Re: What's best Soundcard Interface for KX3

Posted by John Pitz on Apr 10, 2016; 8:12pm
URL: http://elecraft.85.s1.nabble.com/What-s-best-Soundcard-Interface-for-KX3-tp7616157p7616168.html

On the topic of sound cards, I was wondering what the advantages are to
using the IQ output of the KX3 as opposed to feeding the headphone jack
into the input of the soundcard?  I believe the IQ output requires
stereo input to work, but what are the advantages?  I have seen on this
list quite a few people with radios that have an IQ output still use the
headphone output to decode the digital modes.  I am under the impression
that the PX3 can display a 200KHz slice of the RF spectrum using the IQ
outputs whereas the best I can get out of fldigi is about 4KHz.  Is
there any way to coerce fldigi to display a wider chunk of the band?  I
am running fldigi on Linux.


John
KD8CIV

On Sun, 2016-04-10 at 14:56 -0400, Don Wilhelm wrote:

> George,
>
> You laptop may have only a mono input for the mic/line-in, but for
> digital modes, only one channel is used, so it should work - just be
> sure to turn off sounds from your OS so those are not transmitted on the
> air.
>
> A simple and inexpensive USB soundcard can eliminate the problem of
> sounds from the OS.  Just make certain the USB soundcard is *not* the
> default sound device.
>
> For digital modes, you do not need an expensive interface.  Yes, some
> provide ready made cables to connect with your radio, some have galvanic
> isolation on the audio lines, and some provide PTT to the transceiver,
> but VOX works just great with the KX3 for digital modes (you don't need
> PTT).
>
> The big difference between soundcards (including those built into
> interface boxes) for digital modes is the noise floor of the soundcard.  
> You mentioned Signalink, and while popular, it is not the best interface
> available.
>
> Try your laptop internal soundcard before buying anything else, it may
> be all you need.
>
> 73,
> Don W3FPR
>
> On 4/10/2016 2:09 PM, George_yv5wz wrote:
> > Thank you Don!
> >
> > So  you mean  I don't need to buy anything just my laptop....that's
> > interesting!
> >
> > however, I'm kind of confuse....why so many brands of expensive interface
> > sound card....does it represent any better signal or any using interface
> > ?....I mean 100 Box (signlink)  against simple USB soundcard (12 box)
> > .....does it really matter?
> >
> >
>
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