r00t.cz

Icom IC8500 emulator for R2500

After adding IF output to R2500, I found that
1) It can't be controlled by SV by default and
2) Center of receiver filter is somewhere around 15MHz instead of 10.7MHz and finally
3) Some bands are inverted and some not, depending on IF path and mixing in receiver

This simple application solves all above problems. How it works:

SVue -> Virtual Com port loopback -> This application -> R2500
Originally I wanted to use Message API for Svue, however that adds extra latency and makes tuning uncomfortable.
SVue settings:

In my setup, I'm using N8VB virtual com port driver to create loop back from COM4 to COM6
I was too lazy to add any settings file loading/saving, so this version have fixed COM port numbers.
Use same COM port numbers as me or open exe in Resource Hacker and edit COM port strings in RCData/TFORM1 for LabeledEdit1.Text and LabeledEdit2.Text :)

Download: r2500bridge.zip (13kB)

Orbitron -> SpectraVue record control v1.1

Changelog:

• v1.1 - In case SV is not running, it will be started before recording. Also added check to verify recording is started/stopped.

This very simple application starts recording in SpectraVue when tracked satellite is visible. It connects to Orbitron using DDE and simulates clicking on Record button in SpectraVue3.
Detailed instructions are in included readme.txt.

Download: orbsvrec.zip (50kB)

Signal strength beeper

When pointing antenna to L-band and higher frequency signals, it's very usefull to have some audio feedback of signal strength.
This tool produces beeps with variable frequency and timing according to strength of strongest peak on FFT.
Usually you want to use FFT averaging ~5 and smoothing ~10 to have stable dB value.
Program window shows peak strength, beep rate and frequency in Hz of beeps.
With PC, bluetooth and bluetooth handsfree, you can easily tune antenna on the roof...

Download: snrtone3.zip (60kB) (For SpectraVue 3.x)
Old version: sigtone.zip (31kB) (For Spectravue 2.x)

Easy palette editor

Simple way to create your own palettes form bitmap files.

Download: img2pal.zip (266kB)

My palette files

Cold Rainbow
Hot Top
Low SNR
Burnt Paper
Old SpecAn
Chome Sunset Sine			new!
Cold Rainbow Sine			new!
Gold			new!
Jetstream			new!
Radioactive			new!
Sunset			new!

Commercial use or distribution of palette files with any programs without my permission is strictly prohibited!

SDR-xx SV server with added Pipe server

Mirrors all raw I/Q data from SDR to named pipe server. You can connect using SV to it,
works over network or locally, just like original server. Samples are available
from \\.\pipe\SDRxx named pipe. Up to 16 programs can connect and use samples from SDR at same time.

Download: SDRxxServerPipe.exe (40kB)

I/Q Pipe server proxy DLL

Use above SDR-xx server instead, it's much more stable

UPDATED: Now for SV 3.xx too
UPDATE2: Fixed bug that caused pipe to be left open after stopping SDR. Also now uses overlapped IO mode.
This ftd2xx.dll creates named pipes server \\.\pipe\iqdata that allows other applications to receive raw I/Q data in realtime. Server can handle up to 16 connections from client applications.
Named pipes are very easy to use (can be simply accessed as endless files) and data is buffered in kernel.
This is very interesting to programmers wanting easy access to SDR samples. This dll is completely transparent to SVue and doesn't affect it in any way.
Installation: Rename original ftd2xx.dll in SpectraVuew directory to ftd2oo.dll, put new ftd2xx.dll from archive to Spectravue directory.

Download: svpipe.zip (20kB)

SpectraVue wide CW filter

Normally you can't set CW filter center higher than 1500Hz. When demodulating data, it's nice to have wide filter centered on frequency.
To get wide CW filter like this, you can replace DEMOD_CWU line in your SV config with this one:

DEMOD_CWU0=FC:D6:FF:FF:EC:2C:00:00:F8:2A:00:00:0A:00:00:00:0A:00:00:00:38:18:00:00:

It will change CW demodulator settings to:

This filter is as wide as possible with still usable filter shape.

Note: In SV 3.xx it's possible to get same shaped filter centered on center frequency by setting WUSB filter width to 23KHz and CW offset to 1KHz.