[linrad] 96000 Hz sampling from stock laptop

[w3sz <comcast.net; w3sz@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

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  
http://www.sigmatel.com/support/product/#9200 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 http://www.nitehawk.com/linrad_dat/

73,

Roger Rehr
W3SZ

--
Roger Rehr
W3SZ
http://www.nitehawk.com/w3sz/

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