Plus Board on RPi

PlusBoard v1 5r1

Plus Board on RPi, is a new interface board as a Raspberry Pi top added board, for owners of a Raspberry Pi 3B/3B+/4B, designed to suit the specific SDR ADC/DAC requirements of Flex SDR1000 and Softrock/Ensemble or compatible homemade rigs. Utilizing RPi's network capabilities can work with a network connection giving versatile topology. That means the RPi with the Plus interface will just sit happily with your rig and only an Ethernet cable connection is required to your local network. Your Windows PC then with the provided PowerSDR application will take control. And of course have hassle-free operation, ready-made configuration with ease of setup.

Currently the supported rigs are

  •  Flexradio SDR1000
  • Softrock/Ensemble and compatibles
  • RS-HFIQ
  • Genesis G59 & G11 (experimental)

 

 

The Plus board on RPi is a high end solution featuring the AK5394A ADC giving 123dB of Rx dynamic range to your homebrew rig. It contains also the CS4344 105dB DAC for driving rig's Tx. It is  having Rx IQ, Tx IQ and CW/PTT ports, though the user here has to provide the Headphones and Mic connections. That can be done eg with a simple USB dongle audio card or USB headphones/mic headset attached to one of RPi's USB ports. Its firmware resides in a 8GB SD Card so upgrades are as easy as changing the SD card.

For Windows users, these will be accompanied by a new PowerSDR application (based on v2.5.3) specific to utilize the new I/Q interfaces. Its operation is transparent, just make the cable connections, start the application and you're up and running.

Support for SDR1000 is in place with the use of an add-on, the Pi SDR LPT. Using this add-on, SDR1000 rigs got revitalized and now can be used in a transparent way with all the modern PCs with Windows 7/8/10 and the familiar PowerSDR application.

In this setup, no monitor, keyboard or mouse is required attached on the RPi. A dedicated and provided firmware is in place that is pre-configured and ready to go without any user interaction. In this setup, the RPi will exclusively be used for the purpose of handling the connected transceiver.

For SDR1000 rigs, the RFE board is required to be present.

On G59 rigs, the GPA10 is required and on G11 rigs the multiband board is required.

 

Specifications, Plus board with AK5394A/CS4344

  • IQ ADC jack, 123 dB Dynamic Range/24bits/192KHz
  • IQ DAC jack, 105 dB Dynamic Range/24bits/192KHz
  • CW/Paddles jack
  • Used natively with PowerSDR-IQ v2.5.3, Win7/8/10
  • Driverless configuration, no PC drivers required.

Firmware for the Pi SDR operation can be downloaded freely in the Support section and users can flash it to their choice of SD card.

 

Options

  • Pi SDR LPT, for connecting to a Flex SDR1000 control port

 

Reviews in eham can be seen here http://www.eham.net/reviews/detail/13675

 

 Pi SDR Plus board

Pi SDR IQ Plus Connections

 

PowerSDR IQ v2.5.3

 

 

 

 

Standalone FT8 operation with Quisk and WSJT-X, RS-HFIQ rig, on RPi 3B

Used in another way, without  a controlling PC with PowerSDR, by adding a monitor, keyboard & mouse to RPi there can be standalone operation with the Quisk application and WSJT-X and/or Fldigi for digimodes.

Rigs supported in that configuration are RS-HFIQ & Softrock/Ensemble and compatibles.

 

 SoloBoard RPi FT8