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What is VAC and What Does It Do?

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What is VAC and What Does It Do?


What is VAC and What Does It Do?

System Dependencies
Minimum PowerSDR Version:
1.8.0
Applicable Hardware: N/A
Content provided by: FlexRadio Systems Engineering

VAC, the abbreviation for Virtual Audio Cable, allows you to make PowerSDR "look" like a sound card so you can send and receive audio with most all sound card digital mode programs, such as HRD's Digital Master 780, MixW, DRM, etc. Rather than configuring your sound card digital mode program to use a sound card, you configured it to use PowerSDR's emulated virtual sound card.

This means that you do not use a separate sound card for digital mode programs nor do you have to create an "interface" between the computer and the radio.  Audio is sent from one program (PowerSDR) to the digital mode program through the virtual audio cables.

This allows the audio (AF) exchanged between PowerSDR and the digital mode sound card program to remain entirely in the digital domain, so there is not signal quality loss or noise injected into the signal converting the digital audio to analog and back to digital just to send it to the radio, like you must do with traditional radios.  There is also no chance of RF getting into the signal path because there is no physical cables carry any signals.

Virtual Audio Cable is a Windows WDM multimedia driver allowing you to transfer audio (wave) streams from one application to another. It creates a set of "Virtual Cables" each of them consists of a pair of the waveform input/output devices (line in/line out). Any application can send audio stream to an output side of a cable, and any other application can receive this stream from an input side. All transfers are made digitally, providing NO sound quality loss.

NOTE: You can download a demo version from the VAC web site listed below, but be fore warned. The demo version interjects a voice sample in the audio data stream making it impossible to use on the air with PowerSDR.

This KB article may reference additional files that are available on the FlexRadio Systems web site Downloads page. Please use the URL(s) below to download the referenced materials.

An Adobe Acrobat Reader may be required to open the file. You can download Adobe Acrobat from here.

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Last Modified:Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Last Modified By: Administrator
Type: INFO
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