Topband: Software Defined Radio

[Steve Ireland]

G’day

Here is some news from the leading (sorry, 
bleeding) edge of radio ;-) to take your minds 
off topband QRN and poor conditions.

Those topbanders who are interested in 
experimenting with Software Defined Radio may 
like to know that Tony Parks KB9YIG is doing a 
second run of SoftRock v6 transceiver kits – for 
which a Pentium iv PC, Windows XP and a decent 
soundcard is needed.  The v6.2 produces around 
one watt of RF, with receive sensitivity similar 
to the earlier v6 series of receivers, and there 
is a 160m version, with crystals for center 
frequencies of 1.812 MHz and 1.844 MHz. The kit 
price is $30 US/Canada and $31 for DX and should 
available in early July.  For further details, 
email Tony at: <mailto:raparks at ctcisp.com>raparks at ctcisp.com

Alex VE3NEA has developed a transceive version of 
his famous free Rocky software for the v6 
transceiver, which works on both CW and PSK31 – 
Rocky 3.2 can be downloaded from: 
<http://www.dxatlas.com/rocky/>http://www.dxatlas.com/rocky/

For those who are interested in the High 
Performance Software Defined Radio (HPSDR) 
project – see 
<http://hpsdr.org/>http://hpsdr.org/ - 
non-binding expressions of interest are now being 
taken for the Penelope 1W digital up-conversion 
exciter board and the Mercury receiver board.  If 
you wish to pursue this, join 
<http://www.hamsdr.com/>http://www.hamsdr.com/ 
and look under ‘Projects’ and select ‘TAPR – 
HPSDR’.  My understanding is that the 
not-for-profit Tucson Amateur Packet Radio Group 
intends to build a run of Penelope and Mercury boards in coming months.

Vy 73

Steve, VK6VZ