SoftwareControlledHamRadio@groups.io

K9HZ · 2025-02-02T11:51:08-08:00

Wish I would have seen this two years ago… MKR Vidor 4000 | Arduino Documentation Dr. William J. Schmidt - K9HZ J68HZ 8P6HK ZF2HZ PJ4/K9HZ VP5/K9HZ PJ2/K9HZ VP2EHZ Owner - Operator Big Signal Ranch

Interesting board

K9HZ All Messages By This Member #32441 开云体育 Wish I would have seen this two years ago… ? ? ? ? Dr. William J. Schmidt - K9HZ J68HZ 8P6HK ZF2HZ PJ4/K9HZ VP5/K9HZ PJ2/K9HZ VP2EHZ ? Owner - Operator Big Signal Ranch – K9ZC Staunton, Illinois ? Owner – Operator Villa Grand Piton – J68HZ Soufriere, St. Lucia W.I. Rent it: ? Moderator: North American QRO Group at Groups.IO. Moderator: Amateur Radio Builders Group at Groups.IO. ? email:? bill@... ? ?
Greg KF5N All Messages By This Member #32442 I think I have one of those.? There was some impediment to moving forward with it, and I abandoned it.? I can't remember the specific reason. It was probably the FPGA tooling that I didn't like, or minimal provided support. ? The first thing to do before committing to an FPGA is to download and install the design and programming tool.? Look at over thoroughly and see if it has adequate support before buying it.? It may be quite a bit of effort to install the toolchain.? I had to install and manage a virtual machine. ? -- 73 Greg KF5N
K9HZ All Messages By This Member #32443 开云体育 Well, I’ve been messing with the ALTERA tools already… are ok.? What caught my eye here is programming it with the Arduino IDE and some add-ins.? That makes it very easy… that is… if it really works and the processors talk (meaning not just two separate processors on one board). ? ? Dr. William J. Schmidt - K9HZ J68HZ 8P6HK ZF2HZ PJ4/K9HZ VP5/K9HZ PJ2/K9HZ VP2EHZ ? Owner - Operator Big Signal Ranch – K9ZC Staunton, Illinois ? Owner – Operator Villa Grand Piton – J68HZ Soufriere, St. Lucia W.I. Rent it: ? Moderator: North American QRO Group at Groups.IO. Moderator: Amateur Radio Builders Group at Groups.IO. ? email:? bill@... ? ? toggle quoted message Show quoted text From: [email protected] <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Greg KF5N via groups.io Sent: Monday, January 27, 2025 6:04 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [SoftwareControlledHamRadio] Interesting board ? I think I have one of those.? There was some impediment to moving forward with it, and I abandoned it.? I can't remember the specific reason. It was probably the FPGA tooling that I didn't like, or minimal provided support. ? The first thing to do before committing to an FPGA is to download and install the design and programming tool.? Look at over thoroughly and see if it has adequate support before buying it.? It may be quite a bit of effort to install the toolchain.? I had to install and manage a virtual machine. ? -- 73 Greg KF5N
Greg KF5N All Messages By This Member #32445 You've got a refererence for comparison in the Altera tools.? That is what I used when I was working with FPGAs a few years ago.? The tool included free "IP" which is already built modules. That thing was a beast, but very powerful.? It was Intel, and with an account you can get hours and hours of training videos.? Good stuff, but a steep learning curve.? Apparently Altera was spun off from Intel, set free again. ? I saw a new FPGA book: ? This looks pretty good.? I haven't bought it yet.? In the table of contents you can see it is using Lattice.? That may not be the best for DSP. ? -- 73 Greg KF5N
K9HZ All Messages By This Member #32447 开云体育 Yeah there is a lot to it… its overwhelming… but building the entire QSE and QSD into a FPGA seems entirely possible (maybe save a high performance A/D and D/A)…? I’m just learning how to make useful PLLs in them.? One thing I like is that they run uninterrupted so that it looks possible to put several slices into a single FPGA. ? ? Dr. William J. Schmidt - K9HZ J68HZ 8P6HK ZF2HZ PJ4/K9HZ VP5/K9HZ PJ2/K9HZ VP2EHZ ? Owner - Operator Big Signal Ranch – K9ZC Staunton, Illinois ? Owner – Operator Villa Grand Piton – J68HZ Soufriere, St. Lucia W.I. Rent it: ? Moderator: North American QRO Group at Groups.IO. Moderator: Amateur Radio Builders Group at Groups.IO. ? email:? bill@... ? ? toggle quoted message Show quoted text From: [email protected] <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Greg KF5N via groups.io Sent: Monday, January 27, 2025 6:59 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [SoftwareControlledHamRadio] Interesting board ? You've got a refererence for comparison in the Altera tools.? That is what I used when I was working with FPGAs a few years ago.? The tool included free "IP" which is already built modules. That thing was a beast, but very powerful.? It was Intel, and with an account you can get hours and hours of training videos.? Good stuff, but a steep learning curve.? Apparently Altera was spun off from Intel, set free again. ? I saw a new FPGA book: ? This looks pretty good.? I haven't bought it yet.? In the table of contents you can see it is using Lattice.? That may not be the best for DSP. ? -- 73 Greg KF5N
[email protected] All Messages By This Member #32457 I have been using the Terrasic DE-0 Nano FPGA board for my radio. Quartus lite works with this chip and you can get at least three "slices" on it along with a transmitter. ? The HPSDR fpga code is a great starting point. I have used the Mercury code and Angelia code as a base. ? Hardest part is the analog front end, physically and financially!? ? ? Russ
K9HZ All Messages By This Member #32460 开云体育 Yeah I’m really “aware” of the analog front end, and particularly the A/D… which could range from “cheap” to “a house payment”…. And that is where all the money goes for a good radio (sorry software guys!).? Once we get the V12 radio Settled a bit, I’m extremely interested in revisiting the MAIN and RF boards… to try a few different things for myself.? High on the list is trying to put the QSE and QSD and demod/ mod into an FPGA and leave the rest of the minutia in the T41 (or whatever makes sense basis the requirements). Don’t be afraid to reach out and email me with your thoughts. ? ? Dr. William J. Schmidt - K9HZ J68HZ 8P6HK ZF2HZ PJ4/K9HZ VP5/K9HZ PJ2/K9HZ VP2EHZ ? Owner - Operator Big Signal Ranch – K9ZC Staunton, Illinois ? Owner – Operator Villa Grand Piton – J68HZ Soufriere, St. Lucia W.I. Rent it: ? Moderator: North American QRO Group at Groups.IO. Moderator: Amateur Radio Builders Group at Groups.IO. ? email:? bill@... ? ? toggle quoted message Show quoted text From: [email protected] <[email protected]> On Behalf Of rebruhnke via groups.io Sent: Tuesday, January 28, 2025 10:42 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [SoftwareControlledHamRadio] Interesting board ? I have been using the Terrasic DE-0 Nano FPGA board for my radio. Quartus lite works with this chip and you can get at least three "slices" on it along with a transmitter. ? The HPSDR fpga code is a great starting point. I have used the Mercury code and Angelia code as a base. ? Hardest part is the analog front end, physically and financially!? ? ? Russ
jjpurdum Member Profile All Messages By This Member #32461 I know nothing about FPGA's but it appears that you should be versed in the EE side of things to take that area of study on. Is that the case? If not, what would be a starting point, both hardware and software, to learn something about it. Is there a book you'd recommend? Jack, W8TEE On Tuesday, January 28, 2025 at 02:03:04 PM EST, K9HZ <bill@...> wrote: Yeah I’m really “aware” of the analog front end, and particularly the A/D… which could range from “cheap” to “a house payment”…. And that is where all the money goes for a good radio (sorry software guys!).? Once we get the V12 radio Settled a bit, I’m extremely interested in revisiting the MAIN and RF boards… to try a few different things for myself.? High on the list is trying to put the QSE and QSD and demod/ mod into an FPGA and leave the rest of the minutia in the T41 (or whatever makes sense basis the requirements). Don’t be afraid to reach out and email me with your thoughts. ? ? Dr. William J. Schmidt - K9HZ J68HZ 8P6HK ZF2HZ PJ4/K9HZ VP5/K9HZ PJ2/K9HZ VP2EHZ ? Owner - Operator Big Signal Ranch – K9ZC Staunton, Illinois ? Owner – Operator Villa Grand Piton – J68HZ Soufriere, St. Lucia W.I. Rent it: ? Moderator: North American QRO Group at Groups.IO. Moderator: Amateur Radio Builders Group at Groups.IO. ? email:? bill@... ? ? toggle quoted message Show quoted text From: [email protected] <[email protected]> On Behalf Of rebruhnke via groups.io Sent: Tuesday, January 28, 2025 10:42 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [SoftwareControlledHamRadio] Interesting board ? I have been using the Terrasic DE-0 Nano FPGA board for my radio. Quartus lite works with this chip and you can get at least three "slices" on it along with a transmitter. ? The HPSDR fpga code is a great starting point. I have used the Mercury code and Angelia code as a base. ? Hardest part is the analog front end, physically and financially!? ? ? Russ -- Jack, W8TEE
jerry-KF6VB All Messages By This Member #32462 On 2025-01-28 11:02, K9HZ wrote: Once we get the V12 radio Settled a bit, I’m extremely interested in revisiting the MAIN and RF boards… to try a few different things for myself. High on the list is trying to put the QSE and QSD and demod/ mod into an FPGA and leave the rest of the minutia in the T41 (or whatever makes sense basis the requirements). Don’t be afraid to reach out and email me with your thoughts. *** I'd call that a "T42" or something else. It would be really different from a T41. - Jerry, KF6VB
K9HZ All Messages By This Member #32463 开云体育 Unfortunately I have not found one that I love…. But I do have a few.? This one was just recommended to me but I don’t have it yet:? ? I really don’t know if a EE degree would help in programming a FPGA…. The FPGAs are full of building blocks like oscillators, A/D, D/A, logic operations, math operations, memory, etc. (and I don’t mean just a few… there might be hundreds of them in one FPGA depending what market the FPGA was developed for)… and the programming is mostly Object Oriented… drag and drop… so if you understand what the blocks and how they process inputs and give outputs and their limits… you can probably make some pretty cool stuff with not too much EE knowledge.? ?The think that I LOVE about FPGAs is that they can have many many independent threads operating/ running at the same time.? They can have interrupts but typically don’t operate that way. ? Look at this chart for the Cyclone series of FPGAs… its incredible: ? ? ? ? ? ? Dr. William J. Schmidt - K9HZ J68HZ 8P6HK ZF2HZ PJ4/K9HZ VP5/K9HZ PJ2/K9HZ VP2EHZ ? Owner - Operator Big Signal Ranch – K9ZC Staunton, Illinois ? Owner – Operator Villa Grand Piton – J68HZ Soufriere, St. Lucia W.I. Rent it: ? Moderator: North American QRO Group at Groups.IO. Moderator: Amateur Radio Builders Group at Groups.IO. ? email:? bill@... ? ? toggle quoted message Show quoted text From: [email protected] <[email protected]> On Behalf Of jjpurdum via groups.io Sent: Tuesday, January 28, 2025 1:47 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [SoftwareControlledHamRadio] Interesting board ? I know nothing about FPGA's but it appears that you should be versed in the EE side of things to take that area of study on. Is that the case? If not, what would be a starting point, both hardware and software, to learn something about it. Is there a book you'd recommend? ? Jack, W8TEE ? On Tuesday, January 28, 2025 at 02:03:04 PM EST, K9HZ <bill@...> wrote: ? ? Yeah I’m really “aware” of the analog front end, and particularly the A/D… which could range from “cheap” to “a house payment”…. And that is where all the money goes for a good radio (sorry software guys!).? Once we get the V12 radio Settled a bit, I’m extremely interested in revisiting the MAIN and RF boards… to try a few different things for myself.? High on the list is trying to put the QSE and QSD and demod/ mod into an FPGA and leave the rest of the minutia in the T41 (or whatever makes sense basis the requirements). Don’t be afraid to reach out and email me with your thoughts. ? ? Dr. William J. Schmidt - K9HZ J68HZ 8P6HK ZF2HZ PJ4/K9HZ VP5/K9HZ PJ2/K9HZ VP2EHZ ? Owner - Operator Big Signal Ranch – K9ZC Staunton, Illinois ? Owner – Operator Villa Grand Piton – J68HZ Soufriere, St. Lucia W.I. Rent it: ? Moderator: North American QRO Group at Groups.IO. Moderator: Amateur Radio Builders Group at Groups.IO. ? email:? bill@... ? ? From: [email protected] <[email protected]> On Behalf Of rebruhnke via groups.io Sent: Tuesday, January 28, 2025 10:42 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [SoftwareControlledHamRadio] Interesting board ? I have been using the Terrasic DE-0 Nano FPGA board for my radio. Quartus lite works with this chip and you can get at least three "slices" on it along with a transmitter. ? The HPSDR fpga code is a great starting point. I have used the Mercury code and Angelia code as a base. ? Hardest part is the analog front end, physically and financially!? ? ? Russ -- Jack, W8TEE
Greg KF5N All Messages By This Member #32464 The person most often working on FPGA would be a digital hardware engineer.? It is fundamentally the design of digital logic circuits.? They are expressed in either Verilog or VHDL. Verilog or VHDL may look like conventional code, but it's not.? The "code" is an abstraction for physical hardware.? This is the single most important concept to grasp for a newbie. And FPGA doesn't have threads as in software.? It is really a bunch of independent machines which can talk to each other.? They may run off the same clock.? So for a very targeted function, they can create an output in a single clock cycle.? A CPU is a generalist machine, and will take more clock cycles, the tradeoff for being able to do anything. ? You can even build a CPU from fundamental logic elements.? It won't be fast, but you can get exactly what you want otherwise. ? I've got an article from a few years ago about the "war" between FPGA and DSP CPU cores.? The FPGAs won.? That may not always be true, but FPGAs found a very nice niche. ? -- 73 Greg KF5N
K9HZ All Messages By This Member #32465 Won't matter what I call it... it won't be a public thing... Dr. William J. Schmidt - K9HZ J68HZ 8P6HK ZF2HZ PJ4/K9HZ VP5/K9HZ PJ2/K9HZ VP2EHZ Owner - Operator Big Signal Ranch – K9ZC Staunton, Illinois Owner – Operator Villa Grand Piton – J68HZ Soufriere, St. Lucia W.I. Rent it: www.VillaGrandPiton.com Moderator: North American QRO Group at Groups.IO. Moderator: Amateur Radio Builders Group at Groups.IO. email: bill@... toggle quoted message Show quoted text -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] <[email protected]> On Behalf Of jerry-KF6VB Sent: Tuesday, January 28, 2025 1:53 PM To: [email protected] Cc: K9HZ <bill@...> Subject: Re: [SoftwareControlledHamRadio] Interesting board On 2025-01-28 11:02, K9HZ wrote: Once we get the V12 radio Settled a bit, I’m extremely interested in revisiting the MAIN and RF boards… to try a few different things for myself. High on the list is trying to put the QSE and QSD and demod/ mod into an FPGA and leave the rest of the minutia in the T41 (or whatever makes sense basis the requirements). Don’t be afraid to reach out and email me with your thoughts. *** I'd call that a "T42" or something else. It would be really different from a T41. - Jerry, KF6VB
Doug W All Messages By This Member #32467 On Tue, Jan 28, 2025 at 01:47 PM, jjpurdum wrote: I know nothing about FPGA's but it appears that you should be versed in the EE side of things to take that area of study on. Is that the case? If not, what would be a starting point, both hardware and software, to learn something about it. Is there a book you'd recommend? ----------------------------------------------------------------------- I am trying to follow along and learn enough to at least understand some of the high level concepts.? I just started reading it and so far I found the beginning of this article helped? The author wrote a follow up here that I have not yet read.? I do not know enough to even understand what I do not know yet but the concepts are starting to make sense.? I mean it as a compliment to say that N2ADR's writing style reminds me of your books a little as he explains things in a conversational manner.? I'm sure the articles are dated but I doubt the foundation concepts have changed that much. ? ? ?
[email protected] All Messages By This Member #32470 I'm an EE with a LOT of software experience, especially in embedded using C. The "language" you use, or HDL, can make it a bit easier to make the transition, depending on your experience. I use Verilog as it is 'C' like and made my work a bit easier. I also looked at a lot of hdl code to gain an understanding of how stuff works together. The biggest thing to realize is everything runs in parallel... every routine is running at the same time... and "variables" can only be modified in one place.? ?At least in Verilog. I recommend "Starters Guide to Verilog 2001" by Michael D. Ciletti as a good reference? ? Russ
K9HZ All Messages By This Member #32472 开云体育 That book gets a pretty pathetic rating on Amazon…? Do you find different??? That’s my issue, I have a couple of books that are sort of OK and at very different levels but I have not found anything that is “GOOD” yet (and understand, I teach college-level courses!). ? ? Dr. William J. Schmidt - K9HZ J68HZ 8P6HK ZF2HZ PJ4/K9HZ VP5/K9HZ PJ2/K9HZ VP2EHZ ? Owner - Operator Big Signal Ranch – K9ZC Staunton, Illinois ? Owner – Operator Villa Grand Piton – J68HZ Soufriere, St. Lucia W.I. Rent it: ? Moderator: North American QRO Group at Groups.IO. Moderator: Amateur Radio Builders Group at Groups.IO. ? email:? bill@... ? ? toggle quoted message Show quoted text From: [email protected] <[email protected]> On Behalf Of rebruhnke via groups.io Sent: Wednesday, January 29, 2025 10:19 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [SoftwareControlledHamRadio] Interesting board ? I'm an EE with a LOT of software experience, especially in embedded using C. The "language" you use, or HDL, can make it a bit easier to make the transition, depending on your experience. I use Verilog as it is 'C' like and made my work a bit easier. I also looked at a lot of hdl code to gain an understanding of how stuff works together. The biggest thing to realize is everything runs in parallel... every routine is running at the same time... and "variables" can only be modified in one place.? ?At least in Verilog. I recommend "Starters Guide to Verilog 2001" by Michael D. Ciletti as a good reference? ? Russ
jerry-KF6VB All Messages By This Member #32475 On 2025-01-29 09:38, K9HZ wrote: That book gets a pretty pathetic rating on Amazon… "Getting Started With FPGAs" by Russell Merrick seems to have good reviews. He also has a website - nandland.com, and he sells a board that works with his materials. Book - $30 on Kindle, board - $70. So a total outlay of $100 plus tax. He also has an extensive free tutorial: There are also other free books on the Internet. Here's one: (Charles%20Roth,%20Lizy%20K.%20John,%20Byeong%20Kil%20Lee)%20(z-lib.org).pdf It's hosted by usc.edu, so there should be no copyright issues. - Jerry, KF6VB
Gary W9TD All Messages By This Member #32484 Did you see the notice on the DigiKey product page () for the Vidor 4000: This product is no longer manufactured and will no longer be stocked once stock is depleted. I wouldn't start any projects with it as pretty soon no one will be able to get one. Gary W9TD
J P Watters All Messages By This Member #32486 I was able order a couple from Mouser. ? ..jpw J P Watters KC9KKO Morris, IL USA ?
K9HZ All Messages By This Member #32492 开云体育 I bought one to play with it.? The chips on the board (ARM Cortex M0 and the Cyclone 15 FPGA) are in production and will be for some time even though that developmental board won’t.? That just means that anything developed from it will need to be designed and built by me rather than MKR.? That is actually a boon as I can play with them, get a project where I want it, and then use even more modern and cheaper chips in the same lineups. ? ? Dr. William J. Schmidt - K9HZ J68HZ 8P6HK ZF2HZ PJ4/K9HZ VP5/K9HZ PJ2/K9HZ VP2EHZ ? Owner - Operator Big Signal Ranch – K9ZC Staunton, Illinois ? Owner – Operator Villa Grand Piton – J68HZ Soufriere, St. Lucia W.I. Rent it: ? Moderator: North American QRO Group at Groups.IO. Moderator: Amateur Radio Builders Group at Groups.IO. ? email:? bill@... ? ? toggle quoted message Show quoted text From: [email protected] <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Gary W9TD via groups.io Sent: Thursday, January 30, 2025 9:53 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [SoftwareControlledHamRadio] Interesting board ? Did you see the notice on the DigiKey product page () for the Vidor 4000: This product is no longer manufactured and will no longer be stocked once stock is depleted. I wouldn't start any projects with it as pretty soon no one will be able to get one. Gary W9TD
K9HZ All Messages By This Member #32495 开云体育 If you want to read a little bit about the ARM/FPGA board… here is a summary link: ? Correction:? It’s a Cyclone 10 (10CL016) chip not a 15… ? ? Dr. William J. Schmidt - K9HZ J68HZ 8P6HK ZF2HZ PJ4/K9HZ VP5/K9HZ PJ2/K9HZ VP2EHZ ? Owner - Operator Big Signal Ranch – K9ZC Staunton, Illinois ? Owner – Operator Villa Grand Piton – J68HZ Soufriere, St. Lucia W.I. Rent it: ? Moderator: North American QRO Group at Groups.IO. Moderator: Amateur Radio Builders Group at Groups.IO. ? email:? bill@... ? ? toggle quoted message Show quoted text From: [email protected] <[email protected]> On Behalf Of K9HZ Sent: Thursday, January 30, 2025 12:38 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [SoftwareControlledHamRadio] Interesting board ? I bought one to play with it.? The chips on the board (ARM Cortex M0 and the Cyclone 15 FPGA) are in production and will be for some time even though that developmental board won’t.? That just means that anything developed from it will need to be designed and built by me rather than MKR.? That is actually a boon as I can play with them, get a project where I want it, and then use even more modern and cheaper chips in the same lineups. ? ? Dr. William J. Schmidt - K9HZ J68HZ 8P6HK ZF2HZ PJ4/K9HZ VP5/K9HZ PJ2/K9HZ VP2EHZ ? Owner - Operator Big Signal Ranch – K9ZC Staunton, Illinois ? Owner – Operator Villa Grand Piton – J68HZ Soufriere, St. Lucia W.I. Rent it: ? Moderator: North American QRO Group at Groups.IO. Moderator: Amateur Radio Builders Group at Groups.IO. ? email:? bill@... ? ? From: [email protected] <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Gary W9TD via groups.io Sent: Thursday, January 30, 2025 9:53 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [SoftwareControlledHamRadio] Interesting board ? Did you see the notice on the DigiKey product page () for the Vidor 4000: This product is no longer manufactured and will no longer be stocked once stock is depleted. I wouldn't start any projects with it as pretty soon no one will be able to get one. Gary W9TD

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