The AM Forum

I have a softrock Ensemble II RX that was put together and tested by a local ham...I now want to try to get it working in my shack..I have a 2 yr old computer with sound card that I got second hand and I don't know what sound card I have..It is my understanding that there is a minimum spec in khz sample rate needed to make the softrock work..what is that sample rate, and how do I get my computer to tell me the specs on the installed sound card?  If my sound card is up to the job, I will then need to download software to operate the RX..What are the recommendations on software from someone that has experience?  .....As an aside, Is there a website that explains how to get up and running with one of these rigs??? I need the basics...from downloading the software to getting the computer to run it etc...I am not well versed on the computer, and I have looked at many of the sites referenced in the softrock pages and I remain confused on many points....This looks like it could be a lot of fun and I want to learn...So thanks in advance if you can help...Steve

Is the soundcard ... a "card"?
or is it a built into the motherboard device?

If built in, then google the motherboard. ( it's written right on the motherboard)
and you'll find the specs of the audio device.

I will tell you though... if it's a motherboard audio device, you will NOT be happy with it for SDR!!!

There is NO minimum spec to make the softrock work.

But what you WANT, is a 24bit, 96khz sample ( or 192khz) rate.

Anyone who is serious about SDR needs a really GOOD soundcard
( for these soundcard based rigs anyhow)

A poor soundcard = a poor radio.

If you want suggestions, I can give you a very SHORT list of cards that perform well ( though you won't like the price..  :-)  )
I've tested dozens of cards for SDR over the past couple years, and feel pretty confident I can help you with that.

I live, eat, and breath SDR these days..
Sell and build kits about every day!

I can help with the software and setup too, but perhaps we'll take most of that off the forum.

There is though a version of PowerSDR ( flex) that works well with softrock...
Easiest to look on the softrock40 yahoo group to find that.

bruce
kf1z

Thanks Bruce...I will take the cover off the computer and have a look and a google....I'll PM you when I know what I have...Steve

An internal sound card will get you going with acceptable results just like a novice rig. The biggest deal is that it has a stereo input. The first thing you need to do is get the levls set properly if you plan to hang it off an IF strip. These softrocks are quite sensitive so operating levels are critical for good operation. So RF in and I/Q out levels to the sound card need to be set up properly.

Is there an advantage to hang it off the IF of another RX?  It is my understanding that this is a stand alone reciever...My sound "card" is built onto the motherboard in my e-machines computer...Windoze 7 OS...I googled up the MoBo number and couldn't get any spec info on the sound card...It is stereo out with speaker jacks and stereo phone jack..It has a pink mic jack that I take to be stereo in...I don't know how to set in and out levels..I am working on figuring that out.  I have and old windoze XP machine on the shelf that has a MoBO sound card ...Is that old thing useful for SDR? 

Well, yeah... "acceptable" for setup......depending on your definition I guess.   ;D

Generally between an on-board audio setup and a GOOD card...
The difference in noise-floor ( SNR) will be around 15 to 20db worse with the on-board device.
Plus most ( all?) seem to be 12 or 16bit, instead of 24 or 32b.


That's pretty significant, especially if you're into any weak signal work at all.

There's also the good possibility of ground-loop noise on top of that, which can
make you bang your head on the desk for hours trying to rid yourself of it.


And yes, of course it MUST be stereo input. again WILL work with mono, but you can never get rid of image signals with mono input.

the only advantage is if the front end of the analog RX is far superior ( good chance) with good RF pre-amps.
Otherwise... no... no advantage


If all you have for input on the soundcard is a mic jack, it may not be stereo input ( microphone input is almost ALWAYS mono)


One way to find out , is to connect an Ipod or mp3 player etc into the input of the soundcard, and see if you get stereo sound out on the speakers

Are you using Power SDR software?
If so, to get started, chose the "unsupported" option in the setup drop menu for soundcards. It's doubtful your PC sound support is in the list.

My Lenovo notebook worked OK with version 1.14.##  Later on especially with 2.2.3 not so much.  I found that the levels going into the mixer was critical.  Dunno about SoftRock

Yes mixer level critical and sound card levels even more. The tayloe converter will work at a quite high level above the saturation voltage of the sound card. When things are set up properly you will get more than 90 dB dynamic range. I measured it with a stock Dell tower a few years old internal sound interface
A stand alone receiver will cover a range. I'm not sure if the latest softrocks cover the whole HF band. Hanging it off an IF lets you use the interface over the whole range of the RX.
Start with a 44kHz sample rate to get things going. Faster sample rates take more computer horse power. Going too fast for the computer will yield audio drop outs.
Get your feet wet at 44K then expand. then buy a faster computer and get addicted. HPSDR Hermes XCVR board coming out this summer will blow the doors off anything on the street today sept the more complicated and expensive HPSDR board set.

The ensemble II softrock  covers the HF spectrum in "5 superbands"

Even if the card IS in the supported list, you should always use "unsupported".
It opens up more options for tweaking input and output levels etc.

There aren't any cards IN the supported list that are wortha darn anyway.
( though I'm not sure if with  version  2.0 and up if the list has changed)

To be more specific than my previous comments:

The LO level needs to be set high enough so that IF levels coming out of the receiver never runs into saturation. 

The IF level going into the mixer (from the receiver) must be set so that the output going into the sound card will be at optimum dynamic range at one end of the set level and yet never produce unwanted products due too high a level going into the sound card.

I'm wondering if SoftRock has completely satisfied these criteria in some cases.  The need of selecting the so-called "proper" sound card (aside from non-functionality) may be that one or both of these criteria needs adjusting for proper "clean performance" and dynamic range. 

Al

Wow, the whole band, very cool. I bet the receiver is every bit as good as a flex 5K. The only thing you could add is a good preselector just like every SDR.
So go with an unsupported card and set the audio levels (sliders on the audio control panel) so the noise floor just increases a bit with the antenna disconnected. This will give you the greatest dynamic range.
Tony Parks has done more for ham radio than anyone in the past 30 years.
I hope he makes a million bucks at least. His quality is great, his prices even better.

Steve
I bet you thought this was plug n play??? It's really the cat's meeow. It's the best of almost all boatanchor receivers on one little card. BUT the main player in this, is the computer.
I bought a gaming computer from eBay $250 dual core processor and the Edirol FA66 sound card. Running at 192khz.
Others will comment on their favorite sound card or just select non-supported.
But I can turn most received signals with key-upper hetrodynes and close by SSB into arm chair copy with my Flex 1000 and the latest Power SDR.
You'll love it.
Fred

OK....Thanks for the comments so far....I knew there would be a learning curve with this...I am looking at sound cards that plug into the USB port...(Who knew? not me) at least 24 bit 96 Khz.. I am wondering if my computer has enough processor for this...How do I tell?  I don't want to buy a  USB soundcard and find out my computer doesn't have enough scrote. The machine I want to use has windoze 7 OS and the built in sound card is NOT stereo so I don't want to use the built in soundcard...  Today I will find the specs on my computer processor (How?....I have no manuals,Can I make the computer tell me this?) and then I will know if my next step is to order up a USB sound card...
I will be looking for recommendations on the soundcard..    It looks like the software that controls these soundcards lets you fiddle with the input and output levels as well as some equalization ,etc ...that seems like a good thing..and then the SDR software lets you control the receiver...  comments please.....Steve

Look for EMU-0202 or 0204, or 0404.

Those are the best bang for the buck ( or, hundred and twenty bux)

Even the lowly EMU-0202 far out-performs the Delta-44 or Edirol FA-66.

You should have USB 2.0 ports though.
If only USB 1.1 then you are limited to 44.1khz and 48khz sample rates.


In Win7:
Goto Start > Control Panel > System and Security > System.

It will tell you the processor..processor speed.. amount of RAM  etc..

BRuce

My computer says it has windoze 7= 64 bit AMD Athlon 2850e 1.8 GHZ....2048 MB Ram,  1940 MB available   How do I know if I have 2.0 USB ports?

go into Device manager..

look down at the bottom at Universal serial Bus controllers... expand the list by clicking  +

You should see "Standard OpenHCD"  or "Enhanced..." somewhere in the list.

It WON"T say "USB2.0" or any plain language like that

 

Probably depending on the machine, it will say something like "Intel(R) ICH9 Family USB2 Enhanced Host Controller - xxx" for USB2


For USB1.0/1.1/1.2, it will say something like "Intel(R) ICH9 Family USB Universal Host Controller - xxx"

Also, right clicking on any item in the list and then clicking "properties", then "Details" should also tell you.

Mine says "Standard enhanced PCI to USB host controller" also has Open enhanced PCI to USB host controller...
  I take this to mean I have USB 2.0 ports..This computer is 2 yrs old...

yes, the word "enhanced" tells you that you have USB 2.0 ports

Now, it could be that not ALL the ports are USB2.0 ( a lot of times the front panel ports are not 2.0)
But you have them there somewhere.. :-)

Steve
Sounds like you have an acceptable computer, but is it a laptop or desktop?
Laptops usually stick you with a mono "sound card".
A 2 yr old computer laptop or desk is usually a stereo sound card. MotherBoard "cards" are very limited in flexibility.
WIN 7 is very nice to work with.

Hi Fred...My machine is a desktop E-machine..Doesn't have a line input on the soundcard.....Has a pink mic jack on the back panel... and 4 speaker jacks...also on the back...I don't understand the 4 speaker jacks...They are marked with that little [{(<  speaker symbol?  On the front panel it has a headphone jack and a mic jack....seems like it should be stereo but I'm not sure...I'm gonna hook it up today and see if I can get some noise out of it...I can't hurt it doing that can I??

Plug a cable into what you think is the input...

Measure the TIP and Ring to the sleeve, make sure there isn't microphone bias voltage on either connection.

The softrock I'm sure has a DC blocking cap... ( I'm almost sure..)

But might as well play it safe and check first!

Bruce

I found no mic bias...Looking in the control panel, I find under "change sound card settings" (the recording tab) 3 jacks listed......1 for mic on front panel, 1 for mic on rear panel, and a" line in" on rear panel  The picture shows a dark blue ring around the jack... I don't seem to have a jack like that on the back...attached Picture shows the back panel....From the top L to R .....Lite blu,lite green, pink...next row...orange, black, blank....next row...unknown,USB, USB...next row  USB, USB, SATA?...The control panel says my sound card has a line in but I remain confused....Ihave the Flex software installed and I checked the box for SDR 1000 and tried the softrock ensemble into the mic jack....I get  a noise floor when I plug into the mic jack, but no signals show... 

more...

http://support.gateway.com/us/en/emac/product/default.aspx?tab=1&modelId=1873 Click on User Guides and then latest "Generic User Guide" and review Pages 4 and 5 for rear jack identification and what's set at default. Couldn't find any data on the quality and range specs. of the audio section.

Thanks Pete...It seems that the Blue plug can be configured as a stereo in jack...The tiny arrow on the symbol points in ...I didn't see that before...very tiny symbols..The link you gave me shows it very well....I'll try this next...I have it configured for line in now ...I couldn't find any quality or range specs yet...   Steve

Yup, Blue is Blue...
It is line input

bruce

The e-machine should be stereo audio.
Strange it doesn't have a "line-in"
Look in your control panel and click on sound and see if you find the mixer controls for a line input.
Another machine of mine has a RealTech sound card and will show the mixer controls and a graphic where all in-s and out-s are located on the computer case.
Hard to believe that there is no line in.
The level out of the SoftRock card will instantly overload the mic input. Adding an attenuator might really screw up the impedance and freq response of the card.

Yup ...the blue jack can be configured as a stereo line input (with adjustable level) or a mic input....Its looking like I might be able to get going here...

As you can see from your previous attached screen picture below, Line Input is already configured to be active (green circle with white check mark) .

(http://amfone.net/Amforum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=30888.0;attach=31567;image)

Thanks to all that have helped me over the past 2 days.....I have the ensemble RX II working with HDSDR  on my internal MoBo sound card..!!The displayed freq on the screen doesn't match  the frequency I'm receiving..I haven't figured out the offset yet or how to change this but I've made progress...Enough for today...Thanks again....Steve

Steve, You will want to tune the LO freq off to the side of the freq you are trying to receive.  For example.  If you want to listen to 3885 you could put the LO at 3870. How far you can put the LO depends on your sound card specs.  I can see a bit less then 192Kc here with my HPDV6 I7 laptop.  The reason why you would offset the LO from the tuned frequency is that you will see a spike at the LO.  This is from the DC on the line from the computer to the sound card on the line input. To fix this, You need a galvanic isolator.  A transformer.

Use a 1 to 1 audio transformer.  You need two, One for each line.  They have plug in 1 to 1 transformers on Ebay with 1/8th mic line plugs these are called "Line isolators". I have one and it removed the Spike at the LO freq and took some noise down on the reciever.

Good luck.

C

 

That is a good suggestion Clark.
Pete told me about the isolators and it cleared up a lot of weird problems for me.
I isolated ALL ins and outs of the sound card and the Flex radio box from my computer.
Steve, just take little steps with this and enjoy the SDR. Down the road consider the isolators. Good ones get expensive.
The case of the computer should not touch the RF ground of the SDR card. It may or may not cause a ground loop and all the digital stuff going on inside both devices will give strange results.
Have fun
Fred

All my SDRs are completely DC Isolated from the computer, antenna, AC line etc.

I use USB Isolators, because THAT's what causes the most noise/ground problems.


the audio line isolators can get rid of some of the spike in the center.
It is caused by the DC- Offset  between inputs, and a lot of soundcards produce it on their output as well.

The 'hump' at the center is what an isolator will get rid of... the low-frequency noise generated by the radio itself, along with ground-hum.

Two slightly different issues that affect the very center of the display.

Yesterday evening I (thought) I had the radio working and gave it up for the day...This morning I find that the RX is working but I can only receive a small portion of some unknown ham band....Nothing else but this one small segment....Doesn't change no matter what freq I enter...Using HDSDR...I can enter a frequency and the correct numbers show up on the screen, but the freq doesn't change.doesn't make any difference what freq segment shows on the screen, I am still only able to rx this small portion of a band..If it wasn't for W6XF calling cq on cw , I wouldn't even know I was on a ham band..  Any ideas from those experienced with this???  Thanks...Steve