RX antenna toggle button

[Joe LB1HI]

Hi,

Alan, would you be able to program it and I am asking you for that. The push button to toggle between the RX antenna and the transmitting antenna.

For example, it often happens that the transmitting antenna has a high level of interference and you need to help yourself with a small antenna, for example loop etc. other antennas that can cut us off from interference.

Or extremely useful when calling on a directional antenna to check if someone is calling us from the side.

Or ...... a lot of possibilities. Extremely useful.

It is about a button like the one in the picture but in SparkSDR.

Hermes Lite 2 lacks this valuable functionality

73, Jozef
lb1hi

[Alan Hopper]

Hi Joe,

all very doeable, I just need to know what to send to the radio. I'm just adding the ability to select adcs for the orion board both for diversity and antenna selection, I could possibly incoporate it with this.

73 Alan M0NNB

[Joe LB1HI]

Hi Alan,
That's great, thank you very much.
I think Steve will answer that best. When he makes a decision:  On which BUS to which slave the command will be sent to. 

73, Jozef

[Joe LB1HI]

Hi Alan again,

is there any prospect that the SparkSDR front panel will have a button to change the GP7 state? (antenna relay control)

PS. It seems to me that it would require a correction of gateware by Steve because what was proposed and implemented not long ago was not in the right place. GP7 control has been assigned to the RX selection field and should have been to the antenna selection field. (openHPSDR).

73, Joe, LB1HI
PS. Thank you for your progress and work input. Spark SDR is developing quickly and well.

[Joe LB1HI]

      ....... was proposed and implemented not long ago was not in the right place..........

A wrong place statement does not mean that it does not work. It works but only in the modified version of OpenHPSDR PowerSDR mrX PS.

In fact, it bothers nothing because HL2 doesn't have three antenna inputs or two physical ADCs

So the question is what to do?

Should we remain with the modification of the gateware. And implement the RX button toggle antenna accordingly in software like your Spark?

OpenHPSDR PowerSDR mrX PS settings before 

OpenHPSDR PowerSDR mrX PS settings after modification

73, Joe
LB1HI  

[Alan Hopper]

Hi Joe,

A space has just appeared in the spark ui for this button. I have moved the drive below the frequency display as that acts on a per virtual transceiver basis (in recent releases). The controls above the frequency display are radio wide which is what the rx antenna has to be as it affects all receivers connected to that adc.  I can see how to set the GP7bit  in the protocol but I'm not sure if I have to toggle it on tx and rx or does the gateware do this?

73 Alan M0NNB

[Joe LB1HI]

Hi Alan,

Thank you for the good news. Nice.

At the moment it works like this:
The changes made to the gateware cause the GP7 to appear high only during the reception.

The high status depends only when a maker pin is set in the RX1 field.

However, during transmitting, the GP7 status remains low regardless of whether the marker in RX1 field is set or not.

The openHPSDR mRX version 3.4.9 has an RX Ant button which changes its name to TX Ant and its color. But this button does not drive the change made recently to the gateware. As it refers to the fields marked with a red rectangle in the screenshot in the post above.

Go further: Reid has modified openHPSDR and its version v3.5.0_Beta_5 works fine to control GP7 from the front panel. Activation or deactivation of this function during reception is done via the RX Ant / TX Ant antenna button on the front panel. This button has been assigned to the RX1 field marked with a green oval.

Lots of additional information, but I think I answered the most important question. That disabling this function during transmission is handled by the gateware.

The changes in v3.5.0_Beta_5 look fine. So I think it will stay that way and it will keep going in the right direction.

In particular, it is positive that these changes do not interfere with the Hardware radio model HERMES. The changes were implemented in a new model radio called LITE.

Bearing in mind the above, I personally think that the gateware change is not necessary. That we can stay with this modification that was recently implemented. (Pullup request from Matthew).

73, Joe
LB1HI

[Joe LB1HI]

Hi Alan,
Yes. I see there is still a lot of room for future GUI functions.
Screenshot of CPU usage. The peaks reach 86% when jt9 decodes.
It decodes well 9 bands at a time.

74, Joe
LB1HI

On Wednesday, July 15, 2020 at 2:12:43 PM UTC+2 ahop...@googlemail.com wrote:

[Alan Hopper]

Hi Joe,

there is a test version here http://www.ihopper.org/radio/download.aspx?file=SparkSDR2_0_2_4_win64.zip that has an antenna button, It would be good to know if it works with real hardware.

73 Alan M0NNB

[Joe LB1HI]

Hi Alan and Group,
Thank you. RAnt button Works "almost". You could say halfway.
Button toggle Pin 13 on the N2ADR board during RX.
ON--> High state 3.2 Volt When the green dot is visible.
OFF -->LOW state  0 Volt when the dots are gone. And that's OK
But it does not go low to LOW state. While transmitting.
After the radio goes to TX, the state of this pin should be low 0 Volt, regardless of what setting we left during the reception.

As a reminder to new users. The Point P13 on the N2ADR filter board is a large pierced solder pad. You can very easily solder a single connection pin or wire.
Pin13 is connected to GP7 of chip U1 MCP23008.
I am enclosing a schematic excerpt and a link to the entire schematic.

http://james.ahlstrom.name/hl2filter/HL2FilterE.pdf 

73, Joe 
LB1HI

[Alan Hopper]

Hi Joe,

thanks for testing, the question now is what else has to be set to cause the gateware to change this on tx as described in your earlier post.

73 Alan M0NNB

[Joe LB1HI]

Hi Alan,

Gateware does not require any changes.

In PowerHPSDR in both version 3.4.9 and version 3.5.0 beta 5 this works fine = When switching to TX, the signal (high state) on GP7 Pin13 disappears.

(This is important for safety reasons like not damage the receiving antenna. And important to ensure that it automatically transmits on the correct main antenna and not accidentally on a second additional antenna used for listening from a different direction. Or for listening omnidirectional when the transmitting antenna is directional)

It's hard for me to say what needs to be changed. It seems to me that the changes should concern how your SparkSDR software interprets what the gateware sends in TX time.

Thank you again for your commitment and efforts

73, Joe LB1HI

[Joe LB1HI]

Hi again,

In all three:  PowerHPSDR in version 3.4.9 and version 3.5.0 beta 5 and in SparkSDR

Switching = toggle between the main antenna and the receiving (or additional second) antenna works correctly and the same.

The only difference is that SparkSDR still has the GP7 / Pin13 signal voltage after switching to TX. And only this difference should be adjusted so that it also works the same as in PowerHPSDR mRX

73, Joe

[Joe LB1HI]

It is very nice and reassuring that SparkSDR has finally found itself on the GP7 control button in accordance with the protocol. It just needs a little refinement

Gateware does not require any changes.
In PowerHPSDR in both version 3.4.9 and version 3.5.0 beta 5 this works fine = When switching to TX, the signal (high state) on GP7 Pin13 disappears.

(This is important for safety reasons like not damage the receiving antenna. And important to ensure that it automatically transmits on the correct main antenna and not accidentally on a second additional antenna used for listening from a different direction. Or for listening omnidirectional when the transmitting antenna is directional)

It's hard for me to say what needs to be changed. It seems to me that the changes should concern how your SparkSDR software interprets what the gateware sends in TX time.

Thank you again for your commitment and efforts

---

In all three: PowerHPSDR in version 3.4.9 and version 3.5.0 beta 5 and in SparkSDR switching = toggle between the main antenna and the receiving (or additional second) antenna works correctly and the same.

The only difference is that SparkSDR still has the GP7 / Pin13 signal voltage after switching to TX. And only this difference should be adjusted so that it also works the same as in PowerHPSDR mRX

73, Joe