Posted: 8/18/2012 12:58:22 PM EDT
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Was messing around online when I went to the site that sells the Softrock SDR kits.
It looks like that they are actually in stock! 
So I now have a SoftRock RXTX Ensemble Transceiver Kit on the way. 
Vulcan94 |
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Quoted:
Was messing around online when I went to the site that sells the Softrock SDR kits. It looks like that they are actually in stock!
So I now have a SoftRock RXTX Ensemble Transceiver Kit on the way.
Vulcan94 That's a COOL new toy, Vulcan94! Nice! 
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Was messing around online when I went to the site that sells the Softrock SDR kits. It looks like that they are actually in stock!
So I now have a SoftRock RXTX Ensemble Transceiver Kit on the way.
Vulcan94 That's a COOL new toy, Vulcan94! Nice!
I've always enjoyed building kits and I've had the urge to build another one for quite awhile now. I was actually looking at one of those tuna can QRP kits when I checked the SoftRock website. When I saw that you could actually order one, I jumped on it. Now, I just have to pick what band to build it for. I'm leaning toward 30/20/17. Vulcan94 |
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Was messing around online when I went to the site that sells the Softrock SDR kits. It looks like that they are actually in stock!
So I now have a SoftRock RXTX Ensemble Transceiver Kit on the way.
Vulcan94 That's a COOL new toy, Vulcan94! Nice!
I've always enjoyed building kits and I've had the urge to build another one for quite awhile now. I was actually looking at one of those tuna can QRP kits when I checked the SoftRock website. When I saw that you could actually order one, I jumped on it. Now, I just have to pick what band to build it for. I'm leaning toward 30/20/17. Vulcan94 17 meters is the luck of the Irish for me. |
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Was messing around online when I went to the site that sells the Softrock SDR kits. It looks like that they are actually in stock!
So I now have a SoftRock RXTX Ensemble Transceiver Kit on the way.
Vulcan94 That's a COOL new toy, Vulcan94! Nice!
I've always enjoyed building kits and I've had the urge to build another one for quite awhile now. I was actually looking at one of those tuna can QRP kits when I checked the SoftRock website. When I saw that you could actually order one, I jumped on it. Now, I just have to pick what band to build it for. I'm leaning toward 30/20/17. Vulcan94 17 meters is the luck of the Irish for me. Although I spend most of my time on 20M, my first DX QSO was on 17M. 
Vulcan94 |
| Looking at the assembly details here http://www.wb5rvz.com/sdr/ensemble/index.htm looks like there are a few surface mount components I have never done any surface mount soldering so would need to learn how. I have watched a few videos on it they make it look easy enough. |
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Looking at the assembly details here http://www.wb5rvz.com/sdr/ensemble/index.htm looks like there are a few surface mount components I have never done any surface mount soldering so would need to learn how. I have watched a few videos on it they make it look easy enough. Same here. I just plan on taking things slow. Vulcan94 |
| I have one of the Softrock kits sitting here waiting to be built this winter. If anyone is interested in getting one, I recommend setting up an alert on http://www.watchthatpage.com/. It will let you know any time the website is changed, and there is availability of product. |
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Is there any thing that would prevent you using a QRP amp with one of these to say boost the power to 5 watts? Many people use the ramsey QRP amps to bring the output up to about 15 watts. Some people have eve built other LPF's for it and made a multi band amp for around 50 bucks. |
| Saw this too. http://w5usj.com/TxTopperQRPAmp.html A 5 watter. |
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Did you say you wanted more power?
http://site.hfprojectsyahoo.com/home |
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I will take a shot at describing the difference.
Not a cw person. Fast switching is beneficial when working cw pileups. It gives the operator time to hear if he is transmitting on top of the DC station. Slow switching is useful for sideband operators that take long pauses between words or sentences. Keeping the amplifier keyed during pauses. Since I don't use cw someone may have to correct me on this next point. Working from my old memory vox delay could be adjusted to fit both situations as long as your using a ptt line to amp and the amp has fast(QSK) switching. |
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It's Here!
Went out to the mail box just as the mailman arrived. Good Lord is it small! The whole thing fit in a box 6"x4"x1" Opened it up and checked it out. Turned out that most of the components are thru-hole parts. There are some SMT components, but they look to be mostly ICs and capacitors. Now, I just have to dig out my digital camera so I can keep a record of the construction when I get around to doing it. Vulcan94 |
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So jealous. I may just have to get one. I have limited funds and right now am torn between two directions. I know the AR15 mantra "get both" but not sure that will fly. You can always get both, you just don't have to get both at the same time.
Vulcan94 |
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I've built both the Ensemble II RX and the RXTX. The most challenging thing was not the SMT parts, it was winding all those damn toroids. One interruption and it's "damn it, now what turn was I on? grrrr!" Can give your view of the performance of it when it was done? |
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I've built both the Ensemble II RX and the RXTX. The most challenging thing was not the SMT parts, it was winding all those damn toroids. One interruption and it's "damn it, now what turn was I on? grrrr!" Then it's a good thing that I live alone. No interruptions. Since you have built both the Ensemble II RX and the RXTX, maybe you can answer some questions. I've downloaded the assembly instruction and have been looking them over. In the power supply instructions they say, "Voltage measurements are WRT regular ground". WRT? Also, what does "hairpin" mean? I have an idea, but I want to be sure. Vulcan94 |
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Quoted: As far as the receive performance goes, it's pretty impressive for what it is. There are some side by side comparisons on youtube between it and a Flex. For software I've used PowerSDR and SDR Sharp. Probably the most frustrating thing is setting up the software. Quoted: I've built both the Ensemble II RX and the RXTX. The most challenging thing was not the SMT parts, it was winding all those damn toroids. One interruption and it's "damn it, now what turn was I on? grrrr!" Can give your view of the performance of it when it was done? I have to spend some time with the RXTX and the sound card setup before I can play with the TX side. Haven't had much time to play radio. |
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Quoted: The USB side is electrically isolated from the rest of the board, one of the things you do first is to establish a little wire loop to attach your VOM ground lead for measurement, (regular ground) use a piece of heavy lead, like from a 1W resistor or similar. The instructions will tell you if a measurement uses a different ground than that. When you stuff the resistors in, the board is silk screened as to which hole the resistor body goes against and the other hole for the bent lead aka hair-pin. When they say measure from point X to R44 hair pin they mean the lead of that resistor that is exposed above the board.Quoted: I've built both the Ensemble II RX and the RXTX. The most challenging thing was not the SMT parts, it was winding all those damn toroids. One interruption and it's "damn it, now what turn was I on? grrrr!" Then it's a good thing that I live alone. No interruptions. Since you have built both the Ensemble II RX and the RXTX, maybe you can answer some questions. I've downloaded the assembly instruction and have been looking them over. In the power supply instructions they say, "Voltage measurements are WRT regular ground". WRT? Also, what does "hairpin" mean? I have an idea, but I want to be sure. Vulcan94 Also, don't trust the color bands on the resistors, use your ohmmeter, the reds & the browns are almost indistinguishable. I posted some other tips in this archived thread: http://www.ar15.com/forums/t_10_22/654798_Check_out_what_I_built___check_out_end_of_thread____kits_are_available_now___.html |
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The USB side is electrically isolated from the rest of the board, one of the things you do first is to establish a little wire loop to attach your VOM ground lead for measurement, (regular ground) use a piece of heavy lead, like from a 1W resistor or similar. The instructions will tell you if a measurement uses a different ground than that. When you stuff the resistors in, the board is silk screened as to which hole the resistor body goes against and the other hole for the bent lead aka hair-pin. When they say measure from point X to R44 hair pin they mean the lead of that resistor that is exposed above the board.
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I've built both the Ensemble II RX and the RXTX. The most challenging thing was not the SMT parts, it was winding all those damn toroids. One interruption and it's "damn it, now what turn was I on? grrrr!" Then it's a good thing that I live alone. No interruptions. Since you have built both the Ensemble II RX and the RXTX, maybe you can answer some questions. I've downloaded the assembly instruction and have been looking them over. In the power supply instructions they say, "Voltage measurements are WRT regular ground". WRT? Also, what does "hairpin" mean? I have an idea, but I want to be sure. Vulcan94 Also, don't trust the color bands on the resistors, use your ohmmeter, the reds & the browns are almost indistinguishable. I posted some other tips in this archived thread: http://www.ar15.com/forums/t_10_22/654798_Check_out_what_I_built___check_out_end_of_thread____kits_are_available_now___.html Thanks for the link. I'm slowly but surely getting the things that I will need for this project. I'm planning to build this over the winter when the days are so short. As an aside, I made a contact on 20M PSK31 with a ham who was using a Ensemble RXTX. When I told him that I had one in front of me to build, he got really excited! Said that he had made lots of contacts with it but this was his first contact with another ham who had one.
Vulcan94 |