PhantomSDRPlus driver for FiFi-SDR device?

[yo3gir]

Hi all,
I have a FiFi-SDR device that is working well with other apps, but I would like to test it with PhantomSDRPlus.
However, there is no driver for FiFi-SDR (that is a device that outputs IQ data via an integrated USB sound card (ADC).
According to the documentation, "since late 2013, the FiFi-SDR provides an USB audio device with 192 kHz sampling rate" (and that is my situation).



Some informations about FiFi-SDR could still be found here and in this link .

So, if anybody knows how to use FiFi-SDR with PhantomSDRPlus, please help me with that information!

Thank you and my best regards,
Val

[Bas ON5HB]

Did you try to pipe the output via APLAY into the spectrumserver?

Code Select Expand

bas@workstation:~$ aplay -h
Usage: aplay [OPTION]... [FILE]...

-h, --help              help
    --version           print current version
-l, --list-devices      list all soundcards and digital audio devices
-L, --list-pcms         list device names
-D, --device=NAME       select PCM by name
-q, --quiet             quiet mode
-t, --file-type TYPE    file type (voc, wav, raw or au)
-c, --channels=#        channels
-f, --format=FORMAT     sample format (case insensitive)
-r, --rate=#            sample rate
-d, --duration=#        interrupt after # seconds
-s, --samples=#         interrupt after # samples per channel
-M, --mmap              mmap stream
-N, --nonblock          nonblocking mode
-F, --period-time=#     distance between interrupts is # microseconds
-B, --buffer-time=#     buffer duration is # microseconds
    --period-size=#     distance between interrupts is # frames
    --buffer-size=#     buffer duration is # frames
-A, --avail-min=#       min available space for wakeup is # microseconds
-R, --start-delay=#     delay for automatic PCM start is # microseconds
                        (relative to buffer size if <= 0)
-T, --stop-delay=#      delay for automatic PCM stop is # microseconds from xrun
-v, --verbose           show PCM structure and setup (accumulative)
-V, --vumeter=TYPE      enable VU meter (TYPE: mono or stereo)
-I, --separate-channels one file for each channel
-i, --interactive       allow interactive operation from stdin
-m, --chmap=ch1,ch2,..  Give the channel map to override or follow
    --disable-resample  disable automatic rate resample
    --disable-channels  disable automatic channel conversions
    --disable-format    disable automatic format conversions
    --disable-softvol   disable software volume control (softvol)
    --test-position     test ring buffer position
    --test-coef=#       test coefficient for ring buffer position (default 8)
                        expression for validation is: coef * (buffer_size / 2)
    --test-nowait       do not wait for ring buffer - eats whole CPU
    --max-file-time=#   start another output file when the old file has recorded
                        for this many seconds
    --process-id-file   write the process ID here
    --use-strftime      apply the strftime facility to the output file name
    --dump-hw-params    dump hw_params of the device
    --fatal-errors      treat all errors as fatal
Ondersteunde geluidsindelingen zijn: S8 U8 S16_LE S16_BE U16_LE U16_BE S24_LE S24_BE U24_LE U24_BE S32_LE S32_BE U32_LE U32_BE FLOAT_LE FLOAT_BE FLOAT64_LE FLOAT64_BE IEC958_SUBFRAME_LE IEC958_SUBFRAME_BE MU_LAW A_LAW IMA_ADPCM MPEG GSM S20_LE S20_BE U20_LE U20_BE SPECIAL S24_3LE S24_3BE U24_3LE U24_3BE S20_3LE S20_3BE U20_3LE U20_3BE S18_3LE S18_3BE U18_3LE U18_3BE G723_24 G723_24_1B G723_40 G723_40_1B DSD_U8 DSD_U16_LE DSD_U32_LE DSD_U16_BE DSD_U32_BE
Sommigen van deze zijn mogelijk niet beschikbaar op bepaalde hardware
The available format shortcuts are:
-f cd (16 bit little endian, 44100, stereo)
-f cdr (16 bit big endian, 44100, stereo)
-f dat (16 bit little endian, 48000, stereo)
Because it's raw-IO data that we pipe into the spectrumserver. You should be able to do it that way.
Else use Soapy.

I do not have one to test. Hopefully it helps. You just need a player like aplay to produce the samples to the spectrumserver.

[yo3gir]

Dear Bas,
Thanks for the answer. I am not a skilled Linux user, sorry!
Please take me a little bit easy

You said:
>> Did you try to pipe the output via APLAY into the spectrumserver?

Well, how to do that ?
From man aplay, I saw that there are two apps: "aplay" and "arecord".

From your answer, I imagine that I have to take (capture) somehow the I/Q output of the FiFi-SDR and to pass it (through the linux pipe) to spectrumserver.
But I can't understand if I have to use aplay or arecord. Simply, I don't have enough experience.
Would you like to speculate a little bit to help me ?

I learned how to use aplay to play a WAV file into my LG monitor, using the HDMI channel:
aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
[...]
card 1: HDMI [HDA ATI HDMI], device 3: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
aplay -D hw:1,3 mus2.wav
Playing WAVE 'mus2.wav' : Signed 16 bit Little Endian, Rate 44100 Hz, Stereo

So, until here at least I tested a simple form of using aplay to play a WAV file into the HDMI sound device (hw:1,3) .

However, at FiFi-SDR, the situation is a bit different.
There is no device listed from FiFi-SDR when I use "aplay -l" to list them!

**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: D1 [Xonar D1], device 0: Multichannel [Multichannel]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: D1 [Xonar D1], device 1: Digital [Digital]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: HDMI [HDA ATI HDMI], device 3: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
  Subdevices: 0/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 2: Generic [HD-Audio Generic], device 0: ALC887-VD Analog [ALC887-VD Analog]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 2: Generic [HD-Audio Generic], device 1: ALC887-VD Digital [ALC887-VD Digital]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

However, when I run the "arecord -l" command, I see the following FiFi-SDR devices:

**** List of CAPTURE Hardware Devices ****
[...]
card 3: FiFiSDR [FiFi-SDR], device 0: USB Audio [USB Audio]
  Subdevices: 0/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 3: FiFiSDR [FiFi-SDR], device 1: USB Audio [USB Audio #1]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

So, can you guide me a little ?

Thanks a lot !
73 de Val

[yo3gir]

Hello,
Well, after long struggling, I managed to start PhantomSDRPlus to use the FiFi-SDR device.
However, it seems that I have a lot to work to bring it in a normal mode.
Until now, here is the line that helps me:

arecord -D hw:3,0 -f S16_LE -c 2 -r 192000 | ./build/spectrumserver --config config-fifisdr2.toml

Where config-fifisdr2.toml has the following content (without the first sections):

[input]
sps=192000 # Input Sample Rate
#
fft_size=32768 # medium
fft_threads=4
brightness_offset=-2
#frequency=7096000
signal="iq" # real or iq
accelerator="none"
audio_sps=12000 # 12000 needed for FT8 decoding!
smeter_offset=-10

[input.driver]
name="stdin" # Driver name
format="s16" # Sample format: u8, s8, u16, s16, u32, s32, f32, f64

[input.defaults]
frequency=7020000 # Default frequency to show user
modulation="LSB" # Default modulation


Well, it works, but there are some issues.
I will return tomorrow to post about those problems, in the hope that some of you will try to help to resolve them. Remember how is to be ... beginner !

73 de Val

[Bas ON5HB]

Yeah I meant arecord, sorry for that, I never use those.

Nice to hear you got it working.

You may need this bit of software to program the FiFi:

https://github.com/openwebrx/rockprog-linux