SOFT66ADD with a quarter for scale.

The unit is small but well made.  The circuit board is of high quality and the build quality is very good too.  To use the SOFT66ADD you will need to do a few things first including:

• install the FTDI driver
• install the latest .NET framework (I had done this already for other reasons)
• install the control software

The maker’s website has the links to download all these software components.  Installation was quick and easy.  If you haven’t installed the .NET framework, that will take a little bit more time.

Once, the software was installed it was time to hook up the rig to my PC.  This entails:

• plugging a mini-USB cable from the SOFT66ADD to a USB port on the PC
• plugging a stereo jack into the sound card LINE IN on the PC sound card
• connect an antenna to the SMA jack on the SOFT66ADD.  I already had an SMA to PL-269 adapter so this was a breeze.

If everything is hooked up properly, the red LED on the SOFT66ADD will be on as the unit receives it’s power through the USB port.   Make sure you select ‘Line In’ as your input source from within the Windows volume control.   Then I started up the control software, and tuned it to a frequency.  The SOFT66ADD worked the first time out of the box.  Once I verified that everything worked, I installed the circuit board in the housing provided with it.  It required that I drill and cut the opening for the mini-USB, stereo line and SMA jack but this was not a problem.  The results look like this and make for a nice, clean installation:

The SOFT66ADD in it's case.

You really don’t want to use the SOFT66ADD with the control software only because you lose one of the biggest advantages of SDR and that is the panoramic display.  I elected to use WinRad with my rig for a couple of reasons.  First, it is IMHO one of the best software packages out there that works with the SOFT66ADD.  Secondly, a DLL is available that will allow you to tune the SOFT66ADD local oscillator through the control software directly from WinRad.  This greatly enhances the practically of WinRad.  You can learn more about and download WinRad here.

Using WinRad, operating the SOFT66ADD was a pleasure.  The panoramic display is great and there is a waterfall display as well.  Here is a screenshot of WinRad when tuned to a LSB signal on 40 meters:

WinRad tuned to LSB signal on 40 meters.

My PC has an Soundblaster Audigy sound card which has a 48 KHz bandwidth.  This allows WinRad to display 48 KHz on the panoramic display.  It is important to know that the performance of the SOFT66ADD and any SDR for that matter is directly related to the quality of your sound card.  Sound cards with small bandwidths and poor dynamic range will provide poor results.  While the Audigy is not a top line sound card, it provides adequate results.  I have yet to try it with the Edirol FA-66 which I use with my SDR-1000.  Additionally, I have not yet tried to operate the SOFT66ADD remotely.  I will report on that later.

The Soft66ADD in it's case

I recently sent payment for a SOFT66ADD direct conversion software defined receiver that I am anxious to arrive and get to play with.  The SOFT66ADD covers .5MHz to 30MHz  and is supposed to be compatible with Rocky , SDRadio and WinRad software.  It is controlled from the PC via a USB port.  I plan to set it up to operate remotely from work so that I can monitor DX activity without having to power up my SDR-1000 or FT-450.

I will give an update later as to how easy it is to install and update as well as how well it does or doesn’t work.

ARRL Field Day is the largest on-the-air operating event in Amateur Radio. It draws tens of thousands to the airwaves each year, bringing new and experienced hams together for a weekend of fun!  You can find answers to all your questions and get supplies for Field Day at the ARRL Web Site.

“Hathaway predicts that cycle 24 should reach its peak in mid-2013 at about half the size of the last three cycles.”

If this is true, it doesn’t bode well for hams.  Let’s keep our fingers crossed his prediction is wrong.

You might imagine, then, how excited I was when I learned that Boris Njegic, 9A5ATY in Croatia has successfully interfaced the FT-450 with PowerSDR software by extracting the 24 KHz IF and bringing it to the PC sound card where all the DSP and filtering is done in the software.  This allows the FT-450 to have  24 KHz panaromic and waterfall displays as well as all the filtering and DSP provided by the software.

Needless to say, I am excited about experimenting with the FT-450 and SDR.  If you are interested, Boris has created a web page to document his experiments.  This could get real interesting, real fast!

To learn more, you can visit the ARMAD web site.  The Epoch Times also has a good article about the 2008 Amateur Radio Military Appreciation Day.  Let’s support our brave men and women in the military by giving ARMAD our full support and participation!

Later, I reestablished the connection using the free Wi-Fi hotspots at the Moscone Center where things were a good bit quieter.  Again, I was able to make a couple of CW QSOs with good results.  I also attempted to make a couple of SSB contacts but received bad audio reports.  Both reports seemed to indicate that I has some RF on my audio.  Hopefully, that will not be difficult to resolve.  The received audio quality was pretty good but slowly the latency time began to increase to the point where frequency changes and other control functions began to take 2-3 seconds.  This became problematic to the point where I would miss portions of exchanges.

Overall, I have to consider my experiment a success.  I was able to remotely control my rig and make some contacts on CW and Phone.  Of course, I have some issues to resolve with RF getting into the audio chain.  I am hoping that the latency issues was simply because there was too much traffic on the Wi-Fi node at the convention center.  There were a lot of people connected from a number of hot spots around the Moscone Center.  Only further tests will tell …

It's not so beautiful in the pouring rain!

In a previous post I mentioned that this week I would be on a business trip to northern California and that I was looking forward to remotely operating my SDR-1000 and my FT-450 from San Francisco.  While it is a distance of just over 400 miles, as the crow flies, previously I had only operated remotely from my office which is only about 30 miles from home.  I knew that I would have significant free time in the evenings and was looking forward to the operating time!

I was and still am really curious to see what level of success I would have from a much greater distance.  Would I have significant latency problems, how would sound quality be affected, etc?  While I am staying at one of the nicer hotels in SF, I find that they charge steeply for internet access.  Not willing to pay the nearly $60 for 1 week of access I bit the bullet and paid $15 for 1 day’s access.  I didn’t want this exercise to be a complete flop after all.

Unfortunately, the WIFI signal in my room was of such poor signal strength and speed that I had to request a refund of my $15.  So, I was nixed operating from the comfort of my room.  I still have some options to a least get in a test of remote ops from this distance.  There is free WIFI in the lobby and the signal strength should be good from there.  Of course, the lobby is noisy and busy and I won’t want to do more than a quick test there.

My other option is to connect using the free WIFI at the convention center during a break.  Of course, it will be busy and noisy there as well but I should be able to connect and make a QSO or two.  I won’t be too disappointed as long as I am able to prove my setup will work well at greater distances.

Of course, I could always find an internet cafe and pay for access there but I was hoping to find something to occupy some of my free time in the comfort of my room without it costing me and arm and a leg.  Plus it is raining like cats and dogs and would prefer to stay out of the weather, if I can.  I will update later on my successes or failures.

Ham Shack of Andrew Albinson, VK6IA (click for larger image)

If you haven’t yet noticed, the thing that strikes ham shack envy most for me is not necessarily the gear but the furniture and organization of the shack.  Now, I envy those with top end gear just as much as the next guy but when you have a shack like VK6IA, Andrew Albinson of Ballajura, Western Australia,  you can see what I mean.  Even if he had old, beat up gear his shack would still be beautiful because of the effort put into the planning and construction.  Very nice job, Andrew!  Congratulations!