Hi mr. Josh,

   thank you very much for answering to my questions. It's good to know that 
somebody started to think to those people who are using Windows OS. I want you 
to know that I'm used to other types of development like microcontrollers, 
FPGA's, different communications RS232, RS485, SPI, I2C, and many others 
different from this GNU Radio stuff, but even if I read many things about GNU 
Radio it's hard to understand how it's working, especially when I had so many 
problems while trying to install it on Windows and to tell you the truth I 
have my USRP for about a year and no success to try it on Win OS.

   After heaving so many problems with the installation part I decided to use 
something else, and I thought I would use some DLL found on Tools4SDR, but it 
turned out it doesn't has any support for new daughterboards like WBX, than it 
came up the idea to make my own program to control USRP, but maybe that's not 
such a good idea so I tend to accept that I will have to use UHD, GNU Radio (in 
a certain way) and a compiler to make my program and bound all these together. 
What I downloaded here http://www.joshknows.com/download/gnuradio_port/, looks 
better (UHD is what I need - something that I can use to control USRP),  I only 
have to understand how to use it with my application, I wouldn't like to use it 
with python.

   OK, so there's the USRP, it needs the rbf file containing the logic for the 
FPGA, how it has to work. Usually I program my FPGA boards with a JTAG 
programmer, but here is a nice USB transceiver, that is the first problem, to 
understand how it works, and how is GNU Radio driving it. As I understand the 
8051 microcontroller is already programmed (This is why I get the correct FFFE 
VID and 0002 PID when heaving the USRP connected to the PC and Win driver 
installed). There's many source code related to the USB transceiver in many 
different files and as I saw it's quite difficult to use all that. When is the 
rbf file written to the FPGA (I suppose that only once at the beginning), but 
where, I checked an example code for USRP, the "usrp_spectrum_sense.py" file 
and 
I can't get the picture where is told what and when to write to the FPGA? 
Anyway 
as I checked out that python code, regarding the fact that I'm used to the well 
structured pascal code, this is a mess, I already dislike python, but if I will 
have to use it, I think I don't have any other choice. 


   OK, so let's suppose that the rbf file is written to the FPGA through that 
USB transceiver. I run a python code and I get some results like a nice plot, 
representing some values coming as a stream from the FPGA. I checked the 
"usrp_spectrum_sense.py" example python code for USRP, WOW, it's really a mess 
(C source code it's not as well structured code as Pascal, but Python is very 
ugly compared to C, maybe because I'm not used to it therefore I'm sure that 
you 
don't agree with me ), I don't want to plot anything anywhere (maybe only time 
to time when trying out new things and I want to see what I do receive), only 
to 
get some data that might arrive at a certain frequency, after that I will make 
the whole demodulation, and others (in pure Pascal, or maybe using some 
components from Delphi, FreePascal). I saw that GNU Radio has many functions 
written that might help in certain conditions (OFDM, Trellis, audio, video, 
etc.), that's very good, but I'm searching a way to integrate all that into my 
application.

   What I need: my software will be run on a computer (Core2Duo processor at 2 
GHz) with an embedded OS (WIN or Linux), therefore my application will be able 
to make many calculations, modulation, demodulation, set USRP parameters very 
fast, and so on. The software will be able to get some data from outside with 
the help of the USRP and send some data to different modules (maybe some data, 
at a very low data rate transfer, on 433 MHz ISM band, while using some 
Manchester coding with my OOK- ON-OFF Keying transceiver - I will use a 
scripting language (not python) like C or Pascal where I will tell USRP what to 
do - set frequency to a value, set decimation, form a certain package from 
various data and so on), so I want to get out from the I and Q data received 
from USRP a digital value 1000101110. OK, let's suppose that I would use 
Python, 
how would I transfer data to my application (without saving data to file and 
read it back from my application)? In a few words: it will be a real 
application, not ploting signals and other stuff. For example as I understand, 
it's possible to receive data from two sources (two different frequencies) 
heaving the same data rate transfer, WOW, it would be quite nice.

   How I imagined it to work: here is the UHD, with many functions to help read 
and set data from/to USRP. I connect from my application to the UHD.dll and 
start to use those functions from the dll file. Connect to the 
gnuradio-core.dll, and make some signal processing (give raw data received from 
FPGA through USB and get values). Anyway I think I missunderstood GNU Radio 
workig methode. I'm trying to understand and to figure out how could I 
integrate 
all you have done in GNU Radio into my application, and use it efficiently.

   Could you give me some ideas. I would appriciate any advice, you and others 
might give me. I know that I look like a stupid person, but all that 
information 
regarding UHD, USRP, GNU radio is messed up in my head and it needs some 
answers 
to put each piece where it belongs to. 


   Thank you very much. Please excuse me for bothering you with my questions, 
but I really need somebody like you to give me a few answers that I hope will 
help me to understand how does it work.


I wish everybody a very nice day.

Best regards,
Florian Eugen.



________________________________
From: Josh Blum <j...@joshknows.com>
To: discuss-gnuradio@gnu.org
Sent: Wed, February 16, 2011 8:25:16 AM
Subject: Re: [Discuss-gnuradio] Question UHD, WINDOWS


>    As I mentioned a few times here, I really can't install that GNU Radio in 
> Windows environment (I followed all steps found in those descriptions 
>regarding, 
>
> how to install it with MinGW or CygWin). So I have to give it up and try to 

I'm posting a uhd, gnuradio, and misc dependencies installer. Make sure
to set your PATH to the installed library dirs. The other pre-reqs come
with installers you can get from the internet and maybe I will upload
them later (python, numpy, pyqt, pygtk, etc...)

http://www.joshknows.com/download/gnuradio_port/

> focuse on other solutions like UHD or maybe others. What I want to do is to 
>make 
>
> some simple data transfers on different frequencies, basic communication with 
> some modules made by me. Really I don't need all that python stuff and all 
>those 
>
> dependencies problems. I was even thinking to control USRP from my 
> application, 
>
> it would be much faster than using Python, but how to write the firmware into 

The performance overhead of python is irrelevant because its not used in
the fast path. However, the developer overhead is. :-)

> the FPGA. OK, I got it, through that nice USB transceiver. After installing 
> the 
>
> USB driver when the USRP1 is connected to the PC it shows up the device with 
> that FFFE VID and 0002 PID. Could anybody tell me what to do from this point 
> to 
>
> be able to program the firmware into the FPGA or maybe to change the firmware 
>of 
>
> the EZ-USB FX2 transceiver? I suppose after I will program the rbf file into 
>the 
>

See <uhd-repo>/host/lib/usrp/usrp1/usrp1_ctrl.cpp

> FPGA I could start to get and set things, send orders to the board to set 
> frequency, decimation, sampling rate or read/write raw data. Commands to 
> drive 

> the USRP1 and my WBX daughterboard I could get from written source code (ex: 
>http://gnuradio.org/redmine/repositories/entry/gnuradio/usrp/host/lib/db_wbxng.cc),
>,
>  anyway I'll start to make the whole program with the help of FreePascal.
> 

Lol ok

>  A second alternative would be to use UHD (documentation is very poor) 
>because 


Ok, whats missing for you?

> it has support for USRP1, but after I read that I would have to get I don't 
>know 
>
> what program to do something with the source code and to compile the UHD 
> source 
>
> code and other steps I started to think if it's a good idea, maybe I will 
> have 


http://www.ettus.com/uhd_docs/manual/html/build.html

> the same problems encountered when installing GNU Radio on Windows OS, why 
> couldn't they provide a simple DLL file for using it on all Win OS's. Could 

They can

> anybody tell me how does UHD behave in Win OS? It's easy to use it? 
> 

Its functionally identical under windows

> 
> As a final answer, based on my description I do expect too much from this 
> USRP1+WBX hardware or there are other people heaving the same problems?
> 

Whats the problem?

_josh

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