[Lowfer] Question about SDR Dongle with Win-XP

Tue Oct 9 08:27:32 EDT 2018

I am in the midst of building the Softrock Ensemble II Lowfer kit. I bought
it several years ago. I also decided to use some toroids with a greater mu
that require less turns (I hate winding toroids with more than a few
turns!).  Tony also made a small number of add-on boards with another
divider stage that allows them to tune down to the tens of kHz. I have one
of them too.

I've been impressed with the Softrock Ensemble II for shortwave and VHF.
Hopefully this one does as well.

73, Zack W9SZ

On Tue, Oct 9, 2018 at 5:12 AM Chris Wilson <chris at chriswilson.tv> wrote:

> Hello Andy,
>
>  Tuesday, October 9, 2018
>
>  Be aware Tony Parks of Five Dash Softrock fame has retired and I
>  *THINK* the kits are no longer available, although I did read that a
>  few kit options appeared on the web site recently but were "Sold Out"
>  within a day or two. You occasionally see unbuilt kits turn up and
>  some built ones in the amateur for sale groups. They are superb value
>  and worth tracking down! The Kiwi SDR is great, but quite expensive.
>  I use a Red Pitaya (also not exactly cheap but versatile with so many
>  well sorted firmware options available) and run the HDSDR software on
>  the available firmware, it has proven to be reliable and with a cheap
>  Ebay pre amp brilliant on LF. I am pretty sure it will run on XP but
>  haven't tried it. HDSDR will run on XP for sure. You could also look
>  for a basic Sofrock Lite II IF receiver, they could be ordered with a
>  455kHz crystal for single band MF usage and are simply converted for
>  LF. They too work superbly on a decent aerial.
>
>  It would be great if Tony could be persuaded to at least make bare
>  PCB's available, I have hinted at it but I guess retired is retired
>  and he's certainly already given a lot to the amateur world at great
>  value for money :)
>
>
> Best regards,
>  Chris    2E0ILY       mailto:chris at chriswilson.tv
>
>
> AKvL>  Hi Clint:
> AKvL> Thanks for the info.. That's a lot to think on.. The Softrock,
> AKvL> or possibly better, a KIWIlooks like a better way to go over the
> AKvL> RTL dongles... It might be time to consider thechange to Linux
> AKvL> as you mention for these old dinosaurs.. The still work just as they
> AKvL> were designed to do, and I hate to " throw them away "...
>
> AKvL> 73 for now:
> AKvL> Andy - KU4XR
>
> AKvL>     On Monday, October 8, 2018, 1:04:59 PM EDT, Clint Turner <
> turner at ussc.com> wrote:
> AKvL>
> AKvL>  Hi Andy,
>
> AKvL> There are several "moderately-priced" options:
>
> AKvL> While one of those $20 RTL-SDR dongles may look attractive - and
> will
> AKvL> (more ore less) work for LF (if you get one that does "direct" input
> AKvL> such as the "RTL-SDR.com" sells - AND if you remove the DC power
> AKvL> insertion jumper as noted in their documentation) the "only 8 bits"
> of
> AKvL> A/D conversion is a huge factor.
>
> AKvL> There are those (more expensive) with built-in "up-converters" (e.g.
> AKvL> they take LF/HF signals and convert them up to >100MHz) rather than
> AKvL> using the "direct" mode:  Even though they may have 1ppm TCXOs in
> them,
> AKvL> you'll likely see a bit of drift on very narrow-band signals.
> Whether
> AKvL> or not this mixer is good down to LF/MF - or even capable of the
> dynamic
> AKvL> range of the device itself depends largely on how well-engineered it
> AKvL> was.  (I personally avoid the up-converter if it's reasonable to do
> so.)
>
> AKvL> While I am (sort of) able to get away with this sort of thing on the
> AKvL> "AM-160-120M" receiver on the Northern Utah WebSDR, this is possible
> AKvL> only with with (what is possibly over-the-top) levels of filtering
> AKvL> coupled with judicious amounts of amplification (see:
> AKvL>
> http://ka7oei.blogspot.com/2018/02/managing-hf-signal-dynamics-on-rtl-sdr.html
> AKvL> )
>
> AKvL> The upshot is that these dongles are "marginally usable" for
> anything
> AKvL> other than the VHF/UHF frequencies for which they were designed -
> but
> AKvL> there are a few things that *may* make them usable - particularly in
> AKvL> light of their very low cost:
>
> AKvL> - Use a band-pass filter only for the frequency of interest.
> (Usually a
> AKvL> good practice no matter what).
>
> AKvL> - Carefully set the RF input level so that they will "clip" (maximum
> AKvL> A/D) only occasionally under "strong signal conditions".
>
> AKvL> - Even more important is to set the level so that under "quiet"
> AKvL> conditions that you are always "tickling" the bottom 2-3 bits:
> AKvL> Under-driving (too-low signal) is arguably more deleterious than
> AKvL> mild/moderate overdriving.
>
> AKvL> - To do the above, the software needs to have some way of monitoring
> the
> AKvL> raw A/D levels as it may not be difficult to find the "sweet spot" -
> or
> AKvL> even know if you are over/under driving without it.  I don't know if
> the
> AKvL> available RTL-SDR dongle programs for Windows even have this
> capability.
>
> AKvL> As for which will work with XP:  You may need to dig around and find
> AKvL> some old drivers as the current crop of drivers from "Zadig" do
> *NOT*
> AKvL> support XP.
>
> AKvL> * * *
>
> AKvL> Another option that will probably yield */far superior/* results
> AKvL> (because of much better RF circuitry and the use of an A/D converter
> - a
> AKvL> sound card - with 16 bit depth) would be to use an "Softrock" type
> AKvL> receiver.  Ones that I would recommend are those from "fivedash.com"
> and
> AKvL> there are two to consider:
>
> AKvL> - The "LF/MF" version of the Softrock Ensemble II.  As a kit it's in
> the
> AKvL> $70 range and a pre-built is already available This is a
> self-contained
> AKvL> receiver with switchable band-pass filters that can cover from
> AKvL> 130kHz-3MHz - provided that you use a 192 kHz sound card (the local
> AKvL> oscillator, as designed, doesn't really go much below 200 kHz unless
> one
> AKvL> added another divide-by-two and reconfigured the USB interface chip
> to
> AKvL> account for that - both of which are easily done, but not well
> AKvL> documented.  I use this for monitoring the range for monitoring the
> AKvL> range that includes the 2200 and 1750 meter bands and it works well.
>
> AKvL> - A modified "Softrock II Lite" receiver, available as a kit for
> around
> AKvL> $20.  If your PC already has a half-decent sound card (which will
> AKvL> probably be only 48 or 96 kHz sampling rate) this may be the most
> AKvL> economical option. The Northern Utah WebSDR uses this for its 630
> meter
> AKvL> band receiver (a receiver for covering 2200-1750 is available, but
> AKvL> pending some infrastructure work to allow the installation of an
> antenna
> AKvL> that will work <250 kHz) and I have documented how this may be done,
> here:
>
> AKvL> http://websdr1.utahsdr.org/info/rx_equipment.html#lf_mf_receiver
>
> AKvL> This shows the revised input filtering and modifications for these
> AKvL> receivers to work at 630 and also 2200-1750 meters, including
> revised
> AKvL> band-pass filters that are specifically designed for 2200-1750 and
> also
> AKvL> 630 meter use, being optimized for use with a 96kHz sound card -
> needed
> AKvL> if you plan to cover 2200+1750 meters.  (A lowly 48kHz sound card is
> AKvL> find for 630 meters.)
>
> AKvL> Not shown in the diagram - but described elsewhere on the above page
> -
> AKvL> is how these are interfaced with the $18 "SoftRock" kit (from QRP
> labs)
> AKvL> as the local oscillators:  The QRP labs kit can produce up to 3 LO
> AKvL> signals, so just one of these will produce the two LOs needed for
> AKvL> 2200-1750+630 meter coverage.
>
> AKvL> The /second/ option (the modified Softrock II Lite) is almost
> AKvL> hardware-agnostic:  As long as you can find some sort of program
> that
> AKvL> will run on your computer and do the audio processing, you will be
> AKvL> fine:  Older version of programs like HDSDR, etc. work and I've used
> AKvL> them in the past on XP machines.
>
> AKvL> * * *
>
> AKvL> If you have old hardware kicking around, one should not completely
> AKvL> ignore the possibility of using them with a "ham radio" version of
> Linux
> AKvL> (free!) that will do everything you need, and be more "lightweight"
> in
> AKvL> its processor and memory requirements. There are some "live boot"
> (e.g.
> AKvL> run from a DVD or thumb drive - no need to install to try them out,
> you
> AKvL> can install later) "ham radio" distros out there with which one can
> AKvL> test, but it would require a bit of a learning curve.  There are a
> AKvL> number of programs in these Linux distros that will work with both
> AKvL> dongle and sound-card based systems.
>
> AKvL> I hope that this helps.
>
> AKvL> 73,
>
> AKvL> Clint
>
> AKvL> KA7OEI
>
>
> AKvL> On 10/7/2018 4:29 PM, Andy - KU4XR via Lowfer wrote:
> >> Greetings all:
> >>
> >> The quickest way to obtain information ... ask those who ARE ... I have
> a couple of windows XP machines that
> >> I would like to possibly put back into service as a " Remote Receiver "
> setup using a Dongle and software..
> >> As always, I am budget oriented, so, which Dongles, and which Software
> will work with Windows XP ??
> >>
> >> Thanks for information, and 73:
> >>
> >> Andy - KU4XR
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