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KD6VXI
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« on: November 23, 2015, 07:38:45 PM »

I've got a anan 10e coming this way to evaluate from a friend.

Always (the bit I've used sdr)  used flex and powersdr...  What software would you recommend...   For AM and ssb,  if different package by mode.

I'm contemplating a purchase,  and my friend bought one for a remote site.   Upon hearing I wanted one,  he offered his to try while  the remote is being built.

--Shane
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n1eu
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« Reply #1 on: November 23, 2015, 07:42:42 PM »

Shane, essentially the only game in town for any mode is the OpenHPSDR version of PowerSDR available here:

http://svn.tapr.org/repos_sdr_hpsdr/trunk/W5WC/PowerSDR_Installers/PowerSDR_mRX_PS_v3.3.6.0_Setup.msi

73, Barry N1EU

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« Reply #2 on: November 23, 2015, 07:44:36 PM »

Lol OK then.

He received the radio,  sent me a pic of it already.

Not so impressive,  just the box.   What it can do....   Wow.

Thanks!

--Shane
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« Reply #3 on: November 24, 2015, 08:50:35 AM »

Lol OK then.

He received the radio,  sent me a pic of it already.

Not so impressive,  just the box.   What it can do....   Wow.

Thanks!

--Shane
KD6VXI

Shane  I have a 10E, its a great rig for any mode including AM.  Many reviews out there so wont go into all that. But it does require a good performing Windows based PC and needs a modification for pure signal from a linear amp, nothing too difficult.  It is now my main rig, sold all my knob radios.  For AM it has a wonderful sync detector and the carrier ratio can be adjusted to give clean positive peak over modulation. Hard to beat for under 1K$.

73s  Nigel
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« Reply #4 on: November 24, 2015, 09:55:56 AM »

I have an ANAN10E, which I use in conjunction with a 100W Elecraft KXPA100 solid state linear amplifier.

I have posted information on the Yahoo Groups Apache Labs web site regarding how I use Pure Signal without having to make any modifications to the ANAN10E.

When transmitting, the "RX" SMA connector on the back of the ANAN10E provides an input to the ANAN10E's receiver... even though the ANAN10E's schematic shows that there is a relay (k19) that places a short to ground across the input of the ANAN10E's receiver... on transmit. The reason is that, inside the ANAN10E, there is a short length of 50 ohm coaxial mini cable between the input of the ANAN10E's receiver and relay k19. The impedance... looking into the receiver end of this coaxial mini cable... is not 0 ohms when k19 is in the transmit position. It is actually (using a Smith chart to calculate the impedance of a shorted length of coaxial cable) about j5 ohms on 40 meters, j2.5 ohms on 75 meters, j10 ohms on 20 meters, etc.

I place an external 5W non-inductive, 50 ohm resistor, located adjacent to the ANAN10E's RX SMA connector,  in series with the RX SMA input connector.

The result is (for example, on 40 meters): the impedance... looking into the added resistor that is connected in series with the SMA RX port... is very close to 50 ohms (resistive). I.e. 50 ohms + j5 ohms is approximately 50 ohms. In addition, the combination of the added 50 ohms of series resistance and the impedance looking directly into RX the SMA port (i.e. j5 ohms) forms a 20dB voltage divider [i.e. j5/(50+j5)] feeding into the receiver of the ANAN10E on transmit.

In the case of my setup, I drive the input side of the added 50 ohms series resistor (located adjacent the ANAN10's RX SMA connector), using 50 ohm coaxial cable... with a 10:1 current transformer that is sampling the output of my 100W amplifier. The secondary of the current transformer has a fixed, 150 ohm, non-inductive resistor directly across it (for safety)... so the parallel combination of that 150 ohm resistive load, and the 50 ohm resistive load looking into the coaxial cable that feeds the RX SMA input of the ANAN10E, produces a total load across the secondary of the current transformer of 37.5 ohms. The voltage reduction between the output of the amplifier and the output of the current divider is, therefore, (1/10) x 37.5 ohms/50 ohms = .075 = (approximately) 22.5dB.

The net voltage attenuation between the output of the amplifier and the input of the ANAN's receiver is (approximately) 22.5dB + 20dB = 42.5dB. That works fine with my 100W amplifier, for providing a proper feedback signal for Pure Signal. I.e. with this level of external feedback, Pure Signal sets the ANAN's internal adjustable receiver input attenuator to 17dB. The total voltage attenuation between the 100V peak RF output voltage of the amplifier, and the input to the ANAN receiver's RF preamplifier (including the attenuation of the ANAN's internal adjustable receiver input attenuator) is 42.5dB + 17dB = ~60dB. Therefore, the Pure Signal input to the receiver's RF preamplifier is 100mV peak. The ANAN receiver's RF preamplifier has a gain of 20dB... so the Pure Signal input voltage to the A/D converter = 10 X 100mV peak = 1V peak.

If you have a 1000 watt output amplifier chain, then you need an additional 10dB of attenuation in the feedback path.

Stu  
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« Reply #5 on: November 24, 2015, 09:57:58 AM »

I have one on the way as well.
I worked Stu (AB2EZ) on his and it works better and sounds better then his ranger.

I had a cheap computer I got at wall mart (AMD quad core) with a crappy video system and it ran the flex 5000 and 3000 fine, almost no latency.
I replaced it with an I5 computer with a much better video system so I expect it to run the 10E fine.
All I do with the computer is to run the sdr, it is not connected to anything else (internet) and its not doing anything else, and they have always been stable and well working that way.

I expect to just run one RX at a time on the 10E, should be easy on the computer.

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« Reply #6 on: November 25, 2015, 08:53:54 AM »

I read the owners manual (on line) for the 10E and they say AM is 3 watts carrier max.
They say the duty cycle matters and that that the output transistors are good for much more power but the rest of the parts are crap....

3 watts is not a lot.

Is there any reason I can not use the mod monitor take off to feed the signal in for pure signal?
I also have an attenuator box (push buttons) made by HP to adjust any level if the signal level is too high.
My mod monitor takeoff is a 10KV 20 PF variable cap in the station control that comes off the coax.
Is there a level indicator for the 2nd receiver input?
What range is allowed?
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« Reply #7 on: November 25, 2015, 11:04:42 AM »

Brett

With 100% positive modulation peaks, 3W of carrier power corresponds to 12W of peak power.

I set the "carrier level" to 75 ... which corresponds to a carrier output power level of:
0.75 x 0.75 x the nominal AM carrier level. The nominal AM carrier power level is 0.25 x the peak power output level that you have set.

Therefore, if the peak power output level is set to 12W, then the nominal carrier power output level is 3W.

Examples:

With the "carrier level" set to 100 (the default setting), the actual carrier output power level is 1.00 x 1.00 x 3W =3W = the nominal carrier output power level

With the "carrier level" set to 75,  the actual carrier output power level is 0.75 x 0.75 x 3W = 1.7W

With the "carrier level" set to 80, the actual carrier power output level is 0.8 x 0.8 x 3W = 1.92W

A "carrier level" setting of 75 allows for positive modulation peaks of: 100% x (2-0.75)/0.75 = 167%

A "carrier level" setting of 80 allows for positive modulation peaks of: 100% x (2-0.80)/0.80 = 150%

A "carrier level" setting of 100 allows for positive modulation peaks of: 100% x (2-1.00)/1.00 = 100%

Stu
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« Reply #8 on: November 25, 2015, 11:21:56 AM »

Right, and it does not get hot, does it?
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« Reply #9 on: November 25, 2015, 11:33:57 AM »

Brett

Whether you use the approach I described in my earlier post (adding an external 50 ohm non-inductive resistor in series with the ANAN's RX sma input port), or you make the modifications to the ANAN that are described on the Apache Labs Yahoo Group Web site:

The interface between the output of the amplifier and the ANAN's Pure Signal input port will be looking into a 50 ohm impedance... and it should be designed accordingly.

Your modulation monitor's  RF sensor/sniffer interface to your RF output signal may or may not be able to drive a large enough sample of your RF output signal into a 50 ohm load... to satisfy the requirements for Pure Signal to work properly.

With the approach I described in my earlier post, the RF sensor/sniffer must produce approximately 1 watt (peak power) into a 50 ohm load.

If you make the modifications to the ANAN that are described on the Apache Labs Yahoo Group web site, then your RF sensor/sniffer must produce approximately 10mW (peak power) into a 50 ohm load.

Stu
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« Reply #10 on: November 25, 2015, 12:24:29 PM »

Right, and it does not get hot, does it?


When I run my 10E on AM I use 2.5W carrier with a 75% ratio. This drives my HB amp to 8A at 50V or 400W input and carrier OP about 250W.  The 10E gets a little warm but certainly not hot.  The amp fans go to high speed after a bit but it does not overheat either. The signal reports are all good.

73s  Nigel
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« Reply #11 on: November 25, 2015, 12:50:47 PM »

I'd be careful about lowering the carrier level setting unless you've got a modulation monitor on the output.  Current versions of PowerSDR do an excellent job of full AM modulation.

73, Barry N1EU
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« Reply #12 on: November 25, 2015, 01:55:20 PM »

They have a web site?
I know there is a yahoo forum, but no sign of the web site?
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« Reply #13 on: November 26, 2015, 10:55:33 AM »

I guess the correct answer Brett is that there's lots of information spread across various web sites. Barry - N1EU has collected a lot of links and information at the wiki site located at the link below. It's a good place to start, especially for the articles that cover setting up AM operation:

http://anan-100d.wikidot.com/

Regarding Shane's question for the best software. I would agree that the OpenHPSDR package really does have it all. After you have mastered that you might find it fun to mess around with the Zeus Radio software. It is not as full-featured as OpenHPSDR but it does an excellent job with TX and RX on AM and has some clever features that are implemented in the TX audio chain. The video below shows how they handle the user interface for adjusting gain distribution. Note that the audio heard in the video is what is generated by the Zeus Radio software:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0IFU2bcGX0

There is no real installation involved as you simply unzip the software into a folder and run it from there and it does not interact at all with your OpenHPSDR installation. The latest version is at the link below. Just click on the downward pointing arrow at the top of the page:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bylg7ZUFCyArS3I5dEhoOWlIMzA/view

There is an excellent quick-start guide in the files section of the KC9XG user group at Yahoo. You can get that by joining the group or if you want I can email the startup guide to you (1 meg PDF file).

73,

Rob W1AEX


* zeus radio AM.png (808.12 KB, 1280x720 - viewed 607 times.)
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« Reply #14 on: November 26, 2015, 12:47:05 PM »

I am used to PowerSDR from the Flex stuff, so that is a start.
Got the OpenHPSDR software installed yesterday and went though the usual settings.
Now I just have to wait for the radio.

Out of all the software I have used, PowerSDR is up there, its easy to use and has the buttons you want handy.
The Flex newer versions were very fussy about audio levels.

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« Reply #15 on: November 26, 2015, 07:29:08 PM »

Brett,

Although the GUI for OpenHPSDR looks similar to PowerSDR everything under the hood is new. I think you will enjoy the TX audio chain which has a look ahead algorithm that makes it impossible to drive the ALC beyond 0 dB. You can drive it hard (in fact you need to make sure you are driving the ALC to 0 dB regularly) and the TX audio will get loud and remain clean. The leveler also functions as a software limiter that allows you to bring up the audio density. It's a snap to set the audio gain distribution. You'll also find that the AM detector is distortion free. I'll be interested to see what you think after you've had a chance to mess around with it.

73,

Rob W1AEX
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« Reply #16 on: November 26, 2015, 08:48:12 PM »

Rob,
I have been reading a bunch of stuff you posted about it, seems they fixed a lot of the issues the flex stuff had.
I know you could get the flex stuff to sound clean but not do tricks like the new stuff can.
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« Reply #17 on: November 28, 2015, 06:58:15 PM »

I received the 10E today.
I am not impressed.
The Ethernet interface comes up at 100 mbps which is enough I suppose, supposed to support 1 gig.
The radio only puts out 2 or 3 watts carrier and 6 watts pep at the most.
Latency is no better (worse I think) then a Flex 5000 running with a firewire interface.
I can get the latency low with very small buffers but then thing go south performance wise.

Receive performance seems fine, I did not really get a chance to compare it to other things on weak signals.
Flex 5000 performance is very close I think, at least in most aspects.

Not overly fond of power sdr mrx, I like the control and options and better displays of sdr-radio version 1.5, it allows you to  select which sideband to listen to with the click of a button.

Audio (RX and TX) sounds very good, typical SDR there.

So $1000.00 for a 3 watt radio with a lot of latency seems like a poor investment, I still like the SDR-IQ better as a band scope and a receiver.
A 3 watt transmitter with a lot of delay in it I have no use for.

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« Reply #18 on: November 28, 2015, 10:27:20 PM »

Brett,

Yes, even though the onboard ethernet hardware is a 1 gigabit port, the driver is currently limiting it to 100 mbps. This is holding the total number of available receivers to 5, but since the 10E only has 2 receivers it does not make a difference there. However, it does eliminate the use of stitched receivers, and the 384 kHz sampling rate when pre-distortion is enabled. The developers do have a 1 gigabit driver running but have not released it to the general public yet.

Regarding the low power output you are seeing, if you have not yet done the PA calibration for each band it should be possible to quickly bring that up to spec. The 10E owner's manual makes reference to this on page 38 but doesn't actually explain the procedure. All you do is observe your power output while going band-by-band and hitting the Tune button in OpenHPSDR with the Drive slider up to the maximum. If the power output is not to spec on any band, in the PA Calibration table adjust the gain setting for that band downward in value and this should bring your output power up.

The latency issue you are experiencing is a puzzle to me. My own is extremely low for TX and RX. I haven't bothered to measure it because it is not problematic, but if I listen to a station in the AM BCB with a standard radio, and then tune the same station in with my ANAN SDR, the latency is just barely discernible to the ear and is far less than my Flex 5K which ran through the firewire port. The first question I would ask is what is the reported CPU Utilization in OpenHPSDR for your system? My own runs between 4% and 8% typically.

You should be seeing a far cleaner and quieter receiver without the LO and solid-state relay noise issues that are present in the Flex 5K/3K/1500 generation of radios.

Simon Brown is currently working on his SDR-Radio software for the ANAN. He is currently using it on 60m (TX and RX) with his own ANAN 10E but is not making any promises yet about when it will be ready for primetime.

Definitely hit the apache labs yahoo group for support for anything you feel is unsatisfactory.

73,

Rob W1AEX
  
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« Reply #19 on: November 28, 2015, 11:08:16 PM »

Rob,
Thanks for the response.
My cpu runs around 10% (I5, 8gb ram windoze 7)

The latency I am talking about is on TX.
And, if I transmit on another (analog) rig and listen in the 10E there is delay.
Its ok on the smallest RX buffer size.

The radio does 10 watts out on CW and I would expect it to do 10 watts pep, but it looks to be about 6.

I was doing some a/b tests with receivers, I have a homebrew bridged into the antenna and both radios go into the marantz audio amp, and the homebrew seems to recover audio a bit better on weak signals but its close.


I expected less latency through the system over ethernet.
It does have much less then the sdr-iq on usb but a good size buffer selection kills it.





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« Reply #20 on: November 28, 2015, 11:58:55 PM »

Brett

On the subject of latency... i.e. the time delay between the RF input of the receiver and the demodulated audio output:

In any receiver... whether it is a traditional receiver that incorporates analog filters, or a modern receiver that incorporates digital filters... the time delay between the signal going into the filter and the signal that comes out of the filter must be at least 1/[2 x pi x df]... where "df" is the change in frequency that is needed to transition between the end of the passband (e.g. less than 1dB attenuation) and the beginning of the stop band (e.g. greater than 6dB attenuation).

If the filter "skirt" is so steep that it rolls off (passband=> stopband) when the frequency changes by only 5Hz, then the delay through to filter must be at least 1/[2 x 3.14 x 5Hz] = 32 milliseconds.

This is a mathematically provable lower bound on the delay through any filter.

In the case of an SDR, if you set the bandpass filter to have steeper rolloff, then the latency will increase proportionately. If you set the bandpass filter to have a more gradual rolloff, then the latency will decrease proportionately.

In a classical receiver, the LC or crystal or mechanical i.f. filters would typically have a moderately steep rolloff. For example, if "df" is around 100Hz, the delay through a classical crystal or mechanical filter is around 1/[2 x3.14 x 100Hz] = 1.6 milliseconds.

If you want low latency, don't make the digital filter rolloff too steep!

[Another way to think about this is as follows. The steeper the rolloff of a digital filter, the larger the number of most recent samples of the filter's input signal must be collected (buffered) in order to perform the required digital signal processing. If the digital filter's sample rate is 48kHz, and you want the digital filter to roll off between the passband and the stopband in "df"= 12Hz, then you need to collect, buffer, and process the most recent 48kHz/(2 x 12Hz) = 2000 samples of the input signal. With a sampling rate of 48kHz, it takes 2000/48kHz = 42 milliseconds worth of recent samples to perform the digital signal processing. This delay is 3.14 (i.e. pi) times as long as the minimum delay described above]

Separately, any digital audio device that includes a buffer will add a delay that is: the size of the buffer / the sampling rate.

For example, if the buffer size is 1024 samples, and the sampling rate is 48000 samples per second, then the delay through the device will be 1024 samples/48000 samples per second = 20 milliseconds.

None of the above has anything to do with the plumbing (e.g. usb v. Ethernet), or the processing speed of the computer/FPGA/microprocessors used to perform the digital processing. It is possible for the interface between the computer and the SDR (e.g. usb or Ethernet) to add delay... but that delay is in addition to, and usually much smaller than the delays described above.

Stu
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« Reply #21 on: November 29, 2015, 03:27:56 AM »

Latency is the nature of digital signal processing and there's no way around it currently.  Both the ANAN and Flex 6K (and Flex classic) are burdened with it.  Flex 6K works around the latency by providing a tx audio monitor that is taken off before most of the software processing.  Depending on mode and filtering, we're probably talking about 50-150msec of latency on ssb rx/tx and cw rx.  Both ANAN and Flex have lower latency for cw tx.

As Brett suggests, the ethernet transport contribution to latency is a small fraction - it's the software.

73, Barry N1EU
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« Reply #22 on: November 29, 2015, 10:24:41 AM »

Unless the driver is complete crap, the latency on a local (no switches involved) Ethernet, as in the ANAN, should be in the microsecond range.
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« Reply #23 on: November 29, 2015, 10:36:08 AM »


So $1000.00 for a 3 watt radio with a lot of latency seems like a poor investment, I still like the SDR-IQ better as a band scope and a receiver.
A 3 watt transmitter with a lot of delay in it I have no use for.



Let me know what you want for it as I'm looking for a second one.

Nigel
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« Reply #24 on: November 29, 2015, 11:24:26 AM »

Right, the latency over the ethernet connection is so slight it is not a factor for our purposes. My TX latency on SSB/AM is ~40ms which is not enough to bother me if I monitor my own audio.

Beginning with OpenHPSDR version 3.2.24 the developers started implementing a new "software/hardware communication protocol" that unhooked the internal DSP sampling rate from the user selectable sampling rates in the main audio tab. The internal DSP is now locked at 48k during RX and 96k during transmit. This allows you to run much lower buffer sizes in the user selectable fields without affecting the performance of the internal DSP functions. There is no longer a need to change your DSP buffer sizes to maintain the same filter shapes when you change your sampling rate in the primary audio tab. Warren Pratt (NR0V) now suggests using a DSP Phone buffer size of 1024 for RX and no more than 2048 for TX as a starting point. Barry - N1EU documented some of Warren's suggestions at the ANAN-100D wiki site:

http://anan-100d.wikidot.com/100d-buffer

At any rate, this allowed many users to experiment with sampling rate and buffer settings to attain much lower TX latency than before. I had no issues running a primary audio buffer size of 512 and a sampling rate of 192kHz for phone and an RX buffer size of 512 and TX buffer size of 1024 in the DSP Phone buffer settings. No drop outs or anomalies of any kind unless I ventured lower. Eventually, I settled on a primary audio buffer size of 1024 and DSP Phone buffer settings of 1024 for RX and 2048 for TX because I had a feeling that the leaner settings were pretty close to the edge and the increase in latency was not enough to bother me. Scott - WU2O has done a lot of experimentation and has had success with very aggressive settings (such as 256 for the Primary audio buffer) when he played around with getting his system as near to real-time as the software would reliably allow when he worked with external audio processing DAW/ASIO software.

One thing that most AM users have noticed is that in the DSP>AM/SAM tab it is a good idea to uncheck the Fade Leveler box as it can cause a long delay in recovery time when going from TX to RX. It can also cause issues when you are receiving a very strong AM signal.

Your I-5 with 8GB of memory running Win 7 should have absolutely no issues with handling OpenHPSDR. The CPU utilization you are seeing seems to be right on the mark so it certainly doesn't look like a computing horsepower issue.

Rob W1AEX
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