[TenTec] (ham station computer choice)

[K8JHR]

I totally agree about installing the OS from scratch without all the 
applets and utilities the major vendors put install on new machines.

Funny you mention Dell and other commercial vendors in connection with 
low electrical noise, low EMI/RFI, etc. ... My experience differs 
dramatically.

I spent fifteen years decades studying, reviewing, and beta testing 
speech recognition software and hardware, and Dell computers were some 
of the noisiest and poorest shielded computers available.  Worse yet, 
Dell insisted on building their own versions of various third party 
sound card chips, producing both on-board and add-on board 
implementation,  which did not work well, and produced awful 
interference.  Same for Gateway and many HP and, especially Compaq and 
IBM laptop models.  Noisy as heck.  This was one of the major reasons 
they started producing external USB sound cards - to place the A/D 
converter outside the box, and away from the hash inside.  Once 
converted to a digital data stream, it was pretty immune to it, but the 
analog stages were vulnerable, so the farther away you could convert, 
the better.  Again, the commercially built boxes from Dell, Gateway, HP, 
Compaq, and IBM were among the worst offenders.  Speech recognition 
mavens and gamers all know on-board mfr-implemented sound cards are 
generally poor performers compared with the better add-on cards.  I use 
a $30 ASUS sound card, which is way better than the on-board chip on my 
ASUS motherboard.  We often cured noisy Compaq and IBM laptops with a 
piece of alum foil as a simple shield - it would have cost IBM about .5 
cents to do that, but they did not back in the day.   It is somewhat 
better now, but on board implementations by mobo makers are are 
generally still weaker performers then third party add on cards.  Dell 
claimed it was selling Creative LIVE! sound cards, but they were 
"Dell-built Creative LIVE!" cards... and they sucked.  Not the same 
card, just the same A/D chip.

The most reliable, electrically quiet  machines were home built.

But your point about commercially available boxes coming loaded down 
with all sorts of unnecessary applets and utilities and other excess 
baggage is spot on and we spent two decades trying to pare it all down, 
striving for a lean, mean dictating machine.   All those little applets 
and utilities rob valuable processor time from our most productive 
applications.  The more time allocated to the recognition engine, the 
more accurate the results.

This is another reason I have always built my own boxes from the board 
out, selecting known-good components - not always the most expensive, 
just known to be quiet and work well.

I ran my office for over 8 years alone, with three computers, loads of 
OCR scanners, speech recognition, and all without a secretary... my 
computers had to be quick, quiet, and work as expected.  I saved enough 
money to retire young, and while this is Just MY take, I may never buy a 
commercially built box.  Never had a hard disk fail, either.  My only 
calamity was when I toasted a mother board by hot-swapping a sound 
card/modem card - not a good idea ... a self inflicted wound hurts the most.

Just MY take...  your mileage may differ.

------ K8JHR  ----------------------------------------





On 5/7/2014 10:50 AM, K7TXO Radio wrote:
> To make sure my ham shack computer is focused on applications I use in
> ham radio, I order business computers from DELL.  It does not have to be
> a DELL brand but the point is, I order a computer with just an Operating
> System on it.  Nothing else.  And then I install the programs I want.
> The difference really is that a store bought "consumer" computer comes
> loaded up with all kinds of software.  Some of the programs are already
> running to some degree when the computer is powered up, occupying cpu
> cycles, memory space and possibly some disk drive-head activity.
>
> Fortunately new computers we buy today are more powerful than ever so
> even a store bought computer will tend to handle all of this background
> activity ok.  But why not start clean?  Of course you can still build a
> computer from parts.  After years of working with equipment in EMI/RFI
> labs, I yearned for the times when someone would bring a computer
> containing an interface card for compliance testing that was a
> hand-built system.  Basically a smoke 'em if you have 'em session from
> the otherwise rather dull process of testing; it sometimes was a great
> joy to watch some of these computers smoke and even catch on fire under
> test.   If we didn't burn these up, at the very least some of them would
> have issues that made them cute transmitters at some frequency (or
> frequencies) that you would not want in your ham shack.  Or anywhere in
> your house in some cases.  In most cases the issue would be bad or loose
> bonding that could easily be fixed but our job in the lab was to do
> testing, not troubleshoot and fix equipment.  And please note that just
> because a power supply or motherboard, PCI card, etc. says it is
> FCC/European accepted does not mean it really was.  Unfortunately there
> is deception in the world.  And finally there were cases that
> collectively, the assemblies used in a hand built PC would not pass but
> on an individual basis, some of these assemblies can be within tolerance.
>
> We can therefore expect that a major brand name computer that is built
> correctly should be clean for emissions and at least less susceptible to
> external sources of radiation.  I prefer to start with a descent
> computer that also has either zero software on it from the manufacturer
> or just an Operating System.  Computers can be frustrating enough either
> because of issues from non-compatible assemblies, bad grounds,
> non-compliance or perhaps a plethora of software conflicts. "A clean
> computer is a happy computer".  (And a happy user.)  And we might get
> away with less performance if the computer is not already tied up with
> rubbing it's cpu chip and patting it's memory too much, at the same time.
>
> DELL Optiplex may be a choice to look into.  I have spec'd these for
> years for use with specialized interface cards including Digital to
> Analog and Analog to Digital converters for external devices. Optiplex
> computers can be purchased new at a reasonable price, direct from DELL.
> These computers are not typically sold at retailers; they would be
> rather boring for the consumer looking for something to plug in and play
> games or run a word processor or spreadsheet, AOL, etc. because none of
> this is loaded. Watch out for purchasing a refurbished unit.  I tried
> one I ordered through WALMART.  Filthy inside with dust balls.  The DVD
> read only drive was busted.  Rather than send it back, I cleaned it and
> put in a DVD Writer I had intended to put in it anyway.    Hard disc
> failed after about 6 months but I had a good, current backup.  A new
> drive and a reload of the backup got most of my ham station
> configuration running pretty quickly.  So I recommend a new computer
> where you have zero hours on the system.  More time to use the radio, hi
> hi.
>
> Gene  /  K7TXO
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