ExtIO_sddc.dll v1.1 RC1

We need Experimenters' feedback to validate and test this release candidate.  

ExtIO_sddc.dll v1.1 RC1

The source repository contains code from many co-authors.  I owe special thanks to Hayati Ayguen, Howard Su, Franco Venturi, Justin Peng and all the Others, their efforts are greatly appreciated and fundamental to the growth of this project. I'm learning a lot from them.

Improvements

- This release detects the following hardware BBRF103, RX888, HF103, RX888r2, RX999.

- Supports 128M ADC sampling rate selection in the dialog GUI (Justin Peng and Howard Su).

- Use of libsddc allows development of Linux support and Soapy integration (Franco Venturi   https://github.com/fventuri/libsddc ).

- Tune the LO with a 1Hz step everywhere (Hayati Ayguen https://github.com/hayguen/pffft). Possibly it will allow use of ExtIO_sddc.dll with SDR applications other than HDSDR.


- Move multi thread r2iq to a multi thread pipeline model to better leverage multi cores. Remove callback in USB (adcsample) thread to HDSDR to make sure we can reach to 128Msps. (Howard Su ideas and code)

- Continuous tuning LW,MW,HF and VHF.  We tune the LO where we want and in HDSDR we can lock it ( right click on LO label).
Tuning of LW+MW with sampling rate of 4MHz, LO set at 1MHz, adjust zoom to 0-2 MHz.

- Harmonic R820T tuning is there. Hayati Augen  has  implemented an experimental driver hack  for R820T2 based SDRs to tune all the way up to 6 GHz.  The limit is 4.2 GHz on HDSDR, due to a HDSDR 32-bit limitation. Sensitivity is acceptable until 2.7 GHz, then it begins to lower.
You will need a high pass filter like https://www.minicircuits.com/WebStore/dashboard.html?model=VHF-1760%2B to stop all signals below 1.7 GHz, otherwise they will alias your desired frequency. External LNA is required to improve NF.
SATSAGEN / Pluto+ generates a tone at 2650 MHz -30dBm at the VHF input of the RX888.

So far the known issues of v1.1 RC1 are:

- the reference frequency correction via HDSDR -> Options -> Calibration Settings ->LO Frequency Calibration does not work correctly. This problem will be addressed in next release.

- The 128M adc rate is experimental and must be activated manually in the ExtIO dialog GUI. It works with RX888 hardware that has 60 MHz LPF and requires a quite fast PC.

If you want to test this ExtIO_sddc.dll v1.1 RC1,  follow these instructions (thanks to Franco Venturi) and download the https://github.com/ik1xpv/ExtIO_sddc/releases/download/v1.1/ExtIO_sddc_v1.1RC1.zip with already compiled dll here.

  • Install HDSDR (you may want to have a second installation of this program under a different folder, for instance 'HDSDR experiments', so that you always have the well known good installation under 'HDSDR' untouched) - HDSDR can be downloaded from the usual place: http://hdsdr.de/
  • You'll also need to extract/copy two additional files in the same folder where you installed the new copy of HDSDR (and possibly install Microsoft Visual C++ 2019 runtime; see below):
    • ExtIO_SDDC.dll   -> this is the actual ExtIO dll
    • libfftw3f-3.dll   -> this is the usual FFTW dll; it can be found here http://www.fftw.org/install/windows.html  (make sure to select the 32-bit version), and you probably already have in your existing installation of HDSDR
    • The ExtIO_sddc_v1.1RC1.zip file contains both these dlls for your convenience.
  • If at run of HDSDR  you get the message that says "The specified module could not be found";  Possibly you need VCRUNTIME140.dll and MSVCP140.dll  these files are part of the Microsoft Visual C++ 2019 runtime, and can be found on this page: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/2977003/the-latest-supported-visual-c-downloads (download and run the file called 'vc_redist.x86.exe'); since these files doesn't change, you need to run this step only once.

In case you find a bug please describe the behaviour that triggers it with an email to me ik1xpv[at]gmail.com; Or better create new issues here:

https://github.com/ik1xpv/ExtIO_sddc/issues


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