New: Alinco DJ-X11T

[KS4JU]

I m waiting for your review .

sorry for bad english !!

question : what software did you use with IQ output . I tried with spectraview but can't work . ? Can you post settings eg : settings in ERW8 cable .


remark1 : One thing I found bad on this receiver , is :
When you scan with the search bank and you stop scanning on a specific frequency , we you restart , the scanner is re scaning from the low band frequency and doesn't resume from the frequency you stopped .
in VFO , it s working fine.


remark 2 : in high speed scanning 100 channel/s , the scanner never stops except on very strong signals


remark 3 : uniden equivalent close call is bad

I used several SDR programs, KGSDR, Spectravue, HDSDR, and SDR-Radio.com. First of all, only KDSDR will currently direct tune the radio. Also set the IQ Offset to around +8 on the DJ-x11 or none of the programs may decode a signal. If you use SDR-Radio.com be sure to set Swap IQ signals setting to on, or USB and LSB will be reversed.

Remark 1
I haven't checked this, but I will.

Remark 2
This is in VFO mode. I suspect this not uncommon to only catch only strong signals that only open the squelch at this speed.

Remark 3
If you are referring to the Fcount / Ftune feature be sure to take a look at the 1,2,3 settings for it. I find that on the 3 setting Fcount / Ftune works about the same as my Uniden scanner.


As far as audio goes its not bad. I would say it is a bit on the wide side, which makes it pleasant for FM and AM broadcast as well as AM airband. It does get a little more thinner sounding on NFM frequencies. You do have a little adjustment with the highpass and lowpass settings. The highpass setting does help to remove some of the hiss from NFM. You also don't have tons of loudness, but it is more than adequate for indoor listening. You probably wouldn't hear it that well on your belt at a very noisy site. You don't get the nice beefy audio as say from the Wouxun 2 meter HT, which is built like a commercial radio.

Hope this helps

 

[KS4JU]

I m waiting for your review .

sorry for bad english !!

question : what software did you use with IQ output . I tried with spectraview but can't work . ? Can you post settings eg : settings in ERW8 cable .

remark1 : One thing I found bad on this receiver , is :

When you scan with the search bank and you stop scanning on a specific frequency , we you restart , the scanner is re scaning from the low band frequency and doesn't resume from the frequency you stopped .

in VFO , it s working fine

remark 2 : in high speed scanning 100 channel/s , the scanner never stops except on very strong signals

remark 3 : uniden equivalent close call is bad

Remark 1
I checked this and it works as intended. When you start a program scan it will scan through the frequency range you have programed. When it stops on an active frequency to continue scanning you need to turn the VFO knob up or down depending on the direction you want the scan to continue. If you press the scan key again to restart the scanning it will restart the scan from the beginning. It would be nice if you could just pause on the frequency and restart the scan from where you left off. However, if you use the Clone Utility to set up programed scans based on service types such as Air and set the start and end frequencies to say 118 - 134 MHz, it makes the programmed scans more manageable.

Remark 2
I checked the 100 ch/s VFO scan and it seemed to work great for me.

Check and make sure you have the latest firmware

So far the only real issue I have seen is with the 800MHz feedback. Please understand this is not a deal breaker, but something that should be looked into. I sent the problem to Alinco, and an engineer responded that they are looking into it.

 

[KS4JU]

I m waiting for your review .

sorry for bad english !!

question : what software did you use with IQ output . I tried with spectraview but can't work . ? Can you post settings eg : settings in ERW8 cable .

remark1 : One thing I found bad on this receiver , is :

When you scan with the search bank and you stop scanning on a specific frequency , we you restart , the scanner is re scaning from the low band frequency and doesn't resume from the frequency you stopped .

in VFO , it s working fine

remark 2 : in high speed scanning 100 channel/s , the scanner never stops except on very strong signals

remark 3 : uniden equivalent close call is bad

A quick follow up to Remark 1
You can actually pause the scanning and listen to the frequency longer by pressing and holding the Mon button on the side of the radio. When you release it, the radio will continue to scan where you left off.

 

[KS4JU]

I finally finished my review. The conclusion that I arrived at, is that the Alinco DJ-X11 is a very nice little wideband receiver especially when you consider the cost. Using the IQ outputs with a SDR program ups the performance considerably. Of course it's not perfect, I have already mentioned one little issue that hopefully Alinco will address in a future update. However, I have been pretty impressed with it's performance so far. If this was a $600 dollar receiver, I might have a few more nit picks, but at half of this, its hard to complain.

 

[home121]

DJX11 info

Any info on the bug detector, or the near by frequency finder? I think thats a cool feature if it has good sensitivity? Like the psr 800 has a very good response to near by freq's better than a MFJ frequency counter. And any info on how the bug detector work's? Thanks in advance to all...

 

[KS4JU]

The Bug detector simply is a list of known "bug" frequencies. The DJ-X11 simply scans these and alerts you when you get a hit. The list can be edited since it has its own bank. The F-Count (frequency counter) seems to be okay. The F-Tune feature can vary a bit in performance depending on what setting you use. I would say it's probably OK for finding very close strong signals. I only tested it with my HT a few feet away.

 

[home121]

DJX11 info

I'm planning on buying one of these djx11 what extra's do you recommend i purchase with it ?

 

[home121]

I just read that the bug detector frequency's cannot be edited, or programed to, or deleted from only memory skip operation can be set. Unless maybe it can be programed to add other freq's of known bug's thru the laptop?

 

[NYG]

I picked up the DJ-X11T last Monday. Been playing around with it a bit the past week. Some initial impressions.

1) RF-Tune works very well. I was in Virginia in a hotel about a mile/mile and a half from Busch Gardens. The RF-Tune function locked onto a few frequencies from the park. Made for some fun listening that I otherwise would have missed. My PSR-500 had difficulty trying to find the same frequencies.

2) The air band at this point appears to be exceptional on this little radio.

3) The IQ and detect output both function very well. Tested this on some pager frequencies and was able to decode using both outputs. The IQ out was used with HDSDR and I used Virtual audio cable as the input to PDW for decoding. Took a bit of tinkering for clean decodes but it all worked in the end. These are really nice features of this radio and one of the reasons I bought it.

4) The AM Bar antenna is deaf at my home, just like most radios, but really deaf. I'll have to test it at another location to make sure it actually works. I have a Z1501 active antenna from Clifton Laboratories that I use for AM and HF listening. I need to do more testing with this but I have to enable the attenuator on the DJ-X11t to keep it from overloading. I get a ton of AM BCB with the Clifton as opposed to the bar antenna. Works pretty darn good on standard SW broadcasts too. I only did minor testing for SSB communications but did pull in some ham radio on LSB in the 3.7Mhz range.

When the sun goes down I want to test SSB again but through the IQ output with the Clifton antenna.

That's it for now. More testing to do but so far I really like the little receiver.

 

[NYG]

Another little update:

I built the MT X-Wing antenna this afternoon- here : http://forums.radioreference.com/sp...8-mt-magazine-uhf-satcom-antenna-project.html

Did a comparison of the DJ-X11t and my PSR-500 and I'm finding that the DJ-X11t is more sensitive in this area too. Picked up what I guess are pirates on 255.45 Mhz very easily with the DJ-X11t. The PSR-500 picks them up too, but it breaks up on me a lot more.

I'd like to compare my Funcube and USRP but don't want to lug all that gear outside just yet.

Edit: I'm picking up more comms on 255.55 with the DJ-x11t and the PSR-500 is deaf to it.

Edit 2: Got the PSR-500 to pickup the comms on 255.55. Looks like the adapter I'm using is a bit flaky.

 

[grosminet]

I picked up the DJ-X11T last Monday. Been playing around with it a bit the past week. Some initial impressions.

1) RF-Tune works very well. I was in Virginia in a hotel about a mile/mile and a half from Busch Gardens. The RF-Tune function locked onto a few frequencies from the park. Made for some fun listening that I otherwise would have missed. My PSR-500 had difficulty trying to find the same frequencies.

2) The air band at this point appears to be exceptional on this little radio.

3) The IQ and detect output both function very well. Tested this on some pager frequencies and was able to decode using both outputs. The IQ out was used with HDSDR and I used Virtual audio cable as the input to PDW for decoding. Took a bit of tinkering for clean decodes but it all worked in the end. These are really nice features of this radio and one of the reasons I bought it.

4) The AM Bar antenna is deaf at my home, just like most radios, but really deaf. I'll have to test it at another location to make sure it actually works. I have a Z1501 active antenna from Clifton Laboratories that I use for AM and HF listening. I need to do more testing with this but I have to enable the attenuator on the DJ-X11t to keep it from overloading. I get a ton of AM BCB with the Clifton as opposed to the bar antenna. Works pretty darn good on standard SW broadcasts too. I only did minor testing for SSB communications but did pull in some ham radio on LSB in the 3.7Mhz range.

When the sun goes down I want to test SSB again but through the IQ output with the Clifton antenna.

That's it for now. More testing to do but so far I really like the little receiver.

hello

concerning point 3

The IQ out was used with HDSDR : how do you set HDSDR input ? HDSDR is setting a sound card in input . How can you set the FDDI driver in USB serial port . DJX11 output is ERW8 cable for IQ ? or both IQ and soundcard

ooops !!

I made a mistake !! I though IQ signal was out from the USB ERW8 cable . It' s wrong IQ is out with the 3.5 mm cable that the reason I asked my question . So i can make my tests

 

[home121]

Hdsdr ?

Where do you get the program HDSDR, i'm waiting on my DJX11 with the ERW 8 cable? And this may sound dumb but what will it enable me to do ? Also do i need a 1/8 stereo plug with it, Thay did'nt have them at grove where i bought the radio and cable. Thank's for any help with this as i'm new to these types of programs..

 

[NYG]

Where do you get the program HDSDR, i'm waiting on my DJX11 with the ERW 8 cable? And this may sound dumb but what will it enable me to do ? Also do i need a 1/8 stereo plug with it, Thay did'nt have them at grove where i bought the radio and cable. Thank's for any help with this as i'm new to these types of programs..

HDSDR can be downloaded here: HDSDR Homepage . You can use other SDR programs too like winrad. I haven't tried it yet, but I believe KG-SDR will also tune the radio.

With the SDR programs you visually see what's going on in a chunk of spectrum by scope and waterfall displays etc.. and you can tune across that chunk of spectrum. You also have a lot of filtering and noise reduction options available that aren't on the radio itself. You can even record chunks of spectrum. I believe the IQ output of the dj-x11 is only 86 kHz wide, but it's enough to have a lot of fun with it.

You'll need a cable with stereo mini-plugs on both ends. Radio shack, BestBuy and probably walmart and target would carry them.

I ordered the ERW-8 from universal radio but it's backordered for another week or so. I want it for programming and remote control of the radio. Also ordered an extra SMA to BNC adapter. Those come in very handy for me.

It's a surprisingly good little radio. My only real complaint is the internal AM bar antenna. It's been worthless for me so far. I get much better results just turning it off and using a little Radio Shack telescoping whip for AM BCB.

 

[home121]

Djx11

Thanks for the info,,,What about decoding signals,like pocsag and flex or any thing else?

 

[KS4JU]

Thanks for the info,,,What about decoding signals,like pocsag and flex or any thing else?

You can do that two ways:
1. Just use the radio alone, there is a setting to send discriminator audio through the headphone jack. Plug it into the line input of your computer.
2. Use the DJ-X11 with a SDR program and use Virtual Audio Cable software (VAC) to route the decoded audio from the SDR software output to the decoding software packages audio input. This is the best way to do it, but it takes a bit of fritzing around to make it all work.

 

[home121]

alinco cable

Thanks for the info, one more question though what kind of cable do i get for the headphone, the manual says 2 differnt kinds one says 3 pole 3.5mm mini plug and other is 4 pole 3.5.mini plug page 98 of manual?And i am getting the erw 8 cable do i even need the 3.5mm? One more thing i've downloaded the HDSDR program how well do you think it will work with DJX11?

 

[grosminet]

DJX11 decoder

I did test with HDSDR and virtual cable with pocsag and MPT1327 .

Pocsag isn't decoded through virtual cable . Data is arriving in the pocsag softmon program but nothing . With discriminator output , it is working fine .

Working fine with Trunkview (mpt 1327) through virtual cable .

I need to do some more tests ,eg : DMR .

 

[KS4JU]

Thanks for the info, one more question though what kind of cable do i get for the headphone, the manual says 2 differnt kinds one says 3 pole 3.5mm mini plug and other is 4 pole 3.5.mini plug page 98 of manual?And i am getting the erw 8 cable do i even need the 3.5mm? One more thing i've downloaded the HDSDR program how well do you think it will work with DJX11?

All you need as far as I know is a common variety 1/8 inch stereo jumper cable. You will need the cable to connect to your computers line input since the ERW-8 does not pass audio.

HDSR works well with the DJ-X11, but does not tune the radio. However, you could use the Alinco remote software to set the center frequency and HDSR to decode IQ. However, HDSDR could tune the radio if some would create an ExtIO.dll file for the DJ-X11. Maybe after enough radios are sold we will see more support for it. Unfortunately most authors of SDR software are not aware that Alincos SDR cable receivers even exist. I have written to a couple and they were not aware that Alinco had SDR capable radios.

There has been some indication that N4PY Software might add support for the Alinco RX8. However, I am not sure if the command set is compatible with the DJ-X11.

 

[home121]

Great Info DJX11

Thank's again KS4JU for all your help...

 

[heyo]

Read this thread and found DJ-X11T very interesting.

But i could not find
* a command reference for the serial port to config OmniRig support
* any bandwidth value for the provided IQ signal. 20 - 40 kHz or more?

Can someone help out?
Probably some I/Q recording samples?