News

Coming up this weekend is Hamcation in Florida which starts this Friday 10th February.  SDRplay will be there, supporting Ham Radio Outlet and answering your questions. If you are going, be sure to visit the HRO stand. (Feb 11th update – you can download the presentation slides here )

If you’re not going but have friends who will be there, encourage them to visit us on the Ham Radio Outlet Booth – they also might like to come to our talk on Friday morning at 10.30 in Pavillion “Room” CS1:

Steve, KI5ENW will present an update on SDRplay hardware and software. More about the forum programme can be found here: https://www.hamcation.com/forums-speakers

You can download Steve’s presentation here: https://www.sdrplay.com/blogs/Hamcation2023shrink.pdf

We have been rather ‘inundated’ with demands for updates on our software development efforts and in particularly the release date for SDRconnect.

A little over a year ago, we decided that to re-develop SDRuno as a true cross-platform SDR solution was practically unfeasible and instead commenced the development of a completely new, ‘ground up’ solution which we chose to call SDRconnect to distinguish it from SDRuno, which itself will continue to be supported on Windows.

Estimating schedules for software development is notoriously difficult because software is highly abstracted with additional variables and uncertainties when compared to hardware development. In addition SDRconnect utilises a wholly different approach when compared to SDRuno with a completely new development environment.

SDRconnect is a highly modular piece of software with a UI that will be much better suited to the wide range of modern computing platforms than SDRuno, many of which feature touch-screens.

The first release of SDRconnect will NOT encompass all of the functionality that we intend for this software. Instead, there will be a range of more frequent updates than people will have experienced with SDRuno.

The first release of SDRconnect will incorporate the following:

Hardware architectures:

x64, ARM64 (including Mac M1)

Please NOTE. SDRconnect will be a 64bit solution and will NOT run on 32 bit operating systems.

Operating systems

Windows 10, 11 and later – 64 bit only. Note SDRconnect will NOT run on anything earlier than Windows 10, so please don’t ask for Windows 8/7/XP etc. It is not possible to compile for these older operating systems with the tools used for the development of SDRconnect.

Linux Ubuntu x64 18.04LTS and later. Please note that we will ONLY be testing on Ubuntu. We make no guarantees for any other flavour of Linux

MacOS x64 and M1 version 11 (Big Sur) and onwards.

Raspberry Pi OS (64bit) – Bullseye derived.

Android and iOS will NOT be supported in the first release. These will come later .

Please note that SDRconnect is for the Raspberry Pi 4B or better and not earlier models such as the Raspberry Pi 3 etc

Features:

The first release of SDRconnect will support the following features

Support for all RSP hardware platforms EXCEPT the RSP1

Diversity support for the RSPduo

Both Master and Slave mode for the RSPduo supported within a single instance of SDRconnect

Module interface for third party software modules (formerly known as ‘Plugins’)

Completely new UI will configurable and dockable panels

Remote network server and client

A basic I/Q recorder

Multiple VRXs

Band framing

The following will NOT be in the first release, but will come in subsequent Module releases:

Scanning

Rig Control

RDS decoding

Scheduler

Because these features will be incorporated as modules, it means that there will be fewer changes required to the core SDRconnect platform which will help preserve its stability and minimise the risk of bugs being introduced.

The current range of SDRplay developed plugins for SDRuno, will not work with SDRconnect, but we will be upgrading these so that they will be made available for use with SDRconnect. The module interface will be published so that third party developers can port their SDRuno plugins to SDRconnect, but we have no control over whether they will choose to do so, so please contact the plugin developers about this.

Regarding touch functionality, the first release will not support gesture recognition. This will come in a later release.

Finally, SDRconnect will have its own embedded API. It will not be necessary to install the API used with SDRuno. However SDRconnect, SDRuno and the API used for SDRuno will all happily coexist on the same machine.

Now, whilst progress has been good, we have also experienced some setbacks that has lead to some delays from our original estimate. Our current best estimate is that the first release will be around the middle of February. Please note that this is NOT a guarantee. We fully understand the frustrations that many people may feel about delays but I would respectfully request that you avoid opening support tickets requesting updates or offering to act as a ‘beta tester’. There will be no beta test program. As soon as we have something for people to try, we will make it available and people are welcome to try it. We are doing it as fast we possibly can and external pressure simply won’t make it go any faster.

If there any significant changes to the above in terms of features or schedule, we will let you all know.

Many thanks for reading.

Happy New Year to everyone from the SDRplay Team

We are aware that people are eagerly awaiting more news on SDRconnect and whilst there have been a few delays as a result of illness, we will give a more detailed update in the next week or so outlining what can be expected in the first release of the software.

The SDRconnect information page is here: https://www.sdrplay.com/sdrconnect/

At SDRplay, we recognise that times are very tough for a lot of people. In view of the economic pressures that people are facing, we want to lend a helping hand by offering the very popular RSPdx at a special low price for this holiday buying season. After discussions with our dealer network, from Black Friday until the 31^st December, we (along with participating dealers) plan to offer the RSPdx at a holiday discounted suggested retail price of £130/€156/$169.95 plus shipping and any applicable taxes. This represents a substantial discount of more than one fifth when compared to the normal retail price.

December 1st update: For USA customers, HRO are continuing to offer the RSPdx with free shipping at the special price of $179.95  (the offer accidentally disappeared from their website yesterday): https://www.hamradio.com/detail.cfm?pid=H0-017027

For Australian customers – Strictly Ham now has their holiday offer running: https://www.strictlyham.com.au/sdrplay-rspdx#.Y4kc_nbP1D8

Starting midnight EST, Thursday November 24th visit https://www.sdrplay.com/purchasehome/  to purchase an RSPdx at the special price or contact your local SDRplay dealer for more details.  Please also note that stocks are limited and this offer will certainly end on the 31^st December and prices will revert to normal commercial levels thereafter.

This is a great opportunity to get the RSPdx as a gift for a newcomer or a returning radio enthusiast at a price which won’t be repeated, as our suppliers are already increasing their prices for the new year.

• Prices shown are prices offered when buying direct from SDRplay. Shipping and taxes are extra.  SDRplay ships from the UK to most countries in the world.  However some countries will require import duty to be paid on top.
• SDRplay dealers who usually include free shipping will adjust the prices accordingly
• Check with your local dealer to see if they are participating.
• Links to both the SDRplay direct purchasing page and our list of authorised resellers can be found here

SDRplay is pleased to announce that RFbits has just launched brand new SDR receiver software called “Ortac_Rx”  – and it’s been made available for SDRplay RSP owners to use from day one.

Ortac_Rx is a general purpose DSP receiver designed to have a simple front end, but having full capabilities within. It is compatible with Windows 7 to 11.

It features:

1. A Simple User interface (KISS)
2. SSB, CW, AM, FM, FM-Stereo, DMR
3. Audio recorder/player
4. IQ recorder/player
5. Simple Channel Banks
6. Pseudo Accurate dBm calibration
7. Accurate modulation depth display
8. Peak tune functions on FFT display
9. Small Screen Footprint
10. Fairly low CPU load

The website can be found at https://rfbits.com/one/  where there’s a link to the Ortac_Rx page from which you can download the manual and the software. ( https://rfbits.com/one/index.php/ortac_rx/ )

The site also includes a link to Ortac_AIS which is an advanced Windows dual channel AIS DSP receiver and message decoder. It is capable of decoding up to 25 messages per second simultaneously on channels A and B.

Nov 9th 2022 footnote: This third party software is not provided by SDRplay and questions regarding its operation and performance should be directed to the author.   SDRplay’s own SDR receiver software, provided free of charge to RSP owners,  is SDRuno: https://www.sdrplay.com/sdruno/

The title of this blog initially used the word “support” and not “compatibility”   which may have been confusing as to who is supporting the software.

The UK’s largest gathering of radio amateurs takes place next weekend (October 14/15th 2022) at Newark in Nottinghamshire. See https://www.nationalhamfest.org.uk/

It’s a great opportunity to meet some of the SDRplay technical team and ask questions.  This is ideal for current RSP owners with specific questions and for potential new owners.  If you have friends visiting the event who are thinking about trying out an SDR receiver, then encourage them to visit us:

The SDRplay stand is in the far right hand corner as you enter from the main entrance 

As well as demonstrating our upcoming SDRconnect multi-platform software running on several different platforms, we will be providing hands-on “how-to” help,  for SDRuno users who want to explore new features in detail.