[hpsdr] Firmware Update.

[Joe Martin K5SO]

…the downside issue with simply renaming the Ozy firmware file to allow the file to load at startup with your current PowerSDR program  is that the firmware version number that will be reported by your Ozy/Magister board to PowerSDR will be whatever the version number is that is coded into the new Ozy/Magister firmware.  This means that, if you have a version of PowerSDR that checks firmware version numbers, it will likely not be happy with the latest Ozy firmware number;  meaning that you may have to run the PowerSDR program in the "--no firmware version check" mode until a new PowerSDR version is released that is happy with the latest Ozy firmware version number.  

This compatibility issue is precisely why I have the opinion that firmware version checking by the PC is not a very good idea, if the checking results in stopping execution of the program if "proper" numbers are not found.  On the other hand, firmware version reporting is a great idea and such information showing up on the PC setup screen is a great diagnostic clue to what is happening if PowerSDR is not behaving properly, or if you simply want to check to be sure the firmware you think you are running is actually the firmware that is running.  

In simple version number reporting without automatic program halting, if the PC program doesn't happen to behave properly, the firmware version numbers will usually still be shown properly in the setup menu and that information, many times, is sufficient diagnostic information to ascertain the problem, rather than have the program simply fail if it doesn't happen to find the version number  for whic it is looking.  The fact is that most firmware updates will run just fine with the PowerSDR program if the program would simply allow it to execute even though the version numbers aren't what the program is expecting.  

"Saving" us from the relatively rare situation in which the program won't run at all is not worth the angst that is much more frequently generated by version checking when program execution is halted if version numbers don't match up even though the program probably would run fine anyway; in my opinion.  

73,  Joe K5SO



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