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.
- Playback waterfall scrolling fixed.
- Fixed a drawing error when panes are docked together and floating in a mini frame window.
- Continuum now has more smoothing options.
- Number of passes shown is now customisable.
- 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.
- 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.
- Drive level now independent for each transmit profile.
- 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.
- 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.
- Added more diagnostics in the header of the Signal History export. This shows me the size of the allocated buffer in seconds & data rate.
- The SDRplay API is now not loaded until needed.
- Tested SDRplay, added more diagnostics. Working well with API 3.09 and 3.10.
- 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.
- F3 toggles squelch.
- F4 cycles the NR.
- There's now an option to reverse the tuning direction.
- The "Encountered an improper argument" problem is solved.
- You can now display the Options in the Playback Navigator window without starting a file.
- Frequency database loads a bit faster.
- Found why there were hard crashes.
- Greatly reduced memory usage.
- 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.
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).
- Updated the USA PI Code data from https://picodes.nrscstandards.org/fs_pi ... cated.html.
- 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.
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
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.Real Men Write Machine Code
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