[hpsdr] Hermes protocol 2 Firmware.

[Scott Traurig]

Kjell,

What was wrong with the link I sent you?

https://apache-labs.com/community/viewforum.php?f=32

In this case no one can spoon feed you the "one true link". There are many
variants of the firmware that have been produced for each hardware
platform. In your case you need to read the Hermes related thread at that
link, understand which versions have been successful and for whom, and then
start experimenting with various versions (all posted in the platform
specific discussions) yourself.

The problem is not that the FPGA is not fast enough, or big enough (size is
a problem on the 14-bit Hermes, though). The problem is that a universal
timing closure that works for all serial numbers has not been discovered.
This problem is essentially limited to the MAC logic in the FPGA, which is
the only part of the build that runs at speeds higher than 125MHz. There is
sufficient variability in the silicon, power supplies, and perhaps even
board trace lengths, such that a build that works for Person A with serial
number X may not work for Person B with serial number Y. Many people can
even observe temperature related effects whereby the build will not be
stable until the hardware warms up, or vice versa.

There just hasn't been sufficient hardware engineering on the design at
GigE speeds, and using the free version of Quartus is also a significant
handicap. All honor to Rick, N1GP, who took us out of a nasty Alpha test
stage and has gotten us into a pretty good Beta state, But it's still not
easy for everyone to run Protocol 2.

73,

Scott/w-u-2-o

On Tue, Feb 18, 2020 at 4:43 AM Kjell Karlsen <la2ni at online.no> wrote:

>
> Hi Dave.
>
> That is were I have been looking but the version 10.8 is not there. It was
> mentioned on the Apache labs forum but I am not able to find it.
>
> I have problems with at least two of the Hermes boards that we bought from
> TAPR (or built ourself from the PCB´s we got). They works OK in RX but
> nothing out in TX. I asked Phil about this and he say that it is the FPGA
> that is not fast enough.
>
> I had hoped that someone comes up with firmware for Hermes that solves
> this problem (if it is possible at all).
>
> Thanks,
> 73, Kjell
>
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