Projects/EchotekHardware

Echotek Software Radio Hardware

Many Open Radar participants are using Mercury Computing Echotek Series Digital Receiver cards. A mailing list exists to support discussions related to these cards.

Native Open Radar Echotek Software Distribution

This software provides a device driver for the Mercury Computing Echotek GC314FS receiver under the Linux operating system. It is intended to provide a device driver for the digital receiver which is compatible as a native driver for a modern Linux kernel (2.6 series), provides multi-channel support for all channels, and uses a DMA architecture which interleaves transfers and which does not require special machine configuration.

This software is a release that is intended for use within the limitations of the Echotek card operating performance. The driver is moderately stable and for low enough bandwidths manages the data flow in a gap free manner. At higher rates there are still issues with data drops. The origin of these drops is thought to be firmware related and is not likely to be fixed. It is STRONGLY recommended that the card be operated in a framing mode so that data drops can be detected. Without this the data losses are not detectable.

Echotek Graychip GC4016 Digital Filter Design

We have now tested some matlab scripts for designing RF filters for the Graychip units on the Echotek cards. Only resampler bypass mode is supported with these designs but it is possible to get good performance.

Graychip Digital Filter Design

Legacy OpenRadar Echotek Software Distribution

The 1.2 and 2.0 beta releases are software distributions for use with the Echotek GC314-FS digital receiver card. Note that the 1.2 distribution relies on the Echotek supplied software as well as the WinDriver. This 1.2 software release does not contain the Echotek supplied software which must be obtained separately (i.e. the WinDriver).