[hpsdr] Patience with HPSDR

[Andreas Troschka]

Without trying to start again a discussion on the philosophy behind the
HPSDR project I'll put a flag up to underline the evidence that a
modular construction means no more no less, its r&d character, not an
intention to produce a commercial grade unit as somebody on this list
claims to desire (ok, there is nothing bad in hoping such final result,
some day).
Taking this in mind I'd consider HPSDR a good training platform for
those willing to be involved in _*Software*_ Defined Radio development
and for those liking to use their brains to get all the best of what
industry offers in terms of hardware.

The modularity concept of this project makes it very flexible and prone
to support every upgrade in both the software and hardware areas.
This is a characteristic that no commercial product may ever offer, so
far my understanding of the market requirements based on the requests of
the masses.

We OM are used to adopt this typology of construction since we exist and
it is a good thing we will remain in the habit.

I'd answer to those saying that SDR is too complex for OM and that only
a handful of us are able to deal with such technologies.
Au-contraire! There are a lot of.  As an example academic students are
dealing with this technologies as we thirty years ago (and more) dealt
with analogic circuits and start working with digital technologies.

The reason of the apparent low participation on the HPSDR project has
its origin in some facts I'll resume hereby:

   1. the electronic industry is just one step away from the start line
      with its electronic products (say SDR support related components);
      some projects (e.g. mine)  are based on components already
      announced by the industry, and there is nothing as un-trustworthy
      as the actual strategic decision made by companies dealing with
      new technologies;
   2. the software (the first word of the acronym SDR, remember?), 
      already depends strongly from the hardware used, so portability
      (and its possibility to be reused in other projects) is a concept
      already far to come;
   3. most interested guys are already working on new ideas and are
      willing to expose them to the public when there areresults of
      reasonable research maturity (as some OM groups I know and me are
      doing!);
   4. as shortly stated on this list, time is a rare good, so sometimes
      it is preferred to use the time usually spent to  answer to
      questions submitted by the spectators, in pure development;
   5. resources are mostly rare too (and not only the human type ;-)),
      so some good ideas can't start because of lack in development
      equipment (hardware and software) and this is often the most
      important aspect retaining a project to start (sig!).
   6. ...

Considering especially the point 5. (in other words, money) I strongly
suggest to give the opportunity to get the PCBs and eventually the
critical components as separate kits for those being able to deal with
soldering tasks (and don't think the latter is a hard nut, believe me,
there are simple, verified solutions for SMD soldering!).
Components as the Linear D/A (90$) used on the Mercury board can be
obtained requesting a _*free*_ sample directly from Linear compiling the
form on their webpages (as I usually do with success not only with Linear).

The Mercury board is the real SDR development platform, please offer it
so that the much possible people can acquire it!

vy 73s de ik2wqi - Andreas Troschka


Steve Ireland wrote:

Omissis...
>
>  
>
> Those brave few who have been involved in the development of the HPSDR
> boards, firmware and software are at the top of their professions and
> hold positions of responsibility within them.  This means that whilst
> they are the best people to develop HPSDR, there are lots of other
> calls on their time which have to take precedence.
>
>  
>
> As Phil VK6APH has said, he would like to see a single board HPSDR one
> day, but the building block approach suits the level of
> experimentation that needs to take place right now.  It also suits the
> amount of time that the developers like Phil are able to put in – one
> technical issue/SDR facet can be dealt with at a time, in a thorough
> manner.
>

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.openhpsdr.org/pipermail/hpsdr-openhpsdr.org/attachments/20071005/16cb3eb0/attachment-0004.htm>