SDR and PDW Decoding App

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CYUL

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Hi

I've recently been experimenting with newly acquired SDRs (RSP Pro and Airspy). Both work week. I was wondering if there is anyway to get the older decoding software called PDW to work with these applications through the VAC? Alternatively, if there are any decent Flex decoding apps known to work with SDR?

Thanks
 

morfis

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Porting the audio to PDW using VAC (or VBCable) works fine. Both FLEX (2 & 4 level up to 3200...not sure if there is any 6400) and POCSAG (all speeds) decode seamlessly.
The main pager channels here all received by a couple of DVB-T sticks with audio sent to PDW using VAC.
 

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spongella

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Have had success with PDW. Tuning can be a bit tricky though, but you'll get better with time.
 

CYUL

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Porting the audio to PDW using VAC (or VBCable) works fine. Both FLEX (2 & 4 level up to 3200...not sure if there is any 6400) and POCSAG (all speeds) decode seamlessly.
The main pager channels here all received by a couple of DVB-T sticks with audio sent to PDW using VAC.

Thanks for this. I'll continue o try and get this to work. I'm using Windows 10 on a surface pro and could not get PDW to hear the VAC.

I've tried all the setting here:
 

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dave3825

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If your using VAC- virtual audio cable, change your sound card in the drop down. It looks like its set for VB Cable
 

CYUL

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Minor success with the discriminator out put, level is very low. results are messy. Can you please indicate what your sound settings are set as also quality?
 

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CYUL

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If your using VAC- virtual audio cable, change your sound card in the drop down. It looks like its set for VB Cable

That is the VAC . I'm showing activity on the channel. Unless I'm missing something.
 

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morfis

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It doesn't make much difference which of the 'configuration' dropdowns I use. In this case "Earphone 3" is just because that was what was last used with an old hardware scanner.
 

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morfis

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On a surface 4 with latest windows 10 I use VB-Audio not VAC.
Otherwise things are the same.
 

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morfis

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What are you controlling your sdr with? If using sdrsharp then make sure you have the 'Filter Audio' unchecked.
 

CYUL

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Boom! that was it, completely missed that. Now seeing traffic. Thank you! The signal is showing 90% but still red.
 

morfis

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Signal % refers to what % it thinks it's decoding. It will go green if over 95%. That said, on my screenshot from this PC you might see the bottom left decoder is only around 5% BUT the decodes are all good.
On longer messages such as encrypted blocks the % on that channel goes up but still never gets much above 30....other people over here have subsequently said they get similar results.
The signal meter is very pretty and useless beyond a vague indication that audio is actually getting to PDW
 

morfis

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....oh, anything that you'd normally have used a 'discriminator' output for will need the Filter Audio unchecked in sdrsharp.
 

CYUL

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yea, checking those now. I do not see any flex 6400 traffic, which i normally see on my other system with the 4-level slicer
 

morfis

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I don't display the mode details as they are of no interest to me. Major changes to paging here in a couple of months with vodafone shutting their paging division. They keep reminding their users which can make for a rather boring screen!
(NB. my PDW instances show the frequency rather than the version number)
 

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dave3825

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bailly2

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so vb cable works for this? because i can get sdr# to work with dsd, never gotten pdw to show any signal activity with any input, using virtual audio cable
 

morfis

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so vb cable works for this? because i can get sdr# to work with dsd, never gotten pdw to show any signal activity with any input, using virtual audio cable

VB Cable works (used on my MS Surface)
VAC works (on my laptop and desktops)
 
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