>From the suggestions I have seen about improving the Pegasus and other
digital radio capabilities, especially the processing of additional modes,
it would appear that there is a general misunderstanding of the
computationally intense burden that such operations imply. The reason that
TT shows no interest in modifying their firmware is that it simply cannot
be done that way and they realize that. Major changes would be required and
the result might have a new name - something like "Orion."
Most digital mode programs use a soundcard with its support chipset plus
the CPU plus a large amount of memory, etc. to develop the signals required
for SSTV, PSK31, etc. operation. To expect that the comparatively
low-powered "peanut" processor in a little rig like the Pegasus or Jupiter
could even begin to do all that is to overlook practical and feasible
limits.
This gets back to the notion and misinformation of "software-defined"
radios. You can never get the rig's processor(s) to do more than a certain
amount of work in a given time. If the designer did his job right and met
his price point goals, he used "just enough" processing capability to meet
his assigned specs. Done right, there is precious little capacity left for
getting more operations out of the processor. So much for the never-ending
series of upgrading rig capabilities through the magic of "firmware
updates." The firmware can never cause the processor(s) to do more than so
much, nor can it do all that some "upgrades" night demand of the
accompanying analog support circuitry.
When radios contain the equivalent of a Pentium IV with half a gig of RAM
and large mass storage, then we will start to see integrated functions in
the "radio" - or should we call it a computer with some r-f circuitry
tacked on?
73/72/oo, George W5YR - the Yellow Rose of Texas
Fairview, TX 30 mi NE of Dallas in Collin county EM13qe
Amateur Radio W5YR, in the 56th year and it just keeps getting better!
QRP-L 1373 NETXQRP 6 SOC 262 COG 8 FPQRP 404 TEN-X 11771 I-LINK 11735
Icom IC-756PRO #02121 Kachina 505 DSP #91900556 Icom IC-765 #02437
All outgoing email virus-checked by Norton Anti-Virus 2002
Dave McClafferty wrote:
>
> > The place where DSP can earn its mettle is
> > processing signals other than just CW and SSB. There
> > is no good reason to not handle modes like SSTV,
> > PSK31, WSJT, PUA43 packet etc. natively in a DSP stage
> > of the radio, so far no one has done this in a
> > meaningful in the amateur radio market. Taking the
> > logic that having many stages between the antenna and
> > your intended output is a bad thing; it makes no sense
> > to take those kinds of signals all the way to audio to
> > only have to re-digitize them in the computer sound
> > card in order to process.
> > Duane
> > N9DG
> I am amazed that no one has modified the Pegasus firmware to do just that.
> It has been suggested to Tentec and they show no interest. I thought about
> doing it myself but I know it is beyond my capabilities. There must be some
> hams out there who have this capability I'm sure.
> Another plus for doing this with SSTV, that you have digital video, which
> suffers no generation loss. Hams could pass pictures on with no serious
> degradation.
>
> Dave, VE1ADH
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