Tuesday 26 February 2013

ARM DATV

No picture today but I thought you might like to know that the tests that
Rob M0DTS has been doing using an MK808 have been quite successful.
The module that uses the most CPU cycles is the Reed Solomon encoder.
Luckily Brian G4EWJ has written an optimised version of this module
in ARM assembly language. His module uses about 1/4 of the processing
that my C module does. So we have managed to get the whole thing down
from 60% to about 20%. There are further improvements that can be made.

I may have a go at optimising my C code as it is nice to have something that
can be ported to other Linux platforms.

The bare DATV-Express boards have been fabricated and the last I heard is
that they are with the courier.

I am hoping that the DATV-Express project can become a collaborative one
at least as far as the software is concerned. It may not be possible for everyone
to hand solder SMD components these days but everyone can try to write some
software. For small projects like this it is not that difficult and we all have to
start somewhere.

2 comments:

  1. I wouldn't know where to start with writing software but if you need any documents written or proof-read I can do that - likewise with any photography you might want done. 73. Ian G8XZD.

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  2. Hi Ian, I am sure there will be plenty of ways to contribute to the project. We are a very small team of people so there is a limit to what we can do on our own. A batch of the Rev2 PCBs arrived yesterday so hopefully in a couple of weeks I will have a working board to test. Then with luck (provided there are no major issues with the board) we can think about the first run of manufactured and assembled boards.

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