Hi Craig,
good to hear that you're working on something as exciting as MTK support of OsmocomBB.
On Thu, Jun 23, 2016 at 02:56:39PM +0000, Craig Comstock wrote:
I hope to make a usable phone. Currently my plan is to dig into the MT6260 as started by the fernly/fernvale project. Current target is the SIM800H which contains the MT6260. I saw both that sysmocom has a $150 fernvale setup and Lime SDR has a USB bare-board for $250+ but I have to stick with something that is "phone" like and so am working on designing a small SIM800H/MT6260-based phone which can be expanded and/or used to experiment.
I would strongly encourage you not to spend time in designing more hardware rather than working on the software side of things. Understanding the DSP/ARM interface of mediatek baesband chips is the primary key into creating a L1 adaptation of OsmocomBB that works on such hardware.
If there was something like LimeSDR that was small and less expensive I would go that route. I imagine there will be before long. :)
I don't think a General Purpose SDR solution will lead to a usable phone. The GP SDR is too large and power hungry to begin with, and then you need a host processor that can do all the signal processing, and you're suddenly talking more about an embedded PC rather than a battery powered phone.
Meanwhile, I'd definitely like to contribute as I can to MS software/ osmocom-bb. I will do what I can.
Pleaes do so. I'm happy to review and give feedback.