PDW pager decoding windows 10 ?

[gmham]

Guys just downloaded PDW to use with sdr# for a bit of pager decoding . Running windows 10 do you have to run the slice driver that’s mentioned and contained within the downloaded files ?
Cheers.
John

[dc260]

Hi, you don't need the drivers installed, just run the exe and it should work.
Are you going to use an SDR to pipe audio to PDW or a discriminator input from a scanner?
If it's an SDR, make sure to have the volume set to almost 100% on the cable input and turn audio filtering off.

[gmham]

Okay thanks installed now but as yet nothing on screen. Using sdr rsp1 with sdr# virtual cable etc . Have everything set up what looks correctly but nothing displayed yet. Is there a main control on the menu to switch it on as such or should it automatically decode on screen once run ?
Says earphone 1 in the field going to cable output virtual audio cable. Not sure if the earphone 1 is wrong but confused ?!!!

[dc260]

Okay thanks installed now but as yet nothing on screen. Using sdr rsp1 with sdr# virtual cable etc . Have everything set up what looks correctly but nothing displayed yet. Is there a main control on the menu to switch it on as such or should it automatically decode on screen once run ?
Says earphone 1 in the field going to cable output virtual audio cable. Not sure if the earphone 1 is wrong but confused ?!!!

So first of all make sure you have the VB virtual audio cable selected in the soundcard options. Go to Interface, setup and make sure the sound card is set to the VB cable output.
Set the configuration to "speaker out 1", it's not that important because it's more to do with how tolerant it is of errors in the signal.

Then go to options and tick the "enable POCSAG decoding" box and all the numbers at the left of it which represent the different message-rates it is able to decode.

Tune to a POCSAG frequency make sure that you have it set to the appropriate bandwidth (Approximately 20000) for the signal as it's wider than a NFM channel. Set your output volume to the highest setting (PDW seems slightly deaf if the volume is low) and you should observe at the top right the meter dial moving whenever a signal is outputted.

IMPORTANT make sure that filter audio is set to OFF on your SDR as that will cause the audio waveform to be smoothed which is not suitable for digital decoding.

If you continue to find you have issues, try doing the exact same process but switch the SDR to SDR++ instead https://github.com/AlexandreRouma/SDRPlusPlus as I found that certain iterations of SDR# don't seem to output audio correctly even with filter audio set to off.

[gmham]

Very kind of you mate appreciate the detailed help and will have another look at it in the morning. Had it working before but just thought I would check it out again !

[milly]

This is mine and it's been running for several years (though I stopped updating sdrsharp).
It used to have more VAC lines but they aren't needed now. Substitute VBCables if that's what you use. Don't need high volume nor bandwidth set ridiculously wide.









Look for the meter needle twitching on data and you'll know the audio is being routed.

[gmham]

Cheers buddy all working fine now thanks.
Still never seem to get anything relating to local area eh ?!!

[milly]

SAS still have some, then there are several places where they have excitable atoms. Not really looked for things that relate to Scotland generally.