<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML><HEAD>
<META content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" http-equiv=Content-Type>
<META name=GENERATOR content="MSHTML 8.00.6001.19154">
<STYLE></STYLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY bgColor=#ffffff>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>All,</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>We have completed the process of merging Joe's, K5SO, FPGA
code and the previous releases.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>In which case there are new versions of code available as
follows:</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>Mercury_V3.1</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>Penelope_V1.6</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>Metis_V1.6</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>Ozy_Janus_V2.1</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>The code will be available from the Wiki download page
shortly and the source is in SVN. For those using Ozy to load new code,
updated programmer batch files are available from SVN under
...\USBBlaster-Binaries.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>In order to use this new release of code you must upgrade
ALL your boards to the latest revision.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>The new code enables up to four receivers to run on one
Mercury board or up to four individual Mercury boards to be fitted to the Atlas
bus.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>Please note that when enabling additional receivers on the
one Mercury board then the current drawn from the +5v rail will increase as
follows:</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>For a system comprising Metis, one Mercury, Excalibur and
Penelope the current draw from the +5v rail is:- </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial> One receiver running =
1.53A<BR> Two receivers running =
1.71A<BR> Three receivers running =
1.90A<BR> Four receivers running =
2.02A</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>For a system comprising Metis, Excalibur and
Penelope the current draw from the +5v rails with :</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial> One Mercury
board = 1.53A</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial> Two Mercury boards =
2.4A</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial> Three Mercury boards =
3.08A</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial> Four Mercury boards =
3.51A</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>Note that the LPU may not have sufficiant capacity to
support additional receivers. Joe has been able to switch the clocks off
inside the FPGA to Mercury receivers that are not being used. In this way
the current draw only increases as you add additional receivers. However, once
you have selected more than one receiver you can't selected a lesser number
without first selecting the new number of boards and then cycling the power to
the Atlas board.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>With respect to how Alex operates when using multiple
Mercury receivers or boards here is what happens:</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>1) When using a single receiver Alex switching is
done normally. That is, filter switching is done automatically at
the <BR>frequency break points currently coded unless "manual
Alex control" is selected via the PC in which case the <BR>PC
program controls the filter selection.<BR><BR>2) When using
multiple-receivers-on-a-single-Mercury mode (i.e., no jumper on GPIO pins 2-3 on
Mercury and more than one receiver <BR>requested by the PC) the Alex Tx
and Rx filters are set to the "bypass" positions. This is so that the
multiple receivers can be <BR>operated on multiple bands simultaneously
from the single antenna; the antenna should be a broad band antenna or
multi-band antenna in this case, of course.<BR><BR>3) When using
multiple Mercury board mode (i.e., GPIO pins 2-3 jumper in place on
Mercury and more than one receiver requested by the PC) each Mercury board
controls it's own Alex filter set (all Mercury boards are on the same
frequency in this mode and all use identical <BR>mode, filters, and other
operating choice that are made on the (single) main PC display and the
normal frequency break points for all <BR>are as in 1) above unless
"manual Alex control" is selected via the PC in which case the PC program
controls the filter selection.<BR></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>A number of the PC programs will support multiple
receivers and I will leave it to the individual authors to announce the
availability of their code and configuration etc.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>I'd like to thank Joe for his tenacity in hunting down a
number of problems during the code merge and in particular for the code that
only turns on additional receivers when selected.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>Also thanks to the Beta testers for their invaluable input
to the testing process.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>As usual all feedback via the reflector
please.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>73 Phil...VK6APH </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV></BODY></HTML>