For quite a few months now, my SDR based reporter was not working due to multiple hardware failures. The bigger problem in remote areas where little noise exists, are thunder-strikes! We got lot's of them in the place the receiver is located, at KM07 grid square. Also several software limitations were requiring manual configuration of the decoding software after each reboot of the decoding server, that happens quite often due to power grid failures. A total solution to the problem had to be implemented that will cover all possible scenarios (besides nuclear threat).
So a new desktop computer had to be purchased to replace the power efficient i5 laptop. After installing all required software, I figured that the E3-1240 XEON processor is more than enough for Quad band (4x192KHz) spectrum demodulation and decoding of CW and FT8/JT65/JT9 spots.
The RF front end of the SDR is nothing more than an AD8138 ADC driver, driven by a MAR6 LNA, driving the AD9864 ADC's. From there on 4 Rx chains are created on the FPGA to achieve instantaneous Quad band coverage. The software part is kindly provided by OL5Q. However in order to achieve both CW and other digital modes demodulation, the IQ data has to be shared among other software in Windows. This is achieved by CWSL software, that is open source!
An issue I was facing with ExtIO_CWSL.dll was that each time it started with HDSDR you have to select the band that it will use, and there is no configuration file, or any other method to pre-select the band you desire. This makes it difficult to auto-start multiple instances of HDSDR, one for each band.
As an original Radio Amateur, while not having any C/C++ programming skills, I had to find a solution to this. Since the source was available I modified the variable storing the band selection in the dll, so each time it starts with a pre-selected band. I had to build 4 versions of the DLL, one for each band, but this wasn't such an issue. Now I can have 4 instances of HDSDR, connected to WSJT-X via a virtual audio card and a virtual com port to select frequency, AUTO starting!!!
This setup, including the irreplaceable Skimmer Server which by the way is the only ham software that I have purchase and deserves every penny, has placed me to the top 5 of the world's skimmers as reported by PSKreporter.info
So a new desktop computer had to be purchased to replace the power efficient i5 laptop. After installing all required software, I figured that the E3-1240 XEON processor is more than enough for Quad band (4x192KHz) spectrum demodulation and decoding of CW and FT8/JT65/JT9 spots.
The RF front end of the SDR is nothing more than an AD8138 ADC driver, driven by a MAR6 LNA, driving the AD9864 ADC's. From there on 4 Rx chains are created on the FPGA to achieve instantaneous Quad band coverage. The software part is kindly provided by OL5Q. However in order to achieve both CW and other digital modes demodulation, the IQ data has to be shared among other software in Windows. This is achieved by CWSL software, that is open source!
An issue I was facing with ExtIO_CWSL.dll was that each time it started with HDSDR you have to select the band that it will use, and there is no configuration file, or any other method to pre-select the band you desire. This makes it difficult to auto-start multiple instances of HDSDR, one for each band.
As an original Radio Amateur, while not having any C/C++ programming skills, I had to find a solution to this. Since the source was available I modified the variable storing the band selection in the dll, so each time it starts with a pre-selected band. I had to build 4 versions of the DLL, one for each band, but this wasn't such an issue. Now I can have 4 instances of HDSDR, connected to WSJT-X via a virtual audio card and a virtual com port to select frequency, AUTO starting!!!
This setup, including the irreplaceable Skimmer Server which by the way is the only ham software that I have purchase and deserves every penny, has placed me to the top 5 of the world's skimmers as reported by PSKreporter.info
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