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Newbie here - advice needed on initial set-up

Posted: Tue Dec 13, 2016 6:52 pm
by EastPier
I am very new to the radio hobby and have no technical background.

I received my RSP2 today and I'm itching to get going. I will be using the HI Z port for now - has anyone any advice on setting the sample rate and decimation control to get best quick start while I come up to speed with everything!

Best regards

Adrian

Re: Newbie here - advice needed on initial set-up

Posted: Tue Dec 13, 2016 7:28 pm
by Tech_Support
Hello Adrian,
I would start with a sample rate of 2 MHz and Decimation of 1. If you don't need to view 2 MHz of visible bandwidth, you can increase the decimation factor. The key thing to remember is to ensure that there is an offset between the VFO and the LO in Zero IF mode. To ensure this, after starting SDRuno, click your mouse slightly away from the centre of the SP1 display. You should now see the VFO and LO at different frequencies. a 10 kHz offset will be fine.

Sincerely

SDRplay Tech_Support

Re: Newbie here - advice needed on initial set-up

Posted: Tue Dec 13, 2016 8:05 pm
by hfaero
This is interesting because very often when changing frequency or selecting a different band my LO is the same as the tune frequency, can an offset be set permanently so that no matter where I tune or when I restart there is an offset in place.

As far as 10kHz goes, this is not really that useful as 10kHz is within the band of interest and a signal no doubt will appear 10kHz up or down from where I'm tuned so a healthier option would be 100kHz acknowledging that a lower decimation factor or higher sample rate would be in order.

Re: Newbie here - advice needed on initial set-up

Posted: Tue Dec 13, 2016 9:47 pm
by Tech_Support
We are looking at having the ability to set a user defined offset between the LO and VFO for future versions of SDRuno. The important thing to remember is that as long as the LO is not sitting exactly at the centre of a known AM signal, you will not have any problems. If you do set the LO precisely on top of an AM-LC signal in zero IF mode, it is impossible to distinguish a DC offset from the carrier of the AM signal and the DC offset correction routines end up suppressing the carrier of the wanted signal. Of course if you use Low IF mode, you don't get this problem at all, but you are restricted to a limited IF bandwidth.

Sincerely

SDRplay Tech_Support