[Elecraft] KX3- laptops for I/Q

[Thomas Horsten]

Brian,

Some laptops are good, some are bad. This varies even between laptops even
with the same chipset, because the support chips differ. I've found that of
all the laptops I've tried, only a HP 8440 had a really good chipset for
SDR sampling up to 92kHz.

Consider getting an external USB soundcard like the E-MU 0202, which works
great on any laptop, or even the SDR Widget (still in the process of
building mine, but the performance data is amazing even at 192kHz, beating
any built-in or external sound cards on the market for this application!)

You probably won't get any decent 192kHz sampling in any laptop. To get the
noise level acceptable at this sampling rate, very careful design
considerations have to go into it, which would conflict with the space
constraints etc. of a laptop.

So far, I haven't seen a really "bad" HP, nor a really good Dell... But
those are just my experiences, YMMV.

73, Thomas M0TRN

On 31 January 2012 22:22, Brian Pepperdine <brianpepperdine at sympatico.ca>wrote:

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> I realize we are all still waiting for the KX3... somewhat patiently.In
> advance of that.. I know there has been some discussion already on
> soundcards to make use of the I/Q output.
> But... I did want to raise the ugly spectre of the 'laptop' computer.I
> solved my soundcard issue on my home tower computer (real one with slots
> for a COMM card, sound card, etc) for LP-PAN by using an internal PCIe card
> chosen from Larry's list of approved cards.
> However....
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> With laptops I believe that it seems there is a real lack of quality in
> built-in / motherboard integrated soundcards these days. Am I correct? I
> wonder if anyone is able to suggest what sort of machines would be up to
> the task? Is there something in the specs that we can be on the look-out
> for?
> I see the KX3 .... with the I/Q lending a hand on the laptop on the gazebo
> deck (ah, summer).Or... I guess I can start haunting the computer
> re-builders for an oldie with the guts and a slot and PCMCIA soundcard I
> want and hope to keep it going.
> BrienVE3VAW
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