| K3ROJ |
Rating:      |
2010-11-14 | |
| Great Bandwidtrh |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
| Just got mine a few weeks ago and am very satisfied with it. I presently use a Flex Radio 5000A and bought the SDR-IQ to use as a display to monitor the 144 MHz band since I do enjoy weak signal work experimenting with JT65 and recently PSK31 since we use an accurate 10 MHz reference for the 5000A and PLL oscillator for the Elecraft XV144 transverter/amplifier. The SDR-IQ is switched/sequenced out when transmitting with extra clamping diodes to avoid any RF damage. Of course 28 MHz is the transverters receive output and can see any stations easily such as 144.200 MHz which would be 28.2 Mhz. I also enjoy the ability to record any activity and save it on a separate hard drive such as satellites, mainly the Chinese HO-68. |
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| N3IBX |
Rating:      |
2010-01-24 | |
| Terrific panadaptor and HF receiver |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
Hello All,
I just received my RF space SDR-IQ two days ago and am still putting it through it's paces to get to know and understand it. I learn a little bit more about it each day. Hookup couldn't be simpler with the supplied USB cable.Install the "Spectra-Vue" software, hook up the SDR-IQ to your computer, add a antenna and you're demodulating RF signals. This isn't my first experience with SDR after having built two SoftRock Lite II receiver kits; but I was looking for more and thought the SDR-IQ would be just the thing. So far i was correct. I also purchased the IF-2000 board to use with my Yaesu FT-950, which should give me even more versatility.
I'm still playing with the Spectra-Vue software, though I'm having some difficulty adjusting a great bit of computer generated noise with it. I've tried the SDR-IQ on other software packages such as "SDR Console" by Simon Brown of HRD fame, and even "Win Radio". it works terrific on SDR console, but have yet been able to configure it on Win Radio. I'd like to try the later specifically since it demodulates DRM signals, and I'd like to experiment a little more with that mode, though it's used specifically for SWL broadcasters.
I hope to make the receiver more useful once I receive the IF-2000 interface board and am looking forward to working out the bugs I have with the included Spectra-Vue software.
So far, I'd have to give it a 5 unless it proves me wrong in the future. With it's ease of tuning, point and click features and greatly adjustable bandwidth, etc etc I expect to be using this as my main receiver for some time to come. If you purchase one I hope you get as much out of it as I do. It's all about technology, and this little box seems to be at the cutting edge of it!
Regards,
Joe Cro N3IBX |
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| N1DZ |
Rating:      |
2009-11-23 | |
| Very good bandscope |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
I am using the SDR-IQ in combination with a K3. The SDR-IQ connects to the K3 IF out and provides, together with the excellent SpectraVue software, 200KHz panoramic spectrum display with point and click K3 transceiver control.
As a receiver the SDR-IQ is ok.
As a panoramic display with a compatible transceiver it is excellent and on par or in some aspects better then a Flexradio with powerSDR. |
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| AB3CX |
Rating:      |
2009-05-22 | |
| Fun and Useful |
Time Owned: 3 to 6 months. |
| Running the SDR-IQ with my FT-2000 and IF-2000. Once you add a Panadaptor with this level of detail, you wonder how you ever did without it. For contesting, it's a huge help in search and pounce. The rig control allows instant mouse click tuning to any signal on the band. Band activity is visible in a flash, allowing you to decide whether to QSY or not. Weak and strong signals are easily separated visually, so you can spot the stations that are not the "Big Guns". As a receiver it's also great, with continuously variable filter widths, AGC constants, noise blanker. It's an instant great SWL radio on the road with a laptop computer and a hunk of wire. |
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| N9RO |
Rating:      |
2009-04-14 | |
| Great with FT2000/FT950 |
Time Owned: 6 to 12 months. |
| Add the IF-2000 board and give your FT950/FT2000 real flexibility. Makes new IOCM's look old school. |
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| KG7RS |
Rating:      |
2008-09-25 | |
| Performance that far exceeded my expectations |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
I'm proud of the many innovative amateur radio products that have debuted in the last few years from small USA firms. The high quality and performance levels of these gems seem so unlikely in a world full of "consumer junk". The RFSpace SDR-IQ is one of these gems. I bought one as a curiosity after taking notice of those in regular use by some noted DX'ers in the MW circles. I share that interest and it is from this perspective that my comments about the SDR-IQ will be based.
While owning and using some fine receivers such as the Drake R8B & Palstar R30, I've become spoiled with their performance in the brutal environment of the AM broadcast band. I'm also an old set-in-my ways, analog kind of guy who just didn't "get" why somebody would want to listen to the radio on a personal computer. My initial expectations of the SDR-IQ were modest at best.
Within a few minutes of playing with the SDR-IQ, I knew I had something special. The first notable characteristic is the selectivity. The extensively adjustable digital filters are like the proverbial brick-wall with the additional benefit of seeing your target signal, the adjacent interfering signal and the result of bandwidth adjustments on the spectral display. Audio recovery of weak signals is outstanding in AM mode, or while listening in "ECSS" via upper or lower sideband. Although the noise floor of the SDR-IQ is not any lower than most higher-end receivers I've used, weak signals seem to stand out in some indefinable way. This is without the benefit of synchronous AM detection or passband tuning, neither of which is offered on the present iteration of the receiver software. Sensitivity appears average to me, but noise floor and selectivity are of far greater importance to me when digging out weak signals from the mess. I have not had to enable any front-end attenuation to avoid over-driving the ADC at my suburban AZ location. The provided software interface, Spectra Vue, is adequate and reliable, but has the look of a bench instrument rather than the "radio" look of others I've seen. It is very functional and easy to read, but some essential functions such as filter adjustment require opening a separate window to access.
The key feature of the SDR-IQ and other software defined radios is the ability to record large chunks of spectrum for later review. The ability to play these recordings back later while having full decode ability just like live off-the-air is a tremendous feature indeed!
There is one area that could stand some improvement regarding this product. Documentation is nearly non-existent. The SDR-IQ comes with a one-page quick-start sheet with the usual software & driver installation instructions and some hints for initial parameter settings. That's it! The "help" file within the Spectra Vue software is very sparse and of little help. Competing products, such as the Microtelecom Perseus receiver offers a more conventional and detailed owner's manual, while the SDR-IQ seems to give the perception that it is a product for many uses that just happens to offer a darn good general-coverage receiver. In all fairness, the software and driver installation is a 3-minute job. Connection is nothing more than a USB cable. The software interface is very intuitive and I was up and running in about 5 minutes or so and never spent much time trying to figure out how to control the receiver or find/enable/adjust basic features. Knowing little of software defined radio technology, I will have to learn the function of all those parameter settings and choices within Spectra Vue elsewhere. I suspect a good percentage of RFSpace's customers will also feel a bit left out as well.
One other factor of which I was initially unclear: The SDR-IQ will run on older computers with a USB 1.1 interface. I was under the impression it would require a USB 2.0 connection and as such decided it was time to retire my 10-year-old laptop in favor of a new Dell with a hot processor. When I got the SDR-IQ home, I quickly noted in the setup sheet the labeling of the USB port as "1.0". To my surprise, the unit ran fine on my old Pentium III 500mhz machine but the processor is running near it's limit. Any additional demands from concurrently running software during receive requires a long delay! Minimum recommended system requirements are not stated by RFSpace.
Certainly many hams will want to purchase the SDR-IQ to use as a panoramic adapter for their tranceiver. I have not tried this yet, but intend to connect it to the 10.7Mhz IF output jack on my Palstar R30C. The SDR-IQ will see use here primarily as a very good general-coverage receiver for travel events, where the Palstar R30 has been the receiver of choice in the past.
Documentation weaknesses aside, this is a tremendous product that could not easily be replaced now that I have found it. It's a great pleasure to use and a serious introduction to Software Defined Receivers. For me, I find it to be a comfortable transition from conventional analog receivers.
Good DX and 73,
John, KG7RS |
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| N7BUI |
Rating:      |
2008-08-17 | |
| Fantastic little receiver! |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
I've owned mine for about a year. Most of the time it's been used as a shortwave receiver, but also finds use as a pan adapter on a Kenwood TS-850. I won't repeat others raves but just a few comments on the software packages that are available. The included Spectravue has great capabilities, but hidden functions need to be brought out onto the main screen such as pre amp and attentuator levels. And where is the volume control? None that I can find. This is why I use Winrad most of the time. Winrad really brings out the features of the SDR-IQ. All needed functions are on the main screen where they should be. About the only thing missing is a center frequency select similar to Spectavue.
This receiver is quite a bit better than even my Flex SDR-1000. There will be those who disagree, but when you compare the same signals the SDR-IQ comes out ahead for clarity and far less images on the spectrum analyzer.
All in all a great little receiver that has found lots of use in my shack.
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|
| M0SVA |
Rating:      |
2008-08-03 | |
| An excellent receiver and panadaptor! |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
Hi
I have had the radio for about a month. It came to England withing three (3!) working days, with FedEx, no complications at all !
Easy drivers to install, I have tried it on a Dell Vostro, and an Inspiron Laptop, as well as an older desktop. No issues, especially of course with the Dells which are quiet as well regarding RFI issues and reception on HF.
No power supply needed, as it gets powered via the USB cable!
Very good selectivity and stability, and of course the panadaptor is literally an eye-opener.
See on the panadaptor what traffic there is on the band, and just left click on it with your mouse. See him, get him!
Despite being a bit less senstive according to the specifications, in practice, there has been hardly anything I couldn't hear with the SDRIQ that I could hear with a variety of receivers and ham transceivers.
Only exception a very weak SSB signal,that I could copy better with my lovely TS-830s.
However, to be fair, the SDR does not have continuous RF gain, IF shift, notch and other bells and whistles although it has Noise Blanker and various settings related to RF, IF gain and AGC to name just a few of the numerous menus and settings !
However if you feel like tweaking with menus you can do so at your heart's delight for example re gain settings one can choose from:
6620 IF Gain
+0 +6 + 12 + 18 +24 dB
RF Gain
-20dB -10dB 0dB +10dB
Preamp Gain
from 0 dB to 34 dB!
Thoroughly enjoyed the twin receiver capability, (within the 190 kHz span of the panadaptor).
I could use different modes and filter settings for either signal, eg 2700 kHz for SSB on 14200 and 300 Hz on 14023 kHz CW, and monitor simultaneously both frequencies in stereo. If I wanted to concentrate on either, I would use the balance slider all the way to the Left or Right and hear on my headphones only the one of the two.
The bandscope is so detailed, that when you receive CW you can see the dots and the dashes on the waterfall display!!!
I personally prefer the "Combo", which gives you a combination of both the "spikes" and the waterfall.
Just watch the CW stream that you hear also simultaneously appear on your screen as dots and dashes!
You can smoothen the response of the "grass" in the "2D plot" (the spikes of a bandscope) and even see the filter shape surrounding your target signal, see the max peak as a little red X and even get to listen SSB with a bandwidth of about 24 kHz (!!),if you so desire.
Recently I connected the SDRIQ to the IF output of the AOR AR-7030, and tuned for CW signals on 20m. Thus, you can combine the excellent front end of the 7030 with the SDRIQ as a banscope! I managed to watch about 20 kHz of activity on the SDRIQ by setting the 7030 to NFM, and of course the SDRIQ on CW. However, when I tried to listen to SSB on SDRIQ through the IF provided by the AOR AR-7030, I had to use the opposite mode for some mysterious reason. To be able to copy LSB on 80m on the SDRIQ, I had to have the AOR 7030 on USB! Hmm, now that's something unexpected!
Using all my life conventional radios,rather than Software Defined Radios, I was shocked to see how well these SDR litle boxes can work....
Ok, anything can get better, but these filters for a start were fantastic!
Maybe for us in the amateur radio community SDRs are a relatively new fruit (e.g. FlexRadio system).
But it seems that others have more than a decade ago taken this techology much more seriously, e.g. the US army has been developing and enjoying this technology since the mid 1990s, see Speak Easy Project for example at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_defined_radio
Now imagine what such advanced radio pros can do with SDR plus various digital modes etc etc.
I have found myself so intrigued by this technology, that I respectfully bow to the progress of technology...
With the very attractive exchange rate between £ and US $, the radio comes at a very attractive price, especially if you consider that it doubles as a panadaptor for a serious variety of existing radios,eg. the K3 which is why I got the SDRIQ for, to use it as the K3's display.
All in all, excellent value for money!
73s de M0SVA
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|
| KF6CM |
Rating:      |
2007-09-28 | |
| Awesome - PLUS a dual sub-receiver with DSP filtering!!! |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
It is now $499 but comes in a nice box. Best money I have ever spent.
I got this because I wanted to have a band scope (pan-adapter). But I got much more than I had expected. I plugged the SRD-IQ into the IF OUT on my TS-850. The band scope works great. But there is more....
To get DUAL receive using Spectravue software,
At the bottom of the "OutputSetup" window, click the "Dual Channel Demod stereo output".
In the main window click "Demod on" then the setup button just below it. Click the box to "show filter response". This is not necessary but it really helps in seeing where the extra receiver windows are. Here you can adjust the dsp filter width and stops as well as the AGC decay.
Now above the "Demod On" check box, on the main screen, is a button that will switch between "Demod 0" and "Demod 1". Each has its own filter and agc settings!
Now I can listen to THREE different stations even in three different modes (cw, ssb, am, or fm) at the same time, one from my Radio, and two from the PC. You can click on the screen where you want to listen or tune them with the mouse wheel. Way cool!
If you have one of those radios that already has a dual watch/receive, then you would have a Quad receiver.
The big user difference between the IQ and the 14 is that the IQ only displays up to 190khz of bandwidth (which is all I need), where the 14 will go all the way up to 30Mhz of bandwidth. You can download the Spectravue software from the RF space web site. Install it and go through the setup screens. You will see the differences between the IQ and the 14. You can also look at the block diagrams and see the different topologies. The IQ lacks the 512k data buffer before the serial I/O.
The nice thing about the Spectravue software is that it will work with your sound card line input. Or you can look at the demo wav files to see how the box will work. The dual demod works with the sample wave files. (Watch out for the spectrum inversion box. You might have to switch to the opposite ssb).
The SDR-IQ is the perfect fit for my needs. This box puts new life back into my old radio.
I highly recommend it.
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|
| G0MJW |
Rating:      |
2007-02-01 | |
| Brilliant |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
This model is new as I write but is based on the SDR-14. The receiver PCB is very small, 4" square and crammed with surface mount components.
Coverage is from below 500Hz (yes really Hz) to 30MHz via a BNC connector.
All PC communications are done via a USB2 port, and the USB port also supplies the power, so there is no need for a power adapter. There is an RS232 port for controlling whatever you like, for example should you use the SDR-IQ to monitor the IF of a wider coverage receiver like the ICOM 8500, PCR1000 etc.
This is not a soundcard type of SDR. It directly samples the spectrum with 14 bits at 66MHz and digitally down converts a segment of up to 190kHz into I and Q samples which are sent to the host PC over the USB bus.
The spectravue software defined radio software has been extended to drive the SDR-IQ though it is possible to also use alternative packages. This package does all the digital signal processing associated with providing a spectrum display and demodulating CW/LSB/USB/AM/FM/WBFM. It needs a fairly powerful CPU for full functionality but can work with slower CPUs with a reduced screen update rate.
Performance of the SDR-IQ is excellent considering its small size. low cost and the available power of the USB bus. It works fine tuning around 80m in Europe at night, which is quite something, but if you do have a strong signal problem, it has 10dB of relay switched RF attenuation and a further 30 dB of ADC gain control.
Frequency stability is good, offsets can be corrected but it does not have a oven oscillator. There is likely to be an external oscillator option for critical tasks. There are pads on the PCB for an an SMA connector.
Amplitude measurement accuracy was at least as good as my signal generator between -120dBm and -20 dBm. This is not an S-meter, it is a direct measurement in dBm and so could be used for accurate monitoring of power, e.g. beacons, spectrum analysis, measurement of noise figures etc.
spectravue demodulates normal modes perfectly and can be used with 3rd party demodulators for PSK, DRM etc which expect audio inputs either by feeding its output into a soundcard input, or using a virtual soundcard link. With everything in software, the demodulation limits are only limited by programming ability and I expect we will see many new applications emerge over the next few months.
In all a very good product at a fair price. |
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