Nasa radio & WFax

[johnneale]

I think I've blown the audio o/p of my Nasa radio. What if I take the output direct by soldering a couple of wires direct from the loudspeaker. ???

Maybe I've also blown the mic i/p into my laptop (as that doesnt work either). I see I can configure Mscan Meteo to gave a line input rather than mic.....;. Is this through the serial port, and if so, what pins do I connect my speaker to on the 9pin plug. ??

 

[Bilgediver]

I think I've blown the audio o/p of my Nasa radio. What if I take the output direct by soldering a couple of wires direct from the loudspeaker. ???

Maybe I've also blown the mic i/p into my laptop (as that doesnt work either). I see I can configure Mscan Meteo to gave a line input rather than mic.....;. Is this through the serial port, and if so, what pins do I connect my speaker to on the 9pin plug. ??

If the speaker is still working on the Nasa then you havn't blown anything...All th bits use the same audio path with a line output taking the signal from before the power (final)amplifier. Maybe you goosed the connector. Check it out.

I expect Mscan is just changing the sensititvity of the software engine and you feed it the same way...IE from the headphone/speaker outputs on the sound card.

 

[lenseman]

I think I've blown the audio o/p of my Nasa radio. What if I take the output direct by soldering a couple of wires direct from the loudspeaker. ???

You need to borrow my oscilloscope to see if the output of the NASA is 'blown'?

If you use the L.S. feed and run directly into your laptop, you will almost certainly pop the input stage of the laptop as they probably cannot absorb the power directly from the speakers.

 

[bitman]

laptop problem?

i might think that the audio output of that nasa box is like a discriminator / unfiltered output?

you can't just use the speaker output as lenseman already wrote as you will need an unfiltered output to feed the computer. so if your laptop mic input isn't working i assume that the problem lies in your laptop...

info about this discriminator output can be found here http://www.discriminator.nl/index-en.html

 

[Beadle]

I don't think so

The discriminator, as the link says, is the heart of a FM receiver.

The NASA receiver is an AM and SSB receiver and weatherfax is effectively a SSB signal.

The audio output is coverted to a digital signal by the computer sound card.

Some receivers, (not sure if the NASA is one of them) will convert to digital in the receiver and that output will go to a digital port on the computer rather than the mike input port.

One simple check is to look at "sounds and audio input" in the control panel of your 'puter and make sure the mic input is active and the volume output is turned up enough and nothing is muted.

 

[shmoo]

Not sure if this helps but I can get perfectly acceptable weather fax pix on the laptop by selecting the built in microphone, tuning the HF to the right spot and letting the whir-whir plink-plink come out of the speaker: no wires at all. The lappy mic just listens to the HF speaker.

This isn't how I run it for real, of course, but it works just fine.