[hpsdr] HERMES schedule question...

[Dan Babcock]

Hi Ray,

Good luck with the exam on Saturday and a hearty welcome to you and Carson.  I think you will find becoming involved in amateur radio is truly a life altering experience.

Due to the installation of a number of fine pitch IC's, including a 240 Pin PQFP package Altera FPGA <http://www.altera.com/literature/hb/cyc3/cyc3_ciii52001.pdf>, the Hermes board is in my estimation a (very) advanced construction project.  Without the fine pitch IC's, I would say Hermes can be best classified as an intermediate level construction project that uses a combination of SMT and through hole parts.  Bearing in mind the packages for the SMT parts were chosen for circuit functionality and not ease of assembly, building the board is doable but is certainly not for the faint of heart.

As you have read on the website, the Hermes project is reasonably close to being released to production.  There have been two alpha builds of the hardware and the third (and hopefully final) alpha build should be happening soon.   An alpha 2 version of the hardware (functioning in receive only) was on display a few weeks ago at the TAPR booth at the Dayton Hamvention.  In receive, Hermes worked well with Windows (PowerSDR), Mac OSX (Mac-ghpsdr) and Linux (ghpsdr3) consoles.  

Thanks for your offer of assistance.  Everyone that has worked with high end commercial and military RF electronics is well acquainted with Wenzel.

73,

Dan N4XWE






________________________________
From: Ray Page <page.ray at gmail.com>
To: hpsdr at openhpsdr.org
Sent: Tue, June 15, 2010 11:38:30 PM
Subject: [hpsdr] HERMES schedule question...

***** High Performance Software Defined Radio Discussion List *****

Hello,

My name is Ray Page. My son, Carson (10 years old) and I will be testing for our Technician licenses this Saturday (June 19th). We want to build an SDR as we both have electronics and software experience. After reviewing the HPSDR website we've come to the conclusion that the HERMES design is the best fit. I understand (believe me) the difficulty in getting something like the HERMES design released. Nevertheless, I must ask if anyone has any idea as to when the design will be released so we can try to plan the construction project.

We might even be able to help with the project if help is needed. I used to work for Wenzel Associates designing utra low noise oscillators and phase locked loops, and I still have access to their facilities (after hours) to do phase noise tests, etc.

Thank you for your time.

-Ray


      
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