[TenTec] OK , sounds good

[Floyd Sense]

There are a couple of approaches, both of which work.  I first used the 
N4PY software along with LP-Pan and PowerSDR/IF.  I ended up using an 
SDR-IQ receiver and Spectravue software, along with VSPE for sharing the 
Orion II com port between Spectravue and my logging program, DXLab 
suite.  Originally, Carl's program was the only one that got the IF 
offsets right for the Orion and that's important so that the signal 
you're listening to appears at the correct point on the panadaptor 
display.  If that's off, then mousing on a signal on the panadaptor 
display won't move it into your receive passband and you won't hear it.

Here were my reasons for using SDR-IQ instead of LP-Pan - others will 
disagree with which approach is best, but I found that the software was 
very dependent upon the version of Windows you're running and on other 
mysterious factors that never were identified.

1. With the SDR-IQ, no sound card is required.  The processed signal is 
sent to the PC via the USB port of the SDR-IQ.  That avoids all the 
problems involved with finding the right drivers for your sound card for 
the version of Windows you're running.  Sounds like that should be 
simple to do, but it's not.

2. The latest version of Spectravue gets the Orion II offsets right just 
as the N4PY software does.  I worked with Moe of Moetronics (author of 
Spectravue) to get this support right based on IF frequency info I fed him.

3. I found PowerSDR/IF to be unstable on both my XP and Win 7 systems.  
It routinely locked things up and couldn't be terminated, requiring a 
re-boot of the PC.  TRX-Pan simply would not run correctly on either my 
XP or Win 7 systems.  While the program would execute, some of the 
required graphics would not display.  Spectravue worked correctly on 
both my systems and has NEVER failed or locked up the system.

4.  When using LP-Pan with PowerSDR/IF, I found the height of the 
signals on the display to be lacking in spite of having adequate gain in 
the signal chain.  With Spectravue, the sensitivity is superb and you 
can adjust the signal height on the display easily.

5.  Using Spectravue, one can shrink the display window down to just 
show the panadaptor display, scales and mode buttons, so PowerSDR/IF has 
no advantage there.

Spectravue is well supported and the author works closely with the 
SDR-IQ manufacturer - they were together in the RFSpace booth at 
Dayton.   The SDR-IQ uses exactly the same Orion IF output as LP-Pan does.

73, Floyd - K8AC



On 7/19/2011 5:51 PM, John Molenda wrote:
> In response to my question of TT providing a pan adapter in the near
> future several people responded ( thank you ) telling me how they sent
> there OII back to the factory and have them pull out the IF to a extra
> port on the back of the radio .  OK , sounds good anyone remember about
> how much the mod cost ?  what software and hardware do I need to make
> this pan adapter work ?  I assume that the hardware extracts the IF info
> and sends it to my computer where a special software program turns it
> into a pan adapter .  Is this correct ? If so any suggestions on the
> best route to take ?  thanks again to you tech guys !  John molenda   kb2huk
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