[hpsdr] PowerSDR/OpenHPSDR mRX PS v3.2.28 released

[Doug W5WC]

All,

PowerSDR/OpenHPSDR mRX PS v3.2.28 has been released.

This release can be downloaded from the openhpsdr.org website.
http://openhpsdr.org/download.php

This release contains the following changes:

Radio Astronomy (RA) Joe, K5SO
- added Rx2 to the RA feature to allow both Rx1 and Rx2 data to be
simultaneously collected/viewed 
- added a new control to the RA display to allow the selection among options
of 
	1) simultaneous display of Rx1 data and Rx2 data, 
	2) display of Rx1 data only, or 
	3) display of Rx2 data only
- added Rx2 data to the read/write-to-disk option from the RA window; data
format for each line of the .csv file is
		time(secs), Rx1(dBm), Rx2(dBm) 
	regardless of what option is selected for display in the RA window
- added a compiler directive to try to resolve the EU vs US formatting issue
of the previous RA read/write to .csv files

Spectral Noise Blanker (SNB)

Following the release of new Noise Reduction technology, NR2, earlier this
year, this release includes another new tool for your "Noise
Toolbox":  SNB, a Spectral Noise Blanker.  There are many different types of
noise/interference and so having an assortment of tools at your disposal is
of great benefit.  The Spectral Noise Blanker is of a very different type
than our Wideband blankers, NB and NB2, and will address some additional
impulse noise issues.  It can be used along with NB/NB2 when beneficial.  It
also plays quite nicely with NR/NR2 to address both Impulse Noise (SNB) and
Random Noise (NR/NR2) simultaneously.

While NB/NB2 operate on wideband spectrum data and impact both the
panadapter display and the S-meter, SNB operates differently and impacts
only audio.  SNB uses Linear Predictive Coding (LPC) to evaluate the
spectral formants of its input.  It then uses that spectral information to
identify impulses and to synthesize replacement samples for the signal in
regions where it has been corrupted by those impulses.  Yes, it does not
just zero or interpolate across corrupted samples, it synthesizes
approximations of the original signal using the spectral information and the
samples before and after the impulse.  This technology largely does not
depend upon amplitude to identify impulses; therefore it can often detect
impulses that are equal to or smaller than the amplitude of the signal and
can clean signals when other blankers fail.  Computing replacement samples
requires quite a bit of matrix computation; so, to keep compute requirements
within reasonable limits, SNB currently restricts audio bandwidth to roughly
300Hz to 5400Hz.  
This was a design tradeoff which will be revisited as faster processors
become available.

To turn this blanker on, simply click the "SNB" button on the main console.
(Note that NB and NB2 have now been moved to the same
button.)  In Setup, there are a couple threshold adjustments, "Threshold 1"
and "Threshold 2".  However, the algorithm is self-adjusting and you
probably will not be able to achieve much improvement by fine tuning these.

Summary of your current Noise-Interference Toolbox:

Impulse Noise
* NB (Wideband)
* NB2 (Wideband)
* SNB (Spectral)

Random Noise
* NR (Variable-Leak LMS Algorithm)
* NR2 (Signal/Noise Power Density Algorithm)

Carriers & Similar
* ANF (Automatic Notch Filter - Variable-Leak LMS)

Noise / Interference Null
* Diversity Reception [Requires a radio model with two ADCs]

Peaking Filters
* Audio Peaking Filter [for CW]
* Dolly Filter [for RTTY]

Expect future additions!

Various Bug Fixes and features
- added the ability to split the open collector outputs between VFOA (1-4)
and VFOB (5-7). To use, click on the "4x3 Split" checkbox on the
Setup=>General=>(Penny/Hermes/ANAN Ctrl) page.
- added a 'mask' field to the static IP address feature. This allows using
the correct broadcast address for the specific port the radio is on. This
corrected a problem when using a static ip address when multiple adapters
are present. See the Setup=>General=>Hardware Config page.
- added multilingual for ToolTip comments
- fixed the 6m panadapter display reading for the Anan-10E
- fixed a problem with PowerSDR crashing on startup when the Disable PA for
HF/VHF is enabled
- fixed an intermittent issue with diversity


You WILL need to reset your database.
If you have release v3.2.28 dated prior to 3 Oct 2015 you will need to
manually uninstall it before installing this release. The installer will not
automatically uninstall it for you. This only applies to the pre-release of
v3.2.28 and not prior version numbers.

Thanks & 73,

Doug, W5WC
Warren, NR0V