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It's starting to look like a Radio

A project log for PortableSDR

Fully stand-alone HF (Shortwave) Software Defined Transceiver & Vector Network Analyzer. Designed for rugged portable use. Highly hackable.

michael-r-coltonMichael R Colton 07/14/2014 at 07:266 Comments

Finally, waterfall and audio working at the same time! I said in the last update that I was going to work on a DMA display driver, but I decided I could be lazier and use interrupt priority to fake running multiple, time dependant tasks. The audio capture and playback interupt has the highest priority, then the FFT/Filtering/IFFT, and then whatever is left goes to drawing the display. It's still a mess, but it's progress.

This video also shows off the audio filtering, and how I want to do the menu system.

I hope you like it!

Discussions

Michael R Colton wrote 07/27/2014 at 04:42 point
Hi Techie.

Yes, I intend on adding a whole lot more to the right side, but if it turns out I don't need it, I'll just widen the waterfall. Every SDR/panadapter/spectrum analyzer I've seen has a horizontal waterfall/spectrum display. I thought, since the knob is on the side turning up and down, it might make sense to orient the waterfall so up on the display meant up in frequency and could be reached by turning the knob up. Also I thought it might look cool. It would be easy enough to rotate it though.

Originally I was thinking I'd lock the display bandwidth, to make the interface simpler, but as I play with it, I find myself missing that ability, so I probably will add that. I also think I am going to add an IF shift function, that would accomplish the display offset you describe.

I think I mentioned before I'm planning on adding a mixer so it can be used on 2m (we'll see how well that works) and it would be pretty easy to adjust the mixer so it can shift the PSDRs operational coverage up to the 68Mhz IF the FT817 uses instead. I'll leave that modification up to you.

Sounds like you have some cool stuff in the works for your FT817. I'd be interested in following your progress. I have an 817 too (my only real HF radio), and I love it. I wanted to make a Bluetooth interface for it, but I haven't gotten to it.

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techie wrote 07/22/2014 at 00:41 point
Is the intent to add more items on the right side of the display? If not, it appears to be a lot of wasted space..

I would flip the waterfall 90 degrees, and run it horizontally across the upper 1/2 or 2/3 of the screen, and put the remaining indicators in the lower section.


Other things that would be nice:

Adjustable display bandwidth, up to ~100Khz.

The ability to shift the display to one side or the other..

[I operate mostly VHF, especially 6m, where most domestic activity is above the calling frequency, due to the DX window immediately below. I would love to be able to sit on 50.125, and display a 50-100 Khz wide segment starting at .120.]

The ability to flip from centered to offset and back would be nice.

My intended use would be as a panadapter/secondary receiver for a FT-817, tapping into the 68.33Mhz IF.

I don't see this as a replacement for the 817 for my application, since I need 50/144/432 (and 222 and 1296 via transverters).

I also have, or am designing/building, various accessories to interface to the 817, such as the IK1ZYW keypad/display for direct frequency entry/transverter math, and a yet to be built switching matrix driven from the 817 and IK1ZYW keypad, that will automatically route RF, PTT, TX Inhibit, and Enable lines to the the correct transverter/amp/antenna/etc, based on the selected band and LO offset. The idea is that I will be able to enter the desired frequency on the keypad, or step bands up or down on the 817, and everything else will track as I move from band to band.

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Michael R Colton wrote 07/15/2014 at 22:23 point
There are some pretty good tricks on soldering chips like that, these days I can do them quite consistently (they used to scare me though.)

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j0z0r pwn4tr0n wrote 07/15/2014 at 20:59 point
I think I'm just the most vocal fan, lol. This project is very interesting to me because of the small size, although I will admit it caught my eye because I have that same screen. Also it's one of the first software defined radio projects that has been made with a barebones radio and a micro-controller; most of the time it is a USB dongle, some software running on a laptop, and a cobbled-together antenna.
I'm not sure I could reliably solder the STM32F4, although I have done some in that package with less leads. I can wait for the final revision tho; a reflow oven is on my list of projects to help me complete more projects

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Michael R Colton wrote 07/14/2014 at 16:57 point
Thanks! I'm happy with how it's progressing, but I have a lot more stuff in mind for it, it's a very long way from what I imagine its final form to be.

The PSDR1 that I've been working on wasn't really meant to be the final board design either, so it isn't super well suited to working on its own. I'm going to start work on the next PCB version soon, I think. That said, if you are interested in one of the PSDR1 PCBs, let me know. I'll send you one for free (for being my biggest fan so far!)

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j0z0r pwn4tr0n wrote 07/14/2014 at 07:48 point
Nice progress update, the interface looks intuitive. And this isn't even it's final form! I can't wait to see more, I will build one for my own backpacking uses. Thanks for sharing!

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