[hpsdr] Ozy with Gb Ethernet - A tribute to Lyle Johnson

[Eric Ellison]

Folks

While reading the guy's Thesis about GIG Ethernet on page 22 I saw the frame
structure, which looked a lot like the old familiar AX25 thingy I saw long,
long ago.

So I drug out a hunk of hardware and took some pictures: (Yep I was N4CI at
the time)

http://www.hamsdr.com/personaldirectory.aspx?id=521

This was Lyle Johnson's wonderful creation. Serial Number 250 which was the
first production unit of the TNC-1. Lyle borrowed and offered up a year of
his salary to produce these kits which I believe put TAPR in the lead of
technology. The front panel is my creation, but Lyle made it all possible
and started a revolution. This unit was the 2 meter side of the N4CI 20
meter Gateway using a Xerox 820 and an FT 980 transceiver in an "RLI"
gateway. BEFORE the FCC shut us down. It's line mate SN 251 became the KF4JJ
digipeter at the 950 ft level on the WXIA Channel 11 TV tower on Moorland
ave. in Atlanta! If you have never experienced the thrill of riding a one
man 27 mhz controlled elevator up 950 ft you are in for a treat! At least I
did't have to climb it, but sometimes the 27 mhz signal was not heard at the
base and the elevator didn't move! 1000 ft of cable blows in the wind and
jinks the box 2 ft at a jerk! I guess I was the jerk, but it was a hell of a
lot of fun! I was amazed that takin' a piss from 950' went a whole three
blocks! (Ahhhh Youth!). One time it rained at the top and not at the ground!
Lightning was a thrill, as was 273 KW erp 50 ft away! There are probably
many other linemates on abandoned firetowers moldering all over the state of
Georgia! 

Lyle! Thanks for bein here after all these years! Still pushing the state of
the art! Still ensnaring folks like Warren! Still working 'at the edge, and
making it rewarding for followers like me'.  Also to the Phils, Bills,
Jonathans, and other contributors here, who keep ham radio Young! 


Eric - AA4SW - Ex. N4CI





 



-----Original Message-----
From: Lyle Johnson [mailto:kk7p at wavecable.com] 
Sent: Saturday, March 10, 2007 5:32 PM
To: Warren Walsh
Cc: Eric Ellison; hpsdr list
Subject: Re: [hpsdr] Ozy with Gb Ethernet

> Why an Ozy... Well, in looking through the list archives, I found Lyle's
> message from February 11th calling for project leaders. He mentioned the 
> Ozy with a Gb Ethernet controller. If there is a better/different idea,
> I'm open.

Part of the idea is to be free from a local PC and free from USB.  We'll 
probably need the FPGA fabric since a configuration with this board 
probably wouldn't have an Ozy. I didn't mean to restrict it to the same 
I/O configuration as Ozy (e.g., a port designed to drive an SDR-1000).

> One thing about a Gb Ethernet board, it's not going to be simple.

If a Xilinx Virtex-4FX were used as the core processor and FPGA, 
reference designs exist with 1 Gbps Ethernet. I suspect one of these 
could be leveraged (e.g., Avnet's DS-KIT-4VFX12LC at http://em.avnet.com).

Of course, the PowerPC cores in the Virtex won't run WindowsVista, but 
might run MontaVista :-)

Neither simple nor cheap, but perhaps interesting?

73,

Lyle KK7P


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