开云体育

I have one final filter I'd like to construct in the next day or so, a frequency notch for one broadcast band station. This would be used during times when I'd want to listen to the BB, but not be overwhelmed by the station close to me. I've looked at Elsie and the RF Tools website I used to help with the prior filter, but, unless I'm missing something, they don't cover this type of filter. Your thoughts would be welcome. Thanks, Jon

Hi All, I wanted to give a note of thanks for this group. Especially the ones who actually run the group (and I dont know who they are). Specifically: 1. Thanks to Allan, g4zfq for his vastly informational g4zfqradio site.. wonderful info.. https://sites.google.com/site/g4zfqradio/installing-and-using-hdsdr?authuser=0 Thanks so very much 2. Roger for his help and nice site and especially nice documents he spent so many hours on. https://qsl.net/ve7vv/ THANKS! 3. Shirley Dulcey KE1L for her always thoughtful and technical comments and direction. THANKS! 4. Bill KU8H his wonderful witty comments and direction. Thanks! 5. Franco iz2oos, neat nice comments and its fun seeing his operation with independent receiver and Transmitters.. 6. And to Richard WB5RVZ http://www.wb5rvz.org/ Who spent countless hours putting together Assembly information on many different softrocks... I cant imagine the time he spent doing this. 7. And to Tony Parks KB9YIG.. the keeper and maker of kits http://fivedash.com/ I cannot thank him enough.. for the joy he brings to me through his kits.. ( I just ordered a couple more..) So many others.. too. I have vastly enjoyed reading and studying and learning from this group. It has been a boon to me and given me many hours of joy and contentment and a place to go when things get pretty bad with home issues and my special needs son. I use the hobby as a refuge and as a distraction when I cannot sleep at night and anytime I need to adjust my thoughts. Best! 73 N1GMM Guy Keep on the sunny side!

Hi all, I am trying to understand the circuitry, which controls the bias of the PA. My reference circuit diagram is dated 8/14/10. What I am assuming: Q5 / BS170 controls the 2N2222 collector supply voltage by acting as a variable voltage divider R37-FET-R41. What I don't understand is the function of D3 and Q4, they seem to control the gate bias of Q7 and Q8 thru T3. Would highly appreciate any help. Thanks and best 73 Felix, DB9FN

Didn't notice this behavior this afternoon, but tonight I seem to be getting quite a few broadcast station images, especially between 350 to 500 Khz on LF Ensemble. I can still hear longwave beacons, for example, but there may be a broadcast station interferring with it. As far as I know, the band filters are enabled and the proper ones selected in CFGSR. LO is set at 16 instead of 4 like for HF. I'm getting these images stations whether I am on my 100 foot wire or tuned loop.

Been trying out a couple of different preamps lately with the Softrock. One seems to work fine, steady gain on all bands, but with the other, images are appearing on each side of center. Why?

Would appreciate direction on this. Right now, I turn off the desktop, plug in either SDR, reboot, then select the correct one in HDSDR's "init" tab, reboot and then the right one is there. I believe they are both using the same driver, but not sure how to install to make the LF one separate from the HF. Also, I keep having to recalibrate in HDSDR if switching out the HF unit for LF or vice versa. Just would like to keep both connected simultaneously and then switch to one or the other for use. Thanks in advance for your help.

Tony's revamping of the HF to LF SDR, and its arrival today, caused me to further track down interference since it was worse on LF. I've managed to find and eliminate almost all such sources now with one exception: I run an LED "fluorescent" light in the kitchen. It's a small unit with obvious switching power supply within. Unfortunately, it causes interference around 4 Mhz. A trick I tried with my cordless phone base, also causing interference, and that trick was wrapping the power supply wires through a couple of ferrite cores, is not working with the LED fluorescent. It continues to cause a buzz in HF. It's a safety hazard to one of the occupants living here not to have the light plugged in 24/7, so I would appreciate any suggestions you might have. Thanks! Jon

I know, the question seems elementary, but I am having difficulty. Tony revamped my existing HF for LF and it is working beautifully. However, right now, if I want to use either one or the other SDR (HF or LF), my procedure is to shut down, plug in one or the other via USB, reboot, check CFGSR to make sure it works, then start HDSDR, click on SDR-Device and go to the Init menu to select either Ensemble RX II LF or HF. Reboot is checked, I click on default init and then reboot. Can someone tell me how I can leave both SDR's connected so I can pick either one or the other when in HDSDR? I believe I am using the same driver for both, just making the change to one or the other in HDSDR. Not sure how to install a separate driver for LF. Also, one thing I keep having to do after switching SDR's is recalibrating in HDSDR on the calibrate tab after first using ECSS/AFC on an appropriate signal. Thank you!

Maybe I never noticed this before, but during my tuning around with the SDR, I notice an apparent communication mode and I'd like to find out what it's called. I hear it on the lower part of the bands, not up where voice is. If I listen to it on USB, for example, it is a series of closely spaced tones and they almost have a musical quality. It must be communication because one series will stop and then another will start, but the tones will be slightly different. Can someone tell me what this is called? Thanks!

As you know, made the 9:1 unun yesterday for the random wire and it is performing fabulously well! Gave the wire new life. Now the big question is how to weatherproof it as it will be outside all the time? The way I made it was placing the toroid into a homemade box. The box I made yesterday from pieces of copper clad circuit board. I tack soldered the sides but, as I made the whole thing on the spur of the moment, there is much uneveness of sides and I didn't want to use my roll of solder on all of the seams. I was thinking of following up with something like outdoor silicone. I also have liquid electrical tape handy, but it would be more awkward to fill the gaps than with the silicone/ caulking gun. Your thoughts welcome and thanks in advance. Jon

Hello, I built a softrock RXTX some years ago. I think it was around 2012. It worked at the time. Never actually made a contact with it - 1W just wasn't enough power. I rediscovered it while I was poking around in my junk for another project. First challenge was the power connector - it's a different size than all the other 12V stuff in the shack. I scrounged a 12V socket out of a defunct wifi router and replaced it. Now the softrock has its 12V. But it doesn't work. I downloaded the drivers and software off fivedash.com, and the gorgeous SDR display is running....but no actual signals. I remember I had gotten a high-zoot usb audio adapter to use with the softrock, but now I cannot find it. I did locate a couple of generic green "jellybean" usb adapters, and they seem to work as far as hearing hum and scratches off the input cable. But the displayed spectrum is all noise, and does not change when I unplug the 12V. Also doesn't change when I unplug the antenna. I don't remember which band I built it for - but figure 40M or 20M would be a good bet. Whups, that's verified - L2 and L3 are 16 turns on a yellow core. So I built it for 40-30-20. How to get started troubleshooting? Just for yuks, I scoped the si570 clock chip and saw a 3V p-p signal at 56.428MHz. It does change when tune with the HDSDR program. I tried feeding a fairly robust signal into the input from a tinySA. When I did this, it behaved like there was a short at the input transformer. Plug the tinySA directly into the scope - big signal. Plug it into the transceiver input, scope across the input connect - zilch. I see there's a broadband transformer at the input, followed by a pi-network LPF. I would expect some modification of the input signal, but not zilch. Yet I seem to remember it working when I built it. - Jerry KF6VB

I know, hard to believe, as 95% of my questions have been the other way around, but I have a recommendation called the Wenzel "hula loop" 3-30 Mhz antenna: http://techlib.com/electronics/antennas.html After getting back into the receiving side of things after over a decade, I wanted to start off with something that didn't break the bank but also offered as good of receive as possible. I used to have a 10 meter vertical on a mast which, when the HF conditions were much better than they are now, did a more than sufficient job with the Softrock on pretty much all HF. The vertical was removed and most of the equipment either sold or thrown away. There was no vertical to hook up this time, but I did notice the much weaker HF on the attic dipole, which just wasn't cutting it. I already knew of Wenzel's many circuits, and if fact have built some in the past, so they all have a good reputation, but I never dabbled in any of his radio circuits. I could see that the loop was of little cost so decided to give it a try. That was nearly a month ago. The results have been surprising. Still using it indoors, I pick up regular QSO's on 10-160 with decent strength. WWV/ CHU often come in with good signals. It uses varactor tuning, but the bandwidth is wide enough that I only need to retune once upon entering a new HF band. You know I have had noise issues, but 99% of this has been solved with sources being router cables, USB keyboard and desktop monitor. There is some noise that comes from outdoors, but I can null this out by rotating the loop. I find that there isn't much directionality above about 3 Mhz, but it will still null out offending signals. All in all, I highly recommend this loop especially if you're on a budget like I am, have limited space, but still want to pick up the best and strongest signals possible. His loop makes that happen. He mounts the loop outdoors on a mast with antenna rotor and claims extraordinary results. I believe this from what I have experienced with the loop indoors. At this time, I won't be doing the same, at least not with the loop due to budget. I am now in the process of building his active antenna also listed there further on down the page. It has no gain, but adapts the 6-8 foot wire to 50 ohm impedance for amp in-line use which is my intention. Maybe this will help those who want to boost their receive, but not sure of the best approach. Jon

I wanted to make my Softrock ensemble cover all HF bands and increase the power output. I modified the Softrock so it could be used on all HF bands, and connected it to a uBitx that I was no longer using, using the uBitx RF output stage LPFs and retaining the uBtix Arduino to control the uBitx. The way the uBitx is designed, it is easy to have a different supply voltage (keep it under 25 volts unless you want to change the aluminum bypass caps). I changed the IRF510s in the uBitx RF output stage to IRF520s and increased the output amplifier supply voltage to 19 volts. With this configuration, I have up to 52 watts rms output. I have attached my schematics and design notes. More work can be done to get a more uniform (and higher) power across the bands, but I am moving on to other projects now. Maybe I will get back to this project later. I will upload my schematics and design notes for those who are interested. 73 Howard, W2HFF

I've had this issue off and on ever since setting up the Ensemble RX II a couple of months back. I can't trust that it will be running, so the first thing I do when in Win 7 is check CFGSR to see whether or not the unit is connected. About half of the time, it isn't and the only way to remedy is to reboot. After one reboot, most of the time it then shows connectivity but every so often it will take two reboots. A remedy for this would be welcome. I've tried different USB ports and in fact it is plugged into four plug hub right now. Thanks. Jon

For the first time in three decades, I'm going to need to buy about 50 feet of 50 ohm coax. I am installing an outdoor antenna, so will need it. I am on a limited budget. It will be used for the Softrock RX. The antenna and Softrock both use BNC, so would prefer to stick to that since adapters add to the cost. So, what coax brand is recommended? Thanks.

Well, one of the last remaining issues continued to be birdies, with spacing varying depending upon band so sometimes they might be 20-30 Khz apart, other times more and also more frequent. Tonight, I discovered that is from the other router I use. For my internet, I use a cat5 cable from the router to the laptop. When I unplugged the cable, the birdies disappeared. Now I ask, what can be done? I guess I could always unplug it when accessing my SDR from the laptop remotely, but was hoping for something better. I tried cat6 cable. The tones were not as strong but still present. Then I placed ferrite cores around the cable and didn't seem to make much difference, then tried the switching supply feeding the router. No effect either. Jon

...other than unplugging it! My USB keyboard is causing quite a lot of interference to the Softrock. I have tried different USB ports, but still have noise. I also used a couple of snap closed ferrite chokes. This helps, but if I keep adding them, soon there won't be enough wire left for the keyboard to be of any use. I just wondered if maybe there was something I could add to the inside of the keyboard which might suffice. Thanks!

I finally figured out the source of my interference- my USB powered speakers! Never thought it would be those, so never checked them. However, no matter if I plug in on the desktop USB or the little USB 5V module that plugs into the AC, I get the noise! Unfortunately, I really like these little speakers but I don't absolutely have to use them and the headphones are doing fine for now. I tried wrapping the USB wires around a couple snap closed ferrite cores I have here. This did help somewhat, but there's still a nasty central interference band at random on HF (about 5 Khz wide). Other than not using the speakers, might there be something else I could do to stop the interference? Could I build a better USB filter or do something to the speaker circuit? Just some thoughts, not critical and thanks in advance. On a separate note, I would appreciate some thoughts on a Wellbrook loop and how it works with the Softrock as well as performance with a short (less than 8 feet) active antenna. The loop would primarily be used indoors or perhaps in a 15 foot high attic; the active whip outdoors maybe 15 feet high. I've seen plenty of videos on these loops/ antennas, but nothing Softrock specific. Thanks. Jon

Since I have the extra HF, I am considering changing out components to get LF. I am looking at his page: http://www.wb5rvz.org/ensemble_rx_ii/index?projectId=16 Is all that would be required under the "180 Khz through 3000 Khz LF BPF set"? I don't believe any of the component changes here are surface mount, correct? What type of capacitors are those? Thank you, Jon

Because the Softrock and associated PC are in an isolated room in the house, to keep everything in close proximity to the antenna, my radio servicing lab, etc etc, I have been trying to form a remote connection between where I use my laptop and the desktop where the SDR is. The Softrock desktop has Win 7 and my laptops have Ubuntu 18.04. Yesterday, I found a Ubuntu program that allowed the link called Remmina. It allows use of RDP (remote desktop protocol) that Win uses and, after a few hours, got the link made between the laptop and desktop. However, there's one thing missing: sound. While I can remotely play a sound file on the Win desktop and hear it through the laptop, as well as any Win made sounds, I am unable to transfer any sound from HDSDR. It's not a complete deal breaker as I could run an extended speaker wire out to where I use the laptop, but I would rather avoid it if possible. Any ideas as to how to transfer the sound would be welcome and thanks in advance. Jon