On 18 Apr 2006 21:04:40 -0700, "Brian" wrote:

I'm having a PC (Win 2k) put together which will be my dedicated ham
station box for running contest and general purpose loggers, 2M packet
spots and the sound card based digital modes like PSK-31, MFSK and
RTTY. I have zero hands-on experience with any of these at this point
so I'm looking for advice from those of you who have been there and
done it.

The computer will have some relatively inexpensive "plenty fast enough"
Athalon chip motherboard or another and a gig of RAM. My understanding
is that the "sound cards" integrated into motherboards sometimes don't
do very well when it comes to running PSK-31 et al. While cost matters
I'm not at all adverse to buying a decent third party sound card like
one of the Creative Labs boards. My question is given your expereince
which audio board or boards would you recommend if you were in my
shoes?

Thanks ~ Brian Kelly w3rv

Brian,

The easiest way is to pick a card that has a line level output. Very
few have it. It simplifies a lot of interfacing issues.

Look for the Creative AudioPCI card. It uses the great ES-1371 or
ES-1373 chipset and has line level inputs and outputs. Cheap, too. In
test writeups I've seen it has low noise, distortion, etc.

For a cheap interface check out the Rascal from Buck Rogers, the
former packet radio column writer for 73 magazine. Cheap, simple and
works good.

73,
Jim
N2VX