Mirics chips sold for SDR use until recently? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / rf-microwave

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 09, 2022, 04:00:33 pm
content: The SDRplay/MSI hardware dongle plot thickens.Does anybody know the true story, just the facts, without the baggage attached?Reading this thread jogged my memory of the past.. And what SDRplay has been saying about their competitors seems well, questionable to me, based on my memories.. And what Ive found on the web, for example the Wayback Machine.People have been interested in SDR since the 80s. Or earlier.https://forums.radioreference.com/threads/information-on-mirics-msi3101-for-general-sdr-applications.309310Disclosure, I had been exploring an SDR for human rights project for years and had been tracking the various options, chip wise, and the relative costs closely. Mirics especially because (a few years ago) they made it a point declaring that the BOM if one used their chips, was very low. $5. Thats what they advertised. And that was for a mulipurpose receiver that received both TV and communications. (such is what the hardware made possible) Back then I tried to find and buy one, but the dongle they sold for use with their SDK wasnt appropriate for my use. And was too expensive.Great! Was it vaporware from the start? I don't know.Software radios can be built for very little because the user interfacecan be entirely digital, it can even be implemented via a tiny web serve.. Allowing the manufacturer to save a lot on switches and other bulky physical components that increase the cost and size/complexity of analog radios such as variable capacitors, coils, transformers, and so on. Also, the SDR thats implemented on one or two chips can be very very small. As shown by the 4 gram 2cmx2cmx1cm RTLSDR that I have. 4 grams means that literally hundreds of them could fit in a single backpack. Why doesnt Realtek or some other company (FCI?) make an HF-capable SDR and sell them for under $10?I am intrigued by the possibility of smalland very cheapshortwave radios. Because of the despots of the world who lie and attempt to control the press in countries counting on the lack of availability and declining availability of decent news to keep their people in the dark. So I think that companies that charge an arm and a leg for software radios are doing us all a disservice. Especially when we know from the Mirics ads about the very low BOM of the Mirics chips. I beg them to reconsider, keeping in mind the positive good that very small (hideable) software radios do.Due to their size, they are real game changers. We are really seeing how valuable shortwave news can be in Eastern Europe.My interest and investigations go back to long before the RTLSDR and newer (blue) MSI hardware dongles existed.It goes back to when the gnuradio project had very little hardware available that could use it. And most of the hardware that could was very very costly. Ive written about this need over and over on various blogs that I have done.But the RTL-2832 dongle discovery brought the cost of a basic SDR down to the wholesale cost of the RTL mass market DVB-T TV dongles which are sold all around the world and at the time, retailed from comanies like Shenzhen Forward for as little as $6. The disclosure of the SDR mode for the RTL dongles changed everything. Making it clear that the net cost of an SDR could be very low.The early 2000s saw a boom in digital TV. Thats when Mirics entered the market proposing a multi-TV capable dongle, which also could receive shortwave like a radio. Making it capable of receiving every TV system broadcast at the time, using fast CPUS and software only. That would change the world and people in poor countries could break the information blockade on news via satellite TV. The dictators of the world hate that. But they rarely try to outlaw or control satellite TV. To the best of my knowledge only at the most a few countries, really just one do that. Because now so many people have it. Shortwave radio has the potential to do something similar, but its claimed to be dying out. The poor countries markets just are worth too little to make advertising to them worth enough. At least for Western firms. The big players even want to get rid of analog radio. To force consumers" onto the surveillance-friendly Internet. Where they can collect and sell their clicks. That illustrates what they are doing. And their business model.This MSI chipset looked very intriguing to me, looking as I was for a waythe poor people of the worldcould access shortwave broadcasting everywhere. Not hifi, not necessarily even music, just a variety ofnews.Unfortunately, it keeps looking like analog shortwave is on the verge of dying out. This may not be true but some people may be trying to make it die.Mirics was, I am told recently is owned by some of the same people that make SDRPlay. What is the story there?A few years ago, the MSI 001/MSI2500 chips were apparently sold in pairs. Advertising very low BOM and shortwave friendly tuner inputs. Until quite recently, it looked like it might change the world for the good. It had multiple inputs but the dongles they sold with their SDK were unfortunately, I think, crippled by not having these shortwave inputs available, I think I remember. Why?As an inexpensive shortwave receiver with SDR, I thought it would be a ground breaking piece of kit. Others did too. Breaking what we saw as unreasonable price barriers.But it seems that some powerful international entities wanted to destroy shortwave broadcast rather than improve it. Plus the general purpose computer is under attack. Which is ridiculous but the attack on GP computing is very real.Some entities portray computers without built in surveillance chips as magnets for terrorism. A few years ago, a noted computer scientist, the author of Minix, was distraught to find the OS that he wrote being embedded in PC CPUs against his wishes. A second, hidden brain was being hidden in some computers that the primary brain could not see, but which could access everything in them.The whole international campaign to create "IP" where naturally, it was a creature of political wrangling only is pretty complicated and kind of unsavory. Its still been kept out of the media.A few countries did it, and made back room deals, to among other things, destroy essential services ability to exist, (changing the definition of what could be public, and when) also make almost all drugs more expensive (when they actually cost them less and less to make. Now many cost almost nothing to manufacture, or package, this is from a drug company CEO I used to know. (One of the good ones, yes, they exist) the drugmakers themselves own explanation) In the 90s they lengthened drug patents and scope, while lowering most working peoples wages, and making workers subject to nasty wage arbitrage, all around the world.All that money is a powerful corrupting influence, its a curse, really. It attracts corruption and makes politics dirty.Like slavery did in the past. It has been very hard to end, and keeps popping up again and again, all around the world. Thats because of the money.

author: A.Z.
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 15, 2022, 12:55:46 pm
content: Bahhttps://github.com/EndlessEden/msiSDR/tree/RSP1-S

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 15, 2022, 01:47:30 pm
content: Chinese engineering students, even under the most jaundiced set of conditions, don't have $300 to spend on an SDRPlay SDR from the British company. Nor do students from anywhere. Unless they have a wealthy background.At one point the radios cost around $100. They don't any more. They cost a real lot more, especially considering the MSI literature talked about a very low BOM cost ($5) shortwave radio receiver not so long ago.There are several amateur radio SDR transceivers which can act as general coverage receivers which compete favorably with sdrplay on price, and likely also on performance. My Soft Rock receiver (this is from looking at waterfall photos in videos and on websites seems likely to be as good as an SDRplay on HF. With Softrock style receivers it comes down to the DAC your audio equipment, your computer sound card can do. However, many USB sound cards such as the one that I have from Syba.works adequately well at 96 KHz, and seems to have an adequate SNR for ham radio and SWL. It cost under $5The dual receiver seems intriguing, but not for what its selling for, IMHO. ($300, from memory)Certainly there must be a better way. If they are involved with MSI they can ramp up production and make cheap shortwave radios for the mass market of decent quality as was their original intent, also the world could really use such radios right now.What is preventing that? If the $5 Bom figure is accurate, (from the original MSI datasheet) they could blow the clones out of the water with an inexpensive HF receiver for everyone, not just the old retirees with money to spend. Why not? They would make up on volume what they are making now because the volume of these very expensive SDRs must not be that high.Not at$300+Their target market should be all the people who want to stay current with news and even TV from everywhere.The big EEV Blog filter removed users insistence on dragging politics into everythingSchematic was on ali-express

author: A.Z.
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 22, 2022, 07:37:07 am
content: Quote from: A.Z. on April 15, 2022, 12:55:46 pmAnyhow, I was curious and decided to go on and pick a unit to test it; after reading the informations at the above URL, I decided to go forthe "full" version, that is the one with a single antenna connector and on board switching and with the 0.5PPM TCXO; now it remains to wait for the delivery and compare it to the other receivers I own

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 22, 2022, 10:11:17 pm
content: I thought you had an MSI-SDR before?The drivers that are available leave a lot to be desired. The mirisdr4 file is likely the best. Linrad works okay with it.It is what it is, a radio receiver. Sort of. Politicians are such idiots.

author: someYguy
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: April 26, 2022, 04:34:38 am
content: Beyond a mild technical curiosity, I honestly don't understand why anybody would care about the chipset used in the SDRPlay receivers or any other product unless you are a manufacturer and wish to use same. I use my SDRPlay RSPdx receivers daily and could care less about what's under the hood so long as it works and performs well. And I'm a techie type complete with electronics lab on premises.And the RSP1a is a good low-budget receiver that isn't really too expensive - USD 124.95 from HRO and USD 117.00 + shipping direct from SDRPlay.