I understand users for whom it is important to have stable and high-quality software (and they do not need beta, etc.)
But you should understand getting high-quality software without testing is difficult, for example, everything works on my device (and often it does), but when I suggested testing it, it turned out that there were bugs in some modes. I am not able to conduct tests on my own, and so on.
But at the same time, post a full report on any changes in the software I have laid out for tests ... sorry, I am not paid for this.
Therefore, I made a difficult decision, since I do not want to undertake this work on full software maintenance, not to do it. I hope there is someone who will be able to undertake to make full-fledged releases with the changes made, check the code, check stability and quality, write a report. Everything is according to GPLv3.
But I strongly doubt it.
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I use the preamp treated in the following reference for my shielded 0.75
and 2-meter loops:
Nominal gain of 25 dB with no intermod problems from 500 Hz through 30 MHz,
ever with some very strong AM broadcasters. Gain flatness across that
frequency range is 2 dB. I wound the output transformer on a low-frequency
ferrite in non-twisted bifilar manner.
I have tried a number of MMIC's for the purpose. None do as well as the
reference schematic and comments.
Concerning E-Field probes: With a JFET input (J-310) followed by an
emitter follower (2N5109), I have intermod problems with strong AM
broadcast stations.
Personally, the shielded loops make absolutely wonderful receive antennas
for ELF through HF. However, remember, the shielded loops are differential
sources, so a 'balun' or transformer is needed to feed coaxial cable.
Ideally, they would be fed directly with TSP (CAT 5 or CAT 6 cable)
followed by a differential discrete input amplifier (op amps are, again,
prone to intermod under strong signal conditions).
Dave - W?LEV
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On Thu, Aug 6, 2020 at 6:29 PM CARL HUETHER <k1uhy@...> wrote: I prefer a preamp that has some LC selectivity as well as a gain control
for ham band use. Untuned preamps are fine ahead of instruments that need
them.
On 08/05/2020 6:52 PM Jim Lux <jimlux@...> wrote:
On 8/5/20 2:23 PM, CARL HUETHER wrote:
A preamp is often needed on low noise receiving only antennas for 160 and 80 since they are negative gain antennas with excellent SNR and
directional performance.
The Waller Flag, for instance needs about 40-45 dB gain.
Carl
On 07/12/2020 5:27 PM OneOfEleven <cmoss296@...> wrote:
Trouble is, these pre-amps have a LOT of gain once you get as low as
50MHz, mine has an attenuator on it because of that, and it's only stage of
amplification in the entire receiver system, which is RF from the antenna,
through the pre-amp and filtering then straight into a 16-bit ADC running
at 125MHz (FPGA SDR).
I would not use a pre-amp on HF with todays radios.
The OPA656 is a nice low noise operational amplifier to make a low noise
preamplifier for lower frequencies. It will be hard to beat, except
with a discrete JFET design such as that from Jefferts
The nice thing about the op amp is that it can have fairly decent high
level signal handling.
Both of these can make a MF-HF LNA with a noise that's less than the
galactic background for a short antenna (which is quite bright at 5MHz,
if it weren't blocked by the ionosphere)
--
*Dave - W?LEV*
*Just Let Darwin Work*
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On Wed, Aug 5, 2020 at 02:05 AM, RandMental wrote:
Dear @DiSLord, @OneOfEleven @Holger and others
I am very impressed with the progress made on both the -H and -H4 firmware
and the NanoVNA-Saver and the work you are doing.
However, I want to raise a concern as I see this project go the way of many
other open-source community projects where the energy and initiative starts
running low before the project and development has been stabilised for general
use. The last few weeks have especially been chaotic for the normal users,
with various releases trying to maximise performance.
I thus want to urge that we pause chasing new features and higher performance,
and work together to release and test stable versions of the firmware and PC
programs. If we don't we risk losing the support of the many users that have
no interest in development and maximum performance, but just want a stable,
usable NanoVNA for their RF and antenna projects work.
I agree with you. In another post it was suggested that I should update to use a newer version of firmware by one of the developers mentioned above. I have hesitated to do so because with the exception of the edy555 or Hugen releases the others seem to be in a continual state of flux with new versions coming out every week as issues are reported or new features are added. I just want to use my NanoVNA to make measurements and not to be a beta tester of new NanoVNA software. I think that is the case for the majority of NanoVNA owners. So it would be nice if developers just released well-tested, stable releases periodically in a place where they could be easily found, like GitHub and included the modified source as required by the GPL. That way the average user could benefit from their work which they have graciously done for the benefit of the user community. Roger
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Re: Dreaming a new option for nanoVNA
For those concerned about microSD card wear, look at the Samsung Pro Endurance. Made for continuous video recording, with up to 25X the life of regular cards. I use one in a Raspberry Pi, another for phone ext storage, another for a tablet. Only cost a bit more than a regular card; the 32 GB is $10, the 64 is $17 (Amazon). They are said to be just a bit slower than other "Pro Performance" cards (not enough to notice, even when used as the OS drive in a Pi).
73, --kv5r
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I prefer a preamp that has some LC selectivity as well as a gain control for ham band use. Untuned preamps are fine ahead of instruments that need them.
toggle quoted message
Show quoted text
On 08/05/2020 6:52 PM Jim Lux <jimlux@...> wrote:
On 8/5/20 2:23 PM, CARL HUETHER wrote:
A preamp is often needed on low noise receiving only antennas for 160 and 80 since they are negative gain antennas with excellent SNR and directional performance.
The Waller Flag, for instance needs about 40-45 dB gain.
Carl
On 07/12/2020 5:27 PM OneOfEleven <cmoss296@...> wrote:
Trouble is, these pre-amps have a LOT of gain once you get as low as 50MHz, mine has an attenuator on it because of that, and it's only stage of amplification in the entire receiver system, which is RF from the antenna, through the pre-amp and filtering then straight into a 16-bit ADC running at 125MHz (FPGA SDR).
I would not use a pre-amp on HF with todays radios.
The OPA656 is a nice low noise operational amplifier to make a low noise
preamplifier for lower frequencies. It will be hard to beat, except
with a discrete JFET design such as that from Jefferts
The nice thing about the op amp is that it can have fairly decent high
level signal handling.
Both of these can make a MF-HF LNA with a noise that's less than the
galactic background for a short antenna (which is quite bright at 5MHz,
if it weren't blocked by the ionosphere)
|
Hello DiSlord and OneOfEleven,
Thank you very much for your many useful contributions to the NanoVNA community.
In any community there are people who do not understand
that a programming on that high level like you do is a lot of effort,
and only very few intelligent people are able to do it.
You can be very proud about your work.
You want to make something useful for yourself and the community.
Please just ignore people who do not understand that.
73, Rudi DL5FA (age 72)
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Those of you that have cloned the repository,
please provide the links to your copies nanovna @ GitHub <>
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Is the H4 supplied by Anonyme on Amazon in US the original H4, or a clone?
Thank you
Edward McCann
AG6CX
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DiSlord,
Thank you for your many contributions to the NanoVNA community.
In any group of people this large there will always be a trouble maker or two.? I've learned to ignore such people.? I encourage you to please continue your work for the thousands of us that are grateful for it.
---- On Thu, 06 Aug 2020 05:42:46 -0500 DiSlord <dislordlive@...> wrote ----
I delete my NanoVNA git, and cleanup all provided binaries from this forum
Continue fix for self, GPLv3 allow it
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Re: Dreaming a new option for nanoVNA
On 8/6/20 7:43 AM, David J Taylor via groups.io wrote: David,
The writing to the SD card is every few seconds which will do nothing to prematurely wear out the device. I use an SD card in my dashcam that is written to regularly and it's been good for 3 years now
Besides, you don't put a 128gb part in the Nano, you use a small capacity card that costs $2
... Larry
==================================
It's not just how often the card is written, but the data quantity too. It depends on the card design, but each write can cause a much larger block of the card to be written.? With intelligent buffering as I suggested. with infrequent small writes, and throw-away cards I agree it's not an issue, but it's something which users may eventually discover - if not in this application then elsewhere.
BTW: the cheapest microSD card I spotted an Amazon were ~$24 for a pack of 5 x 2 GB, or $40 for a pack of 10 x 4 GB!
Cheers,
David And those smaller cards are handy for things like flashing new images to Pis and Beagles. The cards are wear leveled - SLC NAND flash is something like 30k-100k writes nominal life per "segment". So if you write every second, you go through that in a day, but since there are thousands and thousands of segments it could be "years" before you wear it out. MLC NAND flash is a bit shorter 3000 cycles/sector. Super high density NAND is 500 cycles/sector So if you have a wear leveled 16 GByte SD card, after you've written 16*3000 GB (or 48 TByte) to it, it is worn out.
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Re: NanoVNA firmware user interface mod
#mods
Yes. Because unfortunately it was disabled.
We hope it will be for a short time. They are important jobs.
========================================================
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On Thu, Aug 6, 2020 at 12:16 PM, Roy J. Tellason, Sr. wrote:
On Thursday 06 August 2020 03:01:42 am OneOfEleven wrote:
On Wed, Aug 5, 2020 at 07:59 PM, Jos Stevens wrote:
@ OneOffEleven? Please where can I find your PC program for NanoVVNA-H4 ? It's located here Jos ..
That link gets me a 404...
--
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James
M Dakin
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Re: NanoVNA firmware user interface mod
#mods
On Thursday 06 August 2020 03:01:42 am OneOfEleven wrote: On Wed, Aug 5, 2020 at 07:59 PM, Jos Stevens wrote:
@ OneOffEleven? Please where can I find your PC program for NanoVVNA-H4 ? It's located here Jos ..
That link gets me a 404... -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin
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You can set freq 299-310MHz range
And see non stable work.
You can remember this issue before (i made measure in this range) i can solve it by add delays and new band range, but at this moment this solution not help.
Also AIC ADC work on 768k speed, and need find better mode.
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On Thu, Aug 6, 2020 at 07:49 AM, <alain.pinchon46@...> wrote:
Thanks for the reply, and after some tests,it seems you are right with the switch ;o)
==========================
Alain,
Which tests did you perform to isolate the issue to the switch? Might be helpful to some of the other members.
- Herb
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Re: NanoVNA-H4 4" LCD Display 50KHz-1.5GHz - is the right one sell on Amazon?
Hello Sir.
Thank you very much for your answer.
Best regards.
73 YO2MNE
Horia Morariu.
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Thanks for the reply, and after some tests,it seems you are right with the switch ;o)
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Re: Dreaming a new option for nanoVNA
David,
The writing to the SD card is every few seconds which will do nothing to prematurely wear out the device. I use an SD card in my dashcam that is written to regularly and it's been good for 3 years now
Besides, you don't put a 128gb part in the Nano, you use a small capacity card that costs $2
... Larry
==================================
It's not just how often the card is written, but the data quantity too. It depends on the card design, but each write can cause a much larger block of the card to be written. With intelligent buffering as I suggested. with infrequent small writes, and throw-away cards I agree it's not an issue, but it's something which users may eventually discover - if not in this application then elsewhere.
BTW: the cheapest microSD card I spotted an Amazon were ~$24 for a pack of 5 x 2 GB, or $40 for a pack of 10 x 4 GB!
Cheers,
David
--
SatSignal Software - Quality software for you
Web:
Email: david-taylor@...
Twitter: @gm8arv
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Trace on/off stored in calibration settings, so need save it in old, or new calibrstion slot.
About freeze, i think it come from fast band switch (in most cases on switch 300MHz).
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On Thu, Aug 6, 2020 at 06:45 AM, Jim Lux wrote:
If it goes on for 6 months with only binary, and there's significant changes in functionality, with no source release - then start asking about whether the author is living up to the spirit and intent of GPL.
==========================================
Seems the developer should have wider latitude as to how and when he releases his source. DiSlord and OneOfEleven would sometimes release multiple beta binaries in a single day. All were experimental and not ready for distribution.
If the user thinks GPL is not being followed they always have the option of not participating in the in the developer's project. Since they are paying nothing, they shouldn't think they can demand anything.
- Herb
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Agree with Jim.100%
We should not mix community assistance for a developer's Alpha testing using binaries with the GPL requirements.
It is easily solved for the purists with DiSlord doing his development and release Alpha level binaries for those of us that want to test with him.
Once he is certain of stability or confirmed the goal of the alpha release, he can move it to a stable, stepped version Beta version for true beta testing by the community and publish that source code on Github.
Regards
RandMental
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-----Original Message----- From: [email protected] < [email protected]> On Behalf Of Jim Lux Sent: 06 August 2020 15h59 To: [email protected]Subject: Re: [nanovna-users] Firmware and PC application stability #stability #nanovna-h4 #NanoVNA-H #specifications On 8/6/20 2:57 AM, igor-m wrote: On Wed, Aug 5, 2020 at 05:58 PM, DiSlord wrote:
On Wed, Aug 5, 2020 at 07:50 AM, igor-m wrote:
@Dislord: do you still consider the project open-source?
Not understand. All my code open on git you can use it.
Last stable code (96k mode and SD card support, and UI) also on
github and open.
When you distribute the 1.0.XX binaries (like here on this forum or on cqham.ru or vrtp.ru) you shall provide the source code on your github too.
It does NOT matter whether those binaries are called "final" or "beta".
For example - with "1.0.14" beta binary the community has to be able to build the "1.0.14 beta" out of the source code on your github.
I'm not sure I agree, Igor-M - collaborative development often involves beta testers, and this forum provides a convenient mechanism to make untested betas available. Given that the source does get regularly updated, I don't think this violates the spirit of open source - otherwise a *group* of developers would have to keep their internal development hidden. Why not use public fora as a means of communication. Or i must add on my github every my test option?
Yes. Otherwise one can distribute "test" or "beta" binaries for next 10years without providing source code. And the "open-source" project bites the dust.
I think that's a strawman - Why don't you wait 6 months, and then complain about how there's still a stream of bug-free binaries, with no source. Open source is wonderful, but there are plenty of open source projects that are 80% complete (the vast majority of projects developed by grad students, for instance - got the degree, no need to do bug updates any more, and anyway I have a real job that actually pays me now) Let's focus our "why isn't source available" on pernicious evils - manufacturers who build custom versions for their products and have NEVER released source.
Or ... i should support code? But sorry for this need a lot of time,
and this not my main work.
Nobody can ask you to support the code, this is an open source project.
yes it's open source - but I don't see a huge number of people stepping up to make changes. From what I see, there's a few folks grinding on the software, and dozens weighing in with testing, feature requests, etc. I'm not sure what axe you're grinding here, Igor-M? I think you're setting an artificial "intellectual purity" bar to participate in software development. I think OneofEleven and DiSlord are doing good work, and should keep it up, in what ever release strategy they care to do. They say that it's a hobby for them, and let's let that be for now. If all of a sudden, you start seeing ads in trade magazines for DiSlord VNAs next to Anritsu and Keysight, then you can start complaining about GPL.
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Roger Need
Oristo
Igor - PY3IG
Morariu Horia Iancu
David J Taylor
RandMental