Welcome to the new FlexRadio Community! Please review the new Community Rules and other important new Community information on the Message Board.
Need the latest SmartSDR, Power Genius, Tuner Genius and Antenna Genius Software?

SmartSDR v3.8.23 and the SmartSDR v3.8.23 Release Notes
SmartSDR v2.12.1 and the SmartSDR v2.12.1 Release Notes
Power Genius XL Utility v3.8.9 and the Power Genius XL Release Notes v3.8.9
Tuner Genius XL Utility v1.2.11 and the Tuner Genius XL Release Notes v1.2.11
Antenna Genius Utility v4.1.8
If you are having a problem, please refer to the product documentation or check the Help Center for known solutions.
Need technical support from FlexRadio? It's as simple as Creating a HelpDesk ticket.

SDR-101

Member ✭✭✭
edited June 2020 in SmartSDR for Windows
Here is a link to my most recent presentation that I presented to a full house at the Palomar Amateur Radio Club in San Diego today.  It covers the history of the different architectures used by Ham Radio Operators over the years and the development of SDR's.  It goes into a bit of detail as to how SDR's work and  more important shows the benefits to Ham Radio Operators for using Modern Radios.  I definitely include my personal opinions and prejudices which you are free to agree or disagree with


Please feel to share this link with anyone and everyone...

Modern Radio SDR-101 V1.pdf

 

https://www.dropbox.com/l/qMaun4aqLPfoh5zQyVz4du

I hope you will find it interesting and informative.

Welcome!

It looks like you're new here. Sign in or register to get started.
Sign In
Register

Comments

  • Member ✭✭
    edited March 2018
    Thanks Howard, I'll share this will my local club members. Lot of interest in my 6500.
    This will help explain how we got here.

    Dan --- KC4GO

  • Member
    edited June 2016
    Outstanding, Howard.  Thanks for sharing this excellent presentation.

    Cliff (N4CCB)
  • Member ✭✭✭
    edited June 2020
    Thanks, Howard. Good stuff. My only nit, would be a suggestion to add to your history lesson Armstrong's regenerative detector as a bridge between the crystal receiver and the superset. The regen ruled for decades as a combination of 1) an increased sensitivity crystal detector when not oscillating, and 2) a self-oscillating direct conversion receiver when it is oscillating. Thanks for a great slide show.
  • Member
    edited March 2015
    Thanks for the great presentation and for sharing it.
  • Member ✭✭
    edited November 2017
    Thanks Howard, I have a number of Ham Radio friends to share this with who often ask, "Whats the big deal about SDR radios?" Very well put together and informative, I'll second Ken's suggestion on adding the Regenerative detector if you choose to update it in the future. This will help a number of folks, thanks again for the time to put it together.
  • Member ✭✭✭
    edited December 2018
    Working on V2.0 updates to include Regen and downgrade ANAN 200 to 2nd Generation No dates promised for updates. Hi hi.
  • Member
    edited March 2015
    Wonderful review Howard.  I am going to share with all my friends who continue to ask about my SDR adventures.  73 and be well.  Hank, K9LZJ
  • Member ✭✭✭
    edited March 2017
    Very well done Howard...  Thanks for sharing and hope FRS can put it to good use as well!  

    Dennis, k0eoo
  • Member ✭✭
    edited August 2016
    Hi Howard,

    Thanks for that. Your presentations are always useful and always find pride of place on my computer.

  • Member ✭✭
    edited April 2020
    Great review and informative information. I have forwarded to many of my legacy friends!
  • Member ✭✭
    edited June 2020
    Fantastic Howard. I will use this for a club presentation. Thanks
  • Member ✭✭
    edited March 2017
    Thanks Howard for an excellent and a well done piece of work.
  • Member ✭✭✭
    edited March 2015
    Email me at Ky6la at Ky6la dot com if you need a copy of the powerpoint
  • Member ✭✭
    edited June 2017
    Very good, Howard.
  • Member
    edited December 2018
    Excellent job Howard.  I enjoyed the historical overview and the analogy to the comparison between the C130 and 787.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DWnqk_taac

  • Member ✭✭
    edited January 2017
    Howard,

    Nice presentation sir!

    I actually flipped through every slide. 

    How long did it take you to present it?

    I do a lot of presentations for my job and they can go a looong time with that many slides!

    Regardless, very interesting.

    Thanks
  • Member ✭✭✭
    edited December 2018
    I timed it to 1 hour. Working on v2 corrections/updates
  • Member ✭✭
    edited August 2016
    I LOVE the C130 and would have it over a 787 anyday. Full of character, amazing performance and no Li-ion batteries to smoke! Used to fly on them a lot during my military service. My second favourite would be a DC3.
  • Member
    edited March 2015
    (Temporarily off topic) I rode in one once while in the USAF.  It's an impressive turboprop plane and is still used for Hurricane recon.  I'm sure much of the equipment has been updated.  It's one of the best planes ever made.  Toward the end of my service I was trained to repair the doppler system on the DC3 "Gooney Bird" in Vietnam, but got transferred to UDORN, Thailand.
  • Member ✭✭
    edited August 2016
    OT: (poss last time)

    My real, all time fave is the Lancaster Bomber. In my career I have had the honour to treat several members of flight crew and ground staff.
  • Member ✭✭
    edited August 2016
    Time to get some YouTube vids uploaded m'thinks.
  • Member
    edited March 2015

    Very nice presentation!

    But, I think the first SDR actually happened back c.a. 1989 or so. Marconi Radio + E Systems, working on massive parallel pipelined array processors, controlled by a DEC/VAX computer. I don't recall how we did the I&Q. As far as I can remember, it was done numerically in a big Hilbert transform. We had a 10 MHz pass band, taken from the downlinks of overhead assets.

    73 de Dave, N7AIG

  • Member
    edited March 2015

    Based on my own experience, and from the many posts on this blog, it appears that the weak link in the whole system is Windows OS. Given enough time, FRS can work out most of the bugs inside the radios with their DSP + FGPA's. But Windows will continue to evolve in directions that are likely anathema to the needs of SDR.

    But Windows, and most other OS, run now on VM capable CPU chips. We ought to develop a dedicated SDR OS that runs alongside the user OS, where you can have better control over the I/O and interrupt processing. No reason, given VM, that this can't coexist with all of Windows, OS X, and Linux.

    73 de Dave, N7AIG

  • Member
    edited March 2015

    By way of examples, have a look at the Berkeley Sprite OS, and the X-Kernel (nothing to do with MIT's X-Windows). These were early experiments, c.a., mid-90's to get higher performance from networked, diskless workstations - back in the day when memory was becoming cheap and hard disk space was still expensive. The bottlenecks were in the packet handling of the ISO Ethernet stack, much like many of the current bottlenecks for high-rate audio and I&Q streams.

    73 de Dave, N7AIG

  • Member ✭✭✭
    edited September 2018
    In VERSION 2.0 of Modern Radios SDR-101 you will find that I have made a number of revisions, corrections and updates to my original presentation on Modern Radio's SDR-101

    Here is a link to the PDF Files

    https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/10740053/Modern%20Radio%20SDR-101%20V2.pdf

    Here is a link to the full Power Point which now takes about 75 minutes to present.  The PowerPoint is Editable... Please Feel Free to use it as long as you give appropriate credit to the author.

    https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/10740053/Modern%20Radio%20SDR-101%20V2.pptx

    Somewhere in the future I plan to add a section on Direct Up Conversion Transmitters found in SDR radios... but that is another day....




  • Member ✭✭✭
    edited March 2017
    Howard, I like your presentation.
    73, Alex DH2ID
  • Member
    edited April 2015
    Howard, your presentation was great. However on page 11 you said "Big Antennas Help". Now *here* is a big antenna, operated by K1JT (Joe Taylor). He's only using a TS-2000, but his antenna has has 61 db forward gain at 70cm. What is the ERP if he's using the legal limit input power? Ironically it's close to what Doc Brown said: "1.21 gigawatts".
    image

    Antenna used by above station. Arecibo 1,000 ft. dish, 61db forward gain at 70cm.
    image
  • Company Adviser
    edited November 2016
    Howard this was SO badly needed.  I am truly impressed.  If I made suggestions would you consider them at your leisure and decide on whether or not to include them?
  • Member ✭✭✭
    edited April 2015
    Most definitely. Please send them to mycalll@ mycalll@. Com

Leave a Comment

Welcome!

It looks like you're new here. Sign in or register to get started.
Sign In
Register

Quick Links

Categories