K3 and Firewire

[Paul-285]

Just thinking out loud into the future....

Firewire can do a lot of things that USB and serial communications never will.

It's faster with video and disk I/O because the protocol is leaner,
and you can create networks with it.

I think that a FireWire network between a rig like the K3 and a
computer would be the perfect interface because every piece of
software can have its own dedicated connection to the radio,
something difficult to implement with a serial connection.

Firewire will also stay around because it's used as the Fly-by-wire
bus for the F-22 Raptor.

Any thoughts?

Paul N4LCD

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[Richard Jones - KJ5QY]

Hey Paul,

This is a great topic.  Sony, Apple, and a few other companies have been using the "Standard IEEE 1394 Interface",  commonly known as "FireWire" for a number of years.  It does have many benefits.  From my limited knowledge as I am not an EE,  the protocol seems to be an extremely efficient way of connecting our endless devices.

I do use this protocol a lot.

Rick

 

Paul-285 wrote

Just thinking out loud into the future....

Firewire can do a lot of things that USB and serial communications never will.

It's faster with video and disk I/O because the protocol is leaner,
and you can create networks with it.

I think that a FireWire network between a rig like the K3 and a
computer would be the perfect interface because every piece of
software can have its own dedicated connection to the radio,
something difficult to implement with a serial connection.

Firewire will also stay around because it's used as the Fly-by-wire
bus for the F-22 Raptor.

Any thoughts?

Paul N4LCD

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[Brendan Minish]

Top posting feels all wrong ;-)

Forget Firewire for this. Firewire is admittedly very good but it's far
from standard on non-apple products and USB3 is going to give it a good
run for it's money in all areas except perhaps Pro A/V where latency is
a huge concern.

However the real issue with both firewire and USB is the need it then
creates for the Vendor (elecraft in this case) to maintain drivers for
various versions of popular operating systems for the life of the
product (& what happens to those drivers when the product becomes EOL) .
I have an SDR-14 and I can transfer up to a 190KHz slice of the HF
spectrum via USBv1.
How much bandwidth is really required ? (Main RX / Sub RX + I/Q of the
12KHz IF + Rig control ? )

A much better solution would be Ethernet and IP based protocols. it's
also a lot more flexible in that the connection to the radio can be
routed over any network providing sufficient bandwidth is available.
This also avoids the need to maintain a set of high quality drivers for
a diverse and ever changing range of operating systems.
100M Ethernet should be sufficient but by all means use a Gigbit port,
it will only add a small amount to the overall cost.
Use a little tiny embedded computer to run the IP stack and there could
even be a web server in there allowing for remote rig control, Audio I/O
etc without needing to use anything fancier than a Flash capable web
browser.
Embedded computers are getting very small and very capable, take a look
at this one for example .
http://www.directinsight.co.uk/products/karo/triton-tx51-imx51.html

73
Brendan EI6IZ

     


On Sat, 2009-12-05 at 21:59 -0500, [hidden email] wrote:

> Just thinking out loud into the future....
>
> Firewire can do a lot of things that USB and serial communications never will.
>
> It's faster with video and disk I/O because the protocol is leaner,
> and you can create networks with it.
>
> I think that a FireWire network between a rig like the K3 and a
> computer would be the perfect interface because every piece of
> software can have its own dedicated connection to the radio,
> something difficult to implement with a serial connection.
>
> Firewire will also stay around because it's used as the Fly-by-wire
> bus for the F-22 Raptor.
>
> Any thoughts?
>
> Paul N4LCD
>
> ______________________________________________________________
> Elecraft mailing list
> Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft
> Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
> Post: mailto:[hidden email]
>
> This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net
> Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html

--
73
Brendan EI6IZ

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[ab2tc]

Hi,

I agree with you, Brendan, Ethernet is the way to go. Ethernet is always transformer coupled so there are no problems with ground loops and that also helps with noise, although the unshielded Ethernet cables don't help in this regard. More and more microcontrollers, especially ARM based ones, now come with fast Ethernet controllers onboard and IP stacks are easy to come by these days. So a separate embedded computer to run the Ethernet interface is often no longer necessary.

Knut -AB2TC

Brendan Minish wrote

Top posting feels all wrong ;-)

Forget Firewire for this. Firewire is admittedly very good but it's far
from standard on non-apple products and USB3 is going to give it a good
run for it's money in all areas except perhaps Pro A/V where latency is
a huge concern.

However the real issue with both firewire and USB is the need it then
creates for the Vendor (elecraft in this case) to maintain drivers for
<snip>