Official bladeRF forum

Gentlemen,

I hope that my proposal will be seen as an effort to further our mutual interests by bringing the greatest number of resources to bear on the future of the Nuand hardware and the broader development of software associated with SDR.

Being a relative noob to the SDR realm, I'm finding it difficult to keep track of a fast-moving target. I fully grant that the nature of the beast is transitory by its very nature, so my request is carefully weighed by these points.

It would be significantly helpful to me and I suspect by a number of others, to have some sticky documentation at the top of this thread that can be edited and maintained as development moves forward. Having a reference document for SDRConsole with a "current state" snapshot of proper deployment of the software, and what does/doesn't work based on the current deployment, in a reference location would be awesome. Before anyone thinks that I'm picking on Simon, I'd expand my request to Nuand. As an example, I've recently added the XB200 to the base unit. Fighting my way through the process of making it function has been less than fun, whether on Windows or Linux. The clarity of documentation, spread of the documentation over a variety of forums, conflicting documentation due to revisions and change - each of these works to undermine the fundamental goal.

If there's disagreement, I'd certainly enjoy hearing the reasoning and logic so I might re-think my position.

Bob

That's why I suggested bladeRF for dummies. Today I got my xb-200 ( thanks for enclosure ) I'm tired of digging thru tons of information..wanted to try it with SDR Console...I see it works...but how ?

I think jynik is on the right track here.

I think the forum is great for getting conversations started and possibly getting community help or opinion, but I think that things like a dummy's guide or better documentation about the current state of the software with regards to the XB-200 or DC calibration or even the block diagram and general information of how the XB-200 does what it does should be placed on the wiki where it can be looked at by many more people, easily linked to other wiki pages and live alongside the code itself.

With that being said, there were some initial questions brought up how does the XB-200 actually do what it does? How was it designed and why? These are great questions which we, as nuand and developers, should be providing you as our customers. I think the forum is a great way to ask the questions, but I think the wiki is the place where the answers should live.

Does that make sense to you drbob and Olaf? To help the conversation, what are some of the pieces of documentation that were troubling that you want to see better documented and that isn't on the wiki already? Did you know we had a wiki or just the forums? Are we doing a bad job organizing the wiki itself?

As always, thanks for your support. I hope you don't view this post as being negative since I do believe this to be a very important goal for us.

Brian

As a well known bladeRF dummy and a person that runs a Wiki on my website, I will say without hesitation that the Wiki is the single best approach to information. One stop shopping, centrally located, and easily editable.

I have no problem with the wiki being the reference point for official documentation and useful information to guide the broad base of users.

My respectful suggestion however, would be to see a break-out with the various packages that "talk to" the blade and its addons centrally documented -- or at the least a pointer to the 'official' repository of additional information.

Personally, two different development projects have my interest: Simon's package seems to be geared more toward the "get in, get on, is-it-working" crowd and that's of significant interest to many people, especially those from the Windows environment. The Linux side of things brings more of a tinker's approach and can become quite convoluted quickly - but it also interests me from a completely different standpoint.

I'll return to the wiki and give it a couple more attempts at following the docs to a conclusion and, if I find there are specific areas where we have problems describing processes, I'll work to address them specifically and see if I can help to resolve the matter successfully and document it at the same time.

Incidentally, my reason for suggesting the use of the forum with a sticky is because the subject is changing quickly and what we see today may not be tomorrow.

BTW, I really appreciate the positive, thoughtful responses. Good job.

drbob wrote:Simon's package seems to be geared more toward the "get in, get on, is-it-working" crowd and that's of significant interest to many people, especially those from the Windows environment.

Exactly - many people are good at using software and hardware but are untechnical. I really do target a 'Plug-and-Play' approach, so far I've only had a handful of installation problems over ~4 years with my SDR software. I target those who just want to get on with using the hardware which is really all I want to do, I'm looking at a 3m to 4m dish for the back garden, I've found some very nice enclosures for the bladeRF.

When I see some of the hoops you have to jump through to get code maybe working in various Linux distributions my mind goes fuzzy...

Hello all!

Summer has finally ended and the rain has started, putting me back indoors for another 9 months. I turn my attention to the bladeRF and hopes that some evolution has taken place while I was away.

Like a good dog, I downloaded the latest bladerf_win_installer and set about installing same. Pulled the hostedx115.rbf to my favorite place to load from and did so... ah, I was anticipating that command I'd yet to be able to issue: xb attach 200... and received the following error: attach: Invalid expansion board model number. Say what? From the wiki, this was the alleged command to issue and I was so looking forward to miracles, but my optimistic mood was dashed.

What, pray tell, have I done wrong?

I also noted an interesting prompt when I run bladeRF CLI that seems... new?

OMG
bladeRF>

Is that "Oh My God..." you're in deep doo-doo? Or OMG It Lives?

Only mildly annoyed,

Bob

Awesomeness...

IMHO the change to the command structure seems logical - "enable" makes sense to me.

For fun, I've attached the window capture from the cli, mostly to impress on other viewers that I'm not entirely crazy, but also to be "the guy" with something unique and puzzling... LMAO...
I enjoy getting a new toy, playing with it a short period of time and then allowing the idea to sink into my aging brain for a bit. This lets me form a meaningful idea and approach to taking a project on so that I can begin asking questions that are cogent while illuminating my complete lack of foundational understanding. My sincere apologies to the community as I stumble down the path I see before me, in advance. I'm not a programmer, but I believe I have a decent grasp of the unit's capabilities. I sincerely wish to see the blade evolve into an ever more useful tool in our mutual toolboxes. To that end, I'll be asking a lot of questions as a noob to the programming realm as I attempt to implement some of the ideas - always hoping others might see value in where I'm going and 'chip-in' toward a common, useful, module.

For my first trick, I'm contemplating an always useful tool for radio nerds: a TDR. Anybody else get a warm, squishy feeling about that idea, or is my brain baked in awful-sauce?

Bob

Ahhhh... <- the sound a guy makes when he does the last maintenance-oriented tower climb of the year and settles into a nice warm bath. Yesterday was that day for me... That buys me about 8 months of rain where I am (I live in a rain forest. Seriously.) This allows me to get back to some of my projects, including the bladeRF.

Of your choices, I have decent RF skills and have been servicing radio equipment (and many other forms of electronics) in excess of 35 years. (Having put that in writing, I suddenly feel very old... ) Technical skill in much of the computer realm isn't a problem, except that I've never taken to programming beyond BASIC and some unique interpreted languages to get odd jobs done. Learning the programming realm seems daunting to me, and I'm old enough that I just don't know if there's enough brain-space available to capture the knowledge I need to become "decent" at development. That doesn't mean I'm lacking for ideas, however.

I think the idea of a thread on TDR is fine - but I'm prone to express my broader idea of an RF toolbox and define some of the tools I can see the bladeRF providing the community. As I've said before, I stepped into the bladeRF for two reasons: I'm a ham and saw the bladeRF as a potentially useful SDR for working in the amateur bands; I see the potential to reduce the size of my Motorola service monitor to something manageable. (If you've lugged a service monitor up a mountainside, you know what I mean... ) I've been playing (lightly, at this point) with Linux solutions for accessing my bladeRF and realized that many of the resources found on a service monitor can be developed in a modular fashion for GNU Radio. What were "menu keys" on a service monitor could be similarly arrayed on a computer screen to pull up various functions. Clearly I was on a useful track as I found CTCSS encoders and decoders, and the always present spectrum analyzer takes center stage. Coolness factor? 9.5

Honestly, my only concern so far is accuracy - NIST traceability clearly isn't possible at this point. Or is it? Even so, is it "good enough" to make this a valuable tool that could evolve over time? I suspect so.

As I work with the bladeRF and get a better handle on this new-fangled radio box that just blows my mind (do you younger folks realize how cool this SDR stuff is? How really cool this bladeRF is? If you don't find yourself amazed by these two little circuit boards, you are a hard man...) I'll do my best to provoke, inspire and encourage people to communicate more on the blade - I believe that's in our mutual best interest.

I'm curious - to date, how many of each of the boards have been sold/distributed? How large is the potential base of participants to the discussion?

Jon - I'll pull the latest package down and run it (OMG really didn't bother me nearly as much as it bothered you... ) and I'll start putting up some ideas that are bubbling in my brain and see if we can get some traction. I think we're onto something here. I don't know what the larger goal of Nuand is, or what your resources are, etc., but I figured I'd toss out an idea that might have merit: One of the groups that I've been paying attention to is Hak5 - they seem to have a presence on the 'net and are inspiring people to experiment. Their people are young and energetic and part of the "cool crowd" (damn, in my youth we were called nerds and they threw stones at us!) They've been doing quite a bit of proselytizing on the subject of SDR dongles... Would it be worthwhile to reach out to them, provide them with some tools that could advertise more of the Nuand project, thereby encouraging further development and participation? http://hak5.org/ Just a thought.

New computer, some time off from the grind, and wanting to get back to the bladeRF project.

Fresh Windoze install, machine happy, so I grab the software from the official GitHub site (Windows Installer) and poke away. After install, I get the image (attached) and I wonder why I see no devices when I probe... Hmmm... I'm obviously talking to the unit, loaded an fpga, it is talking back to me...

I try to load up a clean install of Simon's SDR Console version 2.3 build 2381 - Search for bladeRF, "Nothing Found". Try a crappy dongle, sees it and talks to in fairly well.

I'm bound and determined to make this bloody thing work! LOL

Suggestions?

Bob

Hi, Jynik!

Sooo... I fire up the bladeRF CLI, load the fpga, start the XB200, then quit the bladeRF CLI

I fire up SDRConsole, Select Radio (List is empty, add definitions now?) and I say, Yes...

Search -> bladeRF returns result, "Nothing found, sorry!"

< this is the part where I cry like a little girl >

Here's the dump of the log fine from SDR Console, version 2.3, build 2381

18:19:26> Instance
18:19:26> This is the only instance ......: Yes
18:19:26> Single instance mutex created ..: Yes
18:19:26> Single instance mutex handle ...: 00000128
18:19:26> Single instance mutex class ....: SDR-Radio-Console-App-0-0
18:19:26> Previous instance active state .: Clear
18:19:26>
18:19:26> Threads
18:19:26> Initialising
18:19:26> ASIO
18:19:26> 0 devices found
18:19:26> CPU
18:19:26> CPU is low power
18:19:26> Logical CPUs: 6
18:19:26> Frequency: 3.32 MHz
18:19:26> Cores on die: 6
18:19:26> Features: [X] Intel Architecture MMX technology supported
18:19:26> Features: [X] Streaming SIMD Extensions
18:19:26> Features: [X] Streaming SIMD Extensions 2
18:19:26> Features: [X] Streaming SIMD Extensions 3
18:19:26> Features: [_] Supplemental Streaming SIMD Extensions 3
18:19:26> Features: [_] The processor supports MOVBE instruction
18:19:26> Features: [_] Streaming SIMD Extensions 4.1
18:19:26> Features: [_] Streaming SIMD Extensions 4.2
18:19:26> Features: [_] Advanced Vector Extensions instruction set
18:19:26> Features: [_] The operating system supports AVX
18:19:26> Features: [_] AES instruction
18:19:26> Features: [_] PCLMULQDQ instruction
18:19:26> Features: [_] Read Random Number instructions
18:19:26> Features: [_] Float16 instructions
18:19:26> Features: [_] Advanced Vector Extensions 2 instruction set (AVX2)
18:19:26> Features: [_] ADCX and ADOX instructions
18:19:26> Features: [_] The RDSEED instruction
18:19:26> Features: [X] The PREFETCHW instruction
18:19:26> Features: [_] Knights Corner instruction set
18:19:26> Not enabled: The PREFETCHW instruction
18:19:26> Cache size: 0
18:19:26> Open MP
18:19:26> Threads 2, check 0: 1, 1: 1
18:19:26> Cache
18:19:26> Internal data cache is 400 megabytes
18:19:26> Server Interface
18:19:26> Local initialisation
18:19:29> DLL
18:19:29> File .............: C:\Program Files\SDR-RADIO-PRO.com\SDRSourceAfedriLAN.dll
18:19:29> Name .............: Afedri-SDR (LAN)
18:19:29> Date .............: Feb 3 2016, 17:25:00
18:19:29> Unique ID ........: Afedri-LAN
18:19:29> Version ..........: 1.0.0
18:19:29> -
18:19:29> File .............: C:\Program Files\SDR-RADIO-PRO.com\SDRSourceAfedriUSB.dll
18:19:29> Name .............: Afedri-SDR (USB)
18:19:29> Date .............: Feb 3 2016, 17:25:04
18:19:29> Unique ID ........: Afedri-USB
18:19:29> Version ..........: 1.0.0
18:19:29> -
18:19:30> File .............: C:\Program Files\SDR-RADIO-PRO.com\SDRSourceAirspy.dll
18:19:30> Name .............: Airspy
18:19:30> Date .............: Feb 3 2016, 17:25:21
18:19:30> Unique ID ........: Airspy.com
18:19:30> Version ..........: 1.0.0
18:19:30> -
18:19:30> File .............: C:\Program Files\SDR-RADIO-PRO.com\SDRSourceAndrusMK1d5.dll
18:19:30> Name .............: SDR MK1.5 Andrus
18:19:30> Date .............: Feb 3 2016, 17:25:03
18:19:30> Unique ID ........: SDR MK1.5 Andrus
18:19:30> Version ..........: 1.0.0
18:19:30> -
18:19:31> File .............: C:\Program Files\SDR-RADIO-PRO.com\SDRSourceBladeRF.dll
18:19:31> Name .............: bladeRF
18:19:31> Date .............: Feb 3 2016, 17:25:11
18:19:31> Unique ID ........: Nuand-BladeRF
18:19:31> Version ..........: 1.0.0
18:19:31> -
18:19:32> File .............: C:\Program Files\SDR-RADIO-PRO.com\SDRSourceEladFDMS1.dll
18:19:32> Name .............: ELAD FDM-S1/S2
18:19:32> Date .............: Feb 3 2016, 17:25:14
18:19:32> Unique ID ........: ELAD-FDM-S1LAN
18:19:32> Version ..........: 1.0.0
18:19:32> -
18:19:33> File .............: C:\Program Files\SDR-RADIO-PRO.com\SDRSourceEttus.dll
18:19:33> Name .............: Ettus Research (all models)
18:19:33> Date .............: Feb 3 2016, 17:24:53
18:19:33> Unique ID ........: Ettus001
18:19:33> Version ..........: 1.0.0
18:19:33> -
18:19:33> File .............: C:\Program Files\SDR-RADIO-PRO.com\SDRSourceFUNcube.dll
18:19:33> Name .............: FUNcube Dongles
18:19:33> Date .............: Feb 3 2016, 17:24:56
18:19:33> Unique ID ........: FUNcube
18:19:33> Version ..........: 1.0.0
18:19:33> -
18:19:33> File .............: C:\Program Files\SDR-RADIO-PRO.com\SDRSourceHackRF.dll
18:19:33> Name .............: HackRF
18:19:33> Date .............: Feb 3 2016, 17:25:21
18:19:33> Unique ID ........: HackRF One
18:19:33> Version ..........: 1.0.0
18:19:33> -
18:19:34> File .............: C:\Program Files\SDR-RADIO-PRO.com\SDRSourceNetSDR.dll
18:19:34> Name .............: RFspace: CloudIQ, CloudSDR, NetSDR, SDR-IP
18:19:34> Date .............: Feb 3 2016, 17:24:54
18:19:34> Unique ID ........: RFspace001
18:19:34> Version ..........: 1.0.0
18:19:34> -
18:19:34> File .............: C:\Program Files\SDR-RADIO-PRO.com\SDRSourcePappradio.dll
18:19:34> Name .............: Pappradio
18:19:34> Date .............: Feb 3 2016, 17:24:51
18:19:34> Unique ID ........: Pappradio001
18:19:34> Version ..........: 1.0.0
18:19:34> -
18:19:35> File .............: C:\Program Files\SDR-RADIO-PRO.com\SDRSourcePerseus.dll
18:19:35> Name .............: Microtelecom: Perseus
18:19:35> Date .............: Feb 3 2016, 17:25:13
18:19:35> Unique ID ........: Microtelecom001
18:19:35> Version ..........: 1.0.0
18:19:35> -
18:19:35> File .............: C:\Program Files\SDR-RADIO-PRO.com\SDRSourceRTL2832U.dll
18:19:35> Name .............: RTL SDR (USB)
18:19:35> Date .............: Feb 9 2013, 21:32:33
18:19:35> Unique ID ........: RTL SDR (USB)
18:19:35> Version ..........: 1.0.0
18:19:35> -
18:19:36> File .............: C:\Program Files\SDR-RADIO-PRO.com\SDRSourceRTLSDR.dll
18:19:36> Name .............: RTL SDR (TCP)
18:19:36> Date .............: Feb 3 2016, 17:25:09
18:19:36> Unique ID ........: RTL SDR (TCP)
18:19:36> Version ..........: 1.0.0
18:19:36> -
18:19:36> File .............: C:\Program Files\SDR-RADIO-PRO.com\SDRSourceSDRIQ.dll
18:19:36> Name .............: RFspace: SDR-IQ and SDR-14
18:19:36> Date .............: Feb 3 2016, 17:24:53
18:19:36> Unique ID ........: RFspace002
18:19:36> Version ..........: 1.0.0
18:19:36> -
18:19:37> File .............: C:\Program Files\SDR-RADIO-PRO.com\SDRSourceSDRplay.dll
18:19:37> Name .............: SDRplay
18:19:37> Date .............: Feb 3 2016, 17:25:24
18:19:37> Unique ID ........: SDRplay
18:19:37> Version ..........: 1.0.0
18:19:37> -
18:19:37> File .............: C:\Program Files\SDR-RADIO-PRO.com\SDRSourceSoftRockSi570.dll
18:19:37> Name .............: SoftRock (Si570)
18:19:37> Date .............: Feb 3 2016, 17:25:01
18:19:37> Unique ID ........: SoftRock (Si570)
18:19:37> Version ..........: 1.0.0
18:19:37> -
18:19:37> File .............: C:\Program Files\SDR-RADIO-PRO.com\SDRSourceSoftRockXTAL.dll
18:19:37> Name .............: SoftRock (XTAL)
18:19:37> Date .............: Feb 3 2016, 17:25:12
18:19:37> Unique ID ........: SoftRock (XTAL)
18:19:37> Version ..........: 1.0.0
18:19:37> -
18:19:37> MIDI
18:19:37> Starting
18:19:37> Startup
18:19:37> Program started in 16.274 seconds
18:19:37> Input thread
18:19:37> Ok
18:19:37> IPServer
18:19:37> Loading definition
18:19:37> IPServer-Command
18:19:37> Loading definition
18:19:38> Audio
18:19:38> Channel .......................:
18:19:38> Opening .......................: Default Device, (ID = 0)
18:19:38> WAVEFORMATEX.cbSize ...........: 18
18:19:38> WAVEFORMATEX.wFormatTag .......: 1
18:19:38> WAVEFORMATEX.nChannels ........: 2
18:19:38> WAVEFORMATEX.nSamplesPerSec ...: 48000
18:19:38> WAVEFORMATEX.nAvgBytesPerSec ..: 96000
18:19:38> WAVEFORMATEX.nBlockAlign ......: 4
18:19:38> WAVEFORMATEX.wBitsPerSample ...: 16
18:19:38> Afedri-SDR (LAN)
18:19:38> DLL initialised
18:19:38> Afedri-SDR (USB)
18:19:38> DLL initialised
18:19:38> SDR MK1.5 Andrus
18:19:38> DLL initialised
18:19:38> bladeRF
18:19:38> DLL initialised
18:19:38> ELAD FDM-S1/S2
18:19:38> DLL initialised
18:19:38> Ettus Research (all models)
18:19:38> DLL initialised
18:19:38> Boost: Platform=Win32; Compiler=Microsoft Visual C++ version 10.0; Version=Boost_1_56_0
18:19:38> UHD: Version=UHD_3.7.1-0
18:19:38> FUNcube Dongles
18:19:38> DLL initialised
18:19:38> HackRF
18:19:38> DLL initialised
18:19:38> RFspace: CloudIQ, CloudSDR, NetSDR, SDR-IP
18:19:38> DLL initialised
18:19:38> Pappradio
18:19:38> DLL initialised
18:19:38> RTL SDR (USB)
18:19:38> DLL initialised
18:19:38> RTL SDR (TCP)
18:19:38> DLL initialised
18:19:38> RFspace: SDR-IQ and SDR-14
18:19:38> DLL initialised
18:19:38> SDRplay
18:19:38> DLL initialised
18:19:38> SoftRock (Si570)
18:19:38> DLL initialised
18:19:38> Opened OK
18:19:38> Adding buffers
18:19:38> Buffers to add ................: 1000
18:19:38> Buffer size ...................: 384 bytes
18:19:38> Buffer latency ................: 2 ms
18:19:38> Buffering in seconds ..........: 2
18:19:38> Ready
18:19:43> bladeRF
18:19:43> Probing...
18:19:43> Error: No devices found.
18:19:52> Probing...
18:19:52> Error: No devices found.
18:20:11> Probing...
18:20:11> Error: No devices found.

Thanks for your help!

Bob

PS - dropped you a PM with an indecent proposal... LOL

Whew...

Well, we're up and running - installing the latest version (RC) and the Cypress driver brought this puppy to life.

Thanks, Jon, for your instructions/guidance - it did the job.

So if I may abuse your attention for a moment: Do we know anything about any pre-compiled packages (Windows) that take advantage of the Tx capability of this unit at this time? I was hoping Simon's package would provide that resource, but it doesn't appear to be the case yet. Sounds like a move to Linux may be taking place sooner than later to take complete advantage of the bladeRF?

Bob

Hi Jon,

I'll check into the links you shared and see where they take me. Can only hurt for a minute, right? LOL

Bob

This is a Windows 7 Home Premium setup, fully updated.

jynik wrote:Whoops - just a random thought. What version of Windows are you running?

I just remembered there might have been a libusb issue (that was fixed in newer versions) related to a failure to detect USB3 devices due to an API change in some Windows libraries... hopefully I'm remembering that correctly. Just trying to piece together your situation before I bug a busy Simon with any questions.