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 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

If I was going to set up a Pc that way, I would use any of the Creative Labs
Sound Blaster Live series. Any of the Live series will work. My all time
favorite card is the older Awe 64 Gold, with it's phono line out jacks. You can
get the Live series "5.1 Digital/ect" for next to nothing, they also made some
OEM for DELL I believe that are just as good....

Bob N9LVU

You may be ok with MB sound. Im using the sound off my P4PE/L MB and after
I did the
calibration Ive 0 problems with it. If you definitly want on board you can
find the Santa Cruz
fairly inexpensive and add it your self.


But I would say try the MB Sound first.


Scotty W7PSK.

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

Brian,

My suggestion is to use the mother board sound card to get started. It
will certainly be "good enough" to get your feet wet, but not much
more than that. However, having a second, dedicated card has both
technical and practical advantages. For instance, if you have any
sound schemes selected in Windows, those sounds can get transmitted by
accident, which is annoying, and technically illegal due to band usage
allocations. If the board you use for ham work is not the default
sound card, this doesn't happen.

You also need to change settings of the mixer board depending on what
you are doing. The old line out is still there, but it usually is
handled in software as a rear speaker output. So I use my mixer
configured for 2 speakers normally, and for 4 when I am operating
PSK31. I slide the F/B balance all the way to the back, in this case,
or a little forward if I want to monitor the TX signal.

One of the better Creative boards will be fine, and I also use the
Santa Cruz board someone else recommended. N4HY, who does DSP signal
analysis professionally somewhere beyond the bleeding edge, did some
tests, and found it was the best of the consumer boards for ham
applications. At one point, there was a detailed comparison
available, but it seems to have vanished.

http://lists.contesting.com/_rtty/2004-03/msg00348.html

They are out of production, but they turn up on eBay and other sites.
If you get one, make certain you get the WIN2K drivers off the web
site, as they were not on my setup CD.


--
Alan
WA4SCA

Thanks for your responses gentlemen, I appreciate all of them. Looks
like you've fed me more than enough detailed info and advice on the
subject to enable me to take it from here.

Brian w3rv