[Elecraft] K3 and Perseus SDR panadapter/receiver

[Dave G4AON]

Hello David

A friend has a Perseus and he found it outperformed his TS480. The 
RadCom review of it puts the 3rd order IMD as 102 dB at any signal 
spacing (http://www.ssb.de/amateur/pdf/radcom_mar08.pdf for those who 
are not RSGB members), so it is not a second rate receiver in it's own 
right.

I have not tried any other SDR receiver and was put off by the others 
needing a high grade sound card, the Perseus connects via USB and has an 
800 KHz span rising to 1600 KHz in the next software release. It can 
store 800 KHz of any band from 10 KHz to 30 MHz to hard disk for replay 
later, using some 1.7 GB of disk space every 10 minutes. That bandwidth 
will work very well with CW skimmer, but my initial attempt fouled up 
the computer and needed an XP restore... I have a full backup of the 
hard disk so I'll have another go, some of the software fudges needed 
with these disconnected applications is tedious, no doubt in the not so 
distant future there will be some integration taking place. I understand 
Simon of Ham Radio Deluxe fame is already looking into further features 
with HRD. Note com0com and HRD work fine...

73 Dave, G4AON

David Cutter wrote:
> Dave
>
> I imagine you examined several panadapters before opting for the 
> fairly expensive Perseus.  What were the persuading features that drew 
> you to your choice?
>
> David
> G3UNA
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Dave G4AON" <elecraft at astromag.co.uk>
> To: <elecraft at mailman.qth.net>
> Sent: Saturday, September 20, 2008 2:52 PM
> Subject: [Elecraft] K3 and Perseus SDR panadapter/receiver
>
>
>> This week I bought a Perseus receiver and have it hooked up to my K3 
>> via "com0com" and Ham Radio Deluxe to act as a panoramic display for 
>> the K3.
>>
>> I am not using the insensitive IF out of the K3, instead I am using a 
>> home made ferrite hybrid splitter on the KXV3 RX RF out/in of the K3, 
>> one port goes to the Perseus, the other to the KXV3 RF input (not the 
>> main antenna socket). The loss through the splitter is 3 dB.
>>
>> In order to run the above combination, the freeware program com0com 
>> (http://com0com.sourceforge.net/) is run to create virtual com ports 
>> 10 and 11 -instructions for doing this at the Sourceforge web site. 
>> Power up the K3 and the Perseus (including it's perseus.exe 
>> software). The the latest version of HRD should be run twice, one 
>> application controlling the K3, the other the Perseus. In HRD click 
>> the "Synch" button and link the two radios together. I use the 
>> Perseus as "Master" (sorry politically correct people, but that's 
>> what it's called). It works great with full dual receive and "click 
>> and go", the K3 tunes within a hairs breadth of the Perseus which has 
>> the benefit of a 1ppm TCXO too. You can set the K3 as master and have 
>> the Perseus follow, but I mostly use the "click and go" where the 
>> Perseus drives the K3.
>>
>> The noise reduction of the Perseus is currently better, in my 
>> opinion, than that in the K3 when dealing with wide band white 
>> "frying" noise and the Perseus has synchronous AM - needless to say 
>> it works very well on those 80m AM stations and of course broadcast 
>> stations.
>>
>> The Perseus is more expensive by a long way than the simple Softrock 
>> receivers and LP-PAN, but it is darn good.
>>
>> 73 Dave, G4AON
>> K3/100 #80
>>
>>
>