[Elecraft] SDR with a Twist

[Lyle Johnson]

  I just received my FLEX-1500.   I think they have shipped 1,000 of 
these in the last few weeks, erasing their backlog dating about 12 
months.  It has a transmit problem and is going back to the factory for 
repair, but examining the unit got me to thinking once more about PC 
based SDR, Elecraft and our unique place in Amateur radio.

Please bear with me.

The Flex is a dual Eurocard box, so it measures about 4 x 6 x 2.  It has 
a 5W Tx with band coverage limits, and a 1 mW transverter side with no 
band limits.  It covers 160m - 6m continuously ,using a DDS. It accepts 
a 10 MHz reference and a lot of the focus of the radio is toward 
microwave and VHF/UHF folks.  But they are also trying hard to break 
ground into the QRP community, as witnessed by their blitz at Dayton 
last year at the QRP hotel.

An almost universal complaint with the Flex products, including the 
-1500, is less-than-stellar CW performance.  The internal keyer is 
rough, it doe snot do QSK, it uses T/R relays, etc.

PowerSDR is a screen hog.

The -1500 does not support VOX.  It doesn't even have a speaker amplifier.

Etc.

Here is my thought:

Elecraft makes a box about the size of the -1500.  It has a basic 10W 
transceiver, space for internal battery (option), space for an internal 
ATU (option).  Rather than leverage PowerSDR we enter an agreement with 
Alex, VE3NEA.  He was written Rocky which has an elegant, eminnently 
uncluttered UI.  Rocky is freeware, but he could tailor it to our new 
product. It is not open source.  He'd get a royalty or some upfront 
engineering payment.  Alex is the author of CW SKimmer, so this opens 
more markets for that software for him.  ROcky woudlnt' need much to be 
a great user program for us.

And -bing! - it uses little screen real estate, so our portable unit is 
Netbook compatible.  PowerSDR is a hog on a netbook, and you have to use 
an expanded screen so you can;t even see the minimum PowerSDR screen all 
at once, never mind trying to run some logging program, or skimmer, or 
digimode stuff.

Oh, and it already supports the Si570 :-)

Netbooks are cheap, $300 typical, and have long-enough lasting batteries 
for a day in the field.

If you've never played with Rocky, you should. Get a $19 softrock from 
KB9YIG and fire it up with Rocky.  You'll be impressed with what Alex 
has done.

Our SDR woudl have a K1EL WinKeyer (or similar) to get around the iambic 
keyer propblem and windows lantency that Flex has been fighting for 
years now.  With our 10W PA and PIN diode T/R switching, we beat FLex 
hands down for our groupies, the QRP CW operators of the world.

With the battery option and internal ATU option, we've got a portable 
radio station that is inexpensive, powerful and highly portable.

With Alex doing the Rocky code, our support issues are reduced.  We're 
not trying to appeal to an open-source religious community,

We'd fall a bit short with no external reference input.  We could do a 
frequency locked system with the Si570, but not a phase-locked one.  
Then again, how many people are really doing moonbounce and need that 
additional stability and accuracy?

Using the TI PCM2900 series CODEC (I suspect FLex uses this as well, I 
haven't opened my -1500 and it is now in the hands of UPS to get 
repaired.replaced).  But this CODEC is recognized by all sorts of 
computer OSes.  We could open up the radio's API so anyone who wanted to 
could port another SDR app to run our radio (like PowerSDR, or WinRad, 
or LinRad, or...  :-)

This would gives us a very competitive radio, open a new audience to 
Elecraft, provide another "I gotta have it" product for our existing 
customers, catapult us to the front of the line for QRP SDR, leverage 
our existing designs and expertise, have low risk, we need to write ZERO 
DSP code and ZERO UI code.  We just need to manage T/R switching and 
enforce band limits, implement a keyer with a standard protocol (hence 
the Winkey).

The case is simple: ON|OFF and a couple of LEDs on one side.  A USB 
connector, expansion/accessory connector (similar to Flexwire), mic 
jack, keyer jack, phones jack.

Low risk way to evaluate a lot of the technology for the KX2 and 
possibly the K4 IF section (QSD/QSE, no tune BPF and LPF, Si570 Synth, 
switching regulator).  We can use the foundation and add a front panel 
(top panel?) section and etc. and create the KX2, or at least the 
functional equivalent.  The limited DR of the TI CODEC would require 
intelligent use of a preamp and multi-stage attenuator, but Alex is 
clever and would manage that quite well, I think.

Leverage, leverage, leverage.

Could have it by Dayton 2011 in spite of the setbacks this summer from 
component issues.

Basic 10W radio: $699 (Flex 1500 is 5W and $649)
Internal ATU: $149 (superset of T1?)
Battery pack: $129 (Li-Ion with charge controller)

If we never market it, it is a good development vehicle for the KX2 (all 
but the DSP and FP). IF we do market it, it is a great product and helps 
keep Flex away from an important segment of our customer base (QRP and 
especially CW QRP).

?

L