[hpsdr] Spectrum Analyzer Software Feature for Mercury

[Tom Cathey]

Hi All,

This may have been covered before, but here’s my idea for a software addition...

I use my Mercury receiver often as a spectrum analyzer to measure my final linear’s IMD.  (3-1000z, 8877, etc)  I sometimes like to compare one amplifier against the other to see the effects on drive, loading and other parameters. After some testing, we can usually find the sweet spot and then know where to run the amplifier for cleanest operation.

With the present PwrSDR software, it is difficult and time consuming on the fly to interpret the IMD without counting grid lines, etc.  A nice feature to have would be to be able to set a distance from the main signal and see an ongoing numerical reading of how far down in db this level is.  For example, if your transmit signal is on  3700 using a two tone – and we punch in 3703 as the test point, a readout might show the side trash signal 3khz away is –35db.   By changing various amplifier parameters, we could see the best settings as this number changed.  Moving out farther, like 5kc, etc could start to show the rough 5th, 7th order, etc IMD numbers.

I understand that a Cyclops spec analyzer is coming out, but could this feature be considered for the PWRSDR software so that the Mercury could use it too?

Or is there a way to do this now that I am missing?   What do you think?

Thanks.

Tom, K1JJ
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