[Premium-Rx] SDR radios: RFSpace, WinRadio & Flex Radio

[Guy Atkins]

Hi Terry,

Thanks for your comments regarding the sigint capabilities of the SDR-14. It
sounds truly awesome for analysis of the spectrum.

My interest is weak signal DX from foreign MW stations and the domestic
broadcasters on the tropical bands. I've had just a little hands-on
experience with a friend's Winradio g303i receiver at a WA USA coastal
DXpedition (Don may in lurk-mode lately on the Prem-RX list; perhaps he can
chime in with his own comments.)

Our group typically tunes manually through the AM broadcast band, in USB/LSB
modes, seeking hets between the 10-kHz spaced North American stations. When
a het is found we'll sit on the frequency for a while, hoping that it breaks
into audio which we can DX. Various Beverage antennas in conjunction with
software tools like Geoclock and current frequency references like the
Pacific Asian Log increase our chances of IDing tough catches.

The up-close spectrum display of the g303i soon showed its worth for the
kind of DX we pursue. The weak hets were easily visible as peaks in the
noise, between the 10-kHz channels. In fact, close scrutiny of the spectrum
display could reveal a het in the noise that wasn't even noticeable yet by
ear. The g303i is an excellent tool in this regard-- it's very fun to
visually scan a swath of the band shown with the Winradio, and then zero-in
on the potential "blip" with other receivers or the g303i itself. The g303i
can easily show a foreign MW broadcaster located one kHz away from a
domestic if the het rises out of the shadow of the domestic's envelope. It's
capability sure beats devices such as the Heathkit SB620 Panadaptor for
visual monitoring... we've come a long way in a few short decades.

The g303i's spectrum display for foreign MW DX hunting is a great addition
to Nick Hall-Patch's "DX Radar" DOS program, which is described towards the
end of this article:
http://www.hard-core-dx.com/nordicdx/dxlab/hitechdx/hitechdx.html

That's the extent of my g303i experience. It has many more built-in
monitoring tools, and it's audio quality is excellent. The DSP IF bandwidths
seem to have excellent shape factors. Most importantly for DXers, the front
end didn't wilt with Beverage antennas. The newer, more capable g313i offers
additional features like the RF recording capability and improved
specifications in some areas.

Every few months I email the Winradio company, and they keep saying that
their external USB-connected version of the g303i will be ready "any day
real soon now".

Guy Atkins
Puyallup, WA USA


-----Original Message-----
From: Terry O'Laughlin [mailto:watkins-johnson at terryo.org]
Sent: Sunday, June 27, 2004 8:01 PM
To: premium-rx at ml.skirrow.org
Subject: [Premium-Rx] SDR radios: RFSpace, WinRadio & Flex Radio

<SNIP>

I'm not ready to plunk down a grand for one of these boxes.  I'll need a
couple more hours of playing with it before I would part with that kind of
money.  I'd also be interested in hearing from anyone with a WinRadio g313i
or Flex Radio SDR-1000.

Best,
Terry O'