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SDRuno V1.40.2 released

SDRuno 1.40.2 has been released. This is to fix the ini file corruption issue we posted about recently, but it also introduces some new features and more plugin functionality. Release notes can be found here:  https://www.sdrplay.com/docs/SDRplay_SDRuno_Release_Notes.pdf
Please note that the SDRplay plugins and community plugin installers that are included in the SDRuno installer are also available on our downloads page and will be updated when needed independently of SDRuno. If you are installing them separately, please make sure you get the right installer for the version of SDRuno you are using.
Added
• Hotkey to start/stop stream – P.
• Support for loading and saving profiles (supports multiple VRXs).
• Profile file area in the memory panel below the memory bank file area.
• Button in the memory panel to store profiles.
• Checkbox in the main panel settings to disable and hide the Bias-T function.
Changed
• LO and VFO for VRX#0 now separate on start-up and when loading a profile.
• ini file is only saved when SDRuno closes cleanly.
• Halved the size of the memory bank file are in the memory panel to accommodate the profile file
area.
• Overhaul of the minimise and restore functionality (now only main panel appears in the taskbar
when minimised).
• Plugin Control panel look/feel now matches the rest of the SDRuno panels.
• The default directory for community plugins is now the same as in the Community Plugins installer
for ease of use.
Fixed
• Memory panel being flagged as modified when it is not.
• Check for new version can sometimes get something other than the version number.
• HDR 630m band was non-functional due to the wrong centre frequency being used.
• If decimation had been set before the 10m band was selected, the decimation value would be
wrong after the band was unset.
• Cancelling wav file open window on start-up allowed SDRuno to continue to open with no input.
• SDRuno could crash on start-up if the memory bank referenced to be open was empty.
• Clicking on the frequency title in the memory panel to sort the frequency list could cause the
current band to be unframed.
• The Plugin Control panel will no longer allow the SDRuno Plugins folder to be selected when
using the right click method as community plugins should be stored elsewhere.
• Manual frequency entry after being band framed did not disable the notch filter.
• Pausing a memory scan could make it impossible to un-pause.
Known Issues
• SP2 CWAFC drift issue (Zoom/window size/freq display)
• IF output mode disabled SP1 spectrum mouse clicks
Plugin information can be found on: https://www.sdrplay.com/plugins/
 

See how SDRplay’s RSPs are made

Many thanks to Matt from Tech Minds who has made this video which shows how RSPs are designed and made:

This video had proved very popular and so here’s a bit more about Walkbury Electronics in Peterborough who were our first of our two UK manufacturing partners. Walkbury continue to manufacture the RSPduo for SDRplay.  (Our other partner is TT Electronics in Hartlepool )  We are grateful to both these great companies for managing to build RSPs throughout the Covid-19 pandemic this year.

SDRplay Limited announces a new Radio Communications course for under-graduate teaching as part of its SDRplay Educators Programme

Alton, England; 5th November 2020 – SDRplay Limited announces a new Radio Communications course for under-graduate teaching as part of its SDRplay Educators Programme

“Understanding Radio Communications – using SDRs” includes a rich set of teaching materials and practical exercises to help students understand the key elements of radio communications. This one semester course provides teaching materials and practical workshops that lead students from the first switch-on of a Software Defined Radio (SDR), through to signal reception, demodulation, and finally, successful communications with satellite signals.

As well as guides and set-up instructions for teachers for both the lecture and lab sessions, there are downloadable teaching materials in both PowerPoint and .pdf formats. There are video guides showing the lab activities and there’s a dedicated new forum for teachers to share experiences and to get help from the authors.

The course was created in association with academic partners Sapienza University of Rome, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering whose intention was to create a practical course that will inspire Science, Technology and Engineering students to nurture their understanding of radio communications.

The course started life as a 12-hour optional course for third-year bachelor students in Aerospace Engineering and has been broadened to make it suitable for all students that have some basic knowledge of signal theory and signal processing. It can either be run as an additional or optional “module” or adapted to be included as materials within a full year radio communications subject.

Robert Owen, University Programme specialist at Essaimage who guided the academic team, says, “I have spent 26 years in global “University Programmes” and across this time I’ve learned two fundamental principles. The first is that teaching materials must fill an essential need in the curriculum, not just be something that business thinks should be taught. And secondly, that the best teaching materials come from academics not commercial trainers. This course, Understanding Radio Communications, fulfils these principles generously, and I am proud to be associated with it!”

The details of the course structure can be found by going to https://www.sdrplay.com/understandingradio/

Key dates:19th November 2020, 1300 UTC – SDRplay and Course developers, Lorenzo Frezza and Paolo Marzioli from the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, (DIMA), Sapienza University of Rome, will host a webinar presenting the programme and taking questions via YouTube chat. Click here for the link: https://youtu.be/gv664PcDnh0

About the SDRplay Educators ProgramThe SDRplay Educators Program provides practical encouragement to teachers around the world so that they can use SDRplay’s SDR receivers in courses and student projects. The focus is on providing the key elements needed to teach a course: a suitable hardware platform at a reasonable price, ready access to SDRplay software, effective technical support, and excellent teaching materials that serve genuine teaching needs. The SDRplay Educators Programme is open to all members of academia, see

https://www.sdrplay.com/educators/

About SDRplaySDRplay limited is a UK registered company and consists of a small group of engineers focusing on affordable SDR receivers for a growing hobbyist, industrial, educational and scientific community. SDRplay announced its first product, the RSP1 in August 2014 and manufactures using exclusively UK subcontract manufacturing facilities.

For more information visit the SDRplay website on www.sdrplay.com

Follow SDRplay on Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook and Blog.

SDRplay Press Contact:

Jon Hudson               jon.hudson@sdrplay.com                        +44 (0)1223 911044

Above: the downloadable kit for teachers includes set-up guides for practical classes, as well as a full set of powerpoint presentation materials 

 

New video for new users of SDRuno

Mike KD2KOG has released a new video specially for newcomers to SDRuno. It also highlights the additional capabilities provided in Version 1.4:

He’s also made an update of his popular video demonstrating how to set up Fldigi digital decoding with SDRuno:

 

SDRplay IQ demo files available

SDRplay has now made available downloadable IQ recordings which can be used instead of real world signals to check out the operation of SDRuno and related software.

Whether you have an RSP or not, you can use these sample IQ recordings in SDRuno as an aid in your setup for particular use cases.

Click here to find out more: https://sdrplay.com/iq-demo-files/

 

 

New 3rd Party plugins for SDRuno

Since we introduced SDRuno V1.4 with plugins last month, several software authors have been busy writing their own plugins, and links to these can be found on the SDRplay Plugins page of our website: https://sdrplay.com/plugins/

Eric Cottrell has released his FRAN  (FRequency ANotation) plugin which can read SWSKEDS or .s1b memory bank files and display the active stations from the files on the main spectrum window.   Eric is in the process of setting up a website for his plugins and other projects. Until it is done, click here to get Version 0.3 of FRAN.

The FRAN plugin allows annotation from memory files 

Eric is an active member of   the Independent  SDRuno Facebook group where you can ask questions about it and see news of any updates before the website is announced.

News about additional 3rd party plugins will be posted on https://sdrplay.com/plugins/ as they become available.  That’s where you can also find links to information about the plugins already provided by SDRplay for DAB radio, DX Clusters and an audio recorder.

We’ve also made this short video to clarify how best to install 3rd party plugins:

SDRuno V1.4 Webinar this Wednesday

August 23rd update:  We have a new date and time for the webinar originally planned for Saturday 22nd August :

This Wednesday (August 26th 2020) at 1700UTC,  SDRplay will host a live YouTube webinar talking through the new features of the latest version of SDRuno, and answering questions via live chat.

In particular, we’ll be describing the new plugin system as well as showing the three demo (work in progress) examples included with the V1.4 release

 

SDRuno V1.4 released

SDRuno 1.4 has now been fully released. It can be downloaded from here: https://sdrplay.com/sdruno
Here’s what is included in this new version:
Added
• Plugin system.
• SP1 Panel now has support for ultra-wide 4K displays (5120 x 2160).
• Step lock button in the SP1 panel – also CTRL-L (toggle) with the relevant VRX in focus.
• Squelch line in the SP1 display (SQLC THR. Button toggles view if squelch is enabled).
• Auto-start the IQ stream on SDRuno start-up (enable in the OPT menu).
• Phase and amplitude lock buttons in the Diversity panel.
• Start SDRuno with just a wav file.
• Two extra zoom levels for the SP2 panel.
• Save positions of settings panels in the ini file.
• Automatic LO system (Zero-IF mode) – default is enabled.
• Enable/Disable for Automatic LO system along with offset value in Main Panel Settings.
• Saving workspace now allows press of Escape to abort the save.
Changed
• Improved squelch function (now uses the dBm value calculated in the audio bandwidth). See https://youtu.be/6JZRq1WFlnc
• The main Windows API installer is now used to avoid multiple versions of the API being installed
unnecessarily.
• MW notch filter enabled for bands framed between 2 and 30 MHz (RSP dependent).
• SP2 panel timestamp now the same as the SP1 panel.
• The icon for the ExtIO version is no longer added to the desktop to avoid confusion.
• Status bar is less intrusive.
• Default RF gain value was too low.
• API : 64-bit redistributable incorrectly installed on a 32-bit OS.
• Replaced Ex Control Panel with Plugin Control Panel in the default layouts (the option to switch
back to the Ex Control Panel has been left in the OPT->Auto Layout menu).
• Memory Panel Filter is now editable.
• Memory Panel now prompts to save the current bank when either starting a new bank or opening
a bank (if it has been changed since the last save).
• When not band framed, the broadcast notch no longer changes when changing frequency.
Fixed
• SWFM > 50% volume audio distortion.
• iCallbackSamples stored incorrect value for 10 MHz sample rate in the ini file.
• Bias-T inconsistent behaviour between RSPs (can be used irrespective of the active port, but only
when streaming). The RSPduo is the exception – Tuner 2 must be in use to activate the Bias-T.
• Occasional missing timestamp from waterfall and CSV file.
• Cycling through VRXs can sometimes cause crash if RX control panel not visible.
• API 3.07 installer Windows XP 64-bit support
• Rare bug that can cause errors reading in the VRX workspace settings from the ini file
• Sometimes exception errors can cause the log file to be lost.
• Architecture in the log file would report x86 even on x64 systems because SDRuno is a 32bit
application.
• IF gain reduction values stored in the ini file can be read incorrectly in gain mode.
• IFAGC always starts enabled even if disabled in the Main Panel Settings
• SDRuno always started on the previous band even if band had been unframed before closing.
• Memory Panel did not use the ini file saved path before trying to use path in CSIDL_PERSONAL
and could cause a crash if there is a problem with it.
• IARU S-Meter initialisation assumes frequency is < 30 MHz and displays incorrectly.
• Text size scaling in the Status bar when the display is scaled.
• Decimation was not considered when going into HDR mode (sample rate mismatch).
V1.4 Copyright © 2016-2020 SDRplay Limited 3
SDRuno SDRuno Release Notes
• When band framed, selecting the band menu would cause LO LOCK to disengage and leave
incorrect sample rate (causing audio issues).
• Going back to 1.33 after using 1.4 would cause incorrect input device to be selected.
• Going back to 1.33 and then going forward to 1.4 caused the API 3.07 to NOT be installed.
• Setting Scan field in Memory Panel to Yes instead of Y could cause the scan to crash.
• Non-English locale could cause SDRuno to crash on exit.
• Ref clock output status not displayed in the main panel until the main panel settings were opened.
• WFM->SWFM->WFM did not return the volume level to the right value.
• Power/SNR output to file could skip some timestamps.
• S-Meter in T-Mate2 controller does not display correctly for > 30 MHz if IARU-1 setting is in use
Known Issues
• SP2 CWAFC drift issue (Zoom/window size/freq display)
• IF output mode disabled SP1 spectrum mouse clicks
Please note that this software includes a newer version of the API (V 3.07) and some third party software may not yet be compatible – popular software like the latest version of SDR Console is compatible but it may take time for other developers to update to using it
The release notes can be found here: https://sdrplay.com/docs/SDRplay_SDRuno_Release_Notes.pdf
Documentation
The updated user manual can be seen here: https://sdrplay.com/docs/SDRplay_SDRuno_User_Manual.pdf
 (Merci a Claude Commaret pour le manuel Francais )
More about plugins and links to new guides for the demo programmes included in this release can be found at: https://sdrplay.com/plugins/

(This includes information for developers interested in releasing new plugins for SDRuno)

More information on the release will appear in the next day or so – we’ll also be releasing videos on some of the core functionality improvements as well as some of the plugins mentioned above.
This video explains the new squelch settings:  https://youtu.be/6JZRq1WFlnc
As always, these releases are a great team effort and a big thank you to all of you that provided us with feedback during the release candidate process.

 

 

 

 

SDRuno V1.4 RC4 released

Today we released SDRuno 1.4 Release Candidate 4 – this is the final release candidate before the full release. The remaining work to be done does not affect the core functionality, so we would consider this software as stable. You can read more and download the software from: https://sdrplay.com/sdruno – there have also been some updates and additions to the plugin system for developers. The plugin GitHub repository (https://github.com/SDRplay/plugins) has also been updated.

More about plugins and the demo examples included in this release can be found at http://www.sdrplay.com/plugins/

One of the plugins is for DX Clusters where radio call-signs get over-layed on the spectrum window – click on the picture below for more information:

 

 

SDRuno Version 1.4RC3 brings DX Clusters to SDRuno

SDRuno Version 1.4 Release Candidate 3 has been released today (https://sdrplay.com/sdruno) – many thanks to everyone who sent in feedback to feedback@sdrplay.com on RC2.   We are getting close the full release and the software is getting very stable.

Version 1.4 Release Candidate 3 adds a DX Clusters plugin to the pre-installed plugins for DAB radio decode and an audio recorder already available in RC2.

Here is more about the plugins system being introduced in SDRuno Version 1.4: https://sdrplay.com/plugins/

As before, please try it out and send us feedback as described on the web page.

Before reporting any issues, please check that they are not already listed in the outstanding known issues.

The release notes can be found here:  https://sdrplay.com/docs/SDRplay_SDRuno_Release_Notes.pdf  – these notes detail the changes since V1.4 RC 2 and the work still outstanding.

When you install version 1.4 it will install version 3.07 of the API, and this may have consequences if for example you also have other software installed on your PC  which is currently designed to work with version 3.06 or older.  The latest version of SDR-Console is now compatible with this release.

If your only SDR software is SDRuno SDR software you should have no problems upgrading from V1.33 to Version 1.4 RC3.

We welcome feedback to feedback@sdrplay.com – we won’t be able to respond to all emails received but all will be read, although at this stage, feature requests cannot be included in the Version 1.4 release.

SDRuno with DX Clusters plugin running on the 20m amateur band

More about DX Clusters:

This new plugin displays DX cluster callsigns on the SDRuno spectrum display.   SDRuno already provided band buttons whereby you can press say “20m” and the software takes care of all the settings needed to present you with exactly 1.0 to 14.35MHz fitting in the main spectrum display window.  Now, with the new plugin you can overlay the DX cluster callsigns as they pop up.   There’s a choice of how long you let them display and you can control the way in which they appear.

(Notes about DXCluster (from Wikipaedia): A DX cluster is a network of computers, each running a software package dedicated to gathering, and disseminating, information on amateur radio DX activities. The computers comprising the network are called nodes, the network itself being termed a cluster of nodes. The nodes may be connected either via radio links or through the internet. Internet nodes generally connect using the telnet protocol. The system acts as an aggregator of information, accepting input from various sources, then making that data available to any user who is connected to the network.)

 

 

 

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