MiricsFlexiTV-MSI3101

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Jay Salsburg jsalsburg at bellsouth.net
Thu Nov 21 01:17:39 UTC 2013


Here is what I do to figure out how tuners work...

http://dangerousprototypes.com/docs/Bus_Pirate
http://www.saleae.com/
http://www.signalhound.com/

Using the I2C recorder of the Bus Pirate, I record (hack) the operational
traffic on the Tuner's I2C Bus. This traffic is recorded during the
operation of the Dongle when it is being initialized by the software that
came with the Dongle. This reveals all the Initialization commands and
operational commands of the tuner. It is always prudent to record this
operational traffic when the tuner is operating on a PC with its included
software so nothing is left for guessing. If the Bus Pirate not being fast
enough, I use a SALEAE LOGIC 16 to record the I2C traffic.

After I characterize the I2C traffic, I use the Bus Pirate to exercise the
tuner's I2C Bus and display its IF output with the SIGNALHOUND Tracing
Generator/Spectrum Analyzer to test and qualify the accuracy of the tuner's
commands. The Dongle's Init and Control SDR libraries are then possible to
write.

I have used this technique to hack those Set Top Digital-to-Analog Set Top
TV Converter Boxes of which millions are available (K-Mart). Those converter
boxes have very good LNA/tuners in them unlike the Dongles. 

I use a 96ksps, 24bit Audio Card on the set top box tuner's Zero IF output
for a high quality receiver.

-----Original Message-----
From: osmocom-sdr-bounces at lists.osmocom.org
[mailto:osmocom-sdr-bounces at lists.osmocom.org] On Behalf Of Leif Asbrink
Sent: Wednesday, November 20, 2013 4:25 PM
To: osmocom-sdr at lists.osmocom.org
Subject: Re: MiricsFlexiTV-MSI3101

Hi All,

I have a USB dongle with a Mirics tuner which I have tried to get running
with libmirisdr. 

It seems the library is not complete and that it does not configure the chip
correctly.

I can set a sampling rate and the get sampling rate returns the value that I
have set, but the routine to actually set the rate is missing. The sampling
rate always becomes
9.142 MHz.

As a test I have set the frequency to 500 MHz. The received frequencies are
in the range 488.4 to 496.3 MHz. Something is very wrong with the data. If I
inject a signal on 490.0 MHz I see four equally strong signals on 496.6,
498.8, 501.2 and 503.4.
When the signal is moved towards the center frequency 492.35 MHz, the 498.8
and 501.2 signals move towards the center while the other two signals move
towards the passband ends.

When looking at the narrowband spectrum of one signal I can see it is
actually several equispaced carriers.

I have been told that the driver here works:
http://blog.palosaari.fi/2013/08/mirics-msi3101-sdr-linux-driver.html
Unfortunately I am not much of a programmer, I can not understand how to use
the info:
http://git.linuxtv.org/anttip/media_tree.git/shortlog/refs/heads/mirics

libmirisdr is easy to understand. Very similar to rtlsdr.
It would be very interesting to be able to use this dongle and to check what
performance one might get from it.

Regards

Leif



On Wed, 12 Jun 2013 20:58:22 +0200
marzano <Francesco.Marzano at roma1.infn.it> wrote:

> A quite good  (AM/SW)/FM/DAB/DVB-T  USB dongle.
> Mirics FlexiTV MSi3101 (two chips  MSi001+MSi2500) 
> http://www.mirics.com
> http://www.mirics.com/node/31
> Data sheets available, register yourself at Mirics portal.
> RF Tuner: MSi001/MSi002 ( used by FUNcubrePro+  ?), seems better than 
> R820T ADC and HiSpeed USB interface: MSi2500 .  ADC 10 bit , better than
>          8 bit RTL2832U aDC.
> Windows binary software available: FMDABplayer, DVB_T decoder,
>                  Windows lib.dll and API doc.
> 
> IO-DATA GV-TV100 stick sold on Japan .
> Stick, chips and dev board available from Mirics.
> 
> Linux software at address
> http://cgit.osmocom.org/libmirisdr/
> It seems project on stand-by .
> Can author Steve Markgraf comment  ?
> 
> Francesco
> 

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