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Saturday 24 September 2011

SDR homebrew project that covers VHF/UHF/SHF frequencies?

As I push solder around a board that could be used at 70cm I thought... I wonder if there any interest in an SDR homebrew project that covers VHF/UHF/SHF frequencies?

I mean 70MHz up so 70MHz, 144MHz, 432MHz and 1.2GHz (maybe even 2.4GHz).

Frequency agile, meaning not single LO frequency.
Using Silicon Labs Si570 (e.g.http://www.silabs.com/Support%20Documents/TechnicalDocs/si570.pdf), might need modification to the circuits to obtain the quadrature LO required at SHF (An LO at 4 times 1.2GHz or 2.4GHz will be beyond the Si570). Maybe look at Analogue Devices DDS?

Display and Control (PC software aside) by
4x20 LCD or 128x64 GLCD (or better)
Rotary and push button front panel controls
PC and non-PC options (i.e DSP processing)
JTAG/ISCP programming options, probably AVR rather than PIC
Stereo CODEC (via USB so no sound card interface if PC involved)
Modes as per usual SDR capabilities including FM.

Might be interesting to see comments.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Are you aware of wb6dhw uhf sdr ? It goes a little bit higher than the softrocks but does not include all your ideas. Eric SA5BKE

M1KTA said...

Thanks Eric, yes I was.

Not built one of his UHF boards though. I have joined the Yahoo group http://groups.yahoo.com/group/UHFSDR/ I might order one and check it out. I first stared with the Si570 through him, then G0BBL...

I like the options the MOBO project seems to provide adding in the SDR-Widget as well so 192KHz 24bit is possible all from one USB connection.

The SDR-Cube has an interesting no PC dsPIC option as well.

I have a couple of LVDS Si570 that will go significantly higher than 700MHz.

So was wondering if anyone looked at this above 70cm.

M1KTA said...

Eric and all (had another email about it) I have ordered one of WB6DHW boards. I suspect I'll try it with the IQ input options the SDR-Cube provide as well as more 'traditional' sound card interfacing.