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Hello Folks, I just got my Softrock40 kit assembled. I also wrote a GNURadio program to tune around the +-24khz BW. I plugged in the board and the green LED glows, but do not hear anything. The coax is not connected to the antenna. I checked the signals on clocks with my scope (which cannot accurately measure the frequency at the moment, but there is a signal there). Since I do not run Windows at home, and since I do not want to have too many variables, I am at another place which has a WinXP machine. I installed all the software (rocky, powerSDR, powedSDRconsole, sdradio). Currently I am using sdradio to see whether some signal is coming out. I just cannot hear anything other than the carrier at 7056000, which happens to be there even when I take the audio cable out of the soundcard input. I do not have any other signal generator like the XG1 being used by many of you. Is there some way I can verify that the hardware is working? The noise floor is at around -100dbm on SDradio. When I touch the down portion of the PCB near oscillator, the noise floow rises to -50 dbm. But I still cannot hear any stations. Again, I haven't connected an antenna to the cable. On teh software side, thanks to Cecil and others, I have afew sample files, which I hope to make use to test my gnuradio script. If it works with the files, it should work without any issues with softrock40 too. I searched the email archives, looks like Stan has faced similar problem too. I will be touching up all the solder joints again and trying and will also try to tune my main rig to oscillator frequencies to see if it is working fine. -- 73 - Ramakrishnan, VU3RDD

Has anyone tried using surface mount components vs pin-in-hole to see if there is any reduction in the above ? I'm using the external PS and will try surface mount in a few days. 73 Kees K5BCQ

Oooops! Gotta remember to change addresses when I want to reply to a message that isn't intended for the group...[g] Chuck Carpenter, W5USJ, Point, TX -|- Rains Co. -|- EM22cv -|- 72 es 73 50 years -|- 19 - K2OFN and 31 - W5USJ -|- Most fun = QRP since 1984. www.w5usj.com hosted by Hamnutz.com -|- NeTxQRP www.netxqrp.com

Bruce, I have it running here on 30 now. Unfortunately the band is mostly DED just now...[g] Chuck Carpenter, W5USJ, Point, TX -|- Rains Co. -|- EM22cv -|- 72 es 73 50 years -|- 19 - K2OFN and 31 - W5USJ -|- Most fun = QRP since 1984. www.w5usj.com hosted by Hamnutz.com -|- NeTxQRP www.netxqrp.com

Alex, The program starts normally, I can see the main screen. It appears to be OK. When I move the cursor around the frequency 'readout' changes. When I go to 'setting' I'm getting an error: Access Violation... in module Rocky.exe. Read of address 00000004 When I click OK, I can see the dialog box, but the drop down list is blank, for both input and output audio. So, I can't select an input or output device. When I exit the program I get the error messsage again. I'm using an IBM laptop, 1.2GHz, with Windows 2000 - all the latest patches. I've been running SDR1.4.4 with no problems. I sometime use a USB plantronics headset and it appears as an additional input/output device. I rebooted with the headset unplugged but the problem still persists. It looks like a useful piece of software! - Walter VE7WRS / JQ2PLP

In August 1973 Ham Radio, WA0JYK used a digital phase shifter in a 75m SSB phasing type receiver that only required the clock to only be divided by 2 instead of 4. The chips were ECL D type Flip Flops and differential Schmitt triggers now out of date, but I was wondering if something like this would help. It would make the clock frequency only half of what is presently used in the Softrock 40. And I quote from the text, "A single inexpensive IC, a Motorola MC1035P, provides a crystal oscillator, a Schmitt trigger and a differential output amplifier. The differential square-wave outputs from this stage are at the crystal frequency and, of course, 180 degrees out of phase. These square waves are divided by two in a switch-tail ring counter which also provides synchronization to the phase quadrature, regardless of turn on or turn off of the receiver." He gives the following reference: G.K. Shubert, WA0JYK, "A Digital 90 Degree RF Phase Shifter," The Electronic Engineer, August, 1971 Attached is a schematic of the phase shifter and a spec sheet on the D type flip flops used. I don't know if the delays would be matched in something like this or not, or what other problems exist in this kind of design, but I would like to throw it out for discussion. I am sure modern IC's could be obtained to perform the same functions. Bill, WB5TCO

Hello Softrock Fans ! Unfortunately the Kits are sold out. I will give it a try to build mine from scratch. I have all the parts, but not the TI OPA2228 UA. Not that easy to access here in Europe. 1) Has anyone experiences with the performance of NE5532(A) or LT1037 ? That are the replaced chips i found in the OPA2228UA-Datasheet. 2) Maybe you know more to replace with ?! Thanks for your help ! 73 de Oliver, DL6KBG DRESDEN SAXONY

Hello Everyone, I am working on a version 5.0 of the SoftRock receiver and want to see if there is interest enough to do a kit. The version 5.0 SoftRock oscillator will be at the fundamental frequency and depend on 90 degree phase shift network to generate the quadrature clocks for the QSD. This should give more flexibility in finding suitable crystals for various bands. The version 5.0 will consist of a two board stack with each board having dimensions about 1 inch by 1.5 inches. The bottom board of the stack with have a 5 VDC regulator, two voltage comparitors, the QSD circuit and the low noise audio amplifiers. The upper board will contain the oscillator circuit, the 90 degree phase shift network, and the BPF for the desired band. The two boards will be joined electrically by a row of header pins on the top board and the corresponding sockets on the lower board. A threaded standoff between the two boards will provide for mechanically holding the upper board to the lower board. Corner mounting holes will be provided on the lower board. External electrical connections to the lower board will include, supply voltage (9-12 VDC), an antenna input and a stereo audio cable for line-in connection to the PC. Target kit price is in the mid-twenty dollar range for one set of boards and components for a single band. Additional band kits might be on the order of $12 each with 80 meters through 30 meters and possibly 20 meters also covered. Please let me know if there would be any interest in such a kit. Thanks and 73, Tony KB9YIG

Get it at http://www.philcovington.com/SDR.html Run the program... Click on Setup and make the appropriate changes for your sound card (Source/Sink), select your desired sampling rate and block size, and then Click on Start... I/Q balance can be adjusted manually as well as s-meter level correction on the Levels->Correction menu. If you are using a different crystal you can enter the center frequency on the Setup->Center Freq menu. It defaults to 7.056 Mhz Note that the DSB/LSB/USB/CW modes are combined into one selection right now. This is because the only difference between those modes is the filter values. The high and low filter values can be set between +/- 8000 Hz individually so you can tune USB - LSB - DSB - CWL - CWU - ISB - etc.. Other modes are AM, SAM, FM, and SPEC. I will add the individual SSB/DSB modes in the next release since it only involves shifting the filters around. Configuration settings are saved in a file called softrock.config.xml in the application's folder. It is an XML file so you can edit/view it with a text editor or web browser if desired. If you changed the sampling rate or block size you need to click the Stop button and then the Start button for the changes to take effect. The code was written with the open source SharpDevelop IDE. I hope that this will get people interested in writing their own code. It is also meant as a demonstration of how to use the SharpDSP library. This is a pre-Alpha release so expect some bugs. This preliminary release supports: * Sample rates up to 96000 Hz * Selectable block sizes from 64 to 8192 * Settings are saved in a text editable XML file (softrock.config.xml) * Center frequency can be set for other bands besides 40 meters. * Very low resource requirements (should help on older machines) Future updates will include the following features: * Dual receive capability within the Rx passband * Analog S-meter * Panadapter Display * TCP CAT support * Serial CAT support * TCP Audio Server support * Much more... report problems/bugs to Phil Covington, N8VB at p.covington@... 73 de Phil N8VB

Hi Cecil, I am working on a simple commandline demodulator for softrock40 using gnuradio. I haven't yet assembled my kit yet. Do you have a recording of the I and Q samples from the soundcard input, which I can use to test my software? May be just a 30 second one will do. -- 73 - Ramakrishnan, VU3RDD

I'm building a very simple DSB Tx using an SA602 with a 3.6864 Mz crystal. 4 x 3.6864 = 14.7456 and crystals on that frequency aren't all that hard to find (both frequencies are used for UART baud-rate generation). If I can get hold of one I'll convert my SR-40 to an SR-80. 73, Leon -- Leon Heller, G1HSM leon.heller@... http://www.geocities.com/leon_heller --- [This E-mail has been scanned for viruses but it is your responsibility to maintain up to date anti virus software on the device that you are currently using to read this email. ]

Hi all, I posted an update at http://www.philcovington.com/SDR.html Also, I added a blog entry on 10/12/2005 at http://pcovington.blogspot.com/ that describes how to manually calibrate the Image rejection, display frequency, and s-meter on the SharpDSP Mini Console. There are a few bugfixes and additions to this version. 73 de Phil N8VB

I initially started using the soft rock with the Power SDR software but last night downloaded the SDRadio and am hearing a lot more signals with it. I was able to easily null the image in the Power SDR setup and when there are a lot of siganls I don't notice anything except that it sounds real nice. So, I was wondering if anyone else has done and A/B with the 2 pieces of software and were able to tell a difference? Chris N7UJU

Hi Tony, The concept of the QRP SDR exciter card sounds great. Everyone on the planet (including myself) will want at least two! - Please elaborate on such prospects (We are in suspense). - Should we purchase the SoftRock40-Version5 and wait for the third (exciter) card or is the entire design likely to change with the addition of an exciter Thanks again and (((73))) Jim WA2UMP

Thanks to Bruce N1RX, the first bug in the SharpDSP Mini Console for the SoftRock 40 has been corrected. The updated binary and source are on my webpage. 73 de Phil N8VB

After much delay from working late, and lousy eyes, I finished building my SR-40. With much anticipation, I hook it up to a antenna and nothing, drats! Well I tuned around real slow, and I could barely hear a station, it was way into the noise, unreadable. I fired up the TS-940 and the band is deader than a doornail, at 7.038 I pick up a very weak beacon, so I hooked the TS-940 into a dummy load crank it down to two watts, and lo and behold there is a signal there on the SR-40. I changed the crystal frequency setting to 7.05427 in the FlexSDR software, and now SR-40 is dead on the money, go to look for the image signal, nothing there, moved the sliders and noted where it was 10 dB, noted what it was on the other side of the slider and put it in the middle, it's at the center of the slider, this unit was dead on the money out of the box. Thanks guys for a great little radio, I'm going to have fun with this guy. I received the crystals from Mouser for 8.830 MHz, in a couple of days that will be the next project. Cecil Bayona KD5NWA www.qrpradio.com I fail to see why doing the same thing over and over and getting the same results every time is insanity: I've almost proved it isn't; only a few more tests now and I'm sure results will differ this time ...

Good Morning All, There has been good response to doing a version 5.0 SoftRock so I started the board layout this morning. The board size of 1 inch by 1.5 inches for the top and bottom boards looks like a good fit for what needs to go on each board. The bottom board will have the four corner mounting holes with the holes sized for #4 hardware. A 10-pin connector will be located along one of the 1.5 inch sides of the bottom board to mate to a corresponding row of pins on the top board. Pins on the top board will be double ended to pass power/ground and various signals up to a possible third board for future use. (Future use could include a transmit function.) A receiver mute connection will be provided on the bottom board and require a logic low signal to mute the receiver. Schematic and board layout will be done in the ExpressPCB software. The ExpressPCB software is free to download from the internet and as I get the design entered I will post the files for others to exam. I hope to have the design files in pretty good shape by the end of this week. If the design looks like it will fly, I want to get boards and other parts on order the week of October 17 so that kits can go out to alpha testers the first week of November. Fifty kits in the alpha run looks possible with kit price in the mid-twenty dollar range. Your inputs would be appreciated. 73, Tony KB9YIG

Hi, Tony. Sounds real good. Put me on the list as an alpha test volunteer. Would be willing to evaluate each board as it becomes available. (i.e. main Rx board, plus each band/filter board, plus TX when available.) 73, Bruce N1RX

Hi, YES please. Count me in, I'll order one of these kits. Jarmo Blomster oh8kva