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Folks Had a good group discussing the
Xylo-sdr project this afternoon at 17:00 utc. Several interest areas were
discussed including accurate and precise LO correction (or equivalent) and A/D
conversion for managing audio digitizing to the radio or for that matter any
audio processing role. Bill KD5TFD again asked the
question, basically "Are we wasting our time". We do have some really
good commercial sound card choices at the moment both USB and PCI. They really
do work well. Cecil responded with about 6
reasons why we aren't wasting our time. # six is "Because it's fun". If we have the mix of folks
within the Xylo group forum to get to an FPGA based, multipurpose end product
at a reasonable $ cost then it is not a waste of time, and I think it will be
fun. Phil mentions that we should not cut corners in design, and I am in total
agreement. It should be as good or better than the best sound card out there
and we control the design, so we can customize what we want. A good starting point, since it
is the most discussed, and has immediate application is designing a board with
an A/D converter, and audio codec to do the receive audio digitization
realizing the published specs, and the transmit side audio. The TI chips mentioned by Phil
Covington at the moment are the best choice, however Bob - N4HY suggests we not
be closed minded, and take another look at potential candidates. So be it. Phil
Covington has done quite a bit of study and came up with the TI combo. Before
we put pencil to paper and design to copper, let's take another week's look at
what is out there. This is a volunteer effort with
a lot of qualified people participating. It is not a race to go to market,
however to be useful it really needs to be a product. Probably needs to have a
target price in the neighborhood of a good sound card, yet have many other
features added as modules (Radio control, whole radio in the project, precise-accurate
frequency standard etc. http://flex-radio-friends.net/AVI/tsforums/xyloaudio12-17-05.mp3 Looking forward to more discussions and
fun watching it evolve. Eric - AA4SW |