Another Hermes-Lite is Alive!

[Steve Haynal]

Jacinto sent me the note below. Congratulations Jacinto!

Several people have commented about needing to back off the gain. The best way in PowerSDR is to disable the AGC, enable the attenuator, and adjust the attenuation (really gain) value. There is a preliminary description of how to do this on the software wiki page. You can get -12 dB this way. I would be very surprised if this is not adequate for most people. 

I tend to run the gain "hot" as this seems to work best for WSPR/JT65/JT9 signals that may be down in the noise. The AGC peaks out at about +28dB and it is okay to see the clip LEDs flash every second or two.

73,

Steve

KF7O

 

Hello Steve,

 RX is working 100% !!! great project, I need attenuator, very strong
signals with my delta loop ...

73's

Jacinto
cu2ed

[Jacinto Rebelo]

I didn't do that ... will do this night and see how it works.

tks

73,

Jacinto

cu2ed

[Jacinto Rebelo]

Steve,

CN3 connector (low TX power) how much power is ?

For one of my already home made amplifer (10W) with RX/TX filters I
only need about +3 dbm

73,

Jacinto
cu2ed

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[John Williams]

Mine is up and running on RX... Wow, what a difference from the
Softrock. No birdies to be seen anywhere!

Superband boards are at fab, working on a bom to store at Digikey, then
will order the parts and get soldering...

Megaboard is getting real close. Jim and I were almost done until I
stirred the pot and we changed to J16. That change is almost complete.
Then I will get a bid from HobbyPCB on board build and kits with all SMT
parts placed. Interested to see what that will cost. Since there are so
many SMT caps (80+ total) and inductors on the receive filters, a
prebuilt board might be worth it.

12V converter also at fab, but less confident on that pcb design. May
have not gotten the input and output caps close enough after reading the
app note some more.

John - AC9HY

[Steve Haynal]

Hi Jacinto,

Sorry, I missed this question the other day. The AD9866 sheet on page 29 indicates the peak power from this lower power but highest spectral performance output is +10dbm. You amp should work but you may need to adjust the config data sent over SPI to back off the TX gain. (Eventually this TX gain will be exposed to software.) Just as an aside, there is another chip in this family, the AD9869, that doesn't have the IAMP. It is only slightly cheaper but harder to find.

I've listened to your Hermes-Lite on ghpsdr3-alex! Thanks for putting it on the internet. It sounds very good. What are the details of your delta loop? I noticed that you are running an older version of the server as the AGC is disabled and random has no effect. There was a bug in ghpsdr3-alex where random was just not hooked up. I fixed that bug around Christmas time and it is in the master branch.

73,

Steve

KF7O

[Robert Nickels]

Pleased to say my Hermes-Lite came up and working perfectly about 1/2
hour ago!

Here's a picture of the contraption:
http://i.imgur.com/HjXNfjD.jpg?1 A few pieces of scrap plastic will
keep the modules together until it finds a more permanent home.
Power supply is a repurposed PC supply, but I have a couple of these
real cheap 1U supplies on the way and they should make for a compact unit:

http://www.mpja.com/33V5V12V-130W-1U-Delta-DPS-129AB-Server-Supply/productinfo/17602%20PS/

The only tip I'd pass along for those like me who haven't used PowerSDR
before is to click "VAC1" in order to hear audio. Trial and error
works for most everything else. I'm assuming that the ADC is being
overloaded unless I turn the -20dB attenuator on - using a HyTower
vertical antenna I'm seeing signals peaking about 50dB above the -80dB
noise floor.

73, Bob W9RAN

[Duncan Clark]

In message <54C40018...@comcast.net>, Robert Nickels writes

>Pleased to say my Hermes-Lite came up and working perfectly about 1/2
>hour ago!

Congratulations.

>the -80dB noise floor.

Isn't that rather high?

-73dBm is S9 or 50uV so your background noise level is roughly S8 or so?

Steve's Rx usually sits around -100 to -110dBm, depending upon which HF
band you are on.

QtRadio still says that -110dBm on the Spectrum display is S6, -91dBm on
the S meter? Which is correct and how can one get them in sync or
calibrate the RX? Is that my end of the Hermes Lite end?

Duncan
--
Duncan Clark
G4ELJ

[Robert Nickels]

On 1/24/2015 3:59 PM, Duncan Clark wrote:
>
> Isn't that rather high?
>
> -73dBm is S9 or 50uV so your background noise level is roughly S8 or so?

Nah, mostly just operator error. I knew there were the repurposed
controls but couldn't remember which did what, but after poking around a
little more, I clicked "Dither Enable" which dropped the noise floor to
the -100 range with the attenuator off. I do think this is a
subjective, relative indication however, and when I have a full spectrum
display, the the last thing I worry about worry about is a "BS Meter" ;-)

73, Bob W9RAN

[Steve Haynal]

Hi Bob,

Congratulations on your working Hermes-Lite! I've added more detailed information to the software wiki page on configuring and using PowerSDR with a Hermes-Lite. In particular, there is a table that describes all the possible gain settings.

73,

Steve

KF7O

[Steve Haynal]

Hi Duncan,

I'm plagued with noise at my QTH. If you can catch Jacinto's or Rob's Hermes-Lite on ghpsdr-alex, you'll hear a much better antenna setup with less noise. I might try a delta loop like Jacinto.

73,

Steve

KF7O

[Steve Haynal]

Hi Jacinto,

That is great that you have the filter selector working! The drive slider is on the todo list. After listening to your radio, I've been thinking about putting a delta loop in my attic...

73,

Steve

KF7O

Today the TX is working 100% direct from the frontend !
Now I understand  what you are talking about, the drive slide is not working ...
maybe in a future upgrade.

For the filter selector I used a small interface I have done a few months ago,
a HCF4028 with pull-up resistor input connect to 3,3v and then
connected to a ULN2003A
and it's working very well, then I made my bcd combination on the
hermes menu control.

In the future I will  make the amplifier + filters from John Willians design
but for now I will try to use what I have, without destroy the hermes-lite :(

Still impressed with quality of this small project, must better then
my sdr1000 clone !

I'm not a programmer so can't help more then test the project and give
you feedback :)



73,

Jacinto
cu2ed




> Ok, so it' s because of this that I dont have AGC working, its a old version
> when I used with the softrock rxtx ... Will try update this weekend.
> On Powersdr is Ok, my antenna is a EADELTA7B, very low noise ...
> Ok so for now I can use pi att resistor on input amplifier.
> Tks to make this more clear.
>
> 73
>
> Jacinto
> Cu2ed

[Jacinto Rebelo]

Hi Steve,

yes I'm happy with the antenna, but for TX on some bands you must have a ATU, you could also think on the cobweb antenna, no rotor neither ATU is needed,  from 20 to 6m and also very good for noise places ...

About the filter selector, I have RX interference on 12-10m (vertical lines visible on waterfall) when I connect the digital lines to the BCD decoder, I did solve the problem for the moment with a LVT847 used 3 for bcd filter plus one for PTT, did anyone using filters detected this ?

It's important to confirm, so John can take this in consideration on his final PA project.

When the ghpsdr-alex is on there isn't control for BPF so for anyone connected to my server on 12-10m I may have sometimes interferences from local fm stations and this is the reason because antenna is connected direct to frontend PCB.

For the moment no problem with 10W and to adjust power is like Steve told using the TX gain on VAC, I even connected a 300W PA and didn't have RF problems on 40m and 20m, the only ones I tested ...

73,

Jacinto

cu2ed

[Robert Nickels]

I'd like to make my Hermes-Lite receiver available over the internet but
haven't been able to find the necessary details in the wiki or other
sources thus far. I have server and dsp-server running on linux box
and can connect reliably from QTRadio from a Windows PC and with glsdr
on Android. I've set up a dsp-server config file, and assume
"Sharing" should be set to "yes".

Do I need to do anything other than set port forwarding in my router?
Which ports? I've used DHCP reservation so the IP address on my LAN
should be consistent, but do I also need a dyndns service? Sorry if
this is noob stuff but I think the wiki and other docs assume the users
know how to do it.

Thanks and 73,
Bob W9RAN

[Steve Haynal]

Hi Bob,

You're pretty much there if you can connect locally. You'll need to open and forward port 8000 for TCP to your machine that is running dspserver. 8000 for RX1 and 8001 for RX2 if you want to share both. I only share RX1 as I use RX2 for skimming and start the dspserver for RX1 with "yes" for share in my dspserver.conf, and then switch to "no" when starting the dspserver for RX2. This makes the user count of my RX accurate online. The ghpsdr3-alex gurus may know of a better way to share just 1... You don't need any sort of dynamic dns service. I intend to add this information to the software wiki page.

I look forward to hearing your Hermes-Lite!

73,

Steve

KF7O

[Steve Haynal]

Hi Jacinto,

Thanks for the pointer to the cobwebb antenna. I'll take a look. 

The "vertical line" interference that you describe reminds me of what I see when some LCD computer monitors are powered on in my house. You can also add some ferrite beads to your digital lines. It will be interesting to see what other users report.

73,

Steve

KF7O

[pascal.v...@gmail.com]

I also use a Cobwebb on my remote softrock and am very pleased with it (17m to 10m only) - built with http://www.m0pzt.com/?cobweb concept and using http://aerial-parts.co.uk/ mechanical parts, cheap and strong , easy antenna to build, easy to adjust with M0PZT idea...

[Jacinto Rebelo]

Steve,

It seem very easy to work with RX0 and RX1 I started like:

 hpsdr-server --receivers 2 ...

then 2 dspserver  like:

 dspserver --receiver 0 ...

 dspserver --receiver 1 ...

the first one is working, but the second one I can connect (only local access) but no signal or waterfall

do I missing something ?

73

Jacinto

cu2ed

[Jacinto Rebelo]

OK, I find the problem :)

error on one of dspserver command line, every space is important !!!

working now

Jacinto

[Sid Boyce]

From the Wiki

Network settings

If you are behind a firewall/NAT-router and want to be able to connect to your dspserver over the Internet you have to open up port tcp/8000. If you are using the client in RTP mode you have to open up udp/5004 and udp/5005.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I open router ports 8000 to 8003 and 9000 to 9003.
The 9000 series ports are for (I think) privilege access for TX by users with ID/password.

73 ... Sid.

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-- 
Sid Boyce ... Hamradio License G3VBV, Licensed Private Pilot
Emeritus IBM/Amdahl Mainframes and Sun/Fujitsu Servers Tech Support
Senior Staff Specialist, Cricket Coach
Microsoft Windows Free Zone - Linux used for all Computing Tasks

[Robert Nickels]

On 1/25/2015 11:29 AM, Steve Haynal wrote:
> You'll need to open and forward port 8000 for TCP to your machine that
> is running dspserver

Thanks - but no joy thus far.

Here's a screen that shows to my best knowledge that has been done in
the router: http://i.imgur.com/9O1eIo6.png
I then set the range to forward per Sid's suggestion:
http://i.imgur.com/2fz6Rcj.png

But the ports remain inaccessable when I scan them from outside via an
IP port scanner, e.g. http://www.whatsmyip.org/port-scanner/

Dsp-server is running under Xubunto 14.04 and while it does have a
firewall it defaults to disabled and I've verified that is the case.
One thing I can't explain is why the external IP address my router shows
is not the same as my public IP. I assume this means my ISP (Comcast)
has an intermediate server and wonder if the port could be blocked at
that level.

73, Bob W9RAN

[Steve Haynal]

Hi Bob,

I think you are right that there is another layer of NAT somewhere in your network. For my Hermes-Lite, the IP that shows up for me in ghpsdr3-alex is the same IP my router thinks is its external address and the same IP that shows up when I google "what is my IP." I ran nmap on the IP that shows up for you and get what is shown below. It would be nice if ghpsdr3-alex was rearchitected to use some type of hole punching like Skype, etc...

root@shiva:/home/shaynal# nmap -O 98.214.23.19

Starting Nmap 6.40 ( http://nmap.org ) at 2015-01-25 15:18 PST

Nmap scan report for c-98-214-23-19.hsd1.il.comcast.net (98.214.23.19)

Host is up (0.074s latency).

All 1000 scanned ports on c-98-214-23-19.hsd1.il.comcast.net (98.214.23.19) are filtered

Too many fingerprints match this host to give specific OS details

OS detection performed. Please report any incorrect results at http://nmap.org/submit/ .

Nmap done: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 79.53 seconds

73,

Steve

KF7O

[Robert Nickels]

On 1/25/2015 5:28 PM, Steve Haynal wrote:
> I think you are right that there is another layer of NAT somewhere in
> your network

Steve, thanks for your port test - the joys of networks!

The old song about "looking for love in all the wrong places" seems to
apply to troubleshooting as well. After spend most of the night
looking in vain for a port forwarding screen in my cable modem that
doesn't exist and blaming The Evil Comcast - (I did find a list of ports
they routinely block, but 8000 isn't one of them) - I decided to sleep
on the problem.

And woke up this morning with a crystal-clear revelation of what the
culprit was - the VoIP box sitting right at my elbow! A year or so
ago, I switched to the Ooma VoIP service and while I'd initially
connected the VoIP box to a router port, at their suggestion I later
moved it to between the cable modem and my wi-fi router in order to take
advantage of their QoS service that gives priority to voice packets.
Of course this meant that the IP address my router showed came from a
DHCP server in the Ooma box, and after setting up Port Forwarding in
it, port 8000 finally was opened to the outside world. So now I think
my Hermes-Lite will be accessible via the Quick Server List.

For anyone else who finds themselves behind this kind of double-NAT IP
translation, remember to set the "most upstream" device to port forward
to the WAN address it assigns to your wi-fi router, which must then be
configured to port forward to the actual machine where dsp-server is
running.

73, Bob W9RAN

PS: You guys are quick!

[pascal.v...@gmail.com]

Nice to hear your Hermes-lite, Bob ! connected without issue. I still wait for my kit...

[Robert Nickels]

On 1/26/2015 9:26 AM, pascal.v...@gmail.com wrote:
> Nice to hear your Hermes-lite, Bob ! connected without issue.

Good to know, Pascal. I don't think most routers allow connecting to
the public IP from inside the NAT-translated LAN. At least mine doesn't.

My "PS" comment was based on the fact that I'd walked up to the other
end of the house to re-start dsp-server with "share" enabled, but by the
time I'd walked back to this PC where QTRadio is installed, someone had
already connected to it ;-)

Hoping that one outcome of the Hermes-Lite project is a lot more
web-accessible SDRs.

73, Bob W9RAN

[Steve Haynal]

Hi Bob,

I'm listening to your Hermes-Lite right now. It sounds great. Are you using one of these power supplies that you linked to earlier?

I listened to CU2ED's Hermes-Lite on RX1 extensively yesterday. I wish I lived at a QTH like the Azores! There were many unusual stations for me. Although setting up ghpsdr3-alex can be a challenge, it is very nice to share your radio as well as listen to other shared radios.

Everyone so far has better antennas and less QTH noise than me. I have to figure out something better here...

73,

Steve

KF7O

[Robert Nickels]

On 1/26/2015 10:17 AM, Steve Haynal wrote:
> Are you using one of these power supplies

> <http://www.mpja.com/basket.asp> that you linked to earlier?

Not yet, although I hope to once they arrive. At present I'm using an
old PC power supply, but the others will have a nicer form factor.
BTW, the cheap PC Power Supply testers sold on eBay for <$10 are handy,
at least to tell whether an old PC supply is putting out the correct
voltages.

EMI is a major problem with all the little SMPS in use today, and I've
also found that the input filter has been eliminated from many PC power
supplies to save money (there's an IEC receptacle but no L-C filtering
behind it). That same company (MPJA) sells RFI line filters that
accept standard IEC cordsets such as:

http://www.mpja.com/RFI-Line-Filter-10A-250VAC-Module-Delta/productinfo/18456%20FL
http://www.mpja.com/Noise-Filter-AC-Line-10A-250VAC-IEC-Input/productinfo/31918%20FL

I wired one from my junkbox up in an electrical box and while I didn't
bother checking the attenuation specs, it eliminated the terrible racket
that was otherwise visible as a broadband noise peak every 60khz across
the lower HF bands. I suspect the EMI starts out being conducted over
the AC power line and then re-radiated in all kinds of nasty ways, so if
you can isolate a noise source, adding a filter like this may help. I
also find that the closer any antenna is to the house, the great the
noise level.

73, Bob W9RAN

[Steve Haynal]

Hi Bob,

I wish I could move my antenna farther from the house. I bought an EMI filter similar to those in your links but haven't gotten around to playing with it. I'll continue tracking down noise sources and try to switch to quieter antennas.

Please let us know how the 1U power supply works. I have two (different brand than in your link) that do well in terms of noise, but when I load them down during TX the voltage drifts causing the xtal to drift as well. 

73,

Steve

KF7O

[Jim Smith]

Yet another one lives - BeMicro CV, 1.2 pcbs, picking up signals well on 40m with just a short length of wire. 

The AD9866 certainly withstands a whole lot of abuse. 

Thanks a lot Steve. 

73

Jim - G3ZQC

[pascal.v...@gmail.com]

I just finished to build the kit,
Connected on a small wire, it has worked a few seconds, but my power supply ( a very cheap YuRobot chinese product) was not able to keep the 3.3 & 5V voltages a long time...so I have to find another supply...
But that looks ok for the hermes-lite & front-end pcb as I could receive ssb station on 20m band.

[Sid Boyce]

Excellent Pascal,
I am up to winding T1 and hope to do some more this evening.

For quick power sources I have some 3A buck convertors off EBay running off the shack +13.8V PS and also a 150W PC PS that I've converted to a bench PS that is currently powering a Raspberry PI + 7" touchscreen + Arduino Uno + USB Hub + USB sound dongle that when all boxed up will be the standalone HiQSDR running off the 13.8V shack P.S or as a mobile/portable station.

I had 2 USB hub wall warts fail on 2 PC's, one throwing out hash that made some bands almost unusable.
I cut the leads off them and connected them to the PC internal PS.

I still have another one throwing out RF hash which I have not yet located.
73 ... Sid.

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[Steve Haynal]

Congratulations on the 2 new Hermes-Lites that are up!

[John Williams]

Jacinto,

Getting back to this notion of the opto-isolator. I made a wiring error on my first PA board and succeeded in burning out the PTT line. I am going to use an opto-isolator in the new design to protect the CV from inadvertent shorting of the signal. I think this will be more robust for kit builders. I expect a benefit also that you mention in providing RF isolation.

What input resistance did you select to limit the max current from the CV or SDK to no more than 2 ma? The Userout and PTT signals are set to a default current strength of 2ma in the pin assignment tool. Will the opto work at a 1ma current? I calculate a 2.1k ohm for 1ma of current, and 1k ohm for 2ma of current. What do you think?

John

[Jacinto Rebelo]

Hello John,

I use 1k  and it works 100% even with my 400W PA near ...

Jacinto
Cu2ed

[Joe]

On Saturday, February 7, 2015 at 6:41:53 AM UTC-6, John Williams wrote:

Jacinto,

Getting back to this notion of the opto-isolator. I made a wiring error on my first PA board and succeeded in burning out the PTT line. I am going to use an opto-isolator in the new design to protect the CV from inadvertent shorting of the signal. I think this will be more robust for kit builders. I expect a benefit also that you mention in providing RF isolation.

What input resistance did you select to limit the max current from the CV or SDK to no more than 2 ma? The Userout and PTT signals are set to a default current strength of 2ma in the pin assignment tool. Will the opto work at a 1ma current? I calculate a 2.1k ohm for 1ma of current, and 1k ohm for 2ma of current. What do you think?

John

 Good point John,

I did a quick look over of the SDK data sheet and couldn't find any current source of sink values. I'm now concerned that I might be taxing

the SDK by driving a ULN2003 direct for filter selection, On the PTT line I us a 10k resistor to a N channel fet. What are the values that

the FPGA can handle? Is the source value settable using software? If so whats the value and what are the MAX values?

Joe   wa9cgz

[John Williams]

Joe,

Need to ask Steve. In the pin assignments tool I see them set to 2ma, but do not know if that is a hard limit or not...nor could I find a max setting. In my circuit, I am using a CD4050 to buffer the fpga to insure I get a good CMOS to TTL translation...

John

[Joe]

John,

Thanks for the info. I use a 1K pullup resistor followed by a ULN2003. The sink current from the 1K using 3.3V source is 3.3ma

alone. Maybe I should change to a higher resistor value to be safe. BTW  the ULN2003 is just a 5v pull down for other logic

that interfaces my old SDR project.

Joe 

[John Williams]

Jacinto,

Can you check the schematic attached to see if this is correct? Never used an opto before.

I elected to use 1.2K to keep it slightly under 2ma...

John

[Steve Haynal]

On the CV, the ptt out is set to LVCMOS with maximum 2mA. That bank can be switched to 3.3 TTL with max 16mA. Usual increments are 2,4,8,12,16mA. What max current would you like for ptt out?

73,

Steve

KF7O