Red Wave Radio

Recently I've had the pleasure of using a preliminary copy of a soon to be
released software version for the Perseus SDR receiver. The major new
feature in this version of Perseus is it's ability to record and play back a
full, uninterrupted swath of 1600 kHz of spectrum (anywhere in the
receiver's 10 kHz - 30 MHz range).

For MW DXers in particular, this is quite a first. The entire medium wave
band (including longwave from 100 kHz upwards if desired) can be stored on a
PC's hard drive for DXing, analysis, and listening later. Because Perseus is
a "direct sampling" receiver,  an exact representation of the entire band is
stored in digitized form. The DXer can "rewind" the band over and over,
using any combination of modes, filter bandwidths, AGC settings, notch,
passband tuning, etc. as much as desired to catch the DX that this
innovative receiver has captured and archived with the help of computer
technology.

Details on this advancement in the hobby can be found on my blog:

http://perseus-sdr.blogspot.com/2008/09/first-look-perseus-version-11...

73,

Guy Atkins KE7MAV
Puyallup, WA

Quote:> Recently I've had the pleasure of using a preliminary copy of a soon to be
> released software version for the Perseus SDR receiver. The major new
> feature in this version of Perseus is it's ability to record and play back a
> full, uninterrupted swath of 1600 kHz of spectrum (anywhere in the
> receiver's 10 kHz - 30 MHz range).

> For MW DXers in particular, this is quite a first. The entire medium wave
> band (including longwave from 100 kHz upwards if desired) can be stored on a
> PC's hard drive for DXing, analysis, and listening later. Because Perseus is
> a "direct sampling" receiver, ?an exact representation of the entire band is
> stored in digitized form. The DXer can "rewind" the band over and over,
> using any combination of modes, filter bandwidths, AGC settings, notch,
> passband tuning, etc. as much as desired to catch the DX that this
> innovative receiver has captured and archived with the help of computer
> technology.

> Details on this advancement in the hobby can be found on my blog:

> http://perseus-sdr.blogspot.com/2008/09/first-look-perseus-version-11...

> 73,

> Guy Atkins KE7MAV
> Puyallup, WA

That certainly is a technological breakthrough Guy.
Absolutely amazing when you consider a couple of years ago this was
unthinkable - how science and clever minds march on. I did a lot of
business with the Italians in my business years and visited many
times. I found their design and ingenuity the best in the world in my
field of business. (I rush to add that American ingenuity was the best
in the world in another field of business I dealt in).

Here's a comment from another enthusiastic Perseus owner:
My medium wave DXing has suffered in recent years because of the lack
of
live listening I was able to do.  Getting up early has never been my
strong point.  I had to invest in the Perseus receiver so I could
record
the band and play it back at my leisure.  Were is not for the
formidable
combination of the Perseus and the amazing ewe antenna I would have
given up medium wave DXing altogether by now.  My enthusiasm has been
given a big boost, so I am back in the game again.  Long may this
continue!
from John Faulkner in the UK.

When I think back to what I started DXing with in 1966 - a thirty
pound radio with hot tubes and not a big performer, the progress of
modern DXing tools is just enthralling, exciting and makes the hobby
as thrilling and challenging today as ever it was.

Have fun and good DX = the future looks bright for us hobbyist's.

John Plimmer, Montagu, Western Cape Province, South Africa
South 33 d 47 m 32 s, East 20 d 07 m 32 s
Icom IC-7700, Icom IC-756 PRO III with MW mods
ERGO software
Drake SW8. Sangean 803A
Sony 7600D, GE SRIII, Redsun RP2100
Antenna's RF Systems DX 1 Pro Mk II, Datong AD-270
Kiwa MW Loop.
http://www.dxing.info/about/dxers/plimmer.dx

<snip>

Quote:

> That certainly is a technological breakthrough Guy.
> Absolutely amazing when you consider a couple of years ago this was
> unthinkable - how science and clever minds march on.

FWIW, militaries and reconnaissance organizations have had this capability
(to a much greater degree) for a very long time; consider the DC to daylight
wide and narrowband capabilities of the AN/ALD-5/ASR-5 system, which occupied
an entire modified Boing 707 and did most of its duty during the late 1960s
through the early 1980s. It spooled data to various wide-format tape transports
(Ampex) for later review and re-analysis, and it had both wide-open agile
wideband receivers and narrow-band receivers, all interlinked and computer
controlled, with manual and semi-automatic controls as well. The front ends
were mostly BWO and TWT with some solid state on lower frequencies; everything
else was discrete solid state except for the computer which used metal can
and ceramic packaged ICs. The wideband components often used tunable air lines
and other motor-tuned filters.  Running it required dozens of kw and lots of
airflow cooling.

The breakthrough of wideband digital signal processing in a small space is
what is so remarkable, considering that modern SDR designs easily rival the
performance of that earlier leviathan.

Michael