[TenTec] [Orion] "Technical Correspondence", August 2007 issue

[Dr. Gerald N. Johnson]

On Wed, 2007-07-25 at 17:13 -0400, Martin AA6E wrote:
> Dr. Gerald N. Johnson wrote:
> 
> > There is a fundamental difference between the TenTec and the various ham
> > SDR that have open source software. The many SDR use PC audio cards for
> > the A/D and then do ALL the computation in the PC external to the radio.
> > Sometimes only a certain few audio cards will work fast enough. TenTec
> > radios use a special purpose collection of micro and DSP chips IN the
> > radio where the needed compilers are not necessarily available on the
> > consumer computer market.
> > 
> 
> Each to his own, but the difference is mainly packaging.
> 
> Packaging is important.  It's really useful to have your radio in one 
> box that can be carried around without a keyboard, mouse, monitor, and 
> PC.  Those big knobs are convenient, too.
> 
> In terms of the block diagram and signal processing, there is not much 
> difference.  They are both SDR's, but TT has locked up the code so users 
> can't help improve the product, except by sending testy emails to each 
> other...
> 
> 73 Martin AA6E

There is a great deal of difference. The ham SDRs have very little
hardware out front and virtually no analog filtering, while the TenTec
Orion has more analogue hardware in filters  and mixers then their none
digital (circa Omni V or VI) radios had. And the code for the ham SDRs
is for PC, the code for the Orion probably has to run in two chips,
neither with commonly available compilers. One for control and one for
DSP, though if I had designed the radio I'd have used a single board
embedded PC so I could develop software easily in my PC.
-- 
73, Jerry, K0CQ,
All content copyright Dr. Gerald N. Johnson, electrical engineer