[hpsdr] New Mac Utility

[Chris Albertson]

What's REALLY needed is an a software driver to connect Penny and Mercury
to GNU RADIO.  Then you'd have not only your generator but a spectrum
analyser and many other things, all for the effort to write a driver.

With Gnu Radio I can use their drag and drop application builder to
connect a siggnal generator to any suported hardware and the output
signal can be as complex as I want,      Gnu Radio has a huge code base
could be used but for lack of a small bit of software

Here are some examples, the screen shots are pretty easy to understand.
A user drages the blocks on to the page and connects the ins and outs
and instantly you have a working SDR application.  A spectrum analyser
is triveal to create,  You drage the bock that represents the hardware A/D
converter and then connect it to a FFT display

Examples are here:  http://www.joshknows.com/grc#screenshots

GNU already has drivers for computer sound cards so anyone here can
experiment right away and try making an audio spectrum analyser


On Wed, Sep 22, 2010 at 12:07 AM, Phil Harman <phil at pharman.org> wrote:
> ***** High Performance Software Defined Radio Discussion List *****
>
> Hi Jeremy,
>
> Thanks for the information regarding your signal generator project.  Since
> Penny and Mercury will run in full duplex what would be really nice would
> be to use Penny as a tracking generator with Mercury as a spectrum
> analyser.
>
> That way you could sweep filters etc and, with a bridge, do SWR
> measurements etc over the range 0-65MHz.
>
> 73 Phil...VK6APH
>
>
>
>
>
>> ***** High Performance Software Defined Radio Discussion List *****
>>
>> 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
>>
>>
>>
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>
>
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-- 
=====
Chris Albertson
Redondo Beach, California

 1285172534.0