ExtIO.dll?

[dsalomon]

Does Nuand plan to develop an ExtIO.dll for the BladedRF?

[bpadalino]

It hasn't been discussed, and we're happy to help someone to develop it if it will help the community. Without knowing much about it, I can't say for certain but we'd certainly consider it.

What is ExtIO used for?

[dsalomon]

Extio is a "standard", designed by Alberto di Bene, used for communicating with SDR hardware. Several SDR software packages support it (HDSDR, SDR#, and some others that I can't think of at the moment). The hardware vendor provides the Extio.dll, which enables the software to communicate with the radio via calls instead of a lower level interface.

Look here for some info, examples and a document of the standard: http://www.hdsdr.de/faq.html.

Once an Extio.dll is written for the hardware, it can be used with any SDR software that supports that standard.

[bpadalino]

Very cool! We'll definitely check it out, or help other people if they want to try to make the port themselves. I think we provide similar calls to our library.

We'll be sure to blog about it once we get something working.

[dsalomon]

Thanks for looking into this! My 2p worth - if you build it, they will come.

I'm guessing (just guessing) that there are a LOT of hams and monitors like me who are drooling at the prospect of being able to use the BladeRF like they use their other SDRs. Looking at the chatter about the BladeRF, I'm also guessing that a significant number of your kickstarter investors are hams and monitors. There isn't another product on the market at your price point that does what the BladeRF does (maybe the HackRF...but it's not available yet). If you really want to attract the ham and monitor community, do a few things (again, just my 2p worth :

1. Create the ExtIO ASAP. That will immediately make the BladeRF useable for many folks who have Windows based SDR software. There is a huge user base of people who want to be able to just fire up their SDR software of choice and have it work (without having to learn GNUradio, build blocks, etc.) This will address the hobbyist market vs the "test" market.

2. Contact Simon Brown, the developer of SDR-Radio. He has a HUGE following. I think he already ordered a BladeRF. His product also has a DLL interface (similar to the ExtIO standard, but not the same). SDR-Console is my SDR software of choice (http://v2.sdr-radio.com/). IMHO, this product is the best SDR software available. If it supports the BladeRF, it might spur many additional sales (again, just my 2p worth, and I am in no way associated with Simon or his product...just a user).

3. Listen to the suggestions re: the transverter. What you have listed on your website goes down to 10MHz. It really needs to go down to about 100KHz to be competitive against the many other HF SDRs on the market. By the way, despite have "only" coverage down to 10MHz, I have one on order. )

Thanks for listening!

[madengr]

I'd also like an extio.dll interface. That would make it plug and play for windows users.

What irks me though, it seems like all the SDR software for windows is nothing but a glorified panadaptor, just mimicking the functionality of an analog radio with non of the advantages of SDR. 10's of MHz of real time BW available for processing and they allow one demodulator, so it's really just a lousy radio with none of the dynamic range or intercept point of a triple conversion superhet. At least with GNU radio one can parallel as many demodulators as the CPU can handle. That's how SDR should be exploited. I don't believe there any windows softwares that can really put a bladeRF or USRP to use.

[SDR-Radio.com]

Just to confirm that I'm arranging to obtain a bladeRF via a supporter once the Windows drivers are available for my Windows 7 64-bit development system. I don't envisage CPU problems processing 28MHz or even 40 MHz bandwidth although I'll have to wait and see what happens. The main issue will be the FFT processing which can always be offloaded to CUDA / OpenCL if the desired quality (FFT overlapping) is too much for Intel cores.

My plans include satellite tracking (I'll be working on that code next week), EME and general monitoring.

The only thing I don't see on offer yet is a good, rugged case for the bladeRF and support cards. I would like to mount this SDR outside as close to the antennas as possible.

Simon HB9DRV

[SDR-Radio.com]

What irks me though, it seems like all the SDR software for windows is nothing but a glorified panadaptor, just mimicking the functionality of an analog radio with non of the advantages of SDR. 10's of MHz of real time BW available for processing and they allow one demodulator, so it's really just a lousy radio with none of the dynamic range or intercept point of a triple conversion superhet. At least with GNU radio one can parallel as many demodulators as the CPU can handle. That's how SDR should be exploited. I don't believe there any windows softwares that can really put a bladeRF or USRP to use.

You could always write your own software and let the user community know when it's ready for downloading !

[dsalomon]

What about these...

- SDR-Console V2 (Windows only) currently provides up to 6 concurrent demodulators within the bandwidth provided by the radio. (Simon didn't toot his own horn, so I'm tooting it for him .
- The WinRadio Excalibur PRO supports up to 3 simultaneous receivers within its 4MHz bandwidth.
- CW Skimmer supports up to 7 simultaneous bands on QS1R hardware
- cuSDR and Hermes hardware supports up to 7 simultaneous receivers (Windows and Linux)


...just to name a few.

73 - David, AG4F

I'd also like an extio.dll interface. That would make it plug and play for windows users.

What irks me though, it seems like all the SDR software for windows is nothing but a glorified panadaptor, just mimicking the functionality of an analog radio with non of the advantages of SDR. 10's of MHz of real time BW available for processing and they allow one demodulator, so it's really just a lousy radio with none of the dynamic range or intercept point of a triple conversion superhet. At least with GNU radio one can parallel as many demodulators as the CPU can handle. That's how SDR should be exploited. I don't believe there any windows softwares that can really put a bladeRF or USRP to use.

[madengr]

Wow, I apologize if I have offended anybody. Simon, if you can get your software working with the bladerf, and it supports multiple demodulators, that would be slick. I assume this would be with extio.dll. I'm using extio.dll now with an Ettus N210, and as I mentioned before, I do not believe there is anything that can utilize it's 25 MHz BW (other than panadaptor), and now the bladerf is pushing that to 40 MHz. HDSDR is limited to a single demodulator. I believe SDR# is the same, but it bombs out with the extio.dll. ghpsdr3 (open source) may work with the N210, and that may be a candidate for the bladerf to support.

Whatever the bladerf does support on Windows, it ought to do more than tune a single channel. If the extio.dll based programs can't do this, then maybe the resources ought to put into supporting an application that can.

As far as contributing to the software, I posted this a while back.

http://nuand.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=10

It's just a simple GNU radio program, but it will stream 26 NBFM channels to disk (IIRC in a 4 MHz BW), but handles less at 25 MHz. I just received the bladerf this evening. Once I get the GNU radio driver to build (see my post in troubleshooting section), I'll set it up to work with that.

[LazyDodo]

Afaik i'm the only one currently working on windows support right now (working in win7 x64,not tested on anything else), I have a very basic ExtIO dll which i've tested with HDSDR (winrad doesn't like it, then again it doesn't seem to like any of the 3rd party exio dll's i have fed it..) I also have SDR# support (using their own driver model, not through extio), I haven't tested or put any effort into supporting any of the other apps out there. But basic RX stuff should work in apps that support ExtIO. It needs a lot more polish though so not sure when it'll be 'good enough' to be merged into nuand's main repository.

Whatever the bladerf does support on Windows, it ought to do more than tune a single channel. If the extio.dll based programs can't do this, then maybe the resources ought to put into supporting an application that can.

I'd be more than happy to support anything that is available for free and has extensibility options, as soon as there is a price to be payed, I have very little interest to do the work.

Either way if any of you is desperate enough for windows support and are not afraid of compilers, drop by on irc and i might be able to help you out, if you're looking for a well tested binary download i suggest waiting a little longer for the changes to merge into the mainline.

HDSDR screenie
SDR# Screenie

[madengr]

Think there is a away to feed two concurrent instances of SDR# via a single stream from the bladerf? From what I have read, Unitrunker can command SDR# to tune the voice channel, although I have not tried it since blowing $40 for two rtlsdr dongles seems silly. If that would work, a trunking receiver would be a slick application for the bladerf, and something to listen to above 400 MHz.

[SDR-Radio.com]

Wow, I apologize if I have offended anybody. Simon, if you can get your software working with the bladerf, and it supports multiple demodulators, that would be slick.

It takes a lot to offend me

The bladeRF is interesting for me as it'll be a good stress-test of the software when running at maximum bandwidth. On Monday at the latest I'll be starting on satellite tracking - graphics display, Doppler correction etc. Although there are six VFOs in the console already I'm happy to come up with a design for many more - some sort of matrix or whatever.

I'm really waiting for a driver announcement before moving to the next step. As soon as there's a driver that will install on Windows 7 64-bit then I'll start the bladeRF support.

[LazyDodo]

Think there is a away to feed two concurrent instances of SDR# via a single stream from the bladerf? From what I have read, Unitrunker can command SDR# to tune the voice channel, although I have not tried it since blowing $40 for two rtlsdr dongles seems silly.

Technically there's no reason why that couldn't be done (making multiple instances share data) just nobody has written the plugin to actually do it.

[SDR-Radio.com]

Any news on Windows support yet? I'm getting quite a few Windows users asking me about bladeRF support in my console.