17 february 2012

PMSDR on 4 meters

i received the DLL from Martin Pernter last night  which i copied the folders of WinradF and WRplus as not to change the settings i already have and the DLL was put in both folders. each of the software has their pros and cons and being able to see 100 kHz of band is a big help and the first thing i noticed was there was no sign of GB3CFG Carrickfergus io74cr N. Ireland on 70.027 and my first thought was the dll was not working but a few mins later i saw and heard cw on 70.020 which is GB3ANG io86mn Dundee ( 100w 3 element yagi )  which is roughly 140 km from here but in a bad direction as my qth is at the bottom of a valley.

why my excitement about this well if you take the price of the PMSDR which for the receiver itself is 195 euro and you look at the Perseus sdr which the price can be anything from £600 - £800 and to get the oirt band and 4 meters you have to buy a down-convertor and if you use the Perseus own software you also have to buy a license key . then there is the Win-radio Excalibur which is roughly the same price as the Perseus but it covers up to the 6 meter band but once again to get the oirt band and 4 meters you will have to buy a down-convertor.

then there is updates and i haven't been following the Excalibur but for the Perseus the updates seem to have stopped and i don't see much on the yahoo group but for the PMSDR one thing is for sure Martin listens to what people want and any problems etc he is usually the first to answer on the PMSDR yahoo group. now for bandwidths and depending what sound-card i use i can " see " either 100 or 200 kHz of band which might not sound too much but it will let me " see " a good portion of the 4 meter band or the oirt band during a sporadic e opening and its much better than sitting on one frequency that you would have to to with a traditional receiver.

i have put a recording on YouTube  and as i said above for the moment the only beacon i can receive on 4 meters is GB3ANG and its in a very bad direction for me so its a weak reception and its just to show that the new DLL is working.

dll v 3.7 beta on 4 meters with the pmsdr