This year at HRU, we will have a work shop on PC-based test equipment. If you have a reasonably up-to-date PC (1 GHz CPU, Windows 98, XP, Windows 8, or Windows 10) with a sound card, then you already own the hardware. And the software is free. The only major difference beween these instruments and their expensive hardware counterparts is frequency coverage. There are a myriad of PC-based test instruments out there, but we will be zeroing in on three in particular: Soundcard Scope, a dual-trace scope and signal generator combo, Spectrogram, a simple but useful audio spectrum analyzer, and Spectrum Lab, a feature-packed ham-friendly spectrum analyzer, developed for hams and by hams led by Wolfgang Buescher, DL4YHF. Lab exercises will include oscilloscope triggering, Lissajous patterns, spectra of various periodic waveforms, CW and SSB filter comparisons, and Software Defined Radio. This is a two hour workshop. Pre-registration is required. You will need to bring a laptop computer, pre-loaded with all three applications. You can find links to all three software apps – Soundcard Scope, Spectrogram,
and Spectrum Lab, below.
Links:
Soundcard Scope
System Requirements: Windows 2000/XP/Vista/7/8/10 (32bit and 64bit)
computers with a sound card, 1 GHz or faster.
Spectrogram
System requirements: No longer posted anywhere but I have run
Spectrogram on Windows 98, ME, XP, and Windows 10.
Spectrum Lab
System Requirements: Windows 98, 2000, ME, XP (home and professional), Windows 10, Linux/WINE. Will not run under Windows Vista, but there are workarounds.
If any questions or comments please do not hesitate to contact me.
73
Neil KC2KY