1 SDR-14 & SpectraVue S o f t w a r e D e f i n e d R a d i o By: Moe Wheatley, AE4JY and Pieter Ibelings, N4IP.

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SDR-14 & SpectraVueS o f t w a r e D e f i n e d R a d i o

By:Moe Wheatley, AE4JY and Pieter Ibelings, N4IP

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SDR-14 Enabling TechnologiesSeveral technologies became available that enabled this project come together.

• High speed, relatively low cost 14 bit A/D converter chips.

• Companion digital down converter and decimation filter IC to reduce the sample rate and bandwidth and allow high resolution tuning all in the digital domain.

• Relatively low cost, high speed FIFO's to capture the data before sending back to the PC.

• Inexpensive and easy to use USB interface chip allowing >600KB/Sec data transfer back to the PC

• Desktop PC's with enough CPU power to perform high speed FFT's as well as simple demodulation.

• Inexpensive PC software tools for hardware/software/CAD design.

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ADC

CIC Filter

ComplexNCO

66.666 MHzOscillator

FIR Filter

16 Bit IQor Real

Data

II

Q Q

-SINCOS

512K x 16Memory

USBInterface

8 32

PICProcessor

30 MHzLow Pass

Filter

32 to 8 BitMUXCPLD

SDR-14 FFT Spectrum Analyzer -Digital Receiver

NI

QDecimator

Switch

ComplexData

RealData

DirectInput Port

VariableGain

Preamp

HF InputPort

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SDR-14 Applications• Pan adapter applications for radio receivers with IFs in the HF band (8.83 MHz, 10.7

MHz, 21.4 MHz) or 0-200+ MHz using direct input and external filters.

• Contest station and satellite activity monitoring.

• General coverage HF receiver with 1 Hz tuning. Currently supported modes include USB, LSB, CW, AM, FM

• Propagation and beacon monitoring (allows monitoring of the whole HF band at once or any segment of it. )

• Storing spectrum displays up to 30 MHz wide (no demod capability)

• Storing 100 KHz of spectrum to hard drive with full demod and post processing capabilities.

• Full spectrum analyzer functions with marker, averaging, smoothing, max hold, peak search and sub Hz resolution bandwidths.

• Radio astronomy and SETI receiver for the detection of weak signals in noise.

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SpectraVue Software showing 20 meter band.

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SpectraVue Block Diagram

F F TF u n c tio n s

D em o d u la tio nF u n c tio n s

I QD isp la y

So u n d card

In tern alG en erato r

R IF FW av e F i le

S D R - 1 4 2 D F F TD is p lay

3 D F F TD is p lay

W a t e r f a llD isp la y s

C o n t in uumD isp la y

So u n d card

R IF FW av e F i le

F F TP aram et ers

D em o dP aram et ers

InputS ourc e s

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SpectraVue Capabilities

• FFT analysis using 2048 to 262144 point FFT's (real or complex).

• FFT amplitude resolutions from 10dB to .2dB per division.

• FFT amplitude power is in dB referenced to full scale or can be calibrated to dBm.

• Various FFT data view modes including waterfalls and 2D and 3D plots.

• Display markers for accurate amplitude/frequency measurement.

• A continuum display for measuring spectral power over the entire span and/or the peak power within the span.

• Frequency Spans from 5KHz to 30MHz in various step sizes. (using SDR-14 unit)

• Signal demodulation of AM, NBFM, USB, LSB, narrow CW modes when using the 100 KHz Frequency Span and SDR-14 unit.

• Saving and playback of captured spectrum using RIFF .wav files.

• Saving 100 KHz of spectrum to hard drive requires 2.2 GB/hour storage.

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The SDR-14 Setup Menu

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RAW DISPLAYShows in-phase and quadrature waveforms over time.

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2D FFT DISPLAYShows amplitude vs. frequency.

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3D FFT DISPLAYShows amplitude vs. frequency vs. time.

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V WATERFALL DISPLAYShows amplitude vs. frequency vs. time

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H WATERFALL DISPLAYShows amplitude vs. frequency vs. time

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CONTINUUM DISPLAYShows channel power vs. time.

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Decoding AO-40 using AO40RCV and SpectraVue

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Additional Info.

Visit http://www.rfspace.com for more information regarding the SDR-14.

Additional information on SpectraVue can be found at http://www.moetronix.com