LimeSDR seems to be linked to Pothos in the sense that that is what we are requested download, but afterwards there is 0 basic information.
I really expected to find a basic Pothos setup for transmitting, say an FM modulated signal + summing in some noise, for example. LimeSDR seem to provide no simple examples that can be downloaded that show a basic setup with some sliders for
Tx Freq
Rate <- does this need to match on all blocks?
Tx Rate <- again - allowed values? this info is still listed as TBC in the project HW page.
Automatic Band selection according to freq. (Band 1 <2GHz, Band 2> 2GHz? - default does nothing?)
Sensible gain settings
With all due respect, trying to learn Pothos which without a couple of LimeSDR Mini specific examples that can be downloaded from the LimeSDR Mini wiki page is very frustrating. And would require about 1 day of work for the dev team as they - then people could play with a “known” good program (and good practices for structure of a Pothos program).
Now, I’m an RF engineer by day, I’ve programmed AD DDSs in the past with microcontrollers, and a couple of PLLs, so I understand the switches, but not the particulars of the Lime chipset - and that should not be necessary. I do some basic Python for instrument control, and I literally design spacecraft payload HW. I personally own a Tektronix RSA306B so I can at least see what my LimeSDR is doing and even then it’s hard to understand how to control the thing. I can accept RTFM, but after a very basic install, the wiki just seems to say: well have fun - download some SDR sw from a bunch of half-baked repositories - 50% only work under windows the other 50% only under Linux.
Issue number 543233: where are the specs for the LimeSDR mini ??
https://wiki.myriadrf.org/LimeSDR-Mini#Features_and_Specifications
Important info in not listed or is TBD
When HW is at the shipping stage, the customer should be able to quickly find out specs for:
Transmit power versus freq. at each (of 2?) bands
Rx sensitivity (noise floor) at each band
Right now I don’t even know what frequencies I should be able to receive (!)
An no, I’m not going to waste my time with the LMS7002 datasheet, the schematics and a simulator plotting theoretical curves - this is basic info that should be clearly measured and listed.
Someone that understands the LimeSDR settings and has a sig gen should be able to plot this in 1-2 days.
As I don’t understand all the settings in LimeSuite, I have no idea when I measure, for example:
Sign gen set to 155.1MHz, -83dBm
FFTviewer: -54dBFS (hamming window)
Is that correct, WTF should I expect???
I hope to help move this LimeSDR Mini forward to something that I can recommend to colleagues.
73 de L