Minimalist Tx support (Tx phase 1)

Minimalist Tx support

Phase 1 of deployment. There is a sine modulated AM modulator with a File Sink device for the Tx device. Everything works at a single rate of 48 kS/s (no interpolation). The I/Q (.sdriq) file output can be re-injected in the File Source device for verification.

In the Device menu of the top bar of the main window click on "Add sink device" to open a set of tabs oriented towards transmission (sink devices). Then in the device selector you can activate the only device available (FileSink) and you can add as many AM modulators as you would do for demodulators. The carriers will be mixed in the baseband that you can watch in the main spectrum window.

Debian package

At last we will distribute a .deb package which will install the software in /opt/sdrangel since it is not part of any official Debian or Ubuntu distribution. Therefore it will not interfere with the standard installation. Moreover it has specific plugin libraries and embedded libraries that you don't want interfering with standard locations. BladeRF is not supported yet due to its complicated build process as an internal dependency this will come soon however.

Install it as usual for a .deb package:

• Make sure the universe repository is in your /etc/apt/sources.list
• sudo apt-get update
• sudo dpkg -i sdrangel_v2.2.0-1_amd64.deb
• sudo apt-get -f install This installs missing dependencies

You can then start it from the command line:

• /opt/sdrangel/bin/sdrangel

By default the sampling devices panel is not visible so on the very first time you start you will need to go to the "Window" item on the top bar menu of the main window and activate it by checking "Sampling devices"

RTLSDR decimation by 32

RTLSDR decimation by 32

There is not much more visible things than this in this version. Decimation by 32 is now supported with RTLSDR plugin

Changes in view of Tx support

More class name changes to avoid collisions with Tx tabs

DV serial support changes

Changes in view to support more than one audio flow by device. Unfortunately the AMBE3000 does not seem to cope with it so it is still limited to one flow by device. The code is kept like this as it can be modified in the future to support simultaneous encode/decode which should be possible according to AMBE3000 documentation.

Next steps

This should be the last of the 2.1 series. Next will see embryonic Tx support (one simple modulator with file output) and therefore the versioning will bump to 2.2

Windows Airspy plugin fix for Airspy Mini

Windows build

Windows Airspy plugin fix for Airspy Mini

The Windows build of the plugin was not reading sample rates dynamically this is now fixed and thus Airspy Mini with 6.0 and 3.0 MS/s sample rate is supported with the Windows relase bundle.

Windows RTLSDR build

The keenerd's version of librtlsdr was found to work not so great with strong signals giving more ghost images than the original. So we switched back to the original librtlsdr in development version with just the mods for no mod direct sampling support in addition.

Bug fixes

File source plugin

- Not all sample rates supported: this is now fixed and it can read files with all possible sample rates - Use a fixed time length buffer (depends on sample rate) - Take the header into consideration and skip it when looping or random seeking in the file

Audio output fix

Corrected issue when last user of the audio output quits. Thus it is now possible to start and stop devices (including file source) randomly even in single device mode.

DSD demod plugin YSF support

Following a fix in DSDcc version 1.5.1 the voice on indicator is correctly handled for YSF mode. Of course you have to use version 1.5.1 or above of DSDcc to benefit from it. This is integrated in the Windows build bundle.

Rx/Tx semantic move

Some classes were renamed to avoid collision with future classes supporting transmission (Tx mode). The channel plugin repository was also renamed to channelrx

DSD demod plugin: Yaesu System Fusion (YSF) support

General

You have to use version 1.5.0 of DSDcc or above to benefit from the changes. Please refer to DSD plugin documentation for details on the new (and existing) features of the DSD demod plugin.

Yaesu System Fusion (YSF) support

DSD demod plugin now supports Yaesu System Fusion abbreviated YSF. YSF is developed and promoted by Yaesu for Amateur Radio customers. The voice full rate mode with SerialDV is not supported (garbled).

D-Star "slow data" decoding

D-star slow data is now decoded and displayed in the status display bar of the DSD demod plugin. Thus the following information is made available:

• header data even if the header frame was missed (late entry)
• the 20 character user informative message
• the geopositional data sent in the $$CRC frames

Other changes

- New preferences setting: you can enter your station coordinates in the `Preferences/My Station` menu of the main window. This will be used when geopositional data is decoded. For now only the D-Star mode of the DSD demod plugin supports this. - Windows build: use newer versions of libairspy, libbladerf and libhackrf - libairspy: latest git master HEAD - libhackrf: latest git master HEAD - libbladerf: v1.7.2 - Windows build: use keenerd's version of librtlsdr so that RTL-SDR no mod direct sampling is effective. It may also bring improvements on the dongle sensitivity.

DSD demod plugin: major refactoring of DMR

DSD demod plugin: major refactoring of DMR

The refactoring of DMR processing in DSDcc v1.4.0 brings dramatic improvements to DMR experience. Make sure you compile using v1.4.0 of DSDcc to benefit from the enhancements. This includes:

• better processing with less errors
• new status display including source and target addresses information
• ability to select the time slot for voice output or mixing both
• ability to split voice time slots to left and right audio stereo channels

Other changes

DSD demod plugin

- D-Star decoding refactoring in DSDcc may bring some iprovements - dPMR status shows all numbers in decimal instead of hexadecimal - Low-pass filter on interpolated MBE decoder output improves voice sound - Fixed DV serial concurrent support - Fixed DV serial audio FIFO handling removing most of the hickups

Main window

- Sort presets by frequency then name

DSD plugin: major fix in FSK modem

DSD plugin: major fix in FSK modem

Again there is no change in SDRangel itself but you must make sure you compile it with DSDcc version 1.3.0 that contains these improvements.

This is a dramatic improvement to the Digital Voice modes experience with this plugin. The clicks and distorsions on the voice are completely removed and decoding of data frames is much more robust.

DSD plugin: changes in the GUI

The rewrite of the FSK modem in DSDcc yields some changes and improvements to the GUI along with other fixes:

• Button to select/deselect matched filter although you will want it most of the time liberty is granted to the user to play with it
• When the matched filter is engaged its output is shown on the scope and not the discriminator output to fit what really enters in the FSK demod
• Button to switch between transitions constellation display (the only one previously) and symbol synchronization monitor signal display
• Signal level range and center displays
• Display of the percentage of synchronization zero crossing hits per symbol
• Display of the calculated symbol framing jitter
• Fixed the channel power display
• Fixed the monospace font type so that it displays nicely both in Linux and Windows versions.

Other changes

- Fixed the time span display in the scope GUI limiting it to two decimals - Fixed the moving average class code

DSD plugin: partial support of dPMR and NXDN

DSD plugin: partial support of dPMR and NXDN

Although DSDcc library has many bugs it should be able to at least partially detect dPMR and NXDN frames. Actual changes in SDRangel itself are very light with only small changes to the DSD plugin GUI. Most importantly you should use the release 1.2.0 of DSDcc that effectively contains the new code.

Other changes

- SSB demod: ensure GUI minimum size - RTLSDR plugin: added 1024k and 2048k sample rates

New SDRdaemonFEC plugin

New SDRdaemonFEC source plugin

This plugin works with the FEC enabled version of SDRdaemon. When FEC is used the format of the data is completely different from what it is without FEC. The functionnality i also rather different so instead of trying to fit it into the existing SDRdaemon plugin this is easier and more straightforward to have a plugin on its own.

The addition of FEC blocks and the sequence tagging of frames and blocks make the transmission more robust. While it is unlikely to be beneficial with copper or fiber links it can improve links over WiFi particularly on distant links.

Please refer to the corresponding readme for further details about this plugin.

Other changes

RTL-SDR source plugin

The auto correction buttons now have the same labels "DC" and "IQ" as the corresponding buttons in the other source plugins with the auto-correction feature.

Build on Mac OS

Thanks to sigysmund contribution SDRangel can now be built for Mac OS. Please be aware that this is still experimental and being currently tested by sigysmund.

There is no binary package for this release.

Multi device support

🎉 Multi device support

This is the main point of this release and justifies the bump in major version. This is effectively an evolution of paradigm and involves a lot of internal changes although it may not catch the eye when looking at the interface.

Starting with this release multiple sampling devices (i.e. RTL-SDR dongles, Funcube dongles, HackRFs, File Source instances, SDRdaemon instances, etc..) are allowed to run concurrently. The audio of all channels producing audio from all devices is mixed in the final audio output. Each device resides in a device slot with corresponding device tabs in some critical windows of the main display. Thus the previous "X0" tab that was static is replaced with dynamically allocated tabs "R0, R1, R2, ..." corrsponding to the device slots 0, 1, 2, ... The "R' denotes a receiving device and is a provision for future (version 3) transmitting devices that will be tagged "T".

Device slots are added at the end of the device stack or removed from the top of device stack using the main window Acquisition menu "Add device" and "Remove device" options. The first device slot (R0) is added at startup and cannot be removed.

It may not seem obvious at first look but there are however important changes in the main interface. You can check here for the main interface documentation. The changes are:

• The "File" menu is left with only the Exit (Ctl-Q) option
• The "View" menu is left with only the Fullscreen (F11) option
• The "Acquisition" menu original options (Start/Stop device, Start/Stop recording) is replaced with the "Add device" and "Remove device" options. The original function key shortcuts (F5 to F8) are removed. These options are now handled at device level. Using these options you can add more sampling devices and remove them one by one (see main interface documnentation for details)
• The "Window" menu is unchanged but the original Source window has been replaced by two windows: Sampling Devices and Sampling Devices Control.
• The status bar has changed completely since device related displays have been moved to the Sampling Device window. It has been replaced with a general status and current date and time.

Functions related to device management (start/stop, start/stop recording) are reported to the Sampling Device window for each device.

Following the windows re-arrangement with presets filed from the previous SDRangel revisions the new windows may not display the way you like. It is usually convenient to have the Sampling Devices window sitting at the top of the left bar. You can just drag and drop the window there and save the preset the next time you load the preset it will appear in the desired place.

Other changes

Code cleanup

The following inactive plugins code has been removed:

• gnuradio
• osmosdr
• v4l-rtl
• v4l-msi
• tetra demodulator

DSD demodulator plugin

- support mute of audio when using the DV serial engine - disabled the cosine filter