Following is the Email thread (edited), started the day after Maker Faire, that convinced me it was finally time to finish the daydreaming stage, and bring OpenTRx to the real world :
I'm with you on the control channel.
Either BT, ethernet, USB, or WiFi; why not take the control architecture into the 2000s. Who cares about the K3 command set. Have a compatibility mode, if you must, but you can only advance by breaking from the past. Get rid of PIC (if they're still using them); use ARM or something more capable. Run some real operating system. Allow me to add daemons, or apps. Allow me to telnet / ssh to the radio. Give me a real display. Let me get I & Q both before *and* after the roofing filter. Adequate ADCs are cheap, especially if you're doing analog mixing first. There is so much more that can be done with embedded computing these days, and all with minimal power requirements. Cell phones are lightyears ahead.
I was also surprised that Wayne said NiMH batteries were to be used. They're certainly cheap, but Lion or even an optionally more expensive LiFePO4 pack would be better. A123 cells aren't that expensive. Charge controllers are cheap. NX6S and I found that out on a project we were working on together a few years ago.
If you carry too much past baggage around, you end up like MS.
On May 23, 2011, at 1:31 PM, Leigh L. Klotz, Jr. WA5ZNU wrote:
> They mention optional roofing filters, but if the IQ out is after that
> it's going to be severely band-limited. In the K3 it's before it so I
> suspect it's similar. "Totally different architecture from the K3" could
> mean anything or nothing.
>
> At Pacificon I repeated until Wayne asked me to stop that they should put
> in the ability to do absolutely everything you can do from the front panel
> over a wired/wireless connection, i.e. an interface that one can make
> available over BT via serial, for example. He said the command set would
> be K3-compatible. If you want wireless spectrum display on your phone or
> pad, a likely solution is an 802.11/linux box with built-in sound card
> hooked to the IQ and then serving up the spectrum over TCP. (That's what
> I did in znudigi, for example.) This box can be pretty small. A beagle
> board may be overkill.
>
> Leigh/WA5ZNU
>
>> After looking at the video, it could be an interesting choice for mobile
>> operation. I sure wish they would go to a dot matrix display, and that
>> would open up some interesting UI possibilities. They are so cheap,
>> dense, and power efficient these days. I had an amusing thought just now
>> of making the front panel of a radio from an iPod Touch. I also wonder
>> where the SDR slice happens. The total price is also important (at least
>> to me).
>>
>> On May 23, 2011, at 7:17 AM, Leigh L Klotz, Jr. wrote:
>>
>>> It look fun, priced a little above the 817 supposedly around 799. We
>>> ran a "focus group" for it at Pacificon (hfpack forum) and the consensus
>>> there was 20W for SSB. The specs say 10+. We got Wayne to fix the T1
>>> so it would handle 35W from the HFPacker amp from K5OOR instead of the
>>> orignal 20W, but this may be harder to change.
>>>
>>> On May 23, 2011 12:02 AM, "Michael Pechner" wrote:
>>>> Looks really interesting.
>>>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbtyRyEEADo&feature=player_embedded#at=326
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Michael Pechner
>>>> NE6RD - Amateur Extra
>>>>
>>
>>
>> -Kristen (K6WX)
>>
>> "Your eyes ... it's a day's work just looking into them"
>> Laurie Anderson
>>
>> (--... ...-- -.. . -.- -.... .-- -..-)
>>
>>
>
>
-Kristen (K6WX)
"Your eyes ... it's a day's work just looking into them"
Laurie Anderson
(--... ...-- -.. . -.- -.... .-- -..-)
Either BT, ethernet, USB, or WiFi; why not take the control architecture into the 2000s. Who cares about the K3 command set. Have a compatibility mode, if you must, but you can only advance by breaking from the past. Get rid of PIC (if they're still using them); use ARM or something more capable. Run some real operating system. Allow me to add daemons, or apps. Allow me to telnet / ssh to the radio. Give me a real display. Let me get I & Q both before *and* after the roofing filter. Adequate ADCs are cheap, especially if you're doing analog mixing first. There is so much more that can be done with embedded computing these days, and all with minimal power requirements. Cell phones are lightyears ahead.
I was also surprised that Wayne said NiMH batteries were to be used. They're certainly cheap, but Lion or even an optionally more expensive LiFePO4 pack would be better. A123 cells aren't that expensive. Charge controllers are cheap. NX6S and I found that out on a project we were working on together a few years ago.
If you carry too much past baggage around, you end up like MS.
On May 23, 2011, at 1:31 PM, Leigh L. Klotz, Jr. WA5ZNU wrote:
> They mention optional roofing filters, but if the IQ out is after that
> it's going to be severely band-limited. In the K3 it's before it so I
> suspect it's similar. "Totally different architecture from the K3" could
> mean anything or nothing.
>
> At Pacificon I repeated until Wayne asked me to stop that they should put
> in the ability to do absolutely everything you can do from the front panel
> over a wired/wireless connection, i.e. an interface that one can make
> available over BT via serial, for example. He said the command set would
> be K3-compatible. If you want wireless spectrum display on your phone or
> pad, a likely solution is an 802.11/linux box with built-in sound card
> hooked to the IQ and then serving up the spectrum over TCP. (That's what
> I did in znudigi, for example.) This box can be pretty small. A beagle
> board may be overkill.
>
> Leigh/WA5ZNU
>
>> After looking at the video, it could be an interesting choice for mobile
>> operation. I sure wish they would go to a dot matrix display, and that
>> would open up some interesting UI possibilities. They are so cheap,
>> dense, and power efficient these days. I had an amusing thought just now
>> of making the front panel of a radio from an iPod Touch. I also wonder
>> where the SDR slice happens. The total price is also important (at least
>> to me).
>>
>> On May 23, 2011, at 7:17 AM, Leigh L Klotz, Jr. wrote:
>>
>>> It look fun, priced a little above the 817 supposedly around 799. We
>>> ran a "focus group" for it at Pacificon (hfpack forum) and the consensus
>>> there was 20W for SSB. The specs say 10+. We got Wayne to fix the T1
>>> so it would handle 35W from the HFPacker amp from K5OOR instead of the
>>> orignal 20W, but this may be harder to change.
>>>
>>> On May 23, 2011 12:02 AM, "Michael Pechner" wrote:
>>>> Looks really interesting.
>>>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbtyRyEEADo&feature=player_embedded#at=326
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Michael Pechner
>>>> NE6RD - Amateur Extra
>>>>
>>
>>
>> -Kristen (K6WX)
>>
>> "Your eyes ... it's a day's work just looking into them"
>> Laurie Anderson
>>
>> (--... ...-- -.. . -.- -.... .-- -..-)
>>
>>
>
>
-Kristen (K6WX)
"Your eyes ... it's a day's work just looking into them"
Laurie Anderson
(--... ...-- -.. . -.- -.... .-- -..-)
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