SDRAngel Rx & Tx

I made a magnetic antenna of sorts, just 500 or so turns of magnet wire on a big ferrite rod. No tuning cap or anything. It has a good resonance at 1550 KHz, very sharp. I was picking up AM broadcast stations much better than most AM radios. It failed below about 750 KHz but I know I can get it to tune that with another coil and capacitor.
Interesting conversations going on at 80M.
This can be made into a super shortwave receiver.
Now, back to decoding my SmartMeter.

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Is there any way of selecting LimeSDR RX2 in R0 of SDRAngel ? Due to killing the RF front end on RX1 of my LimeSDR, I am now having to use RX2. I can select it only when R0 is set to LimeSDR as source and then set LimeSDR source in new R1. This works ok but the USB bandwidth is a bit of a problem as both R0 and R1 run even though I only run R1. Double normal RX USB bandwidth is going to limit some of the things I will be doing with my LimeSDR in the future.

ā€¦ So was your smart meter smart enough to stop you decoding it? :wink:

Thereā€™s this:


If I want to take the time to adapt it.

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I have worked out how to use RX2 by itself.
1 :- Setup R0 with LimeSDR as source.
2 :- Setup R1 with LimeSDR as source.
3 :- Change R0 source to FileSource.

Now I am receiving on RX2 only and USB bandwidth is back to normal. Happy days.

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For those who arenā€™t watching for updates, Version 3.7.3 of SDR Angel has been released in Windows 64-bit and Linux distros with improvements for receive and transmit stream toggling for half-duplex operation, and other updates for other SDRs (PlutoSDR). This is a big release and Iā€™ll be checking it out later this evening for performance reasons on the LimeSDR. Iā€™ll either report back with a video showing the performance or Iā€™ll provide pics, but either way Iā€™ll give an update on how it works - Stay tunedā€¦!

73 de Marty, KN0CK

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@brendanthebig - Brendan,

Check out the YouTube video here to see the SDRAngel 3.7.3 and LimeSDR goodness on a 2.2GHz I5 Quad Core machineā€¦Iā€™ll have to play with my LattePanda microPC a little to overclock itā€¦Seems a little sluggish on that platform, but is nice and clean on the higher horsepower Intel Windows Box. See the goodness here ----> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFasBv9IPzs

73 de Marty, KN0CK

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Thanks Marty for the video!

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@F4EXB - Edouard,

The 3.7.3 SDRAngel works INCREDIBLY WELL on an I5 quad core machine on receive and transmit simultaneouslyā€¦Now to make it work that well on the LattePanda - more on that later tonightā€¦THANK YOU SO MUCH for keeping SDRAngel in the forefront for the LimeSDR, Edouardā€¦!

More as I have it - stay tunedā€¦

73 de Marty, KN0CK

Would anyone be interested in adding GPIO board support to SDRAngel for switching TX/RX? Have a board I can make available if so. API is straightforward enough.

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@andrewback,

I amā€¦And you know how rabid I am at bloggingā€¦It may just pre-empt me enough to not do it on the LattePanda using the Arduino processor on that board.

I think LMS has my addressā€¦Iā€™m pretty sureā€¦ :slight_smile: !

73 de Marty, KN0CK

Nice, but please try to make bit better price for GPIO board first :smiley:

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@martywittrock, great, do you have familiarity with the SDRAngel codebase? Toggling GPIO via the API is easy, but inserting hooks into the application a bit more involved.

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@andrewback,

Iā€™ve looked at the code by a pull from Github and I think that a completely new function call for the GPIO could be called during SDRAngelā€™s normal operation by polling it at a convenient spot in the overall implementation. Obviously I would have to consult Edouard (@F4EXB) about this - but your biggest ā€˜bang for the Euroā€™ would be to send Edouard the same board and have us collaborate on it - Edouard from a code perspective and I can do a hardware implementation for it for bandswitching, PTT, and PA control - this is something Iā€™ve wanted to do, but had planned to do that via LattePandaā€™s Arduino hooks. But this puts a completely new spin on all that.

Again, if you send Edouard a board for his use, and I get a board for HW implementation, THAT would be a incredibly great post and would finally attract everyone to itā€¦But @9a4db (Djani) is rightā€¦Price may have to be adjusted a little to bring the hoard of Hams clammering to buy them.

Bring it on, Andrewā€¦!!

73 de Marty, KN0CK

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Even better option :-1
1 :- Setup R0 with FileSource as source.
2 :- Setup R1 with LimeSDR as source.
3 :- Change R0 to LimeSDR as source.
4 :- Remove last device (R1)

R0 is now configured with RX2 on LimeSDRā€¦Works a treatā€¦

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Hi Marty,

Great to see that youā€™re keen to support! However, we do only have 1x GPIO board that we can allocate to this. So if @F4EXB is interested in developing software support I can arrange for this to be sent to him (or someone else). At this stage software support is priority.

Cheers,

Andrew

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@andrewback,

Letā€™s see what his response isā€¦

@F4EXB - Edouard,

Lime Microsystems is looking to extend the GPIO from the LimeSDR to an outboard solution and has a hardware board for that purpose. I requested that two boards be sent for the purpose of supporting this GPIO, one for you on the Software side and another for my HW side to verify and collaborate. However, there is only one board available and the Software development is key. Do you have any interest in seeing this GPIO board for the LimeSDR for SW development thereof? The GPIO board would be useful in SDRAngel as a means to extend bandswitching filters, PTT function, PA control, etc. and would be extensible to SDRAngel. Let @andrewback know if there is any interest by you to look into SW development of the GPIO for the Lime - this is just a request, and not a new task.

73 de Marty, KN0CK

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We donā€™t need a whole GPIO board. A very simple circuit can take in three octal bits and switch 8 independent devices. May need one more line to clock a latch if the signals are momentary. We just need to assign control to an output.

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@Axeman - Lance,

In the early go that was my thought, tooā€¦It would be pretty easy to implement.

73 de Marty, KN0CK

Hello Marty,

I suppose this can be controlled with LimeSuite API so this part would be fine. Then how do you see the user interface? Would it be a switchboard like interface where you switch bits on or off? I am not too keen in making it too complex. Any logic should be taken out at scripting level. Scripting through web API is still a long way to go but for that purpose I think it is the way to go.

Best regards,
Edouard.

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