[hpsdr] backup boards?

[Jason Hitesman]

On 3/2/07, Philip Covington <p.covington at gmail.com> wrote:
> ***** High Performance Software Defined Radio Discussion List *****
>
> On 3/2/07, Eric Ellison <ecellison at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> As to the problem of components becoming unavailable - well, can't do
> too much about that...

Well there is a little.  This is another place that my idea to build
an interactive BOM for the bare board people could be helpful.  If it
turns out to be viable, which is looking up, I got some suggested
modifications to the official BOM which sources more parts from mouser
instead of digikey so they can be purchased in reasonable quantities,
I just won't have time to roll it into my pages until next week.
Anyway if these pages do prove to be viable then there are a couple of
things they could lead to.

One is this could help keep interest alive past the initial buy since
it would help lower the barrier of entry to those who want to build
their own.  The big issue there would be continued availability of the
bare boards (and special parts as for Janus.)  I'm hoping that making
it easy for people to buy parts for the boards will help convince TAPR
or someone else (this is an open project after all) that more runs of
boards will be purchased and it is worth their time/money to do
another run.

It's also possible that a builder community could develop.  If people
keep building these boards then as parts become unavailable then those
who are currently building will investigate substitute parts and share
their findings.  The interactive BOM page could even be setup to read
a CSV file that's kept in the wiki so anyone who can edit the wiki
would be able to contribute changes to the "live" BOM.  (Though for
reliability having someone act as a gatekeeper on the BOM that
suggested changes go through would probably be better.)

So if interest in this can be kept up (and I have a feeling that once
some RF boards start to become functional interest WILL pick up even
faster) then a page like the one I'm working on could become a great
repair reference when something like the original poster asked about
happens.

I'm cautiously optimistic that this initial group buy through TAPR is
just the tip of the iceberg of what this project can become.  Getting
functional boards into a sizable number of hands is the kick-start
that will help speed software development and RF development.  Once
more progress is made interest will rise even faster - and if we don't
want that interest to die off then a means of getting more boards into
peoples hands will have to arise.

So a few years down the road rather than a static BOM that was put
together two years ago when the initial build was done and hasn't been
updated....we could have a live BOM that is a living document
constantly updated with current information to account for parts
availability.

----
Jason Hitesman
N8INJ

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