PA Calibration/TX Drv crashes

[Mike O'Callaghan]

I’m using DL1YCF piHPSDR with an AURSINC Radioberry on a Raspberry Pi 4.

Maybe someone else has run into this problem?  I’ve been trying to adjust the PA Calibration settings in the PA Menu so that a TX Drv setting of 100 gives me 50W output from my external PA on all bands.  I’ve been successful, but only up to a point.

As I vary the TX Drv slider on the main control panel and the PA Calibration settings in the PA Calibration menu, there seem to be combinations of settings which cause the Radioberry output to drop to zero or near-zero.  To restore operation, I have to re-boot the Raspberry Pi 4.

For example, with the PA Calibration setting at 44.0 on 20m and the TX Drv slider at 50, the Radioberry RF output is okay.  If I adjust the TX Drv slider up and down between 0 and 50 the RF output goes up and down as it should.  However, if I move the TX Drv slider up to 60 the RF output drops to zero (or near zero) and is not restored by lowering the slider back to 50.  I must re-boot the Raspberry Pi 4 in order to restore RF output.

I’ve experienced this on multiple versions of the DL1YCF piHPSDR software (most recently v2.5).

I’ve experienced this with two AURSINC Radioberry versions, one with a CL025 FPGA and another with a CL016 FPGA.

As discussed in a Google Groups Conversation, I am using corrected Radioberry firmware that fixes the TX Drv linearity problem.

Has anyone else experienced this problem?  Maybe it has already been discussed somewhere?

Thanks,

Mike (NJ0L)