These DATA were submitted on: Thursday, March, 9, 2006 at 22:21:09
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NAME: Roger Rehr
CALL: W3SZ
MOTHERBOARD:: Stock Dell Inspirion 600m Laptop
CPU:: Pentium M
CPU Speed:: 1.6
RAM in MB:: 512MB
SOUND CARD:: On Motherboard
SOUND CHIPSET:: SigmaTel C-Major Audio
SOUND DRIVER(S):: Windows Drivers
VIDEO CARD:: On Motherboard
LINUX DISTRIBUTION:: Windows XP Pro SP2
LINUX VERSION:: Windows XP Pro SP2
KERNEL VERSION:: NA
GCC VERSION:: NA
SVGALIB VERSION:: NA
LINRAD VERSION:: 02.02
TEXT: This is a setup that can play back wave files and adfiles using 96000 Hz sampling
with just a laptop, with no need for fancy hardware.
It is a good way to get your feet wet with Linrad and Winrad.
Roger reports further:
Hello, All,
I was playing with a laptop tonight and found to my surprise that it
played back 96000 Hz sampling rate I/Q wave files through both Winrad and
Linrad with no problem, giving me [nearly] 96000 Hz bandwidth on my
laptop, with no special effort on my part.
It also [of course] plays back 96000 Hz sampling rate "adfiles" on Linrad,
and in fact is playing back the dual-receive-polarity 96000 Hz adfile of
EME named frh1135 [obtained from Leif's website] as I type this.
Since it doing both H and V receive polarities and doing I/Q, it must be
using 4 channels for input alone; very nice for a stock laptop ;)
All of this is using Windows; I made no attempt to put Linux on this
machine [and won't do so in the future, either].
The laptop is a simple Dell Inspirion 600m. I think I've had it about a
year or so [maybe longer]. It is pretty basic and not a speed demon; its
main use is just to provide a VPN link back to the office when I am on
trips. It has a Pentium M running at 1.6 GHz as I recall, and only 512 MB
of memory. It is running XP Pro SP2. Everything is stock; I did nothing
to upgrade hardware or software. The stock audio is SigmaTel C-Major
Audio. It is handling the frh1135 96K dual-polarity file on Linrad fine
with no pauses, hitches, or speed warnings. Of course, it would be
possible to change the parameters so as to overwhelm the processor, but I
am running with a 'reasonable' set of parameters without tweaking with no
problems.
I see from the SigmaTel website
SigmaTel WEB site
that many chips from their
[notebook PC] STAC9200-9700 series Codecs will sample at 192KHz and have
24 bit resolution, so maybe my laptop can sample even higher than 96000
Hz. Also, my Inspirion 600m is not complaining at my sampling at 96000 Hz
for the input to Linrad and only 8000 Hz for the output.
For demo purposes and playing around, all this means that at least some
fairly recent if not state-of-the art laptops will provide reasonable
usability with Linrad and Winrad right out of the box. I've found that I
really need a display width of around 90 KHz or more for doing EME and
microwave stuff, so its nice to find a laptop that will allow me to do a
demo with the standard configuration that I use when I operate.
This may be useful info to some of you who want to get started with Linrad
or Winrad and have a laptop sitting around, or who want to do a demo
somewhere at 96000 Hz sampling, but don't want to lug the big tower PC to
the demo site. I suspect that this is all 'old hat' to the computer gurus
out there, but it was news to this simple user. I'd be interested in
hearing from others who find that their stock laptops [or desktops] sample
at 96000 Hz or greater and work reasonably well with Linrad and Winrad.
This would probably be a useful list to compile and perhaps place on
something like Rein's site at
LInrad Data BAnk
73,
Roger Rehr
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