[hpsdr] PowerSDR, cuSDR and new GUI for HPSDR

Mon Oct 24 04:43:18 PDT 2016

Hello Everyone,

I undestand Hermann's sentiments as well as some of the posts in this
thread. I think of myself as an experimenter with some limited experience
in software development and in the past have developed SDR-Shell, a GUI for
the DttSP SDR engine in the early days of analog down conversion SDRs.
Although I did spend time with the GUI, I did it because I wanted to play
with DSP and SDR using DttSP on Linux. After some time, the software
progressed and I started working on a version that supported TX as well.
That was a terrible mistake. I was swamped with all sorts of requests and
critics (some rather irrational, not to say downright insulting).
Complaints like the software did not control the linear amplifier, that did
not work on some exotic flavor of Linux, that did not work with some type
of soundcard, That did not work on Windows, etc. After a while, I got tired
and moved onto some other things since "my objective" was to experiment and
play (and share the result of my experimentation), and not to
professionally support something that gave me zero financial returns.

I think that there is a lot of territory to be conquered in the user
interface for SDRs. What we see today mostly mimics the look and controls
we are accustomed to see in the hardware world. That, I think, is why cuSDR
is so appealing. It is nice and different. Software can and should be
tailored to the specific application where it is used. For example, if I am
operating CW, it makes absolutely no sense to see the mic gain control. If
I am on digital modes, it makes no sense to see audio processor controls on
the screen all the time. But all of this has nothing to do with SDR design,
this is software user interface design.

Working with Unix for a number of years, one thing that I praise in the
operating system architecture is modularity. Many applications separate the
user interface from the core processing engine and one reasons I really
liked DttSP is that I could run it headless. This allowed a number of GUI
implementations. The SDR developers could focus on the DSP code other
developers could focus on GUI implementation and other things (or the same
developer focus on each but at different times). John Melton G0ORX projects
(QtRadio, GHPSDR, etc) are very nice examples of modular design -- DSP
processing and GUI separation.

So, here is my suggestion: Those that are not satisfied with the current
state of the user interface form a group of like-minded hams and try to
fund a developer that is willing to do the work. Since the developer (Simon
Brown? :-) will be paid, he/she could implement exactly what the group
wishes. The project could use KickStarter or some type of cloud funding
tool. The current DSP implementation (wdsp) is very stable and very mature.
One could run a DSP engine on a small dedicated computer and have a very
nice GUI on a desktop, laptop, tablet, android phone, etc.

73, Edson PY2SDR

---
- We humans have the capability to do amazing things if we work together.
- Nós seres humanos temos a capacidade de fazer coisas incríveis se
trabalharmos juntos.

On Mon, Oct 24, 2016 at 8:56 AM, Hermann <hvh.net at gmail.com> wrote:

> ***** High Performance Software Defined Radio Discussion List *****
>
> *sigh*  ...looks like my emails won't get through.
>
> Do you really think that cuSDR is just a fancy way to display the
> features of wdsp (or SharpDSP, or DttSP, before wdsp), plus some nice
> user controls?
>
> Maybe I totally missed the topic here...anyway, I give up.
>
>
> 73, Hermann DL3HVH
>
>
>
> On Mon, Oct 24, 2016 at 12:24 PM, Helmut <dc6ny at gmx.de> wrote:
> > ***** High Performance Software Defined Radio Discussion List *****
> >
> > I would recommend to transfer the thread back to the Yahoo Apache-Labs
> forum
> > where the needs of Apache's clientele can be probably better discussed
> > (without any result, hi).
> > I become very sad when I see the main features of ham radio getting today
> > lost in a  swamp of brands, trade-marks, commercials etc.  Maybe I should
> > spend some time with this nice Red Pitaya project. The guys there are
> real
> > homebrewers and very brimmed over with enthusiasm to run their $200 board
> > successfully under openHPSDR PowerSDR.
> >
> > 73, Helmut, DC6NY
> >
> >
> >
> > ---
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> >
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