Sherwood Engineering and DSP

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Sherwood Engineering and DSP

Jan Erik Holm
Lets hope Elecraft got it right!

/SM2EKM
-------------------------------------
> Sherwood Engineering just put up their Dayton 2007
> presentation on DSP and how it isn't everything it is
> cracked up to be.  See:
>
> http://www.sherweng.com/documents/Dayton2007w.pdf
>
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Re: Sherwood Engineering and DSP

wayne burdick
Administrator
Jan Erik Holm wrote:

> Lets hope Elecraft got it right!
>
> /SM2EKM

I can assure you that we did, because we're every bit as discriminating
as Mr. Sherwood in our listening  :)

We were very careful to provide optimal transient immunity in our DSP's
AGC, as well as in the pre-DSP hardware AGC, which only kicks in at
very high signal levels. The rate of attack is programmable, as are
several other AGC parameters.

73,
Wayne
N6KR


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Re: Sherwood Engineering and DSP

Brian Lloyd-6
In reply to this post by Jan Erik Holm

On Jun 6, 2007, at 9:16 PM, Jan Erik Holm wrote:

> Lets hope Elecraft got it right!
>
> /SM2EKM
> -------------------------------------
>> Sherwood Engineering just put up their Dayton 2007
>> presentation on DSP and how it isn't everything it is
>> cracked up to be.  See:
>> http://www.sherweng.com/documents/Dayton2007w.pdf

The thing is, what he is talking about would be very easy to fix. You  
just need a smoothing algorithm to keep your AGC from responding to  
transients by slewing too rapidly. Smoothing algorithms are easy to  
do. Here is one:

AGC' = 0.9 * AGC + 0.1 * signal

What the above says is:

take 1/10 of the signal level (signal) and add it to 9/10 of the  
previous AGC value to produce the new AGC value. We change the  
response time by varying the ratio. Want faster AGC? Do this:

AGC' = 0.5 * AGC + 0.5 * signal

Want really slow AGC? Do this:

AGC' = 0.99 * AGC + 0.01 * signal

By changing the coefficients depending on whether signal is greater  
or less than AGC you can change attack and decay times. Here:

if (AGC < signal)
     {
     # Attack
         AGC = 0.9 * AGC + 0.1 * signal;
     }
     else
     {
     # decay
         AGC = 0.99 * AGC + 0.01 * signal;
     }

This is a really simple problem and I have a hard time believing that  
this is the real problem. You want the AGC to prevent the A:D from  
clipping but just barely. That will give you the maximum dynamic  
range. If the A:D is allowed to clip then all bets are off.

I just have a hard time believing that any competent engineer would  
fail to understand this.


73 de Brian, WB6RQN
Brian Lloyd - brian HYPHEN wb6rqn AT lloyd DOT com


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Re: Sherwood Engineering and DSP

wayne burdick
Administrator
Brian Lloyd wrote:

> The thing is, what he is talking about would be very easy to fix....

It's a no-brainer (emulating state-of-the-art hardware AGC), and was
part of the spec in our case.


> I just have a hard time believing that any competent engineer would
> fail to understand this.

"Competent engineers" may understand something, yet still ignore it.
Unless they work here  :)

Wayne
N6KR


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