[RTTY] Building a PC for the radio

[Charles Morrison]

> From: Peter Laws <plaws at plaws.net>
> Subject: [RTTY] Building a PC for the radio
> To: RTTY Reflector <rtty at contesting.com>
> 
> The big outstanding question is how XP will work with my 4-Port Siig
> serial card **in a VM**.  If anyone has experience, please post!
> 
> Also, if folks have recommendations for motherboards known to be
> RFI-quiet, I'd like to hear about them since I am leaning towards
> updating the Radio PC.  I've got a decent SoundBlaster that I will
> probably keep, plus the Siig card, but nothing else, so 3 slots would
> probably be enough.  Video on this board is AGP, but I doubt anything
> modern has a slot for that!  :-)
> 

Peter, I've found that most MOBO's are rather quiet these days, depending on
the quality of the case.  I've had the cheapo $15 ebay cases that were
terrible for RFI, and I've had some older cases that worked fine.  Needless
to say, I'd stay away from the "gamer" cases with the big plexiglass sides
and lots of flashy lights.  As previously stated, of course LCD's are more
quiet then CRTs.

As for the VMWare.  No problem with VMPlayer which is free.  Of course, it
needs to run on another Windows box.  A new motherboard, 4GB ram,
***32bit*** Windows 7 (I know, 64 is compatible and supports more memory,
but the possible incompatibilities make it unnecessary and a bit more
problematic), and you can P2V your existing XP workstation and lose
absolutely nothing.  Your com ports should work just fine, my SIIG does.
Only thing you *may* have problems with is the soundcard.  They work,  but
I've noticed a bit of choppiness from time to time.  Once the os loading has
settled down, I haven't had problems with Youtube streams (audio and video)
or windows media files playing.  

With a new Mobo, Vmplayer and your old box P2v'ed, you'll be right back
where you started, with the added benefit of actually adding a 3rd
workstation running windows apps.

Charlie
KI5XP