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HB9DFG > DSP      02.08.96 15:55l 301 Lines 13738 Bytes #-10570 (0) @ WW
BID : 02862EHB9PD
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Subj: !Info TIMEWAVE DSP-599zx!
Path: DB0AAB<DB0MWS<DB0KCP<HB9OS<HB9PD
Sent: 960802/1049z @:HB9PD.CHE.EU [PRIG-Bern DB JN37RW] LT:  0 $:02862EHB9PD
de HB9DFG @ HB9PD.CHE.EU   (Christian)

to DSP @ WW

to: DSP @ WW
de: HB9DFG @ HB9EAS.CHE.EU
 
Hello dear friends of DSP
 
Now here it is! My own opinion and report about the new TIMEWAVE DSP-599zx!
This unit is still very new, because even the operating manual is dated
June 10th 1996!
 
I will try not to bore you with a lot of numbers and letters of all the
specifications printed on the last pages of the manual. By the way, look
out for EB3EUB's MSG called "Info from TIMEWAVE, DSP599ZX", he downloaded
all specifications and compared dates with JPS' NIR-12 in it (tnx Rafael).
You should found it in different PACKET-BBS under the DSP-directory.
 
So I rather would like to give you first some short descriptions about the
unit and afterwards some comments.
 
Of course my statement perhaps will not be fully complete and maybe there
are still questions about things I didn't told you (this pocessor is quite
versatile). But don't be shy to ask me later about something you are
especially interested to know. OK?
 
 
 
GENERAL
-------
The new DSP has about the same dimensions like the other DSP's of TIMEWAVE
before, but the most conspicuous feature is its small, but good readable
and background illuminated LCD with a dot matrix for 2x 16 alphanumeric
characters. The contrast of the display can not be adjusted, but this is
no disadvantage because it is readable from all sides and angles as well.
 
The both control knobs are no potentiometers anymore, there are now opto-
couplers for endless and very fine and smooth tunings! Even there is a
push button included for changing different menues or they work as a RETURN
or CANCEL function within the menues.
 
Now there are six user configurable memories available where you can share
the two input channels A and B. For example you can put into memory:
 
       #1 -> equipment A, CW 300Hz BW with 700Hz CF
       #2 ->     "     A, CW 100Hz BW with 750Hz CF
       #3 ->     "     A, CW  10Hz BW with 400Hz CF
       #4 ->     "     B, VOICE NR with 300-2700Hz BW (for SSB)
       #5 ->     "     B, VOICE NR with 100-5000Hz BW (for AM)
       #6 ->     "     B, DATA for HF-PACKET with 1700Hz CF, 200Hz BW
 
Remember this is just an example and you are free for making your own
constellations.
 
 
 
FRONT PANEL
-----------
On the front panel there are nine push buttons, two control knobs and a
gain knob including an on/off switch. A group of five small, green LED's
just above the display are showing one of the actual switched mode like
VOICE, CW, DATA, TEST or SETUP. Other six green LED's belong to six of
the push buttons called BYPASS, TONE, AGC, RANDOM, SHIFT and FUNCTION.
The other three buttons are for MODE, SPEAKER/CHANNEL and RECALL/STORE.
 
Input control is made with two LED's just above the gain knob. The yellow
one indicates normal level, the red one of course a to high signal input.
The red LED also can illuminate if PTT switch is activated (see also
CONNECTIONS).
 
 
 
REAR PANEL/CONNECTIONS
----------------------
The backside of this unit is surprising full of different connectors!
There are:
 
POWER IN       :  Input for 12-16V, 1A
 
RS-232         :  DB-9F connector for RS-232 compatible RTTY modem serial
                  output.
 
Radio A/B      :  8-pin DIN connector for different in/out (one per channel)
 
PTT Input A/B  :  RCA connectors for PTT line fron TX (one per channel)
 
Audio Input A/B:  RCA connectors for input from radio out (one per channel)
 
Line Output A/B:  RCA connectors with line level output (one per channel)
 
Speaker Out A/B:  RCA connector for 4-8 ohm speaker out (one per channel)
 
Headphone Jack :  for a stereo 1/4" headphone plug
 
 
 
MODES
-----
The DSP-599zx includes three kind of processing modes. Tere are:
 
VOICE    :  This mode digitally processes analog voice signals like
            FM, AM, SSB or PM. In this mode you especially can adjust
            highpass filters from 100-1000Hz and lowpass filters from
            1000-5000Hz in 10Hz resolution. For example if you set the
            highpass to 300Hz and the lowpass to 2800Hz, you would have
            a nice SSB filter with 2500Hz bandwith.
 
CW       :  This mode digitally processes analog CW signals for morse
            code reception. Here the LCD shows you the center frequency
            and the bandwith. The range of the center frequency is de-
            pending a little of the adjusted bandwith, but all in all
            it is tunable from 200Hz-2095Hz. Bandwith is tunable between
            10Hz and 600Hz in 5Hz steps (also depending a little on the
            adjusted center frequency).
 
DATA     :  This mode digitally processes different data signals like
            RTTY (different versions), AMTOR, SITOR, PACTOR, G-TOR, CLOVER,
            HF-PACKET, SSTV and WEFAX. Some of these filters are fixed and
            others you can set individually in the SETUP mode. You can
            select between European or American standards for the default
            center frequencies, too!
 
            Independently to VOICE or DATA mode you also can add:
 
RANDOM   :  This random noise reduction is useful for reducing many kinds
            of noise types like white noise, line noise or statical QRN.
            The amount of this effect can be adjusted in 9 steps.
 
TONE     :  Here you can choose between a automatic or manual notch filter.
            The automatic one is an adaptive multi tone filter which re-
            moves very clean multiple tones. Manually you can add the notch
            with either single or dual tone reduction. In both types, the
            amount (deep) of the notch is adjustable and notch center
            frequency is adjustable from 100Hz to 5500Hz.
 
            In CW mode TONE has an other function. Here you can add a marker
            tone while in this mode. This is very helpful to set the correct
            received frequency (adjust to zerobeat). The loudness of course
            is adjustable in SETUP as well. By the way, manual notch
            filtering is also possible during in CW mode.
 
SETUP    :  Here you can select different features which you don't have to
            change while operating the DSP. There is an INSTAL SETUP includes
            the following parameters:
 
            - INPUT SIGNAL LEVEL
            - LINE OUTPUT LEVEL
            - SPEAKER/HEADPHONE ROUTING
            - LINE OUTPUT ROUTING
            - ALTERNATE CHANNEL GAIN
            - MEMORY RESET
 
            In the MODE SETUP you can set:
 
             - AM LINE NOISE         (for VOICE)
             - TONE LEVEL            (for CW)
             - SPEAKER MUTE/BYPASS   (for DATA)
             - MODEM ASSIGNMENT      (for DATA)
             - DATA SET DEFINITIONS  (for DATA)
             - MILLIVOLTMETER CAL.   (Test Instrument)
             - SIGNAL GENERATOR CAL. (Test Instrument)
             - DEFAULT CTCSS TONE    (Test Instrument)
 
According to this you can see, that the DSP unit is very versatile and to
describe each single mode here would be too much, I could write an own
operating manual, hi!
 
 
 
OTHER FEATURES
--------------
 
INPUT/OUTPUT IMPEDANCE : Audio input impedance and headphone output sensi-
                         tivity is selectable with jumpers inside the unit
                         but factory settings seemed to be OK for me.
 
INPUT/OUTPUT OPTIONS   : Because of the dual channel operation you can
                         connect it with two rigs for example. You also
                         can configure each channel to completely different
                         modes but the unused channel will not be processed.
 
MEMORIES               : There are six memories in which you can store
                         complete settings and configurations including
                         a selected channel.
 
AUTOMATIC GAIN CONTROL : The AGC is working fine for weak or very changing
                         signal levels in all modes.
 
BYPASS CONTROL         : Very helpful to compare between processed and the
                         direct signal.
 
AUDIO MILLIVOLTMETER   : This mode measures audio voltage levels either for
                         peak or true RMS milivolts. Max input level is
                         2000mV RMS!
 
AUDIO SIGNAL GENERATOR : Here you will find a tunable low-distortion sine-
                         wave test signal from 20Hz to 10000Hz in 10Hz steps.
                         The output of this generator is fixed to the line
                         output.
 
TWO-TONE GENERATOR     : It produces a two-tone signal for SSB linearity
                         testings for example.
 
CTCSS TONE DECODER     : This modes decodes CTCSS tones and displays the
                         frequency and amplitude in the LCD. It is also
                         possible to switch it in a tone squelch mode for
                         activating a switch output. The treshold of the
                         trigger is adjustable in mV.
 
DATA TUNING FUNCTION   : While in DATA mode you can add a tuning function,
                         displayed in the LCD with a couple of bars
                         changing from left to right (or are centered if
                         tuning is correct) while tuning.
 
RTTY MODEM OPERATION   : The RTTY modem both demodulates RTTY audio tones and
                         generates shift keyed signals (only for FSK or AFSK)
 
CW TONE PITCH SHIFT    : With this mode you are able to shift the CW tone pitch
                         to another frequency. This is a good solution if you
                         have a receiver without adjustable CW tone.
 
 
NOW HOW DOES IT SOUND?
----------------------
 
This 16-bit processor with its 16-bit AD/DA converter is realy working
absolutely clean in all modes. I would say that there is not the slightest
own-produced noise to hear. And this is important! There is no profit of a
DSP making filterings and all these things but with an own noise floor
bringing QRM back again because of a bad algorythm and/or processor!
 
Myself I do have two such units of the 1st generation (JPS' NIR-10 V4.0
and the homebuilt 10-mode DSP of Dave, W9GR) producing some own noise.
Since the DSP-599xz it is a fully new world in my eyes (sorry, ears) and
now I know they can do it better!
 
Nevertheless, W9GR's DSP has a very good quality for its price, but I
wished it wouldn't have this additional noise. Once I compared the
30Hz CW-filter of W9GR with the DSP-599zx. They have both a similar
quality...but...even...TIMEWAVE has NO own noise! I realy was impressed.
The same bandwith I ordered with version v4.0 of the NIR-10...forget it...
it was absolutely useless...very coarse and cutted skirts and noisy...
not usable for any weak signal (still believe they could do it better).
For the NIR-10 I once told not to use smaller bandwiths than 200-300Hz.
To go below makes no sense anymore. The best mode of the NIR-10 is still
the PEAK mode, I believe. But, again with this computerized noise in the
background.
 
The same problem was to hear when switched on the notch of the NIR-10 or
W9GR's DSP. Of course, all tones disappered and have filtered out with
satisfacton, but both units added somehow a kind of harmonics to the rest
of the spectrum. Here the DSP-599zx is a great improvement! It ONLY takes
away the undesired tones. This you can easily check with the BYPASS mode.
The multiple tone reducing is very effectiv, too! Three or four tones are
no problem to remove (I could try it out in the EME part of 144MHz where
we have a lot of "birdies" in our region) at the same time and more should
be possible. The suppression of the undesired tones is very good, even
when they are very strong. In manual tuning mode the notch seems to me to
work as well or better, cause you can choose the amount of suppression.
 
The random noise reduction is working well and it is adjustable in nine
steps. Comparing it with W9GR's DSP it seems to me to have a little less
high tones, even in step #1. So W9GR's DSP sounds in noise reduction mode
clearer because of more higher tones . But this is a real personal opinion
and I already told that each DSP somehow has its own character of sound.
 
All data filters have been very effective as far as I checked and com-
pared them with the direct signal. A fine thing that there are different
user settings possible. Speciallists which work with different types of
data receiption should be very lucky with it!
 
The tunings can be done very fine and smooth because of the fine resolu-
tion (10Hz or 5Hz for CW bandwith) and all filters have very steep skirts
for improving signal quality. The smallest CW filter of 10Hz is excellent
and I wished for further updates that they can realize a bandwith perhaps
down to 1 or 2Hz with the same quality.
 
So all in all it's realy a new generation of DSP and I wished they would
have started with it first (but you surely know the situation on the
market as well as I do, don't you?).
 
Let me close now with additional adresses. TIMEWAVE you can reach via:
 
                            dsp@timewave.com
                            http://www.timewave.com
 
                            or:
 
                            TIMEWAVE TECHNOLOGY
                            2401 Pilot Knb Road
                            St.Paul, MN 55120 U.S.A
 
Many thanks for your attention and alltimes have fun with your DSP. Hope my
statement was a little help for you. I send to you my best regards from next
to the city of Basle (JN37sm).
 
Bye for now de Chris, HB9DFG @ HB9EAS.CHE.EU    (@HB9PD only used cause
                                                 HB9EAS was out of service)
 



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