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<DIV><SPAN class=525024013-28122010><FONT size=2 face=Arial>Hi Paul and group. I
am completely in agreement with you that there is opportunity in the market for
a self-contained all band SDR transceiver with knobs. This is evidenced by
many people interested in connecting an SDR cube to a Mobo to give
self-contained all-band capability. The SDR cube was indeed a breakthrough
in that it can do all of its DSP processing in a very low cost microcoltroller
chip, the <FONT size=2 face=Arial>DsPIC33FJ128GP802</FONT> which costs $6.52 and
has 128 KB Flash EPROM and 16KB SRAM with DSP capabilities. This is also
used by the AQRP Yahoo group in their SDR2GO SDR
transceiver.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=525024013-28122010><FONT size=2
face=Arial></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=525024013-28122010><FONT size=2 face=Arial>I got into software
defined radio fairly recently, on a low budget. My son, KB1RSA had bought
a softrock receiver, which worked amazingly well unmodified, using some of the
available software out there like Power SDR, using a Windows 7
PC. I then bought him a Softrock Ensemble transceiver, which he just
got working this week. It is an amazing design for its very low cost
of $74.00 but these kits are rarely <SPAN
class=143505821-28122010> in stock </SPAN> at </FONT><A
href="http://kb9yig.com/"><FONT color=#000000 size=2
face=Arial>http://kb9yig.com/</FONT></A><FONT face=Arial><FONT
size=2> <SPAN class=143505821-28122010> . </SPAN>Here's where my
desire to have a self-contained, hardware based rig came from. Oh, so you
need two soundcards not one sound card which<SPAN
class=143505821-28122010> all software based solutions
require</SPAN>. Oh, <SPAN class=143505821-28122010> Rocky
</SPAN>only runs under windows XP, not Windows 7. By the time you equip
your PC with two good sound cards for a transceiver, the cost is rapidly
rising.<SPAN class=143505821-28122010> Software setup for
newbies can have a large learning curve, depending on technical
level. Not for the faint hearted!</SPAN></FONT></FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=525024013-28122010><FONT size=2
face=Arial></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=525024013-28122010><FONT size=2 face=Arial>I believe, with the
right FPGA firmware, the upcoming Hermes and Apollo could be made into a
standalone transceiver. The knobs and display could be done through the
I2C interface and/or any spare available bits.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=525024013-28122010><FONT size=2
face=Arial></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=525024013-28122010><FONT face=Arial><FONT size=2>Then I started
thinking why not put the entire transceiver in an FPGA using a quadrature
sampling decoder for receive and a quadrature sampling encoder for
transmit? <SPAN class=143505821-28122010> (but no 6 meter
operation) </SPAN> The FPGA could generate the QSD and QSE signals, by
pulling the two most significant bits off a digital accumulator. You could
use a TI codec for the audio A/D and D/A functions, and do ALL the high
speed digital filtering and DSP processing in the FPGA, and also use the
FPGA to control a display and other functions<SPAN
class=143505821-28122010> (optical decoder, keyer, etc). The DSPIC33
could do display GUI, transmit audio processing. The FPGA would allow a fairly
wideband spectrum display, unlike using the DSPIC as in the SDR cube. The core
components would consist of the following:</SPAN></FONT></FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial><FONT size=2><SPAN class=525024013-28122010><SPAN
class=143505821-28122010></SPAN></SPAN></FONT></FONT><SPAN
class=525024013-28122010><FONT size=2 face=Arial></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=525024013-28122010><FONT size=2 face=Arial>"Small" FPGA such as
the Xilinx <FONT size=3 face="Times New Roman">XC3S200A-4VQG100C 200K gates in a
100 pin TQFP package for $11.16 Note: This is a lot easier to assemble than a
large Altera FPGA as well as lower cost.</FONT></FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=525024013-28122010><FONT size=2 face=Arial>DsPIC33FJ128GP802
microcontroller for $6.52</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=525024013-28122010><FONT size=2 face=Arial>Microchip 24AA256
I2C EEPROM for non-volatile storage for $1.14 (The DSPIC33F doesn't have EEPROM
non-volatile storage)</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=525024013-28122010><FONT size=2 face=Arial>T.I audio codec
<FONT size=2 face=ArialMT><FONT size=2 face=ArialMT>TLV320AIC3204 for
$6.75</FONT></FONT></FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=525024013-28122010><FONT size=2 face=Arial>TDA2003H car 10W
audio amp for $2.35 </FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=525024013-28122010><FONT size=2
face=Arial></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=525024013-28122010><FONT size=2 face=Arial>You could still pull
off audio to drive a PC and have all the bells and whistles, but you could
still operate standalone if you want. Having capability to still drive a
PC with software is very important for a lot of people and you still want to be
able to do this. The transmit functions should DEFINITELY be self-contained
though as this is easily implemented self-contained and would eliminate the need
for a second sound card.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=525024013-28122010><FONT size=2
face=Arial></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=525024013-28122010><FONT size=2 face=Arial>Certainly the
display device would be a large cost driver as well as the cost of a good
reference crystal oscillator. But having a real productized transceiver on
one or at most two PC boards (separate one for the amplifier) would go a long
way which could be built as a kit would be a great product.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=525024013-28122010><FONT size=2
face=Arial></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=525024013-28122010><FONT size=2
face=Arial>Regards,</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=525024013-28122010><FONT size=2 face=Arial>Steve ("Digital
Steve"), K1RF</FONT></SPAN></DIV></BODY></HTML>