Jim Ahlstrom

PC board image

Software Projects

These are my published software projects, and some technical papers that discuss software issues.

QUISK

QUISK is a software defined radio receiver and transmitter that runs on a PC. It works with sound card samples, the SDR-IQ by RfSpace, and with Ethernet/UDP samples from my SDR transceiver and my SSB/CW exciter. I use QUISK as my ham transceiver. Quisk is extensible using the Python or C programming languages to make a complete station control solution. It can be used with different hardware by editing its configuration file, and adding hardware and widget files written in the Python language.

QUISK VNA

Quisk VNA is a vector network analyzer that works with the HiQSDR and other hardware capable of full duplex operation. It is part of the Quisk distribution. Just download Quisk and run the program "python quisk_vna.py".

Hermes-Lite 2 Setup

This is a setup program for the Hermes-Lite 2. It can find the HL2 and set the bias.

SDR

This paper explains what a software defined radio is, and why it may be easier to homebrew an SDR than an analog radio.

Hamlib and SDR

This paper discusses radio control software in the context of an SDR. It explains why the control software must connect to the SDR software, not to the hardware.

Phase Corrections

A discussion of amplitude and phase corrections for analog quadrature mixers.

Alsa Names

A discussion of Alsa names and device indexes, and how to specify a certain device. The Alsa names are the names of sound card devices on Linux computers.

ft245

The ft245 is a serial to USB device driver for Linux. It can be used to connect the SDR-IQ hardware to a PC running Linux. It is faster than the standard driver, but that may not be important with today's faster PCs. But the installation instructions are still of interest.

AT-200PC

The AT-200PC is an antenna tuner by LDG Electronics that is controlled by the serial port, and is ideal for a PC-controlled radio. This is control software for the AT-200PC.

PCR-1000

This is control software for an Icom PCR-1000, a pc-controlled radio receiver.