[hpsdr] Mercury with USB? Cost? & Dev wannabe

[Philip Covington]

Hello,

See answers below:

On 2/27/07, ceriel at gmail.com <ceriel at gmail.com> wrote:
> ***** High Performance Software Defined Radio Discussion List *****
>
> Lyle Johnson mentioned in passing in his Deyton presentation that
> Mercury had been considered with an USB port of its own, which I
> interpreted as the possibility of using the card without Ozy and
> Atlas. Being on a limited budget this struck me as a wonderful idea,
> but I've seen no talk about it at all anywhere else. Is it still being
> considered, or has the idea been dumped?

Mercury will depend on OZY for connection to USB.  My original idea of
including the FX2 interface on Mercury instead got incorporated in my
stand-alone QuickSilver QS1R prototype receiver (of which Mercury will
draw on for certain aspects of its design).  Adding those parts to
Mercury would be a duplication of many parts already existing on OZY.

> Would it still be possible to
> leave a few connection points on the PCB where one could add such a
> device anyway if it indeed has been dumped?

No, probably not.  Space is at a premium as it is and including the
possibility of adding a FX2 chip with associated components would take
up too much space.

> Further, is there any rough, unrefined guesstimate on how many of my
> hard-earned Euros I'll have to part with to get a Mercury of my own?
> Are we talking less than Ozy, more, or a lot more?

It will cost more than OZY and more than JANUS - probably close to (or
a little more) than the cost of OZY and JANUS combined.

> Is having the
> device for sale through TAPR seen in a positive light or will I have
> to put my neophyte soldering skills to the ultimate test?

It will be up to TAPR as to whether they want to offer an assembled
Mercury board.  I am sure it will depend on interest level and also
their experience with offering OZY and JANUS.

I can say that Mercury will be more difficult to solder than either
OZY or JANUS.  There will be quite a few QFN (leadless) packages to
deal with which are not fun at all for hand soldering.

> And finally, I'm very much interested in helping with developing
> things for this project. While I have a good understanding of all
> things technology and know the basics of many of the most relevant
> things, I do lack specific knowledge and experience of them.
> How would you recommend I got started learning the specific things I
> need to contribute to this project? What manuals should I read?
>
> --
> Nos

The best bet is to look over the individual projects and try to see if
there is anything you think you could help with based on your current
experience and knowledge.

73 Phil N8VB

 1172622447.0