WinRadio

[JohnBreen]

Hey Y'all,

Does anybody have any interest in the various WinRadio products?

I bought one of the internal WinRadios very soon after their introduction and I REALLY like it and I used it for a long time. I had it installed in a 486, 66MHz computer and it worked very well. Then I made a big mistake. Two years ago, I cleaned out my radio room and put all the 386 and 486 computers in the trash - bought two new Dell Pentium 4 desk-top computers to replace them. Sadly, my WinRadio card will not fit into the new computers. The Dell mother board slotss are MUCH shorter. Also, the WR card has two separate edge connectors (on the same edge) that must plug in and the Dell motherboards will accept only one edge connector per card.

I have been wondering if anybody else has found him/herself in this position and is there some way of "adapting" the old WinRadio card format to new Dell motherboards. The frequency range of my old WR is 150 KHz to 1300 KHz (unblocked) and so I would REALLY like to continue to use it.

Any ideas??

Regards, John.

 

[EricCottrell]

Hello,

The new Dell computers use a PCI bus. The old WinRadio cards used a 16 bit version of the ISA bus. The PCI bus is being replaced by PCI-Express and likely in 5 years PCI bus systems will be as common as ISA bus systems are now.
http://www.pcmech.com/show/motherboards/26/

Your solution is to either get the PCI version of the WinRadio card or get a system that has ISA slots. There seems to be some Dell OptiPlex GX1 Systems around surplus that have both PCI and ISA bus slots. I find my 550 MHz Pentium 3 system still works good for radio stuff.

People who program the older Motorola and GE commercial radios have a similar problem. The software will only work on a slower system so they have to keep that 100 MHz Pentium system around and working.

73 Eric

 

[JohnBreen]

Hi Eric,

Thanks for the information.

I attended a "computer flea market" in the Pittsburgh area thinking that just maybe I could find somone selling an old 486 in fair condition. I was told that I should not expect to find anything that could still function .

Perhaps, now, armed with your terminology (I will print your response) I can ask around the area (maybe place an ad in the Sunday paper) and see if I can find a used computer with "ISA slots". That begs the question: do you think I can find such a system with a processor that is better than the 486? Or, was the ISA architecture changed when the Pentium processors were introduced?

I also forgot to remove my sound card from my old 486's before I disposed of them so I also need to find an appropriate sound card - any ideas?

Regards, John.

 

[EricCottrell]

Hello,

Yes you should be able to get up to a Pentium 3 with ISA slots.. Some P4 motherboards have ISA slots but they seemed to lose favor on P4 systems.

A basic PCI sound card should work fine. A basic Soundblaster or a card using a Crystal sound chip should do fine.

73 Eric

 

[SCPD]

Four years ago I often saw Pentium 133s headed for the dumpster. Nowadays it's Celerons and Durons. These are sub-gigahertz systems. Do some looking around ... you'll be suprised at what might turn up. Even on these systems, you might have trouble finding one with a proper ISA slot. Most just have 2 or 3 PCI slots. The older Pentium 1's with an SB-16 sound card might be your best bet.

WinRadio also offers external models that connect to an RS232 serial port or PCMCIA slot.

-rick

 

[EricCottrell]

Hello,

I tend to collect computers like scanners and should cull out some of the older stuff.

Older scanners still work but may not have the newer frequency steps you need, or do P25, or do Trunked. There are still signals out there that they can receive so they are still useful. Computers are similar.

I do use a 2.8 GHz P4 because I do video stuff and you need speed for that. But for most other stuff, except gaming, you do not need a fast computer. Win95 or Win98se may not have all the features of WinXP but you can still get programs to work. It is nice to have a faster processor but a 300 or 500 MHz Processor will do fine if you put enough memory in to prevent disk swapping. My old main laptop was a 366 MHz P2 and the "new" one is a 650 MHz P3. I only replaced the old one because the LCD broke. The new one is a later version in the series and can use stuff from the old one (Power supply, DVD, etc).

I have several Thinkpad laptops that have either Pentium 120 MHz or 133 MHz that I use for Trunker. They can boot either DOS or Win95. Recently I got one for $25, well actually I got one for $15, the other for $10, and fixed one with parts from the other. The only downside is you need to get everything you need because buying a laptop power supply or memory can be expensive.

Getting memory for older Desktop Computers can be expensive as well. I remember at one point when the 386 or 486 was out that the floating point chip for the 8086 still cost $400. Someone who built systems could replace the motherboard and get a new processor for maybe alittle over $400. So it was more cost effective to replace the system if you wanted floating point for that old 8086 machine.

So I am amazed that it has gotten to the point where good performing machines can be had for no or little money.

73 Eric

 

[JohnBreen]

Hello All,

Well, thanks to Eric's advice I was able to locate an older Dell Pentium II machine that has 2 ISA slots and 44 Meg of Ram. It had a built-in soundblaster "card". Tried to buy it but the guy just asked me how much I wanted to haul it away!!!

Slipped in my WinRadio WR-1000i card (yes, a VERY olde one with unblocked DC to daylight (well, up to 1.3 GHz anyway) coverage). Loaded the software from a floppy and everything seems to be working so far. I didn't have the speaker or antenna handy so I have yet to hear the first joyous noise. That is a big step forward.

I guess I will have to look and see if I can update to the latest WR-1000 software (likely has not been supported for many years). Perhaps there is some trunking software out there too - bless the internet.

Makes me wonder how many other folks are still running old WinRadios - the one I have cost me $500 many years ago and the new ones can be a lot more expensive. Off to the search engines...

Regards, JB

 

[JohnNDenver]

Win Radio User Group

:lol:
I wonder why we cant have a user groups for guys in "WinRadios"

I am new to the winradio and would like to share info with other users

 

[JohnBreen]

Perhaps we should take an even broader view. WinRadio's latest offerings are prototypical Computer Defined Radios (CDR). The last several issues of Monitoring Times have really opened my eyes regarding the impact that CDR will have on the radio hobby (albeit, the MT author seems to be ignoring WinRadio - go figure). I would recommend that any radio hobbiest who has not read the articles in MT do so.

If the new discussion board were for ALL Computer Defined Radios (as to embrace WinRadio) it would be a larger group that shared knowledge.

 

[ka3jjz]

Re: Win Radio User Group

:lol:
I wonder why we cant have a user groups for guys in "WinRadios"

I am new to the winradio and would like to share info with other users

Ah, you had but to ask....

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/winradio/

http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/winradio

The magic of research 73s Mike

 

[Highlander_821]

I have a Winradio 1550e that I've had for several years, insanely cool radio and software. I, too, got my hands on an unblocked version from Canada.

My only complaint is I spent 100 bucks for the trunking software, and it is worthless. And they haven't come out with an update for it since 1997.

 

[JohnNDenver]

3rd party software for 1550 e

Theres is 3rd party updated software available . Google software,scanner
or similar searches . These is one called Scanner Gold I think . Do your search several ways. Win radio is better than Icom for sure

 

[Highlander_821]

Actually, I ended up getting a BC-245xlt for trunking, it does such a fantastic job, I never bothered trying any other software for the Winradio.

My favorite plug-in is the Occupancy analyser, that thing is too slick! And the regular spectrum scope is pretty neat.

I had an Icom Pcr-1000 for a couple of months, I sold it. I like the 1550e MUCH better.

 

[JohnBreen]

My WinRadio is the old WR-1000i. I have downloaded the "latest" software from Rosetta. I am getting back into my WinRadio after several years of being away from it. I am really looking for any 3rd party software that I can find to enhance the utility of the basic hardware/software.

I would like to hear more about the Occupancy Analyser and I would like to know of any web sites that offer 3rd party software for the WR.

Also (since this thread has suddenly come back to life), I would like to see some discussion of the CDR technology as I mentioned a few days ago. From what I have read in Monitoring Times, it is the "next big thing" in the hobby (along with digital modes).

Regards, John

 

[Highlander_821]

The Occupancy analyzer and all the other plug-ins are available at www.xrs.winradio.com/

 

[JohnNDenver]

Old computer source

I used to work for and still trade with www.contactPC.com here in Denver

Im sure they could supply you with one cheap. They are honest and relieable. Tell UM John Gadd sent you

 

[JohnBreen]

Thanks for the response guys.

I went to http://xrs.winradio.com/ but could not find a link to The Occupancy analyzer but I guess I will find it if I Google a little.

I am happy that there is interest in WinRadio. I will "stay tuned"

Regards, John

 

[Highlander_821]

Once you are on the main XRS page, go to downloads.

The Hit Counter is a good one, too. Some of them are mostly eye-candy, but there are some powerful tools there as well. Download them all and play around with them, most are pretty cool.

I was up for like three days straight when I first got the 1550e....my face hurt from the stupid grin my on face that was locked in the whole time.

 

[JohnBreen]

Thanks Highlander, I finally got it

WOW!!!! :shock: What a treasure trove!!!

Now I wonder if they (and which) will work with my Olde WR-1000i. But it looks like it will be fun finding out. From what I hear the "trunk tracker" is not of much value in most North American locations - if that is the case, I hope someone will update it. Then of course, we will need software that imulates the digital ability of the latest scanners (APCO 25).

Maybe I need to put in a request to the domestic minister of budget for an increase in this years toys budget. I am really becoming curious now about the WR-G303 and the WR-G313. I must say however that I am puzzled as to why WiNRADiO decided to go from offering a WR-1000i with a frequency range of 500 kHz to 1.3 GHz, to the latest offerings (e.g., WR-303) that "only" cover 9 kHz to 30 MHz. OK, now I am spoiled.

Also, I would encourage y'all to read the article in the January issue of Monitoring Times by John Catalano, titled "Three Software Radios" (page 69). There are some pricey new radios in the article but surely the prices will come down with competition. This article by Dr. Catalano is one of his series in the last few MT's that addresses Computer Defined Radios.

Thanks to all for your input.

Regards, John.

 

[Highlander_821]

Well, the wide frequency coverage models are not necessarily designed for maximum performance on the HF band (.5-30 MHZ). They do reasonably well there, but , like most Wide coverage radios, they are designed to do a reasonable job across that wide range, but most have some compromises built in to achieve that wide coverage. The G3xx radios are a different animal--they specialize in just the HF region, and are entirely reliant on the software to provide the functionality and flexibility that they offer. From what I hear, they are really NICE, and you already know how good the Winradio software is.

Most if not all of the plugins should work with your radio.

I have the trunking software, and it sucks. It will only follow MOT type II systems, the other protocol available isn't used in North America, as someone stated. There is no EDACS, no LTR. We have a simple 3 frequency MOT II system here with pretty light usage. The software locks on to tyhe control channels fine, my level settings yield a 95 percent frame acceptance rate, but the radio does not tune in the voice channels like it is supposed to when a call is made. It will occasionally go to a frequency that isn't anywhere near any of the 2 possible voice channels that are in use at any given time, and then just sits on the bogus freq until I force it back to the CC. No Joy. Both my BC245 and RS Pro-95 follow this system flawlessly, so the WR software is just a dog. Maybe it works in the two-receiver configuration, but I'll never mess with it.