Tagged: red pitaya

TechMinds: A Look at the TRX DUO Red Pitaya Clone

The Red Pitaya is advertised as an open source electronics laboratory instrument, but as it's essentially a software defined radio with built in computing hardware, custom software can be installed allowing it to function as an HPSDR compatible RX/TX capable SDR.

The TRX DUO is a "Red Pitaya compatible" device that comes at a price significantly lower that the Red Pitaya. Its specifications are comparable to the Red Pitaya SDRlab 122-16 which in the official website goes for 625,00€ / US$622. In comparison the TRX DUO can be found on marketplace sites like Aliexpress for almost half price at US$320.

The TRX-DUO has a tuning range from 10 kHz to 60 MHz, 16-bit ADC and 2-RX and 2-TX channels. It also has a built in ARM Cortex A9 processor, and Xilinx Zynq 7010 FPGA SOC. The built in computing means that decoding software can be run directly on the device if desired.

Matt from the TechMinds YouTube channel has recently tested and reviewed the TRX-DUO in his latest video. His video goes over the specifications, software installation, and a demonstration of it receiving HF signals. He goes on to show how it can be used as an 8-band WSPR monitor, and how you can enable WiFi on it and download various Red Pitaya apps.

Matt also notes that the transmit power of the TRX-DUO is very small at 2.5 mW, but of course an external amplifier can be used to boost this.  However, it is important to note that band filtering would be required for the emissions to be safe to transmit.

TRX DUO APPLICATION BASED HF SDR TRANSCEIVER (RED PIYATA)

Hermes and Red Pitaya now Supported in OpenWebRX

Thank you to Stefan Dambeck (DC7DS) for submitting news about OpenWebRX adding support for Hermes HPSDR compatible SDRs. Hermes is a single board version of the open source high performance SDR (HPSDR) design. There are several compatible Hermes designs including the newer Hermes-Lite 2 . The Red Pitaya is an open source electronics laboratory instrument, but custom software can be installed allowing it to function as an HPSDR type SDR. OpenWebRX is software which allows you to access your SDR remotely via the internet or local network through a web browser. Stefan notes:

I built a test setup today using a Red Pitaya 125-14 SDR in HPSDR mode, and this is now also supported, see screenshot.

At the moment, only one receive stream is supported, for the red pitaya with 192KHz bandwidth.

The Red Pitaya running in OpenWebRX

RedPitaya Announces Pre-order for STEMLab HF SDR Transceiver

RedPitaya has just announced their next SDR platform, the STEMlab 122.88-16 which is a software defined radio intended to be used as an HF transceiver on the amateur radio bands.

The SDR is advertised to cover HF + 6m (50MHz) and includes two 16 bit 50 ohm input ADCs and two 14 bit outputs. Based on the Xililinx Zynq 7020 FPGA running an ARM cortex A9 processor it’s plenty powerful to handle the various modes frequently seen in the amateur bands and then some while supporting an impressive 122.88 MS/s sample rate.

The RedPitaya – 3D Rendering

This hardware is also fully compatible with the HPSDR software platform which is an open source project for amateur radio SDR operation.

While this radio is built with amateur operation in mind, it is still a very capable platform that could be used for experimentation albeit with a more restricted frequency range that what you may be used to with traditional software defined radios.

The radio retails for $499 euros and will be available for pre-order from RedPitaya until March 31st of 2019.

Dave from EEVBlog Reviews the Red Pitaya

The Red Pitaya is a type of advanced digital acquisition device (DAQ) that is marketed mainly for use as a type of digital oscilloscope. But it has an on board programmable FPGA and through various downloadable apps can be used for many different applications, such as a spectrum analyzer, impedance analyzer, bode plotter, signal generator or even as a software defined radio. 

Back in February we posted how Pavel Demin had created an SDR app for the Red Pitaya which allows it to be used with common SDR software such as SDR# and HDSDR. The Red Pitaya has an on board 14-bit ADC which when in SDR mode can receive signals from between 0 to 50 MHz with a bandwidth of up to 2.5 MHz.

Recently, Dave from the hugely popular electronics YouTube show EEVBlog reviewed the Red Pitaya. Whilst Dave doesn’t try out the SDR apps, he tests it out as an oscilloscope and also tests more of its default apps such as the spectrum analyzer.

Unfortunately in his review the Red Pitaya does not seem to live up to expectations. During operation Dave encounters problems with the WiFi connectivity, frequent problems with the web based apps crashing and freezing on him, and discovers that the provided apps are extremely rudimentary and provide very little functionality. He mentions that the device is probably more useful for people wanting to write their own customs apps for specific applications, but as an out of the box digital measurement tool it is not there yet.

The Red Pitaya
The Red Pitaya

EEVblog #858 - Red Pitaya

Red Pitaya and Software Defined Radio

The Red Pitaya is marketed as a type of digital oscilloscope, and is more accurately described as a type of digital measurement and control tool that sells for about $220 USD. However the technology behind its operation (high speed ADCs) is basically the same as what is used in a software defined radio like the RTL-SDR. By using the correct software, and by reconfiguring it’s onboard Xilinx FPGA, the Red Pitya can be turned into an SDR transceiver. 

Until recently SDR projects for the Red Pitaya have been rare and so Pavel Demin decided to create his own. So far he’s managed to create a dual channel SDR transceiver that is compatible with SDR#, HDSDR, GNU Radio as well as with HPSDR. It can tune from 0 – 50 MHz with a bandwidth of up to 500 kHz, sampling with its 14-bit ADC.

More information on setting the Red Pitaya up as a SDR transceiver with software like SDR# and HDSDR can be found on Pavels website.

The Red Pitaya
The Red Pitaya