Re: [Discuss-gnuradio] DV Dongle - AMBE USB Device

[Eric Cottrell]

> > From the information on the DV Dongle list the shipping firmware is the 
> > same as on the moetronix.com  web site.
> > http://www.moetronix.com/dvdongle/
> 
> Hmm.  Yes it does seem they are saying everything inside the Dongle is open 
> source. 
> But I don't see how they can do that since as far as I know, DVSI has never 
> provided
> open source for IMBE or AMBE.  I'm going to guess that if you pin down 
> Moetronix,
> they will tell you the open source refers to the Atmel 91SAM7S 
> microcontroller that's
> in there, not the TI DSP.
> 
> I would further guess that since there is a hardware 'boundary' between the 
> Atmel and
> the DSP (most likely one of the "McBSP" simple synchronous serial ports found 
> on many
> TI DSPs), they will tell you they don't face a GPL requirement to show the 
> DVSI
> source.  I.e. it looks like a brick and they don't know what's in it.
> 
> -Jeff

Hello,

I guess you did not notice the Somebody Else's Problem (SEP) field generator on 
the board. :)

It is good to know that I am not the only one that was confused.  If you go 
through the "official" link (www.dvdongle.com) then you get a slick website for 
a commercial device marketed for PC based DStar.  If I had clicked on that link 
first then I may have concluded that it was a DStar only device.

The Experimenter's link is:
http://www.moetronix.com/dvdongle/

So to clarify based on my research so far...

GNURadio code would talk to the open source firmware on the DV Dongle which 
deals with the AMBE2000 AMBE Codec.

Windows source code (yes, Source!) for the test application is available at:
http://www.moetronix.com/files/ambetest103.zip

The DV Dongle should work as a general AMBE/AMBE+ CODEC.  It does not support 
AMBE+ 2.

The device uses ASCP protocol over USB developed by Moetronix.  The low-level 
communication portion of SDR-14 example code could be modified and used for 
communications.

My first experiments will be dealing with IMBE decoding. Decoding IMBE would 
make this device useful for APCO Project 25 voice decoding.  Hopefully this 
will resolve the AMBE will not decode IMBE issue.

73 Eric