New Member/User from Scotland.

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StevenG
Posts: 9
Joined: Fri May 04, 2018 11:48 pm

New Member/User from Scotland.

Post by StevenG » Sat May 05, 2018 12:54 am

Hi,
I am 51 years old and live in Scotland.
I just joined the forum today.
I am not new to radio or PC, but I am new to SDR,s.
I have used some online SDR,s for a year or two.
As I know nothing about SDR,s I started out at the beginning of the year with an RTL dongle on an Acer tablet with SDR Touch, then progressed onto a V3 RTL dongle and SDR#.
I am now enjoying learning about and setting up my own RSP2pro and SDRuno.
I have printed out a hard copy of the SDRuno user manual and it is presently my bed time reading !
I have had my RSP2pro set up for a couple of weeks now and I am delighted with it.
Instalation of the everything went smoothly, there were no problems at all.
I have antennas various for my own "classic/older" type radios from MW to UHF so it was just a matter of plugging various antennas in and seeing what I was receiving.
I am delighted with my new SDR, I just need to learn how to opperate it properly, but every time I sit down at it, I am learning new things.
I am a keen antenna constructor and find it VERY interesting SEEING how antennas perform, as well as hearing.
I also found it interesting SEEING how well an ATU worked on various antennas, comapred to the same antenna with no ATU.
All basic stuff, but as Im only a hobbiest, I find it very interesting indeed.
I have a few questions, but will start with the first one, appologies if Im posting in the wrong place.
Q1:- In the main SDRuno box/pannel, with the radio running, if I change the sample rate to anything other than 2 Mhz the radio seems to buffer or chuff ?
It all seems to work, but just that the sound buffers.
Please could you advise what I need to adjust to be able to use the full 10 mhz sample rate.
Thanks very much in advance.
Regards,
Steven.
Last edited by StevenG on Thu Jan 01, 1970 12:00 am, edited 0 times in total.
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g1hbe
Posts: 494
Joined: Sat Jan 17, 2015 3:28 pm
Location: Cheshire, UK

Re: New Member/User from Scotland.

Post by g1hbe » Sat May 05, 2018 7:49 am

Welcome! Audio hiccups and pausing are normally down to a lack of power in the PC. My old P6200 laptop would get its pants in a knot if I went above about 6 MHz sample rate, but my newer i5 is happy all the way up.
Or it could be that there are several background processes running (things like virus checkers etc). What's the spec of your PC?
BTW, there's a very active & friendly Facebook group.... somewhere.

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Andy

StevenG
Posts: 9
Joined: Fri May 04, 2018 11:48 pm

Re: New Member/User from Scotland.

Post by StevenG » Sat May 05, 2018 4:39 pm

Hi,
Thanks for the reply,
The lap top I am running SDRuno on, is a brand new HP machine.
It has windows 10 64 bit and 4 GB Ram.
I have been running the SDR on that lap top, usualy not even connected to the internet.
I will try again tonight and shut everything else down on the lap top.
Thanks again for the reply.
73
Steven.
Last edited by StevenG on Thu Jan 01, 1970 12:00 am, edited 0 times in total.
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g1hbe
Posts: 494
Joined: Sat Jan 17, 2015 3:28 pm
Location: Cheshire, UK

Re: New Member/User from Scotland.

Post by g1hbe » Sun May 06, 2018 8:33 am

Hi again Steven. If it's anything like our recently-bought HP laptop, it will be loaded with all manner of 'helpful' (NOT) applications, some of which will run from start-up. Stuff like performance monitors, virus sweepers and update checkers. A pain in the neck. It's worth disabling these and dragging them out and stamping on them. It should run Uno like a charm.

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Andy

StevenG
Posts: 9
Joined: Fri May 04, 2018 11:48 pm

Re: New Member/User from Scotland.

Post by StevenG » Wed May 09, 2018 12:30 am

Hi,
Thanks for the replys.
I had another play with SDRuno and my brand new laptop tonight.
I took the laptop off the internet, disabled antivirus and firewall, shut down everything, put it in flight mode etc etc.
With everything off, my laptop CPU load shows 6% on Performance Monitor.
Once I start SDRuno, my CPU load shows 70% on Performance Monitor, with SDRuno showing constantly 50-60% average CPU load.
As before, my RSP2pro works great, but will not run at anything above 2 mhz BW without buffering, even with everything switched off on the laptop and Performance Monitor showing a total of approx 70%.
Im sure it is the laptop, but not too sure what it is.
I will perhaps try it on my old laptop over the weekend.
Is 50-60% CPU load what I should expect from SDRuno ?
Thank you.
Steven.
Last edited by StevenG on Thu Jan 01, 1970 12:00 am, edited 0 times in total.
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Paul
Posts: 355
Joined: Fri Feb 17, 2017 9:52 am
Location: SW UK

Re: New Member/User from Scotland.

Post by Paul » Wed May 09, 2018 6:07 am

Hi Steve
Had you thought of posting an image of your workspace for the benefit of the knowledgeable (not me) on here to have a look at it when up and running when under load, as I believe that it may be helpful.
I've got a cobbled together, heavily modified old Dell laptop (64bit - i5 - 8mHz ram and SSD - OS Windows 10 - always on the internet - no background apps disabled - most of the time) that runs uno very satisfactorily, even with another rx using SDR# at the same time, which must have an impact on performance.
However, even running uno and the RSP alone, it occasionally gets it's knickers in a twist and it's often something such as the current gain/gain reduction setting being less than optimal (don't understand it - I just usually readjust or restart, very infrequently, and it goes away).
Most of the time I tend to run it at SR2 and decimation 8, which I suppose is not too demanding, but occasionally at SR10 and decimation of 1 works fine when required.

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g1hbe
Posts: 494
Joined: Sat Jan 17, 2015 3:28 pm
Location: Cheshire, UK

Re: New Member/User from Scotland.

Post by g1hbe » Wed May 09, 2018 10:24 am

Steven - my HP laptop is an i5 clocked at 2.4 GHz with 4 Gigs of memory. Running my RSP2 with one RX enabled at 2MHz b/w, it hovers around SYS17% and SDR 12% CPU load. I can leave Uno running while I surf the net without problem. Even at 8 MHz bw it seems fine. It sure sounds like something is a bit wrong with yours.

As Paul says, grab a screen image and post it here or over on the FB page, it may show something useful. If you cannot get anywhere go to support and raise a ticket.

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Andy

StevenG
Posts: 9
Joined: Fri May 04, 2018 11:48 pm

Re: New Member/User from Scotland.

Post by StevenG » Wed May 09, 2018 3:57 pm

Hi Paul and G1HBE,
Thank you for the replys.
The % figures I posted were from the Performance Monitor programme that comes with windows, I should have qouted the figures from the System and SDR.
I will have another go later tonight after dinner.
Is it Ok to post links to youtube ? As I could make a short youtube video of it buffering and post the link here, if thats OK ?
Thanks again,
Steven.
Last edited by StevenG on Thu Jan 01, 1970 12:00 am, edited 0 times in total.
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Mike2459
Posts: 318
Joined: Mon Jul 24, 2017 8:24 pm

Re: New Member/User from Scotland.

Post by Mike2459 » Wed May 09, 2018 5:52 pm

Hi Steven G:

IMO the problems you are seeing are not the fault of your PC. I have the same issue as you. My max sample rate is 4 Mhz, above that SDRUno get's hiccups. I also have HDSDR, SDRSharp and SDRConsole installed -- all of these are able to use the full 10 MHz of the SDRPlay. From that I can draw only one conclusion and that is that there is nothing wrong with your PC.

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StevenG
Posts: 9
Joined: Fri May 04, 2018 11:48 pm

Re: New Member/User from Scotland.

Post by StevenG » Wed May 09, 2018 6:37 pm

Hi Mike,
Thanks for the info.
I already have SDR Sharp on that PC for running my V3 RTL dongle.
As I said on my first post, I am very new to SDR,s, Im now guessing I can run my RSP on SDR Sharp.
I will go and try that now.
What one would you recommend for me to try next , HDSDR or SDR Console ?
Thank you.
Steven.
Last edited by StevenG on Thu Jan 01, 1970 12:00 am, edited 0 times in total.
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