Replacing the MiniTiouner

[M0LNG]

I expect the SF8008 is already out of production. It was first released mid-2018, over 5 years ago, which is a long time for consumer hardware. There are not many suppliers left with that model in stock, and Octagon have moved on to newer models. A firmware tweak would be nice for those who own one, and would help prove the viability of a new Si2166-based design, but seems unlikely to be a solution in itself.

[G8DGR]

The simple and obvious way is to design and produce a clone of the existing tuner.
As long as we don't breach any copyrights we should be OK
So a pin and software compatible plugin replacement would do it.
No bells, no whistles. "If it ain't broke don't fix it"

[PE5PVB]

Yes, you can add an extra microcontroller inside to translate the I2C to make it fully compatible.

[M0LNG]

Emulating the Serit 4334 over I2C and translating commands and settings into the equivalent ones for a different chipset is an interesting but quite ambitious idea.

It would probably be intractable to make that work in the fully general case, but if the scope of the exercise were limited to making the new device recognise and translate the specific I2C usage patterns of current BATC software projects, it might be possible.

However, by the time you'd figured out exactly what translations to make, you'd also know exactly what changes were needed to make the host software support the new chipset.

So I suspect in practice it would be easier to just update the other software projects, and save the need for an extra MCU on the board.

[M0LNG]

I'd just like to add that regardless of my proposal above, I agree with Dave's assessment on Saturday that a direct substitute ought to be the first choice for the BATC if it proves possible.

If the club is successful in sourcing say ~500-1000pcs each of STV6120 and STV0910 from obsolete part dealers at a reasonable cost, and can obtain sufficient documentation to produce a board with them, then that would push this problem several years into the future whilst avoiding the need to update all the software projects. The latter would be a lot of work, which would inevitably fall on some very specific people.

Meanwhile, on the Si2166D front, I am getting my hands on an SF8008 receiver. Based on my reverse engineering efforts last week I think I may be able to patch this model to work better for RB signals with perhaps not too much work. If so then that seems worth doing in itself, as it would make all the SF8008 units out there more useful to amateurs, independent of what direction the BATC pursues to replace the MiniTiouner.

[G8GKQ]

For those who missed the presentation that I gave on Saturday about the MiniTiouner situation, the slides are available here: https://wiki.batc.org.uk/images/c/c1/20 ... cement.pdf

Dave, G8GKQ

[G8GKQ]

Hi Martin

I will be interested to hear how you get on with the SF8008. My concern is how it performs decoding 333 kS with adjacent signals at the same level or slightly stronger as is often the case on QO-100..

And yes, absolutley agree with your last 2 posts.

Thanks

Dave

[g0mjw]

Meanwhile, on the Si2166D front, I am getting my hands on an SF8008 receiver. Based on my reverse engineering efforts last week I think I may be able to patch this model to work better for RB signals with perhaps not too much work. If so then that seems worth doing in itself, as it would make all the SF8008 units out there more useful to amateurs, independent of what direction the BATC pursues to replace the MiniTiouner.

Let me know how you get on as I have an SF8008. It was disappointing with the previous firmware and of course doesn't tune down to 740 MHz.

Mike

[SkyVision]

Contacted Edouard about modifying SDR Angel for a more DATV friendly environment
He misunderstood the concept or there was a lanuage issue
Will try again, but it needs someone more articulate than me or someone who speaks good French
At least he didn't say no

There appears no traction to go the DATV Angel route in this thread
Martin's goal is very bold, and his vision is excelent, I percive this as a longer game
SDR angel just needs some tinkering with the GUI and is a potentially shorter/stop gap game
Other feature like auto FEC, Band specific filters/amplifiers/converters or DVB-T are extras that could follow

It's a pitty that something state of the art that will be around for a while can't be used
Then again Icom have Analogue TV so what's old is new again
Has anyone thought to contact Elad to see if they have any spare Serit Nims in the cupboard they would part with

Cheers Roger VK5YYY

[M0DTS]

I'm sure I read somewhere that SDRAngel's DATV decoder is basically a wrapper around leandvb?

Rob