Hi Ben. Yes, AOL is still with us. These days, it is a little like a zombie service onto which features have been grafted from its step-sibling Yahoo by mad Doctor Frankenstein who now works for the even crazier Count Verizon. :) For my own part, I've been with them long enough that my primary email account is my actual name with middle initial. Quite a record, if I may say so.Anyway, I did receive your email OK and am working on a followup. I hoped, and am glad to see verified the fact, that your inquiry is for the purpose of helping to gauge interest. Discussions seeking input toward development of useful products for LF experimenters does fall within the acceptable terms of service for this board (although posts primarily for marketing purposes would not). I will restore the currently hidden parts of your original post when I return home tomorrow.
The reason it's taking so long for the followup response is that there are complications that you should be aware of before marketing either a kit or a completely assembled product for the Part 15 LF band, which do not apply to the Amateur Radio Service. I perceive that you are aware of one of those, specifically the unique antenna connector requirement; but how one is supposed to do that for an antenna that is site-installed and not, say, attached to a walkie-talkie or wireless mic, is a puzzlement! While I have all the necessary test gear with traceable calibration to test the transceiver for emission purity and such, certifying compliance with the 1 watt DC input power limit to the final amplifier is an example of something that will need to be addressed all the way back in the design phase.
In other words, from the regulatory standpoint, there's a distinction made between the amount of personal responsibility to be placed upon a licensed individual operating a station that's licensed to himself (ie, a ham), another individual without a license of his own but operating a facility licensed to someone else who bears the ultimate responsibility for proper operation and therefore is expected to oversee that operation carefully (a broadcast station or an ISM diathermy user, for instance), and finally an unlicensed individual operating a device whose operation must still be authorized by law, even though not covered by an individual license.
The law says no harmful interference. In its regulations to implement that law, the FCC places the primary burden for technical compliance on the licensee, if there is one; or on the equipment owner if a substantial investment is involved, combined with testing and certification; or entirely upon the manufacturers and the certification process for devices that are intended to be used without licensure, like wireless "broadcasters," cell phones, etc.
Even though it's nearly a lost cause for the Commission to get a handle on all the improperly or simply NOT certified junk being imported into the country daily, anybody doing a good deed for the Part 15 community really needs to protect himself by trying to be in as full compliance as humanly possible before marketing anything as an assembled product or even as a "kit," because that doesn't excuse non-compliance, either.
You seem to want to do right in this regard, and I'll gladly help if I can. Technical perfprmance is going to be less an issue than user-friendly documentation, I suspect. The first thing I would ask is to come up with as much of a complete and straightforward "owners manual" on the Softrock SDR as possible. Most of us here, even the most technically minded, may be aware of the Softrock project in an elementary sort of way, but even I find myself feeling utterly hopeless at where to start. I, for one, simply DO NOT want to start from scratch, trying to read every post from anyone who ever posted on Yahoo Groups or has since done so on .io groups, just to get up on the current status of the hardware...and then repeat the process for each possible piece of software.
More soon, I hope.
73
John Davis
