Hi Les,
Thanks for posting this! Very interesting!
Having said that, its been my experience with "old fashioned" radios
that transverter/HF radio combinations have outperformed the
all-in-1-box radios, and have also offered more flexibility, and the
ability to keep current as new features and performance improvements
occur with the HF radios, while keeping the same transverter [or vice
versa]. Of course, swapping out the conventional HF radio for an SDR in
this combination extends this "flexibility" to the next level ;)
I have found that using SDRs with transverters has given me an excellent
station from 6 M through 24 GHz, and I don't expect that using
all-in-1-boxes would give the same level of performance [or
flexibility]. I am not suggesting at all that others duplicate my setup
here, but merely suggest my experience as one example of a station using
transverter/SDR combinations for all bands from 50 MHz through 24 GHz
that performs extremely well. Even on 6 meters I use a transverter with
the Flex5000, rather than using the Flex5000 directly on 6, to achieve a
better receive front end.
http://www.nitehawk.com/w3sz/osxhpsdrserver.htm describes my setup, but
gives much more detail than is germane, so feel free to ignore said URL
if desired ;)
I suspect that a similar situation will be found with all-in-1-box VHF
SDRs vs transverter/SDR combinations as is found with the conventional
all-in-1-box radios vs transverter/ conventional HF radio combinations,
namely that the transverter/SDR combinations, when properly chosen,
outperform the all-in-1-box radios.
All-in-1 is convenient, but if one wants maximum performance and
flexibility, then separates will continue to be the way to go, I think.
Kind of like audiophile components ;)
I think the Flex integrated transverters didn't fly not because of
anything Flex did wrong, but because many folks recognized the
importance of the points I made above regarding flexibility, and
decided not to go that route, but to use the Flex5000 as a very
excellent IF rig for separate transverters. I am not Flex, but I'd be
surprised if they would go the route of a ham radio VHF SDR, as I don't
think it would be a good investment of time / money on their part, given
the likely market. Of course, if they developed such a unit for a
non-ham-radio market which would provide them with a good ROI, and if
they could then market that radio to us without the need for costly
modifications, then it might make business sense for them.
Just my two cents...I will be very interested to hear the actual
experiences of others as the all-in-1-box radios start come into general
use by weak signal types.
Thanks for posting the link, Les! It does lead to some interesting
thoughts ;)
73 and a great Spring weekend to all,
Roger Rehr
W3SZ
On 4/5/2013 12:41 PM, Les Rayburn wrote:
It looks like a serious, software defined radio transceiver will be
available shortly that includes 6 Meters and 2 Meters.
Output power on 6 Meter is listed at 22 Watts, and 12 Watts on 2
Meters. Enough to drive most amps.
http://www.cqdx.ru/ham/new-equipment/sunsdr2-hfvhf-transceiver/
Hopefully, we'll see more SDR's coming out that address the needs of
the weak signal VHF community I keep waiting for an SDR transceiver
that will cover 6 Meters through at least 1296. If these were
available at an affordable price, you might really see some activity
on bands like 222 and 902.
Flex-Radio, are you listening?
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