OpenHPSDR for VHF/UHF/Microwave, version 2.0 by
Contents
1. Apache s current openHPSDR related products include the ANAN 10E the ANAN 10 the ANAN 100 the ANAN 100D the ANAN 200D and the Angelia All of these radios have receive coverage from 10 kHz through 55 MHz and transmit coverage of the Amateur bands from 160 through 6 meters The Angelia has a maximum RF output of 500 mW The ANAN IOE and the ANAN 10 have a maximum RF output of 10 Watts and the other ANAN radios have a maximum RF output of 100 watts The Angelia is a special purpose product with dual phase locked receive channels suitable for diversity reception The ANAN 1OE and the ANAN 100 permit up to 4 receivers and the ANAN 10 ANAN 100D and the ANAN 200D permit up to 7 receivers The ANAN I1OE uses a 14 bit ADC while the other radios all use 16 bit ADCs The ANAN 10E uses an EP3C25 FPGA The 10 and the 100 use the larger EP3C40 FPGA whereas the 100D uses an even larger EP4CE115 and the 200D uses the still larger EPACGX150 The 10 and the 100 have 16 MB of FLASH RAM and the 100D and 200D have 128 MB The 100D and the 200D each have 32 Mbit of SRAM the 10 and the 100 have none A spreadsheet comparing several of the different ANAN models is here Apache Labs also sells the Hermes board which is no longer available from TAPR VI Hermes Lite There is currently an openHPSDR interest group led by Steve Haynal KF7O that is working on a cheaper version of Hermes called Hermes Lite The main differences between the units are 1 Hermes Lite use2. Hermes radios that I will discuss below and by the time you read this some of them may have been incorporated into my system Below 1s a picture of Pandora with 4 installed daughter cards I took this image from the openHPSDR website as I was too lazy to open up one of my Pandora boxes to show the insides mH if j 1 fb phe PPE E The board in the foreground is the LPU power supply The next board is the DDC receiver Mercury the board above that 1s the DUC transmitter Penelope the board above that is the USB computer interface board Ozy and the hardware enclosed in the aluminum case at the very top of the picture with ribbon cable coming out the back is Alex the set of HF filters The board sitting behind the Pandora with a large heat sink visible below the circuit board is the PennyWhistle 160 6 meter amplifier which will deliver 16 20 watts output with 250 mW drive supplied by either Penelope or Pennylane Here is a picture of the Atlas backplane with its 6 board slots p The Mercury DDC Receiver is shown below USERS TIE TTETTEHTTSTTETTEITTERITEITPHITRITES E IIETPRIPTTIETPITETECHITEITOITHTETTOHTUT RTI r E n F L d MEO ru o OM NUIT EJSIT S a ec me at ee So B moms m m m m n CF ow FEM AJ L S ELLE BELL M EC nd 1 pa E m fry p 8r pL Fae c MB o aiam L B E LI 7 JI wil ia ee ee ae E
3. both derived from the KISS Konsole model One piece is a server that is directly connected to the openHPSDR radio hardware and that does the DSP processing and radio control This server software runs on a headless computer with no video monitor keyboard or mouse and the operator has no direct communications with that computer software All communications are through the second piece of software Also there are no physical connections to the SDR server or its associated radio hardware for microphone audio input CW key input PTT input or receive audio output All of these connections are made via the Ethernet The second piece of software is the C Sharp SDR Controller shown in the block diagram above The C Sharp SDR Controller software is the user interface and is located on the logging computer at which the operator sits That computer can be located either at the radio site or remotely as long as there 1s an Ethernet connection available This SDR Controller accepts input from the user either directly or via NIMM and it 1s responsible for all communications with the individual radio server units and for assigning footswitches microphone CW key keyer receive audio and transverters to the appropriate IF radio automatically with no need for user intervention The CW key microphone and footswitches are all connected to this computer I also did retain the ability to use the Hardware SDR Controller with this system but I am not curre
4. E T 7 j rad MEI ITI M E a JN T m oe mar yt 5 Wiii al it Bali a oe emen a 1 T1 ee rT Eiis E Bg caa Er p ede ice ends Pa J T EE EM EMEMEMEEMIJE LEM NE MEE ME OE M M OMNI IV Second Generation Architecture In 2009 it was decided that a single board transceiver would be the next openHPSDR project It was to be named Hermes The Mercury transmitter and Penelope receiver code were successfully placed into one FPGA in 2009 and in 2010 it was decided to add an Ethernet interface to the board By mid 2012 the Hermes boards were available for purchase on the TAPR website and on October 1 2012 Hermes became available from the Apache Labs website as well A block diagram of Hermes is below taken from the openHPSDR Hermes Wiki page ER Line out aa ermes Hardware block Diagram CONES TLV320AIC23B paces 4 doc Mic in Open collector ULN2003AD outputs LDF filter switching IDC Header Alex amp 4 sa ADC ADC UBHS9CCLM Analog inputs 2 F Ethernet power Irerface detect 25Mh Anti alias KSZ9021RL En3C40Q240C8N Mn dara anni IC JTA Cuni ADSTAAARU fiter x2 PTT Out Goa ADC S 10 Differential Clock LTC2200CUP S Attenuator LPF a ded SN65LVDM1800 Analog Domain Hermes cat m VIA a abbcandbucan 7X XP IY 7 Aralag Domain gee g HF to 6M transceiver b Y Both Hermes and the earlier Atlas Penelope Mercury h
5. Server module were 1 Adds capability for server to receive commands from client software so that server and radio can be controlled remotely by the client software 2 Adds adjustable FFT Size for Spectrum and Waterfall There was previously only one small FFT size that was hardwired in This is not acceptable for weak signal work FFT size is now adjustable from 4096 to 524288 To do this I had to split the audio FFT processing from the graphic FFT processing and I used FFTW and the C wrapper for it named FFTWSharp I had to extend the FFTSharp dll to implement Wisdom That is described near the bottom of this page 3 Adds CW sidetone using default computer sound playback device Because C does not have audio support I used the CSCore C wrapper for Windows audio functions for this 4 Adds receive audio using default computer sound playback device Previously there was receive audio available only at the openHPSDR hardware Although receive audio was created in the computer from IQ data it was sent back to the radio and could not previously be listened to through the computer Because C does not have audio support I used the CSCore C wrapper for Windows audio functions for this 5 Server sends Spectrum Waterfall data to client over the Ethernet 6 Server can send CW sidetone data to client over the Ethernet This is not used with current mode of operation where CW is generated at the client 7 Adds Wisdom FFT optimization to
6. and change bands that way being taken directly to that frequency Running the Bands from 50 MHz through 24 GHz becomes a matter of just sequentially clicking on the small bandscope for each band making the contact and then clicking on the small bandscope for the next band or typing the desired frequency for the next band into NIMM All the while the second band can be parked in the Aux radio position monitoring the liaison frequency at all times and ready to transmit with just a tap on the footswitch or a click on the MOX control It is not necessary in the course of usual operations to directly access the radio servers but as noted above the servers can be easily accessed by clicking the VNC button When that is done a VNC session of the server immediately pops up on the screen The server GUI is shown below ixl SMeter Avg 105 0 Inst 111 3 UN NEN E FWD Pwr REV Pwr LA TE i i Wit Un lu Lm nil up ij ii M ener in i m SY E 4 T i 1 e a sie e Hh Quick S B Bass Cut E Mic AGC on Sine ADC Band 4m v AGC Sow I show Spectrum Memory ANF NR Speech gocan fas m 5 dB Step Size 10Hz Mode CWL v Show Waterfall smo ra T nei T we VOX Hang mox TUN sie I ase i 4 33 egy i eee m Mic Gain wi Squelch C 10 C 75 C 50 6 25 Y Sidetone zs E Ap Bandscope Fiter ZOOM OUT ZOOM IN Fiter Width iss m F z9 UM Per wee a S S ECT Pe a
7. controller bar easily although you will likely need to scroll from left to right to see the whole bar The bar has two rows of radiobuttons as they are called The top row is for the Main Radio and the bottom row is for the Aux Radio The left two thirds of the bar have radio buttons for HF and each of the bands from 50 MHz to 24 GHz Clicking on any one of these buttons in the top row will place that radio band in the Main Radio position Clicking any one of these buttons in the bottom row will place that radio band in the Aux Radio position Just to the right of the radio buttons are two rows of buttons for the footswitch the microphone the CW key and two audio channels Clicking on any one of these buttons in the upper row will connect that button s hardware to the Main Radio Clicking on any one of these buttons in the bottom row will connect that button s hardware to the Aux Radio Each time a new band radio is selected as either the Main or Aux Radio the hardware assigned to each button will be connected to the appropriate radio To the right of these buttons are buttons to mute the audio for the Main or Auxiliary radios At the extreme right of the controller bar are buttons to reset the microphone or receive audio These are primarily for testing purposes One can also change frequencies by left clicking on the spectrum display The frequency will move to the frequency represented by the point that was clicked on Finally one can c
8. for the VNC executable file which 1s 8 Ethemet called when the VNC button is clicked Hardwired During use the software system provides a superb operating experience On one screen the user sees all of the individual bandscopes and NIMM If the operator sees an interesting signal on one of the small bandscopes he left clicks on that to bring radio to the Main Radio position or if he wishes he can instead right click it to bring it to the Aux Radio position If necessary he then left clicks on the signal of interest to center it in the passband He then just steps on the footswitch or activates the MOX control on the radio display and either speaks into the microphone or uses the CW key to send his information to the other station He types the other station s call and report into the appropriate NIMM entry boxes and hits the Enter key He is then ready for the next contact He can either stay on that frequency or move about that band by either left clicking on the spectrum using the up down arrow keys on the keyboard dialing the knob on the ShuttlePro or typing a frequency into NIMM Or he can change bands by either left or right clicking on the small bandscope he desires to use which will bring it to the Main or Aux Radio position or he can click on the radiobutton for the desired band on either the Main or Aux row of the Controller Bar Or he can type a frequency for another band into the appropriate NIMM entry window
9. server When server software is first run on a particular machine optimization of the FFT routines 1s performed 8 Adds zoom of spectrum and waterfall displays 9 Adds frequency stepping using up down arrows on keyboard 10 Adds keyboard adjustable step size for frequency adjustment 11 Adds keyboard adjustable mode selection 9 11 were added so that a ShuttlePRO could be used to modify these parameters The client module has the following main features 1 Sends via the Ethernet commands to the servers for the radios selected as the Main and Auxiliary radios to control all necessary functions of these two radios and their associated servers 2 Constantly receives via the Ethernet and displays Spectrum Waterfall data from all radios simultaneously so that all bandscopes are always visible for all bands 3 Receives via the Ethernet receive audio from the servers for the radios selected as the Main and Auxiliary radios 3 Interfaces with NIMM logging program appearing to NIMM as two Kenwood TS 2000s covering HF bands and all bands from 50 MHz through 24 GHz inclusive 4 Connects switches footswitches CW key keyer microphone 2 receive audio channels with appropriate server radio automatically 5 Creates CW sidetone on default audio playback device on logging computer Because C does not have audio support I used the CSCore C wrapper for Windows audio functions for this 6 Adds multiple waterfall palettes origina
10. that is no longer possible In this paper I will focus on the openHPSDR project or High Performance Software Defined Radio project as these are the radios that I use at W3SZ The openHPSDR project was originally called just HPSDR but for a variety of reasons not germane to my discussion today the project 1s now officially termed the openHPSDR project I have previously presented talks and papers detailing the great importance of having full time bandscopes for VHF UHF Microwave work including a talk at this conference in 2012 where I presented the first iteration of my openHPSDR VHF UHF microwave controller and hopefully everyone reading this 1s convinced of the necessity of having full time bandscopes on each of the bands through 432 or 903 or 1296 MHz I won t argue the small point of where the cutoff lies with an additional bandscope for 2 3 GHz or 903 MHz or 1296 MHz and up The reader is referred to prior presentations in this paper and in this paper and at this link 1f he she remains in doubt on this point II History of openHPSDR In 2005 Phil Covington started the High Performance SDR HPSDR project using a motherboard with an FPGA and a USB 2 0 interface Around the same time Phil Harman then VK6APH and now VK6PH and Bill Tracey KD5TFD developed a sound card replacement for the SDR 1000 also using a motherboard with an FPGA and a USB 2 0 interface This was the XYLO SDR group These groups merged in early 2006 and
11. Gigabit network interface as I needed this horsepower in order to achieve adequate bandwidth for the multiple incoming VNC instances At the time I put that system together Apple s Ethernet performance was far better than that available with any easily available Windows based hardware I was very successful in reducing both the network bandwidth required and CPU utilization with the new software even though the new software provides for simultaneous streaming of receive audio from two SDRs to the client computer in addition to seven full time bandscopes radio control etc The network bandwidth of the new system is is on the order of 0 5 of a 100 Mbps bandwidth connection that is on the order of only 500 kbps Running on a 3 6 GHz Intel I3 4160 the current system gives approximately 25 30 CPU utilization The block diagram of the new system 1s below Individual NSF TI SDRs Bandswitch C Sharp SDR Server Wired nr wireless Ethernet link C Sharp Mic Reyer SUR Controller EA GAT via virtual G Old part Nahi Logger Computer You can see that the controller now consists of only one program labeled C Sharp SDR Controller that interfaces with NIMM and the individual SDRs and their C Sharp SDR Servers The link with NIMM is via virtual serial ports and the link with the radios 1s via a wired or wireless Ethernet link using UDP packets To create the new SDR Controller I basically wrote two new pieces of software
12. HF radio is to be enabled and GHz 192 168 1 111 displayed HF 192 168 10 55 HF ub Setup O X Server IP ransverters GainByBand Common Parameters Band LO MHz LO Offset Hz 50 MHz 144 MHz Displayed on the right is the Transverter menu page on 222 MHz which the user sets the LO frequency and offset for each 432 MHz band The Gain By Band menu page allows one to adjust for ssw large band by band disparities in transverter drive level 1296 MHz requirements More modest differences in drive level can be jaye uu dealt with using the Drive control on the Main and Auxiliary radios 3456 MHz 5760 MHz 10368 MHz il iat JUUEUUUUUU 24132 MHz 24164 ud Setup m E X CW Pitch Hz 700 Se On the left is the fourth menu page accessed by the Setup Sidetone Volume button on the Controller Bar It allows the user to set the p uem CW sidetone pitch and volume It also allows the user to m WinKeyer Control COM Port choose Ethernet or Hardwired connections for CW MM em keying receive audio transmit microphone or digital CW Key Input audio and MOX PTT control It also has controls to A set the waterfall pallet to set the COM port used for CW Receive Audio a keying input and PTT footswitch input to set the COM amp Ethemet MOX Control ae Ohmna port that is used for WinKeyer control if this function is O Hardwired not assigned to NIMM and to set the location where n the software looks
13. HPSDR org was created Phil Covington developed the ATLAS backplane and the OZY board to replace the XYLO board He then developed the Quick Silver board which was the initial prototype for the Mercury receiver board Mercury development began in 2006 and continued through 2007 with Phil Harman VK6PH acting as project leader In March 2008 TAPR agreed to fund the Mercury development proposal Since that time TAPR has continued to provide development funding for the openHPSDR hardware and the openHPSDR hardware has been available for purchase on the TAPR website Additional sources of the openHPSDR hardware have included Gerd Loch of Loch Leiterplatten GmbH and more recently Apache Labs owned and managed by Abhi Abhishek Arunoday Prakas who was the primary PCB layout team member for Hermes I recommend that you peruse both the TAPR website at http www tapr org hpsdr index html and the Apache Labs website at https apache labs com if you are interested in purchasing openHPSDR hardware To get a more complete view of the openHPSDR project than I can provide here refer to the openHPSDR website at http openhpsdr org III First Generation Architecture The initial openHPSDR architecture was that of a common backplane into which various plug in boards were connected The graphic below taken from the openHPSDR website openhpsdr org gives further detail Communicator v Magister Metis USB or Ethernet 113 B8v DC in In the
14. NF Gate v Preamp Sidetone Squelch Mode CWU v Bandscope Filter AGC Fast y Setup 85 ZOOM OUT ZOOM IN Step Size 10Hz v The left three quarters of the Main and Aux Radio bandscopes are occupied by a spectrum display on the top and a waterfall beneath To these displays I added zoom capability and also the ability to increase the FFT size up to 524288 I generally use an FFT size of 262144 which gives adequately small bin size just less than 1 Hz when running a sampling rate of 192 kHz On the right you can see the digital frequency readout and the S meter at the top and the usual radio controls below including receive volume AGC Gain Filter Width Noise Blankers Noise Reduction Automatic Notch Filter Preamp on off CW Sidetone on off Squelch controls Mode AGC Type and frequency step size Transmit controls include Drive level Mic Gain Speech Processor on off and Level and Noise Gate on off and Level In addition there are of course Tune and MOX controls There is also a Setup button which brings up a setup menu to allow the user to set some band specific parameters from the client This menu is shown below MA 50 MHz Setupform O X Display Waterfall The band specific setup menu allows the user to set Spectrum Grid High Level dBm 50 i maximum and minimum signal levels for the spectrum Max 50 k es 100 Low Level dBm and waterfall displays to activa
15. OpenHPSDR for VHF UHF Microwave version 2 0 by Roger Rehr W3SZ I Introduction The first presentation that I gave on the use of DSP techniques in Amateur Radio was fourteen years ago in 2001 At that time I presented at the NEWS Conference a talk on the use of DSP techniques in Amateur weak signal work titled A Brief Discussion of Some Software DSP Solutions I ve Tried I did not use the term Software Defined Radio once The software I discussed included Brian Beezley K6STI s DSP Blaster Leif Asbrink SM5BSZ s MS DOS PC Receiver which Leif was just porting to Linux at that time and which had not yet received the name Linrad Bob Larkin W7PUA s DSP 10 hardware and software and Spectran by IZPHD and IK2CZL Gerald Youngblood s now famous 4 part QEX series titled A Software Defined Radio for the Masses had not yet appeared but would be published in the second half of 2002 and early 2003 The first Flex Radio product the SDR 1000 would appear in 2003 two years after the talk I gave here A lot has changed since then Software defined radios are now used by experimenter and appliance operator alike There are SDRs with knobs e g Elecraft KX3 and SDRs without knobs There are SDRs usable by the appliance operator e g Elecraft KX3 FlexRadios and those more suited for the experimenter openHPSDR projects Although I was able to cover the totality of the DSP solutions available to the Amateur Radio operator in 2001 1n one paper
16. RH 3 iom Doom Rn SiP 32 08 02 14 27 WZ1V 129610 59 59 FN31RH 6 Oc m n Emm E 08 02 14 54 W3HMS 129609 59 59 FN10MF 6 m 35cm F F8 row Fio Fh F12 08 02 15 11 W3HMS 902098 49 599 5999 FN10MF 6 3c s wi i Heading appears here when Call history UserText appears 81 21 546 ZOOM OUT ZOOM IN Step Size 10Hz v El M2 Terrestria Pa OE Fie T Help 419 Stop W3SZ Multi SDR Controller 3 Tum L Foot Mc Key Mite Mde 1 1 MAIN 50 144 222 432 903 1296 2304 3456 5760 10G 24G L LI e lt x 3 180 210 240 270 360 AUX 50 144 222 432 903 1296 2304 3456 5760 10G 24G e O Audio 1 Audo2 Setup s cs ta moe o 6 2 AN F mle mM Zen The Server Client combination provide full time separate bandscopes for 50 144 222 432 903 and 1296 MHz and another bandscope for 2 3 5 10 and 24 GHz In addition an HF bandscope radio can be enabled if desired There is full integration with NIMM Plus As noted above there is automatic switching of microphone audio CW Key Keyer Footswitch receive audio channels for the two selected radios and of the 2 3 5 10 and 24 GHz transverters to the microwave IF radio The system is designed to allow remote operation On the left side of the screen is the SDR Controller Software Client and on the right is NIMM The small bandscopes belong to those bands that are not selected as either the Main Radio or the Auxiliary Radio The two larger bandscopes belong to the Main Radio on top and the Auxilia
17. ardware provide transceive capability covering approximately 0 55 MHz Published performance Specifications include Blocking Dynamic Range no detectable gain compression below ADC overload Dynamic Range 125 dB Image Rejection gt 110 dB Full Duplex Transmitter two tone 3 order IMD 50 dBc 400 mW output 500 mW RF output on 160 10 m amateur bands 350 mW on 6 m Noise Floor 135 dBm in 500 Hz Seven user configurable open collector outputs Separate open collector PTT connection Stereo outputs at line level and headphone level Low phase noise master clock 140 dBc Hz 1 kHz at 14 MHz Hermes board size 160 mm x 120 mm 8 layers 8 7 B 33 Es NN Digital Domain Below is a picture of the Hermes board taken from the Hermes User Manual version 1 18 On the right edge near the top are two gold SMA connectors used for RF out and RF in Below that is the 1 Watt audio amplifier output Below that is the edge connector with 26 pins for PTT line level stereo audio in and out stereo headphone out 3 digital inputs 2 analog inputs 7 open collector outputs speaker output and several ground connections The gold SMA connector at the bottom of the right edge is for 10 MHz in in case GPS locking is desired On the left edge the top connector is for microphone in The next connector is for headphone and the third and last connector in that triad is for CW key keyer Below that on the lef
18. e if desired I will not discuss the hardware controller in detail here You may read more about it in this paper and in this paper and at this link The image below shows the main monitor screen when the new C Sharp SDR Controller Client software and NIMM are running TS 2000 TS 2000 10368045 75 sux wise ca 432286 20 swox wise co RT 000 XT CW RT 000 XT CW 50 MHz ne 250 10368040 432280 Ude Qibelo aache Mae GLY choice 903 MHz 1296 MHz 432281 Vedan isi x 303 070 503 080 0 RE 296 250 1296 260 10368042 4322824 19 s La e y u 10368043 432283 Weit Weil piua Aapa E 10368044 4322844 aa NH a m f 065 e e dab e to 27 Gater GOI Pissis aba Sas io E 10368045 432285 ao Se s a zi i lS 0 msi 3 cm CW TS 2000 zi Ea 10368047 432287 4 File Edit View Tools Config Window Help 10368048 1 2288 1 PH cv Grid Em 10368049 1 4322894 2m 126m 6 6 OR se 14 gun F2 F3Tu F4 FS 10368050 322904 35cm dew ee sc Stop Wi Lo Edi M o 10368051 32291 Heading appears here when Call history UserText appears 10368052 432292 81 42 21 546 im 8 12 2015 21 43 19Z ARRL UHF Aug ham s3db 5 432286 20 CW TS 2000 MM DD HH MM Call Freq Snt Rev Grid PH File Edit View Tools Config Window Help 08 02 13 43 K3TUF 103681 59 59 FN10 12 cv Grid 08 02 14 03 K3TUF 902098 62 599 599 FN10 6 08 02 14 20 WZ1V 222110 00 59 59 FN31RH 3 2m 08 02 14 21 WZ1V 432104 99 59 59 FN31
19. graphic above you can see the Atlas backplane running vertically on the left of the graphic Atlas can accommodate up to 6 daughter boards At the top connected to Atlas is a communication board connecting the openHPSDR hardware to a computer Ozy was the first such board and it connected to the computer by USB Magister was an updated version of Ozy Metis 1s the most recently released communications board connecting the openHPSDR hardware to the computer via Ethernet Moving down the Atlas bus we see next Mercury Mercury is the Direct DownConversion DDC receiver Alex optionally connects to Mercury to provide filters I do not use Alex for my VHF and up work as it is not necessary for this purpose Next in line is a transmitter board Penelope was the first Direct UpConversion DUC transmitter produced by this project Pennylane is a newer version Either of these transmitters optionally connects to an amplifier and the Alex filters Next in line is Excalibur which is an optional time standard board with optional external 10 MHz input for GSP locking Janus was a sound interface card which is no longer needed Finally LPU is a linear power supply that takes 13 8 VDC in and supplies appropriate voltages to the Atlas connected boards An enclosure box named Pandora is available for this system Pandora measures approximately 12 x 9 x 5 5 inches My current station uses this Atlas backplane model for all of its radios although I do have some
20. hange the frequency by using the up or down arrows on the keyboard or by using a ShuttlePro device if one 1s available The C SDR Controller communicates with NIMM via virtual com ports using the NIMM CAT control facility NIMM thinks that the C SDR Controller is two Kenwood TS 2000s that cover HF plus all of the amateur bands between 50 MHz and 24 GHz inclusive The microwave server controls switching of the transverters for 2 GHz 24GHz via an N3FTI bandswitch These transverters all use a common IF radio The lower bands each have dedicated IF radios No manual switching of any hardware 1s required for operation between 50 MHz and 24 GHz As previously noted the C Sharp SDR Controller takes care of all hardware switching automatically All radio functions necessary for operation are available on the large Main and Aux Radio bandscopes as shown in the image below and discussed below Changing a control value on the large Main or Aux Radio Bandscopes will set the value of that control on the server software and thus on the appropriate hardware radio You may want to zoom in on this image to get a better view of the controls 432 MHz 5 0 2 00 432 220 432 240 432 260 432 280 432 300 432 320 432 340 432 360 432 i i I RAB Lap tartar ross RE FYE ES US PaA pa Mta ftd E WY ar Pa RD ry ten ht x fe enge rie i 1 b P E100dBm rn k 1 t t A hy NB1 Filter 7 23 dB NB2 NR A
21. l enhanced Spectran black white Linrad Linrad Log Linrad Auto 7 Adds spectrum waterfall zoom 8 Adds frequency adjustment by up down arrows 9 Adds key adjustable step size for frequency adjustment 10 Adds key adjustable mode selection 8 10 were added so that a ShuttlePRO could be used to select these parameters As described by its creator Phil Harman VK6PH K I S S Keep It Simple Stupid Konsole is a straightforward PC program that will allow beginners in SDR and DSP programming to get their feet wet KK is intended as a learning experience and not as a competitor or replacement for any existing Console code My use of KISS Konsole as the basis for this project was just what Phil had intended when he first wrote KISS Konsole back in 2009 I took a great starting point and added to it and modified it to make a software system that fulfilled my needs for my VHF UHF Microwave station With this new software the use ofa homebrew hardware controller as I used with the old system to automatically switch two footswitches the microphone the CW key and two receive audio channels to the desired radios is no longer necessary All switching is automatically done in software and direct physical connections to the micropohone audio CW key and PTT input jacks on the SDR radios are not needed and are not made Because it was previously discussed in detail and because it is no longer necessary although it can still be used with this softwar
22. l lego neg 226 zd pee The server s GUI is very similar to but not identical to the original GUI from Phil Harman VK6PH s KISS Konsole One of the major differences is the ability to zoom the waterfall and spectrum which was not present in the original software A hint at the wide variety of parameters that can be adjusted from the Setup button on the server s GUI is seen below E setupform X Conti igurati on Display AGC Noise Reduction Transmitter Ext Gn Alex Ethemet Ll T Ethemet Client Call Sign Configuration 20dB Mic Boost pnta Shown is the first tab labeled CEN sz TE Linein 192 168 1 77 Configuration There are 7 additional Sample Rate 10MHz Reference tabs containing a wide variety of l 2 Penelope Audio i Hz 192000 v O Atlas Mercury pennylane and CW Keying parameters that rarely need adjusting Local Computer n arm once set FFT Size 262144 Code Version Band FX Hardware Present Metis VU CW TEN Mercury VO Hemes _ ar n e Penelope Penelope PennyLane VO Pitch Hz 900 E PennyLane Excalibur Apollo Skip Version Checking Alexarias Sidetone Volume The original plan when I upgraded this software system was to use the Hardware SDR Controller when I was co located with the radios and to use the software only controller when operating my station remotely over a 5 mile wireless link However the software only controller has worked so well that I am not c
23. me just a couple of his many contributions PowerSDR and the other software discussed in this section can be downloaded from the openHPSDR downloads page There is also cuSDR which requires NVIDIA CUDA hardware and as of the time of the writing of this paper remains receive only Like PowerSDR cuSDR is Windows based GHPSDR and GNURADIO HPSDR are other available software packages for the openHPSDR hardware and both provide transceive capability The final piece of generally available software that we will discuss here is KISS Konsole which also provides transceive capability It was developed by Phil Harman VK6PH as a simpler alternative to PowerSDR suitable for experimentation and exploration by HPSDR users I have used it as the basis for the software that I have developed for my VHF UHF Microwave station and which I will discuss below KISS Konsole is windows based and is written in C C Sharp although in mid 2014 Jae Stutzman K5JAE reported porting KISS Konsole to Linux using the Mono Development Kit The ability for users to play with the code contained in KISS Konsole and PowerSDR was substantially increased when Microsoft decided to make the complete Visual Studio IDE Integrated Development Environment available as a free download in 2014 Previously only limited versions of the Visual Studio software had been available at no cost Currently Visual Studio Community 2013 1s the most recent version although Visual Studio Com
24. munity 2015 is due to be released sometime soon You may read about and download Visual Studio Community 2013 here If you are serious about programming with Visual Studio then you should also install NuGet which is a package manager for the Microsoft development platform With NuGet you will gain access to many third party addons to Visual Studio You can download NuGet from here VIII My Modified KISS Konsole Software Project In 2012 I presented at the combined PackRats NEWSGroup VHF UHF Microwave Conference a paper titled What s All This Multiple Bandscope Stuff Anyhow At that time I described the software and hardware that I had built to give me always on bandscopes on 50 144 222 432 and 1296 MHz with an additional always on bandscope that was shared among 903 MHz and 2 3 5 10 and 24 GHz That system has worked very well for me over the years The station control GUI actually consisted of several interlocking software pieces which is a less elegant solution than would be a solution consisting of only a single program Additionally because my solution used multiple instances of VNC Virtual Network Computing one for each radio this solution was not as efficient as it might be in terms of network utilization although I never experienced any network issues due to the fact that I carefully chose the VNC parameters to minimize network resource utilization The illustration below although simplified gives some idea of the comple
25. ntly using it To describe the project in list form In the first iteration of this software before I eliminated the need for the Hardware SDR Controller the basic VK6PH KISS Konsole Software attributes functions that were retained in my new Server module included Connects directly to the radio via Ethernet Receives baseband receive IQ data from the radio Receives mic input from the radio Receives key input from the radio Receives PTT input from the radio sends commands to the radio Sends processed receive audio back to the radio sends transmit IQ data back to radio Qu SE ey Oe cen However with the elimination of the need for the Hardware SDR Controller the functions of the server change substantially only 1 and 2 are unchanged 1 Connects directly to the radio via Ethernet 2 Receives baseband receive IQ data from the radio 3 Receives mic input via the Ethernet from the client and sends appropriate IQ data to the radio 4 Receives key input via the Ethernet from the client and sends appropriate IQ data to the radio 5 Receives PTT input via the Ethernet from the client and forwards to the radio 6 Receives commands from the client and forwards these commands to the radio 1f appropriate 7 Sends processed receive audio to the client 8 Microwave server receives band information from client and sends band information to N3FTI bandswitch Other major changes additions that I made to KISS Konsole when I created the
26. ort on the client computer As most modern computers do not have legacy serial ports this is most easily accomplished using a five dollar USB to serial adapter Using such an adapter also provides protective isolation between the external hardware and the computer As designed the software uses the following pin assignments on the DB9 connector Pin 1 Carrier Detect Footswitch center pin Pin 4 DTR CW Key er shell connection common pull up Pin 5 Ground Shield connected only at computer end Pin 6 DSR CW dash signal Pin 7 RTS footswitch shell connection pull up Pin 8 CTS CW dot signal Pin has a 10K resistor in series with the signal line Summary Always On bandscopes for each of the 50 MHz and up bands are essential to maintaining situational awareness of band conditions and activity particularly during contest activity The openHPSDR hardware software system provides a superb opportunity for the interested Amateur Radio Operator to delve into the world of Software Defined Radios providing opportunities for experimentation with both hardware and software I have presented a project for station automation and Always On bandscopes for a station covering 50 MHz through 24 GHz based on the openHPSDR hardware and the KISS Konsole software This provides for both local and remote operation and eliminates the need for hardware switching of receive and transmit audio CW keying input and MOX PTT input The software p
27. ove that band to the large Main Radio position and return the radio that was in the Main Radio position to its reserved small bandscope position Right clicking on a small bandscope will move that band to the large Aux Radio position and return the radio that was in that position to its reserved small bandscope position Double left clicking on the Main Radio or the Aux Radio while holding down the control key will return that radio to its small bandscope reserved position Secondly one can change bands or frequencies within a band by typing the frequency in the NIMM entry window If one types 5760125 into the NIMM entry window for the main radio then the Microwave radio will be placed in the Large Main Radio position and set to 5760 125 Similarly if one types 432100 into the NIMM entry window for the Aux Radio then the 432 MHz radio will be placed in the Large Aux Radio position and set to 432 100 Thirdly one can change bands by using the Controller Bar that is situated below the large Aux Radio bandscope This Controller Bar 1s shown below W3SZ Multi SDR Controller Ic e MAIN 50 144 432 O 903 196 0234 35 O 5760 10G O 24G D 5 T AUX 50 gt 144 e 432 O 903 19 O234 O35 O560 O16 O 24G D Audio Audio2 Setup If you are reading this on paper the details of this controller will be difficult to see If you are reading it from a PDF file you can zoom in 150 zoom will allow you to read the text on the
28. resented is highly adapted for my particular station and the intent 1s not for others to use the software presented as is but to take the ideas presented here and create their own Ideal Systems for use at their stations based on their particular circumstances The locations from which the source code for the server and client can be downloaded are given below Roger Rehr W3SZ August 15 2015 References are included as hyperlinks throughout the document There is further information on C Sharp SDR Controller and the Hardware SDR Controller on my web page http www nitehawk com w3sz CSharpsdrclientANDserverVersion2pt0 html and you can download the source code for this software from links on that page or from http www nitehawk com w3sz w3szclient zip for the client and from http www nitehawk com w3sz w3szserver zip for the server
29. ry Radio below starting at top left the small bandscope in the top left corner is 50 MHz Next to this small bandscope on its right is 144 MHz Next to that is the bandscope for 222 MHz Missing from the first spot in the next row 1s 432 MHz which is missing because it has been selected as the Aux Radio When another band is selected to be the Aux radio the 432 bandscope will return to small size and to this position To the right of this radio is the 903 MHz small bandscope To the right of 903 MHz is the 1296 MHz small bandscope On the left below the empty 432 MHz small bandscope space 1s another blank space which 1s reserved for the Microwave bandscope which has been selected as the Main Radio IF an HF radio were selected in the setup menu to the right of the empty space that is reserved for the small Microwave bandscope the HF small bandscope would appear Below the large Main and Aux bandscopes is the Controller Bar which will be discussed more below The NIMM entry windows for the Main and Aux Radios are situated immediately next to their respective large radio bandscopes To the right of the NIMM entry windows are the NIMM bandmaps for these bands Note that the bandmaps display the same frequency as their respective radio s bandscopes as they should Below the bandmaps is the NIMM log entry list and below that is the NIMM rotor control One can change bands in several ways First left clicking on a small bandscope will m
30. s a 12 bit ADC rather than a 16 bit ADC thus reducing digital dynamic range 2 Hermes Lite uses a BeMicro SDK FPGA board instead of an onboard FPGA 3 the Hermes Lite will cover 0 30 MHz rather than 0 55 MHz Anticipated cost for those who build their own is 150 or less There is a GitHub project page for Hermes Lite at https github com softerhardware Hermes Lite VII Hermes VNA Both Phil Harman VK6PH and Alex Shovkoplyas VE3NEA have written software that will turn the Hermes transceiver into a Vector Network Analyzer VNA An executable for Phil s software is available on the openHPSDR downloads page The source code 1s available here and as of the time of this writing the executable that is obtained by compiling this source code 1s newer and has better function than the executable file on the openHPSDR page Alex s VNA software is called Ham VNA and is available here VII Receiver and Transceiver Software The most full featured and most widely used software for the openHPSDR radios is PowerSDR which started with source code modified primarily by Bill Tracey KDSTFD and Doug Wigley W5WC from the FlexRadio PowerSDR software PowerSDR is written using Microsoft s C C Sharp programming language and runs on Windows Power SDR has been very actively maintained by Doug with Warren Pratt NROV making major contributions including replacing the original DttSP DSP code with his wdsp library and adding a new and novel noise blanker to na
31. t edge is the RJ45 Ethernet connector u Bn A e n3 n gt N 3 T dq l j Ca ci HEEL I LII 6664 lt AEJ y Pd 1 ew lt 2 gt i a A EEL LE E m uw ad E cw ciec K D7 apa PS jpe S Ti AR C72C73 c74 FLE ET p 9999009 4 DITE TY ch Ci2z5 G vvvy PIT BULL LLL LLL Lud RI44 Wm E E di 107 104 IN INN II Jr 18 jr Nr JN t wisg gt efe es m mim m ug i Ea a al a a he s z ie T j Di a Dt i2 ia bre DIS DIS DIF DIE bre j e IS mne H TTT aT TTT cree 107 cioe SE m C 5 79999990 IMIM D22 ss LI E e ijs gis Vom M TE A sv Seen eee 1 8 Ls 3 JC JC e Cl mad LAE N Ni c o x ee L ATTI cr 40189 vL 2t is Dim hn hohe hm ja fe he ja AN he je he fe se 2 M UY 4 d TIT eee ra Lu L mzs manekina Ga ee ie XIX C en T3 SIL AAA AL wW s 1 a eal de 2 m gt j Below is an illustration of a Hermes board that I ve placed in an ANAN 10 case sitting on top of a Pandora box so you can get some idea of the relative sizes of these two units _ au v o a P P sd uum o sug le guru yy UU uuu tu lab cs sd El FAIAGATE mim i ulk lu M m m Lu SSS rn Wl V Apache Labs As was noted above Abhi Abhishek Arunoday Prakash founded and owns and manages Apache Labs
32. te waterfall AGC is M H5 g ace O desired to set the maximum audio AGC level and to Sep 5 set sampling rate and FFT size Sample Rate The VNC button which you probably noticed sitting Max AGC Gain dB 70s Hz 192000 v just above the Setup button brings up a VNC ee connection to the server computer for the selected AMA vj radio allowing direct interaction with the server and providing access to a much larger selection of setup parameters which are of the set once and forget thereafter variety Some software settings are available from a Setup button on the Controller Bar The four setup menu pages that are accessed via this button are for parameters that are either common to all radios or which are best addressed from a common menu where all bands are available ud Setup E X server P Transverters GainByBand Common Parameters Band Remote IP 50 MHz 182 168 1 109 Radio Manager COM Port 0143 V 1 144 MHz 192 168 1 37 a The first such menu shown on the left 1s labeled Server IP and allows the user to set the IP 222MHz 192 168 1 113 Audio Manager COM Port CENE F address for each radio s server On this menu page 432 Miz 192 168 1149 the user also sets the COM ports for connecting N1MM Main Radio COM Port with NIMM and for connecting to the legacy ae COMIB v Hardware SDR Controller if it is used On this page cpm ME A there is also a checkbox to allow the user to choose COMI whether or not the
33. urrently using the hardware controller even for local operation A key to the excellent performance of the software only contoller has been keeping Ethernet bandwidth low Radio control functions and the seven always on bandscopes consume approximately 450 500 kbps 0 5 Mbps When I initially added two receive audio channels with no compression that pushed the bandwidth up to approximately 2500 kbps 2 5 Mbps I therefore added the Opus codec to the software That reduces the required Ethernet bandwidth for the receive audio streams for two radios to less than 50 kbps 0 05 Mbps so that total Ethernet bandwidth remains on the order of 500 kbps During transmit mode the microphone audio channel requires a bandwidth of approximately 25 kbps 0 025 mbps or less CW keying requires only a small bandwidth because I send only state changes from key up to key down or vice versa I have placed a short less than 10 minute video demonstrating the operation of the system on You Tube It should be watched in as high definition mode as your system will permit The URL for this video is https youtu be CfOgDMXIpJQ Hardware Connections The client uses the default audio devices on the client computer Thus the microphone needs to be set up to be the default Windows recording device and the headphones or speaker need to be set up to be the default Windows playback device As noted above the CW key and PTT control footswitch are accessed through a COM p
34. xity of this earlier solution Each green colored box represents a different piece of software written by me for this earlier project Mac Pra Dual Quad Core Audic Java v NC Radio Manager TCP Server Controller GDR GUls Cea Appescript Cocoa Appescript XiCode 4 Objecthe C Receive Parallax Propeller Audio Based Audio Out Control Hardware apli Parallax Propeller Mic Based Input Footpedals mi ellie UW Key i Individual SDRs Modmec Powe SDR VNC Sener CAT via virtual C Ohl port Visual Basic Interface Program Linrad Bandscope CAT via virtual COM part H3FTI Bandswitch Nikil Logger Computer My primary goals with the current project that I describe in this paper were four The first goal was to implement the entire Control system as a single program that would seamlessly connect with the NIMM logging program and be seen by NIMM as a single radio covering all bands from 50 MHz through 24 GHz The second goal was to reduce substantially the network bandwidth required for communication between the individual radio SDR servers and the SDR Controller software The third goal was to eliminate the need for a Hardware Controller The fourth goal was to provide the capability for remote operation from a computer not co located with the radios by means of either a wired or wireless Ethernet connection I had to run my previous system on a Mac Pro Dual Quad Core with Apple s
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