[hpsdr] Dumb question - HPSDR sound card

[Darrell Bellerive]

I too have been thinking along similar lines. I thought it would be nice to 
have a high performance "sound card" for use as an audio scope and audio 
spectrum analyzer.

I have a M-audio Audiophile 2496 PCI card in my computer, but find that it 
is still not a good as I would like in a sound card. Too noisy and 
overloads too easily. Maybe I expect to much, though.

I think that an external card would be ideal as it gets away from all that 
noise floating around inside the PC.

I think this would be a great spinoff of HPSDR technology.

Darrell
VA7TO


On April 4, 2007 08:10 am, Terry Fox wrote:
> ***** High Performance Software Defined Radio Discussion List *****
>
> This may sound like a divergent path, but...
>
> There is a consistent problem with sound cards used with SoftRocks and
> other simple SDR hardware.  Especially laptops.  I realize the work here
> on Janus & Ozy will create a high-quality converter (I have one set on
> order), but there may be room for a simpler project as well.
>
> How difficult would it be to take the A/D & D/A and interface them to an
> FPGA or other USB/firewire interface, all on a single, low-cost board? 
> For those not interested in spending over $350 for Atlas, Janus, Ozy (or
> expensive commercial USB/firewire solutions), this one-board solution
> would be attractive.  I think it would need to cost less than $100.
>
> This is an ongoing issue that will not go away for a while.  I realize it
> may "undercut" the Janus/Ozy/Atlas somewhat.  I also realize that there
> are many, many sound cards out there, but all are less than optimum or
> expensive, again especially for laptop use.
>
> The cheap PCM2900 boards got me thinking about this potential project.
> Interfacing a better A/D and D/A to USB in such a way that Windows and
> Linux will find them is all that is required.
>
> Horton comes the closest to this, but it has the QSD and no D/A, I
> believe.
>
> Spending $400 for a firewire audio card to use a $13 SoftRock Lite with a
> laptop doesn't make sense.  Spending $75 to $100 might.  I believe that a
> project like this would do a lot to simplify and therefore further SDR
> acceptance in the amateur community.
>
> Just a thought.
> Terry

-- 
Darrell Bellerive
Amateur Radio Stations VA7TO and VE7CLA
Grand Forks, British Columbia, Canada

 1175702736.0