Here's a simple description (I hope). The FCD can receive about 80 kHz of spectrum. You use the SDR software to decode whatever part of that you want to hear. Essentially you "click" on the signal you want to hear, configure the software for the mode (USB, LSB, FM, etc.) and configure the bandwidth you want for that signal (if you don't like the default).
So, the FCD can "see" about 80 kHz of spectrum; that is essentially fixed (but of course you can move that window around because you can change the frequency of the FCD!) What you do in software is what determines what you "decode" or listen to. For wide-band FM stereo stations you end up decoding everything you can see, because the filter bandwidth is so BIG! For a CW signal, you might only decode 50-100 Hz of the 80 kHz.
Does that help?
You might consider installing a handful of the SDR software programs and experiment. There are recordings you can download and playback so you can do just what I described, without spending a penny :)
73,
Mark N8MH
At 09:27 AM 1/3/2011 +1100, Andrew Rich wrote:
Bit confused about what the radios can "see" and "decode"
Is the sweep window only 96 khz ?
Or is that the decode window ?
- Andrew -
----- Original Message ----- From: "Mark L. Hammond" marklhammond@gmail.com To: "Andrew Rich" vk4tec@tech-software.net; amsat-bb@amsat.org Sent: Monday, January 03, 2011 10:25 AM Subject: Re: [amsat-bb] Need Advice for SDR choice
Check out:
Assuming you only need receive, of course...
Works great...just had a QSO on FO-29 using it for receive (thanks KB1RVT!).
73,
Mark N8MH
At 07:47 PM 1/3/2011 +1100, Andrew Rich wrote:
Hello
I need some advice. I would like to purchase a Software Defined Radio
I would like to be able to do
- Around 50 MHz to 2.400 GHz
- USB LSB CW FM WFM / RAW ?
- I would like to be able to decode AX25 packet (ISS)
I also have another project of decoding Mode S aircraft signals.
I have Windows XP / MAC OS X / Linux OpenSUSE.
What are my decoding options for the SDR ?
I can build packages etc in LINUX
- Andrew VK4TEC -
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Mark L. Hammond [N8MH]
Mark L. Hammond [N8MH]