[hpsdr] New Mac Utility

[Jeremy McDermond]

I have this D-STAR repeater project that I've been working on all summer, and one of the tasks that I have left to do is align the Tait T855-10 receiver module in the repeater.  I waited a while trying to figure out where to get my hands on a service monitor to do the tests, and eventually one of my friends loaned me one at the MicroHams conference last week in Seattle.  I was a little disappointed to find out that not only did I need the service monitor, but also a signal generator that would go up to 45MHz as well.

I looked on eBay at HP and Fluke function generators and wept a little at the prices they wanted, and considered that it would be very unlikely that I'd receive one before I had to return the service monitor this weekend at DCC.  I also noticed some cheap Chinese arbitrary function generators that plugged into the USB port of your computer and wondered how good or bad they were for $150 or so.  It was then that I realized that I had an arbitrary function generator already sitting on my desk.  It's called Penelope, and I have some experience with programming it.

I did some hacking around tonight, and some soliciting of sage-like advice from Phil (thanks as always for your expertise) and have come up with a new utility program for the Macheads out there.  Waverider is a sine wave generator for the OpenHPSDR hardware that will generate a sine wave consistent with the capabilities of Penelope.  I'm measuring maximum output at around 17.5 dBm (1.6V) on the service monitor, and you should be able to go to the 65MHz capability of Penny.

There are a few limitations on the program.  It's not calibrated in any way, shape, or form.  I tried to get the numbers at least in the ballpark of dBm, but there's obviously either some problems with my math, or some issues with the penelope hardware's samples not correlating to what I expect them to.  It also supports only sine waves right now.  If I get to thinking about it, it might be cool to do square and sawtooth waves as well.

Waverider is available from:

http://www.nh6z.net/MacHPSDR/Waverider.zip

YMMV, As-Is, standard disclaimers apply.

Source is available in my SVN repository at:

https://www.xenotropic.com/ham-svn/Waverider

--
Jeremy McDermond (NH6Z)
Xenotropic Systems
mcdermj at xenotropic.com