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 critical success factor for a SDR computer is congestion on the IRQ that the FireWire card is 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!

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

• ASUS M2A74-AM motherboard that has one serial port, two video ports, two PCI slots, gigabyte LAN and 4 USB slots
• AMD Athlon Phenom II X2 250 CPU, two fast cores running at 3.0 GHz
• 2 gigabytes of G. Skill DDR2 6400 RAM
• a Western Digital 320 Gigabyte SATA II disk drive
• DVD/CD burner utilizing a SATA II port
• Startech 1394 card using the TI FireWire chipset
• Rosewill R379 micro-AT computer case. Completely shielded with aluminum and steel
• Microsoft Windows XP Pro
• 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 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!

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.

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.

For those power jockeys, a 4-core version of the 3.0 GHz AMD cpu is available for only a small charge. Its not needed but if you want to run more program simultaneously, this is the chip for the job. It is recommended to upgrade your memory to 4GB if you want this upgrade.

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

This is the perfect system to use with your new Software-Defined Radio!

SDR-1000, FLEX-5000, FLEX-3000, PowerSDR and FlexLoader 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