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Has anyone tried a new raspberry pi 5 with the sbitx V3, I have one I'd like to replace/try, because I want to use the RP4 for another project? It's just I thought the V3 firmware might not be compatible? Thank you. G0RCL
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Has anyone tried a new raspberry pi 5 with the sbitx V3, I have one I'd like to replace/try, because I want to use the RP4 for another project? It's just I thought the V3 firmware might not be compatible? Thank you. G0RCL
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The RPi 5 requires a newer distribution of the Raspbian OS, older distributions won't work.
There are software issues between the latest Raspbian OS and sBitx software that would cause the new boards to not work properly without a non-trivial effort to make it work.(I believe it was a GPIO related software library that is missing in Bookworm Raspbian OS.)
Farhan has repeatedly mentioned that the added CPU speed (for example) would be of almost no benefit in an sBitx radio, in fact he has repeatedly opined that most people would find an RPi Zero 2W adequate CPU-wise.
I think the short answer is "not yet".
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On Dec 31, 2023, at 07:57, Owen Baldwin <owenbaldwin@...> wrote:
?Has anyone tried a new raspberry pi 5 with the sbitx V3, I have one I'd like to replace/try, because I want to use the RP4 for another project? It's just I thought the V3 firmware might not be compatible? Thank you. G0RCL
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Ken, WiringPi is the GPIO software that the mainstream Raspberry Pi organization does not support. Rafael Diniz has a GitHub site that can be used to add it to the Bookworm OS.? Here is the message with the link: /g/BITX20/message/105650Another effort is to change the sBitx code to use the newer libraries like Pigpio or libgpiod?currently supported with the Raspberry Bookworm os-release (Debian). /g/BITX20/message/106799Based on what Farhan has said in the past, I do not see a migration to the RPi 5 in the near future.? The next effort could very well be a V4 based on the Raspberry Pi Zero 2W to reduce the cost further.? I would support this effort as getting a radio like the sBitx into the hands of budget-constrained Hams is good!? We need to promote open-source SDR. 73 Evan AC9TU
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Note,? I was typing my reply in the other thread as the posts here were being written.
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On Sun, Dec 31, 2023 at 10:27 AM, Evan Hand wrote:
Based on what Farhan has said in the past, I do not see a migration to the RPi 5 in the near future.?
I agree, yet as I wrote in the other thread, IMO spending good money on a Pi 4 these days makes little sense.? Maybe at some point the Pi 4 price will drop to compensate for its dated design (it's four years old now, which is ancient in computer terms) but till they do it represents bad value for money.
The next effort could very well be a V4 based on the Raspberry Pi Zero 2W to reduce the cost further.? I would support this effort as getting a radio like the sBitx into the hands of budget-constrained Hams is good!? We need to promote open-source SDR.
I believe it more or less already works with Pi0-2W if you just run the textual UI.? The GPIO pinout is identical, just solder a GPIO connector to the PI0-2W, install the 'headless' operating system (or at least the 'lite' one) and it should just work. The main issue there is the memory size is 512MB whereas the smallest Pi 4b is 1GB and most have 2GB or more.? You are cutting things pretty close given the OS itself will want a few hundred GB for itself.? Yes, I remember when 640k was a lot, I even remember when 4k was a lot, and we have people here who worked on drum computers that had far less than that.? So, with Pi0-2W you can get the gtk-based textual UI to work but not the web-based graphical UI.? Chromium alone chews through more than 512MB.? I suppose that could be a sufficient product with a touchscreen, or maybe design a product that a requires a second computer to support access using VNC or M$ remote desktop or even a phone.? ? -- Regards, Dave, N1AI
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Rpi5 requires a complete build with updated libraries.? The GPIO is both extended and
the core processor is?a further enhanced ARM, the Video system has different code
plus the SUB and WIfi system has performance improvements.
I didn't try to run base Raspbian Rpi4 code on it but first guess it would not boot.
I tried that with Pi-3 to Pi-4 and had issues, not everything worked or worked well.
Going to the newest Pi-x versionn has not been just drop in.
--
Allison
------------------
Please use the forum, offline and private will go to bit bucket.
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The price difference between an RPi 4 2 Gig and an RPi Zero 2W 512M is $30, the difference between the zero and the 1 Gig RPi 4 is $20.
NB: the RPi Zero 2W is about the same performance as an RPi 3B+, but with less memory (512 Meg in the Zero 2W vs 1 Gig in the 3B+)
I'm not sure how significant the savings would be, since the board kit is just over $200, and the performance hit (GUI) and the loss of wired Ethernet makes it worth the extra $20/30, but opinions vary.
Ken, N2VIP
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Show quoted text
On Dec 31, 2023, at 10:27, Evan Hand <elhandjr@...> wrote:
Based on what Farhan has said in the past, I do not see a migration to the RPi 5 in the near future. The next effort could very well be a V4 based on the Raspberry Pi Zero 2W to reduce the cost further. I would support this effort as getting a radio like the sBitx into the hands of budget-constrained Hams is good! We need to promote open-source SDR.
73
Evan
AC9TU
|
On Sun, Dec 31, 2023 at 01:32 PM, Ken N2VIP wrote:
The price difference between an RPi 4 2 Gig and an RPi Zero 2W 512M is $30, the difference between the zero and the 1 Gig RPi 4 is $20.
NB: the RPi Zero 2W is about the same performance as an RPi 3B+, but with less memory (512 Meg in the Zero 2W vs 1 Gig in the 3B+)
I'm not sure how significant the savings would be, since the board kit is just over $200, and the performance hit (GUI) and the loss of wired Ethernet makes it worth the extra $20/30, but opinions vary.
I'm sure opinions do vary, but I am of the mindset that going to the effort to support a different image to support the 512MB device to reduce the selling price ten to fifteen percent probably is not where I would put my resources.? ?Maybe I'll change my mind on that at some point in the future, who knows.? ?It might become an interesting challenge.? Also, maybe hfsignals buys in big enough lots to get better pricing so their math is different, who knows...
To get a view of the big picture at the consumer level, I did a quick trip to pishop.us which is the official US dealer, to get list pricing:
The thing I notice right away is the Pi 5 only costs $5 more than the Pi 4 when comparing devices with equal memory capacity.??
To me this makes it very poor value for money to buy the Pi 4 at list price, but as noted on this group, I don't see a clear path to sbitx with Pi 5 in the short term.
The Pi 5s all say NOTIFY ME which means pishop.us doesn't have them in stock, but a friend just got two from stock at DigiKey with just a week's wait.
Overall my opinion is that Pi 4b with 2 GB is the right choice for the current sbitx.? It's enough CPU and memory to get the job done, especially if people keep finding ways to make the sbitx software more efficient and more responsive.? I have been running vscode on a different computer and using its ssh support which works pretty smoothly.?
The other thing I'll say is I think the new Pi 5 architecture with CPU linked to IOP via on-board PCIe lanes means that the next Pi will come a lot sooner than the four year gap in between Pi 4 and Pi 5.? It will be relatively easy to just drop a faster/better CPU onto the board than in the past where they would have to rework pretty much the entire board every time they wanted a faster CPU because the IO was on the chipset.? ?This 'Pi 6' will almost certainly have increased power and thermal requirements.? My guess is we'll see it in the 1-2 year time horizon rather than the 4 year time between Pi 3 and Pi 4, which was abnormally long due to COVID era manufacturing issues.
?
--
Regards,
Dave, N1AI
|
I look at the Raspberries a little differently.? ?As the software improves, the need for computing resources for the basic performance may DECREASE.? ?I have a bunch of deployed AX.25 digipeaters which have served our community for 5+ years....Raspberry Pi 3B? (not plus).? ? One has just developed a problem in a tower shack because of LADYBUGS.? ? I look more at what is necessary for the MISSION, and how I can support it throughout lifecycle.? ?(Our Emergency Operations Center has a vacuum tube radio because that allows us to reach Level II DHS EMP protection level -- and we use it every once in a while to literally check into the SHARES NATIONAL net on an (undisclosed) frequency.? ?It, and its 1/2 kilowatt tube amplifier, work FINE for their purpose -- and yes, we can copy data streams and even send them if we had to.....? ?
So I see the lower prices on R Pi 4's as a chance to get a spare or two.? ? If that will run the sBitx, then that radio is now functional and away I go.? ?At the moment I have one in an almost finished homebrew "go-box".? ?I am less concerned about cpu performance and more concerned about mounting the auto-antenna tuner, adding in a ferrite FT240-43 1:1 choke balun and I built an analog meter($8) based system that lets me watch either DC current draw or RF voltage output (proxy for power in a 50 ohm load).? ??
For our upcoming WINTER FIELD DAY at our EOC, where we have only ONE penetrating coaxial cable (the walls are 18" thick and you are NOT allowed to prop a door open!) our group spent the last two months working with a Triplexer to expand it to multiplex up to 5 different ham bands onto ONE coaxial cable and building bandpass filters to get the isolation into the 60dB range or so.? ? We were 1st? in our Class/Category in Summer Field Day with pedestrian wire antennas and 7300's....operator training is much more vital to our effort.
Everyone is different, and every one of you play an important role!? ?So I cheer on those who will get us to RPi 5's and 6'ss and beyond, and those who will make the software run on the equivalent of two 2n3904's and a candle!? ?More power to you all! Make the dadgum thing RELIABLE!? I see lots of improvement in that direction.? ?My team members still see the reliability of G90's as a huge factor.? ? 73 Gordon KX4Z
On Sun, Dec 31, 2023 at 2:14?PM Dave, N1AI < n1ai@...> wrote: On Sun, Dec 31, 2023 at 01:32 PM, Ken N2VIP wrote:
The price difference between an RPi 4 2 Gig and an RPi Zero 2W 512M is $30, the difference between the zero and the 1 Gig RPi 4 is $20.
NB: the RPi Zero 2W is about the same performance as an RPi 3B+, but with less memory (512 Meg in the Zero 2W vs 1 Gig in the 3B+)
I'm not sure how significant the savings would be, since the board kit is just over $200, and the performance hit (GUI) and the loss of wired Ethernet makes it worth the extra $20/30, but opinions vary.
I'm sure opinions do vary, but I am of the mindset that going to the effort to support a different image to support the 512MB device to reduce the selling price ten to fifteen percent probably is not where I would put my resources.? ?Maybe I'll change my mind on that at some point in the future, who knows.? ?It might become an interesting challenge.? Also, maybe hfsignals buys in big enough lots to get better pricing so their math is different, who knows...
To get a view of the big picture at the consumer level, I did a quick trip to which is the official US dealer, to get list pricing:
The thing I notice right away is the Pi 5 only costs $5 more than the Pi 4 when comparing devices with equal memory capacity.??
To me this makes it very poor value for money to buy the Pi 4 at list price, but as noted on this group, I don't see a clear path to sbitx with Pi 5 in the short term.
The Pi 5s all say NOTIFY ME which means doesn't have them in stock, but a friend just got two from stock at DigiKey with just a week's wait.
Overall my opinion is that Pi 4b with 2 GB is the right choice for the current sbitx.? It's enough CPU and memory to get the job done, especially if people keep finding ways to make the sbitx software more efficient and more responsive.? I have been running vscode on a different computer and using its ssh support which works pretty smoothly.?
The other thing I'll say is I think the new Pi 5 architecture with CPU linked to IOP via on-board PCIe lanes means that the next Pi will come a lot sooner than the four year gap in between Pi 4 and Pi 5.? It will be relatively easy to just drop a faster/better CPU onto the board than in the past where they would have to rework pretty much the entire board every time they wanted a faster CPU because the IO was on the chipset.? ?This 'Pi 6' will almost certainly have increased power and thermal requirements.? My guess is we'll see it in the 1-2 year time horizon rather than the 4 year time between Pi 3 and Pi 4, which was abnormally long due to COVID era manufacturing issues.
?
--
Regards,
Dave, N1AI
|
Hello,
Would an increase in memory, on the pi 4, have any benefit? Just curious if anyone has tried increasing the memory and their result's.
73,
Robert
AG6LK
|
I'm running RPi4b 8gb on both my DE and my V3, don't really notice any difference from the 2gb version. I'm not running any other app besides the sBitx app.
Joel
N6ALT
|
An sBIT 5 with a Raspberry 5 in it?? SBIt/Pi dreaming on such a
winter's day (with apologies to a certain singing group).
Gerry Sherman
Sent by the Windows 11 Thunderbird
On 2023-12-31 13:57, Gordon Gibby
wrote:
toggle quoted message
Show quoted text
I look at the
Raspberries a little differently.? ?As the software improves,
the need for computing resources for the basic performance may
DECREASE.? ?I have a bunch of deployed AX.25 digipeaters which
have served our community for 5+ years....Raspberry Pi 3B?
(not plus).? ? One has just developed a problem in a tower
shack because of LADYBUGS.? ? I look more at what is necessary
for the MISSION, and how I can support it throughout
lifecycle.? ?(Our Emergency Operations Center has a vacuum
tube radio because that allows us to reach Level II DHS EMP
protection level -- and we use it every once in a while to
literally check into the SHARES NATIONAL net on an
(undisclosed) frequency.? ?It, and its 1/2 kilowatt tube
amplifier, work FINE for their purpose -- and yes, we can copy
data streams and even send them if we had to.....? ?
So I see the lower
prices on R Pi 4's as a chance to get a spare or two.? ? If
that will run the sBitx, then that radio is now functional and
away I go.? ?At the moment I have one in an almost finished
homebrew "go-box".? ?I am less concerned about cpu performance
and more concerned about mounting the auto-antenna tuner,
adding in a ferrite FT240-43 1:1 choke balun and I built an
analog meter($8) based system that lets me watch either DC
current draw or RF voltage output (proxy for power in a 50 ohm
load).? ??
For our upcoming
WINTER FIELD DAY at our EOC, where we have only ONE
penetrating coaxial cable (the walls are 18" thick and you are
NOT allowed to prop a door open!) our group spent the last two
months working with a Triplexer to expand it to multiplex up
to 5 different ham bands onto ONE coaxial cable and building
bandpass filters to get the isolation into the 60dB range or
so.? ? We were 1st? in our Class/Category in Summer Field Day
with pedestrian wire antennas and 7300's....operator training
is much more vital to our effort.
Everyone is
different, and every one of you play an important role!? ?So I
cheer on those who will get us to RPi 5's and 6'ss and beyond,
and those who will make the software run on the equivalent of
two 2n3904's and a candle!? ?More power to you all!
Make the dadgum
thing RELIABLE!? I see lots of improvement in that direction.?
?My team members still see the reliability of G90's as a huge
factor.? ?
73
Gordon KX4Z
On Sun, Dec 31, 2023 at
2:14?PM Dave, N1AI < n1ai@...>
wrote:
On Sun, Dec 31, 2023 at 01:32 PM, Ken N2VIP wrote:
The price difference between an RPi 4 2 Gig and
an RPi Zero 2W 512M is $30, the difference between the
zero and the 1 Gig RPi 4 is $20.
NB: the RPi Zero 2W is about the same performance as an
RPi 3B+, but with less memory (512 Meg in the Zero 2W vs 1
Gig in the 3B+)
I'm not sure how significant the savings would be, since
the board kit is just over $200, and the performance hit
(GUI) and the loss of wired Ethernet makes it worth the
extra $20/30, but opinions vary.
I'm sure opinions do vary, but I am of the mindset that
going to the effort to support a different image to
support the 512MB device to reduce the selling price ten
to fifteen percent probably is not where I would put my
resources.? ?Maybe I'll change my mind on that at some
point in the future, who knows.? ?It might become an
interesting challenge.? Also, maybe hfsignals buys in big
enough lots to get better pricing so their math is
different, who knows...
To get a view of the big picture at the consumer level, I
did a quick trip to
which is the official US dealer, to get list pricing:
The thing I notice right away is the Pi 5 only costs $5
more than the Pi 4 when comparing devices with equal
memory capacity.??
To me this makes it very poor value for money to buy the
Pi 4 at list price, but as noted on this group, I don't
see a clear path to sbitx with Pi 5 in the short term.
The Pi 5s all say NOTIFY ME which means doesn't have them
in stock, but a friend just got two from stock at DigiKey
with just a week's wait.
Overall my opinion is that Pi 4b with 2 GB is the right
choice for the current sbitx.? It's enough CPU and memory
to get the job done, especially if people keep finding
ways to make the sbitx software more efficient and more
responsive.? I have been running vscode on a different
computer and using its ssh support which works pretty
smoothly.?
The other thing I'll say is I think the new Pi 5
architecture with CPU linked to IOP via on-board PCIe
lanes means that the next Pi will come a lot sooner than
the four year gap in between Pi 4 and Pi 5.? It will be
relatively easy to just drop a faster/better CPU onto the
board than in the past where they would have to rework
pretty much the entire board every time they wanted a
faster CPU because the IO was on the chipset.? ?This 'Pi
6' will almost certainly have increased power and thermal
requirements.? My guess is we'll see it in the 1-2 year
time horizon rather than the 4 year time between Pi 3 and
Pi 4, which was abnormally long due to COVID era
manufacturing issues.
?
--
Regards,
Dave, N1AI
|
On Sun, Dec 31, 2023 at 04:39 PM, Joel Caulkins/N6ALT wrote:
I'm running RPi4b 8gb on both my DE and my V3, don't really notice any difference from the 2gb version. I'm not running any other app besides the sBitx app.
I can say something the same since I have used V2 with both 2GB and 4GB boards at various times and didn't notice a difference. -- Regards, Dave, N1AI
|
On Sun, Dec 31, 2023 at 02:57 PM, Gordon Gibby wrote:
I look at the Raspberries a little differently.? ?As the software improves, the need for computing resources for the basic performance may DECREASE.? ?
I'll offer a little push-back just to illustrate some other points of view.?? If we call this the optimistic point of view, what works in its favor is that the sbitx software is relatively new and relatively un-optimized and certainly can and is getting better with time.? If it gets optimized and its workload and set of use cases don't expand too much, then I could see an overall decrease in resources.? What works in favor of this direction is the project's designer wanting to use the 512 MB Pi Zero 2W with 512MB so there will be interest in constraining/managing resource growth. What works in the favor of a pessimistic view is that over decades of computing rarely do workloads and use cases fail to expand, and once a resource gets priced low enough code gets optimized in favor of using more of that resource.? ?From what I've observed there was a maniacal obsession on conserving memory in the 60s through the 80s, perhaps easing in the 90s, definitely more relaxed in the 00s and beyond.? ? My discussion of Pi 5 and future Pis is just to get people thinking about what the future trends could be in the hopes the sbitx and its follow-ons can be as useful as possible in the years to come.?
So I see the lower prices on R Pi 4's as a chance to get a spare or two.? ?
I'm not seeing those lower prices on Pi 4s yet.? As mentioned earlier, there is only a five dollar difference between Pi 4 and Pi 5 at the same memory size.? We also see the prices for new Pi 3s haven't fallen to dirt-cheap levels.? I think that's the way it will go.? The Pi team will want to gradually favor production of the new stuff and to do that they can't undercut the new by selling the old cheaply.? ?Another thing to consider is there are other embedded systems out there so Pi does have competition and that means they will keep releasing new things year after year. I'm sure there will be / are Pi 4s on the used market at good prices (I'm counting on it!) and that's fine for end-users but perhaps not so relevant for the vendor of sbitx.
If that will run the sBitx, then that radio is now functional and away I go.? ?At the moment I have one in an almost finished homebrew "go-box".? ?I am less concerned about cpu performance and more concerned about mounting the auto-antenna tuner, adding in a ferrite FT240-43 1:1 choke balun and I built an analog meter($8) based system that lets me watch either DC current draw or RF voltage output (proxy for power in a 50 ohm load).? ??
We should also consider that some people's enjoyment might come from replacing the current CW algorithm with one that uses AI techniques and would appreciate having a more capable CPU, or adding some new form of digital voice, or doing deeper FT8 decoding algorithms, or getting extremely good responsiveness when doing traditional ham radio things.?
Everyone is different, and every one of you play an important role!? ?So I cheer on those who will get us to RPi 5's and 6'ss and beyond, and those who will make the software run on the equivalent of two 2n3904's and a candle!? ?More power to you all!
Make the dadgum thing RELIABLE!? I see lots of improvement in that direction.? ?My team members still see the reliability of G90's as a huge factor.? ?
I agree!
Glad to hear you are active in Field Day, SHARES, EMCOMM, etc and have a great team around you.
Thanks for having a positive attitude to all of the above.
I wish you and everyone reading a great 2024!
?
--
Regards,
Dave, N1AI
|
2021, 2022: ?enormous effort was required to even FIND a raspberry pi. You could expect to spend well over $100, you might have to pay 170 and buy a complete starter set up to get one¡
For example:
When I blew two raspberry pies in one of my radios, (trying workarounds around the horrible spurs) I was simply out of luck for almost a year because I just couldn¡¯t find any at a reasonable price to buy
Our group has used raspberry pies for years in deployed systems, but it became cheaper to buy an entire laptop computer, the evolve three, which became available at $60-$80 in quantity! ?
Contrast that to the situation today:
$59-$65 !! ?Half the current price of an evolve three!!
So times have changed dramatically. ?
The biggest problem is that I have with the current sbitx and with the DE:
It took me months to get the DE to be within FCC guidelines. ?I changed circuitry and added changes to the software to reduce the spurs?
I bought a used V2 and between me and fate, blew 2 diode¡¯s that weren¡¯t well protected¡Re resulting in signals easily getting around the low pass filter¡¯s¡. and again it took months to figure it out. ? I added protection to those diode¡¯s.?
Just while I was packing the unit into a go box, smoke came out! ? Turns out a not well protected MOSFET got blown and that caused other systems to get blown. ?
The current CW reading algorithm is FLDGI which is one of the worst that I know of. ? ?I¡¯m hoping that gets improved.
Thankfully the user community is helping usher out a lot, it¡¯s almost impossible for one person to compete with China!!?
. ?The underrun buffer problem is being figured out just as I am finding places where the circuitry could be better protected
Our county group has radios in the field that have been serving for over five years (just with battery changes every few years ) and have finally been brought down by insects shorting out systems! ?TThat is reliability! ? ?Several in our group have purchased xiegu products. ?I¡¯m almost the only electrical engineer in the group and when they see all the problems that I¡¯m dealing with, well, Xiegus look pretty good¡.
Gordon
toggle quoted message
Show quoted text
On Jan 1, 2024, at 10:23, Dave, N1AI <n1ai@...> wrote:
?On Sun, Dec 31, 2023 at 02:57 PM, Gordon Gibby wrote:
I look at the Raspberries a little differently.? ?As the software improves, the need for computing resources for the basic performance may DECREASE.? ?
I'll offer a little push-back just to illustrate some other points of view.?? If we call this the optimistic point of view, what works in its favor is that the sbitx software is relatively new and relatively un-optimized and certainly can and is getting better with time.? If it gets optimized and its workload and set of use cases don't expand too much, then I could see an overall decrease in resources.? What works in favor of this direction is the project's designer wanting to use the 512 MB Pi Zero 2W with 512MB so there will be interest in constraining/managing resource growth. What works in the favor of a pessimistic view is that over decades of computing rarely do workloads and use cases fail to expand, and once a resource gets priced low enough code gets optimized in favor of using more of that resource.? ?From what I've observed there was a maniacal obsession on conserving memory in the 60s through the 80s, perhaps easing in the 90s, definitely more relaxed in the 00s and beyond.? ? My discussion of Pi 5 and future Pis is just to get people thinking about what the future trends could be in the hopes the sbitx and its follow-ons can be as useful as possible in the years to come.?
So I see the lower prices on R Pi 4's as a chance to get a spare or two.? ?
I'm not seeing those lower prices on Pi 4s yet.? As mentioned earlier, there is only a five dollar difference between Pi 4 and Pi 5 at the same memory size.? We also see the prices for new Pi 3s haven't fallen to dirt-cheap levels.? I think that's the way it will go.? The Pi team will want to gradually favor production of the new stuff and to do that they can't undercut the new by selling the old cheaply.? ?Another thing to consider is there are other embedded systems out there so Pi does have competition and that means they will keep releasing new things year after year. I'm sure there will be / are Pi 4s on the used market at good prices (I'm counting on it!) and that's fine for end-users but perhaps not so relevant for the vendor of sbitx.
If that will run the sBitx, then that radio is now functional and away I go.? ?At the moment I have one in an almost finished homebrew "go-box".? ?I am less concerned about cpu performance and more concerned about mounting the auto-antenna tuner, adding in a ferrite FT240-43 1:1 choke balun and I built an analog meter($8) based system that lets me watch either DC current draw or RF voltage output (proxy for power in a 50 ohm load).? ??
We should also consider that some people's enjoyment might come from replacing the current CW algorithm with one that uses AI techniques and would appreciate having a more capable CPU, or adding some new form of digital voice, or doing deeper FT8 decoding algorithms, or getting extremely good responsiveness when doing traditional ham radio things.?
Everyone is different, and every one of you play an important role!? ?So I cheer on those who will get us to RPi 5's and 6'ss and beyond, and those who will make the software run on the equivalent of two 2n3904's and a candle!? ?More power to you all!
Make the dadgum thing RELIABLE!? I see lots of improvement in that direction.? ?My team members still see the reliability of G90's as a huge factor.? ?
I agree!
Glad to hear you are active in Field Day, SHARES, EMCOMM, etc and have a great team around you.
Thanks for having a positive attitude to all of the above.
I wish you and everyone reading a great 2024!
?
--
Regards,
Dave, N1AI
|
Gordon, The cw decoder of v3 works better. It is better than most other algorithms and I have ideas on how to make it better. I think I need ti get onto a call with people "invested" in this to decide the direction to take. Others, The most important consideration for goinf to raspberry pi zero 2 isn't the price. It is the power. I want a 3S 11.1v battery to last 12 hours of operation in the field. A headless sbitx zero can idle at 250mA. That will give the 4.5AH battery enough stand by.? Second, why should we suffer an inefficient software? We will run out cpu cycles soon enough with more aggresive software in the pipeline. - f
2021, 2022: ?enormous effort was required to even FIND a raspberry pi. You could expect to spend well over $100, you might have to pay 170 and buy a complete starter set up to get one¡
For example:
When I blew two raspberry pies in one of my radios, (trying workarounds around the horrible spurs) I was simply out of luck for almost a year because I just couldn¡¯t find any at a reasonable price to buy
Our group has used raspberry pies for years in deployed systems, but it became cheaper to buy an entire laptop computer, the evolve three, which became available at $60-$80 in quantity! ?
Contrast that to the situation today:
$59-$65 !!? Half the current price of an evolve three!!
So times have changed dramatically. ?
The biggest problem is that I have with the current sbitx and with the DE:
It took me months to get the DE to be within FCC guidelines.? I changed circuitry and added changes to the software to reduce the spurs?
I bought a used V2 and between me and fate, blew 2 diode¡¯s that weren¡¯t well protected¡Re resulting in signals easily getting around the low pass filter¡¯s¡. and again it took months to figure it out. ? I added protection to those diode¡¯s.?
Just while I was packing the unit into a go box, smoke came out! ? Turns out a not well protected MOSFET got blown and that caused other systems to get blown. ?
The current CW reading algorithm is FLDGI which is one of the worst that I know of. ? ?I¡¯m hoping that gets improved.
Thankfully the user community is helping usher out a lot, it¡¯s almost impossible for one person to compete with China!!?
.? The underrun buffer problem is being figured out just as I am finding places where the circuitry could be better protected
Our county group has radios in the field that have been serving for over five years (just with battery changes every few years ) and have finally been brought down by insects shorting out systems!? TThat is reliability! ? ?Several in our group have purchased xiegu products.? I¡¯m almost the only electrical engineer in the group and when they see all the problems that I¡¯m dealing with, well, Xiegus look pretty good¡.
Gordon
On Jan 1, 2024, at 10:23, Dave, N1AI <n1ai@...> wrote:
?On Sun, Dec 31, 2023 at 02:57 PM, Gordon Gibby wrote:
I look at the Raspberries a little differently.? ?As the software improves, the need for computing resources for the basic performance may DECREASE.? ?
I'll offer a little push-back just to illustrate some other points of view.?? If we call this the optimistic point of view, what works in its favor is that the sbitx software is relatively new and relatively un-optimized and certainly can and is getting better with time.? If it gets optimized and its workload and set of use cases don't expand too much, then I could see an overall decrease in resources.? What works in favor of this direction is the project's designer wanting to use the 512 MB Pi Zero 2W with 512MB so there will be interest in constraining/managing resource growth. What works in the favor of a pessimistic view is that over decades of computing rarely do workloads and use cases fail to expand, and once a resource gets priced low enough code gets optimized in favor of using more of that resource.? ?From what I've observed there was a maniacal obsession on conserving memory in the 60s through the 80s, perhaps easing in the 90s, definitely more relaxed in the 00s and beyond.? ? My discussion of Pi 5 and future Pis is just to get people thinking about what the future trends could be in the hopes the sbitx and its follow-ons can be as useful as possible in the years to come.?
So I see the lower prices on R Pi 4's as a chance to get a spare or two.? ?
I'm not seeing those lower prices on Pi 4s yet.? As mentioned earlier, there is only a five dollar difference between Pi 4 and Pi 5 at the same memory size.? We also see the prices for new Pi 3s haven't fallen to dirt-cheap levels.? I think that's the way it will go.? The Pi team will want to gradually favor production of the new stuff and to do that they can't undercut the new by selling the old cheaply.? ?Another thing to consider is there are other embedded systems out there so Pi does have competition and that means they will keep releasing new things year after year. I'm sure there will be / are Pi 4s on the used market at good prices (I'm counting on it!) and that's fine for end-users but perhaps not so relevant for the vendor of sbitx.
If that will run the sBitx, then that radio is now functional and away I go.? ?At the moment I have one in an almost finished homebrew "go-box".? ?I am less concerned about cpu performance and more concerned about mounting the auto-antenna tuner, adding in a ferrite FT240-43 1:1 choke balun and I built an analog meter($8) based system that lets me watch either DC current draw or RF voltage output (proxy for power in a 50 ohm load).? ??
We should also consider that some people's enjoyment might come from replacing the current CW algorithm with one that uses AI techniques and would appreciate having a more capable CPU, or adding some new form of digital voice, or doing deeper FT8 decoding algorithms, or getting extremely good responsiveness when doing traditional ham radio things.?
Everyone is different, and every one of you play an important role!? ?So I cheer on those who will get us to RPi 5's and 6'ss and beyond, and those who will make the software run on the equivalent of two 2n3904's and a candle!? ?More power to you all!
Make the dadgum thing RELIABLE!? I see lots of improvement in that direction.? ?My team members still see the reliability of G90's as a huge factor.? ?
I agree!
Glad to hear you are active in Field Day, SHARES, EMCOMM, etc and have a great team around you.
Thanks for having a positive attitude to all of the above.
I wish you and everyone reading a great 2024!
?
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Regards,
Dave, N1AI
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On Mon, Jan 1, 2024 at 06:58 PM, Gordon Gibby wrote:
Our group has used raspberry pies for years in deployed systems, but it became cheaper to buy an entire laptop computer, the evolve three, which became available at $60-$80 in quantity! ?
I get it that the pandemic showed that the Pi had a large and captive audience, but it also forced users to explore a lot of alternatives, both other embedded computers as well as low-end desktops and laptops.? An interesting source on this is the "Explaining Computers" youtube channel.? It also made many unhappy about being tied to a single source.? All this is reflected in the current market.? I think this all supports part of what I was trying to say earlier, there are alternatives to using a Pi so its manufacturer can't rest on it laurels by continuing to flog Pi 4s.? They need to keep giving their product some compelling reasons to buy probably now more than ever.? Again, just my opinion.
Your points about reliability are noted.? ?One point I want to update you on:
The current CW reading algorithm is FLDGI which is one of the worst that I know of. ? ?I¡¯m hoping that gets improved.
The V3 software now has its own built-in algorithm, according to? /g/BITX20/message/106098?. ? It seems better to me.? I'm pretty decent at CW so I don't pay much attention to the green text, but every so often I look over and am surprised that it's copying better than I would have expected. -- Regards, Dave, N1AI
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Well I¡¯m glad to hear that the cw reading has been improved because it was pretty close to dreadful. ?That¡¯s not your fault, FLDGI just had a lousy algorithm. I tried to steer people away from it.?
For many years in the past, it appeared to many of us that as hardware got better , software just got more bloated!! ? There Hass to be a balance between hardware advancements and software functionality. ?
I think the goal of reduced current drain is a very wise one and in the process, ?perhaps improving the efficiency of the output transformer might be useful? ? I¡¯m not an expert on that but the current draw does seem pretty impressive.?
Thanks for your hard work and that of everyone, I¡¯m hoping this radio gets better and better. ?I spent hours and hours in the past day fixing another issue. ??
Gordon Kx4z?
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On Jan 1, 2024, at 21:11, Dave, N1AI <n1ai@...> wrote:
?On Mon, Jan 1, 2024 at 06:58 PM, Gordon Gibby wrote:
Our group has used raspberry pies for years in deployed systems, but it became cheaper to buy an entire laptop computer, the evolve three, which became available at $60-$80 in quantity! ?
I get it that the pandemic showed that the Pi had a large and captive audience, but it also forced users to explore a lot of alternatives, both other embedded computers as well as low-end desktops and laptops.? An interesting source on this is the "Explaining Computers" youtube channel.? It also made many unhappy about being tied to a single source.? All this is reflected in the current market.? I think this all supports part of what I was trying to say earlier, there are alternatives to using a Pi so its manufacturer can't rest on it laurels by continuing to flog Pi 4s.? They need to keep giving their product some compelling reasons to buy probably now more than ever.? Again, just my opinion.
Your points about reliability are noted.? ?One point I want to update you on:
The current CW reading algorithm is FLDGI which is one of the worst that I know of. ? ?I¡¯m hoping that gets improved.
The V3 software now has its own built-in algorithm, according to? /g/BITX20/message/106098?. ? It seems better to me.? I'm pretty decent at CW so I don't pay much attention to the green text, but every so often I look over and am surprised that it's copying better than I would have expected. -- Regards, Dave, N1AI
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In connection with the automatic IF Gain, I made a video about its operation.
This automatic IF control is a development of Steve, N3SB, which he posted in the github pull request:
Update sbitx.c - Automatic IF Gain Control #71 . I just tested its operation.
link:
At the same time, the operation of cw can be seen if the appropriate steps are taken.
Unfortunately, the current line writes to the bottom line of the frame.
It would be worth improving.
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Gyula HA3HZ
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Evan,
WiringPi would need a good rewrite for supporting the Pi 5. That being said, It works fine on Debian 12 (Bookworm) based system, but on Pi versions <= 4.
So for now I'm basing my sbitx software for the Pi 5 in the pinctr software, which is the closest to WiringPi we can get (I tried libgpiod, but then we'll also need separate code for changing pin modes...):
I'm working on porting the code right now. My Pi 5 arrived! It is soooo much faster... loved it.
: ))
73,
Rafael
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On 12/31/23 15:27, Evan Hand wrote: Ken,
WiringPi is the GPIO software that the mainstream Raspberry Pi organization does not support.
Rafael Diniz has a GitHub site that can be used to add it to the Bookworm OS.? Here is the message with the link:
/g/BITX20/message/105650
Another effort is to change the sBitx code to use the newer libraries like Pigpio or libgpiod?currently supported with the Raspberry Bookworm os-release (Debian).
/g/BITX20/message/106799
Based on what Farhan has said in the past, I do not see a migration to the RPi 5 in the near future.? The next effort could very well be a V4 based on the Raspberry Pi Zero 2W to reduce the cost further.? I would support this effort as getting a radio like the sBitx into the hands of budget-constrained Hams is good!? We need to promote open-source SDR.
73
Evan
AC9TU
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Dave, N1AI
Joel Caulkins/N6ALT
HA3HZ