High Performance

Software Defined Radio

HPSDR

International Open Source

Development

Presentation for LCA OpenRadio Miniconf

By Justin Giles-Clark VK7TW
What we will cover
• Me & my SDR journey
• SDR Generations – amateur radio perspective
• HPSDR Philosophy & Components
• Some issues with SDRs
• VHF/UHF/Microwaves & SDRs
• Quick review - Current Software & Hardware
• Demo in break
Victor Kilo Seven Tango Whiskey
• 40 years of hacking – cut my teeth with assembler on 8748s and Z80s!
• Amateur radio operator 30 years – VK5ZJV, VK7ZTW, VK7KTW, VK7TW
• Been in IT for 35 years except for four years for a BSc in Geology and
Geochemistry – Rock Jockey ;-)
• Passion for recycling and re-purposing electronic equipment
• I cannot believe what society throws away and it is not sustainable!
• Devotee of open source philosophy – started with FreeBSD 0.1 in
1990s
My SDR Journey
• Softrocks – Tony Parks KB9YIG - 2008
• 630m (455kHz Rx) – Soundcard ADC
• 40m (Rx) – Soundcard ADC
• 2m – (6/4/2m Ensemble TX/RX) - USB
• HPSDR building blocks ~2008 to present
• Hermes single board ~2009 to present
• PiHPSDR Control Surface - 2016 to present
• RTL dongles – RTL-SDR – DVB-T TV dongles
?LimeSDR?
What is a Software Defined Radio?
●
digital conversion closest to the antenna – no more than one or two
stages away from antenna - minimal hardware
●
wide band radios compared to traditional hardware defined radios
●
hardware components are realised in software
●
modulation and demodulation performed in software
●
control is digital – hamlib/rigctl and interfaces
●
new features are implemented with new code/software
SDR Generations – Generation Zero
Back to the Future!
Mainly sourced from Generations of SDR – Dr Howard White KY6LA - SDR
Academy – Freidrichshafen Ham fest 2016 – on YouTube
●
Generation Zero - wide band - direct sampling – spark transmitter and
crystal receiver (rx)! 1890S – bit like an SDR!!
●
Hardware Defined Radio HDR – up to ~1980 when Digital Signal Processing
started – not SDR!
●
Problem is distortion introduced at each intermediate frequency (IF)
conversion stage and filter out each time – artifacts city!
●
Goal is to transmit/receive a signal with a fewer artifacts over variable
paths
Generation 1 SDR – Sound card ADC/DAC
• Generation 1 – for hams circa 2000
• Came from military application in 1980/90s (SpeakEasy, JTRS, etc) and became cheaper
• Direct conversion SDR - HF to AF – ADC in AF range – 192kbps – sound card
• Low noise amp, filter, quadrature sampling detector, (Improved Phasing Rig – more
frequency stability)
• Bandwidth = sampling rate eg. 192khz – sound card sample rate!
• Eg – Funcube, Flex3000, Elecraft kx3, RTL SDR, etc
• Images issues – need to filter them out
• Relies on Sound card ADC – good quality usually!
• Pros – sound quality is good, wide band 192khz, low power
• Cons – image rejection issues
Gen 1 Rx – eg. Softrock - QSD
SOUND CARD
LINE SPKR
QSD (A/D) (D/A)
INPUT OUTPUT

OSC
DDS, XTAL
CPU MEM VID

RF HARDWARE PC HARDWARE
RF INPUT BASEBAND I/Q DEMODULATED AUDIO
(ANALOG AUDIO)

USER INTERFACE
Source: Dr Howard White KY6LA
SDR - Software demodulation/modulation
Modulation How with I & Q
AM Amplitude modulating the I & Q and summing
(Double sideband suppressed carrier) – phase is constant
FM Magnitude of the modulating signal is constant and only frequency variation is
controlled relative to phase (FSK!)
SSB AM modulate and sum IQ and digitally filter the side band not required
PSK Finite number of phases used
ASK Finite number of amplitudes used
FSK Finite number of frequencies used
QAM Finite number of phases (>2) and amplitudes (>2)
Gen 1 Tx – eg. Softrock Ensemble - QSE
SOUND CARD
MIC LINE
INPUT OUTPUT QSE

OSC
DDS, XTAL
CPU MEM VID

PC HARDWARE RF HARDWARE
AUDIO INPUT BASEBAND AUDIO RF OUTPUT
(ANALOG)

USER INTERFACE
Source: Dr Howard White KY6LA
Generation 2 – ADC(DDC)/DAC(DUC) at the
Antenna – process in the PC
• Generation 2 Fat pipe direct sampling broad bandwidth SDR
• ~2006 RF ADCs faster and more affordable
• Eliminated much of the glue and direct sampling – images gone
• Hearing everything and can get 350million samples/second – SunSDR 650million!!
• Needs powerful PC and fat network pipe
• First to do it in amateur radio circles - HPSDR and Perseus
• Bandpass filters, attenuator, ADC, fat pipe to PC
• PowerSDR front end made Open Source – thanks Flex!
• Pros – distortion fixed, many receivers at once, adapters, dynamic range huge, program
anything, HW is set and all the rest done in SW – Angelina – 7 rxs
• Cons – faster PC and fat pipes – external DSP in PC
Gen 2 Rx – Direct Digital Conversion
USER INTERFACE

Digital
A/D Down USB2 CPU MEM VID
Converter

OSC
A/D D/A
DDS, XTAL IN OUT

SOUND CARD

RF HARDWARE PC HARDWARE
RF INPUT DIGITAL I/Q DEMODULATED AUDIO
DATA STREAM
Source: Dr Howard White KY6LA
Gen 2 Tx – eg. Direct Up Conversion
USER INTERFACE

MIC AUDIO
MODULATED RF
USB Digital
CPU MEM VID USB2 I/F Up A/D
Converter

OSC
A/D D/A A/D
IN OUT IN DDS, XTAL

SOUND CARD

PC HARDWARE RF HARDWARE
AUDIO INPUT DIGITAL I/Q RF OUTPUT
DATA
STREAM ALTERNATE
AUDIO
INPUT

Source: Dr Howard White KY6LA

Generation 3 – Processing in to the Radio
• Generation 3 – thin pipe direct sampling broad bandwidth SDR
• 2012 – put the fast PC and display into the SDR
• Cheaper and faster
• FPGAs doing the processing in the radio
• Band pass filter, attenuator, ADC, FPGA thin pipe computer for display
only
• Eg - Flex 6000, ANAN-200……HPSDR!
• Pros: huge dynamic range, low distortion, remote operation
• Cons: graphical interface with mouse not good for contesting!!
Gen 3 Rx – eg.

Source: Dr Howard White KY6LA

Generation 4 – everything old is new again!
• Generation 4 = 3rd gen SDRs with knobs and buttons!
• Bandpass filters, attenuator, ADC, FPGA thin pipe, to internal
computer with control knobs!!!
• Contesters rig needs the quick adjustment functionality
• EG – ELAD – Italian, SUNSDR – Russian – 620Msps, Flex – 6700 &
maestro
• Pros – Knobs and buttons – easier to drive, software upgrade path,
cheaper and cheaper, price versus performance – not bad
• Cons – Expensive currently but just wait
Gen 4 – Flex Maestro/ ELAD/ SUN/ HPSDR

Source: Flex, Elad, SUNSDR, HPSDR Websites

Amateur Radio – Over 100 years of
International Open Source Hacking!
Experimental
• Experimental - we design, build, operate and modify equipment - 23GHz of spectrum within our licence conditions.
Radio Communications
• Technical communication – experimental – hardware morphing into software hacking.
• Uses the international radio spectrum resource – internationally governed recognised in ITU regulations (section 25)
Non Commercial, Self Education and Improvement
• Amateur radio is non-commercial – challenge of getting something working - satellite, EME or a QRP (low power);
• Talking with like-minded people locally and internationally, nets, QSL cards, equipment, contests and certificates;
• Self improvement and experience gained through operation of different equipment, modes and mediums;
• Making contributions through experimentation to the fields of science, technology and engineering;
• Self-training and educational value; and,
• Skilled personnel for emergencies & community service (Fire Season, Jamboree on the Air (JOTA) and Safety Comms.

Source: REAST Website

HPSDR Philosophy and Quick Tour
• The HPSDR Journey started back in October, 2005 by Phil Covington (N8VB) .
• Attracted a group of SDR enthusiasts from around the world - Ray Anderson
WB6TPU, Steve Bible N7HPR, Rick Hambly W2GPS, Phil Harman VK6APH, Lyle
Johnson KK7P, Ulrich Rohde N1UL, and Bill Tracey KD5TFD – all amateurs
contributing their skills sets
• Balanced cost and performance to create a modular experimental SDR platform
• Tucson Amateur Packet Radio Corp (June 2006) develops project - next generation
SDR for Radio Amateurs. Affiliated with Amateur Satellite Corp (AMSAT).
• It is a Generation 2/3 SDR – DUC/DDC
• Amateur Radio and HPSDR philosophies align perfectly
• Apache-Labs in India have commercialised the product
Original HPSDR Components (see demo)

Source: OpenHPSDR website

HPSDR – Hermes/Angelina – 0-61MHz DUC/DDC

Source: OpenHPSDR & Apache-Labs website

HPSDR moves from Gen2/3 to Gen4
• John Melton g0orx/n6lyt developed an open source front end with
WDSP by Warren Pratt, NR0V DSP Library originally written for
Windows and ported to Linux and Android
• https://github.com/g0orx
• RaspberryPi 3 & 7” Touch screen - http://g0orx.blogspot.com.au/ to
create a control surface for the HPSDR/ANAN platform
• ApacheLabs have developed and released (see demo)
PiHPSDR – John Melton g0orx/n6lyt

Source: VK7TW
Why band pass filters & other issues with
DDC/DUC SDRs
• DDC - Broadbandwidth rx – hearing 0-61MHz of signals – need avoid ADC overload
• Linearity The native linearity of the data converter is excellent, something on the
order of an IP3 of +50 dBm.
• Image suppression. MERCURY receiver - sampling frequency of 122.88 MHz for the
ADC to allow MERCURY receiver to rx from 0 to 61 MHz. Signals / intermodulation
artefact frequencies (from anywhere!) can also appear in the data converter
output. – 88-108MHz FM could appear in the 15-35MHz spectrum!
• PC Power – minimum dual core – prefer i5 or i7 and reasonable Graphics card –
NVIDIA - Generation 2 issue
• Latency – need real time operating systems – Windoze is NOT – Linux is ;-)
VHF/UHF/Microwaves
• Softrock – 2/4/6m Ensemble – Gen 1
• David Minchin VK5KK – SDR Academy / Gippstech presentation
• mCHF – M0NKA All mode HF Rig – uses only control surface with UHFSDR
– UHFSDR – WB6DHW – 1.7-700MHz http://wb6dhw.com/For_Sale.html#UHFSDR
• DDS – AD9951 (Minikits) – GPSDO locked

• TulipSDR - Russian
• HackRF – Michael Ossman
• LimeSDR – Shipping Nov 2016????
• BladeRF – just announced.
Source: wb6dhw Website
SDR Hardware and Software
●
Hardware has been stable and standard for 3-4 years - DUC/DDC
●
SDR Software is exploding at the moment
●
SoapySDR - A vendor neutral and platform independent SDR support
library - standardisation
●
Client/Service SDR architectures - GHPSDR-3 / QTRadio
●
CUDA SDR – Using the graphics card processors to do the DSP
calculations – Phil Harman VK6AP – experimenting in this area with
many others – watch this space!
GNU-Radio – the SDR Swiss Army
Knife/Toolkit
• GNU Radio is a powerful open source radio development toolkit -
signal processing runtime, processing blocks, integration with
common low-cost external RF hardware and commodity processors.
• It is widely used in hobbyist, academic and commercial environments
to support wireless communications research as well as to implement
real-world radio systems.
• Easiest Entry – GNU Radio Companion
• http://
gnuradio.org/redmine/projects/gnuradio/wiki/GNURadioCompanion 

Source: gnuradio.org
Some of the SDRs Available Now
• Flex – 6700 – US$7500 - Maestro – US$1200
• HPSDR – Angelina ~$1500
• Perseus http://www.microtelecom.it/perseus/ - Italian
• ANAN – 200D – US$3000 ANAN 10E – US$1000 – 8000 - US$4000
• Software Labs – QS1R - http://www.srl-llc.com/?product=qs1r-revd-receiver
• RFSpaceIQ - http://www.rfspace.com/RFSPACE/Home.html
• Icom - IC7300
• TulipSDR – Romanian - https://tulipsdr.wordpress.com/
• ELAD – Italian - http://ecom.eladit.com/ - Euro$1159
• SUNSDR – Russian http://sunsdr.eu/product/sunsdr2pro/ - Euro$1590 – MB1 High End Euro$5890
• BladeRF X40 - 300MHz to 3.8GHz - US$420
• HackRF One -  1 MHz to 6 GHz - US$300
• LimeSDR – 6rx & 4tx – full duplex - Mobile Basestation - 100 kHz – 3.8 GHz with 64Mhz bandwidth -
https://myriadrf.org/projects/limesdr/ US$289
• Check tomorrow it will have changed!
What’s Happening Now and Future
Now:
• Already here - FreeDV, DSTAR, Fusion & DMR already being built in!
• GPS Disciplined Oscillators accurate timing for weak signal modes
• VHF and above – microwave LOs/IFs – HackRF, LimeSDR, BladeRF, etc, etc
The Future:
• GPU processing – NVIDIA Graphics Cards – CudaSDR
• Remote Stations – suburban RF smog!
• WebSDRs
Demo in breaktime
• HPSDR with PiHPSDR Linux Control Surface – 0-61MHz
• Codan 100W PA

• HPSDR Hermes with PiHPSDR (homebrewed) – 0-61MHz

• PennyWhistle 20W PA

• Both HPSDRs have Alexaires Band Pass Filters

• RTL Dongle with RPi running Adafruit – Freq Show