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Reviews For: Microtelecom PERSEUS

Category: Receivers: General Coverage

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Review Summary For : Microtelecom PERSEUS
Reviews: 27MSRP: 829 EURO
Description:
PERSEUS is a VLF-LF-HF receiver based on a outstanding direct sampling digital architecture.
It features a 14 bit 80 Ms/s analog-to-digital converter with an exceptional 76 dB SNR (BW = 40 MHz),
an high-performance configurable FPGA digital down-converter with an up to 1 MS/s output sampling
rate and a 480 MBit/s, high-speed USB 2.0 PC interface.
Product is in production
More Info: http://www.microtelecom.it/perseus/
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
00274.2
SWL2002 Rating: 2009-06-04
Nice receiver Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
Pros:
I owned the Perseus for about 6 months for evaluation. I purchased my Perseus from Universal Radio. The Perseus receiver pretty much outperforms all of my other analog receivers. It is sensitive and works very well on the crowded airwaves. I use it primarily for Shortwave listening, but I also use it for Medium and Long Wave DXing, as well as a receiver in combination with my FT-450.

I also have owned a SDR-14, and SDR-IQ. The Perseus far outperforms those receivers.

Cons:
One thing I found was that it needed additional filtering below 1 MHz due to overload from very strong broadcasters in my area. Other than that, it has performed well.

Besides not having an external clock input, as mentioned in a previous review, it is disappointing that the Perseus does not have an external muting input for use with a separate transmitter or transceiver for transmitting. I used a FT-450 for transmitting since I also have an Amateur Radio License.

Discussion Points:
I sold my SDR-14 and SDR-IQ before purchasing the Perseus. At the same time as I purchased the Perseus I also purchased a QuickSilver QS1R SDR Receiver to evaluate against the Perseus. After owning both receivers and running them side-by-side for a little over 6 months, I decided to sell the Perseus and keep the QS1R. Here is why:

1. As mentioned above, the Perseus does not have an external muting input. The QS1R has an external muting input which makes it very easy to use with a separate transmitter or transceiver for transmitting. The muting is instantaneous with no delay from activation to full muting. The manufacturer of the QS1R also plans on making a matching transmitter board available called QS1T. I am looking forward to this.

2. Using CW mode, Perseus has too much latency. I measured it to be about 500 mS. While the filters are good with no ringing, the latency is just too high for comfortable use with a transmitter. The latency is possibly too high because the Perseus uses the computer sound card for audio output. I found that the QuickSilver QS1R Receiver had very low latency and I had no problem operating full QSK on CW. The QS1R has its own audio output and does not rely on the computer’s sound card for audio output. The QS1R latency seems to be less than 10 mS.

3. I found that Perseus is prone to images of very strong signals in the FM broadcast band aliased down into its range of 0 – 40 MHz. I have a few very strong FM stations in my area and this was annoying until I figured out these “phantom” signals were images of local FM stations. In comparison, the QuickSilver QS1R did not have these images in the 0 – 60 MHz range nearly to the extent that the Perseus did. The strongest image on the Perseus was about -50 dBm where the same station image on the QS1R was about -100 dBm. I added an external low pass filter to both receivers which dropped the strongest image on Perseus to about -85 dBm and below the noise floor on QS1R.

4. Other considerations are that the Perseus software could only be used on Windows, where the QS1R software works on Windows, Linux, and OSX. I am slowly converting my computer use over to Linux and this was a future consideration for me. Also Perseus covers up to 40 MHz where the QS1R covers up to 60 MHz. It is very nice that the QS1R is able to tune the 6 meter band. In my area I often have signal levels in the 1 – 20 MHz range up to about 0 dBm at night. I had to engage the Perseus attenuator to prevent overload at these times. The QS1R does not overload until much higher, I measured about +10 dBm, so I never had overload problems with the QuickSilver QS1R. Lastly, the Perseus was about $300 more in the USA than the QS1R, although the resale value of Perseus was good. When I sold it I got about 80% of the purchase price.

Conclusion:
Purchasing the Perseus will not leave you disappointed. It has many positives, with only a handful of negatives as I have described above. Your intended use with determine whether these negatives are important to you. Overall, I am much happier with the QuickSilver QS1R for my use. The QS1R was less expensive for better thought out features and wider coverage. If you are a Linux or MAC user, then choosing the QS1R is a no-brainer. If you are considering purchasing a SDR receiver then the QS1R should be on your list as a possibility in addition to the Perseus.
QRPNEW Rating: 2009-06-04
Good product Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
The Perseus receiver performance is fantastic. My Elecraft K3 sounds like a receiver that is in a sewer pipe when comparing them. The noise reduction is superior to the Elecraft K3s. The Perseus is also not a noisy receiver like the K3. The Perseus has the advantage over my K3 when it comes to weak signal reception. It also matches the K3's IMD dynamic range performance.

The big advantage if the Perseus is the narrow DSP filters which actually work very well without making the SSB signal sound pinched. The K3 filters sound awful when narrowed. The CW reception is vastly superior, and actually sounds like true analogue receiver, the K3s CW sound is washed out and mushy.

I am very happy with the Perseus. I just wish the Perseus had a VFO knob, a easy ability to slave with a transceiver and proper input protection when used with a transceiver.

The Perseus also excels when used as panadpter. There is no Japanese radio that can beat the Perseus in panadapter mode, full stop. The Perseus is a proper spectrum analyzer in the panadpter mode giving true amplitude and indication of signal in the frequency domain. The Icom 7800s display is a toy in comparison.

The very accurate amplitude scale is excellent, it would be great if other scales were available such as Dbuv or other field strength references. The Winradio product has these and makes a superb field strength monitoring tool.

The only criticism of the Perseus is the lack of external reference input. The lack of reference input makes it difficult to phase lock receivers for advanced users. I believe not including this was a marketing mistake especially for professional markets.

The Spectran and spectrum analyzer features in software are poor. This aspect of the Perseus use as a true spectrum analyzer needs improvement. I truly believe the potential of the Perseus is wasted not exploiting its true potential as a spectrum analyzer. I use a Rohde FSH3 at work and I believe the Perseus would easily match the FSH3 on HF if it were so equipped. It would be great with an integrated tracking generator or some VNA features. The Perseus could excel as a measurement test tool when used with various IMD masks for such things DRM transmitter checking. All it needs is the software to do this. I use a Fraunhofer DT4700 DRM monitor in my work and the Perseus could probably do the same job for much less money. The potential is there!!!

It would be great if Microtelecom also produced a companion transmitter in the future. A companion transmitter and Perseus would kill anything on the market if it was built to a high commercial specification that met NTIA or ITU standards for transmitter performance.

Its a pleasure to use such a good product aimed at hobbyists with such a great amount of professional performance and potential.
KR4K Rating: 2009-05-09
Super SDR Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
Purchased 5 Perseus receivers from SSBUSA.com. Gerry was great to work with.

Perseus receiver matches or out performs the receiver in my Kenwood TS-2000, Kenwood TS-480, and ICOM IC-706Mk2g.

Extremely happy with supplied or Winrad interfaces.

Building MATLAB control software interface, and Nico has a good starting software development kit.
N5SKH Rating: 2009-01-19
Awesome Receiver and Spectrum Display Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I purchased this last week from SSB USA with plans for eventually using this as the receive side of my station. I already have an ICOM 756 Pro III which is my benchmark for comparison with the Perseus.

I love my Pro III's receiver features but the Perseus blows it out of the water. The Perseus receiver is extremely sensitive and general S/N level response seems much more robust than the Pro III. In the past week I've heard more European stations with the Perseus than I've ever heard before (we just moved to a new QTH with a much quieter RF environment so I'm sure that is a positive factor as well).

My antenna set-up is very simple (an Outbacker Perth hidden in the backyard due to Homeowner's restrictions).

The filters on the Perseus are brick wall solid and the noise reduction feature is very effective.

The software's Panadapter display is very responsive and quick to display transient signals. It's rejuvenated my interest in utility monitoring as it's very easy to find the quick and terse voice transmissions often noted in the aero and military bands.

The box itself is very small and it's hard to imagine so much signal processing power in such a small package.

I've played around with decoding of digital signals using the Virtual Audio Cable software and Ham Radio Deluxe and that seems to work well also.

I also purchased the Elad switchbox (now also available in the USA from SSB USA) but I have not had a chance to test that as of yet. The Elad switchbox allows the Perseus to be used as the receive side of your station along with your normal transceiver as the transmit side.

My thanks to Ian, 2E1RDX, for his input regarding my purchase and to Gerry at SSB USA for great customer service.

You will not regret a purchase of the Perseus, it's an awesome product!
DL6EAT Rating: 2009-01-03
First Summary and Comparison Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Well, I ordered the Perseus just about 3 weeks ago and got it up and running in minutes. I used the build-in splitter of my TS870 and had one antenna on 2 rigs available pretty fast.
The Perseus is an amazing piece of new technology and has not much in common with the older SDR-products where still sound-cards essentially define overall-quality. This direct-sampling product is different - every user will notice this latest when recording the full 80m-band or tropic-radio-band by night. It's all there like sitting in front of a real receiver but the whole story happened already days ago! Simply very amazing!
You decide about filters, modes and bandwith while tuning the bands...
The receiver-specs are more than just good - they are up to the best I can measure nowadays - compared to my IC-7700 there is also not much of an difference. Of course, the NB and especially the NR is much better on the 7700 but sensitivity, blocking dynamic or selectivity is even better on the Perseus.
I'm using the latest S/W of January 1st 2009 (version 2.1d) after some little date-problems of the former version 2.1a on January 1st...
The S/W is more than easy to use and many things are very well done - like a good S-Meter, the waterfall in various colours and the superb fast spectrum-scope!
Here are some wishes for the future: Improve the NB & the NR and implement an AGC-control where you can adjust times up to 10 seconds. Also make the S/W more flexible regarding screen-adjustments. Also an RF-Gain and Squelch would be nice to have along some scanning-options.
The Virtuell Audio Cable and DRM could be also implemented already - just to have it all complete right away.

I know this is all peanuts as it's just done in the S/W, but it optimizes the human-interface a lot.
Nevertheless the Perseus is outstanding - therefore allow me harsh comment: The IC-7700 is still an impressive piece of HAM-Radio-equipment and as everybody well know - its not what we call cheap - but it needs to be combined with the Perseus. Once you do this you know what you have missed so far! You get a second high-performance-receiver, you get a real FFT (with live-update-rates - not grand-pa's version of Icom!) and you get a waterfall-diagram with adjustable scrolling-parameters. (Not even known in the big 7700!) And now the best: Everything right out of the box for just 800,-Euro. This sounds not cheap? Well, who does it better and completes your 7700 faster?
This was the reason to vote a "5" even when I identified problems and open opportunities to make it even better.
Finally - this product will probably lead all of us in a new HAM-radio-century. Probably the big, expensive H/W-based-radios will disappear very soon and little modems will replace them. This product already passed the current SDR-world a bit. (Sorry, please forgive me dear flexers...)
Now we just need to get a transmitter dear Nico and a bit shorter latency-time....
May be being there tomorrow is also not what we really want - the future stays very exiting for quite a while! Has it ever been better than right now? This is what at least I enjoy a lot!

Happy New Year and all the very best for 2009!
Health for all of us.

Andreas, DL6EAT
G4AON Rating: 2008-09-20
Very useful receiver Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
This is my first venture into software defined receivers and the performance is amazing. The software version I am using is 1.1b which includes the ability to record up to 800 KHz of any frequency span between 10 KHz and 30 MHz to hard disk to replay later.
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Good points:

Really good dynamic range with fixed bandwidth front end filters. 3rd order IMD from the RSGB RadCom review is quoted at 102 dB regardless of signal spacing, which is on par with an Elecraft K3. (Review at: http://www.ssb.de/amateur/pdf/radcom_mar08.pdf or from the members only area of the RSGB web site).

Easy to install software, works straight out of the box and is intuitive to tune either by clicking on a signal on the very accurate spectrum scope or by tuning with the scroll wheel of a mouse. Most of the time clicking in a displayed signal in a 50 KHz or 100 KHz span gives perfect tuning requiring very little if any fine tuning.

Synchronous AM works really well.

The noise reduction is better than that currently implemented in the Elecraft K3 (version 2.38 firmware).

Easy to adjust bandwidth for comfortable listening.

Accurate frequency setting (uses 1ppm TCXO).

Accurate S-meter.

As you tune through the broadcast bands a display window shows which stations broadcast on that frequency using either the HFCC or EIBI databases. You can also add your own and switch between them.

Ability to record to hard drive various spans of frequency up to 800 KHz, or with the next release of software 1600 KHz. The replay works just the same as if you were tuning the band in real time.

On a modern PC it requires very little of the CPU processing time, my AMD 64 dual core PC with 1 GB of ram and running XP Pro SP3 typically uses about 12%, or less, of the CPU time while running any of the Perseus features - even when storing 800 KHz to hard disk or playing it back.

3rd party software support to link other receivers/transceivers for synchronised tuning, CW Skimmer, data decoding, DRM decoding, etc. But see below for the downside to this.
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Not such good points:

While the supplied software is very easy to use, pleasing to look at and works well, it does need the support of 3rd party packages to link with other receivers, decode DRM and data, etc. Integrating the Perseus software requires a certain amount of computer expertise and is not straightforward.

Existing 3rd party software (at mid September 2008) tends to support sound card based SDR applications rather than the Perseus, this requires a software data rate converter such as "Ratemonkey" and in some cases a virtual comm port like "com0com" and "Virtual Audio Cable". Clearly matters will improve but at the moment adding some software products is tedious. This is more of an issue for 3rd party software than a criticism of the Perseus product, but is still a nuisance to the end user.

There are currently no "memory channels" in version 1.1b software, easily added and available via 3rd party applications but should be there in the supplied software.
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While experimenting with CW Skimmer and Perseus, I discovered that recorded "wav" files from Perseus were playing back with serious flutter and crackle. The only cure was to use Windows Restore to revert to a pre-Perseus time. This was not a problem caused by the Perseus software but I suspect with some of the 3rd party add-ons. This hasn't dampened my enthusiasm for the receiver but has made me cautious about adding all manner of extras for the time being.

The receiver is currently used in conjunction with my K3, connecting via a ferrite hybrid splitter to give dual receive of the same signal as received by the K3 (not using the K3 IF port). This combination works very well for "click and go" tuning when linked via "com0com" and Ham Radio Deluxe.
I1QII Rating: 2008-06-10
A NEW WORLD BEGINNING Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I'm amateur radio from approximately 30 years.
Job in the field of the planning electronic automotive.
On radio i like cw, swl and to restore old gear.
I had the Perseus from approximately a month and I listen nearly every day.
My antennas are simple vertical dipoles for hf.
In all these years I have had and tried approximately 30 receivers
or different rtx of the known kind for amateur radios and professional use.
I must say that although i'm a technician, I estimate the quality of a receiver
for what i listen and overall for the quality and the cleaning that is in a position to making.
According to my experience, listening to the Perseus I think that the data
supplied officially from the producer are true (Dinamic-range, IP3, Mds), therefore of optimal level.
The quality of what I listen must be also estimated on other hand respect
to the technical parameters normally measured
I must say that in AM and AM-SYNC mode is the best receiver that I have listened.
In the SSb mode is one of the best ones but i listen to a slightly
not natural modulation also using a fast computer (dual-Core).
In CW he must be improved, agc is not adapted, the answer to fast disturb is not optimized,
the noise reductor does not work well in cw.
In digital modes, included DRM the receiver is optimal.
I must say that the noise-blanker it is truly optimal, one of the best ones.
Approximately the software (Ver. 1.0F) I think that is enough stable.
Only few times I'd exit and to re-enter in the program because it did not work well.
Lot of the tuning modalities and they do not make to mourn the tuning knob.
Optimal the reject-tuning completely adjustable inside of the pass band.
The selectivity is exceptional and completely adjustable from little tens of Hz to 25 Khz.
and with the steepest walls. Beautiful the graphical of radio spectrum and truly innovative
the possibility to record specrum till 800Khz and elaborating it later.
I think the price of 825 euros a little over.
My real voting is 4,5/5, for encouragement for the optimal plan I give 5/5.
I hope to read other book reviews soon.