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Reviews For: FlexRadio PowerSDR

Category: Ham Software/Apps - Other than logging

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Review Summary For : FlexRadio PowerSDR
Reviews: 1MSRP: ZERO
Description:
Provides DSP and hardware control functions for software
defined radios.
Product is not in production
More Info: http://www.flex-radio.com/
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
0015
KD7RDZI2 Rating: 2010-05-03
Try to believe! Time Owned: more than 12 months.
This is an incredible piece of software. I am very surprised here nobody had reviewed here it already, albeit many already praised the Flex-Radio SDRs.

This is the "default" software for Flex-Radio systems but can be used with other radios too.

Indeed you can probably use it with many radio you already have. If you have a modern SDR such as Softrock-like hardware it will likely control your radio.

Instead I had used it with almost any receiver I have to add IF DSP, Digital Noise Reduction, Noise Blanker, Digital AGC, and digital demodulation.
I had used Winrad with:
- a Drake 2C made in 1967;
and three portables such as the Redsun RP2100, a Degen DE1103 and a Sangean 909.
What is all needed it to take the signal from an IF output. If the radio did not have this output I had to find the point where to get the IF out and convert it at 9Khz. Default IF was 9Khz but I have seen I could change up to 20Khz.

The program is nearly perfect. Demodulation is very good... and maybe it can even compete with the current best DSP radios. These may have dedicated DSP units... but sorry I prefer to exploit a dual core computer to perform DSP filtering and demodulation. More I get a nice spectrum about the received output. Compare the monitor of a laptop with the display of... say a 7600... there is no competition!

Compared to Winrad it can calibrate the noise floor, the S meter seems to be much more accurate than Winrad and it has Notch filter.
In addition it has nice noise blankers and a fantastic Sychronous AM (SAM).

It has some drawbacks compared to Winrad.
If I use a traditional receiver I need to convert the IF either to the default 9Khz or up to 20Khz. Moreover Winrad is much more user friendly apart from the fact I could use with Winrad an IF up to 96Khz!

The last but not the least I found it very useful to monitor and tailor the modulation from an old Drake T-4XB. I do even use it to help me in the tuning of the T4XB without transmitting a single watt! I can in fact peak the preselector to the right value and choose the right plate position before doing the tuning!