[hpsdr] HERMES schedule question

[Dan Babcock]

Hi Ray,

OK.  I think I understand much better where you are 
coming from.  One quick correction, the status of the Hermes project 
might be better described as beta rather than alpha.  

The 
project leader for Hermes is Kevin, M0KHZ.  Hopefully, he or Phil, 
VK6APH, will jump into this discussion.  There is a group of Hermes beta builders strung out around the world.  I think the number of 
participants is somewhat limited  by the number of prototype PCB's that 
are generally available from a "quick turn" PCB house.  I will let Kevin or Phil comment on whether they think it is feasible to add another 
person to the beta builders group.  As I see it, the main challenge is 
procuring parts for the beta builds.  Based on a Teamspeak conversation 
with Phil a couple of weeks ago, I believe the BOM for Hermes is in pretty 
good shape.

The original plan was to have a limited number of 
Hermes PCB's at Dayton for those that might want to build their own.  
That plan was scrapped at the eleventh hour when a PCB crosstalk problem on the then current iteration of the board was discovered.  I am not 
sure of the exact status of the the board redesign.  I am also not 
certain if the beta board sales idea is still in play.

My 
immediate suggestion is that you and Carson join the Teamspeak session 
tomorrow evening.  Instructions are available at <http://openhpsdr.org/teamspeak.html> Phil is usually present.  I am sure he will be happy to answer any 
questions you might have about Hermes or the other HPSDR projects.  If 
you have any questions about setting up Teamspeak, please contact me off the list and I will do my best to help you sort things out.

73,

Dan N4XWE





Cc: Jeremy McDermond <mcdermj at xenotropic.com>; hpsdr at openhpsdr.org
Sent: Thu, June 17, 2010 9:02:06 
AM
Subject: Re: 
[hpsdr] HERMES schedule question...

Thank you for your response Dan. I agree with your words of caution 
regarding hand soldering PQFPs, TQPFs, etc. However, it's something I 
have to do fairly often, so that does not concern me. I prefer to buy an A&T board from a convenience (and possibly cost) perspective, but I also like being on the front lines of a design rather than waiting for 
someone else to do the work for me. I'm even considering starting with 
the release HERMES design and then making my own mods to the schematic 
and layout. 

I'm planning to make lemonade out of the fact that the FPGA source 
is in Verilog instead of VHDL. This is the perfect opportunity to get 
fluent with Verilog since it wouldn't be right to charge customers to 
learn a new language. Carson has my back on the Windows/Linux side of 
the equation.

I'm fairly well equipped to do some serious digital and analog debug because I have a 136 channel x 2M LA with 450MHz state speed, a 1GHz 
Lecroy scope, and the other usual suspects in my lab. My specialty these days is video-related FPGA/ system design stuff. You can gather some 
more info about me and Carson here: www.attodyne.com. I hope no one 
considers this SPAM because I do not sell "things"----only my services, 
which I will offer for free to the HAM community.

In a nutshell, I'd like to know as soon as the most recent alpha 
board see's daylight, so I can make the decision to either go with it, 
or roll my own.

Thanks again Dan!

-Ray
 

--SNIP--



      
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