Topband: AGC (and now other work)

[rwmcgwier at comcast.net]

Doug:

Thank you for your note.  I am having as much fun in amateur radio now as I have ever had.  I hope my fun turns out to be useful.

The SDR-1000 is a beautiful thing and SDR technology is here to stay.  No manufacturer can afford to do this any other way eventually.  I am happy that
the SDR-1000 is available to me as an experimental development platform.  It will change pretty drastically between now and Dayton where new software and hardware add-ons will be rolled out.  At Dayton, Gerald will be giving the definitive numbers on receiver measurements.  This has been held up by six months of attempting to make Visual Basic 6 join the modern world.  That has failed, been abandoned,  and since new tools have been brought to bear, we have made more progress in three weeks than the prior six months!  One of
the hardware add-ons needs discussion.  He is adding a fourth which fixes the only serious hardware design fault and also allows connection to a 2 meter transverter and adds much much better amateur band filtering on both transmit and receive.  I am looking forward to getting it.

I have no business affiliation with Gerald or Flex-Radio other than being a happy customer and avid contributor to the software defined radio software project.  I hope it all continues at the pace it has been going, it sure is keeping me excited about going to work every day!  My boss is actually paying me to do development on SDR and to work on adapting this technology for our use.  I just could not be happier.

Bob
N4HY
> Bob,
> 
> In addition to being a genius, it is great to hear from someone that has a
> Positive attitude about fixing 160m receive problems, rather that shooting
> down every idea submitted.
> 
> I had been mentally working on the idea of digitally reconstructing CW
> signals from out of the noise, rather than eliminating the noise itself.  My
> wife and I have noticed on many occasions that when I leave the rig on & go
> to another part of the house, very weak CW signals in the noise are almost
> in the clear.  But upon returning to the rig, the noise covers the CW signal
> up.  I don't know if this phenomenon could be reproduced digitally, but I
> suspect the SDR-1000 already surpasses anything I can imagine.
> 
> The last thing any of us need is yet another $4000 radio that gives a couple
> more receive advantages.  I think SDR's must be the future, and you are
> right there making it happen.  I love my FT-1000MP and would like to add a
> unit between the antenna/receiver and the receiver/speaker to clear up the
> glaring 160m receiving problems, but starting over with a SDR-1000+ is
> probably the receive answer.
> 
> Keep up the good work, and thanks for putting all this info on the Topband
> reflector!
> 
> 73, Doug / NX4D
>