UmTRX

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189 discussions

UmTRX marketing. Was: Selectivity improvement solutions proposal for UmTRX
by Alexander Chemeris 18 Mar '12

18 Mar '12

Andrey and all, 18.03.2012 2:31 пользователь "Andrey Sviyazov" <andreysviyaz(a)gmail.com> написал: >> Regarding the GSM spec, I believe these blocker tests are hard to pass and not that useful in most practical situations. However, I do not care that much about passing this spec for my network deployment in Mayotte but I really believe passing the spec will be very important for you if you wish to sell your hardware solution to some major operators. Moreover, as we would anyway need a superheterodyne selective filtering to get a reasonably narrow Rx sampling band (< 1.5 MHz LMS band), it does not cost that much more to try to pass the GSM spec. > > You right, it is important for us and may be it is really important for systems with high channel dencity. I completely support everything which could make our product better without increasing its cost. But we also must ensure to release UmTRX in time. What we all should keep on mind is that "the best is an enemy to a good". We should focus on those 10% of simple tweaks which bring us 90% of improvement. Otherwise we'll be swamped with the other 90% of tweaks and will miss the market opportunity. I can't stress it more - we MUST release UmTRX ASAP. Even if it doesn't meet macro-BTS requirements. We'll be able to fix this in the next version if ever needed - we can't know the real demand until we release the first version. I would be glad of what I've just said is obvious and already lives in your heart. Otherwise it's extremely important you understand this deeply, not formally. Please let me know if you don't, I'll explain in more details. > Furthermore, it is very easy to lose the reputation of the product, but it is very difficult then to fix it back. This is true. And the best way to keep the reputation is to realistically understand UmTRX capabilities and avoid overmarketing. In other words, with just reasonable product quality, our reputation depends solely on the right marketing. E.g. we might explicitly warn customers that it's not suitable for macro-BTS installations and they could do so on their own risk only. > I think, low cost doesn't sign low quality, so we must to have good hardware on market for good sales and promote OpenHW :) This is very true. Just keep in mind that "good hardware" means "minimally viable hardware at low price" and doesn't mean "super high quality mumbo jumbo with many zeros in the price". Our customers value simplicity and low cost over complexity and golden plates. That said, I can't help with decisions on the RF side and here I rely on you, guys. That's why it is so important for you to understand all these "abstract" marketing ideas. Sent from my Android device. -- Regards, Alexander Chemeris CEO, Fairwaves LLC http://fairwaves.ru

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UmTRX integration into UHD
by Max.Suraev＠fairwaves.ru 16 Feb '12

16 Feb '12

Hello. Right now we're working on integrating UmTRX support into host UHD code. The dboard_iface is obviously different from usrp2 and got to be written from scratch (with compatible interfaces if possible). As for plugging UmTRX into uhd::usrp::multi_usrp - there're several options in here: 1) Add support for UmTRX-specific clock and codec controllers into usrp2_impl with boolean flag to differentiate between USRP2 and UmTRX. 2) Create dedicated "class umtrx_impl : public uhd::device" and implement codec and clock controllers logic in there or inside UmTRX's dboard_iface. 3) Create separate lib/umtrx/* implementation without reuse\adoption of code from lib/usrp2/* What would be better option and why? Bear in mind that the final goal is to run OpenBTS+UHD on UmTRX so we're interested only in functions essential to OpenBTS. Though we want to keep changes to the original code as small as possible and still reuse it as much as possible. -- best regards, Max, http://fairwaves.ru

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UmTRX hackathon
by Alexander Chemeris 03 Feb '12

03 Feb '12

Hi all, I just realized I completely forgot to tell non-Russian people here that the Fairwaves is getting together to have a UmTRX hackathon in Moscow during this and the next weekends. The first hackathon is starting today and is due at Sun (Feb 3-5) and the next one will be the next Sat and Sun (Feb 11-12). The goal is to prepare for MWC: (1) bring up UmTRX to a minimal working state and get it working with OpenBTS, (2) prepare casing, demos, marketing material, etc. Participants from Fairwaves: Andrey Karpenkov, Andrew Sviyzov, Andrey Bakhmat, Alexander Chemeris, Ivan Kluchnikov, Max Suraev, Sergey Kostanbaev I invite everyone else to join us remotely as well. :) E.g. it would be awesome to have ICAP finally working to get Ethernet flashing to work. TCXO taming to GPS is another topic to take on. UHD integration is also an interesting topic with a lot of things to do. -- Regards, Alexander Chemeris.

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Access to peripheral parts of UmTRX.
by Andrey Sviyazov 22 Jan '12

22 Jan '12

Today I used a cheap external active GPS antenna with a thin 5 m cable (see attached DS), but I had to solder SMA connector instead of unknown to me. The current consumption of the antenna 11мА @ 3V. About 2 minutes after a cold start, the status LED starts blinking 0.5 Hz and 1PPS signal appears at the Clock output connector. So, now we can to start work with the self-tuning of the TCXO. Anyway, how realistic in the near time to implement an simple command translator through the FTDI - FPGA for the SPI to each LMS to get at least the signals of their synthesizers (also to UART for GPS, to SPI for DAC of TCXO and etc. :). It can be a simple protocol with virtual control registers addressing and read/write or a few separate firmwares for each goal. With such a tool at any time we will be able to check UmTRX operation with some simple signals and an spectrum analyzer. Also it will be very helpful for the understanding of how to work with LMS control registers, which is poorly described in the documentation. Have any thoughts or suggestions on this? Best regards, Andrey Sviyazov.

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UmTRX production
by Jean-Samuel Najnudel - BJT PARTNERS SARL 19 Jan '12

19 Jan '12

Hi Alexander, I will meet the French fab next monday. I am quite optimistic. This company looks really serious and prices seems to be reasonable. They would need some information about the TI160808U601 and the TI201209U121. Could you please let me know a supplier for these beads ? Do you have an approximate idea of the price of these components ? By the way, if it is not already included in the GPS chip, it might be useful to add a 1575 MHz GPS SAW filter on the GPS Rx path. As we will transmit a strong GSM Tx signal, it might saturate the GPS Rx if we place the GPS antenna near the GSM antenna. What do you think ? Please let me know. Best regards. Jean-Samuel. :-)

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UmTRX issues and commits mailing lists
by Alexander Chemeris 13 Jan '12

13 Jan '12

Hi all, I have created mailing lists with notifications from UmTRX issue tracker and from UmTRX-UHD github repository. Feel free to subscribe to them if you want to track one or another closely: http://lists.fairwaves.ru/listinfo/umtrx-issues http://lists.fairwaves.ru/listinfo/umtrx-uhd-commits -- Regards, Alexander Chemeris.

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UmTRX prototypes are out of fab!
by Alexander Chemeris 25 Dec '11

25 Dec '11

Hi all, A quick update. We've received our 5 UmTRX proto units from a fab! Pictures are attached (3D model is attached for comparison). Andrey Sviyazov is soldering missing components to them as I type. He will do the first power on later today. Lets have fingers crossed that it won't blow up and I will be able to take one with me to 28C3. We plan to give that one to Sylvain who is interested in helping us with bringing up. One more will be sent to Robin and three will stay here, as we're spread over three locations here. -- Regards, Alexander Chemeris.

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UmTRX prototype 1 final version
by Alexander Chemeris 26 Oct '11

26 Oct '11

Hi all, Just an update. We've finished PCB layout (ugh, finally!) and are sending them to a fab today or tomorrow. Attached are latest files and 3D images of the board. I hope we'll be holding a working prototype in our hands soon! Thank you all for your help! -- Regards, Alexander Chemeris.

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UmTRX aka OpenBTS HW update
by Alexander Chemeris 11 Oct '11

11 Oct '11

Hi Jean-Samuel, Harald, Holger, I've been quite for a while, so I want to make an update about the state of our hardware. On the FPGA development side we've been stuck for ~3 weeks, because somethings happened with the power controller on our Xilinx SP-605 board and we've been waiting for TI's USB-TO-GPIO to flash this controller. And now we're still dealing with this problem. On the hardware side things are much better. We have "Release Candidate" of schematics and working on PCB layout. We estimate that layout will be finished in a week if we don't decide to change something too much. In attachment you could find the latest versions of schematics in PDF and Altium Designer formats, 3D view (pre-alpha version), list of FPGA I/O and BOM. I would very much appreciate any comments, questions, concerns and ideas about schematics, controls placement, debug facilities, etc. It's much, much better to find bugs and satisfy all requests now, then when we get PCBs printed. Following the idea of Jean-Samuel we're trying to fit the PCB into 5.25" form-factor to be able to use various standard enclosures and even mount the board into a standard PC cases instead of a CD-ROM drive :) Right now estimated board size is 135х170mm, which perfectly fits into 5.25" case. Meantime I've created Google Code project to host our development: http://code.google.com/p/umtrx/ It's empty yet, I plan to gradually fill it with information. I'm happy to grant member rights for the project to any of you who is willing to contribute to descriptions, code (not there yet), etc. Just drop me an e-mail when you feel you need those rights. -- Regards, Alexander Chemeris.

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