[Ground-station] L:imeSDR and SDRConsole v3 update

[Mike Seguin]

Simon Brown has been working hard on SDRConsole v3 supporting the 
LimeSDR. He's also supporting the ADALM-PLUTO, but that's not as far along.

It should be noted that SDRConsole v3 and the LimeSDR are being actively 
used on QO-100 in full duplex. The LimeSDR directly uplinks on 2.4 GHz. 
For the downlink, it is used as an IF at ~700 MHz with a PLL LNB such as 
the OSLO or Avenger series of LNB's.

The new features in SDRConsole v3:

1.) Transmit support! (LimeSDR/PLUTO)
2.) External frequency reference support - such as 10 MHz GPSDO (LimeSDR)
3.) GPIO support for band filters (LimeSDR)
4.) USB HID Relay support for TX/RX switching
5.) XIT/RIT
6.) Tracking of TX/RX for transponder use.
7.) User configurable display offsets for the downlink. (Tune to 700 
MHz, but display 10.450 GHz)
8.) Using the Engineering beacon of QO-100 as a frequency reference to 
control drift in the 10 GHz LNB.

A test was conceived to see if a complete system could be locked to GPS. 
A Leo Bodnar GPSDO is set for 25 MHz. This can be injected in to the 
downlink LNB to stabilize it and then the LimeSDR can be set to use 25 
MHz external lock. I tested the 25 MHz Ext Ref in to the LimeSDR. That 
worked fine. External 25 MHz injection for the LNB is documented online.

Some of these features are currently only available to the Test Team, 
but will be released soon as v 3.0.7. SDRConsole is a free download.

Tnx Simon!

Mike

-- 

73,
Mike, N1JEZ
"A closed mouth gathers no feet"