Clint Gouveia makes a welcome return to RadioUser, to take an in-depth look at WiNRADiO’s new flagship Software-Defined Radio receiver, the WR-G69DDCe Excelsior Ultra.
Clint Gouveia M0OXF clintgouveia@scientificmagnetics.co.uk
If you are a serious DXer or simply interested in radio beyond the local or national BBC and Independent radio stations, then it is likely you either own or have an interest in, software-defined receivers (SDR). My initial foray into this area was in 2015; a cheap RTL-SDR with an up-converter purchased from eBay for not too much money. Performance was mediocre at best, but the ability to visualise the signals copied had me hooked and it was not long before a major upgrade – the Elad FDM DUO.
At a cost of around £850, this was serious money, but with that came serious performance. This was a game-changer, and, coupled with a Wellbrook Loop, my MW DXing capabilities were transformed. I was fortunate enough to be chosen as a tester for SDRPlay and have operated the RSP1a, RSPduo and RSPdx. In terms of performance as a function of price, I still don’t believe they can be beaten.
However, what if you simply wanted the best-performing SDR on the market? What if you were prepared to pay any price within reason? What if that price was in the region of £8,500 (including VAT) in the UK? How would that receiver perform, relative to other, cheaper products? Would the huge delta in price offer value to the serious listener/DXer?
I am referring to WiNRADiO’s latest offering the WR-G69DDCe Excelsior Ultra SDR receiver (Fig. 1). Primarily targeted at professional users, and government and military applications, WiNRADiO describe this device as also being suitable for the high-end consumer radio market. The Excelsior Ultra is a hybrid SDR/superheterodyne, depending on where you are listening to – more to come on that.
Serious Specifications
The Excelsior Ultra is a very serious piece of kit, and this is, naturally, reflected in its specifications. There are two frequency ranges, with separate antenna inputs and signal processing: a direct sampling SDR from 8kHz to 80MHz, and a superheterodyne receiver from 43MHz to 8GHz. The radio allows the user to record and process band recordings up to 32MHz wide (utilising digital down-conversion).
To be clear – this means it is possible to record the entire LW/MF and HF bands as a single recording and post-process the data. This is going to require some serious computing horsepower, As regards scanning the bands, the Excelsior Ultra can achieve this immensely quickly – at 3GHz per second.
A 16-bit 200 MSPS A/D converter is the workhorse �
