Re: [IRCA] SDR Recommendations?

[Bruce Portzer <bportzer@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Anthony

I've owned an Excalibur for the past two years, and very recently added 
a Perseus to my radio collection.  Both are quite good receivers.   I'm 
not aware of any Mac software to run either radio, although there may be 
third party software I don't know about.

I've been generally happy withe the User Interface that comes with the 
Excalibur.  I'm much less impressed with the Perseus UI, but I've only 
been using it for a couple of days and may need to give it more time.

I haven't run into the recording issue Nick mentions.  I routinely use 
the Excalibur to record 2 MHZ sections of spectrum (MW & SW) with no 
problems.  That's with a quad core (i5) CPU in my PC. The problem could 
nonetheless occur with older, slower PCs (single CPU and possibly some 
low end dual core PCs).

Bruce

On 7/12/2013 07:29, Nick Hall-Patch wrote:
> I'm afraid I don't have a lot of experience with your possible choices 
> for SDR, Anthony, and none with driving them with an Apple computer, 
> but a couple of thoughts:
>
> I lurk on the Perseus Yahoo list, and people do you use Apple 
> computers for Perseus, but I believe it's by running some sort of 
> Windows virtual machine.   You could probably get some answers on that 
> group, perhaps by first searching the archives.
>
> I seem to recall problems recording the entire band with the 
> Excalibur, at least using the native software, but I'm happy to be 
> proved wrong.   There are a couple of Yahoo groups devoted to 
> Winradio, so again you might get better information there.
>
> I've run the RFSpace SDR-14 with little effort using a Windows 8 
> tablet (from Samsung, not Microsoft), and found the tablet itself to 
> be remarkably competent for such a low power device, so it may well 
> have been able to handle a Perseus with its wider bandwidth.   But it 
> has to be Windows 8,  not Windows RT!
>
> best wishes,
>
> Nick
>
>
>
> At 13:10 12-07-13, you wrote:
> > I've been considering adding an SDR to my MW dx tool arsenal but I am 
> > a newbie in that area and am looking for any thoughts or 
> > recommendations from those of you more experienced than me. The 
> > primary appeal to me about SDR is the ability to record the entire 
> > band for later searching.
> >
> > Currently, I am all Apple: Imac, Macbook Pro, iPad. I've been reading 
> > up on and have been pretty impressed with the Perseus and the 
> > WinRadio Excalibur. Are there any Mac users out there using them? If 
> > so, what do I need to be aware with regard to interface and software 
> > requirements? If Mac is out of the question for either of those, 
> > would they work with one of the new Microsoft tablet PC's or would I 
> > need a full blown Windows PC system?
> >
> > Another thought I had was to initially, perhaps just 'get my feet 
> > wet' and play around with one of the USB dongles I've seen 
> > advertised. Are they a waste of time for serious use? If not, will 
> > any of those work with a Mac?
> >
> > Any comments or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
> > Thanks
> >
> > Anthony R Gargano
> > n2ss@xxxxxxxx

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