[Elecraft] Comparison: K3 and SDR 5000A

[Richard Smith]

Hi John,

As I understand it, latency is no longer an issue.  Latency issues with the 
early versions of PowerSDR and the SDR-1000 have been resolved.  That being 
said, signal processing latency is a fact of life for all digital radios. 
We are talking microseconds, and I don't think its fair to say that the 
performance of the SDR-5000A will be inferior in this respect to other 
radios such as the K3.  PCs are pretty damn fast processors these days.  I 
think the much slower serial control commands are more significant in 
dictating the feel of the software controlled radio than the signal 
processing latency.

73,

Rich W1EZ


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "John A. McCabe" <johnamccabe at verizon.net>
Cc: <elecraft at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Tuesday, October 09, 2007 12:53 PM
Subject: Re: [Elecraft] Comparison: K3 and SDR 5000A


> Hi Rich,
>
> Actually, and correct me if I am wrong on this, but I believe that one of 
> the bigger issues with SDR's right now is with latency. There is some 
> delay in the processing of the signal on the computer which can cause 
> effects such as slower turn around time for CW/Digtal Modes, slightly 
> slower tuning, a slight delay in received and transmitted audio, etc. I 
> know there has been a lot of  improvement made in that area, but I don't 
> believe it is quite at the level of other radios such as the K3. . Whether 
> or not this latency is more or less more then serial control of a radio, I 
> am not sure. But I suspect that some of that might depend on the baud rate 
> of the radio. I have a TS-2000 set to 57600 baud and it seems quite 
> responsive, whereas my K2 which I believe is 4800 baud is noticeably less 
> responsive. I am not sure what the baud rate is on the K3. And as far as 
> booting up a computer, I work as a computer consultant, and sometimes the 
> last thing I want to do when I get home from work is boot up my computer 
> :)
>
> John, KD8K
>
>