PERSEUS USER TEST Joerg Klingenfuss updated 8 October 2014 Klingenfuss Radio Monitoring www.klingenfuss.org A radio monitoring service "in a neighbouring country" - they say so in Malaysia whenever they mean Indonesia, and everybody knows it - recently asked us to test the Software Defined Receiver Perseus manufactured by Microtelecom from Italy. The set did run "along" beside the continuous reception and decoding of utility radio stations with professional equipment. The receiver, i.e. the hardware, is very good. The software is così-così. Overall: good! There is a 1,600 kHz wide FFT/sonagram window, and a smaller window for the filters. The FFT/sonagram window allows a good overall view on "neighbouring signals" and has been used precisely for that: to check what else is around, and tune interesting signals afterwards on a professional receiver (it takes way too long to do that on the Perseus) and continue the standard procedure with WAVECOM. Playing around patiently in the filter window gives pretty nice results. For once, a strong signal just outside of the filter passband does not influence the sensitivity of the receiver. Well done. The Graphical User Interface is easy to operate if you have compiled - with great difficulty! -, wrote down and studied intensively the numerous - and in some cases unusual - abbreviations and functions (see Appendix) that show up on all those controls, and are far from being completely described in all those instruction manuals. Fa da ridere. Inoltre, as with any reasonable handbook from the Cheap Chinese Hinterland, we expect a nice graphic overview of the complete GUI with clear definitions of all controls, i.e. exactly that what we used to call explosive drawing. Invece ... non c'è! Poi, c'è il caso del software. And here is the big problem. There are no scanning functions at all, that come already with all those cheap little radios of today, and the direct frequency input - i.e. the most important and most frequent (sic) setting at all! - is a bad joke from the ergonomic Stone Age, and in a "new" software version is even worse than before. Believe it or not, but you have to 1 2 3 4 5 double-click on the frequency click again in the input window enter the frequency on the keyboard, or click on numeric keys click MHz or kHz close the frequency window. Mai visto una roba pazza del genere. Fa davvero scuotere la testa, 'starobalì d'oltroalpe. Roba da matt'! NOI INVECE DESIDERUMMA: SPACE BAR 12345 ENTER and the receiver is tuned to the frequency 12345, without any more fuss, and that was that. How else? Porco cane! What's more, this product is yet another proof that the poor radio amateurs don't have the faintest idea of professional utility radio stations. There is no 0.5 kHz or 3 kHz, let alone free definable, channel spacing, but only 5 and 9 kHz for the rapidly dying out "BCLs". Equally useless is the limit on ± 499 Hz in the database window. What we need is a reasonable value that can be freely set by the user, per esempio ± 3 or ± 10 kHz. Starobalì realizzata, the set would be quite suitable for the reception of utility radio stations ... Hundreds of fascinating screenshots of Perseus - and superb WAVECOM Digital Data Decoders such as W-CODE W61PC W51PC - can be found on our website www.klingenfuss.org . More than 10,200 (ten thousand two hundred!) screenshots are published on our brandnew DIGITAL DATA DECODER SCREENSHOTS ON USB STICK! Another note on the hardware. Ragazzi, the attached power supply by Friwo or the like at a cost of four Mickey Mouse Dollars (see Internet) or the like is a real disaster, vuol dire a perfect sawtooth generator. We just can't understand that such bad equipment is thrown into the cardbox of such a sensitive shortwave receiver. See also several bloody vicious comments on the Internet, per example by the long-term receiver test guru of Passport on http://n9ewo.angelfire.com/ perseus.html . PS "See what you hear " might be an alleged and incredible sensation for "DXers", for the decoding of digital utility radio stations however it has been our standard procedure for decades and, ragazzi, really is not worth mentioning. More than 30 years ago - our invention! - we used high-tuned fast-running mechanical fax machines for the perfect analysis of all types of unknown data transmissions. The last time we explained this technique in the RADIOTELETYPE CODE MANUAL - today's RADIO DATA CODE MANUAL - 10th edition 1987 page 60. Only after that, WAVECOM - who else ☺ - got the idea to implement this as "Bit Correlation Analysis" ... Yet another note on the GUI itself: several parameters are nearly unreadable; that is drastically inconsiderate against the user. Colour selection and typeface size are simply disastrous. Passport 2009 says on page 147 "dark with smallish typeface, several GUI icons are hardly legible", and that goes particularly for the most important parameter at all, i.e. the frequency, what else, porco cane! How about readable and reasonable icons and colours and contrasts?! A "new" software version of December 2009 provided, again, totally useless colour pallette gimmicks and the like in the sonagram, while leaving the dreadful GUI unchanged at the same time! Many users think and say the same and contacted us nel frattempo. For example, DG2HAW saw the unique Perseus utility station reception screenshots on our webpage and asked on 18 November 2009: "I've seen the modified software interface of the Perseus on your website. It looks really great. I would like to ask if I can realize the same modification on my Perseus?? If so, can you give me some advice?" Hans-Jürgen Karius wrote on 3 December 2009: "Where can I get the beautiful white GUI for the Perseus, that you use to illustrate the Perseus database? It is decidedly clearly arranged." Answer: "That WOULD be nice, but it is not available. Already one year ago we proposed several suggestions for improvement to that Mister Nico - io parlo perfettamente Valsesiano perchè sono ... - but he did not even answer our e-mails and letters. Only if even more customers complain about the unergonomic colours and the idiotic frequency control, there could finally happen something. Let's go!" Appendix: Functions The amateurish "instruction manuals" of both the manufacturer and the German distributor SSB are tutte e due incomplete and, consequently, unprofessional! Larry van Horn N5FPW gets the same impression in Monitoring Times September 2009: "The instruction manual itself isn’t among the best. A lot of the monitoring capability of this SDR isn’t discussed adequately or at all." Says John Collins on 24 February 2010: "The documentation might as well not be included. I discovered more from the quick-tips in your review than I can find anywhere in the original documentation." Says Gene Fender KE5JPP on www.eham.net : "There are some buttons that do not work with no explanation in the manual. The manufacturer Microtelecom has a history of treating customers like enemies on the Perseus Yahoo support group when you make any criticisms of the Perseus." Says Chris Black N1CP on 29 November 2010: "My repeated communications concerning bugs have gone unanswered. I am not qualified nor do I want to become qualified to have to overlay some nimrad software with the product I purchased in order to have it perform as originally advertised." Ecco, ragazzi: il discorso è questo. Te capì?! Che vergogna! On the two graphics on page 52, an expert can easily see the disastrous sawtooth generator called cheap power supply. Che vergogna that not even the dealer SSB uses something professional ... Click on the Perseus icon upper left, makes all software parameters accessible via Settings. Set Reverse Mouse Wheel to 1, RTTY Tone Pitch to 1700 Hz instead of 1360 Hz. This gives a correct display of digital data station's frequencies in our frequency list, using the RTTY mode with the standard decoding offset of 1700 Hz. CF Step defines the step in the main window with arrows ◄ ► . In the main window, running the FFT spectrum makes arrows ▲ ▼ set the amplitude in the same way like Ref Lev and Scale on the left side. This is not possible with the sonagram. What all those amateurs out there call a "waterfall" is in reality a perfect sonagram. See the precise definition in the ITU Spectrum Monitoring Handbook! AVG Main controls the averaging in the main window. AVG Sec does the same in the filter window. Dither should be used only for measurements, in any case don't use it with very low noise levels. Preamp is a preamplifier, gives just 2-3 dB and makes sense only above 20 MHz. For DRM AGC on Slow; bandwidth to 25 kHz, close filter window to around 11-12 kHz. Center activated, clicking on a signal in the main window tunes this frequency with the parameters used in the filter window, and the frequency range in the main window sets to the new frequency in the center. Center disactivated, clicking on a signal in the main window does the same without setting the frequency range to the new center. The description of that feature in the instruction manual is totally useless. ZOOM in the filter window zooms the main window, set values with the arrows of Span (kHz). Using the notch filter, the mouse wheel adjusts the filter width. NB Lev is noise blanker inversed: high threshold below, low threshold on the top ... NBW is Noise Blanker Wide, NBN is Narrow. SpkRej is Spike Rejection against pulse interference, use only with CW and SSB, avoid with digital data. NR is Noise Reduction, do not use with digital data. For digital data set AGC always to Fast, only for DRM and complex STANAG aggregates set to Med or Slow. ADC Clip is Analog Digital Converter Clip control, ATT adds 10 20 30 dB. For Squelch tuning, click below S 9. Right mouse key switches off. For Mute tuning, click above S 9. Right mouse key switches off. Click on WFall in the sonagram mode changes the running direction su e giù. Activate Labels, gives frequency and signal strength parameters in the main window. Activate PeakSrc, tunes to the nearest signal peak. BANK in the MEM window makes up to 6 frequency databases with up to 100 entries each. ALL in the MEM window shows all entries of a database (not of all databases!) independently from the time. "Active" stations are displayed in yellow. Strangely enough, scrolling the frequency list runs vice versa, i.e. the first entry for each frequency is on the bottom and the last one on the top. It makes more sense to use our SUPER FREQUENCY LIST ON CD that has been presorted perfectly ergonomic - for decades! The USER demodulator (on the right side of DRM) can be used for VAC and W-CODE. VAC Control Panel, Cable Parameters to SR 62500 ... 192500. VAC Control Panel, Cable Parameters for SIGMIRA have not been changed. SIGMIRA does a good job decoding STANAG 4285, however it is a quite stubborn program, like principally all those "solutions" from and for the amateur market, and per questo unacceptable for professional users. Install and de-install several times to get it running. VAC Control Panel, Cable Parameters for DRM to SR 62500 ... 62500. Different settings seem to work as well, check on the Internet. This setting, however, is unstable and results in phase jumps with weatherfax reception. Cable Parameters for Wetterfax have to be set to 22050 - 192000, see the WAVECOM website. We also use 22050 - 96000. If this constellation does not help - since PERSEUS and W-CODE excessively use slow PC's computing power! -, simply try smaller Sampling Rates on the Perseus. For the modification of the settings for e.g. SIGMIRA and DRM, or weatherfax, exit not only W-CODE and Perseus, but also the WAVECOM Server! Klingenfuss Radio Monitoring has been testing and optimizing the brandnew PLATH go2monitor and go2signals digital data decoders since their introduction only in 2013. These easily connect to SDRs such as the PERSEUS and display up to 1,600 kHz bandwidth in their sonagram and/or FFT. The sophisticated software runs up to 64 (!) classification / recognition / decoding / recording channels over that wide frequency range by simply clicking on a selected signal! ◄ 8454.8 kHz STANAG 4285 + 8434.0 kHz CW ▲ 4250.5 kHz PACTOR-2 ▼ 11384.0 kHz ACARS 2014 FREQUENCY DATABASE FOR THE PERSEUS LF-MF-HF SOFTWARE-DEFINED RECEIVER We again offer an updated and ready-to-use specially formatted individual frequency list USERLIST.TXT. Our latest 2014 data comprises more than 13'500 entries and includes thousands of fascinating digital data stations on HF. This is the only database that includes both broadcast and utility radio stations worldwide. See the contents in the MEM field of the sample screenshots below and overleaf! For even more superb screenshots click "Perseus Database" on our website. An 8-pages critical field test of the MICROTELECOM Perseus SDR, referring particularly to the reception of digital utility radio stations, can be found on our website as well. The frequency 8424 kHz gives you 5 entries. The waterfall display here is 100 kHz wide and shows in full detail, from left to right: • • • • • ellipse: the single letters of the Morse code identification IAR and the SITOR call burst on 8418 kHz ellipse: the single letters of the Morse code identification SVO and the SITOR call burst on 8424 kHz ellipse: SITOR call burst of station TAH on 8431 kHz weak, not marked: SITOR call burst of station UAT on 8431.5 kHz ellipse: the single letters of the Morse code identification TAH (clearly not in parallel to 8431 kHz!) and the SITOR call burst on 8434 kHz • circle: teleprinter emission of station PBB on 8439 kHz • circle: PSK aggregate signal of station FUG on 8454.8 kHz • circle: PSK aggregate signal of station RETJ on 8465 kHz