Wednesday, August 26, 2015

Farhan's Secret Project: The SPECAN (Extremely Cool) (video)



I had been sworn to secrecy for so long,  I thought I was going to burst.  I almost hinted at this in the last podcast.  But I didn't.  I kept the secret.  But now Farhan has made public his latest creation: 

http://hfsignals.blogspot.in/p/specan-reboot-of-w7zoi.html

This is really great.  I want to build one.  I have to build one.  I NEED one of these.

Great work Farhan.  Thanks for bringing the ham community another amazing piece of gear.

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3 comments:

  1. AnonymousAugust 27, 2015 at 11:27 AM

    Wow! Great stuff from Farhan. I love reading his circuit notes even though much of it passes right over my head.

    He has such a good-natured approach to circuit design and his projects are practical and sensible in regards to performance, ease of construction and component choice.

    Great job Bill on keeping the secret...there was a sly mention on the 10th anniversary Podcast of how long it had been since Farhan had visited the show, which makes me think the subject of this special project was slowly percolating towards the surface.

    I say "Excelsior" to Farhan and Bill !!!

    Bill Mc.
    N0YUD

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousAugust 27, 2015 at 10:03 PM

    I so want to build this. I have a couple of CMOS Si570s left over from building SoftRock RxTx 6.3 and other SDRs. Too bad it won't work since it can only go up to 160MHz. :(
    However, I'm already developing my own DDS front end with a PIC microcontroller. Would be easy to swap it out with one out of the junk box that can connect to the PC with USB. Never had a reason to buy an Arduino yet. With the source code available, I'll probably stick with my own front end to save some money.
    Not counting PCB materials, I think I can build one for under $50 (also not counting junk box parts).
    What's a good source for inexpensive PCB for RF projects?


    Barry
    KE4JUC

    ReplyDelete
  3. PrestonAugust 28, 2015 at 12:34 PM

    Having finished up my QSK VFO system for vintage Knight T-50 and Drake 2B (the latter being entirely Bill's fault), the bench is empty and needs a project. A spectrum analyzer to analyze crystal filters has been needed in my shack for a long time. The Arduino has now made this possible with low cost and high accuracy. Wow, Farhan. Obviously, it's time to start planning this next project! Congratulations.

    ReplyDelete