Re: [Discuss-gnuradio] s/Eric/Tom/g

2010-09-11 Thread John Gilmore
 As some of you know, I've been involved with GNU Radio for a long
 time.  The idea that became GNU Radio started as a conversation over
 dinner in San Francisco with John Gilmore, something like 10 years
 ago.

As one of the guys present at that dinner in early 2001, let me
suggest that Eric has done an incredible job picking up that idea and
running with it for a decade.

We saw that commercial companies were using digital signal processing
to radically simplify and improve their products, but that the free
software world hadn't learned those lessons.  That meant there was
a real opportunity hanging wide-open.  Eric jumped on it.

Part of the deal was that I'd pay his salary for the first year or
two, because I knew you can't really get much public support or
financial support for a free software project until it can actually do
some useful job.  Eric spent the first year learning modern signal
processing, surveying existing hardware and existing free software,
then settled on MIT's spectra/pspectra code base as a good place to
start hacking.  After the first few years, he found enough academic
and commercial support for GNU Radio that I didn't need to pay him
full time -- and he weaned himself fully off my support shortly
afterward.

Matt Ettus was an early volunteer who also saw the real-world promise
in free signal processing software.  We had reasonable software, but
the available high speed A/D and D/A hardware cost thousands of
dollars and was pretty lame.  Matt finished his job designing
Bluetooth circuitry, and then risked everything to design and build
what became the USRP.  With Eric's help, he built up from nothing to a one-man
design/procurement/manufacturing/stocking/shipping/sales/customer-support/programming
shop, which over the years has matured into the thriving and valuable
business it is today.

Jay Lepreau was another early contributor who saw how GNU Radio could
enable active academic research into cognitive radios.  Jay brought us
into his lab at the University of Utah, encouraging researchers at
dozens of other institutions to design their experiments on GNU Radio
and the USRP.  He brought us into the academic funding that
significantly matured GNU Radio's ability to do packet-based
communication.  Jay died in 2008 but his contributions live on in this
community.

Along the way we took a few detours into application areas that tested
and honed GNU Radio's strengths.  While Hollywood was trying to force
the FCC to outlaw TV receivers that could receive free over-the-air
digital TV signals (because they'd forgotten to put DRM into them),
Eric and a small team successfully implemented an HDTV receiver using
old PCI-bus digitizer boards and GNU Radio.  Hollywood's engineers
said it couldn't be done, and we knew they were liars, so we did it.
Indeed, it ran 30x slower than realtime on a dual Athlon motherboard.
But it ran, decoded actual TV signals, and proved to the regulators
and to the standards committee that you'd have to not only outlaw
hardware demodulators, but also software -- which EFF had recently
proven to a Federal appeals court was a violation of the First
Amendment.  The fucking bastards at the FCC passed the regulation anyway
(https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Broadcast_Flag), but
the American Library Association and Public Knowledge litigated in
federal court, proved that the FCC had no authority to regulate what
receivers do with their signals after reception, and the rule was
struck down.  This HDTV demodulator code is *still* not running in the
latest version of GNU Radio, but I hope someone will work out the
kinks.  Modern hardware should be able to do it in realtime.

A second big attempted application area was passive radar.  We read
that the US Army's favorite tactic when invading somewhere was to blow
up all the TV and radio stations because it's easy to track airplanes
by watching their signals bounce off the planes.  It works with
cellphone tower signals, too.  Eric spent several years researching
the topic, writing GNU Radio code, and designing antennas and
hardware.  Ultimately none of it worked reliably; it took more dynamic
range (or custom differential hardware) than we had, but we learned a
lot and have made it easier for future generations to do this as the
hardware improves.

Eric, it's been a great decade, and I'm looking forward to the next
big trouble you get into!

John

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[Discuss-gnuradio] s/Eric/Tom/g

2010-09-10 Thread Eric Blossom
As some of you know, I've been involved with GNU Radio for a long
time.  The idea that became GNU Radio started as a conversation over
dinner in San Francisco with John Gilmore, something like 10 years
ago.

Interest and use of GNU Radio is currently at the highest level it's
ever been.  I however, have come to a place in my life where I'd like
to devote less of my time to GNU Radio and more to other things.

After discussions with GNU Radio developers over the past several
months, I'm pleased to announce that long time GNU Radio contributor
Tom Rondeau has agreed to take over the GNU Radio Maintainer role
from me.  For those of you who don't know Tom, he's the perfect person
for the job.

He's smart, has a vision for the future, and has the cat herding
instinct required to succeed in the position.  Tom received his
Ph.D. in 2007 from Virginia Tech's Department of Electrical and
Computer Engineering.

Johnathan Corgan will continue to handle GNU Radio release
management and provide professional services related to GNU
Radio. 

Matt Ettus and the rest of the crew at Ettus Research will continue to
crank out low cost hardware for all of us to enjoy.

I plan to continue contributing to GNU Radio, and will be finishing up
some extensions for message passing, as well as some other things
where I'm probably best positioned to do the work.

Bottom line: business continues as usual, and you'll see more of Tom
and less of me.

Eric

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Re: [Discuss-gnuradio] s/Eric/Tom/g

2010-09-10 Thread Patrik Tast

Many thanks for your time Eric!

I have signed myself at many RF groups but I have not seen
yet this quick help/suggestions from any.

I bet (hope) you can not keep your fingers off?

As a sample I'm building a NOAA HRPT station using USRP1
http://noaaport.poes-weather.com:8081/HRPT/Sept-8-2010/HRPT-test%20004.jpg

I got the fist fair results today using the TVRX and downconverter from 1.7 
GHz.

I hope these snips could inspire some
http://noaaport.poes-weather.com:8081/HRPT/Sept-10-2010/

Patrik

- Original Message - 
From: Eric Blossom e...@comsec.com

To: discuss-gnuradio@gnu.org
Sent: Friday, September 10, 2010 18:38
Subject: [Discuss-gnuradio] s/Eric/Tom/g



As some of you know, I've been involved with GNU Radio for a long
time.  The idea that became GNU Radio started as a conversation over
dinner in San Francisco with John Gilmore, something like 10 years
ago.

Interest and use of GNU Radio is currently at the highest level it's
ever been.  I however, have come to a place in my life where I'd like
to devote less of my time to GNU Radio and more to other things.

After discussions with GNU Radio developers over the past several
months, I'm pleased to announce that long time GNU Radio contributor
Tom Rondeau has agreed to take over the GNU Radio Maintainer role
from me.  For those of you who don't know Tom, he's the perfect person
for the job.

He's smart, has a vision for the future, and has the cat herding
instinct required to succeed in the position.  Tom received his
Ph.D. in 2007 from Virginia Tech's Department of Electrical and
Computer Engineering.

Johnathan Corgan will continue to handle GNU Radio release
management and provide professional services related to GNU
Radio.

Matt Ettus and the rest of the crew at Ettus Research will continue to
crank out low cost hardware for all of us to enjoy.

I plan to continue contributing to GNU Radio, and will be finishing up
some extensions for message passing, as well as some other things
where I'm probably best positioned to do the work.

Bottom line: business continues as usual, and you'll see more of Tom
and less of me.

Eric

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Re: [Discuss-gnuradio] s/Eric/Tom/g

2010-09-10 Thread John Orlando
 As some of you know, I've been involved with GNU Radio for a long
 time.  The idea that became GNU Radio started as a conversation over
 dinner in San Francisco with John Gilmore, something like 10 years
 ago.

 Interest and use of GNU Radio is currently at the highest level it's
 ever been.  I however, have come to a place in my life where I'd like
 to devote less of my time to GNU Radio and more to other things.

 After discussions with GNU Radio developers over the past several
 months, I'm pleased to announce that long time GNU Radio contributor
 Tom Rondeau has agreed to take over the GNU Radio Maintainer role
 from me.  For those of you who don't know Tom, he's the perfect person
 for the job.

 He's smart, has a vision for the future, and has the cat herding
 instinct required to succeed in the position.  Tom received his
 Ph.D. in 2007 from Virginia Tech's Department of Electrical and
 Computer Engineering.

 Johnathan Corgan will continue to handle GNU Radio release
 management and provide professional services related to GNU
 Radio.

 Matt Ettus and the rest of the crew at Ettus Research will continue to
 crank out low cost hardware for all of us to enjoy.

 I plan to continue contributing to GNU Radio, and will be finishing up
 some extensions for message passing, as well as some other things
 where I'm probably best positioned to do the work.

 Bottom line: business continues as usual, and you'll see more of Tom
 and less of me.

I'm sure you'll be inundated with this sort of email, but your efforts
to make GNU Radio into what it is today is very appreciated.

-- 
John Orlando
CEO/System Architect
Epiq Solutions
www.epiq-solutions.com

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Re: [Discuss-gnuradio] s/Eric/Tom/g

2010-09-10 Thread Mark J. Blair
I'm new here, but I can already tell that GNU Radio is Really Cool Stuff. Thank 
you for your great contributions, and I welcome our new overlord!

-- 
Mark J. Blair, NF6X n...@nf6x.net
Web page: http://www.nf6x.net/
GnuPG public key available from my web page.





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