Re: [Xylo-SDR] Aria Case... DIN41612 Backplane...

[Philip Covington <p.covington@gmail.com>]

On 1/22/06, Christopher T. Day <CTDay@lbl.gov> wrote:
> Ok, overstating the case for dramatic effect, I suspect this group has
> now gone off the deep end. Remember the days when Eric was so happy
> about the Xylo and how the 2"x2" board fit in his shirt pocket and he
> could carry it around with him? Remember the idea of a couple of little
> boards in a small box that could be tossed in a backpack or luggage?
> Remember how cute the SoftRock is? Well, now we have a behemoth that
> weighs in at more than 12 lbs., is a couple of times the size of the
> SDR-1000 and uses boards that are about 6" on a side. And those are now
> getting the cute little daughter cards that this whole thing started out
> with. What happened?
>

Hi Chris,

Comments:

1. The project right now is mainly a development platform.  For many
people the case size and board sizes will not be a problem and they
might stick with it for their final device/project.  For others, they
will want a subset of what is developed and the case/backplane/board
size will be an issue with them.  Those people will be free to take
whatever is developed and redesign it into their dream device.  Since
it is a development platform it has to be bigger than the final
product.. even more so when the final product(s) are not yet defined.

2.  More about size...  Ok the SoftRock is a cute little device... but
soon people are not satisfied with certain aspects about it...  one of
the first things people do is power it off an external supply or a 9V
battery.  The 9V battery almost as big as the SoftRock.  They want a
wider spectrum capability and more performance... they purchase a
bigger/better sound card like the Delta 44 ($150)... now the Delta 44
is no small thing.  Next they want to operate it on other bands...
they hook up a DDS board or a crystal switching scheme (compare the SR
V4 to SR V5 size).. then they need a switched bandpass filter for each
band they are interested in... then comes the preselector.. and
preamps... next Tony designs a SR exciter for TX... then someone will
design a RF power amp... etc... etc... etc...  Now the SR is not so
small with all that stuff hanging off of it!

3. If you are not interested in the development system... come back in
a few years and if we've actually gotten around to designing something
instead of arguing about it... maybe one of the end device(s) will be
smaller (or you can make it smaller)...

73 de Phil N8VB