Arion — a new cross-platform SDR control app for HermesLite 2 (early proof of concept)

[Jeff _]

Hi everyone,

I'd like to share a project I've been working on: Arion, a cross-platform SDR control application for the HermesLite 2, written in Rust.

A bit of context about me — I'm new to ham radio (no callsign yet) and fairly new to the HermesLite 2. My background is mostly as an SDR listener. I got a HermesLite 2 recently and started using Thetis, but since it's Windows-only and now archived, I decided to try writing something from scratch that could run on Linux (my daily driver), macOS, and Windows.

Arion is very much a proof of concept at this stage — it's not a replacement for Thetis or any other mature software. But it's functional enough to receive and listen on the HL2, and I thought some people here might find it interesting or want to follow along.

What works today:

Dual RX (2 DDC receivers) via HPSDR Protocol 1
DSP chain via WDSP (NR3/NR4, ANF, 10-band EQ, variable filters)
Click-to-tune, band stack, memories, S-meter with per-band calibration
Two frontends on the same core: an egui desktop GUI and a ratatui console UI (works over SSH — handy if your HL2 is on a headless Pi)
Built-in Rhai scripting with a REPL for automation
Fully self-contained build — no system library dependencies, cross-compiles to Windows from Linux
What doesn't work yet:

No TX at all (I don't have callsign yet)
No CAT/TCI server
Lots of rough edges
The long-term goal would be to support as many HermesLite 2 features as possible, but there's a long road ahead.

GitHub: https://github.com/jromang/arion
Pre-built binaries (Linux + Windows): https://github.com/jromang/arion/releases/tag/v0.0.1

Any feedback, ideas, or pointers from experienced HL2 users would be very welcome. I'm learning as I go!

Cheers,
Jeff

[G4ZAL]

Well done on your adventure into Amateur Radio.

Another Rust implementation is by John Melton, g0orx.
John is well known for his work on pihpsdr/linhpsdr and his Rust implementation can be found here...

https://github.com/g0orx/rustyHPSDR

Good luck.

Nigel, G4ZAL

[Jeff _]

Hi Nigel,

Thanks a lot for the kind words and the encouragement — much appreciated!

And thanks especially for pointing me to John's rustyHPSDR project. I wasn't aware of it, and given his background with pihpsdr/linhpsdr it's going to be a fantastic reference. I'll definitely take a close look — always good to see how others have tackled the same protocol in Rust, and I'm sure there's a lot I can learn from his approach.

73,
Jeff