Dan, We have done our darndest to combine the best of both worlds: the familiar world of recognizable control names (on one hand) with the technically and precisely correct names (on the other). As you will notice, if you hover over the RF control on the front panel (and nearly all other controls), you will get a tooltip pop-up that gives more information about the control. In this tooltip, it notes that this control really is controlling the "Max AGC Gain."
Three years ago, we may not have made that same decision as we were selling primarily to technical experimenters. Today, we are moving into more of a mainstream market and must make changes to accommodate such a market that are in the best interest of our business (so we can keep bringing you software). Again this serves to point out the fact that there are numerous opinions about what a console should and should not be/look like/act/etc. All the more reason to continue down the path to simplify custom customer created consoles (4 C's --- hmmm). :) Eric Wachsmann FlexRadio Systems > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > radio.biz] On Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Friday, August 25, 2006 1:50 PM > To: Jeff Anderson; FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz > Subject: Re: [Flexradio] SVN 653 > > Jeff, > > >>From my perspective, the SDR1K has, essentially, two gain controls. > > Conceptually, from the point of view of signal flow, I picture these two > > gains as "pre-agc gain" and "post-agc gain." That is, the gain applied > to > > a > > signal *before* it's attenuated by AGC, and the gain applied to a signal > > *after* it's been attenuated by AGC. > > > > Well, sort of true. But it is more subtle than that. In a DSP engine it is > possible to adjust many aspects of the AGC in a way that was not possible > before. You simply have to re-think the concepts of RF Gain when working > with DSP. It is just way to involved to try and discuss here on the > reflector. I suggest two things. First read the TT description of DSP AGC > on > page 44 to page 48 of this document. They have titled it Weak Signal and > Contest Operation, but it is really a discussion of how DSP engine AGC > parameters interact: > http://radio.tentec.com/cms-files/566_manual_release3_0306.pdf. Then I > would like to hear from Frank and Bob on this topic and get their take on > all this. I suspect that they have implemented the AGC functions in much > the > same way as Doug Smith did, and that the reference I quoted applies most > directly to the Flex as well as to the Orion. > > >"RF Gain" is more intuitive. > > > > Or, perhaps more importantly, if there was a control on the front panel > > labeled "Max AGC Gain," would this turn-off, rather than attract, > > potential > > buyers of the radio? > > > > Well, by this time, everyone knows where I stand on this sort of > discussion. > To me, this is not a marketing issue. We are talking about how to allow > users of the rig (that have already bought and paid for it) to extract the > maximum performance from the system. You are only going to get maximum AGC > performance in critical listening situations by having ready access to and > understanding, technically, how to adjust all the DSP engines AGC > parameters. It is that simple. I wish that you could, in fact, put a > simple > control on the front panel, call it RF Gain, and have it perform some sort > of magic in all situations. But that isn't going to happen. > > As far as the "more intuitive", my response is that we all must keep > learning new things until the day we die. When I learned to drive it was > with a stick shift. When I bought my first car with an automatic > transmission it was not intuitive to operate a car with out a clutch, but > I > learned. Hams new to DSP radios are going to have to learn a few new > things. The intuitive part comes with practice. > > -Dan > > > > _______________________________________________ > FlexRadio mailing list > FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz > http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz > Archive Link: http://www.mail-archive.com/flexradio%40flex-radio.biz/ > FlexRadio Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com _______________________________________________ FlexRadio mailing list FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz Archive Link: http://www.mail-archive.com/flexradio%40flex-radio.biz/ FlexRadio Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com
