Jim Lux wrote: > At 07:48 PM 9/24/2006, Larry Loen wrote: > >> David Ackrill wrote: >> >> >Guy Olinger, K2AV wrote: >> > >> I've thought long and hard about this note. >> >> I believe the main issue here is simple -- while the software has >> improved by leaps and bounds, we have only the most modest changes to >> the hardware. >> >> Last night, even with all my experience, I had a major heartache. The >> CW was "stuck on". After reseating the parallel cable maybe three times >> (and reseating everything else and rebooting Windows inbetween), it >> finally went away. Imagine my consternation with a week to go before >> leaving town. And, I was about 80 per cent sure of the solution at the >> start! >> >> The cables, their care and feeding, and the sheer complexity of >> remembering the 25 leading things that can go wrong as they come loose >> are far and away the biggest problem with owning this otherwise >> wonderful rig. >> >> I think many of us have forgotten how much of a problem it can be to >> deal with all of it. We get it going, it glitches once in a while (it >> does at my QTH anyway), we get really busy figuring it out. And, when >> we do, it goes away for a while. >> >> I know it's asking a lot, but we do need that Flex 2000 of my dreams >> where the sound card function is brought inboard and the entire >> communication takes place as data bytes over a USB cable as an ordinary >> PC peripheral. That is, an on-board D/A and A/D process, all run in a >> manner like a printer or any other PC peripheral. Whether it is a >> chosen sound card or a real D/A A/D pair, I don't care. Whatever meets >> the need. It probably means some modest CPU in there, too. So be it. > > > I would support this.. put a Mini-ITX mobo in the package with the > radio and give it an ethernet interface and I'd be a really happy camper.
As long as the Mini-ITX is separate from what I'm asking for, analogous to what is done with the Dell package, I have no problems with this. But, I want the radio _itself_ to be portable or at least reasonably "transportable." That means a 12v unit and also a unit as a whole that can be put into the bottom of a carry on bag for an airliner. Something physically not much bigger (maybe not bigger at all) than the current unit. I just want it very _slightly_ smarter in roughly the same package. I want it to be just a little more like a conventional radio and not outsmart ourselves with added complexity. Conceptually, take out the 2m transverter and insert the A/D D/A CPU-based package in its place. That's all, at least physically. Start adding in a full Mini-ITX PC as a single, indivisible unit and the whole suggestion becomes more problematical. Flex (whatever it does) is not going to have a gigantic product line. I vote for a KISS USB peripheral approach because it would acutally serve a _wider_ menu of needs. As I read Jim's idea, there's still a second computer involved anyway, so the Mini ITX, as a "platform" has more minuses than plusses, I think. Besides the sheer nightmare of the wires that motivates this plea, the current package is really a "base station" unit and not terribly portable, even though I'm willing and able to do it. But, the current SDR 1000 really kind of resists going portable. Or, put it another way, taking it portable, at the very least, disturbs all those darn wires. You hesitate in the way you might not with another rig. If it wasn't a 12v rig, I wonder if it would even occur to anyone to try. I don't think having the Flex unit itself having ethernet is critical at all. Nor particularly desirable. Given that (in my suggestion), the major smarts, including the DSP logic, stays off the SDR itself and that the SDR hardware remains primarily latches (now supplemented by a D/A A/D process _and no more_) then there'll be a second PC in the picture that can and will do the required networking. Even in Jim's suggestion, this appears to be true. Leaving the SDR off the network (and, therefore, no direct internet connection) simplifies "who controls the radio" questions anyway. So, again, if the Mini-ITX machine is separate, it's no problem in my view of it. I want the current form factor (with fewer plugs) to do the job. If ethernet is somehow the only way to do my version of this, I'll go for it. But please, no "all in one" kind of unit. Keep the hardware as simple, small, 12v, and as dumb as possible. Ideally in the very same box or one only slightly larger. All I really want to do is _mildly_ upgrade the SDR 1000 to contain enough horsepower to do the D/A and A/D so we can get rid of all those wires and all those easily disturbed plugs. Not a whit more. If it weren't for the delicate wires, I'd say what we have is already perfect. But, the wires just have to go. > > Maybe this is something that some decent soul will produce as a > product. I'd do it tomorrow if the PowerSDR software were adequately > partitionable (and if I could figure out how to netboot XP..although, > a dedicated HD in the package isn't a huge problem). Heck, if there > was someone else who would figure out how to make a bootable image of > Linux on the embedded mobo stored on a CF that PowerSDR under XP > talked to over the net, that would be fine. In my version of it, I don't care if the firmware is some simple embedded "thing in itself" or has a full-blown Linux underneath. But, if things go wrong, it has to be able to be powered off and on just like today's unit, with not much delay before being "ready" after power on. If there's a Linux in there, it had better be bootable from some sort of re-writable ROM and very spartan. The command set need not even be as sophisticated as Kenwood CAT anyway. "Set latch 1 to 55" and "receive current D/A packet of data" would be enough of a command set, with adequate publication of same (or, easily inferred from the schematic). The rest of the complexity would be outboard and could reasonably be expected to be the current PowerSDR console, the new one, or something else. No "feature creep" please. I don't want much more than we have already. Less is definitely more, here. Larry WO0Z _______________________________________________ FlexRadio mailing list FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz Archive Link: http://www.mail-archive.com/flexradio%40flex-radio.biz/ FlexRadio Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com
