During this expediton conditions on the band varied more than we would have wanted because of the stronger-than-expected coronal hole disturbance just in the middle of the expedition.Testing the Perseus (software 1.1.b vs 1.1.c)
Indeed the latest version runs quite OK even on my laptop (T40, with 512 MB memory, 1.3 GHz processor) and on my old table-top (Fujitsu) of 3.0 GHz/1.5 Gb mem. only slightly better actually. All these recording 1600 kHz RF-file. And the new file being 16-bit file, it saves HD and now you can record (without modifying the windows parameters) 5 minutes files (of about 2.2 Gb each). The latest version has also the “zoom” when you can zoom the frequency reading to be able to read rather precise frequencies down to below 1 Hz. However on my setups, it is still rather slow and there are problems when trying to do that when playing back the recorded file. Still I find easier to use SpectruVue for exact frequency read-out. Otherwise the Perseus software is fine with many bells and whistles like the DSP-noise reduction etc. Well done, Nico.
August/September: Dario goes King´s Village´s DX (sdr & car-dx)
Famous DXer (“PlayDX”) Dario Monferini from
More pictures of Darios adventures at the Play-DX-site.
DX-meeting at Haapavesi with Aurora Borealis and the EDXC
After Dario’s DX-days I drove to Haapavesi-QTH with Viktor Rytkovsky (picked up at the trailway station Kouvola). We went via Joensuu and took MR (Mauno Ritola) with us. As always during the last years we soon noticed geomagnetic disturbance starting when driving up North! And indeed at the night 4th Sept we could even see the Aurora Borealis. Thanks to Jari Ylioja – an active photographer of Space & Aurora (more Jari´s pictures at SpaceWeather Auroa Gallery) the
After the meeting we went to
Some DX in August– September
So far I am still waiting to be able to use my Far East BOG. So most DX is made using my longwire of
I will put my presentation of the latest trends of SDRs in
KING'S VILLAGE STATION OF THE MONTH - AUGUST: Rádio Itapirema 1390
This station was particularly interesting as it took some days to discover what is doing a strong het on 1390.0 kHz. Soon I noted the signal is coming from
I am not sure if this split still exists, later on I have noted Rádio Jornal here (which is more usual at my QTH).
KING´S VILLAGE STATION OF THE MONTH – SEPTEMBER: Radio Libertad,
This station was first noted on Sept. 29th with nice Andean music. First it was a bit difficult to say what station is saying “Libertad” here although the music was “very Andean” music with nice melodies. The station even had time signals which were rather exact (not so familiar on Latins). Soon I noted the loggings of last year (credits to JMS, JEÖ and TSM in
Radio Libertad with same kind of programming and announcements – and on the same split! The station has been dominating the channel also after September – many times in October – sometimes with good signal and only some QRM from at least two others (one being Venezuela with Nat. Anthem at 0430 – this one a bit above on 1310.01, the other one with programs sounding like Radio Maria – could be Radio Maria, Panama (carrier frequency rather near the nominal). Radio Libertad has also web-pages and program feed on web - very nice! On October 7th some other stations from Perú were noted with good signal.
KING´S VILLAGE TEST BENCH:
PERSEUS SDR-RECEIVER – A Pretty Excellent Receiver of Software … OR – A Poor Example of Receivers … - First Impressions (by TK)
These impressions are something found during a brief test arrangements on January 21-22 with a Perseus + Table-top PC Fujitsu-Siemens (about 1.8 GHz – 1 Mb mem. + 250 GB HD). The rx was compared mostly to a SDR-14 & IQ + a communications receiver Icom R9000.
Generally the look and feel is great with this equipment and the installation of the software was a piece of cake. The software (beta 0.31) was distributed on a CD with the receiver. There were a HF-Span software (showing 0-40 MHz span) and drivers + dll´s for the WinRad, too. It was very easy to calibrate the set using just the mouse to move the scale and the “
On the screen you can set frequency also by clicking the arrows below the small secondary window. This is handy, when operating with a laptop without mouse. The averaging system in the software is done nicely on the screen – you can adjust it manually by clicking and dragging the vertical sliders both for the main and the second window. On the screen you can use also the memo (memory tables) where you can load lists of potential stations and there are already memos of EiBI list and HFCC-tables included. You can import your own list to the memo table as well. Software worked OK although there are some problems still with the listening to the recorded (captured) RF-file. While checking how many stations you can have on one frequency (if there is a vertical scroll) I found that you can but up to six on the channel - so a scroll should be good if you wish put lists like "potential NA / TA -stations" etc - these lists have usually dozens of stations on each channel.
You have to use the transformer (5 V) which comes together with the rx and I have seen reports that this unit (a switching transformer) does produce some noise especially to other RXs (using splitters), but I did not note very much interference in my set-up. However I have already some noise from other PC-equipments, mainly from my LCD-screen which I have to switch off when doing serious RF-recording at daytime with low signal levels.
Sensitivity & Strong signal handling seems to be adequate - I would say the sensitivity is a bit worse than that of the Icom-receiver (R9000) and I have seen some figures at about 2 uV (10 dB/SN, AM-mode); however, when used with active splitter (with 10 dB gain) and/or amp. of 10 dB with a LW of 150 m or BOG 300 m the rx did overload and I had to set the attn to -10 dB on the program. But this is what is happening with other sdrs (14 / IQ and WinR) as well. That is never a problem with my old Icom, AOR or EKD 515 (DDR-rx).
Frequency measurements are a bit harder to do with the Perseus (compared to IQ using Spectravue) basically as the minimum SPAN in receiving is 1.6 kHz (showing also the max. BW resolution 1.9 Hz). As can be seen at the picture, you have to “click” the markers on screen (you have to use as good resolution as possible) whereas Spectravue with 14/IQ gives you automatically the 4 strongest carriers of the SPAN. The comparison test was done on 1368 with a station (
Selectivity is good and at least at the same level as that of the IQ/14 and a bit better than that of the ICOM R9000 or AOR (with SSB filters around 2 kHz). And you can adjust it how you want – also “asymmetric way”. You can also move the center frequency – about as PBT does. There are buttons also for the notch and PBT but they seems not to be active yet – this feature is coming later on, I suppose.
Recording – Span Capturing (“Drift Net-DX”) is straightforward, you have just to decide whether you want to capture a slice of 100, 200 or 400 kHz, push the button and use the recorder-buttons on a lower left corner of the window. Actually you can even record a bit more (almost 500 kHz with 500 kS/s sampling?), but there can be false signals on both sides?). As mentioned earlier the play-back feature differs from that of SpectraVue a bit: you can not jump just back and forth. Instead, you can assign a portion of the recording for looped play-back. And there seems still to be some problems with the operation on playing back – I could freeze the computer using that and had to switch the power off once. Note that you should have the unit on – so you can not listen the files with another computer and/or at another place without the hardware using the Perseus software, what is possible with the SpectaVue and SDR-14/IQ. However using the WinRad-softaware you can do playback also without the Perseus hardware, which is good although there are some limitations using that one as there are no timestamp at the timeline and not even the stop button on WinRad´s timeline. You get 10 minutes recordings with the software automatically (about 1,7 Gb each). You have also to give the name to the files all the time before starting to record and the software puts the sequence numbers after the name like 1,2… The timer is not included, but there is a possibility to do a timer with windows macros, but I have not yet tried that. The timer function like that of IQ – Spectravue could be greatly appreciated! After this report was written I have heard that the "official" release of the software (1.0) is due out in February - maybe something of the wish list are in that version.
I used mainly my desk-top (a bit old) model of a Pentium 1.8 GHz machine with 1 MB internal memory. The software took about 30-40 % easily at 125 kS/s and when switched to maximum sampling rate of 500 kS/s in order to capture 400 kHz to the hard disk, it took about 80-90% of the resources. So with my setup, I can not use both Perseus & IQ at the same machine. I also had some play-back problems with this set-up, and had to start the playback again, which actually worked to that problem. Using my laptop of Pentium (1.3 GHz only, IBM T40) was about the same, but it seems this machine works better showing the maximum usage of resources at about 60-70 %. I have heard these small IBMT40´s really performs like about 2 GHz machines. I did not tried to record to external HDs, but it should work ok and that has been done by other testers without problems. I think that with modern pc´s of about 3 - 4 GHz and 2-4 GB memory these problems are not present.
All-in-all I have to say this is a great piece of equipment – good looking software with great capabilities – and the software is still in Beta-state – so what are we getting when that is the final version. Well Done Nico Palermo & Microtelecom!
Last but not least, I would like to thank all the impressions of earlier testers of the rx like Bjarne Melde, Guy Atkins and Giampiero Bernardini at their blogs and emails as well as Mauno Ritola & Jussi Suokas (& all the “DXing Wolfs” in Eastern Finland) who were the first in Finland to test the machine. Now we have the DriftNetter of 400 kHz, next year at least up to 2 Mhz or ?
