[Premium-Rx] A Policy Question

Mon Sep 19 14:22:09 EDT 2005

To me the term "premium" means that whatever the current commercial 
state-of-the-art was at the time of manufacture, the particular radio was built 
to really push the envelope.  Whether to gain a slight edge intercepting comms, 
or to work under nasty ambient RF conditions, whatever but the principle was 
that given a pile of money thrown at the problem and some smart engineering, a 
radio could be built which was better than the rest; it was a premium receiver.

Larry Gadallah wrote:
> Hello All:
> 
> The questions Vic is raising are exactly what I was wondering about. I'm 
> afraid that I might have started a flame-war based on some of the 
> responses I've seen, but perhaps, given the relentless march of 
> technology, we need to examine some questions like these. When the day 
> comes that I can go down to Radio Shack and buy some nice Fourier 
> transformers off the shelf and string them together to build a radio 
> that performs better than today's W-J and Harris gear, is it premium? Or 
> does premium mean "some undisclosed branch of the U.S. Government paid a 
> premium for this equipment", regardless of it's characteristics?
> 
> I also have to admit that what started this question in my head is what 
> I read about the performance of some current software defined radios. It 
> used to be that they did not have sufficient SFDR to compete with 
> "analog" radios, but thanks to some clever design techniques and 
> improvements in ADC technology, now they are beginning to meet and 
> surpass the performance of radios we consider premium today. Now what?
> 
> My best idea for qualifying a premium RX is to come up with a set of 
> "black box" performance parameters, and if the box meets them, it is a 
> premium RX, regardless of it's price or technology. I'm thinking of 
> things like:
> 
> SFDR > 100 dB
> IP3 > +15 dBm
> MDS < -140 dBm
> Ultimate rejection > 90 dB
> Shape Factor < 1.1
> Noise Figure < 10 dB (for HF and below)
> 
> If these numbers were chosen carefully, we could include all or most of 
> what we currently classify as premium RX, and automatically deal with 
> anything new that comes along.
> 
> Speaking of boat anchors, that definition keeps moving too. This 
> weekend, I was shocked to discover that my Drake R7 has joined that 
> group since sometime in the past five years, Drake quit selling parts 
> and/or servicing it. Now to keep it running I need the same sort of guru 
> that makes R-390s run...
> 
> 73s,
> 
> On 9/18/05, *Vic/Johanna Culver* <viculver at verizon.net 
> <mailto:viculver at verizon.net>> wrote:
> 
>     *Larry -- I've just returned from a week at Cape Cod -- no
>     computers, no radios, pure vacation!  But during the week I've had
>     this recurring thought:  What ABOUT software radios?  ARE they
>     'premium?'  What would MAKE one premium?  What are the defining
>     characteristics of a radio (e.g., my PCR-1000 with TalkPCR software
>     run on a hot laptop) and could it ever be made 'premium' by adding
>     software?  And, a related question, how much 'hardware' is really
>     needed for a premium RX -- would my MFJ sound-card interface couple
>     with some exotic (and presently unknown) software to MAKE a real hot
>     radio?  Couldn't one define -- in software -- the characteristic
>     that would be most critical for each specific application in a
>     software radio, i.e., sensitivity, selectivity, frequency range to
>     make it 'forever young?'*
>     ** 
>     *Maybe this is a topic for a special (different) list?  Do you
>     suppose any of the boat-anchor crowd (me included) would sit still
>     for an extended discussion (if there IS any extended discussion) on
>     this topic?  Or is it really a non-issue, one of those unguarded
>     thought-trains that get mis-routed during extended vacation periods
>     when one does not have any grounding to keep one on the 'straight
>     and narrow?!' *
>     ** 
>     *I'm picking my way through a weeks accumulated e-mail this
>     morning!  Good to be back!  Vic*
>      
> 
>         -----Original Message-----
>         *From:* premium-rx-bounces at ml.skirrow.org
>         <mailto:premium-rx-bounces at ml.skirrow.org>
>         [mailto:premium-rx-bounces at ml.skirrow.org
>         <mailto:premium-rx-bounces at ml.skirrow.org>]*On Behalf Of *Larry
>         Gadallah
>         *Sent:* Friday, September 16, 2005 4:28 PM
>         *To:* premium-rx at ml.skirrow.org <mailto:premium-rx at ml.skirrow.org>
>         *Subject:* [Premium-Rx] A Policy Question
> 
>         Oh learned founders of Premium-RX:
> 
>         What with the advent of all sorts of geekish-whizbang software
>         radios like the SDR-1000 <http://www.flex-radio.com/index.htm>,
>         SDR-14 <http://www.rfspace.com/sdr14.html>, and doubtless many
>         others to come a question arises: Do any of these qualify as a
>         premium RX?
> 
>         What if you upgrade the software? Does it then become possible
>         to do a non-premium->premium upgrade? Can we define some
>         guidelines to differentiate a consumer-grade SDR from a premium
>         SDR? How about the sample rate, or maybe the bits/sample?
> 
>         73,
>         -- 
>         Larry Gadallah,
>         lgadallah AT gmail DOT com 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Larry Gadallah,
> lgadallah AT gmail DOT com
> 
> 
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