V3.2 Release Notes

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Simon G4ELI
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V3.2 Release Notes

#1

Unread post by Simon G4ELI »

V3.2 is available as a release, download kits here.

Main Features
  • Updated dot product code with highly optimised assembler (machine code). This is part of an ongoing project to reduce the CPU load with high bandwidths.
  • Added Continuum display: Ribbon Bar, View, Spectrum, Continuum.

September 18th, 2022

Pluto
Improved output power:
  • Now correctly setting the TX Analog filter as a LPF.
  • In the Radio panel added a TX Filter slider.
  • Added Pluto identification info, will be handy in the future. Shows hardware revision, firmware version, library version.

RX888
  • Added another thread to the processing, important for some weaker CPUs at 128Msps.
  • Added ADC calibration.
Bufixes
  • Playback waterfall scrolling fixed.
  • Fixed a drawing error when panes are docked together and floating in a mini frame window.
Continuum
  • Continuum now has more smoothing options.
Satellite Display
  • Number of passes shown is now customisable.
General
  • Date optionally shown in the waterfall Clock display.
  • When displaying a waterfall with default or empty values the actual colour used was indeterminate. With this fix the colour is now black unless there is real data.
Audio
  • In the dropdown where you select the audio device there is an entry 'Track Default audio device changes'. If the Windows default device is changed and Default is selected for playback in SDR Console then the new Windows selection is automatically opened.

August 29th, 2022

RX888 Mki, MkII
  • Using firmware 2.2.
  • Can now be selected by serial number.
  • Changed PPM logic.
  • Added firmware version, PPM and ADC sample rate to the radio panel display.
  • ADC sample rate supported up to 128 Msps, previously fixed at 64 Msps.
  • Added Bias-T support.
Transmit
  • Drive level now independent for each transmit profile.
RDS
  • RDS Database setting is now identity dependent as requested. The default identity value is used when an identity is opened for the first time, thereafter changes are saved only for the current identity.
  • Changed (relaxed) RDS Logfile button greyed state when logfile is not enabled, i.e. when the logfile is not started you can now manipulate the display and logfile.
  • RDS Logfile now receives idle updates while floating, button state (greyed, not greyed) will be correct.
  • When using the RDS Logfile Editor, selecting a new entry also refreshes the list.
  • Added (July 31) PI Code Lookup, uses the frequency database. Added a column 'Db' to the RDS Logfile, if the PI Code is found in the frequency database this column shows 'Yes' otherwise '-'.
    If the PI Code is visible in the RDS Info window and the PI Code is found in the frequency database a Tick ✓ is added to the PI Code.
  • Anyway, you can now update the RDS Logfile with this option.
RDS Logfile PI Sync.png
Video Recorder
  • Reversed a small change which had broken the video recorder for a small number of users.
  • Added an option to invert the display, tested on my AMD NUC and now the video is OK. I cannot find any attributes anywhere which tell me the video is inverted, what I do see tells me it's OK.
  • Also tuned the processing a bit.
Signal History
  • Added more diagnostics in the header of the Signal History export. This shows me the size of the allocated buffer in seconds & data rate.
SDRplay
  • The SDRplay API is now not loaded until needed.
  • Tested SDRplay, added more diagnostics. Working well with API 3.09 and 3.10.
RX Lock
  • Added the option to lock a RX so that clicking / scrolling in the waterfall / spectrum has no effect. Changing the frequency in the Frequency window still works. RX Lock state is supported by Favourite definitions.
  • To Lock / Unlock move the mouse to the spectrum in a Receiver or matrix window, you'll see a Lock button appear. There's no Lock button in the main spectrum window.
  • To Lock / Unlock all RX: Ribbon Bar, Receive, Lock.
  • Added Lock options to the ribbon bar.
Tmate 2
  • F3 toggles squelch.
  • F4 cycles the NR.
  • There's now an option to reverse the tuning direction.
Markers
  • The "Encountered an improper argument" problem is solved.
Playback Navigator
  • You can now display the Options in the Playback Navigator window without starting a file.
Frequency Database
  • Frequency database loads a bit faster.
Playback Waterfall
  • Found why there were hard crashes.
  • Greatly reduced memory usage.
Playback Selection
  • Added the Radio defn name to the Playback Selection window.

July 25th 2022

SDRplay API 3.0.10

With the introduction of the 3.0.10 API some users of the RSP1 and possibly other SDRplay radios are having problems with SDR Console. The logic used in SDR Console is to open a device by matching the saved serial number against the serial number of the available SDRplay devices. For an unknown reason the serial number for the RSP1 may change over time, I have logfiles from a user showing this.

Something else I've noticed is that the RSP1 now has a unique SN, prior to 3.0.10 it was always 1.

To overcome this problem the serial number is now only used if there are more than one SDRplay devices of the same hardware type. So, if you only have one RSP1 / RSP2 / RSPdx etc. then it will be opened irrespective of serial number.

I've added extensive diagnostics in the logfile to help with any future workarounds.

Broadcast-FM, PCM Display

Fix fatal crash when in B-FM with audio muted and the PCM audio display selected. Caused by an optimisation which was bad.

Playback Navigator

Fixed / finished the auto-scroll for non-default layout; playback time moves from bottom to top.
Improved performance when building a big waterfall, depending on your system this may not be noticeable.
Added an auto-scroll option so the waterfall scrolls to keep the current playback time visible. Note: still got a small issue to resolve...
Options window swapped the direction Up and Down labels.

HL2 PTT

The HL2 PTT fix which Max has already checked,

External Radio

Extended the bandwidth when connected to the external radio's IF Output from 200 kHz to 1 MHz.

ELAD S3

Working with ELAD I am now shipping firmware v1.9 (it's in the FX3 dll). This may correct the problem where the S3 has to be power cycled to get it working properly.

14:03:24.731: Radio Elad-FDM-S3: Open S3> Load USB firmware (Pass 1 of 3), status = 0
14:03:24.731: Radio Elad-FDM-S3: Open S3> Address = 1721-0628-SNSK0C93
14:03:24.731: Radio Elad-FDM-S3: Open S3> Firmware = 1.9
14:03:24.731: Radio Elad-FDM-S3: Open S3> Serial = SK0C93


13 July 2022

AFEDRI radio definitions can now be added / edited manually.

Playback Navigator - replaced the Layout dropdown in the Playback Navigator with a Menu button and options window, also added 0.1, 0.2 and 0.5s resolution.
Playback Navigator options.jpg
Increased the filter length in the fractional resampler (used in decimation) to provide better support when listening close to a very strong signal - typically 85dB stronger than the station you want to decode. This is usually only noticeable on VHF and even then, you're likely to be suffering from splatter or phase noise.

Celestrak.com replaced with celestrak.org (satellite tracking TLE downloads).

More RAM allocated to data recording cache.

Minor RDS tweaks, these only affect very weak signals on an empty band.

Fixed almost irrelevant RDS decoding bug where the first station received would not show the decoded text immediately.

Minor performance improvements.

Band II FM:
  • More intelligent loading of US PI Codes,
  • Added support for Canada (big thanks to William Hepburn).
Notes:
  • Some PI codes are allocated to multiple US stations which are far apart, so at some stage I'll add the callsign for the station closest to the user.
  • Will look at adding Mexico support but apparently discipline on Band II is not great in Mexico.
Fixed fatal error in the Matrix caused by the performance change in the June 26th kit.

Removed unwanted artifact in the AM/SSB squelch window (not always visible).

Text in spectrum and waterfall now drawn with grey scale anti aliasing instead of clear type.

Increased #Memories from 20 to 40.

Minor performance improvement, optimised MFC <=> Direct2D drawing interface (remove SendMessage overhead).

FFT Overlap now shown correctly in waterfall statistics.

24 June 2022

When the monitor display state changes (example: switched on / off due to inactivity) Console was not properly refreshed. I found out how to do this, supported for Windows 8 and above according to the documentation, it also works with Windows 7.

The recording data cache now works again!

20 June 2022

Fixed a transmit frequency bug whereby the transmit frequency was not correctly synchronising as the receive frequency was changed.

Added support for the Delta offset option. Use Shift + Mouse left button, Shift + Mouse scroll wheel to adjust.

16 June 2022

Reduced unnecessary updates on the status bar.
Wide FM output level reduced by 10% to 90% of theoretical peak. Was too high for some external demodulators, also may have been clipping internally

14 June 2022
Real Men Write Machine Code
Writing low-level stuff to squeeze a CPUs performance is fun, haven't really done this in anger for 30 years. Written my own SSE / AVX / AVX2 code for DotProduct, managed to beat Intel's performance library by a factor of two.

This is needed when the 160 Msps / 600 Msps SDRs appear.

09 June 2022

Been reading Understanding Digital Signal Processing: Lyons, Richard: 9780137027415: Books (only 954 pages) and have been learning, understanding, and optimising some decimation code. This is a magnificent book, well worth the money, everyone should have a copy.

03 June 2022

This kit refreshes the display when starting and changing monitor. Seems that a recent W11 (and W10 maybe) update has changed part of the Windows display manager.

Tune drive level is reset to 0 if either:

More than 10 seconds has elapsed since last Tune, or
The transmit frequency has changed.

24 May 2022 06:33

NR4 settings will now revert to the default, future changes are saved. This is because the currently saved defaults are for the old design.
Voice Keyer now saves the file selection between sessions.
DX Cluster will now continually try to reconnect if the selected server is unavailable, for example I must take mine offline for a few minutes every month for OS updates.

21 May 2022 19:49

Added customisable font size for the Signal History / Continuum grid annotation.

20 May 2022 20:51

Added option to display the Signal History / Continuum signal level at the cursor position.

12 May 2022

New NR4.

lucianodato/libspecbleach: C library for audio noise reduction (github.com). The code will be continually updated, so I’ll be updating NR4. Note that the Github code uses FFTW which I have replaced with Intel’s IPP library. The default values should be OK, I’ll add more documentation later.

06 May 2022

This kit has the first version of a Continuum display:

Ribbon bar, Spectrum, Continuum Mode (shares the display code with Signal History). At present the continuum is computed from the frequency and bandwidth of the main display. The first second of data is ignored, it will take a few seconds before the display is updated.

04 May 2022

Added support for WinRadio WR-G69DDCe (Excelsior Ultra) Professional HF/VHF/UHF/SHF scanning receiver, 8 kHz - 8000 MHz
RDS Logfile PI Sync.png
Simon Brown :shock:
www.sdr-radio.com

Do not send me direct e-mail, thank-you!

rainstar
Posts: 66
Joined: Sat Dec 19, 2020 4:06 am

Re: V3.2 Release Notes

#2

Unread post by rainstar »

Oh yea! FANTASTIC release Simon! I am PUMPED for the future of SDR.
Nothing gets me hot like optimized decimation code, too- I am absolutely going to play with the fractional decimator a bunch.
This is a feature that a lot or practically most SDR software simply do not have and only goes further to show that yours is the best of all.

https://github.com/haoheliu/voicefixer
Have you played with this? Warning- requires graphics card.
I have already tried porting it to intel using the tools, but it uses some custom code that won't allow the inference model to be
converted to openvino for use in applications. Supposedly there are newer and better network architectures coming along, so
eventually we should see some fantastic results.

What it can do:
It can take a amateur radio SSB 5khz or less signal and reconstitute it to a rich, full 44khz voice(a bit artificial but much better sounding)
It can remove some noise.

User avatar
NO6B
Posts: 53
Joined: Wed Aug 19, 2020 7:06 am

Re: V3.2 Release Notes

#3

Unread post by NO6B »

Same issue as always: defective squelch on NFM. Have to turn it up so high to keep it closed on a dead channel that 20 dB quieting signals won't keep it open.

py2rn
Posts: 1
Joined: Wed Sep 02, 2020 12:00 pm

Re: V3.2 Release Notes

#4

Unread post by py2rn »

I was very happy using 3.1 with my Pluto, then decided to try 3.2 problems started, I connect to the Pluto via network and it seems 3.2 consumes much, much more LAN bandwidth, then decreased SDRC bw to try to avoid the clicks and gaps during rx and tx, the problem is when you decrease bw it caps (limit) Pluto output power on 2.4GHz, tried to fall back to 3.1 but the symptoms remains the same. Now I am able to run only on a cabled 1GB LAN (before was able to run perfectly on wi-fi 400MB/s). PC is a I7 (6th gen) with 16GB RAM and W10.

Ed
py2rn

rainstar
Posts: 66
Joined: Sat Dec 19, 2020 4:06 am

Re: V3.2 Release Notes

#5

Unread post by rainstar »

September 5th, 2022 This beta is broken for me. August 29 release works.

*when updating to new builds, all old files should be erased.
Last edited by rainstar on Fri Sep 16, 2022 8:27 am, edited 1 time in total.

jdow
Posts: 800
Joined: Mon Aug 10, 2020 8:17 pm

Re: V3.2 Release Notes

#6

Unread post by jdow »

What did you use for a USB to Ethernet dongle? Did you actually find one that works USB2 to 1G Ethernet? All the units I saw when I looked about a year ago were USB2 to 100M Ethernet. A Pluto on 100M Ethernet will use a huge percentage of "wire time", the time its signals are on the wire. That will leave very little for anything else.

When mixing various Ethernet signaling speeds on a single wire you must calculate loads as a percentage of each second each of the data loads at each speed consumes. You cannot presume that a 1G Ethernet connection will carry 10 fully loaded 100M Ethernet connections. It will only carry 1 fully loaded Ethernet connection.

{^_^}

rainstar
Posts: 66
Joined: Sat Dec 19, 2020 4:06 am

Re: V3.3

#7

Unread post by rainstar »

No release announcement on the forum of the new 3.3 beta build?

Anyway works smoothly for me. I only wish i could see what my custom logistic window function looks like for the waterfall display, instead of hamming/blackman/etc.

The logistic window function specification is as follows:

Rounding up to the nearest whole number, take half the window size. For 512, this is 256. For 513, this is 258.
Generate a set of this many evenly spaced numbers from 0 to 1 inclusive.
For all but the first and last elements in this set, divide the value by 1 minus the value.
Likewise, for all but the first and last, replace the value with the log of the value.
For the last value, replace 1 with twice the next to last value, minus the second to last.
Set the first to the opposite of the last.

For even sized windows, create a mirror copy of this set and append it.
For odd sized windows, create a mirror, but of all but the last, such that the midpoint is a single value.

best regards

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