[PCR-1000] CWGet

[Matthew Francey]

"George, W5YR" <w5yr@att.net>:

>[paraphrasing:  the PCR1000 isn't a super-fantastic radio]

Yeah, well, sure.  What do you expect from a O($400) radio?  There
aren't many people who have the money, much less the tenacious
dedication and the concomittant ability to devote huge swaths of their
lives to justify an Icom R9000, Watkins-Johnson, Rhode-Shwarz
or similar high-end, gold-plated, silver lined, nuclear bomb proof
front end, to-the-last-RF-photon of sensitivity, and a bank of
filters with skirts as tight as a ... as a ... should I say it? ... no
... as tight as a bankers grip on a kuggerrand.

>[DSP may help with selectivity]

No, it won't.  The DSP in the PCR1000 (like other "amateur" level
units) works at AF, where you've already lost the battle of the
front-end and selectivity -- at least where it counts.

>[the radio is too small for effective filters]

You mean you were unaware of this?  Just look at the size of an IF
CW filter that goes into a typical amateur radio.

>[low noise for effective CW decoding]

Any CW decoder that isn't using a filter is a waste of time.
Yet from the description of this "CWGet", it appears it _is_ using a
filter of some kind.  It may well be FFT'ing the entire audio spectrum
and decoding each frequency bin simultaneously.  A task that would
hardly break a sweat on a typical 1GHz computer.

>[general FUD]

Bah.  If your PCR1000 is getting crunched, put a filter in front of it.
[I regularly use mine with a 2m 4-cavity filter in front of it.  Works
great.  You can get hi and lo pass coaxial filters from various places
for other bands of interest.  A UHF hi-pass filter, for example, can
be useful for 800MHz scanning in RF "thick" areas.]  If you need better
IF selectivity (eg, narrow CW filters), you'll have to get another
radio.  But before that, things like "CWGet" are appropriate experiments.