Ham radio / Amateur radio, shortwave, CB, DSP software

This information reproduced here for the benefit of all radio operators as the original website has been closed. Thanks Konrad, RIP.

eSoftAnywhere DSP & more by Konrad Byers (VE1EXE)

Among other things, eSoftAnywhere DSP & More performs DSP (digital signal processing) on radio audio signals. It is primarily intended for use by ham radio / amateur radio, shortwave listeners, and CB (citizens band) radio operators. In spite of many advanced features, having extensive context sensitive online help and a visual oriented interface make learning and using eSoftAnywhere DSP & More come naturally. Where other software and hardware DSP implementations fail to offer DSP that it is actually usable, eSoftAnywhere DSP & Mores’ easily selectable and configurable presets, a point and click user interface for frequency selection, and several different user selectable visual representations of audio to choose from, make setting and configuring DSP filtering options easy and intuitive.

eSoftAnywhere DSP and More  –  Memorial Freeware Version

This program was originally written as a hobby project by my son, Konrad Byers (VE1EXE) , and was very much a work in progress when he died unexpectedly in September of 2003, at the age of 34, while on a trip to Europe.

Fortunately his good friend and colleague, Randy Long  (also a Clarion programmer), was able to remove the copy protection on this version of the program and was kind enough to post Konrad’s web site material to his own website so that a freeware version may now be downloaded. Although a number of fixes and improvements Konrad was in the process of making cannot be included I am sure he would want you to be able to use the parts that are working and I am very pleased that Randy has made this possible.

It will of course be necessary to disregard Konrad’s directives to send e-mail with requests for help, bug reports, updates, and purchase of CD versions of the program.  The help files built into the program will now be the primary source of help.

Please feel free to copy the program and share it with others.  The domain name of this web site may not be renewed when it expires in September 2005.

Thank you for your interest in the program and the kind comments many of you have made on the loss of our son.

– Ron Byers  (VE1AMU)

Bugs and Fixes

I have noticed that the settings for the soundcard are not (at least on some computers) restored to the configuration that was in place before the program was run.  I know Konrad had corrected this in one of his later versions but it is only possible now to run this version.

The best ‘work around’ for this is to open the Volume control (mixer) prior to running the program and making a note of the settings and then manually resetting them afterward.  How?  – On my computer (yours may differ slightly)  I can go to Start, Programs, Accessories, Entertainment, Volume Control.  OR double click the little speaker icon on the taskbar.   – Doing this will prevent problems with other programs which use sound.

– Ron Byers  (VE1AMU)

Software Functions and Features

• Easy to use for ham radio / amateur radio, shortwave listeners, and CB (citizens band) radio operators alike with extensive context sensitive online help
• DSP (digital signal processing) of audio signals for improved radio reception
• AGC (automatic gain control) filtering
• Automatic notch filtering (removes man made, predicable, and digital signals)
• Automatic peaking filter (pass only steady, predictable, man made, and digital signals)
• Noise reduction (with variable aggression and/or presets)
• “Brick wall” filters for reject below, reject above, multiple band pass ranges, and reject band
• Instant filtering on/off for quick signal comparison and radio tuning with zero delay
• Complete filter control by frequency, graphical display point and click, or preset filter selection
• DSP filter presets may be “stacked”; for example selecting the “SSB 700 HZ” filter and then “NOISE REDUCTION – MEDIUM” results in both filters being active)
• User made presets consisting of any combination of filter settings may be created and saved
• CTCSS (continuous tone coded squelch system) tone decoding and audio recording to disk activation – can record audio only when a selected CTCSS tone is present
• DTMF (dual tone multiple frequency – telephone touch tone) tone generation, decoding and audio recording to disk activation – can begin recording when a selected DTMF sequence is received
• Squelch and squelch activated audio recording to disk – can begin recording when a squelch threshold is broken – useful by itself and in combination with DTMF and/or CTCSS activated recording
• Graphical displays showing both before and after processing representations of audio
• Multiple graphical displays to choose from for assisting in filter selection and fine differentiation between before DSP processing and after DSP processing
• Digital ‘voice-keyer’ feature may be used to transmit canned phrases such as your call sign, location, and etc – especially useful for amateur radio operation (such as contesting!)
• Full featured radio contact logbook with “Query” and “Export” ability
• Includes detailed radio operation reference information such as the RST system, Q signals, QN signals, CW pro-signs, CW abbreviations, international multi-language shortwave broadcast database viewing and complex querying and filtering (databases available free to radio amateurs via ILGRadio), international call sign allocation, Morse code reference information, etc.
• Hot-key assignments to incorporate other favorite radio enthusiast or audio processing applications
• …. & More

Enhancements Currently In Progress

• DTMF and CTCSS decoding and recording related features
• (Possibly) continue wave file input development and support a wider array of wave file formats if there is enough interest(although this is really a real-time audio processing application not intended for wave file processing)

Know Issues

• The program will simply lock up when trying to perform audio processing on a slow machine. At least a 300 Mhz machine (bare minimum) is required to use this software for audio processing successfully.
• The “standard sample rates” (8000, 11,025(the default), 44,100) work incorrectly and playback only choppy audio on some sound cards. Use any other values if you experience this problem.
• Some progress windows do not display any text message (on Windows XP machines)

Software developer Konrad Byers (amateur radio call sign VE1EXE/W4 – SILENT KEY 2003/SEP – 34 YrsOld)