I may agree that SDR-1000 may very likely become a "dinosaur" like
Kachina 505DSP and stuff like that.
Nevrtheless, I would admit a software defined radio idea is a killer.
As for now, SDR-1000 is not perfect and ARRL's reports is a good
evidence. Nevertheless, there are a number of key factors may make
SDR-1000-like stuff a successors rather than dinosaurs:
-free software. Personally, I prefer free stuff because, as Linus said
"software is like sex, it's better when it's free" ;-). I would be able
to fix some critical bugs myself and I may share workload with main
development team as well as other wolonteers who develops software for
fun. Ten Tec does not have such opportunity for now becuase their
business model does not consider their firmware as open. PowerSDR does.
-open platform. Unlike SDR-1000, if you are a happy Orion user, you
can't just swap your computer(DSP unit) for new, much faster one, you
have to buy whole rig, Orion II for example. This is some kind of
customer lock-in, I should say. It would be better if TT used a standard
PC main-board and souncard as digital unit. It would be possible to
upgrade rig much cheaper than ~1500 bucks now(difference between current
Orion I and Orion II).
In my opinion, there is only one thing wrong with SDR-1000. This is the
lack of front panel with a ton knobs and buttons, as most of us prefer.
Believe, this would be easy to develop such panel as an USB device. Most
of us already have some PC in shack that why this is a minor impornace
that front panel is connected to PC instead of rig. I would conclude
this setup might be used exactly in the same way as well as other
nawadays rigs.
Arthur, EW1CK
Paul Christensen wrote:
Wow, that's quite a sanctimonious and back-handed compliment if I ever heard
one. The SDR-1000 may very likely become a "dinosaur" sooner than you
think.
The SDR-1000 certainly produces some good performance numbers, but much of
the impressive high-signal handling performance comes at the expense of
mediocre MDS. Refer to the ARRL's last lab report and witness that the
SDR-1000 missed their published MDS specification by 10dB -- and that's
using their preferred low-noise M-Audio Delta sound card.
History has shown that radios without a good user interface (e.g., real
knobs and displays) are adopted by a small set of users. I suspect the vast
majority of the buying population does not want to "kluge" a radio system
together from a handful of computer components. I've been there, and I'm
done with it. The SDR-1000 has been available for some time, and while it
is going through an evolutionary process, I suspect their sales growth is
increasing, but at a decelerating rate.
Paul, W9AC
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