Softrock SDR

[K9FV]

Has anyone here been building those little softrock SDR radios? I built a Softrock Lite V6.2 receiver and that thing sure is slick! For $10 delivered I have a 40 meter SDR receiver that covers from around 7.000 to 7.100 mhz (or 7.035 to 7.075) depending on sound card settings.

simply amazing how much radio for $10 kit!

73 de Ken H.

[KV6O]

I would love to get one, but everytime I look they seem to be sold out. Where did you get yours?

Steve
KV6O

[WB2WIK]

It's a direct conversion receiver where your sound card and PC do all the work.

I don't look at it as a $10 receiver. I look at it as a $3000 receiver once plugged into my computer. By itself, it doesn't do anything.

But it is slick for $10.

[K9FV]

The website is not very uptodate - by far the BEST bet is to join the yahoo softrock40 users group for info,

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/softro...guid=197157394

hen email Tony direct - he will then tell you if he has them in stock or not, then just paypal or M.O. the $10 to him and he'll pop you one in the mail.

For bulding the softrock about the best building info is Robby's site at:

http://golddredgervideo.com/wb5rvz/

You might also take a look at this site:

http://golddredgervideo.com/kc0wox/softrock/

These are neat kits and really show the direction of radios -

Read about them and have fun.

73 de Ken H.

[DL7GEM]

I built an RXTX 6.2 for 20/30m and do love that little gadget. As for the
price, yes, it is very low. However, if you include the price for a good
soundcard, the total bill will be somewhere around 80$ or more -- still
rather low for a fine QRP rig.

I found that you need a rather powerful, as in "having lots of CPU
cycles to spare" in order to make good use of your softrock.

With the softrock40 group on Yahoo being as helpful as they are, building
a Softrock is an experience with sucess virtually guaranteed.

73

Marcus -- DL7GEM

[K9FV]

Yep, it's a amazing how much radio you can get in one of those Softrock kits - I'm really looking forward to the next version of the RXTX - where it's truely multi band with auto switching of the bandpass modules.

I would like a small amp to get at least 5 watts rather than the 1 watt max. There have been several folks who have added a small amp - even 15 to 25 watt amps. THEN you have a "real" QRO radio {grinning}.

QRP is really fun, but sometimes it's hard to make many contacts unless you've got good antennas. I QSO'd with a ham running 5 watts QRP...... to a set of stacked 20 meter yagi's up at 70 or 80 ft. His ERP at 5 watts was a LOT more than my ERP with 100 watts to the backstay.

73 de Ken H.

[WY6K]

It's a direct conversion receiver where your sound card and PC do all the work.

I don't look at it as a $10 receiver. I look at it as a $3000 receiver once plugged into my computer. By itself, it doesn't do anything.

But it is slick for $10.

Awww come on now. We all have PCs so it's a sunk cost. Cost of the radio really is, therefore, $10. If you were to go out and buy a new PC for $3k just to run the SoftRock, then OK, it's a crazy price for such a radio. But that would be, ummm, errrr, CRAZY!

Actually, one could argue that $3k for a PC is crazy! I haven't spent more than $900 (plus extra memory) in a long time. What do you get for $3k these days? :-)

Mike

[K9FV]

I think Steve was trying to say for $10 you have the equal of a $3,000 receiver. While I'm a fan of Softrock, it does take a bit better than the normal on-board sound card to get the equal of a $3,000 receiver, but for $10.... hey it's still GREAT!!

73 de Ken H.