Testing gateware 20201127_72p7 receive-only 10 RX at 192kHz released

[Steve Haynal]

Hi Group,

Please see the 20201127_72p7 testing gateware release. This is an experimental 10 receiver CIC-only release. It runs at only 192kHz. The bandwidth is halved from past cicrx releases to reduce CPU and network loads. It is intended to be used for 10 band skimming with SparkSDR. Only install it if you wish to skim many bands with SparkSDR. There is no transmit in this gateware. the amount of usable bandwidth is 70 to 80 kHz.

73,

Steve

kf7o

[svem...@gmail.com]

 Hi Steve!

I have now upgraded to 20201127_72p7 on my hl2b5 and hl2b8. Thanks for the new firmware. Which works well after the this first 30 minutes test.

Hl2b5 refused to be upgraded from SparkSDR so I used Quisk and that worked out well. The hl2b8 was programmed from SparkSDR without any problem.

In SparkSDR I have reserved 12 cores to have my 53 virtual receiver system to run out well. Earlier with 10rx firmware for 384k bandwidth ep6 spinning up to astronomic figures! Now is it just a few ep6 the last 15 minutes.

CPU Power and a lot of memory in my AMD 3900x with 24 cores/threads was a must to have as many virtual receivers.

73 de Sven SM6FMB  

[svem...@gmail.com]

Hi again!

I should also say that CPU usage has gone done 20 - 25 procent.

73 de Sven SM6FMB   

[Roger Critchlow]

I flashed with SparkSDR successfully, but none of my FT8 receivers was finding anything after the flash.  Ah, still set to 384ksps sampling,   Switched to 192ksps samplling and now decoding 160-10m, but only getting spots on 160-17m which makes sense, about an hour past sunset in Boston.

I think SparkSDR should optionally report spots/minute, and enable one button to clear all band spot lists.

-- rec -- ad5dz --

-- rec -- ad5dz --

[J P Watters]

Steve, Al and the swarm of Amateurs.

It is just coming up on 24 hours running 72P on hardware build HL2B9

The instability of the HL2 gateware and the IP address acquired by the HL2 seems to have increased.

In previous versions, I was never able to run SpartSDR overnight. Usually after 4 hours, it would reboot and leave the environment in an unstable condition. With both the updated gateware and  the changes in the current code seems to run longer without requiring an application reboot or a system reboot. 

Now if I can figure out how to RF plumb the pair of HL2's with a combiner to achieve higher than 30dbm of isolation. To date, cannot find a higher isolation to protect the opposing HL2 receiver from the RF output of the other. 

Continuing the fight. Looks like tomorrow a driveby chainsawing will trim trees such that a new parallel wire antenna will get installed. 

Why is it that antennas installed at less then freezing , work the best or longest. 

.jpw

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[keyboa...@gmail.com]

Testing here with an old i7 laptop running 8 cores with 20 virtual receivers on FT8 and WSPR. The CPU load looks about the same but the network bandwidth is definitely reduced.

Support for external clock sources at some point if possible would be nice...

Much appreciated Steve!

73,

Jayson

AA7NM

[Steve Haynal]

Hi Jayson,

Is the external clock support as described here:

https://github.com/softerhardware/Hermes-Lite2/wiki/External-Clocks#use-cl1-at-synchronous-768mhz-input

not what you are looking for? That can be modified to accept 10MHz reference input too.

73,

Steve

kf7o

[Alan Hopper]

Hi Group,

Spark does not yet know not to use the edges of these 192k receivers so may sometimes place virtual receivers in the invalid edges. I'll release an update soon.

73 Alan M0NNB

[Mats Sundin]

Hi,

Could this version work for an CW skimmer Server ??

//Mats 

[Steve Haynal]

Hi Mats,

I think so. This gateware has the ability to turn of the watchdog timer. See this post for notes:

https://groups.google.com/g/hermes-lite/c/AsShxMfDxdQ/m/hovqe3NIAQAJ

73,

Steve

kf7o

[Steve Haynal]

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Alan Hopper <al...@samsararesearch.com>
Date: Mon, Nov 30, 2020 at 11:44 PM
Subject: Re: Testing gateware 20201127_72p7 receive-only 10 RX at 192kHz released
To: Steve Haynal <softerh...@gmail.com>

Hi Group,

Spark does not yet know not to use the edges of these 192k receivers so may sometimes place virtual receivers in the invalid edges. I'll release an update soon.

73 Alan M0NNB

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[Steve Haynal]

Hi Mats,

You can also disable the watchdog timer using hermeslite.py and then start CW skimmer. I am curious to know if this will make CW skimmer work.

73,

Steve

kf7o

On Thu, Dec 3, 2020 at 1:35 AM Mats Sundin <mat...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi Steve,

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction.

I did miss the posts regarding this...Thanks !

//Mats

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[Mats Sundin]

Hi Steve,

I downloaded the hermeslite.py but I can't find out how to disable the watchdog timer..

C:\Users\ma_su\Desktop\HL2>python3 -i hermeslite.py

Discover response from 192.168.0.144:1025

>>>

[Steve Haynal]

Hi Mats,

The CW skimmer has already been rebuilt to disable the watchdog. Please see this blog:

https://www.george-smart.co.uk/2020/12/using-cw-skimmer-with-hermes-lite-2-sdr/

73,

Steve

kf7o

On Fri, Dec 4, 2020 at 11:58 PM Mats Sundin <mat...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi Steve,

Sounds more eazy.. tried to build yesterday .. with failure.. I will test and get back with infos..

//Mats

[Mats Sundin]

Great news...  will try tomorrow 

73's

Mats

SM0FPR

[mbz...@gmail.com]

Hi Matts, Steve, et al,

I used the well documented procedure outlined in the linked blog post up thread and its working fine.

Skimmer Server seems to limit to 8 bands.

I am linking the Telnet server in Skimmer Server to CW Reporter as outlined in the blog post as well as to RBN Aggregator, all working smoothly with low CPU load (absent a contest!).

Next project is to move the setup to a dedicated  x86 Single Board Computer to have it all packaged together to run 24/7. Looking at LattePanda Delta for the SBC.

I wondered about the state of the High Pass Filter with this setup? It would be nice to have it inline to reject broadcast band interference. I have one outboard at present in case it's not activated in the Gateware.

Suggestions welcome to improve what I've done!

73 - KV4TT - Mike

[Steve Haynal]

Hi Mike,

Congratulations on your setup! This is very interesting. I will have to add a link for this skimmer plugin and the blog to the software wiki page.

The filter setting is sent as part of a regular command to the HL2. Depending on how often CW skimmer sends this command (which may be never since we know it doesn't send enough data to reset the watchdog timer), you will have to either update CW skimmer to send a filter setting which activates the HPF, or you may be able to get by using hermeslite.py to send the filter command setting once after CW skimmer has started.

73,

Steve

kf7o

[mbz...@gmail.com]

Steve,

Thanks for the comments. Modifying the .dll is far out of my skillset. I would use the hermeslite.py method, but I have the set of 8 bands automatically changing at sunrise and sunset to cover the appropriate bands. This restarts the skimmer server each time, so manually running hermeslite.py to do the job would mean manual attention twice a day.

I will just stick with my outboard HPF for now and maybe someone with programming skills that go beyond Fortran and punch cards in college 40 years ago will mod that .dll at some point.

I will post a photo and share further info when I get the skimmer running on the SBC.

73 - KV4TT - Mike

[Alan Hopper]

Hi Group,

If anyone fancies a programming challenge:- It should be possible, using the new websocket interface to SparkSDR, to create an alternative skimmer server to connect to spark, then the skimmer program could share the same radio with spark.

73 Alan M0NNB

[J P Watters]

Why not do the converse, exempt a receiver from scanning, program the websocket interface to support using a receiver for I/Q-spectrum, with Cat Control. Then another SparkSDR, Quisk, LinHPSDR,  PowerSDR/Thetis, piHPSDR, SDR Console could use that receiver or two for access to the RF.

I am running the last known OSX version of SparkSDR v2.0.4.3 as a scanner with 10 receivers on an i5 ethernet connected MacMini which runs nicely. 23K spots a day monitoring with gateware 72P on hardware build HL2B9. Previous gateware would fail after a few hours. 

Simon either already has, or will have a network interface to SDRconsole. It would be really cool if Spark either could connect to SDRconsole or the other way around.

It will be interesting to see what Jim Ahlstrom N2ADR Quisk, Alan Hooper M0NNB SparkSDR, Matthew Balmer M5EVT LinHPSDR, Reid Campbell Gi8TME/Mi0BOT PowerSDR/Thetis, Christoph v Wullen DL1YCF piHPSDR, Simon Brown G4ELI SDR Concole, Jim Ancona N1ADJ openwebrx, and others have to say.

..jpw J P Watters

KC9KKO

Morris, IL USA

On Thu, Dec 10, 2020 at 12:35 PM Alan Hopper <al...@samsararesearch.com> wrote:

Hi jpw,

All you suggest should be possible, the thought for skimmer server is that spark is the master and talks to the radio, an alternative skimmer server dll then connects to spark rather than to the radio and is given virtual receivers that share hw receivers with spark and anything else connected.

 My idea for the websocket interface is to cover everything that is traditionally done by cat, vac and logging interfaces plus client/server stuff.

The protocol design is very much a prototype and will be evolved as real uses are explored, there is nothing to stop others adopting it or adding to it.

the current things shaping the design are :-

I'm working on spark connecting to spark, 

David has a nice web client https://github.com/nricciar/sparksdr-websocket-demo, 

Ward has some interesting spot analysis https://groups.google.com/g/sparksdr/c/wN4tkhi08yg 

and  Andy has neat GridTracker https://groups.google.com/g/sparksdr/c/AJnF74z5Sgk and  DXCluster https://groups.google.com/g/sparksdr/c/SgclcMcthaY interfaces.

David has done a wonderful job on documentation here https://github.com/nricciar/sparksdr-websocket-demo/wiki/WebSocket-API

I'll post a 2.0.4.8 osx version shortly,

73 Alan M0NNB

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