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Happy New year 2010 to all!

Lets hope this is going to be a better year than the last and that we finally see the end of gormless and his thieving baffoons and that the worlds political regimes come to their senses and end the unnecessary wars they are currently waging.

For me the new year has started with a bit of a clear out in the radio room.
I’ve sold my lovely old Tentec Omni VI, my FT1000MP and my trusty old FT900, I fancy a change, something new!

After much looking around at all the new offerings from the main HAM radio manufacturers I decided that none of them really had anything new to offer, same old radios just in bigger cases with more buttons to press and larger screens.
The receiver performance of many of the new radios hasn’t really improved and in some cases are actually worse than the radios that they replaced. So to this end I decided to look at the smaller radio manufacturers, those that concentrate more on performance rather than unnecessary bells and whistles.

After doing much research two small radio manufacturers stood out from the rest, namely Elecraft and Flex Radio.

Elecraft have been around for some time making high performance radio kits for the amateur to build at home, they’ve concentrated on receiver performance and functionality without unnecessary flashing lights and daft displays and are highly respected by many of the top DX’ers globally.

Flex Radio are a relatively new company in the amateur radio field however they are considered by many to be the leaders in the new field of Software Defined Radios, commonly referred to as SDR radios.

I really like the Panadapter view of the SDR radios, having a view of the band and being able to see the signals and filter profiles makes things a lot easier, it is almost like working in the dark without it. Having played with the Flex Radio Power SDR software in Demo Mode I am hooked on this mode of operating and believe it is the future of HAM radio.

The Flex Radios aren’t quite as good on the receiver front according to the Sherwood Receiver Tests however balancing functionality against price and performance the Flex Radio units score highly.

To get the same functionality with a K3 I’d need the optional IF board and filters for the radio, then I’d need to buy the

SDR-IQ Hardware and then a high spec PC to drive it all, total would be over £3200.

I can get all the functionality I want with the Flex3000 and a high spec PC for around £2000, quite a difference in price!

Is the K3 really worth another £1200 pounds for a slight improvement in receiver performance that to be honest I most probably won’t be able to discern? I’m not convinced!

What makes it harder is that I cannot try an Elecraft K3, I often find trying a new radio helps me make the initial purchasing decision. However, I can try a Flex3000 at a local dealer so this will be my next step.

Since I am mainly a CW, PSK and WSPR operator either radio will have to meet my exacting requirements for these modes.

All change, it’s 2010 !

12th January 2010

All data, images and content Copyright 2004-2010 F5VKM & M0AWS

Jon and I built the first prototype for our commercial Delta Loop for the 40m band yesterday, it was a fun day!

We had to design a reliable and repeatable method for making the balun for the antenna which wasn’t easy as we had a very particular specification to meet to ensure the balun is as efficient as possible whilst still being very reliable and able to handle a wide range of power.

We’ve still got to complete the design for the water proof outer casing and support system for the balun however we’re really pleased with it’s performance.

We did some tests on 40m last night and worked East Coast USA using just 2.5w of CW and got a 529 report back.

The WSPR tests are showing the antenna is performing as per the design too which is great!

Once the waterproof case is completed we’ll start on the the 30m model and start testing it.

We’re hoping to get some models into production fairly soon and hope to start selling the antennas in the next few months.

Watch this space for more news!

Installation of Full Wave Delta Loop for 40m

28th January 2010

It’s been a bit quiet in the M0AWS shack for a few weeks whilst I was waiting for my new PC to arrive to drive my new FlexRadio Systems Flex3000 however, it’s all arrived and installed now and boy is it impressive!

The whole concept of using an SDR based system was completely alien to me, having only ever used conventional radios since becoming an amateur radio Op many years ago it was a shock to the system, however with the help of the the guys on the FlexRadio Email Reflector I was soon up and running and getting to grips with the new setup.

So how does it compare to a conventional radio?

Comparing the Flex3000 to my FT1000MP and Tentec Omni VI, the Flex3000 has some good and not so good points, so first lets look at the good points!

Filtering

The filters on the Flex3000 are amazing, being able to narrow down to 25Hz or less with no ringing makes getting that weak CW station so much easier, even if it is planted right next to a large local station. Being able to see the signals on the Panadapter and Waterfall displays at the same time is a great help too. I have been amazed at how easily I have been able to work extremely weak DX CW signals with the Flex3000 whereas before with my two conventional radios I would had just not been able hear them amongst the noise due to the lack of filtering narrower than 250hz and the terrible ringing which often would over power the weak DX station completely.

The other great thing about the Flex3000 system is that you can actually vary the filtering exactly to your requirements, so if one of the preset filters isn’t exactly what you want then you can just grab the edges of the filter on the screen with the mouse and move it to fit the signal exactly, I find this to be one of the most useful filter features on the Flex3000 system and again having the signal visibly on the screen in front of you takes all the guess work out of setting the filter exactly how you want it.

DSP Noise Reduction

The DSP Noise Reduction on the Flex3000 is excellent however, as the filtering gets narrower the effect becomes less, which is to be expected as there is less audio coming through for it to work on. I use the DSP a lot to help reduce QRM/QRN and am very pleased with the way it performs. It’s certainly much better than the DSP on the FT1000MP.

Dual Receive

This is a feature than can only be accomplished on a conventional radio if it has a second receiver, however this is not the case with the Flex3000!

At the click of a button you can have the two VFOs active at the same time on the same band which is great if you want to listen to the DX station and monitor the pileup at the same time!

This is one of the features that I really like about the Flex3000 and I use it a lot, often to monitor two DX stations at the same time and then jump in and work one whilst still monitoring the second station. Switching the TX between VFOs can be done in an instant.

Panadapter Display

The Panadapter and Waterfall displays for me add the most value to the overall operating experience as being able to see the signals on the screen real time takes all the guess work out of filter configuration and tuning.

I can now find a DX station in an instant as it’s right there in front of me on the display, it’s made me realise that I have been operating “blindfolded” with my conventional radios for so many years!

Integrating PowerSDR with other Applications

Integrating the FlexRadio PowerSDR software into the suite of other applications I like to use when on air isn’t as straight forward as with conventional radios however it’s not too difficult either. The thing you have to realise is that the PowerSDR software “Is the Radio”, so you have to approach application integration differently as you are trying to connect software to software rather than software to hardware.

There are a few applications out there in both the free domain and commercial domain that will aid you in your quest to have complete connectivity between all your applications and the Flex3000 system however the ones I have settled on for various reasons are DDUtil, which creates the virtual comm-ports necessary for all the applications to talk to the PowerSDR software to enable CAT control and VAC which I am about to purchase which gives the user the ability to create Virtual Audio Cables such that you can pass the audio to/from the PowerSDR software to any other application, this is necessary in my case to be able to use Fldigi for PSK31 etc.

Automatic Notch Filter (ANF)

I have to say I am quite disappointed with the Auto-Notch on the Flex3000, if someone starts tuning on your RX frequency then hitting the ANF button doesn’t do a lot. There are some settings for the ANF system which may improve it to the point where I am happy with it’s performance, however I’m yet to get there as I need to do some serious reading of the manual to make sure I fully understand what the settings are and what they do before I start tinkering, but “Out the Box” the ANF isn’t particularly good.

QSK

Being mainly a CW operator QSK is one of the features than I really loved about my old Tentec Omni VI, it was perfect, being able to hear between characters at 25wpm or more is extremely handy when trying to work a DX CW station as you can hear it he has got another station and is going back to them between your characters.

Now the Flex3000 has a break-in setting and according to the UK Importer is QSK enabled and should be just like my Tentec Omni VI was, except it’s not!

Firstly the relays in the Flex3000 are extremely noisy compared to my Omni and secondly you cannot hear anything between characters even at 20wpm. I tried playing with the Break-In Delay in an attempt to improve the receive between characters however this has just resulted in characters being dropped. At present I am using PowerSDR v1.18.5 with the appropriate firewire driver and Flex3000 firmware.

Reading the Flex-Edge Email Reflector I see that this issue is getting a lot of attention for the next version of PowerSDR and by all accounts v2.0 will be substantially better in the QSK department, I can only say I can’t wait to try it out once fully released.

Summary

I have to say that overall I am extremely impressed with the Flex3000 system, it really is a major improvement on the conventional radios I have had before and has exceeded my expectations. Having compared the figures on the Sherwood Engineering page the Flex3000 should perform much better than anything I have had before and I have to say that it really does!

Since having the Flex3000 operational I have been able to work stations in Africa and China on 40m which I have never been able to hear well enough to work in the past!

One thing I haven’t covered is the PC Specification required to drive the Flex3000 system, you do need a reasonably powerful machine to be able to use all the facilities that the Flex3000 offers at the same time,  so I’ve included the specification of my Flex3000 PC Here in RTF format for completeness.

New Radio - My first impressions

17th February 2010

I had a go in the ARRL International CW DX Contest over the weekend on the 40m band with the new Flex3000 SDR, boy did I have fun picking out the US the stations, there were so many of them!

Once again the filtering on the Flex3000 was stunning, I could work stations that were almost on top of each other and even managed to pick out the really weak ones next to the large contest stations.

I also gave my Ranger 811H amplifier a good run with the Flex3000 SDR, they both performed faultlessly together.

I was using one of our new 40m Delta Loop antennas with matching balun fed from the shack with RG213 coax, the SWR on the antenna is 1:1 so there was no need for an ATU, once the amp was tuned I could just trawl up and down the band picking off the contest stations one at a time.

I also worked some Caribbean stations just before the contest started, it’s a great time to catch some of the elusive DX just before a contest when they are all warming up and trying to hold their frequency ready for the kick off!

I’ll be building a 30m band Delta Loop and matching balun this week, so look out for me on 30m during the coming weekend!

ARRL International CW DX Contest

22nd February 2010

I’ve been a little adventurous of late, first by replacing my traditional transceivers with my new Flex3000, then trying PSK31 for the first time ever, then trying CW using the keyboard instead of my twin paddle and now I’ve discovered Olivia!

Olivia is an interesting mode of operation, it’s able to pass data even when the signal is not perceivable by the human ear (unlike PSK31), it has a lot of built in redundancy that results in the QSO not being disturbed by QRM from other stations/modes on or nearby the same frequency and is used by HAMs to chat rather than just use predefined macros to conclude the QSO (Like on PSK31!).

I had a long chat with WB0KGN on 20m the other day, infact we chatted via Olivia for 1.5 Hours!

The longest QSO I have had in a long time and I have to say it was most enjoyable.

Most of the HAMs using the Olivia mode seem to like to type realtime, so you get to see their typos and corrections too, however this makes it a far more personal experience, which I really like, I never knew I could waffle on for so long actually!

Many people are interested to hear about my adventures with the Flex3000 on the data modes as it would appear that the Flex Radios are still quite rare beasts here in Europe.

Once again when using the Olivia mode I find the filtering on the Flex3000 to be magical, I can narrow the filters right down tight against the signal in the waterfall display, adding the excellent noise Reduction seems to help with very weak Olivia signals too, it reduces the noise considerably which helps with the decoding.

I worked a station the other day that initially has a S/N Ratio of 6dB, by the time I had set up the filters and added the NR it was reading S/N 49dB, a massive improvement all accomplished in mere seconds.

Once again I am using my trusty FlDigi program to send and receive Olivia data, I have to say it is probably one of the best digital modem software applications around.

Below is a screen shot of olivia in action, click for the full screen version.

For more information on the Olivia mode goto http://www.oliviamode.com/index.htm

Hello Olivia!

2nd March 2010

Following on from my adventure into the world of Olivia I decided to give ROS a try on 20m. I heard about it via OH2HN on 20m during a chat using Olivia, he was telling me how it was a new digital mode and that it was 2.2Khz wide and was causing problems to other users as the ROS Operators were using the same set of frequencies as the Olivia operators.

Now since it is 2.2Khz wide I was expecting a fast data transfer mode, but no, it’s only 16 baud at max!

The author of ROS says that it is possible to decode signals that have a S/N ratio of -30dB, however so far I have only managed to decode signals that I can actually hear, the really weak ones that I can see on the waterfall display just don’t decode, perhaps the software will improve over time.

I must admit that being mainly a CW operator I really do prefer the narrow modes, using 2.2Khz for a data mode that actually isn’t any better than Olivia or PSK31 really does seem a little wasteful to me, but I’m sure there are plenty who would disagree with me!

ROS is gaining popularity on the 20m band, you will hear many stations around 14.102-14.108Mhz during the day with Olivia signals all intermixed. ROS seems to stop working when an Olivia conversation starts however Olivia seems to handle the interference from ROS without any drop in data flow at all.

Personally I am not sure if ROS is a mode that I will continue with, time will tell.

The new kid on the digital block ... ROS

3rd March 2010

ROS running via my Flex3000 SDR, click image for full screen image.