SDR From the Ukraine?

[Michael O'Dell]

WB4JFI wrote:
   Flex had a USB-to-parallel
> adaptor available, but it's discontinued.  You can occassionally get one on
> ebay, I did.
> 
> Terry
> 

when did USB-Parallel port converters become rare?
or is the statement "a USB-Parallel converter demonstrated
by Flex to work with their radio is hard to find"?

it's interesting watching Ham's trying to hold-off
adopting new technology.  for example:

USB 'soundcard' chips are readily
available, cheap, and provide knowable performance
in a design, while using a random soundcard function
in a white-box computer is the fastest way to make
a great SDR design into a mediocre one. it's
taken *forever* to get a rig interface that actually
does everything through USB *the way it's supposed
to be done* (at least one interface out there does
seriously bizarre stuff running audio over a
USB-serial chip!). i wonder how long it will
be before someone publishes a QEX article that
gets a good USB-audio chip running so that bit
of logic can be cut-n-pasted into a bunch
of other designs?

maybe that's an interesting AMRAD project -
it's infrastructure after all. get a USB
subsystem going that provides high-quality
audio I/O and some control signals that
minimalist SDR designs can cut-n-paste.

"Let's you and him fight!"

	cheers,
	-mo