Hey, let's start by me admitting that I'm a newbie and I know nothing! I'm just thinking out aloud here, nothing else.
My new-fangled SDR radio (IC-7610) has 4 USB sockets and you can do allsorts of things with them. So I'm sat here thinking - "why can't modern radios use USB sockets/plugs for their microphones"??
The reason I asked myself that question is that when you connect to your radio remotely using RS-BA1 software, you end up using your laptop's crummy built-in microphone which sounds pretty rubbish (yes, I know you could plug a computer headset in).
But wouldn't it be nice if you could plug that beautiful £200 SM-50 into one of the laptop's USB ports (or even the supplied fist-mic)?
Maybe there's a reason why it's not possible, I don't know. But it sounds like a good idea to me to adopt a common connector on all radios. It might mean adding a little interface-board inside the radios, but boy, it would be amazing to be able to swap microphones from radio to radio to PC, etc.
I'm probably talking rubbish :-D
3 comments:
You don't talk rubbish Tom. I think your idea would be great. But I guess it is a technological challenge to implement this. A computer doesn't use PTT connection were a transceiver does. However, digimode does it all via a USB cable. So I guess it should be possible. I was just thinking you could use a USB mic on your IC-7610 if you connect it to your computer so you can stream it to the internal soundcard of the IC-7610. To PTT you can use the TX button in HRD or something. I don't know if that really works? Would be a nice experiment... 73, Bas
I was just reading your article again. What you want to do is connect your hamradio mike to the computer. I think that is not much of a problem. Buy a cheap USB mike, remove the electronics from it that connect the mike to the USB cable and remove the small microphone (most time a electret element). Instead solder a plug on to it which connects to your mike. I think this will work. Just experiment! 73, Bas
I think I'll leave it to the radio manufacturers to do the experimenting Bas, LOL. I'd probably end up burning the house down :-)))
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