[DSP-10] Getting Started on First DSP-10

[Paul Black]

I've taken the plunge and ordered the DSPx and the adaptor board from 
TAPR. More S/N is always a good thing. As I live in Sydney Australia it 
will take about two weeeks to arrive. But hey I'm good at waiting (well 
not really).

I was reading that the DSPx could be used with the DSP-10 program 
without all of the RF hardware. I also read that this could be done by 
feeding in the audio out from your receiver. As I am basically a SWL 
this seems to me to be a good way to get started. I could then use the 
DSP-10 software as a programmable filter to improve the quality of my 
received amateur transmissions.

As I've been searching around the internet I've also read about a 
program called LinRad which works using a sound card. Now here is where 
I start to get confused. The LinRad docs talk about needing to feed the 
IF output from my receiver into the LinRad program to perform signal 
processing, but the DSP-10 program does much the same thing by feeding 
in the audio out from my receiver.  How does a PC soundcard manage to 
digitize a 455 KHz signal taken directly from the IF? What is gained by 
directly processing the IF signal? Can the DSP-10 do the same sort of 
thing and take an input directly from the IF out of a receiver?

Cheers.   Paul


Perry Ogletree wrote:

> I have used the DSPx and it works better than the EZKit Lite board.  I 
> have not used it with the DSP-10 yet as I am still building it, but I 
> have played with the DSPx and the EZKit Lite.  The DSPx is based on a 
> later DSP chip in the same family as the EZKit.  You will need the 
> customized code from the DSPx site as it uses a different ADC/DAC chip 
> (the one the EZKit used is on longer generally available).  Also, 
> there was a mix-up of one of the output pins that requires a minor 
> wiring change in the DSP-10 harness.  All this is detailed via links 
> form the DSPx site.  The overall benefit of the DSPx is improved S/N 
> and since it has more "horsepower" it would be possible to write your 
> own code that includes advanced modes.
>