These guys are working on a full HF SDR transceiver using a cheap modem DDC/DUC IC AD9866 .. they are also using a FPGA for processing.. and the computer will be for namesake for the UI .. its under $200 .. it would get more cheaper if somebody can find a way to get rid of the FPGA and use the computer of Processing instead of the FPGA.. the makers say it is possible, but that's not their priority.

Can some experienced HAMs look into this design and give an idea how we can get rid of the FPGA to make it cheaper and use the computer for processing instead like Softrocks, Peaberry SDR, RTL dongle, etc???

-Amogh

wrote:
These guys are working on a full HF SDR transceiver using a cheap modem DDC/DUC IC AD9866 .. they are also using a FPGA for processing.. and the computer will be for namesake for the UI .. its under $200 .. it would get more cheaper if somebody can find a way to get rid of the FPGA and use the computer of Processing instead of the FPGA.. the makers say it is possible, but that's not their priority.

Can some experienced HAMs look into this design and give an idea how we can get rid of the FPGA to make it cheaper and use the computer for processing instead like Softrocks, Peaberry SDR, RTL dongle, etc???

-Amogh

There are many different SDR designs and some use software, other use
hardware. When you don't like the cost or complexity of one design,
you can use another.

The designs that use a quadrature mixer to baseband followed by a soundcard
are usually the easiest do do in software because the bandwidth is
limited by the soundcard. When you want to use a device like the AD9866
you get a lot of data to process, and the FPGA is used as a first step
to do that, so the processor will not be so heavily loaded. However, it
is also possible to use a PC 3D Graphics card as a processor, and it is
able to handle that sort of load. For example, the websdr at the University
of Twente http://websdr.ewi.utwente.nl:8901/ works that way.

On 11/6/2014 3:24 AM, wrote:
These guys are working on a full HF SDR transceiver using a cheap modem DDC/DUC IC AD9866 .. they are also using a FPGA for processing.. and the computer will be for namesake for the UI .. its under $200 .. it would get more cheaper if somebody can find a way to get rid of the FPGA and use the computer of Processing instead of the FPGA.. the makers say it is possible, but that's not their priority.

Can some experienced HAMs look into this design and give an idea how we can get rid of the FPGA to make it cheaper and use the computer for processing instead like Softrocks, Peaberry SDR, RTL dongle, etc???

The AD9866 produces up to 80 MSPS of 12 bit samples, that's a lot of
data. How do you expect to get this into a PC? This would require USB3
or a direct interface to a PCIe interface. If you are asking if this is
feasible, I expect this will be beyond your capabilities to design.

I'm not sure the FPGA is what is driving the $200 price tag. You can
get very adequate FPGAs for what you are doing for $20 or less. I don't
think you need a huge FPGA that will run a high dollar price tag. I
think the $200 price is from the markup to sell these at a profit. If
you made your own I am sure your costs could be well below $100.

--

Rick

On Thursday, November 6, 2014 3:53:07 AM UTC-6, rickman wrote:
On 11/6/2014 3:24 AM, wrote:
These guys are working on a full HF SDR transceiver using a cheap modem DDC/DUC IC AD9866 .. they are also using a FPGA for processing.. and the computer will be for namesake for the UI .. its under $200 .. it would get more cheaper if somebody can find a way to get rid of the FPGA and use the computer of Processing instead of the FPGA.. the makers say it is possible, but that's not their priority.

Can some experienced HAMs look into this design and give an idea how we can get rid of the FPGA to make it cheaper and use the computer for processing instead like Softrocks, Peaberry SDR, RTL dongle, etc???

The AD9866 produces up to 80 MSPS of 12 bit samples, that's a lot of
data. How do you expect to get this into a PC? This would require USB3
or a direct interface to a PCIe interface. If you are asking if this is
feasible, I expect this will be beyond your capabilities to design.

I'm not sure the FPGA is what is driving the $200 price tag. You can
get very adequate FPGAs for what you are doing for $20 or less. I don't
think you need a huge FPGA that will run a high dollar price tag. I
think the $200 price is from the markup to sell these at a profit. If
you made your own I am sure your costs could be well below $100.

--

Rick

They are still waiting for a cheap USB3 dev board to come out from FTDI to get FPGA off ..