Re: [Discuss-gnuradio] Getting started and documentation beyond dialtone.py ?

[Marcus D. Leech]

On 11/29/2010 03:24 AM, Martin Braun wrote:
>
> FWIW, a lot of people think GNU Radio is hard. Personally, I find the
> hardest bit is understanding signal processing. And no tool in the world
> can make that simple. If you really know how the DSP works, getting GNU
> Radio to do thy biddings is usually fairly straightforward.
>
> Good luck!
> MB
>
>   
My experience, on this list and elsewhere is that there's a perception
that SDR environments
  will allow you to build a software-based radio with only the very thinnest
  (or non-existent) understanding of:

            o programming (whether it's Python or C++ or whatever)
            o real-time systems
            o RF systems in the analog world
            o signal processing

I think a significant number of people get into Gnu Radio having come
from perhaps an intro course in
  signal processing perhaps using Matlab or similar, and expect GnuRadio
to be a pretty-similar
  experience, only with real hardware "on the ends".

They get "bitten" by the fact that at the end of the day, your signal
has to interact with the real analog
  world, and they have no experience to offer guidance once the "rubber
hits the road".  Simple
  lab-practice concepts like the use of attenuators between a
transmitter and a receiver when you're
  hard-wiring them, is not something that the purely Matlab-like world
prepares you for. When you
  think of a radio *purely* as a set of abstract mathematical
operations, you can often lose sight of
  the fact that there's this ugly physical universe out there as well,
and many folks encountering Gnu Radio
  for the first time are also encountering a lot of different "ugly
realities" for the first time as well.

My ten cents worth...

-- 
Principal Investigator
Shirleys Bay Radio Astronomy Consortium
http://www.sbrac.org