[hpsdr] Educational SDR Advice Sought

[Steven Bible]

I would also volunteer that TAPR could produce a kit or assembled version of hardware that is custom taylored to the educational market.  Just let us know what you want/need.

I agree that a PC doing DSP is the best and cheapest way for students (and hams) to learn.  Thus the softrock approach is very attractive.  Just be careful of the sound card issues.  To do a good job you would want a PC with quality sound cards installed (that may raise the price for lab equipement or student hardware requirements).  

If embedded DSP is in the future, that a look at the HPSDR Odyessy project Siren.  This project is aimed at a low-power, low-cost SDX for SuitSat-2, but is certainly has plans for down here on Earth :-).  This hardware exists and is running.  I am working on Rev. C of the hardware now.  Siren will be shown at the AMSAT booth at Dayton.

    http://hpsdr.org/wiki/index.php?title=ODYSSEY

Bob and Frank have even taught a class with this hardware.  See "SuitSat-2 Goes to College" at

    http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2007/01/24/101/

- Steve N7HPR



-----Original Message-----
>From: Jonathan Wagner <jonathan at jonathanwagner.net>
>Sent: May 9, 2007 12:00 PM
>To: "Yoder, Mark A" <yoder at rose-hulman.edu>
>Cc: hpsdr at hpsdr.org
>Subject: Re: [hpsdr] Educational SDR Advice Sought
>
>***** High Performance Software Defined Radio Discussion List *****
>
>Thanks, this is the type of input I was looking for. If you don't mind, 
>I will forward this email along with a few others to the department 
>head. The non-real-time MATLAB SDR may be an optimal solution for 
>teaching SDR concepts right away. I have not had an opportunity to speak 
>with him in length to discover his full intentions or budget. I know 
>that since hurricanes Katrina and Rita, Louisiana universities have been 
>in a spending crunch. Since the school already owns licenses to MATLAB, 
>this may be the cheapest approach. Though, requiring students to buy 
>something as cheap as the SoftRock40 is not out of the question either.
>
>Also, thanks to others who have responded. The comments have been very 
>helpful and I appreciate any further input as well.
>
>Thanks again,
>
>Jonathan Wagner, KE5FSG
>Office: (337)993-0778
>Cell: (337)781-1513
>
>
>
>Yoder, Mark A wrote:
>> ***** High Performance Software Defined Radio Discussion List *****
>>
>>   
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> The “Electronics of Radio” by David Rutledge 
>> (http://www.arrl.org/catalog/?item=ERAD) does a nice job of walking a 
>> student through the theory and building of a traditional NorCal 40A.
>>
>> Last year I attempted a revision of the book, called “The Elements of 
>> SDR” which walked my students through the theory and building of a 
>> SoftRock40. Details can be found at 
>> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Elements_of_SDR/. The latest SoftRock at 
>> the time was v5.0, so all my efforts were tuned toward it.
>>
>> If you are more interested in the software side, check out 
>> “Telecommunications Breakdown: Concepts of Communication Transmitted 
>> via Software-Defined Radio” by Johnson and Sethares 
>> (http://vig.prenhall.com/catalog/academic/product/0,1144,0131430475,00.html). 
>> They build an entire SDR via MATLAB (sorry, no real-time). I’ve use 
>> the text for three years now and like it. (In the name of full 
>> disclosure, I am in discussions with the authors about helping them 
>> with a new revision of the book.)
>>
>> I agree with Chris that you need to keep it simple for the students. 
>> I’d suggest one class for building the hardware, another for building 
>> the software and a third class for making it all run in real-time.
>>
>> --Mark
>>
>> --Mark A. Yoder ka9elg
>>
>> Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology
>>
>> 812-877-8291
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> HPSDR Discussion List
>> To post msg: hpsdr at hpsdr.org
>> Subscription help: http://lists.hpsdr.org/listinfo.cgi/hpsdr-hpsdr.org
>> HPSDR web page: http://hpsdr.org
>> Archives: http://lists.hpsdr.org/pipermail/hpsdr-hpsdr.org/
>
>_______________________________________________
>HPSDR Discussion List
>To post msg: hpsdr at hpsdr.org
>Subscription help: http://lists.hpsdr.org/listinfo.cgi/hpsdr-hpsdr.org
>HPSDR web page: http://hpsdr.org
>Archives: http://lists.hpsdr.org/pipermail/hpsdr-hpsdr.org/


 1178733257.0