Quest's For WinRadio G305 Owners

[n0nhp]

I have the 303, The audio "crack" is probably the audio AGC kicking in. Much of the time I'll run the rx with the audio AGC disabled on the main gui. Use the Advanced signal conditioner and either the AGC there or if you are not experiencing much fading use a fixed gain. You can filter much of the high frequency noise there as well. Do not run the audio too high in the gui as it will over drive some sound cards. I usually will have mine set at 8 to 15. If you see the audio waveform start to flat-top in the signal conditioner screen you are overdriving the computer audio card.
The 303 is not a full blown SDR as has been pointed out in previous messages on this thread, but with the Professional decoder allowing you to massage the signal 8 ways to Sunday. It is a great receiver. It is also set up to record the IF so you can try your signal control as many different ways as you have time to play with it.
Bruce

PS try playing with the VHF UHF on your SW antenna, It will surprise you! The 303 doesn't do VHF UHF so my experience is with my older Icom PCR 1K. I can hear Weather stations up to 150 miles away on my dipole that don't even register on the discone.

 

[majoco]

Like Bruce,N0NHP I only have the G303 for HF, so I don't really understand your statement...

I just wondered if the serial interface using the PC's sound card might eliminate this problem.

... how are you getting the audio out then? Is there a separate audio out on the receiver box - surely not - all the audio processing is done in the computer sound card. I agree with Bruce too, I very rarely have the Audio AGC engaged and the audio gain kept to about 20 - then plug in an external amplifier to the soundcard audio out. Keep the filter bandwidth tailored to the signal you are receiving - about 2.7kHz wide for SSB and 5kHz for HF AM. You can go wider of there is no adjacent channel interference - what the CB'ers call 'bleed-over'. What setting have you got for the front-end AGC? "Slow" is good enough unless you have some rapidly fading signals.

 

[Reece]

I will say that the continuing rise and fall of the background noise level to the signal in cw or usb is very annoying, my Icom is far better to listen to!!
Edit:
Since this post I have had 2 replies!!!
Quote: "I have the 303, The audio "crack" is probably the audio AGC kicking in." I think you are correct.
Quote: "Much of the time I'll run the rx with the audio AGC disabled on the main gui. Use the Advanced signal conditioner and either the AGC there" I don't think the 305 has this option unless it's a plug-in or an optional extra?
If I turn the SAGC off I get no audio, only a whisper if all the gains are set to 30 and pc volume to max!!
I tried turned it all off and back on but still the same, is this normal?
Quote: "PS try playing with the VHF UHF on your SW antenna, It will surprise you! The 303 doesn't do VHF UHF so my experience is with my older Icom PCR 1K. I can hear Weather stations up to 150 miles away on my dipole that don't even register on the discone."
I must give that a go!!
Thanks

 

[n0nhp]

Yep the advanced signal conditioner is part of the optional digital suite. I have not had a moments regret about purchasing that package.
WiNRADiO G303/G305 Receiver and the Advanced Digital Suite
I think I got it when it was first introduced and they had a sale on it, I don't recall it costing $200.00 but then again I bought it for my 3000i over 10 years ago... updates are free so I had not looked at the price in a while.
I use it almost constantly while using the receiver.

Do you have the professional demodulator package? You can go into the setup and adjust the AGC attack and delay. I have not played with those settings as I have not had the problem you have.
Next question is, are you running an external box and using an audio line into your computer? if so does your sound card software have an AGC/ALC that is turned on?

Just running through the possibilities

Bruce

 

[Reece]

Quote: "Do you have the professional demodulator package?"
Yes, I will have to do some tests.
Quote: "are you running an external box and using an audio line into your computer?"
I am running an external box (G305e) this has a usb connection only, the serial interface is a $60 option, would this be an improvement since it has a separate serial and sound card connection rather than the usb?

I have a copy of Radiocom 6 and just installed it, got the latest update and this runs the G305e well, better sound and IF control, audio is much better but having problems with tuning, seems to have a huge delay, I think it's time to pull my hair out!!

 

[tridac]

Slow Tuning on G313

Reece:

> sound and IF control, audio is much better but having problems with tuning, seems to have a huge delay, I > think it's time to pull my hair out!!

I wonder if you ever sorted out the slow tuning issue ?. The reason I ask is because I have a G313 which has a the same problem and wonder if this is a limitation of the receiver design ?. I made an enquiry to Winradio, but they came back saying it was a pc fault, with no suggestions as to where the fault might be. The symptons are that while the display updates immediately, the actual frequency change has a around 0.5 second delay, as can be heard if you slowly tune through a cw carrier, though it's the same in any mode. Also, the filter bandwidth updates immediately on the display, but takes arounf 0.5 seconds to be heard in the audio.

There's nothing unusual happening on the pc and it's a very lightly loaded system. I do computing for work and am pretty sure the pc is not the fault, but am getting no sense out of Windradio about this, who haven't even bothered to respond to my last two emails. As such, I suspect it's a limitation in the design and a pretty serous one at that, for all kinds of reasons...

Regards,

Chris

 

[Andy3]

Another bump for this old thread. I've just picked a 305e up for a very low price, and it turned out to have the WFM and professional demod options. After a bit of a struggle with installation (the supplied software on CD didn't want to play nice with either my Win7 or Win 8 laptops) I downloaded the latest Winradio software and away it went.
I quite like it! It's a bit 'last gen', but it works really well and the extra features such as continuously variable IF bw are welcome.
It seems remarkably free of images and other unwelcome stuff, and it receives down to low frequencies without the 'noises off' that plague some of the cheaper SDR dongles etc. MSF on 60KHz roars in with a quiet background. The WFM audio quality is nice, very clean and crisp.
The spectrum display is a bit of a let-down. I suppose it was bound to be slow on a 'back end DSP' receiver like this, and of course it stops whatever it's doing in order to do a sweep. So far my only other complaint is that the user interface seems to be stuck in a small window with no way of expanding it to full screen. Unless there's a hidden spring somewhere......
EDIT. No problems with slow tuning - everything zips along nicely.