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#1
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Perseus SDR
I have owned Perseus for 5 months now and it has been on DXpedition to
our Seefontein Atlantic West Coast site. I am mainly a BCB MW and NDB beacon LF DXer. The Perseus is operated next to my marvellous Icom IC-7600. Perseus is a top class performer and has all the bell's and whistles of an expensive conventional receiver. It's filters are top line and I found the NR noise reduction even better than my Icom. It is just as good as the Icom at digging the most difficult stations out of the mud and is a top class DX machine. It is particularly good at finding those elusive weak NDB beacons on LF. Owning Perseus requires you to have a top end laptop, otherwise it will not be able to successfully record the wide 1.6 MHz span, a major feature of Perseus. Also you have to do something about the sound, as the laptop just doesn't produce decent audio. So, be aware that buying Perseus is not the end of your financial outlay. Taking Perseus on a powerless DXpedition is a pain - you have to have power for your laptop and Perseus requires a quirky 5v DC. I did kit myself out for all this and captured some good TOH top of hour recordings of the MW+LF band. Analysing these recordings afterwards yielded a mixed bag. On the plus side I was able to log stations with good ID's that I had not found with the Icom, but I also had some good ID's from the Icom that were simply not heard on Perseus. But it's swings and roundabouts - what you loose on Perseus due to it's lack of sensitivity and high noise floor, you gain from the extra stations you hear resulting from recording the full MW band at TOH. Perseus is not as sensitive as the Icom and introduces more noise, plus the recording seems to add further noise, that is why you loose some of the weaker stations. I am from the older generation and not very computer literate. Perseus requires some good computer knowledge to install properly and do the updates that come along. This is reflected on the Perseus news group as the number of software queries is quite large. I would have expected the suppliers of this not inexpensive SDR to supply "auto run" software and updates for the many computer illiterate users like myself.. All in all a worthy SDR which I give 4 stars out of 5. John Plimmer, Montagu, Western Cape Province, South Africa South 33 d 47 m 32 s, East 20 d 07 m 32 s Icom IC-7600, Perseus SDR ERGO software Drake SW8. Sangean 803A, Redsun RP2100 Sony 7600D, GE SRIII, Grundig G8, Eton E100 Antenna's RF Systems DX 1 Pro Mk II, Datong AD-270 Kiwa MW Loop. http://www.dxing.info/about/dxers/plimmer.dx FOOTNOTE for those wanting a 5v power supply for Perseus The Futurlec board worked perfectly - it did not get hot at all and had 12.5 to 13v DC into it and gave out a constant 5v DC to Perseus : http://www.futurlec.com/Mini_Power.shtml It did not emit any detectable RFI |
#2
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Perseus SDR
On Apr 9, 5:35*am, John Plimmer wrote:
"Owning Perseus requires you to have a top end laptop, otherwise it will not be able to successfully record the wide 1.6 MHz span, a major feature of Perseus." This, for me, is a dealbreaker when it comes to high end SDRs. They do require top end computers. They also require frequent updates, and after enough updates even your (currently top end) computer will again become obsolete. No thanks. |
#3
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Perseus SDR
Steve wrote:
On Apr 9, 5:35 am, John Plimmer wrote: "Owning Perseus requires you to have a top end laptop, otherwise it will not be able to successfully record the wide 1.6 MHz span, a major feature of Perseus." This, for me, is a dealbreaker when it comes to high end SDRs. They do require top end computers. They also require frequent updates, and after enough updates even your (currently top end) computer will again become obsolete. No thanks. But I run my Perseus with a Acer netbook. I don't do any recording, but for listening the Atom processor is sufficient. A top end computer is not necessarily a requirement. |
#4
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Perseus SDR
Steve wrote:
On Apr 9, 5:35 am, John Plimmer wrote: "Owning Perseus requires you to have a top end laptop, otherwise it will not be able to successfully record the wide 1.6 MHz span, a major feature of Perseus." This, for me, is a dealbreaker when it comes to high end SDRs. They do require top end computers. They also require frequent updates, and after enough updates even your (currently top end) computer will again become obsolete. No thanks. They specifically require DirectX to run the soundcard DSP. I am not going to spend $250+ for the privilege. Intel needs to write a DSP routine that runs on Linux. |
#5
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Perseus SDR
On Fri, 09 Apr 2010 09:31:43 -0700, dave wrote:
Steve wrote: On Apr 9, 5:35 am, John Plimmer wrote: "Owning Perseus requires you to have a top end laptop, otherwise it will not be able to successfully record the wide 1.6 MHz span, a major feature of Perseus." This, for me, is a dealbreaker when it comes to high end SDRs. They do require top end computers. They also require frequent updates, and after enough updates even your (currently top end) computer will again become obsolete. No thanks. They specifically require DirectX to run the soundcard DSP. I am not going to spend $250+ for the privilege. Intel needs to write a DSP routine that runs on Linux. Even with the cost of a computer and software the Perseus is pretty reasonable. The filter performance exceeds the majority of receivers and tranceivers on the market: http://www.sherweng.com/table.html Jim |
#7
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Perseus SDR
On Apr 10, 6:25*am, dave wrote:
wrote: On Fri, 09 Apr 2010 09:31:43 -0700, *wrote: Steve wrote: On Apr 9, 5:35 am, John *wrote: "Owning Perseus requires you to have a top end laptop, otherwise it will not be able to successfully record the wide 1.6 MHz span, a major feature of Perseus." This, for me, is a dealbreaker when it comes to high end SDRs. They do require top end computers. They also require frequent updates, and after enough updates even your (currently top end) computer will again become obsolete. No thanks. They specifically require DirectX to run the soundcard DSP. *I am not going to spend $250+ for the privilege. *Intel needs to write a DSP routine that runs on Linux. Even with the cost of a computer and software the Perseus is pretty reasonable. The filter performance exceeds the majority of receivers and tranceivers on the market: http://www.sherweng.com/table.html Jim I was going to get a Flexradio until I found out you need Windows to use the thing. *I got the Elecraft K3 instead. *$299 for an operating system is insane. http://www.sherweng.com/table.html One of the problems with a radio that requires a PC to do the demod is you can't run 3rd party decoding software on the demod signal since the sound card is busy doing the demod. [Hope that makes sense. ;-)] For example, PC-HFDL requires a sound card, but your sound card is busy with the actual demod. I've got a SDR on loan and it's going back. I find the need for a computer in the field to be a real hassle. To be fair, it's more like $100 for the OS. I put OEM win7pro on my desktop for a bit over $100 when Fry's had a sale. That all said, I rather have linux. Incidentally PC-HFDL works fine under Wine. I guess it didn't need directx. |
#8
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Perseus SDR
wrote:
On Apr 10, 6:25 am, wrote: wrote: On Fri, 09 Apr 2010 09:31:43 -0700, wrote: Steve wrote: On Apr 9, 5:35 am, John wrote: "Owning Perseus requires you to have a top end laptop, otherwise it will not be able to successfully record the wide 1.6 MHz span, a major feature of Perseus." This, for me, is a dealbreaker when it comes to high end SDRs. They do require top end computers. They also require frequent updates, and after enough updates even your (currently top end) computer will again become obsolete. No thanks. They specifically require DirectX to run the soundcard DSP. I am not going to spend $250+ for the privilege. Intel needs to write a DSP routine that runs on Linux. Even with the cost of a computer and software the Perseus is pretty reasonable. The filter performance exceeds the majority of receivers and tranceivers on the market: http://www.sherweng.com/table.html Jim I was going to get a Flexradio until I found out you need Windows to use the thing. I got the Elecraft K3 instead. $299 for an operating system is insane. http://www.sherweng.com/table.html One of the problems with a radio that requires a PC to do the demod is you can't run 3rd party decoding software on the demod signal since the sound card is busy doing the demod. [Hope that makes sense. ;-)] For example, PC-HFDL requires a sound card, but your sound card is busy with the actual demod. I've got a SDR on loan and it's going back. I find the need for a computer in the field to be a real hassle. To be fair, it's more like $100 for the OS. I put OEM win7pro on my desktop for a bit over $100 when Fry's had a sale. That all said, I rather have linux. Incidentally PC-HFDL works fine under Wine. I guess it didn't need directx. This'll work with the Perseus and windows. http://www.ham-radio-deluxe.com/ |
#9
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Perseus SDR
On Apr 9, 1:45*pm, Steve wrote:
On Apr 9, 5:35*am, John Plimmer wrote: "Owning Perseus requires you to have a top end laptop, otherwise it will not be able to successfully record the wide 1.6 MHz span, a major feature of Perseus." This, for me, is a dealbreaker when it comes to high end SDRs. They do require top end computers. They also require frequent updates, and after enough updates even your (currently top end) computer will again become obsolete. No thanks. Rubbish. The Perseus (and other SDRs like SDR-IQ, SDR-14 and the QS1R) will run with any of todays (and yesterdays) computers. If you have a reasonably new PC (or laptop), you will have no problems. In fact, the SDR-IQ will run with a pretty lame PC. I've had various SDRs for almost four years. Of course, if the reference is the Win98 PC bought in 1999, it's a different matter. Bjarne Mjelde |
#10
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Perseus SDR
Computers, some of them anyway, can be upgraded.
cuhulin |
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