the FT-301, regardless of the frequency it is tuned.

The software that I have used for this type of application was HDSDR as
I found that was quite flexible. Take in account that the LO frequency
that you enter in the software does not tune anything (the crystal rules
here) and it is only used for the display calculations. I cannot
duplicate the set up now since I do not have any 9 MHz IF rig here, but
I remember that I had configured the HDSDR to show 0 at the center
frequency so you can see how far away are the signals from the analog
rcv tuned frequency as in a classic panadapter.

I don't know why the demodulated signals were distorted, but once you
have the software running correctly we can figure out the cause.

Regards,

Ignacio EB4APL


El 05/12/2021 a las 3:23, EB4APL via groups.io escribió:
Correction to my last message: The Softrock II Lite is crystal
controlled, so you cannot tune it, I was misled by the SoftRock that I
use that is synthesizer controlled. It is too late here but I can do
the calculations tomorrow and can tell you where the center of your IF
is located.

Regards,

Ignacio, EB4APL


El 05/12/2021 a las 3:14, EB4APL escribió:
George,

Tony Parks is the father of the SoftRock series of receivers so he
have investigated the radio quite well.

Probably you?ll have to test your Softrock receiver with an antenna
and practice quite a bit with the software that you plan to use. Once
you are used to it you can connect the SoftRock to the Yaesu radio
and have the software fixed at 9 MHz so you can see your IF centered.
Since there is no digital connection to the radio you cannot read the
frequency your radio is tuned in the SDR software, but there are
configurations that make possible to indicate 0 when you are in the
IF so you have to mentally add or subtract any offset to the
frequency indicated by your radio.

Regards,

Ignacio EB4APL



El 05/12/2021 a las 1:40, George Blake escribió:
Gee, maybe you should have read what I wrote first and invesrtigated
the radio before commenting? Then you would have known what I was
talking about?


--
El software de antivirus Avast ha analizado este correo electrónico en
busca de virus.
 

Hi,

I think that I understood distortion, but checking it what you mentioned was that you got no clear output like in YouTube videos. If the problem is sideband (and spectrum) inversion, this can be caused by the mixing schema of the FT-301 or the right-left channel inversion in the output. Most SDR software supports spectrum inversion so selecting it you get also right LSB/USB selection.

I recommend to use HDSDR for this type of use, other software can be used also, but you can try them later when you have everything working ok with HDSDR.? I use HDSDR for connection to the IF of another radio and SDR# and SDR Console for direct reception from the antenna with receivers with synthesized LO like SoftRock Ensemble, AirSpy HF, AirSpy R2 and RTL-SDR.? All SDR programs needs some learning at the beginning to know the options of each one and how to configure them. The link that Alan G4ZFQ have provided have an excellent guide for this type of operation.

Regards,

Ignacio? EB4APL

El 05/12/2021 a las 19:40, George Blake escribió:
Ignacio,

That all sounds logical. It sounds like I need to open up the Audio
Sampling Rate from 96K to the maximum. I think it is around 197K.

I don't believe I said distortion? I said the SSB was inverted and I cannot
switch them. I have to select USB for LSB, and LSB for USB. There is no
distortion.

However, the S-Meter IS running quite high. Maybe I should back the volume
adjustment back a bit? That probably is the level input.

Thanks.

George



On Sun, Dec 5, 2021 at 9:29 AM EB4APL <eb4apl@...> wrote:

Ok, now the time here is good for responding, yesterday it was very late
(3:23 AM).

I have recovered the info of my Softrock 40 receiver (first model) and
the SoftRock II Lite that is the model that you are using, basically
both are the same.

The Softrock Lite II for use with the 9 MHz IF of transceivers uses a
11.981 MHz crystal and 1/3 sub-harmonic sampling. Sub-harmonic sampling
is used as a means to avoid high frequency crystals and while this
produces a reduction of sensitivity this is not a problem here where
there is plenty of gain before the SR. Also this technique is used in
the 20m and 30m versions of the SR without problems.

Being crystal controlled, the center frequency of the SR is fixed and
the tuning is done entirely inside the software. This center frequency
is 11.981/4*3 = 8.925 MHz. With your sound card you have +/- 192 kHz
margin around this center frequency, so you can tune from 8.733 to 9.117
MHz. Since the FT-301 D has a 1st IF of exactly 9.0 MHz, when you tune
the software to this frequency you will receive in the SR the same that
you have in the FT-301, regardless of the frequency it is tuned.

The software that I have used for this type of application was HDSDR as
I found that was quite flexible. Take in account that the LO frequency
that you enter in the software does not tune anything (the crystal rules
here) and it is only used for the display calculations. I cannot
duplicate the set up now since I do not have any 9 MHz IF rig here, but
I remember that I had configured the HDSDR to show 0 at the center
frequency so you can see how far away are the signals from the analog
rcv tuned frequency as in a classic panadapter.

I don't know why the demodulated signals were distorted, but once you
have the software running correctly we can figure out the cause.

Regards,

Ignacio EB4APL


El 05/12/2021 a las 3:23, EB4APL via groups.io escribió:
Correction to my last message: The Softrock II Lite is crystal
controlled, so you cannot tune it, I was misled by the SoftRock that I
use that is synthesizer controlled. It is too late here but I can do
the calculations tomorrow and can tell you where the center of your IF
is located.

Regards,

Ignacio, EB4APL


El 05/12/2021 a las 3:14, EB4APL escribió:
George,

Tony Parks is the father of the SoftRock series of receivers so he
have investigated the radio quite well.

Probably you?ll have to test your Softrock receiver with an antenna
and practice quite a bit with the software that you plan to use. Once
you are used to it you can connect the SoftRock to the Yaesu radio
and have the software fixed at 9 MHz so you can see your IF centered.
Since there is no digital connection to the radio you cannot read the
frequency your radio is tuned in the SDR software, but there are
configurations that make possible to indicate 0 when you are in the
IF so you have to mentally add or subtract any offset to the
frequency indicated by your radio.

Regards,

Ignacio EB4APL



El 05/12/2021 a las 1:40, George Blake escribió:
Gee, maybe you should have read what I wrote first and invesrtigated
the radio before commenting? Then you would have known what I was
talking about?


--
El software de antivirus Avast ha analizado este correo electrónico en
busca de virus.








--
El software de antivirus Avast ha analizado este correo electrónico en busca de virus.
 

I don't believe I said distortion?
You said "I can hear something, but no clear output" which suggests distortion.

I said the SSB was inverted and I cannot
switch them. I have to select USB for LSB, and LSB for USB.
If you follow the links to help on the HDSDR site you will find my pages.

Close to the top (Using HDSDR) it says "Make sure that the IQ Swap (Options - Input Channel Mode for RX) is set correctly."

73 Alan G4ZFQ
George Blake
 

I already tried that. In fact, I went through all of the options last night.

I am hearing now, otherwise I would not have said the LSB and USB was
swapped.

It is probably due to the VFO controlling things and not the HDSDR.

I will keep playing with it but I am going to live with it for now.

It is not like the Digital / Software / App world where you can connect
things with no knowledge of electronics and make it work. This is real
electronics. Analog.

George Blake

On Tue, Dec 7, 2021 at 2:16 AM Alan G4ZFQ <alan4alan@...> wrote:

I don't believe I said distortion?
You said "I can hear something, but no clear output" which suggests
distortion.

I said the SSB was inverted and I cannot
switch them. I have to select USB for LSB, and LSB for USB.
If you follow the links to help on the HDSDR site you will find my pages.

Close to the top (Using HDSDR) it says "Make sure that the IQ Swap
(Options - Input Channel Mode for RX) is set correctly."

73 Alan G4ZFQ
 

On 07/12/2021 13:33, George Blake wrote:
I already tried that. In fact, I went through all of the options last night.
If you are truly sending HDSDR IQ signals then IQ swap MUST work.
If you are not sending it IQ signals then both USB and LSB will be received from the same signal but 20KHz apart.

73 Alan G4ZFQ
George Blake
 

The board is bad. The 74AC74 dies out after a short time. I have ordered a new board as well as a few spare ICs to try and fix the current board. The FST chip (2× 4:1 Mux) is obsolete as is it's replacement.

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