At 05:14 AM 10/20/2006, John Basilotto wrote: >Bob, I recommend that you visit our web site and read what others have to >say about the SDR. http://www.flex-radio.com/Users.aspx?topic=testimonials > >The Reflector is like headline news; typically the bad news gets all the >press and attention. The overwhelming majority of our customers love their >radios and they're not programmers or computer scientists.
--- I would concur.. I would estimate that there are about 1000-2000 SDR1000s out there (based on the number of unique identifiers that have become members of various lists) and probably only 20-30 of them actually post on a regular basis. But, see below.. >to be MSDOS (as I said, archaic). My immediate reaction to the SDR concept >was "Wow - just what I need to progress my programming skills into my >retirement - and what a great way to combine two aspects of my interests." > > However, rather than just throw money at it, it seemed sensible to check >out this forum first. Having read Richard Stasiask's very encouraging >message of a few days ago I thought "that's it! - time to buy" - but then >I've been equally dismayed by other messages since then, of which I cannot >make much sense - can I emphasise here that I'm not trying to be in any way >offensive to anybody - but, my goodness, from my rather basic (no puns >intended) programming skill level there appears to be an awful lot of >jargon! > > Is there anyone out there feeling the same way as me? Am I wasting mental >energy even contemplating the prospect of ever being about to effect >personal changes to PowerSDR? No, it's a very real possibility that you can effect personal changes. However, you need to be aware that modifying a software radio is a bit different than modifying a hardware radio. Manage your expectations... 1) Both require some background knowledge of how it works, at least in the area you want to change. For hardware, this knowledge is widely dispersed (and some is part of the license exam). Software radio components are a bit newer, and it's a bit tougher. But, there's stuff out there, and particularly if you want to fool with the user interface, as opposed to changing the DSP, it's pretty straightforward. 2) Making a change in the existing source code makes it diverge from the regular path of development. Your change either has to get adopted into the regular distribution, or everytime a new development version comes out, you have to reapply your change (or figure out an automated way to do this..) This is not so different than the hardware world.. you change parts on the PC board, and now yours is not like anybody else's board, and if the mfr issues a new version of the board, you'd have to do the mod again. The difference between hard and soft radios is that the pace of changes for soft radios is substantially greater. I'd bet that nobody is running the original VB software for the radio anymore, and that's only a couple or three years old. OTOH, I'm still using the same (modified) FT757GX that is 20 years old, and haven't, for instance, upgraded to a FT757 GX-II by swapping boards and front panels. However, as a good friend of mine points out with respect to projects like this one.. "code for yourself and don't make your code depend on someone else finishing theirs, because they probably won't, at least not on your schedule". 3) All systems (hard or soft) have jargon. Some you already know because it's traditional (hardware radios have been around for decades..). Some is very "radio model specific" and the SDR-1000/PowerSDR is no different. Some of it is knowledge domain specific: brickwall filter or Bartshead pulse shape in the DSP world, or all the stuff from the Windows or Linux world. Start digging into it and either the jargon becomes obvious, or you can ask and someone will answer. You bring up a fascinating idea though.. is there a knowledge base (KB) article on PowerSDR jargon? To define commonly used terms on the list like SVN. Jim, W6RMK _______________________________________________ FlexRadio mailing list FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz Archive Link: http://www.mail-archive.com/flexradio%40flex-radio.biz/ FlexRadio Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com
