Goal
Use schematics and code to explain how real transceivers work and compare them with your own model.
Prerequisites: Parts 10–15 and project 17. Part 16 is useful but not mandatory.
Future lessons
- Record the specific board and firmware versions of each device.
- From primary sources, reconstruct the receive and transmit diagrams, sample rates, word lengths and the boundaries between analog and digital processing.
- Compare the modulation methods, the processor or FPGA load, and how the input and output conversion is implemented.
- For the selected version, check whether polar chains, a switching power amplifier, filtering and feedback apply.
- Compare the measurable limits with the Python model and with the requirements for your own device.
Lab plan
- Make a source card: official document or repository, version, date, page or line of code.
- Move one confirmed architectural technique to Python and measure its advantages and limits.
- Compare QMX, uSDX and your own project; mark unknown parameters explicitly.
We do the experiments in Python with NumPy, SciPy and Matplotlib. We keep the parameters, units and plots. The base models use float64 and complex128; we add bit-depth limits in separate experiments.
Completion criteria
- I can separate confirmed information from assumptions, and I do not mix device versions.
- I can explain the choice of sample rates, word lengths, filters and transmit method; I evaluate an alternative.
Result for the main project
A review with sources and the requirements for my own HF design.