Re: [Discuss-gnuradio] dive into gnu-radio

[Timothée COCAULT]

Hi,

2016-03-16 20:36 GMT+01:00 Desmond Crozby :

> What I need is:
> 1) understand the blocks, their purpose and what they do
> 2) learn how to create a minimal scenario using grc
> 3) learn how to create blocks of my own
> 4) create more complicated scenario.
>
> I think there is cruel lack of explanation (not documentation) for the GNU
Radio blocks.
The example that struck me is the M clock recovery block.
The resources available are the code, the documentation, and the paper
cited in the documentation (not available for free though).
However, the best resource I found was a blog post [1] giving some notes,
facts and illustration on how this block works.
It's not an in-depth view of the algorithm used, but gives some hints on
how to use the block in practice.

This is really the kind of things I would love to see (and contribute !)
for each block, but AFAIK, there is no place in the gnuradio ecosystem for
such documentation.

[1]
https://www.tablix.org/~avian/blog/archives/2015/03/notes_on_m_m_clock_recovery/



2016-03-16 22:10 GMT+01:00 Martin Braun :

> Now, there's lots of very good books out there that go into DSP and
> wireless communication. They're usually written to address
> university-level students. But how do we condense them into nice and
> easy tutorials? It's hard.
>

Now concerning learning DSP theory, I feel that "book knowledge" or
tutorials isn't enough for using GNU Radio.
For example, sometimes I can't stay if my signal looks good or if it's just
noise. If my demodulation flowgraph doesn't work, I don't know which step
messed up, how to check if my data makes sense, which parameter I should
change.

This is the kind of things you get by seeing experimented people tackle
real life problems.
I watched a workshop of Balint Seeber (at DEF CON) and learned some great
things on DSP, analysis, and GNU Radio.
These kind of resources are really great, and I'd love to see more of them.

Cheers,

Timothée.

2016-03-16 22:53 GMT+01:00 Tom Coleman :

>
> On Mar 16, 2016, at 3:36 PM, Desmond Crozby  wrote:
>
> …
>
>
> I saw this reading suggestion:
> https://gnuradio.org/redmine/projects/gnuradio/wiki/SuggestedReading ,
> but the list is extensive and grouped by topic, basically I don't know
> where to start from.
>
>
> Software Radio in General
> Has anyone bothered to check these links lately?
>
>
>
> ___
> Discuss-gnuradio mailing list
> Discuss-gnuradio@gnu.org
> https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss-gnuradio
>
>
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Re: [Discuss-gnuradio] dive into gnu-radio

[madengr]

You are not in the same boat, by far.  I'm an EE RF/MW hardware guy with zero
formal software training (other than a FORTRAN undergrad course requirement;
if that hints to my age).  SDR is a rather new field that requires a LOT of
cross discipline; it's software + radio.  I have been  messing with GR for a
few years, and have halted until I teach myself C++, which I'm 1/2 way
through my book.  I have done some fun stuff with GRC and Python, but need
C++ to go further.

For DSP I would suggest Richard Lyons book.  That will cover sampling,
filtering, etc..  Really good book.

For digital comms try Benard Sklar's book.  That will tell you why you want
an RRC filter.  Grad school level book, but it's all in there.

Really just have to buckle down and hit the books  I'm having to do it with
the software side.

Lou



Desmond Crozby wrote
> 
> Hope anyone has the nerves, time and courtesy to write back. I'm certain
> it
> will serve as a nice starting point to future enthusiasts.
> 
> Best,
> Desmond
> 
> ___
> Discuss-gnuradio mailing list

> Discuss-gnuradio@

> https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss-gnuradio





--
View this message in context: 
http://gnuradio.4.n7.nabble.com/dive-into-gnu-radio-tp58828p58838.html
Sent from the GnuRadio mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

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Re: [Discuss-gnuradio] dive into gnu-radio

[Kevin McQuiggin]

Hi Martijn:

Two cents from me, a relative non-technical newbie, also a long-time amateur 
radio operator.  My educational and professional background is in computing 
science and a bit of math.

I first found gnuradio a few years ago, and had a similar experience to yours.  
I played around with it, did some of the tutorials, but quickly got slain by my 
lack of technical DSP background, and (back then especially) the lack of clear 
documentation on the blocks.

I got discouraged and removed my gnuradio installation.

However, I knew that I wanted to know more, and understand gnuradio better, as 
the power of the package was obvious to me.  I saw this as a learning 
challenge.  I embarked on what ended up being about 1.5 years of reading and 
coding, outside of gnuradio.  

I found a fantastic couple of books, most notably the free "Digital Signal 
Processing: A Guide for Scientists and Engineers".  See http://dspguide.com.  I 
eventually bought a hardcopy of the book.

I used the book to code up some self-learning programs, for example a DTMF 
decoder, and got my head around a lot of the DSP concepts.  More reading 
augmented this, and I returned to gnuradio about a year ago with a $20 RTL 
dongle in hand.

The tutorials now made more sense, and while I was still on a steep learning 
hill, things went well.  I upgraded my hardware to an Ettus B200, and now feel 
a bit on top of things.  Stick with the cheap dongle for awhile.  I initially 
upgraded to the B200 as I wanted to build a transmitter.  However the RX is WAY 
better on the Ettus unit too, it was a fantastic jump and good investment.

If you have time and no particular deadline, I'd recommend this approach.

As for projects, I've built an FM RDS receiver and decoder, an FM SCA receiver, 
an SCA transmitter,  Multi-channel HF CW decoder (via an up converter), and am 
currently working on a clear channel Inmarsat decoder - this one is about half 
done.  My approach is to use gnuradio for the demodulator, then pipe the 
bitstream to a C program over a gnuradio TCP or UDP sink.  The RDS code, for 
example, is almost 1000 lines of C, so these things are not intrinsically 
"easy".  Incredible learning value and sense of satisfaction though when your 
code/flowgraph actually works!

Things like the need for an RRC filter become clear with reading, review of 
(say) RDS specs, and head scratching over a couple of weeks.  Read about 
"matched filters" and you'll understand what the RRC block does.

My recommendation is to recognize that this is a non-trivial field and big 
learning opportunity, and grab a couple of books like the (free) one by Smith 
above.  Read for awhile, then see where you're at.

It does grow on you with research, but I also have to say that my knowledge is 
"stone knives and bear skins" to quote a popular Vulcan, compared to the level 
of knowledge of most of the folks on this list.

Hope these comments help in some way!

73,

Kevin
(VE7ZD)

Sent from my iPad

> On Mar 16, 2016, at 2:10 PM, Martin Braun  wrote:
> 
>> On 03/16/2016 01:33 PM, Martijn Moeling wrote:
>> I feel there is a gap between the knowledge of the experts and the
>> information for newcomers. My questions have been answered pretty
>> quickly but the answers raise even more questions and confuse me.
> 
> This is a common concern, but it's really, really hard for us as a
> community to address comprehensively. There's multiple reasons for that,
> but it all comes down to the fact that writing good tutorials is hard.
> 
> Many of us core GNU Radio members have a DSP/Wireless background and
> then moved into GNU Radio. For people like us, you need completely
> different tutorials than for someone who's not familiar with DSP.
> 
> Now, there's lots of very good books out there that go into DSP and
> wireless communication. They're usually written to address
> university-level students. But how do we condense them into nice and
> easy tutorials? It's hard.
> It gets exacerbated by the fact that writing tutorials becomes harder
> the more familiar you get with a topic. You lose sight of what's hard,
> and what's not. Unless you're a professional tutorial writer, of course
> -- but we have very few of those.
> 
>>> What I need is: 
>>> 1) understand the blocks, their purpose and what they do
>>> 2) learn how to create a minimal scenario using grc
>>> 3) learn how to create blocks of my own
>>> 4) create more complicated scenario.
>>> 
>>> I wanted to ask the same question in stackoverflow, as I have seen
>>> people from the community hanging around there. But, the amount of
>>> shitstorm coming from there is amazing when asking about learning
>>> pointers... They mark the Q as "opinion-based" immediately.
> 
> SO can be tough like that. Also, 'gnuradio' tagged questions don't
> usually get a lot of attention. I'd be happy to see more action on SO,
> but we never really got there.
> 
> Back to your list, 3) is comprehensively covered by the guided

Re: [Discuss-gnuradio] dive into gnu-radio

[Nikos Balkanas]

Hi Kevin,

Your link is good, but the exact title is "The scientist and engineer's
giude to Digital Signal Processing"
Coming from a similar background, it has been my favorite over the past 6
mos:)

BR,
Nikos

On Fri, Mar 18, 2016 at 5:10 AM, Kevin McQuiggin  wrote:

> Hi Martijn:
>
> Two cents from me, a relative non-technical newbie, also a long-time
> amateur radio operator.  My educational and professional background is in
> computing science and a bit of math.
>
> I first found gnuradio a few years ago, and had a similar experience to
> yours.  I played around with it, did some of the tutorials, but quickly got
> slain by my lack of technical DSP background, and (back then especially)
> the lack of clear documentation on the blocks.
>
> I got discouraged and removed my gnuradio installation.
>
> However, I knew that I wanted to know more, and understand gnuradio
> better, as the power of the package was obvious to me.  I saw this as a
> learning challenge.  I embarked on what ended up being about 1.5 years of
> reading and coding, outside of gnuradio.
>
> I found a fantastic couple of books, most notably the free "Digital Signal
> Processing: A Guide for Scientists and Engineers".  See
> http://dspguide.com.  I eventually bought a hardcopy of the book.
>
> I used the book to code up some self-learning programs, for example a DTMF
> decoder, and got my head around a lot of the DSP concepts.  More reading
> augmented this, and I returned to gnuradio about a year ago with a $20 RTL
> dongle in hand.
>
> The tutorials now made more sense, and while I was still on a steep
> learning hill, things went well.  I upgraded my hardware to an Ettus B200,
> and now feel a bit on top of things.  Stick with the cheap dongle for
> awhile.  I initially upgraded to the B200 as I wanted to build a
> transmitter.  However the RX is WAY better on the Ettus unit too, it was a
> fantastic jump and good investment.
>
> If you have time and no particular deadline, I'd recommend this approach.
>
> As for projects, I've built an FM RDS receiver and decoder, an FM SCA
> receiver, an SCA transmitter,  Multi-channel HF CW decoder (via an up
> converter), and am currently working on a clear channel Inmarsat decoder -
> this one is about half done.  My approach is to use gnuradio for the
> demodulator, then pipe the bitstream to a C program over a gnuradio TCP or
> UDP sink.  The RDS code, for example, is almost 1000 lines of C, so these
> things are not intrinsically "easy".  Incredible learning value and sense
> of satisfaction though when your code/flowgraph actually works!
>
> Things like the need for an RRC filter become clear with reading, review
> of (say) RDS specs, and head scratching over a couple of weeks.  Read about
> "matched filters" and you'll understand what the RRC block does.
>
> My recommendation is to recognize that this is a non-trivial field and big
> learning opportunity, and grab a couple of books like the (free) one by
> Smith above.  Read for awhile, then see where you're at.
>
> It does grow on you with research, but I also have to say that my
> knowledge is "stone knives and bear skins" to quote a popular Vulcan,
> compared to the level of knowledge of most of the folks on this list.
>
> Hope these comments help in some way!
>
> 73,
>
> Kevin
> (VE7ZD)
>
> Sent from my iPad
>
> > On Mar 16, 2016, at 2:10 PM, Martin Braun 
> wrote:
> >
> >> On 03/16/2016 01:33 PM, Martijn Moeling wrote:
> >> I feel there is a gap between the knowledge of the experts and the
> >> information for newcomers. My questions have been answered pretty
> >> quickly but the answers raise even more questions and confuse me.
> >
> > This is a common concern, but it's really, really hard for us as a
> > community to address comprehensively. There's multiple reasons for that,
> > but it all comes down to the fact that writing good tutorials is hard.
> >
> > Many of us core GNU Radio members have a DSP/Wireless background and
> > then moved into GNU Radio. For people like us, you need completely
> > different tutorials than for someone who's not familiar with DSP.
> >
> > Now, there's lots of very good books out there that go into DSP and
> > wireless communication. They're usually written to address
> > university-level students. But how do we condense them into nice and
> > easy tutorials? It's hard.
> > It gets exacerbated by the fact that writing tutorials becomes harder
> > the more familiar you get with a topic. You lose sight of what's hard,
> > and what's not. Unless you're a professional tutorial writer, of course
> > -- but we have very few of those.
> >
> >>> What I need is:
> >>> 1) understand the blocks, their purpose and what they do
> >>> 2) learn how to create a minimal scenario using grc
> >>> 3) learn how to create blocks of my own
> >>> 4) create more complicated scenario.
> >>>
> >>> I wanted to ask the same question in stackoverflow, as I have seen
> >>> people from the 

Re: [Discuss-gnuradio] dive into gnu-radio

[Patrick Sathyanathan]

Sorry, typo "...as Marcus D. Leech points out..."
 
--Patrick
 
From: wp...@hotmail.com
To: rfeng...@me.com; discuss-gnuradio@gnu.org; hup...@gmail.com
Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2016 20:44:23 -0700
Subject: Re: [Discuss-gnuradio] dive into gnu-radio




Hi Desmond,
 
I have a similar CS background combined with a youthful interest in radios from 
the distant past. I initially approached GNUradio with a similar attitude, i.e. 
it's just software, I can figure out what it does. But sadly that is not true, 
and as Martin Leech points out in a different reply on this thread, GNUradio 
combines expertise from many different disciplines and you need some level of 
familiarity with all of them to extract the maximum utility from the package. 
With my knowledge the mechanics of writing an OOT module and getting it to show 
up in GRC is fairly simple. It's the knowledge of radio signals and digital 
signal processing where I have the most difficulty. To address DSP I bought the 
Richard Lyons books and am working my way through it. I strongly recommend that 
book for the harmony between theory and practice in presentation. I am 
simultaneously going through an online course on electrodynamics hoping that 
when I'm done I will have the ability to use GNUradio efficiently in 
interesting ways.
 
--Patrick
 
> Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2016 13:55:55 -0700
> From: rfeng...@me.com
> To: Discuss-gnuradio@gnu.org
> Subject: Re: [Discuss-gnuradio] dive into gnu-radio
> 
> You are not in the same boat, by far.  I'm an EE RF/MW hardware guy with zero
> formal software training (other than a FORTRAN undergrad course requirement;
> if that hints to my age).  SDR is a rather new field that requires a LOT of
> cross discipline; it's software + radio.  I have been  messing with GR for a
> few years, and have halted until I teach myself C++, which I'm 1/2 way
> through my book.  I have done some fun stuff with GRC and Python, but need
> C++ to go further.
> 
> For DSP I would suggest Richard Lyons book.  That will cover sampling,
> filtering, etc..  Really good book.
> 
> For digital comms try Benard Sklar's book.  That will tell you why you want
> an RRC filter.  Grad school level book, but it's all in there.
> 
> Really just have to buckle down and hit the books  I'm having to do it with
> the software side.
> 
> Lou
> 
> 
> 
> Desmond Crozby wrote
> > 
> > Hope anyone has the nerves, time and courtesy to write back. I'm certain
> > it
> > will serve as a nice starting point to future enthusiasts.
> > 
> > Best,
> > Desmond
> > 
> > ___
> > Discuss-gnuradio mailing list
> 
> > Discuss-gnuradio@
> 
> > https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss-gnuradio
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> --
> View this message in context: 
> http://gnuradio.4.n7.nabble.com/dive-into-gnu-radio-tp58828p58838.html
> Sent from the GnuRadio mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
> 
> ___
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> Discuss-gnuradio@gnu.org
> https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss-gnuradio
  

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Re: [Discuss-gnuradio] dive into gnu-radio

[Tom Coleman]

> On Mar 16, 2016, at 3:36 PM, Desmond Crozby  wrote:
> 
> …

> I saw this reading suggestion: 
> https://gnuradio.org/redmine/projects/gnuradio/wiki/SuggestedReading 
>  , but 
> the list is extensive and grouped by topic, basically I don't know where to 
> start from.
> 

Software Radio in General
Has anyone bothered to check these links lately?


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Re: [Discuss-gnuradio] dive into gnu-radio

[Anon Lister]

(oops, didn't reply list).

Ahahaha. I was thinking of that block when I made my last comment.

On Wed, Mar 16, 2016 at 8:40 PM, Anon Lister  wrote:

> Ahahaha. I was thinking of that block when I made my last comment.
>
> On Wed, Mar 16, 2016 at 8:34 PM, Timothée COCAULT <
> timothee.coca...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> 2016-03-16 20:36 GMT+01:00 Desmond Crozby :
>>
>>> What I need is:
>>> 1) understand the blocks, their purpose and what they do
>>> 2) learn how to create a minimal scenario using grc
>>> 3) learn how to create blocks of my own
>>> 4) create more complicated scenario.
>>>
>>> I think there is cruel lack of explanation (not documentation) for the
>> GNU Radio blocks.
>> The example that struck me is the M clock recovery block.
>> The resources available are the code, the documentation, and the paper
>> cited in the documentation (not available for free though).
>> However, the best resource I found was a blog post [1] giving some notes,
>> facts and illustration on how this block works.
>> It's not an in-depth view of the algorithm used, but gives some hints on
>> how to use the block in practice.
>>
>> This is really the kind of things I would love to see (and contribute !)
>> for each block, but AFAIK, there is no place in the gnuradio ecosystem for
>> such documentation.
>>
>> [1]
>> https://www.tablix.org/~avian/blog/archives/2015/03/notes_on_m_m_clock_recovery/
>>
>>
>>
>> 2016-03-16 22:10 GMT+01:00 Martin Braun :
>>
>>> Now, there's lots of very good books out there that go into DSP and
>>> wireless communication. They're usually written to address
>>> university-level students. But how do we condense them into nice and
>>> easy tutorials? It's hard.
>>>
>>
>> Now concerning learning DSP theory, I feel that "book knowledge" or
>> tutorials isn't enough for using GNU Radio.
>> For example, sometimes I can't stay if my signal looks good or if it's
>> just noise. If my demodulation flowgraph doesn't work, I don't know which
>> step messed up, how to check if my data makes sense, which parameter I
>> should change.
>>
>> This is the kind of things you get by seeing experimented people tackle
>> real life problems.
>> I watched a workshop of Balint Seeber (at DEF CON) and learned some great
>> things on DSP, analysis, and GNU Radio.
>> These kind of resources are really great, and I'd love to see more of
>> them.
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> Timothée.
>>
>> 2016-03-16 22:53 GMT+01:00 Tom Coleman :
>>
>>>
>>> On Mar 16, 2016, at 3:36 PM, Desmond Crozby  wrote:
>>>
>>> …
>>>
>>>
>>> I saw this reading suggestion:
>>> https://gnuradio.org/redmine/projects/gnuradio/wiki/SuggestedReading ,
>>> but the list is extensive and grouped by topic, basically I don't know
>>> where to start from.
>>>
>>>
>>> Software Radio in General
>>> Has anyone bothered to check these links lately?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ___
>>> Discuss-gnuradio mailing list
>>> Discuss-gnuradio@gnu.org
>>> https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss-gnuradio
>>>
>>>
>>
>> ___
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>> Discuss-gnuradio@gnu.org
>> https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss-gnuradio
>>
>>
>
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Re: [Discuss-gnuradio] dive into gnu-radio

[Martijn Moeling]

In reply to Kevin:

Your path seems pretty similar to mine, I started a few years ago with a RTL 
dongle and got away with receiving in a few SDR programs available for Mac. 
After getting bored by that I installed gnu radio and seemingly quickly I got 
success with getting set-up what I needed. Since everybody can receive but we 
hams can transmit to I fell in love with the b200mini and bought one. So 
created some transmitters (like wbfm stereo with RDS) and as long as it was 
"broadcasting" this worked very well. With a 80W amp I was heard and RDS was 
decoded remotely.

My next step was to make a simplex nbfm trx so I could use my setup for 
communicating over a repeater. I never got this to work as I do not seem to be 
able to get the RX/TX switching to work within Grc. I searched and got answers 
from this list quickly, Tagged stream. Although I understand the concept, I 
never got this working and I have the feeling I miss something. I have a hard 
time formulating the question. 

The mentioning of the RRC filter is something different and sure I need to get 
more theoretical background but my math skills are far away from what is 
needed, currently I combine my extremely demanding job with math learning. 

As a ham operator, I am interested in a multi mode/band SDR solution which I 
can expand with digital modes one by one, up to the point where I can transmit 
analog ATV from say a connected frame grabber and I opted for this as my 
learning curve. Doing so by looking at examples, related theory etc.

If I only could get my b200mini to switch between RX and TX for simplex 
operations I would be a happy man for now.. (Off topic for this thread). But 
all examples I found claiming to do so never worked with my setup. (Most seem 
to switch to null sinks to stop transmitting)

General:
I completely agree with all of the two cents everyone has send. Although not 
everybody is getting that deep into it to make use of gnu radio, as said I want 
my usrp to replace my dedicated rigs.

Martijn



Verstuurd vanaf mijn iPad

> Op 18 mrt. 2016 om 04:10 heeft Kevin McQuiggin  het volgende 
> geschreven:
> 
> Hi Martijn:
> 
> Two cents from me, a relative non-technical newbie, also a long-time amateur 
> radio operator.  My educational and professional background is in computing 
> science and a bit of math.
> 
> I first found gnuradio a few years ago, and had a similar experience to 
> yours.  I played around with it, did some of the tutorials, but quickly got 
> slain by my lack of technical DSP background, and (back then especially) the 
> lack of clear documentation on the blocks.
> 
> I got discouraged and removed my gnuradio installation.
> 
> However, I knew that I wanted to know more, and understand gnuradio better, 
> as the power of the package was obvious to me.  I saw this as a learning 
> challenge.  I embarked on what ended up being about 1.5 years of reading and 
> coding, outside of gnuradio.  
> 
> I found a fantastic couple of books, most notably the free "Digital Signal 
> Processing: A Guide for Scientists and Engineers".  See http://dspguide.com.  
> I eventually bought a hardcopy of the book.
> 
> I used the book to code up some self-learning programs, for example a DTMF 
> decoder, and got my head around a lot of the DSP concepts.  More reading 
> augmented this, and I returned to gnuradio about a year ago with a $20 RTL 
> dongle in hand.
> 
> The tutorials now made more sense, and while I was still on a steep learning 
> hill, things went well.  I upgraded my hardware to an Ettus B200, and now 
> feel a bit on top of things.  Stick with the cheap dongle for awhile.  I 
> initially upgraded to the B200 as I wanted to build a transmitter.  However 
> the RX is WAY better on the Ettus unit too, it was a fantastic jump and good 
> investment.
> 
> If you have time and no particular deadline, I'd recommend this approach.
> 
> As for projects, I've built an FM RDS receiver and decoder, an FM SCA 
> receiver, an SCA transmitter,  Multi-channel HF CW decoder (via an up 
> converter), and am currently working on a clear channel Inmarsat decoder - 
> this one is about half done.  My approach is to use gnuradio for the 
> demodulator, then pipe the bitstream to a C program over a gnuradio TCP or 
> UDP sink.  The RDS code, for example, is almost 1000 lines of C, so these 
> things are not intrinsically "easy".  Incredible learning value and sense of 
> satisfaction though when your code/flowgraph actually works!
> 
> Things like the need for an RRC filter become clear with reading, review of 
> (say) RDS specs, and head scratching over a couple of weeks.  Read about 
> "matched filters" and you'll understand what the RRC block does.
> 
> My recommendation is to recognize that this is a non-trivial field and big 
> learning opportunity, and grab a couple of books like the (free) one by Smith 
> above.  Read for awhile, then see where you're at.
> 
> It does grow on you with 

[Discuss-gnuradio] dive into gnu-radio

[Desmond Crozby]

Hello,

This might be a discussion that you have faced multiple times, but please
bear with me until the end of this email. (I know how busy guys approach
emails coming from the mailing list).

I am a guy who recently got to know about gnu-radio, and it raised interest
in me. To get into the topic, I followed the suggestions in the website and
started from the guided tutorials:
https://gnuradio.org/redmine/projects/gnuradio/wiki/Tutorials. So far I
managed to complete the tutorial series up to the C++ programming section.

Throughout the tutorials I managed to understand the basic concepts and
terminology about gnu-radio. Also using the GRC is fine. Unfortunately, I
am a computer scientists and I have little to no background in digital
signal processing and electrical engineering. Hence, for me it is quite
hard to figure out the purpose of the blocks. Of course, as a computer guy
it is easy to follow the tutorials, because they basically show what
changes to be done where, but the semantic behind those changes, as well as
the semantic behind the arrangement of the blocks remains a mystery to me.

So far in my work I have dealt with topics related to the higher layers in
computer networks, but now I want to play around with lower layers too. I
am sure in the community there are guys who have similar background, and
have to follow an inverse track -- from upper layers, downwards. What is
some good starting point?

If you say the tutorials are, I will have to disagree, because I completed
everything successfully, but if one asks me what happens in those modules,
or what each block does, I would not be able to answer for my life.
Besides, in the programming tutorials where one is taught how to create OOT
things got even more complicated.

I don't want to be misunderstood, I am not saying the tutorials are bad.
Obviously someone invested the time and effort to create them, but I fancy
more the "learning by doing" way of tutorials. Those which include explicit
tasks, starting from a minimal working example. The OMNeT++ TicToc tutorial
is a very nice reference, or the Codecademy way of teaching.

To go back to the initial Q, what is the go-to approach for someone of CS
background who wants to become efficient in gnu-radio. Books? Online
material?

I saw this reading suggestion:
https://gnuradio.org/redmine/projects/gnuradio/wiki/SuggestedReading , but
the list is extensive and grouped by topic, basically I don't know where to
start from.

What I need is:
1) understand the blocks, their purpose and what they do
2) learn how to create a minimal scenario using grc
3) learn how to create blocks of my own
4) create more complicated scenario.

I wanted to ask the same question in stackoverflow, as I have seen people
from the community hanging around there. But, the amount of shitstorm
coming from there is amazing when asking about learning pointers... They
mark the Q as "opinion-based" immediately.

Hope anyone has the nerves, time and courtesy to write back. I'm certain it
will serve as a nice starting point to future enthusiasts.

Best,
Desmond
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Re: [Discuss-gnuradio] dive into gnu-radio

[Desmond Crozby]

Hello Guys,

I am really happy to see my question generated some quality discussion. It
is encouraging and I hope other guys stumbling upon the post will
contribute two cents or so.

One thing I can do is to take your suggestions and start with the course
materials and the textbooks. Then, classify them based on suitability and
to some extent create the "gnu-radio for the CS guys" intro starter pack.

The only way to have more people who would like to help with documentation
and alike is to create some entry point to the community so it grows. Of
course, becoming more inclusive will create ground for emails starting with:

Hi Sir,
> 
> Sincerely yours,


But yeah, what can you do...

Regards,
D

On Thu, Mar 17, 2016 at 9:27 AM, Andrej Rode 
wrote:

> Hi Desmond and everyone else,
>
> > With my knowledge the mechanics of
> > writing an OOT module and getting it to show up in GRC is fairly simple.
> > It's the knowledge of radio signals and digital signal processing where I
> > have the most difficulty.
>
> as a EE student I can recommend getting familiar with the concepts taught
> in
> the lectures 'Signals & Systems', 'Digital Communications I+II' and maybe
> 'Digital Signal Processing'. Material as well as recordings can be found at
> [0]. Before looking through the lectures you should now there are some
> requirements in mathematics you should know. For someone with a
> (university)
> background in CS I think there should be a way to get in touch with
> integral
> transforms/discrete integral transforms and the concept behind
> digital/discrete thinking.
>
> Concering literature I would recommend to look for a book with a title
> 'Signals and Systems', unfortunatly I can only name a german book for
> recommendation for this one.  If you are familiar with the basic concept of
> signal processing you could try to get your hands on 'Digital
> Communications'
> by John G. Proakis. It is written in a very mathematical way but you
> should be
> able to understand the concepts behind it and then verify them by looking
> through GNU Radio blocks or writing some blocks yourself.
>
> That is what I can recommend you from an EE students' point of view. I
> started
> dealing with signal processing about two years ago. And I think with a
> background in some kind of university mathematics you should be able to
> grasp
> the basic concepts of digital signal processing in about a half year or
> less.
> Most of the thinks in DSP are based on math and so are the blocks/Code in
> GNU
> Radio.
>
> If there is something missing or I am wrong, correct me :)
>
> Best Regards,
> Andrej
>
> [0]
> http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-computer-science/
>
>
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Re: [Discuss-gnuradio] dive into gnu-radio

[Andrej Rode]

Hi Desmond and everyone else, 

> With my knowledge the mechanics of
> writing an OOT module and getting it to show up in GRC is fairly simple.
> It's the knowledge of radio signals and digital signal processing where I
> have the most difficulty.

as a EE student I can recommend getting familiar with the concepts taught in 
the lectures 'Signals & Systems', 'Digital Communications I+II' and maybe 
'Digital Signal Processing'. Material as well as recordings can be found at 
[0]. Before looking through the lectures you should now there are some 
requirements in mathematics you should know. For someone with a (university) 
background in CS I think there should be a way to get in touch with integral 
transforms/discrete integral transforms and the concept behind 
digital/discrete thinking.

Concering literature I would recommend to look for a book with a title 
'Signals and Systems', unfortunatly I can only name a german book for 
recommendation for this one.  If you are familiar with the basic concept of 
signal processing you could try to get your hands on 'Digital Communications' 
by John G. Proakis. It is written in a very mathematical way but you should be 
able to understand the concepts behind it and then verify them by looking 
through GNU Radio blocks or writing some blocks yourself. 

That is what I can recommend you from an EE students' point of view. I started 
dealing with signal processing about two years ago. And I think with a 
background in some kind of university mathematics you should be able to grasp 
the basic concepts of digital signal processing in about a half year or less.
Most of the thinks in DSP are based on math and so are the blocks/Code in GNU 
Radio.

If there is something missing or I am wrong, correct me :)

Best Regards, 
Andrej

[0] http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-computer-science/


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Re: [Discuss-gnuradio] dive into gnu-radio

[Patrick Sathyanathan]

Hi Desmond,
 
I have a similar CS background combined with a youthful interest in radios from 
the distant past. I initially approached GNUradio with a similar attitude, i.e. 
it's just software, I can figure out what it does. But sadly that is not true, 
and as Martin Leech points out in a different reply on this thread, GNUradio 
combines expertise from many different disciplines and you need some level of 
familiarity with all of them to extract the maximum utility from the package. 
With my knowledge the mechanics of writing an OOT module and getting it to show 
up in GRC is fairly simple. It's the knowledge of radio signals and digital 
signal processing where I have the most difficulty. To address DSP I bought the 
Richard Lyons books and am working my way through it. I strongly recommend that 
book for the harmony between theory and practice in presentation. I am 
simultaneously going through an online course on electrodynamics hoping that 
when I'm done I will have the ability to use GNUradio efficiently in 
interesting ways.
 
--Patrick
 
> Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2016 13:55:55 -0700
> From: rfeng...@me.com
> To: Discuss-gnuradio@gnu.org
> Subject: Re: [Discuss-gnuradio] dive into gnu-radio
> 
> You are not in the same boat, by far.  I'm an EE RF/MW hardware guy with zero
> formal software training (other than a FORTRAN undergrad course requirement;
> if that hints to my age).  SDR is a rather new field that requires a LOT of
> cross discipline; it's software + radio.  I have been  messing with GR for a
> few years, and have halted until I teach myself C++, which I'm 1/2 way
> through my book.  I have done some fun stuff with GRC and Python, but need
> C++ to go further.
> 
> For DSP I would suggest Richard Lyons book.  That will cover sampling,
> filtering, etc..  Really good book.
> 
> For digital comms try Benard Sklar's book.  That will tell you why you want
> an RRC filter.  Grad school level book, but it's all in there.
> 
> Really just have to buckle down and hit the books  I'm having to do it with
> the software side.
> 
> Lou
> 
> 
> 
> Desmond Crozby wrote
> > 
> > Hope anyone has the nerves, time and courtesy to write back. I'm certain
> > it
> > will serve as a nice starting point to future enthusiasts.
> > 
> > Best,
> > Desmond
> > 
> > ___
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> 
> > Discuss-gnuradio@
> 
> > https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss-gnuradio
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> --
> View this message in context: 
> http://gnuradio.4.n7.nabble.com/dive-into-gnu-radio-tp58828p58838.html
> Sent from the GnuRadio mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
> 
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Re: [Discuss-gnuradio] dive into gnu-radio

[Marcus D. Leech]

On 03/16/2016 08:34 PM, Timothée COCAULT wrote:


I think there is cruel lack of explanation (not documentation) for the 
GNU Radio blocks.
Reminds me of a Dylan Thomas piece "A Book with everything about wasps, 
except why."


Gnu Radio is "embedded" in a number of different complex disciplines, 
like it or not.  There's no getting around it.  One might as well
  declare that the 2nd law of thermodynamics is awfully inconvenient, 
so let's just wish it away.


There is a difference, I think, between the usability of a tool, and the 
ease-of-understanding of the discipline for which the tool was
  created.  Some of the documentation complaints are, quite rightly, 
about usability of the tool.  Some are, I would posit, about the
  steep learning curves of the relevant disciplines.The Gnu Radio 
development team is well-placed to make great progress in the
  former, and less, I would assert, in the latter.It may be "nice" 
if every block included the equivalent of a chapter or two
  treatise on the subject matter at hand, as if from a college-level 
textbook, but I don't see that happening, unless someone
  (a technical writer) puts in the time to do it.  It would a poor 
substitute for curling up with the appropriate reading material
  oneself in front of a fire, with a cup of Joe, and ones favorite dog 
at ones feet.


Let me use one of my semi-famous "proximate analogies".   When you 
acquire an eCad system for the first time, to layout circuits and
  circuit boards, ones frustration is usually about the tool. Becoming 
frustrated that it requires that you understand simple concepts
  like current and voltage, what an op-amp is, and how to use one, and 
what the truth-tables are for a 74LS74 (and again, why you would
  use one), is not likely to happen.  One doesn't expect ones tooling 
to substitute for the necessary background knowledge.  I cannot imagine
  anyone sitting down in front of a VLSI design tool for the first 
time, and loudly exclaiming that the "documentation sucks" because it turns
  out that being successful with the tool requires that you understand 
a bit (or a lot, really) about VLSI design as a technical discipline.


But I see folks arrive, every day, at Gnu Radio, expecting that no 
relevant background should be required, that if they aren't immediately
  successful with the tool, that it must be the tools fault. Granted, 
some of Gnu Radio's documentation could use improvement, and in
  fact my decades of experience in technology would suggest that no 
documentation is EVER "good enough".  Because we're all different,
  and we all learn in different ways.But I think it's exceedingly 
important to understand the difference between "tool usage" documentation,
  and "a substitute for a 4 year EECS degree".This isn't elitism or 
snobbery, it's just that expecting the tool itself to be a substitute for
  the necessary background just isn't reasonable.  The Gnu Radio 
project doesn't have a large team of technical writers, textbook writers,
  course-ware writers, etc, etc just waiting to contribute.  The 
emerging Gnu Radio *ecosystem*, however, may be a good place to turn.
  Yearly Gnu Radio conferences, folks like Jonathan Corgan who run 
intro-to-SDR courses, the excellent work of folks like Michael Ossmann.

  Online forums like www.dsprelated.com, www.complextoreal.com.

The Gnu Radio project cannot possibly be your "one-stop shop" for all 
things related to radio, DSP, real-time software design, etc, etc.

  It's just not practical.





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Re: [Discuss-gnuradio] dive into gnu-radio

[Anon Lister]

Also coming from a formal software engineering background, I found Michael
Ossman's SDR with HackRF(https://greatscottgadgets.com/sdr/) series very
informative. It has "homework" sections and starts with very little in
assumptions of your prior knowledge. You dont need a hackrf, any sdr,
including $15 RTL stick will do for most things. Or you can use GR to
follow along and you'll get quite a bit out even without an SDR.  Sofar it
doesn't go very deep, but he covers demodulation of FM and getting data off
a Wireless Key Fob from a car, which uses OOK modulation, and he adds new
lessons every now and then.  This will not tell you when you need to use a
particular type of filter, but its good at getting you thinking about the
problem your trying to solve. You mentioned wanting to go lower in the
protocol stack. Modern digital communications are usually complicated
protocols utilizing several types of modulations. I would start with older
or simpler protocols first, but either way this will involve knowledge of
digital modulations. Most of the time people recommend starting from the
analog side, but I find the digital side easier from a CS background. I
would also start by familiarizing yourself with basic digital modulations
OOK, ASK, FSK, PSK, then move onto their variants, such as MSK, QPSK, QAM,
etc(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modulation#Digital_modulation_methods).
GR has blocks for almost all the basic modulators and demodulators built
in. Basically all of these are ways to map a stream of bits onto the
communication medium. If you start with a stream of bits, ask yourself how
each of the above modulations would get those bits from point a to point
b.  Try implementing them in GR. Setup something like  ->
 -> channel model -> < demodulator >   -> . The key
here is the channel model. Its an awesome learning tool because it will
allow you to model some typical problems of communication systems. When you
lower the signal-to-noise ratio, for example you'll find you may need to
add new blocks to compensate for the loss of signal quality. If you ask
these more pointed questions, such as which block would help compensate for
X,  the list, I'm sure, will be willing to help you along. Also, make sure
you attach constellation and FFT sinks everywhere, then you can actually
see the effects of various blocks on your data stream (The QT GUI sink has
most built in). Normally with digital modulations you map bits to a symbol
of some kind, these symbols are usually displayed in a constellation sink.
Observe the effect of channel model parameters on the constellation plot of
your data, and the integrity of your output file. Attach sliders to
basically any parameter in any block and adjust them at run time to see the
effect on your stream.

As to documentation, as Martin said, documentation is amazingly hard when
you know the things involved. Think of typical code comments you've seen as
a developer. How many times do you see Function X(param1, param2, param3);
And above it a comment, #Does X on param1 and param2 using param3. Alot of
GR blocks have some documentation, they usually state what the block does
in math, which is great, if your coming from that background, but they dont
include things like "You will probably need to use this block when your
constellation looks like  or to correct for ." Even given that,
the documentation on the blocks themselves is somewhat helpful. It is on
the last tab in the properties window for all the blocks. The best person
to contribute to the documentation is probably you. As you learn things,
write it down, why you think it worked or didn't, and then revise as you go
along and offer it up for inclusion in the wiki.


On Mar 16, 2016 5:54 PM, "Tom Coleman"  wrote:

>
> On Mar 16, 2016, at 3:36 PM, Desmond Crozby  wrote:
>
> …
>
>
> I saw this reading suggestion:
> https://gnuradio.org/redmine/projects/gnuradio/wiki/SuggestedReading ,
> but the list is extensive and grouped by topic, basically I don't know
> where to start from.
>
>
> Software Radio in General
> Has anyone bothered to check these links lately?
>
>
>
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Re: [Discuss-gnuradio] dive into gnu-radio

[Jesse Reich]

I had to reply to Kevin because I am literally laying in bed reading 
"Digital Signal Processing: A Guide for Scientists and Engineers" as his 
email came in. I'm on a similar journey (about three months in) and just 
wanted to reiterate that while GRC seems to be a very powerful tool, it 
can't be fully utilized without DSP fundamentals. Believe me I've tried and 
there's no shortcut. If there is someone please send me a link to it! ;)


Jesse

On Thu, Mar 17, 2016 at 11:11 PM, Kevin McQuiggin < mcqui...@me.com 
[mcqui...@me.com] > wrote:

Hi Martijn:

Two cents from me, a relative non-technical newbie, also a long-time 
amateur radio operator. My educational and professional background is in 
computing science and a bit of math.


I first found gnuradio a few years ago, and had a similar experience to 
yours. I played around with it, did some of the tutorials, but quickly got 
slain by my lack of technical DSP background, and (back then especially) 
the lack of clear documentation on the blocks.


I got discouraged and removed my gnuradio installation.

However, I knew that I wanted to know more, and understand gnuradio better, 
as the power of the package was obvious to me. I saw this as a learning 
challenge. I embarked on what ended up being about 1.5 years of reading and 
coding, outside of gnuradio.


I found a fantastic couple of books, most notably the free "Digital Signal 
Processing: A Guide for Scientists and Engineers". See http://dspguide.com. 
I eventually bought a hardcopy of the book.


I used the book to code up some self-learning programs, for example a DTMF 
decoder, and got my head around a lot of the DSP concepts. More reading 
augmented this, and I returned to gnuradio about a year ago with a $20 RTL 
dongle in hand.


The tutorials now made more sense, and while I was still on a steep 
learning hill, things went well. I upgraded my hardware to an Ettus B200, 
and now feel a bit on top of things. Stick with the cheap dongle for 
awhile. I initially upgraded to the B200 as I wanted to build a 
transmitter. However the RX is WAY better on the Ettus unit too, it was a 
fantastic jump and good investment.


If you have time and no particular deadline, I'd recommend this approach.

As for projects, I've built an FM RDS receiver and decoder, an FM SCA 
receiver, an SCA transmitter, Multi-channel HF CW decoder (via an up 
converter), and am currently working on a clear channel Inmarsat decoder - 
this one is about half done. My approach is to use gnuradio for the 
demodulator, then pipe the bitstream to a C program over a gnuradio TCP or 
UDP sink. The RDS code, for example, is almost 1000 lines of C, so these 
things are not intrinsically "easy". Incredible learning value and sense of 
satisfaction though when your code/flowgraph actually works!


Things like the need for an RRC filter become clear with reading, review of 
(say) RDS specs, and head scratching over a couple of weeks. Read about 
"matched filters" and you'll understand what the RRC block does.


My recommendation is to recognize that this is a non-trivial field and big 
learning opportunity, and grab a couple of books like the (free) one by 
Smith above. Read for awhile, then see where you're at.


It does grow on you with research, but I also have to say that my knowledge 
is "stone knives and bear skins" to quote a popular Vulcan, compared to the 
level of knowledge of most of the folks on this list.


Hope these comments help in some way!

73,

Kevin
(VE7ZD)

Sent from my iPad

> On Mar 16, 2016, at 2:10 PM, Martin Braun  
wrote:

>
>> On 03/16/2016 01:33 PM, Martijn Moeling wrote:
>> I feel there is a gap between the knowledge of the experts and the
>> information for newcomers. My questions have been answered pretty
>> quickly but the answers raise even more questions and confuse me.
>
> This is a common concern, but it's really, really hard for us as a
> community to address comprehensively. There's multiple reasons for that,
> but it all comes down to the fact that writing good tutorials is hard.
>
> Many of us core GNU Radio members have a DSP/Wireless background and
> then moved into GNU Radio. For people like us, you need completely
> different tutorials than for someone who's not familiar with DSP.
>
> Now, there's lots of very good books out there that go into DSP and
> wireless communication. They're usually written to address
> university-level students. But how do we condense them into nice and
> easy tutorials? It's hard.
> It gets exacerbated by the fact that writing tutorials becomes harder
> the more familiar you get with a topic. You lose sight of what's hard,
> and what's not. Unless you're a professional tutorial writer, of course
> -- but we have very few of those.
>
>>> What I need is:
>>> 1) understand the blocks, their purpose and what they do
>>> 2) learn how to create a minimal scenario using grc
>>> 3) learn how to create blocks of my own
>>> 4) create more complicated 

Re: [Discuss-gnuradio] dive into gnu-radio

[Martijn Moeling]

I must say I have similar  feelings even though I am a fully licensed ham radio 
operator and a low level protocol engineer. I have have a hard time 
understanding most of the blocks. The tutorials are going up to a point where 
things get interesting and then they end.

Although I do understand the basic concepts of dsp, I can not seem to get some 
sort of next step in understanding stuff like root raised cosine filter, what 
it does and when to use it. 

Other concepts like stream tags seem a solution to implement a simplex fm radio 
(like a ptt button) so I can use my b200mini to use a nearby repeater. I spent 
hours and hours experimenting with no success. This is something I would 
consider a simple task. I might miss something but I do not know which 
terminology to use to get my questions answered. 

I would like to get the output of a frame grabber (composite video) and turn it 
into a analog television transmission to be received by an old analog sat 
receiver for ham use. With my b200mini this would be doable I guess. For now 
this seems impossible even though I have a black screen and audio carriers 
working, implementing the video part in GRC seems way beyond my skills and I do 
not seem to get a proper entry point. Starting with a static picture in memory 
(to test and generate sync signals) was my next step but I keep running around 
this issue in circles.

I feel there is a gap between the knowledge of the experts and the information 
for newcomers. My questions have been answered pretty quickly but the answers 
raise even more questions and confuse me.

Martijn

> Op 16 mrt. 2016 om 20:36 heeft Desmond Crozby  het volgende 
> geschreven:
> 
> Hello,
> 
> This might be a discussion that you have faced multiple times, but please 
> bear with me until the end of this email. (I know how busy guys approach 
> emails coming from the mailing list).
> 
> I am a guy who recently got to know about gnu-radio, and it raised interest 
> in me. To get into the topic, I followed the suggestions in the website and 
> started from the guided tutorials: 
> https://gnuradio.org/redmine/projects/gnuradio/wiki/Tutorials. So far I 
> managed to complete the tutorial series up to the C++ programming section.
> 
> Throughout the tutorials I managed to understand the basic concepts and 
> terminology about gnu-radio. Also using the GRC is fine. Unfortunately, I am 
> a computer scientists and I have little to no background in digital signal 
> processing and electrical engineering. Hence, for me it is quite hard to 
> figure out the purpose of the blocks. Of course, as a computer guy it is easy 
> to follow the tutorials, because they basically show what changes to be done 
> where, but the semantic behind those changes, as well as the semantic behind 
> the arrangement of the blocks remains a mystery to me.
> 
> So far in my work I have dealt with topics related to the higher layers in 
> computer networks, but now I want to play around with lower layers too. I am 
> sure in the community there are guys who have similar background, and have to 
> follow an inverse track -- from upper layers, downwards. What is some good 
> starting point?
> 
> If you say the tutorials are, I will have to disagree, because I completed 
> everything successfully, but if one asks me what happens in those modules, or 
> what each block does, I would not be able to answer for my life. Besides, in 
> the programming tutorials where one is taught how to create OOT things got 
> even more complicated. 
> 
> I don't want to be misunderstood, I am not saying the tutorials are bad. 
> Obviously someone invested the time and effort to create them, but I fancy 
> more the "learning by doing" way of tutorials. Those which include explicit 
> tasks, starting from a minimal working example. The OMNeT++ TicToc tutorial 
> is a very nice reference, or the Codecademy way of teaching.
> 
> To go back to the initial Q, what is the go-to approach for someone of CS 
> background who wants to become efficient in gnu-radio. Books? Online 
> material? 
> 
> I saw this reading suggestion: 
> https://gnuradio.org/redmine/projects/gnuradio/wiki/SuggestedReading , but 
> the list is extensive and grouped by topic, basically I don't know where to 
> start from.
> 
> What I need is: 
> 1) understand the blocks, their purpose and what they do
> 2) learn how to create a minimal scenario using grc
> 3) learn how to create blocks of my own
> 4) create more complicated scenario.
> 
> I wanted to ask the same question in stackoverflow, as I have seen people 
> from the community hanging around there. But, the amount of shitstorm coming 
> from there is amazing when asking about learning pointers... They mark the Q 
> as "opinion-based" immediately.
> 
> Hope anyone has the nerves, time and courtesy to write back. I'm certain it 
> will serve as a nice starting point to future enthusiasts. 
> 
> Best,
> Desmond
> 
>