Software Block Diagram

The second block diagram lists the software currently available as open source to operate the HPSDR hardware. The blue line indicates the connection to the hardware.

There are other programs that can work with HPSDR hardware. Some these include WinRad, WinRadHD, CWSkimmer to name a few.

---

Hermes block diagram

The following is a block diagram for the Hermes project. The Hermes project uses technology developed in the HPSDR boards but combines them in to two board that fit in a Euro style box. This radio might be for those that wish to go mobile with their SDR or do not wish to use the modular approach used in the development of the other boards. There has been some confusion in the that hardware is compatible and the same software works with these boards but the Hermes/Apollo boards are not design to use other HPSDR boards as they are developed in the future.

---

Some Glossary Definitions

Since this website and project is attracting interested persons who are not Radio Amateurs and hams who may not be familiar with some of the technical jargon, here are a few words about what some of the mysterious acronyms, etc. may stand for.

Radio Amateurs ("hams") -- persons around the world interested in radio communications and do so without monetary compensation (hence as in sports, the term "amateur" as opposed to "professional" in the sense of not receiving money for what they do). For more information on this hobby/service, start with www.hello-radio.org. In many cases on this website, we'll use the assigned "call letters" of the ham -- in most cases, more information can be found about this person by going to a search website such as http://qrz.com.

SDR - Software Defined Radio -- These are radios where most of the radio is defined in software code either in FPGA, or in a supporting computer.

DSP - Digital Signal Processing -- The processing of a digitized signal with computer algorithms

FPGA - Field Programmable Gate Array -- These are large sets of gates in reconfigurable array. the chipc can be reprogramed by code.

Open source design

Brief definition of Open Source

In a "nutshell", open source is a term that is applied to a philosophy, in that the production and organization of a project or system is created through open and cooperative efforts.

Open source software refers to computer software available with its source code and under an "open source license" to study, change and improve its design and functionality.

There are many "Open source software" licenses, the most prominent being the GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or simply GPL), originally written by Richard Stallman. The GPL grants the recipients of a computer program the following rights, or freedoms:

The users are treated like co-developers, are encouraged to submit additions to the software, code fixes, bug reports, documentation etc. Having more co-developers increases the rate at which the software evolves. Furthermore, each end user's machine provides an additional testing environment. This new testing environment offers the ability to find and fix a new bug quickly.

[Note: this definition does not go into the various obligations and legalities and is intended to be brief and non-exhaustive. The original was supplied by Kevin, M0KHZ with a few words "Americanized" by the webmaster.]

---