I got it to work after finding a nifty little addon called Soft66winrad. This allows you to tune the radio from Winrad and not have to rely on the control soft program. Unfortunately I'm also limited by 48 kHz sound cards so it will be a few days until I can obtain 128 kHz card for best results.
SOFTADD66 Sdr Shortwave Radio
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If your computer isn't up to par then you will have big issues. The ten tec is really awesome from what I hear
ka3jjz
Wiki Admin Emeritus
The RX320 is not a SDR radio - you can say that this is a Software Driven Radio, it is not Software Defined. Skip Arey (yes, the MT editor) and I had this very discussion at a Saturday breakfast at the last Winterfest.
That being said, it performs very well. A good antenna (preferably outdoors) is a must, and there's LOTS of software for this radio. Skip told me that he has that radio as a backup, and almost anything he can hear on his ham gear, he can hear on the 320. That says a lot...73 Mike
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Before you pass on a "true SDR" remember that the SoftADD66 was just about as low end as you can get. The front end was horrid, and the perfromance was limited by your sound card. There is a reason it was as cheap as it was. It absolutely should not be confused with, just as an example at the low cost end, an RFSpace SDR-IQ, there is absolutely no comparison. Rather like saying cars suck because the 1919 Model T is not quite as good as the 2010 Ford Fusion.
SDRs like the SoftADD66 are best used looking at the IF of a traditional radio, so that they have the traditional radios front end to tweak up the signals, not used as a stand alone rig themselves.
With an SDR like the SDR-IQ, SDR-14, WinRadio Excalibur, Perseus, or QS-1R the performance (dynamic range, filtering, SNR, etc) is not limited by your sound card. Every one of those rigs can bring the data (IQ demodulated RF) straight into your PC without being handled by, and limited/distorted by, the sound card first. The sound card is only used to reproduce the sound. For one of my SDR equipped PCs I use a Soundblaster 16 PCI, and it performs as well as the Sooundblaster PCI 512 equipped PC for SDR use.
Because the RX-320D has no built in control panel and is just a traditional superhet that must be computer controlled (but is not an SDR) there is no advantage to be had selecting it over an SDR like the SDR-IQ.
T!
Mohave Desert, California, USA
Brandon whats the update? did the new sound card help?
here are the schematics
http://zao.jp/radio/GPS/schematics.jpg
It looks like r18 is the rf trim. it's to the left of the line out port
did the new sound card help?here are the schematics
http://zao.jp/radio/GPS/schematics.jpg
It looks like r18 is the rf trim. it's to the left of the line out port
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I tried the other card but could not get 192 kHz to work on Winrad. It works on 48 kHz even after I change the port to use 192, so I don't really know what's going on. For the price it's not a bad radio but I would definitely recommend getting the wallet out for a higher end SDR if you wanted to monitor weak comms. I'll continue playing with it but otherwise it may end up for sale again
gcgrotz
Member
That doesn't even look like a radio! Where are the knobs? I like the red pc board however.
I think the RX320 is a very good radio for the money, as Mike and Skip have noted. Nobody even knows you have a radio! And, you don't have to figure in the cost of your mega-computer to run it.
I think the RX320 is a very good radio for the money, as Mike and Skip have noted. Nobody even knows you have a radio! And, you don't have to figure in the cost of your mega-computer to run it.
ka3jjz
Wiki Admin Emeritus
And you don't need a monster PC to run most of the software available for the 320. The Callsign software and RXPlus both require some muscle, but many other packages don't
73 Mike
73 Mike
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I run one of my SDR-IQs on a 6+ year old Pentium 4 HT PC. Hardly a monster PC or mega-computer.
I have used the RX320 (among several PC controlled radios), and it is indeed a good radio, nothing against it. I borrowed one from a friend a couple years back when testing some rigs. But, after I got my first SDR-IQ I never considered the RX320 agian. Since I got my first SDR I have indeed been bitten by the SDR bug, or so it seems, as I have added 6 of them to the shack here in the past couple years. And while I have more than a few traditional radios I pretty much just use the SDRs today.
If I am going to have a radio that must be tethered to a PC I want one that shows me a chunk of spectrum and allows direct recording of RF to hard drive. As far as radios that must be attached to PCs I own several of the older PC controlled but non-SDR WinRados, but I seldom use them today, prefering my SDRs.
T!
I have used the RX320 (among several PC controlled radios), and it is indeed a good radio, nothing against it. I borrowed one from a friend a couple years back when testing some rigs. But, after I got my first SDR-IQ I never considered the RX320 agian. Since I got my first SDR I have indeed been bitten by the SDR bug, or so it seems, as I have added 6 of them to the shack here in the past couple years. And while I have more than a few traditional radios I pretty much just use the SDRs today.
If I am going to have a radio that must be tethered to a PC I want one that shows me a chunk of spectrum and allows direct recording of RF to hard drive. As far as radios that must be attached to PCs I own several of the older PC controlled but non-SDR WinRados, but I seldom use them today, prefering my SDRs.
T!
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