Now that I finished my Omnia SDR for the 60, 40, 30 and 20 meter bands, I started looking into how I could use it on Linux. I remembered reading some emails on the project mailing list about using Quisk, which is a mature SDR transceiver application written by James Ahlstrom, N2ADR. I decided to give it a try.
Omnia SDR
Softrock type SDR transceiver with integrated 96 kHz USB audio codec.
Omnia SDR completed
Tonight I completed the TX part of my Omnia SDR for the 60/40/30/20 meter bands 😀
Omnia SDR build status 2016.03.20
Following the successful receiver tests yesterday, I continued today with the band pass filters completing the receiver chain. I decided to build for 60/40/30/20 meters, which can provide a good all round, day and night transceiver.
First on-air tests of the Omnia SDR receiver
I mentioned in my previous update that following my noise floor measurements I tried connecting antenna to the receiver input through C27 but did not have any signals through. Today I found out that I had a bad solder at L11 and so the antenna switcher wasn’t working.
Omnia SDR build status 2016.03.18
The receiver is now complete and only the band pass filters are missing. The local oscillator is working well as does the computer interface. I could measure the noise floor on all bands and check how much USB noise there is on the different bands of interest, see the screenshots below.
Omnia SDR build status 2016.03.15
Peter OZ7HVO has soldered the difficult parts for me, namely the CY8C32 PSoC, the PCM3060 audio codec and the SI570 oscillator. I consider the SI570 a bit difficult because it has 8 pads and the solder has to flow in below it, so best to let someone skilled do that.
Omnia SDR build status 2016.03.13
Today I have started assembling my Omnia SDR kit. Ideally, I would want to start with the difficult integrated circuits, in this case the Cypress CY8C32 PSoC and the PCM3060 audio codec, but the step-by-step guide starts with the power supply and so I did the same.
Omnia SDR
Few weeks ago I learned about the Omnia SDR project, which is a newly released softrock type transceiver kit. It has an on-board USB audio codec, which I consider to be a significant advantage, making it suitable to be used with embedded linux computer boards that do not have a good on-board audio codec. However, for me the Omnia SDR will form the basis for a remote controlled SDR transceiver, which I think will be a natural continuation of my remote rig project.