[hpsdr] An idea for a project

Mon Dec 27 11:35:19 PST 2010

Personally, I'm more than content with my PC based SDR implementations 
and rejoice in the flexibility offered by that platform in conjunction 
with mouse, keyboard and large display screen (items that are on and 
likely to remain on my desk for some time).  Perhaps this puts me ad 
odds with "the vast majority of hams" but so be it.

Now, if you can propose and design a compact system as suggested, that 
retains all of that flexibility then you may have a convert whether such 
a system be built from Micro Controllers, Beagle Boards, or recycled 
Cadbury's biscuit tins, I care not: with respect to hardware and 
software platforms, I am agnostic. However, such conversion would be 
better served by presenting the _technical_ merits of such a solution 
rather than pointing out the authors' perceived deficiencies in PCs, 
Microsoft, et al.

Pete, N3EVL

On 12/26/2010 11:48 PM, KA5FPT Paul wrote:
> ***** High Performance Software Defined Radio Discussion List *****
>
> To the community,
> Recently while doing some searching on-line I came across the 
> following bits of information, and this got me thinking of a project.
>
> First I came across the following while looking up some facts on the 
> SDR-Cube - 
> (http://www.eham.net/ehamforum/smf/index.php?action=printpage;topic=72022.0)
> The writer wrote:
> "This is a fantastic development. Finally someone  who actually 
> understands that  building a ham radio transceiver on a PC platform is 
> a stone age concept.
>
> This SDR Cube  concept is the right one for the future. If Flexradio 
> did the same thing their products would be a runaway success. 
> Unfortunately the flex groupies like riding around on a horse and cart 
> when hamming when they could be speeding around the track on a Ferrari 
> using just such an embedded solution.
>
> An embedded control integrated control system for ham transceiver 
> without  the MS bloat ware and latency will be the final remake  of 
> the SDR concept for hams. This is the first company that has pulled 
> this off. The first company that releases an embedded version of the 
> Flex5000 will be selling  a very popular transceiver.
>
> Lets hope more companies come up with SDR  products like the Cube 
> Transceiver using  high performance embedded hardware. Micro 
> controllers are  cheap readily available these days, there's 
> absolutely no need to use a stone age PC and dinosaur MS bloatware.  
> The folks behind SDR Cube are certainly smart forward thinking people, 
> they certainly understand that  the vast majority of hams like playing 
> with  knobs. A SDR box with knobs will  have very wide market appeal. 
> I wish them well, lets hope that they bring out a top of the range 
> transceiver that blows everything away. A  large color screen, 200 
> watt FET PA and all embedded  hardware in one box will be a big hit. 
> Maybe this company will wake Flexradio up from their drunken PC/Windoz 
> stupor."
>
>
> Now I don't agree with all that the writer wrote, but I do understand 
> the frustrations that do occur when using Microsoft Windows.  Then 
> while doing some research on the BeagleBoard I came across the link to 
> a site called DesignSomething.org (http://designsomething.org/). A 
> site "... designed to highlight open source software communities and 
> projects that utilize Texas Instruments technology."  Among the 
> products was one called the Pandora (http://openpandora.org/). An open 
> console hardware for gaming but powerful enough to be used for many 
> other projects. I started wondering if this could be used for 
> interfacing to the HPSDR. But I worried if it had enough power to 
> handle the SDR processing.
>
> Then while sitting back thinking, with a good bottle of dark microbrew 
> beer, I started to wonder. Why not off load the "SDR processing" from 
> the PC to an external processor? Those who remember the earlier days 
> of gaming knows that at one time all we had was the vga chip on the 
> IBM motherboard. As games progressed and the need for more video 
> processing was required, the "gpu" (graphical processor unit) came 
> about. Of course that led to the video card industry, and in turn 
> visually better quality games. The two went hand and hand each pushing 
> the other. Well why not develop our own "SDR processing unit"? What I 
> envision is that from the HPSDR Metis we could use the gigabit 
> Ethernet to feed our "SDR processing unit", which would do all of the 
> processing extracting the information from the I and Q streams. In 
> turn the "SDR processing unit" would be connected to a PC, or any 
> other human interface device such as the Pandora, to strictly do 
> information processing. In other words to enter frequencies, modes, 
> filters, etc. Since the "SDR processing unit" will only be handling 
> SDR processing latency issues should then be eliminated.
>
> Of course there are probably a hundred issues and complications that I 
> have not thought about such as audio and video processing. And I am 
> sure not all will agree that this will make a good project. But what 
> does everyone else think? Will moving  the SDR processing from
> the PC (Windows, Apple, Linux, etc.) to a separate board help us or 
> hurt us?
>
> Paul Cecil
> KA5FPT
>
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