Our News

Abroham Neal Software Purchases DXBase

Jack Lennox and Neal Campbell announce sale of DXBase on August 20, 2009.

Scientific Solutions, Inc. of Woodstock, GA has sold the rights and source code of DXBase to Abroham Neal Software.

In an email to all DXBase customers, Jack Lennox, CEO of Scientific Solutio1ns, said,"I wanted to let you know that we have completed the transfer of ownership for all rights to DXbase and we are in the process of getting the new owner on board... I can tell you that he brings a tremendous amount of expert programming knowledge, ham knowledge, and has been involved in many other ham related software activities."

Neal Campbell, CEO of Abroham Neal Software said in his first comment to the DXBase user base, "I am so proud to be at the helm of DXBase, thanks to Jack for deciding to give me the opportunity and, of course, establishing such a high level of professionalism over the years. I started out as a DXBase user back in the DOS days and its amazing to see the growth that has occurred since then."

To learn more about DXBase, click here.

To purchase DXBase, click here

Spot 1.9.10 Released on 14 February 2009.

This release is a bug release, fixing a collection of bugs reported over the past month. One major change is the removal of the automatic update feature. The library I was using did not work as well as I wanted and I felt it was annoying people so it has been removed. I will be re-writing this function over the next few weeks.

K3NC Review in Oct., 2008 CQ Magazine

Read Neal's review of the fantastic Flex-Radio Systems Flex-5000a transceiver in the October 2007 CQ Magazine or download a pdf version from the Flex-Radio website (click here).

Neal Campbell, K3NC, Receives Software Excellence Award.

On May 17, 2008 at the FlexRadio Banquet and Forum held at the Dayton Hamvention, a Flexi Award was presented to Neal Campbell, K3NC, in honor of providing services and solutions to all Flex Radio operators. Flex-Radio stated that Flexi award were given to people who recognized an opportunity to unselfishly give of themselves a knowledge or skill that advanced the cause of software defined radio and benefited the FlexRadio community as a whole. You can read more about the Flexi awards on the FlexRadio web page at this URL: http://www.flex-radio.com/Users.aspx?topic=flexies.

LDGSwitch

A desktop program that allows full control of LDG Electronic's RTS-6 coax switch. A version for the RTS-4, called LDG4Switch, is also available.

Our Hardware Product Portfolio

Computer Systems fine-tuned for SDR activities

One of the critical success factors in using modern software-defined radios (SDRs) is often overlooked during the decision process of buying a new radio: your computer. In the early days of experimentation with SDRs, we thought that processor speed and overall computer utilization was the critical success factor. A holdover of this school of thought is that many SDR consoles show the system utilization on the main panel.

It was a bit of a shock, however, when new SDR owners, who do not spend days tuning their systems, started running into troubles. They would buy the latest desktop computer from the local big-box store, plug in the radio and start seeing problems. These problems are evident by the console freezing up or losing communications with the radio (which is just on the other end of the FireWire cable!) These computers normally had the latest in CPU technology and their computer system had every bell and whistle ever imagined, yet it couldn't run a program that a small system such as an Intel Atom 330 could run with no problems (if set up correctly).

So, there has been a major change in thought regarding what a good system should look like for a SDR-based amateur radio shack:

No fancy, do-everything motherboard (the more features of the motherboard, the more likelihood that you will have data path congestion on the board)
The fastest processor with the most cores is not the best chip. In reality, SDR consoles don't use a ton of processor time, so why pay for it?
Its better to dedicate your computer to your SDR operation than having one computer do everything. Many people find that when downloading email, their radio pauses or freezes. Do email on a different computer!

The two critical success factors for a SDR computer are very low latency at the driver layer of Windows as well as congestion on the IRQ that the FireWire or USB cards are using. Unfortunately, many motherboards engineer the peripherals (whether the built-in type or ones you plug into a PCI/PCIe slot) only on a few (often just 2) IRQs. A recent Dell computer in my shop had all peripherals assigned mainly to IRQ 16 and 17. There was no way this system would run well as a SDR computer without turning off some of the system devices. Long gone are the days where you could assign the IRQ used by a device!

Low-cost high performance Windows 7 SDR System

So the search began for a low-cost, high-performance system that could guarantee a dedicated IRQ to the FireWire card and very low latencies for PowerSDR. This system utilizes:

Jetway JXBlue-78GA3L-LF motherboard that has two video ports, HDMI video, two PCI slots, two PCIe slots, gigabyte LAN and 4 USB slots
AMD Athlon AthlonII X2 245 CPU, two fast cores running at 2.9 GHz
2 gigabytes of Crucial DDR3-1333 RAM
a Western Digital 160 Gigabyte SATA II disk drive
DVD/CD burner utilizing a SATA II port
Syba 1394 card using the Lucent FireWire chipset
HEC Steel MicroATX Mini Tower computer case. Completely shielded with aluminum and steel
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Edition
Antec Basiq 430 watt power supply
Virtual Audio Cables software soundcard emulator
Installation and setup of all relevant software, including HRD/DM780, Fldigi, DDUtil, K9DUR voice keyer, VSP Manager
Automated software backup/restore package.

We install your favorite software and configure it so that it works the minute you power it up. We install PowerSDR, Ham Radio Deluxe/DM780, Fldigi, and all current Flex drivers. We install VSPMgr for usage of virtual comm ports. We also highly tune Windows 7 to eliminate unwanted services and optimize operational parameters.

We will test your system with your FLEX-1500, FLEX-3000 or FLEX-5000 radios, depending on your shack radio, ensuring that when we ship your computer, you can have confidence it is ready to run!

While there is no parallel port present on the backplane, there is an internal socket for it on the motherboard so SDR-1000 users can order a LPT "stick" to bring out the connection. Select this as an option if you desire this capability.

Medium-cost, expandable and more powerful SDR System

Many customers asked about having a larger system that was more powerful, able to expand while still being tuned for high SDR performance.

This system utilizes:

ASUS M4A87TD EVO AM3 AMD 870 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard
AMD Athlon Phenom II X4 945 CPU, four fast cores running at 3.0 GHz
Optional processor:AMD Phenom II X6 1055T or AMD Athlon Phenom II X6 1090T CPU, six fast cores running at 2.8 and 3.2 GHz respectively
XFX HD-545X-ZNF2 Radeon HD 5450 1GB 64-bit DDR2 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP
G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory
a Western Digital 320 Gigabyte SATA II disk drive
CD/DVD Writer
Syba1394 card using the Lucent FireWire chipset
Antec Three Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
OCZ ModXStream Pro OCZ500MXSP 500W ATX12V V2.2 / EPS12V SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Modular Active PFC power supply
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium
Virtual Audio Cables
Automated system backup software

We install your favorite software and configure it so that it works the minute you power it up. We install PowerSDR, FlexLoader, HotWheels, Ham Radio Deluxe/DM780, Fldigi, and all current Flex drivers. We install VSPMgr for usage of virtual comm ports. We also fine-tune Windows to eliminate unwanted services and optimize operational parameters.

We will test your system with either FLEX-3000 or FLEX-5000 radios, depending on your shack radio, ensuring that when we ship your computer, you can have confidence it is ready to run!

Several exciting options are now available. Get the very finest in firewire cables, the FIREVue(tm) cables from Granite Digital. In some noisy shacks, these are the only firewire cables that will work with your radio. Trick out your computer with the option for the fastest 6 core processor AMD makes, the Phenom X6 1090T which gives you six blazing cores at 3.2GHz.

Premium SDR System with the power to last years in the shack!

Many customers asked about having an Intel i7-based system that would guarantee years of service due to quality parts and its obsolete-proof capability.

This system utilizes:

ASUS P7P55D motherboard that has two video SLI-capable PCIe slots, three PCI slots, gigabyte LAN, and 10 USB 2 slots
Intel i7 875 CPU, four fast cores with Hyperthreading resulting in 8 hyperthreads running at 2.93 GHz
GIGABYTE GV-R575OC-1GI Radeon HD 5750 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card
4 gigabytes of G. Skill DDR3 1600 RAM
Intel X25-M Mainstream 80GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
a Western Digital 640 Gigabyte SATA II disk drive
24X Multiformat DVD Writer Black SATA II drive
Lucent controller 1394 card
Syba USB 2 controller for maximum compatibility with Flex-1500
NZXT HUSH Black ATX Mid Tower Computer Case, Incredibly quiet
COOLER MASTER Silent Pro 700 RS-700-AMBA-D3 700W ATX12V V2.3 SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Modular Power Supply
Thermaltake Silent 1156 CLP0552 92mm CPU Cooler Super cool and quiet!
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Edition x86
Virtual Audio Cables, a software sound card emulator
Granite Digital LED FireVue 6 pin to 6 pin 1394 premium cable

We install your favorite software and configure it so that it works the minute you power it up. We install PowerSDR, Ham Radio Deluxe/DM780, Fldigi, and all current Flex drivers. We install VSPMgr for usage of virtual comm ports. We also fine-tune Windows to eliminate unwanted services and optimize operational parameters.

We will test your system with either FLEX-1500, FLEX-3000 or FLEX-5000 radios, depending on your shack radio, ensuring that when we ship your computer, you can have confidence it is ready to run!

While there is no parallel port present on the backplane, there is an option to install a PCI LPT port for usage with switching equipment and SDR-1000 radios.

Exciting options for SDR Systems

Several exciting options are now available. Each configuration can be ordered with a nice Logitech wireless keyboard and mouse or one or two ASUS 24" LCD monitors. If you do not have dual monitors for your SDR rig, you haven't experienced the best in SDR operation!

If you love your current computer yet wish you could benefit from the years of tweaking machines that we have, you can use our Tuning/tweaking service. You pay shipping both ways, plus a small surcharge on top of the current price for any new parts as quoted on newegg.com

We also can do remote installation and tweaking via TeamViewer remote support software. This $75.00 service is only recommended for those users with a broadband connection. Enjoy a highly performant Flex Radio on your current computer, tuned and installed by a professional!

Note:If you use Paypal for your payment, an additional 3% will be added to your charges to account for the Paypal fees.

SDR-1000, FLEX-1500, FLEX-5000, FLEX-3000, FlexReady, PowerSDR are trademarks of FlexRadio Systems. FlexRadio Systems is not associated with this offer in any regards. FlexRadio Systems in no way is responsible for the operation or support of computer systems sold by Abroham Neal Software.

FireWire� is a registered trademark of Apple Computer Inc., under license